This post is dedicated to Jen, whose infinite knowledge of music/good travel deals/MCAT facts/ophthamology is unmatchable

Lesson from Tycho: if you can't get yourself to the beach, get the beach to yourself! With all the litter that he tends to scatter over the floor when he not-so-daintily digs himself some real estate in the littler box, Tycho has effectively created himself a beach scene in the bathroom, where he spends most of his time. Here he is, cooling his hide in the "swimming pool":



The growing number of bug bites on my legs are proportionally matched to the increasing amount of fun that is going down in the M-dot these days. I've spent so much time in various parks and mountain trails over the past few days... including after-dark time, like on Saturday night, when a small party of us tried to make our way down the mountain trails with the remains of a birthday BBQ strapped to our backs, and only our combined cell phones' glow as light... it was one of those excursions that can now be classified as "a fun adventure," but might just as well have turned out to be "a really terrible idea." But we made it through the dark, dark woods and back under the safety net of street lights and and road signs without incident!

I'm so excited for this summer... on Sunday night I was sitting with a small crowd in a bar on St. Laurent (which is one of those a-buzzin night life streets), with my elbow on the railing that divided our spot with the sidewalk, waving down fellow Concordians who happened to stroll past and feeling so good that if I could have channelled Tycho at that moment I would have expressed myself by dropping to the floor and wiggling around on my back. And things just keep getting better: tomorrow Derek arrives, Claudine's finished thesis is celebrated, and the weekend kicks in with jazz, picnics, and a board game party hosted by yours truly. Plus: only a week to go and I'll be done my office-desky work at the Irish Centre, which, honestly, is a fact that stirs both elation and nostalgia. Elation because it's not easy to sit in that office, plugging away at officey jobs, while the huge picture windows display the outside world in all its thirty-degree sunshiney glory... nostalgia because I am notoriously good at missing things that aren't even over yet, and I think I'll miss the daily structure and sense of gratification that having a regular job gives me. But I've been straining against every seam since school ended, and having more time to myself will only mean good things in the writing department, so rock on!

To those keeping track, my pool skills are improving! I've taken a single lesson, and already I'm a shark. On Sunday I sunk two balls in a row and they were both ones I was supposed to sink! Really, though, I'm just in it for the innate coolness of standing around, leaning on a pool cue.

On an unrelated note, I heard on the CBC today that if you put together how much each individual hair on your head grows in a single day, it would add up to thirty-five meters! Derek says if I believe that then MIT taught me nothing about the media. But it was the CBC! And it was the six o'clock news! I refuse to believe they are capable of factual error or manipulation. This report came about because of the Fifth International Congress of Hair Research happening right now. I think it's harder to believe that such a congress exists than that there is thirty-five meters of action happening on your scalp today!