Let me just say this and get it over with:

Some freaky weather we're having this year in Seattle!

Since external surroundings are important to me, and I'm also not great at small talk and tend to go for the easy topics, I have had the conversation about the weather approximately ten thousand times now. I had it quite a bit over break ("How's Seattle?" "Oh, you know, rain of toads") and now I'm having it here, though I also sometimes spice things up by moving it into the meta conversation about how everyone is talking about nothing but the weather.

All that to say, it's snowing right now and I'm super cozy, making Thai chicken soup (without a recipe, so if it turns out well I'm inducting myself into the Improvisitory Cooks of America), doing a bit of my reading here and there, and puttering around my warm, delightful apartment.

I will be sad to leave it next year, though none of the possible scenarios involve keeping it (except the one where I win the lottery). If (and everyone I talked to over break knows this is a real if) I survive to fight another year in this program, one of the bright spots would be getting a house with a couple of other grad students. In the context of a discussion about finding a fourth roommate in sync with his values, one of the group told me about quitting his job at a golf course earlier this fall. On his last day, he said he was getting stressed about mowing perfectly, and then he realized just how he felt about the whole golf culture and started mowing unevenly, singing a little song that went "Class enemies, class enemies, class enemies!" I'm choosing to find this funny and endearing.