There And Back Again

During the weekend, traffic to this weblog slows down noticeably...not surprisingly, of course. It's nice to know that my blog is a decent work timekiller.

I'm extremely exhausted at this time, for several different reasons. Last night, I wasn't really able to sleep all that much. Not for any particular reason. It's just that I have several different school projects due in the next two weeks as the semester winds down...one of which will require approximately 20 hours of diligent work on my part. The fruits of procrastination are beginning to catch up with me, it would seem.

I think I fell asleep at about 3:00 this morning, and then woke up at 7:00, because I had to meet Shane Ross, John Lin and Ryan Cox at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles in Pasadena at like 7:30. As it turned out, they didn't open until 8:00, but we still ate there, nonetheless. In the three and a half years that I have lived up here, I have never eaten at Roscoe's...although I'd heard it spoken of with great reverence by many a Caltech student. So, I decided that today was my day to try it.

There's something...well, odd...about eating fried chicken for breakfast. The restaurant has a real Southern feel to it, and I'm certain that my mother would love it since she was born and raised in the South. I had fried chicken, grits and eggs. I used to eat grits all the time as a child, most often at the behest of my mother, who eats them like candy. (Keep in mind, she's from Lubbock, Texas.) I think it'd been almost seventeen years since I'd eaten them. I guess when I turned twelve I was finally able to tell her that I didn't want any more grits. Anyway...today, whether out of guilt or nostalgia for more halcyon days, I ordered some grits.

They are quite bland, unless one scoops loads of unhealthy butter and salt and pepper on there. With those additives, I rather liked them. I can't really remember if my mom eats them plain or dumps all the stuff on them. I'm inclined to think the latter. We actually ended up spending almost two hours at Roscoe's...quite the productive morning.

And speaking of procrastinating...on Monday I have to turn in a case study of an adolescent. Naturally, I delayed in locating an adolescent to interview. Ideally, one is supposed to contact a high school and ask to be set up with a student to interview. However, I didn't feel comfortable trying to arrange such a thing on such short notice. So, I picked my brain to think of who might have a teenager I could interview. Ultimately, I decided to call some friends of mine in Oceanside who have three teenage daughters (they have a total of four, but the oldest one is 21 and in college.) So, today I drove down to that area and met the 17 year old (who is a senior) at Rancho Buena Vista High School in Vista. Her dad teaches German there, so I also got caught up with him, since I hadn't seen him for quite a while. (Incidentally, for those of you who are mindful of such things, they have painted the school and it is no longer that horrible pink color.)

Anyway, we went over to Starbucks where I conducted a forty minute interview. Now, I have to write a three page paper on her. In one sense, knowing the subject so well was a little strange, but it also gave me an advantage of knowing which questions I should ask. One could also argue that the fact that I have known her since she was ten doesn't really allow me to be objective, but I don't think that will really matter for this particular assignment.

After finishing the interview, I drove right back here...so it was a really quick trip. I arrived home at about 7:45 and then got ready to go for a run. Yes...you heard correctly...I said run. I've recently taken up running. So far, I've been doing a pretty good job of it. I do it three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)...at least I have been doing so for the past two weeks. It's kind of funny but, in just two weeks, I have noticed improvements. On the first day, it was awful. The original plan was to try to run out for ten minutes, then run ten minutes back. On day one, however, I was barely able to run for five minutes, so I just walked to a point that was about a mile away from my house.

Tonight, however, I was able to run for a full seventeen minutes, without stopping. It was somewhat encouraging, because Wednesday of this week had been pretty bad, based on a variety of different factors. Because of Wednesday, and the fact that I was completely exhausted from lack of sleep and driving all day, I almost skipped tonight's run, but ultimately decided that would be a bad idea.

Completely off topic, but just as important, my friends Shane and Erika will be touring Europe this summer. They have started a weblog on which they are seeking advice from any of us who may have travelled the Continent. Any advice you could give them would be much appreciated, I'm sure. They are looking for information like which cities should they visit, what sites are cool, what sites are tourist traps, which hostels are good, which hostels suck, and so on. I'm certain they are also looking for some "off the beaten path" type of things...things that aren't your typical tourist fare. So, go there and leave them suggestions or I'll kill you.