All right, a couple non-work things that are distracting me. Eventually one of the work tasks will make me hit my groove and hyperfocus-sprint to get the Big Things That I Want To Do Before I Hibernate done. 'Till then, here goes.

Hari, sometimes I just love listening to the way you think, because it helps me recognize how I see the world a little more, even (especially) when we don't agree. (Also, I'm not sure how many people would understand me when I rattle on about my ideal "if I have to learn about fashion" interface being Pandora.) Olin does drill in a very practical approach to problem solving that emphasizes results rather than rhetoric. And I am also glad that I'm able to drill to the bedrock and lay a foundation for widespread, significant, and tangible results for the ideals that I hold, and that I can do this together with others who share those ideals. It's the way I happened to need to be trained for 4 years, and I got what I needed.

Andy P and I touched on this again yesterday as he drove me to the airport. This semester was his bedrock semester; he finally learned the solid coding skills needed to implement some of his ideas. This semester was my "climb to the sky and look around" semester; I have a better idea now of what skills I need to drill in on learning next. (There are a lot.) We talked about zooming in and out of different levels of focus and meta-ness, and how you needed the ability to both switch zoom levels and the ability to stay in one for long stretches of time, and how you needed to grow that awareness, and what we were starting to see ourselves grow into, and how we needed to be balanced out.

Though I've never met them, Rebecca Leung and Lexi Tsoi make me want to try learning unicycling once again.

As I posted in the comments for their video: If you're up for teaching a crusty alumna how to ride, I'll visit campus some weekend once the spring comes. I never did get past riding a few feet in a straight line.

I need to take Mark Penner up on his offer to teach me Go.

And I need to say thank you to Andrew; he knows why.

When I count my blessings, I count the people first.