Только Ольга наверно знает!

Several good things have happened, but I'm only going to mention a few that really strike me:

- Banjo lessons have continued to happen, and are still fun and pretty relaxed. Apparently, all banjo songs have silly names, like "Old Joe Clark".
- On another musical note, I went over once to play viola with fencing coach L. and his daughter M., on the banjo and ukelele, respectively. I hope that we try again sometime when I'm more familiar with the songs and everyone is back in town - he'll be gone for the next month, and his daughter doesn't actually live there except to visit. He agreed to give me a bunch of Andrew Bird and Beirut and other stuff to listen to, which I finally got from him on Friday. I'm really excited about it, actually.
- Cabin in the Woods! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I liked it.
- Brave! Better than Cabin in the Woods, in my opinion. It was pretty and well-done and cute and centered around some awesome female characters.
- Mango cupcakes! I made some today, and they're tasty. A house near school had a box out in their yard full of mangoes for the taking - I guess that the tropical storm earlier in the week knocked off far more mangoes than they could eat.

The lab is okay...tedious sometimes, but I have gotten to take data on the calorimeter a few times. Soon, we'll have the cooling component installed so that it can also measure things at sub-ambient temperatures.

I think that I want to attempt a bike ride to the beach (and back) sometime in the next two weeks.

A recent discussion about queerness has made me want to write about asexuality and the queer community and how I personally relate to the queer label. I'm not sure if it'll actually happen, though - I've been mulling it over in my mind for a lot of today and I suspect that my thoughts boil down to a few basic concepts. For some reason, it feels like an interesting topic to discuss, though.

Yesterday, I went to the Farmer's market in the morning and even bought a few vegetables - squash, zucchini, mushrooms, an onion - for sauteing later. In the afternoon, I went to Target for baking supplies (sugars, spices, extracts, etc.) and a few staple food items. I was there for longer than I wanted to be, because I missed the bus back and had to wait another hour for the next one, but it turned out to be okay. I wandered into Michael's and read the final volume of Y: The Last Man while I was waiting.

And then...cookies! This recipe. A friend had given me a can of pumpkin earlier in the week that I wanted to use. There's still a half of the can left...so I might have to do more pumpkin-related baking in the next few days.



The picture was taken with my cell phone because that's all I have right now.

On Friday I biked to the library!  It was my first time doing so - I usually just drive, because it's easier and more convenient - but the experience as a whole was lovely.  It was about 40 minutes each way, but I didn't seem to get tired as long as I drank from my water bottle every so often.  I only wish that it had occurred to me earlier to get to the library this way.  Because I live in the suburbs of an expanding area, there are a lot of busy roads outside of my neighborhood that I was afraid to bike on, until I realized that most of the more intimidating ones have sidewalks.

I've also been trying to eat more healthily recently, which means balanced diets and portion control.  Truth be told, I'm already a fairly healthy eater, although I tend to snack more than I need to.  I also have a definite sweet tooth that I'm not trying to eradicate.  I'm way too fond of my cookies and cake and ice cream and chocolate for that, and see nothing wrong with treating myself to these types of things as long as they aren't the main part of my diet.

This sounds totally obvious, but it feels good when I do things like this that are good for me.