various 1. The stats TA who I thought totally hated me not only sent me a semi-encouraging note after I submitted my less-than-half-baked problem set yesterday, but also sent my hall-and-classmate home with a half-gallon of organic OJ for me after I stayed home from section. What a stud.

2. The wind is literally howling outside and through the cracks in my window. It looks and sounds kind of cool right now, but, man. It is going to be a long, long winter.

3. While I was in Seattle I got a much-needed haircut, which, in addition to being awesomely easier to deal with now, is short enough that with enough shampoo lather I can totally mold my hair into little horns like I did when I was a kid. I find this endlessly pleasing.

4. I have realized that a major source of stealth stress in my life is, well, there are two, actually. One is just the quiet, cumulative stress of living on a hall and sharing a bathroom and kitchen with a bunch of other people who do things like leave chunks of mystery meat clinging to the kitchen sponge and hog the shower at peak hours and try to, like, talk to me all the time. This dorm thing was a pretty dumb idea, especially since it's not really turning out to be that much cheaper (or, actually, any cheaper at all). Won't be making that mistake again. The second factor is the level to which I'm unfortunately buying into all the salvation-anxiety around here. (Ha, Weber-joke! Get it? Anyone? Oh well.) BSL and I had a long, memorable conversation in Australia last spring about this, so it really kind of pisses me off that it's gotten the better of me anyway and is thus exerting its stealth-stress mojo. I'm going to think some more about it and maybe write more soon about what the hell I'm going to do about it.

5. I feel considerably better, but I'm sneezing a whole lot for some reason.  ¶ 8:35 AM