I don't try to go this long without blogging, but being burnt out has a way of making it really easy to say 'no' when the thought crosses my mind.
I found that as the semester came closer to ending, I cared less and less about it. I once had a beat up '95 Geo with a leaking gas line. I would fill the tank, and fuel would instantly start to spill everywhere. It took most of a tank just to get it to the shop a friend of mine worked in to get the thing fixed. The last few weeks of this last semester, I felt like my old car, spending entirely too much to get a very short distance. (That and it was a Geo, so it wasn't getting very far when it was at its best already)
Spring '10 semester ended. I rejoiced not in jubilation or exhilaration, but in disgust. I'm not sure I did all that well. I don't know if grades have been posted yet, and I don't want to look. Later, perhaps, when I care.
My sister in law wanted to go home. Living with us helping out with our son through the tax season (seeing as my better half is locked in mortal combat with the IRS on behalf of the weak for 3 months of the year) was helpful. I wanted to leave town. I tend to see my in-laws about once every year and a half, and we were due.
Enter Nauvoo Illinois. A decent halfway point between A and B for everyone to meet up. Filled with enough history-touristy distractions to last a few days, a hotel across the river in Iowa with a pool (which for some unknown reason my body decided to BLEED in, thankyouverymuch), and far enough from everything else as to render the drive itself a means of wiping recent memory from my gray matter.
That and my in-laws are a special breed of [adjective]. I've never been able to properly describe them, but it would be easy to say that they live on a different plane of existence than myself, and spending time with them is like taking a vacation from my normal reality. It's a very therapeutic world filled with named automobiles, feety pajamas, and the occasional frozen custard. These things combined were, frankly, exactly what I needed.
And they brought a friend. At first I was expecting a statistical outlier, then I wasn't so sure. The boys back at the lab are still crunching the data. Either way, anyone sporting the atomic purple GameBoy Color is automatically cool.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need a drink and a nap.
