I am Jack’s jangled and distracted neurons

Andrea came over last night to study for our analytical chemistry test. Problem is, I’ve got about 1.5 things on my mind, and ain’t a damn bit of it is chemistry. We stayed up late chatting about.. well, about one-and-a-half topics. Andrea was surprising unannoyed with my tenacity and circular thinking and wailing. The test went well despite my early morning cramming session.

I had a superlative weekend. Friday night I went over to Dr. 7’s and he bought us pizza (although I drove to get it, of course). We watched Eddie Murphy’s Raw and Stephen Lynch’s Live at the El Rey. I’d completely forgotten how well Murphy does Sanctimonious Bill Cosby and Vulgar-per-Usual Richard Pryor impressions better than any other I’ve seen. Watching Raw reminded Dr. 7 and me both of Pablo Francisco. There’s definitely some influence there. I went home early on account of fatigue and slept the night away.

Saturday morning, midday, and early afternoon was Programming Language Concepts (PLC) project time. We went out to breakfast and got a nice chunk of work done before we adjourned. I didn’t have to whip out the opening lines of the Serenity Prayer much at all…

I’m joking. We had fun. Geek jokes abound. Gotta love it.

Later that evening, Jenn took me out to get Thai food for dinner. We talked about Antarctica and research and mental states and relationships and friends and careers. Awesome food, delightful company.

I got back to my room and relaxed for a while (i.e. did no homework) until close to 22:00, when I began listening and taking notes from the 004 Show (which reminds me, I need to write my article…). I went down to the station around 22:30 and loitered for about an hour until I was hit with a writing bug, at which time I slipped out and ran back to my room.

I will say this: if you haven’t written a word of fiction in four months, it’s damn difficult to do so with four voices talking and laughing in your ears. So I waited until the show went off to really get started, but I wrote (interspersed with some always-amusing chatting with WO) for about three hours or so before I got tangled up in the ending. See, I can write very easily (although perhaps not very well) when I’m sleepy and fatigued. In fact, that’s probably also the best time to question me or attempt to hold an honest conversation with me, because my inhibitions hit a minimum and I’m more willing to ramble on about anything asked than at just about any other time.

At any rate, I can get all the character development and action flowing when tired, but wrapping up becomes next to impossible. See above about rambling.

So I went to bed, story unfinished, and was up at 09:00 for another PLC team meeting. At that point, the weekend was pretty much over, although I did have a nice conversation with some folks in the Thorn office, many of whom will be graduating soon or absent next year. I sat there on the desk facing a semi-circle of many of the seniors I’ve grown to be comfortable with: Dr. 7, Luke, Big V, O., and even Phil, who I used to vehemently dislike, but who has grown on me, steadily but surely. I still can’t mention anything tangentially related to either Microsoft or Open Source around him, but he grows on you.

Four weeks before finals. Five before commencement week. I still don’t know about my living situation for next year, and Dr. M is pushing for a decision on the Antarctica/summer thing pronto; we’ve got a meeting in two hours, in fact. I still have one other summer offer very much open, and may have a second, depending on the response from NASA.

Honestly, I just want to sleep this summer. Sleep, run, read, write, think, visit North Carolina for a month. I don’t want my work to own me (again).

At least things will have to be resolved soon. Well, the 1.5 things Andrea and I chatted about could drag out longer than I’d prefer, but I suspect they won’t…