headaches

it's been awhile since i posted last...but i promise i have a good excuse. i've started getting really bad headaches at work from staring at the computer. while i know this may sound pretty lame, i've actually been avoiding my computer when i'm not at work because of it. last week, on one of my non-work days, i sat down at a computer in my lab for five minutes and my eyes started watering profusely. i looked like i was crying. thus, i have decided that either work or computers (or both) are bad for my health. as i can't just give them up at the moment due to popular forms of communication being as they are, i obtained a screen cover and now have a good excuse to get up and move around, and not look at my computer. apparently the headaches are caused by eyestrain which is exacerbated by having a fluorescent light directly over your computer (design flaw of the building in which i work, i suppose).

anyhow, onto more interesting news. i'm still waiting to hear from the bme department to see whether or not i got in. this is nerve racking. even my advisor says it shouldn't be a problem, but i'm still bothered that i haven't heard anything yet. oh well. the bikes are in for texas 4000, and we have many new riders out cruising around austin now. i think that the arrival of the bikes has finally made everyone begin to realize that we are really riding to alaska in a few months. my fundraising has been going well. to date, i have raised ~$3500. my goal is to raise at least $5000 so i'll be working hard the next few months to help make that happen. i finished reading into the wild and just took out a couple books containing john muir's writing as well as a copy of thoreau's walden. i don't have a lot of spare time to read right now, but i try to keep a few books around, so that i can read a few pages whenever i have a minute or two.

a friend forwarded me alink to a blog post in the nyt about the endless pursuit of unnecessary things. something to think about.

finally, happy belated mardi gras to all, and happy lent to all those who celebrate it.