I probably should be studying right now, but I've had a few things on my mind that I wanted to write about. But I'm also beat, so it's been hard just to sit down and try to draw the things out of my head. Low on energy. I feel like all I've been doing recently is having the life sucked out of me at work and studying Chinese, with some sleeping, eating and driving between the two squished in between. I know it isn't really that bad, but sometimes it feels that way anyway.

I'm sure part of it is the crappy weather. I know this is New England, not California. I can appreciate 40°/50° temperatures, especially considering that we were talking single digits and below zero just 2 months ago. But Spring is supposed to be right around the corner. And yet when it hasn't been snowing or raining, it's still been pretty gray most of the time. Right now, I can see little glimpses of blue every so often, but it's a gradient of dark threatening clouds to the north, and when July and I took a short walk around the neighborhood an hour ago, it was mostly wind and gray. I should be happy it's not snowing, but I'm dwelling on the daylillies and tulips whose tips we had spotted last week which are only now reappearing through the melting snow, after being buried by the snowstorm Wednesday.

So anyway, it's not really that bad. I played hoops yesterday before class, had a great dinner at the John Stone House in Ashland with friends. I've been running during lunch with some folks at work (although only once last week because of travel and weather). I suspect the travel has been throwing me off. Hopefully I'll get back in sync next week, and maybe the current work crisis will finally settle down.

* * *

So while I was driving home from hoops yesterday, this cool song came on the radio. And I thought to myself, "Hey, this song is pretty cool. It sounds like Norah Jones. I wonder if it's from the same new album of that other song I keep hearing?" Because for probably the last month or so, I've been hearing the same last 30-seconds-to-a-minute of this one Norah Jones song on the radio. I'd be flipping around from station to station and I'd hit this song which reminded me of some other song. (I'll let you know if I ever figure out what that other song is.) And eventually I'd hear enough to realize that it wasn't this other song, but maybe a cover. And then I'd hear the chorus and I'd think, "no, it's a different song." But I still thought it was pretty cool, so I'd keep listening, waiting to hear the next verse. And then the song would end. Doh. This had to have happened at least six or seven times. I'd land on the song, think to myself, "This is it! I'm finally going to hear more of this song!" And then, disappointment. Ok, my bad. I flip stations a lot (certainly more than I used to), or maybe I'd be listening to a language CD ("Na, ni xihuan zuo shenme? Wo zhi xihuan chi fan, shui jiao...") and the current lesson would end and I'd switch back to radio. So anyway, I'm listening to this new song and it's playing along and I'm driving and it hits the chorus and I realize, "oh, this is that song!" Heh. Well, at least I've now heard the whole song now. I'll still have to wait to see whether another song gets any airplay and I can decide whether or not to buy the album.

* * *

Clouds have broken up; it's almost dusk. Maybe it's time to do some studying. Perhaps I'll write more later.