strangers in coffee shops.

An old man named Lloyd just presented me with a caricature of myself. It's surprisingly accurate with the most pronounced feature of my profile being my hunched back. I always say I'm going to work on my posture, and yet I continue to resemble that homely man from Notre Dame. I believe his name is Quasimodo, which reminds me of the chinchilla I was asked to care for years ago; he goes by the same name and got lost inside my couch once. I digress.

I paid Lloyd six dollars for this masterpiece.

I should have given him more but that's all he asked for and I don't have a job. After the exchange, he proceeded to tell me a series of jokes and show me some more of his art. Yes people, I talk to strangers, but only when they're old with long scraggly beards and proclaim themselves to be beatnik artists that hang out with Robert Redford drawing things like Albert Einstein birthing the theory of relativity...twas literally a doodle of Einstein himself with legs spread coming out of his head giving birth to E=MC2. (The big 2 is supposed to be a little one. You know that, but I don't know how to do that on my keyboard. But hey, I'm a Master now, so nothing else matters). It was perverse and perfect. I admired his creativity beyond his artistic talent. What a character. Or caricature, I suppose.

I'm entirely submerged in M.Ed-ness. It's terrible. Awful. Horrible. No good. My name's not Alexander but I can relate dude. We've been having these three hour peer reviews in which we discuss one of our peers' thesis. That's 12 hours of life. This doesn't include the time spent reading the piece and making thoughtful comments. This also doesn't include the time spent making pages upon pages of revisions to said document after is has been reviewed. Pure drudgery I tell ya.

The final draft is due Monday. And then we wait. We ever so patiently await the date of our M.Ed. exams. The exam that consists of a 45 minute conversation about your 80 page year long tale of inquiry into the lives of elementary aged children.

I just want it all to be overrrr!!!

The graduation festivities were epic. Memorable. Awkward. Uncomfortable. I won't get into it. But the families won't collide again until I get married...so we've got awhile.

And now off to hike into the sunset. Don't worry, I've got my headlamp.