You know, I think I'll have an ok time adjusting to this whole four-day-weekend-every-weekend deal. I'm enjoying all my classes, and finding that I'm adequately proficient with technology that neither GIS nor SPSS are particularly difficult for me to get the hang of. In fact, I even tried to do my homework without having SPSS installed on my PC this weekend, and although I couldn't do it, I was successful in turning the .sav file we were supposed to use into a .txt file using R and then opening the .txt file in Excel, which was actually a lot less difficult than I thought it would be, and then I was excessively proud of myself. So, trying to relearn R, which is probably a terrible idea, but I have some time on my hands... and I love R. I also did a bit more research this weekend, both for my assistanceship and for my literature review in Response Theory. Had a little oral quiz in that class on Thursday, and I got a 10/10, nbd. But actually everyone got a 10/10, so truly nbd, but it felt nice either way. I'm enjoying grad school. It's fun.
Anyway, I did a few other things this weekend. On Friday night I went to a party down the street from my apartment with Laura, Samantha and Jennie from the Sociology department. The party was hosted by a PhD student in the English department who Laura and Sam know from a class they took last year. We played a highly modified game of Trivial Pursuit and talked about Kanye, so it was basically a perfect night for me. On Saturday, Sam drove me to John and Lauren's apartment, where we watched The Birdcage (which I had somehow never seen all of) with Jennie and Jared. That was a great time too -- John and Lauren's apartment looks like you'd expect a married couple's apartment to look, and they have these really comfortable couches and a huge tv, so it's a great place to watch movies. I sat with Jennie and I agreed to look over some of the stats on her thesis, and we all collectively decided we were going to do a lot of things together, including eating ethnic food, going to a drag show, apple picking, and -- my personal favorite -- roadtrip to see some dams. All I want to do is see some dams. Yesterday I inaugurated what I hope will become my Sunday routine, going to Starbucks in the morning, buying a New York Times, and spending a good part of my day doing as much of the crossword as I can. In the afternoon, I met Laura for coffee and a very unproductive homework section. We're just too chatty.
In addition to all that sociability, I spent some time with the library materials I took out on Friday. I got three things that Emily had been recommending to me for months and months -- "The Wire," We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and I Capture the Castle. I finally finished the book about psychology I was reading Friday afternoon, and I spent Saturday afternoon and night reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and yesterday and today reading I Capture the Castle. I also watched the first three episodes of "The Wire" and, after two stupid days of not being able to log into my library account, have put a hold on the next DVD. It's so addictive, love me some well-written procedural crime dramas.
Oh and I also bought a bike! I found it on Craigslist for $20, the guy who owned it called me and told me he was going out with his wife for the afternoon but I could look at it and if I liked it I could just drop the money through their mail slot, which I found sort of shocking, but for $20 I imagine he was just trying to get rid of the thing. It needed a considerable amount of work, so I just took it to the bike shop down the road and I can pick it up tomorrow. I'm very excited to having a more functional bike to ride. I'm really sort of starting to hit my stride here, I think.
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