"You need to blog less about poetry, and more about your life."

Well, well, well. Everyone's a critic. Yes, I'm looking at you, C-Flat, I'm putting you on the spot, Mr. I've Just Bought A House & Had a Nephew. I love how other people go silent for weeks and I say naught, but god forbid I should add a few rhyming couplets and everyone's in a tizzy. Is this blog really the only way you guys will know what's happening in my life? Whatever happened to email, dropping a comment, or even - gasp - making a phonecall? Hmm?

Still, I shall grumpily acquiesce. I'm all about customer service, after all.

So, lots has been happening folks. Grad school is basically taking over my life. Four hours of classes everyday, and anywhere between four and six hours of study each day outside of them. Craziness. My days are full of classes, studying, fasting, taraweeh, apartment hunting, apartment-moving-planning, being a graduate assistant to two professors, and did I mention fasting? I'm barely sleeping, not eating, and usually in a slight state of panic.

You know how I'm typing all this right now? I made a conscious decision to procrastinate reading two chapters of Consumer Behavior for tomorrow.. a conscious decision to waste my $30K investment in grad school. Christ. I know I'll be up until 1am catching up on reading, but here I am. So, don't ever say I don't love you guys. *sulk*

Anyway, school's going well. I'm enjoying the classes, and the people are quite nice although I haven't yet made any "friends". I probably won't, though, since I'm not one to ever make "friends". I've always been the sort that drifted around from group to group, saying hello to everyone - the cool kids and the nerds - but never really finding a place of my own. Plus, I really haven't been able to socialize with everyone because of Ramadan, but hopefully should be able to do so in a couple of weeks, and get to know people a little bit better.

My program contains 37 people - and only 6 of them are boys. Ugh. Which means I'll have to make friends with.. y'know.. girls. But they all actually do seem quite nice, so I'm not that freaked out. We've got people from China, Taiwan, Japan, S. Korea, Philipines, Greece, Uganda, Venezuela, Germany, Canada.. yep, it's quite a diverse group. Even got a Tibetan guy called Tenzin who was born and raised in India and loves Bollywood. What were the chances?!

In other news, fall is here! Thank goodness, I was getting quite sick of the heat, humidity and rain. Bring on the winter, Thor.

Also, I love Firefox 3.0 so much that I don't care about Chrome. And I don't like the new Facebook. Puh.

I just watched an episode of Top Gear in which Jeremy, Richard and James test drive three cars in.. wait for it, wait for it.. Iceland. Oh. My. God. I couldn't find a YouTube clip of the segment but I am now completely dying to go to Iceland (as if I wasn't salivating enough before). It is so unbelievably beautiful and scenic. It really looks like heaven on earth. Crisp, blue skies... icy mountains, lush green hills, water, snow, sky... sigh. One day, maybe, one day.

Let's see.. what else, what else.. oh yeah, did you hear our economy's in a complete meltdown? And we have a nasally VP candidate who can see Russia from her bedroom window? And most of Houston is under water? 2008 really is continuing to be as shitty a year as it was when it started. Well, can't fault God for lack of consistency. Oops, is that blasphemous?

Also, the other day I saw a guy walking down Moody Street wearing a t-shirt that said, "My idea of social studies is going to parties." I thought that was pretty funny.

I also saw a lady on the Green line platform at North Station make her 10 year old son smell his own armpit and then lecture him on the need for personal hygiene. I did not find that funny.

Ooh, ooh.. I'm going to see The Swell Season tomorrow. Super excited. Although, I think I'm going to end up crying during the show and my friends will worry. Oh well. I'll pretend to be hormonal or something.

Alright, that's all we have time for today, folks. Until next time, here it is, your moment of Zen:

Prof. Waters: "Split into groups and discuss. If you like, you can go outside to talk."
Tenzin: "We should go out."
Me (distracted, writing something down): "Hmmm."
*pause*
Tenzin: "Wait, not like 'go out'! I meant go out of the class to discuss! I mean, you're married!"

Nice save, buddy, nice save. Freud would be proud.