Tired, but 16 hours aren't up

I decided earlier in the day that I should schedule something for every day of March, which begins in a couple hours. Simultaneously my housemate came to a similar conclusion due to her recently increased availability. She asked me for advice on things to do and I, who had perused Meetup.com for two hours earlier in the day, was full of ideas. Meetup didn't really give me many ideas, save for a couple board game clubs (do I like board games that much?) and a couple more hiking clubs (I've joined about 5 and attended 1 group twice.) Nevertheless, néanmois, de repente (no that's suddenly, it's -- sin embargo o no obstante), German uh trotzdem (thanks wordreference), nevertheless it's good to be able to help out another erring soul who is trying to figure out the best things to do with themselves.

I've been thinking about activity a lot lately. I no longer worry wasting my life away. I'm highly interested in a tensome of things (why don't we have a common word for tens, is a dozen really more practical? Where's dizaine in English?) But I do have to worry a lot about maximizing time, balancing activities, and yet learn to do these things instinctively so my life is enjoyable and not mechanical. Maybe Amazon can help me find How to Schedule Life Implicitly. For those of us who have spent the vast majority of our lives as a singularity, unbound from the fairer sex (which apparently isn't always women, as I assumed,) we tend to be hyper-aware of the two extremes in scheduling life. Alone, we attempt to fill every moment with useful activities whose goal is to end our lonliness and unite us with someone. In the brief moments in our lives when we are in a relationship, our scheduling goals change to spending as much time as possible with our mate and then doing very little with the rest of the day. If the relationship survives for a while, we slowly learn to refill our personal time with useful activity. If the relationship is comfortable we probably reach some nice balance between time together and well-used time apart. I've never gotten there, but I know couples who have. It seems nice.

Getting back to the present, my housemate and I have tentatively agreed on helping each other keep busy this coming March. I'm skeptical of this, because we've never spent a minute outside the house together, except to move some furniture once. As for my second housemate, I have never spent a minute off the property with her in four solid months. That's sort of crazy if you think about it. I have two housemates whom I've never experienced in any way outside of my home. We have had one housewarming party, which was the best portal into their extra-domicile lives I ever got. Speaking of which, I'm scheduling a spring equinox party for March 20th. I've never been invited to one, but it seems like the redominance of sunlight is worthy of celebration, especially since spring is by far the nicest season in Northern California, what with the green hills, interesting weather, longer days, and not too overbearing warmth.

Now that it's 10:45PM I can safetly shut my computer and my eyes. My alarm is set for 6:45AM which means I've completed 16 useful waking hours of the day. I know I should be out partying and getting into crazy narcotics on a Saturday night. But let's say that I'm doing a little reading, writing, singing, playing, web authoring, German studying, and weight lifting as an investment for better times, when I can waste it all groveling to that special someone.

It's business time

You could say that this flight home ends the first business trip of my life, save perhaps the wine and dine trip put on by Microsoft when I was a ripe 23. This week life felt a little more complete. I spoke all week with academics in my desired field of study. I blended into three wintry cities and entered the buildings of six universities. I was operating by myself and for myself. I road three planes, three trains, and three subway systems. I felt longings for intellect, kinship, newness, and to dedicate myself to someone without neglecting my ego.

I keep thinking about language acquisition, but I can't stay on the subject long enough to hit on anything good. My French was crippled in Montreal by my unbalanced practice of reading books but not practicing colloquial utterances. I'll talk about that in my Ich kann blog.

I like being more complete, because I avoid reverting to the emptiness of years past, and it increments. I think that's what hurts so much about a breakup (relevant utterance: elle m'a plaqué.) A breakup is a decrement in completeness. It may open the way for something more fulfilling, yet the hollow of the meantime scrapes at your organs like hunger in the belly.

I took one photo on this trip. With snow like this, how can you not.