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Hello again, Internets. It's been a while. Sorry about that.

Since then, however, I have had good times. Last long weekend, those included:

• Celebrating my birthday downtown with friends
• Attending the Liberty Parade and concert
• Celebrating my birthday at a barbecue with friends
• Biking to St. Paul and back, for the purpose of
  
• Attending the Take Back Labor Day event, my way of
• Protesting the RNC (kind of a lame protest, I admit... but fun)

Here are a few pictures:

This weekend was a bit quieter--a movie out, riding my bike, helping a friend move, attending another barbecue--mostly because I had to recover from my week, which included...
turning in my prospectus in advance of my oral exams...
because...

I passed my written exams!

Unfortunately, the prospectus wasn't very good. However, my friends who have been through this keep telling me that the written exams are more difficult than the orals, and that if I passed the former, I'm golden for the latter. Needless to say, I have my doubts--but I am more than ready to have this over with and be ABD. What an exciting thought that is!

In other news, school has started, and for the first time in something like 20 years (with the exceptions of 2000 and 2003), I will not be attending classes. I find it hard to believe that I've taken all the classes I need for a terminal degree. I know most of you think I've been in school for forever, but seriously, this seems so... so... sudden. (Although, I will admit, hardly crushing; after all, I am still on campus three days out of the week for TA-ing and dissertation workshopping.)

Also, it's cold here. So cold that I've had to close my windows and turn on my electric blanket. A friend and I did still run our nine miles in shorts this morning, but I also wore my trusty jacket.

Oh--and, yeah, nine miles! Knock on wood, but my leg seems okay so far. Hmmm... did I ever actually mention that my stress fracture (or something in the same region) flared up after I did nine at my parents' just before I left, and that I'd stayed off my leg for the next month? Anyway, I'm back, and trying to ease in slowly, but still hoping to be able to rock the TCM.

And finally, in other news I seem not to have mentioned, but discovered looking for the non-existent reference to the leg trouble, I fixed my pointer problem. I disabled the pointer stick. Yesssss.