Because I needed a little bit of beauty in my day today: via Barbara several months ago, a video of one of my favorite things in the world to watch -- a swarm of birds.

I'm having a rough week (actually a rough month, but a particularly rough week) but have been surprised at how gracefully I've been able to handle a number of difficult things all hitting at once. It's great to know you're better at handling crap than you thought! Unfortunately, you usually find this out by handling crap. But life goes on, and there are good moments in it; a mango shake with Robin, dinner with Ana and Lee and Jake, trying on sweaters with Amy, brussels sprouts braised in milk, the satisfaction of writing code and having it run perfectly the first time, exhilarating rushes of tossing syntheses of ideas I'm familiar with up against ideas that are new to me, the news that Olin's faculty unanimously voted in the Open Access policy I worked on last semester, the feelings of my limbs swinging across the dance floor, singing along to Beatles songs in my mom's minivan.

Early morning tomorrow: I need to prep for my interview of a rep from Phonak (the company that makes my hearing aids). Although it's one of the larger things on my still-too-long list of Classwork To Do, I'm really looking forward to this one. I'm also hoping to do my first full pull-up tomorrow, so with that in mind -- it's bedtime. Time to give my back/arm/shoulder muscles the rest they need.