Sequence

My good friend Fiona has been gone from Kanas City for approximately three months. She moved half-way around the world to China. She left while I was on the Caribbean cruise. Before she left she dropped off items at my place; food, pictures, an electric toothbrush, DVD's, a gas grill, blender, George Forman grill, etc. I continue to find things she left - she hid them well. Saturday night Kenyon suggested we play a game. He went to the game closet and found another Fiona surprise. She left the game sequence with a little note, it was one of our favorite games to play together. We would get very competitive. The thoughtful gesture brought tears to my eyes. What an amazing friend! I miss her terribly.

Of course, school is keeping me VERY busy. I don't have time for anyone or anything. It's probably a good thing my close family friends moved this summer, because I have no time to spend with them anyway. Homework is my new best friend. Yippee-do-da-day! I feel like all I do these days is read, and this isn't necessarily stuff I would choose to read on my own. Some of it is interesting, much of it is dry and dense - translation: boring. Most of my days are spent reading. In fact, yesterday I woke up at 4am to finish my reading assignments for that day. I had read the articles, but needed to finish reading the book (yeah, I said book) for that class...between the three classes I read hundreds and hundreds of pages almost daily. I attended PhD orientation on Friday night. They admitted six students, at the end of the third week we are down to two - me and this guy Ed. That is quite an attrition rate! I heard a interesting statistic; one in every six people who start a PhD program actually finish. I aim to be that one, though I now know first hand why such a low percentage of people in the world accomplish this goal. It is not for the faint of heart! Another thing they mentioned at orientation is it's normal to feel overwhelmed. Finally...I'm normal!