Today (yesterday now....but you get the idea) was interesting...very Berkeley for some reason. Things started out great with stats lecture getting out 15 minutes early. I spent the extra time sitting at my favorite spot under the Redwoods and Oaks along a quiet strech of Strawberry Creek reading the Heuristic Squelch. It was a beautiful day and it was nice to finally have some time to enjoy it.

After that I went to Music lecture which was actually entertaining today (what a change). We had a special performance by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players who performed a brand new piece for the first time by an emerging Chinese-American composer Zhao Long. We were the first audience to ever hear it performed...and that's cool...very Berkeley.

Right after that I grabbed myself some lunch from the GBC (Golden Bear Cafe for those not in the know) and sat on one of the terraced seating areas over lower Sproul Plaza. The normal sounds of protest emanating from the steps of Sproul Hall (today's was for increasing minority enrollment..very Berkeley) were drowned out by the soothing sounds of the Berkeley Jazz Group playing down in lower Sproul...also very Berkeley. It was a pleasant lunch and I took my time.

So then it was off to studio. Bah. Things took a lot longer than I thought.....I had a war with my cardboard topographic model. I just started cutting it up until it finally looked good. I also saw the last few seconds of Phyllis' fall to the ground after she fell asleep standing up. No joke. She blacked out and crashed into the chairs. Loud enough for me to hear while listening to Santana on my headphones. Aye...what studio does to us! Lauren brought Leo, Jacqueline, and I dinner from Gypsies....really nice of her. We ate in the seminar room and fantasized about going to Europe together over the summer. If only. Then it was back to work for another hour or so.

Got home in time for Buffy and Smallville....the two only shows in prime-time I ever make sure I'm home to watch. Spent the rest of the night struggling with the Stats homework I just didn't have the drive to do after working so much over the past few days. I'm spent. And I still have a long way to go with studio.

Erik asked me yesterday how I've managed to maintain my sanity with so many hours clocked on the 8th floor of Wurster since Saturday. I guess it's a gigantic balancing act..I'm tired...but I think I've been able to work in some R&R into these increasingly busy days. And I remind myself that this is an experience I won't have again....in the end I feel like I'll the hard work will have been well worth it...if not in the actual design skills I'm supposed to be learning, but at least in the memories and friendships I've been able to form.