[politics] they said palin's background was thoroughly checked, and that gave me a clue as to why she was selected--of all the republican candidates whose backgrounds were thoroughly checked, was she the best option? wow. it really makes a lot of sense, but is a bit scary.[/politics]

in other news, i'm back in school. my statistics class has completely thrown me for a loop. being a TA has gone OK so far (one face-to-face, and a few emails). other classes are so so. i'll survive, and i'll reallllly try not to make myself crazy. there's too much cool stuff that i'll be doing this semester to be freaked out all the time. still. wish i had not had so much coffee this morning.

spent the weekend in the hill country (o' texas). that was delightful. went tubing, got a tan (for real!). andy read paradise lost, and i worked on problem sets when we weren't tubing or petting debbie and phil's animals (2 dogs, 3 cats).

spent about 5 hours straight working in the library today, and that felt good, but i did all the mindless tedious stuff, not the stuff that actually needs to get done. so i should maybe work on that now.