Sunlight and Diet Coke

Here we go - I'm going to have to burrow further into my cellar here and not emerge until I have completed at least three papers, one for each of the next three days. It is a theme (no pun intended) with me that I typically wait until the last minute to write my papers, and although I sincerely had good intentions this term, too much of actual life (read difficulties) has gotten in the way and set me back a little. I'll not bore anyone here with the lurid details, suffice it to to say that once I emerge from the darkened corner of the computer lab to joyfully embrace the clear sunlight of the elysian like days of summer beyond graduation, I'm sure that things will be better.

Things of note recently: my lingusitics professor, who has returned to work after surgery (and incidentally who is also my advisor), seems to still be recuperating. Perhaps it was because I knew that she wasn't feeling well that I consciously noticed that she always drinks a diet coke midway through her lecture. Usually, I'm too involved in the topics under discussion to pay any attention to that sort of thing, but maybe like the friend who buys something frivolously expensive and also owes you money, I noticed this time because a diet coke doesn't seem to me to be the kind of thing you should drink a few days after surgery. Another item: an older man, a student I admire, complimented me on my paper presentation at Friday's award ceremony saying: "I always wanted to know if that guy could write." Being a little paranoid, I thought the statement was odd and began to wonder what type of impression I give other people to make them thing that don't have the ability to write well. Finally, I suppose it is something approaching mandatory for me to mention that my graduation from college is less than two weeks away. If I wasn't currently struggling with the papers I have to write and an allergen assault on my respiratory system, I'd be happier about it.