2 weeks down . . .

The first two weeks have gone smoothly, really. I'm happy it's spring quarter, I'm feeling good about things, I'm enjoying myself . . . things are off to a good start.

I completely rewrote my thesis from scratch for the draft that was due this past Monday - and it turned out *great*! I got really positive feedback from my workshop group today. So I am STOKED!! Two of my workshop friends were like, "Omg, you're done! We hate you!" It just needs some tweaking and a conclusion really - and I need to put the bibliography together. But yeah, I'm really happy with how it's turned out! I was even telling some random guy in MEME about it last night, and he's all, "Wow, it sounds so interesting! Even *he* was excited about it.

I'll figure out some way to post it, so you all can read it (if you're interested). Or just email me separately and 'request' a copy. It'll be absolutely officially done at the end of May.

Garfield and I celebrated out 1 year anniversary on Sunday over video chat: we made anniversary pancakes in the morning, and then steak dinner with baked potatoes and asparagus for dinner. And then we baked our favorite oatmeal cookies :) We did a great job of making it really special, in spite of the distance. Eff the distance, we're still awesome.

Garfield surprised me with a bouquet of pinks roses, which arrived on Friday ^_^

I've been exercising regularly, Juliano's got a new harness . . . he also woke me up three times last night for supposed "emergencies" (only two of our middle-of-the-night walks produced anything "emergency" like), and he still had a surprise for me when I got home from workshop, so I'm a little bitter at the moment . . . but otherwise, he's still the cutest dog ever.

I changed my classes a bit: I dropped the Making a Scene class for a WWII Literature in Britain class. It was a really tough choice, because I was honestly excited about the MS class . . . but ultimately, I decided with the WWII one because i haven't actually taken a straight *literature* class *all* year . . . so it's time. And the professor is this new fancy-pants lady that seems very nice and knowledgeable - whereas the other class was taught by a professor I've already had - so I figured I'd go for it, do something new. So far, so good.

And the writing class is *very* interesting. Definitely challenging, but very useful and interesting.

Time's gonna fly! Part of me cannot *wait* to be done, but the other part is trying not to be too impatient. This quarter is SO much chiller than the last one! So I really want to enjoy it, let myself relax, just *be* in Chicago for two more months.

So yeah, I'm happy, thankful, appreciative, doing well.