Christmas Eve at Point Reyes

My mom just left yesterday morning.  She was only here for a few days (on the way back to Illinois after visiting my brother in Las Vegas), but on Christmas Eve, we drove up to Point Reyes, a lookout over the Pacific Ocean where there's apparently a really cool lighthouse (which we didn't venture out to see because it was too cold), and where you can do some whale watching if the whales are around and you're patient enough.  Even though it was a bit of a long drive, made longer by the fact that I missed a few turns on the way back, I think we both had a good time, and I got some nice pictures out of the deal too.

I think this is my favorite one.

Yesterday, for Christmas, we went to my friend Jess's house and consumed way too much cheese and butter and cream.  Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I definitely consumed way too much of those things.  I tell myself it may have been slightly offset by running 9 miles yesterday morning, but even if not... oh well.  I also told myself I would do 9 more miles today, but I seriously doubt that's going to happen, since I already ate more bread and cheese this morning, and it's cold and gray outside.  I think I'm going to walk the dogs, listen to This American Life, and do some errands instead.

Merry Christmas, everyone!  I hope you spent it surrounded by the people you love.

useless

If I had known how utterly useless my brain would be today, I would have spent the day watching Six Feet Under instead of trying to get reading done.  I can not concentrate on anything.  Criminy.

Now I have to walk the dogs before I head in to campus, because the final exam for the course I'm teaching is tonight, and I have to be in some random room from 7:00 to 10:00 pm.  Hopefully I'll at least be able to get some work done then, but I woke up with a gross head cold this morning, and now it's starting to come back, so my chances are looking somewhat slim.  Bleargh.

On the bright side, my dissertation prospectus was approved last week, and I'm getting ever closer to actually having a specific set of studies planned for my dissertation.  That means that the stressful part of this semester is over; now all I have to do is write two Portuguese compositions, take my Portuguese final tomorrow, and write two responses to articles from my psycholinguistics seminar.  The problem is that I have little to no motivation to do any of these things, and I just keep spacing out and taking breaks to play the piano.  Or nap.  Or eat toast.

Not the most productive day in recent memory.