Well, today I’m in Houston for what will be my last time on the state’s dime. I left Sunday evening so I wouldn’t have to deal with an obscenly early wake-up call again. It’s a relatively quick trip, though; I’ll be home before rush hour tomorrow.
My first dispatch from Houston is a total surprise to me: Avis finally gave me a car other than the Alero (check the archives — I hate that freaking car) and I actually REALLY like it. Surprisingly, it’s a Hyundai Sonata. For some reason, I was thinking it was in the $12-15k range, but the model I’ve got actually starts around $19,000. It’s well designed, very peppy and easy to drive, and has some great features. I’m impressed.
In the last several days I’ve managed to finagle out of my spring semester professors the book lists for their classes, and now I’m sorta freaking out. As I’ve been suspecting/expecting, next semester is going to be a real bitch. As a group, the three classes I’m taking have roughly 21 books to buy. TWENTY ONE!!! So if you were even thinking about getting me something for Christmas and want to do me a favor, gift certificates to either Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com certainly seem appropriate now.
I have one syllabus, too, and it looks really overwhelming — and this, for the class I was expecting would be the easiest of the three. Argh.
But for the next three weeks, I have relatively few worries. Two weeks of work, a week of nonstop Christmas celebrations in three distinct locations, and the much beloved opportunity to do some pleasure reading. Yesterday on my way down to Houston, I read 200+ pages of a novel I’ve had in my trunk for at least two months. It’s really good! 🙂