I hate Sprint. God, I wish I could cancel my plan. Take a look at:

http://www.theworst.com

and

http://www.sprintpcs-sucks.org

My new life.

I feel like I'm going through a personal...renaissance? revolution? reform? None of those exactly, but something along those lines.

My habits are changing in this new environment. I wake up early. I listen to different music. I'm looking to buy other types of clothes. These are all minor things -- they're not going to change my outlook on life or my career goals. At the same time, I feel like these changes have been waiting for a long time to occur. In retrospect, I feel like I was stagnating for the last year is that these things were not changing....like I was locked into a certain inescapable routine. Now that I'm free, I'm growing and evolving again.

(pause) Hmmm. That last paragraph doesn't exactly capture what I'm trying to say, but I don't know how better to say it...

Anyway, I started my second term today. Instead of the broad sampling of classes I had last term, I'm now focused primarily on policy and finance courses: the American health system, the Role of Government in Health Policy, Fundamentals of Financial Management, etc. I have 8:30 classes again, but this time only on Tuesday & Thursday instead of every day. My first and only class on Monday runs from 3:30 - 6:00. I can already sense that I'm going to be doing a lot more writing this term -- the idea of getting a laptop is looking more and more beneficial every day.

Four days until Halloween! Hopefully my new phone will be working in time to take some pictures that night! (It's still weird to refer to my phone in regard to taking pictures.)

Yay.
Finals are over.
Next term begins on Monday.
Halloween is a week from today.
Spending the entire weekend cleaning my apartment.
Trying to figure out my dating life.
Reading a new book for fun.
Sleeping more.
Now.

Muscleman Put In Charge of World's Fifth-Largest Economy

Tired. Many, many late nights since my last post. 2 hrs on Sunday night, 4 hrs on Monday night. Now that I only have finals left, though, I can target my studying on those specific items. Tonight I'm aiming for 10 hrs. :-)

Seven days until I'm done with finals for my first term.

One of many, many reasons why I don't like Texas.

Time for celebration -- I demolished the MCAT. In the words of Mike and many ESPN anchors, "Booyah!"

An odd feeling: I want to work, but I have to go to bed because it's after 11. Ugh. For once, I actually want to stay up and get stuff done!

I'm cooking again. Not quite as much as I used to -- my kitchen is tiny -- but I'm getting back into the spirit.

This week's accomplishment: the Tarte Tatin with creme fraiche.

Irritating item of the week #1: Students in lecture who are unable to whisper well. They try to be quiet but utterly fail.

Timing is everything. I'll just leave it at that.

Thinking.

I organize my music not by artist or title but instead by emotion. Angry songs, joyous songs, contemplative songs, relaxing songs. It's-the-weekend songs. Embarassing pop songs (the actual phrase i use). Melodramatic songs. Motivational songs. And so on.

I have really been focusing on the angry songs for the last two weeks. Don't really know why. I don't feel angry.

So this is the life of a grad student, I suppose, or at least one that is trying to catch up on work. It's the weekend, and I've spent both nights up past midnight so I can work on academics. It's thrilling, I promise you.

Please, IM me and take me away from the work. :-)

and if there's no tomorrow
and all we have is here and now
I'm happy just to have you
you're all the love I need somehow

Happy Jewish New Year, a few days late!

Yay for the weekend. :-)

Things I've accomplished in the last 2 days:
Cleaned my entire apartment
Laundry
Grocery run
Haircut
Organized all of my academic papers (~1200pgs)
Drycleaning delivered
Started a problem set more than a week in advance
Started a paper more than two weeks in advance
Started research on my Policy Initiative project
And took a nap. :-)