Another Writing Marathon

Why has there been a void of entertaining stories and random exploits as of late? Check out my "dining room" table: three months worth of research needs to be written into yet another giant paper for some reason. But let me take a moment to maniacally laugh with glee at my ingeniousness: I am writing a paper on a house that was destroyed 9 years ago, thus I can say what I want and no one can prove me wrong! Muhahahahaha . . .

In only 2 weeks I will be officially finished with my first semester of grad school. Whew! In line for the luxuriously long winter break is a trip to New Mexico and Saguaro National Park - and if no stories surface by then, well, I'll just have to make one up.

(Another) Fire!

So its Saturday night, and I'm sitting in the living room talking on the phone. I notice a lot of sirens, but don't think anything of it. After hearing a lot more, I get up and look outside, and I can see flashing lights. So I go outside and walk down the street, and see at least 10 fire trucks, and that part of my apartment complex is ON FIRE. Flames were shooting out of the roof and everything. Luckily it was not a building close to mine, but here's what I saw this morning. Why is it that everywhere I go something catches on fire?

Writing writing writing

13 1/2 pages into Rembrandtery goodness. The past two weeks have been filled with trying to find euphemisms for "fat" and challenging myself on how many times I can say "breast" in one paper. Although I've been so consumed by Rembrandt that I forgot how to spell acknowledge ("aknoldge") somewhere around 2500 words.

It's funny, when I'm writing a paper (especially a 6000 word behemoth like this one), it suddenly becomes REALLY important to do other things. Like vacuum, empty the dishwasher, and re-organize my closet. I actually convinced myself I couldn't do work while the sheets were in the washer.

I've also been going a little stir-crazy, being the former park ranger suddenly shoved into a sedentary occupation. So I went hiking near my house, 5 miles. It's a lot different than hiking in the desert, namely, you can hear the traffic from any point on the trail. Here's some pictures of the fall foliage in the wonderful valley in which I live.