just relax, take it easy
you're still young, that's your fault
there's so much you have to know
find a girl, settle down
if you want, you can marry
look at me, I am old but I'm happy
I was once like you are know
and I know that it's not easy
to be calm when you've found
something going on
but take your time, think a lot
why, think of everything you've got
for you will still be here tomorrow
but your dreams may not
*****
Today was a good day. And I needed that. My advisor and I are both back in town now, so I got to hang out with him today, and it was thoroughly excellent. I have a lot of work to do in the next week and a half, but I'm feeling refreshed and ready to tackle it.
Speaking of excellent: all things considered, our trip was pretty excellent. We saw so much cool stuff. The world is such an amazing place, and I am truly grateful every day to be alive. So I know I have to do a big, massive picture post with a recap of the whole trip, but for now, I'm just throwing this teaser out there:
That's Crater Lake, in Oregon. It was the first of our five national parks, and it was absolutely spectacular. We hit Crater Lake, Yellowstone, Wind Cave, Theodore Roosevelt, and Badlands National Parks, along with the Crazy Horse memorial and Mount Rushmore. If you're ever in the Badlands area and have to make a choice, pay the $10 to go see Crazy Horse. Then if you still want to, drive around the mountain and get a free look at Mount Rushmore. It was fine, but I'm glad we didn't pay to go see it. Crazy Horse was way cooler, for many reasons. But more on that next time!
For now, I'm going to bed. Well, actually, I'm going to do some very painful foam rolling of my poor, battered legs*, and then I'm going to bed. More to come soon-ish.
*I went to a new exercise class with my friend Emily on Tuesday, and I am still incredibly sore from it. I have realized that the reason I sometimes have back problems is that my leg and hip musculature is ridiculously unbalanced; my forward-backward muscles are way overdeveloped, but my lateral muscles are really weak, and everything is way, way too tight. This is what marathoning with no cross training or stretching gets you! So I'm trying to balance things out by working on different muscle groups, and by forcing myself to do the foam roller at least once a day. But it hurts!!
