Phew. I've been "too busy to write" - which I know is a fallacy. Writing clears my mind, focuses it... like sleeping and exercise, I'm too busy not to write.

It's 2:39am, and I'm in my apartment in Raleigh. Sebastian's been back in Boston for a week - he was here for spring break after SIGCSE, and it was awesome, and then I had two days to myself and then my mother arrived. Mom is sleeping on the sofabed; it's the last night of her 5-day visit, and it's been great to have her over. She came to POSSCON with me and heard me speak for the first time, cooked soup, toted me along to church, took me out to dinner, gave me advice on car shopping, moving, relationships, and how to wash apples. It's the kind of thing that's wonderful to have once in a while - but I also know I can only handle it once in a while, and that I'm going to be decompressing quite a bit tomorrow and probably a little into Tuesday. Mmm.

My taxes are done for the year; each year I get a little better with my finances, a little more organized, a little less randomly-stumbling-through-things-blindly. It's a good feeling, although I hate the paperwork (who doesn't?) associated with the IRS. I think I might get an accountant next year, since my situation's going to get more complicated once I have a full-time job and studying with fellowship and moving states and more interesting investments, though I think I've learned enough about the housing market around West Lafayette by now to lean towards renting rather than buying while I'm there for school.

I'm having trouble focusing on things this week - too much to do, too many balls being juggled - but I'm actually quite proud with how I've been learning to react to that. I'm sliding back into the game gently, slowly - my old habit is to panic-react and overcompensate and work myself to death. It's a solution, I suppose, but it's not a particularly effective one; I burn a ton of energy in panic overdrive mode and get very little done, so I barely choke by and stress myself out and have no fun or breathing room at all. I'm learning things that I can do to restore a sense of calm and order. Sleeping. Eating. Writing. Systematically breaking things down. Fighting the urge to deviate from a plan I've laid out earlier. Laying out reasonable plans, with flex room, so that I can actually stick to them. One of my biggest strengths and weaknesses is my love of improvisation, and I'll struggle with that blessing all my life, and I am glad for that.

It's nearly 3am; I feel like there's more that I have in mind, have somewhere in my brain to write out - I spent a lot of time today going through archives, trying to figure out what to toss, what to keep, what to move, and rediscovering old notes and papers and comments from friends always puts me in something of a pensive mood. But it's late, and I need to sleep - I need to stick to that, I know. Knocking this out and turning in... goodnight, world.

Sweet dreams.