A Good Weekend

Hey Kids. I've been feeling a little disconnected from my life lately with stresses about grad school funding, conferences, reading lists, and dissertation topic selection. This weekend was the perfect antidote to my feeling of floating above my life, living in my mind.

Friday night some grad school friends, Kyle and Kate, threw a party for Kate's birthday. Several people I know and really like were there, and the conversation was much better than typical party chatter. Kate also had the great idea of having all of the party guests bring Crayola Model Magic clay. Throughout the course of the evening, we all made our representative "spirit animals" from the clay. It was so fun to see how creative everyone was. I made a turtle and some birds, Matt made a cat, and my roommate Rachel made a triceratops. It was great! See below:

Saturday I had a nice day with Matt. We spent the morning and afternoon watching the Texas-OU game. In the afternoon I worked on my MA report while he watched more football. Then we made dinner and watched a few episodes of Mad Men, season 1, our latest TV excursion. I highly, highly recommend Mad Men, even if the depiction of the treatment of women can be difficult to take at times. Saturday night we went to another grad student party. This one was superhero-super-villain themed. I admit that in my usual spirt of lameness I didn't dress up, but it was still great to see everyone else's costumes and to chat with friends.

Sunday (today) I've had a productive day. It seems that the basically relaxing weekend opened up my creative juices a bit. It would be great to work so little every weekend! Rachel and I went for a run this evening in the best weather of the season thus far. It was a perfect Austin fall day: 75 with a cool breeze and no humidity. PERFECTION. I can only hope that this week will go well after the happy tone set by today's weather. :)