hello autumn

it has been a very busy last week and a half. i got the next draft of my dissertation proposal turned in, watched football, did a problem set, had church fun, gave a talk on my dissertation proposal, got the reviewer comments back on paper, baked an apple pie, visited my friends michelle and michael in the hospital and met leah madison garel, officially the youngest and smallest person i have ever met (5lbs. 150z., she was 24 hours old when i was holding her...congrats michelle and michael!). i've been swimming, biking and running, and on monday jack (my housemate who came to leadville with me) and i started p90x. my body is sore and tired, but my ability to focus is better than it has been in a long while. life is pretty amazing.

as you may or may not have remembered, yesterday was the fall equinox, meaning that the days and nights were the same length. it was also the first day of fall, and that was pretty evident in the temperatures here in austin. it felt like someone had turned on the "fall" switch because it was cold and rainy all day in contrast to the sun and warmth we'd had the day prior. today, i put on a long sleeve shirt AND my rain jacket over my tshirt to walk to my office, and i wasn't even sweating.

i heard a talk two sundays ago about how much we as a society use electronic media. at the end of the talk the speaker challenged us to see if we could "go without" for seven days. i knew i had to check my email for work, but i figured i could still see what i could do. i turned the music off. i turned the instant messenger off in gmail and facebook. i stopped checking my email (and facebook) as frequently. i stopped surfing the internet as frequently. and you know, a funny thing happened. i started being more productive. i felt like i could concentrate more. i felt like i had more time to get stuff done. i think i'm going to keep trying this experiment for a bit.