actions, not words.

A weight settles on my chest, but I do not know where it originates from, nor what it is. Even though my eyes are open, my surroundings are dark, and in the ocean of void I spy little specks of light which I can only assume are stars. My arms and legs are paralyzed, and yet I feel no anxiety, no energy for struggle. Instead, I passively submit myself to the universe, as the lights grow gradually larger, approaching me and overwhelming me in their warmth. The weight stays. Today was a great day. I got up today at 7:20 AM or so, which was around two hours of sleep. Despite this, I was surprisingly awake for the first session of talks (partially a result of Dr. Pepper), and actually managed to enjoy some of the talks then. Then, session two hit. Session two was a 100% math block and the caffeine was wearing off at this point, and so by the time we hit lunch I was about to PTFO. Thankfully, however, it was lunch time, and some of the counselors ran to Sebastian's and back. I watc...

Today was a good day. I woke up at 11 AM, sleeping in and out through extremely loud drilling occurring in the room next to mine. After getting up, I moved some A/V equipment back to Building 4, and then went over to W20 intending to head back to Baker when I bumped into some of the other counselors. As a group, we decided to collectively head to lunch at Sebastian's, which was a good decision. After a filling lunch for a very hungry me, we headed back to Baker. In Baker, I worked a little bit on whittling my to-do list down, and a little bit on formalizing my project work. This was vaguely effective, and I headed to a lab meeting to discuss it only to find out that it had been postponed, and then canceled. At the very least, I managed to get some imported Belgian chocolate out of it, so that was a nice reward. I worked in W20 for a little bit afterwards to prove that my idea from last year did not work. This was disappointing, but at least I finally knew it was true. Oh well. Re...

Today was an overall decent and, in general, very interesting day. I suppose I will be spoiling an event from RSI, but I think it's important for me to do so in order to discuss more broadly a variety of feelings I had today. After sleeping relatively "early" last night at around 2:30 AM, I managed to sleep for a ridiculous amount of time. Despite the fact that my blinds were up, and light was streaming through my windows throughout the day, I slept on and off for about 11 hours. This certainly does not make up for my sleep debt, but getting out of bed at 1:30 PM was certainly one of the best feelings I've had in a long while. I went to Barker with my laptop and a notebook, and ended up typing up some of my thoughts about RSI that I mentioned a while ago. They still need to be edited, but I didn't have to energy to do so at the moment. In fact, I noticed my focus wandering randomly, and I eventually figured that this was a result of not having eaten a signific...

Today was a pretty good day. I got up around 10:00 and headed on a brunch trip with two other staff and four kids. The brunch was pretty good, and then I spent some time in a piano room with some kids playing pieces from musicals. From there, I hung out with a bunch of the kids for a while in and around W20 before buying things for the event tonight. The event tonight went very well, and I enjoyed my part of the work as well as the kids' responses. No further detail will be provided, but it was late, and after that I had some meetings, bedcheck, dinner, and some talking and hanging out with other staff and students. It was kind of fun, although now I am sleepy and wondering when the other staff on the floor above me will actually go to sleep. Only time will tell, I suppose. I guess it's finally time to reflect on Presidential Scholars stuff . I went into Presidential Scholars not expecting much—the best of the best from some of these states felt like it would result in some...

Today was a long and relatively mediocre day, although it improved over time. After yesterday's blog, I packed and headed to the airport, having beaten the 24 hour mark for the first time. At this point, I started drifting in and out of consciousness, and this continued at the airport after security. At one point, I blacked out until around 9 AM. This was concerning because my flight was scheduled for around 8:30, and I panicked and headed to the desk only to find that my flight had been delayed. I sat around and waited for the delay to pass, sleeping for brief periods here and there until around 10, where delays continued, then eventually jumped and the flight was canceled. This immediately dashed any hope I had had about making it to camp in time to see some classes, but I re-booked onto a flight for later in the day, via LaGuardia. (I also threw up once during these interactions due to lack of food, which was really great.) These flights were also delayed due to weather, but, ...