The nice thing about living (or spending lots of time, anyway) on the internet: even when you travel, you're still home. Sort of. Nothing can ever take the place of being there in person, but little casual touches here and there make all the difference and turn potential homesickness into a "oh hey, I can share this back with people now!" experience.

Nikki's blogs make me miss Olin's randomness and professors (who are also random), and it was refreshingly wonderful to be able to touch base with so many people on IRC late tonight. (Note: living on the internet is also great when you don't sleep; it's always daytime somewhere.)

I shall try unconsciousness again. 6:20 am isn't out of range for a bedtime for me, and I can get up at 7, and timezones... I have my own way of coping with timezone shifts and remaining functional. It works. Thank you, extensive childhood travel to Asia.

Weird thought: If I weren't an in-betweener, what would I be? If I wasn't born into a place where I would have to bridge a lot of worlds, what would I do? If I never had the opportunity to translate anything - if no translation was ever needed (and yes, I know full well that all these statements are impossible, but it's a thought experiment), what would I use my words to say, if I didn't use so many of them to carry someone else's words to someone else's ears in a form they could understand?

Maybe that's what I'm seeing when I write. Because I write for my future self, and my future self doesn't need much translation at all. Huh. I'm not sure that's the right answer - or the right question - but it does make something interesting to mull on.

Sky starting to lighten. Time for bed.