Since your correspondent last opened a window to post something from her life, it's been 2 weeks.

It's scary just how fast it goes.

• Valentine's Day was kept purposefully low-impact. It just seemed to have come very, very early this year, and neither of us was up for anything more elaborate than a nice meal at home, looking at a lovely bunch of cheap roses from the local market. Red and white, which made a rather eye-catching, energetic display.
• There was an interesting woman at aikido, who was accompanying her son. I gave her my phone number - she supposedly lives in the area with her husband (a Canadian/Philipino couple). Alas, she's not been in contact, and I think her son may have found the ju jitsu club more to his liking.
• As the semester has progressed, I've been reading and watching the news a lot less. A lot less - my RSS feeds are pathetically abandoned at this point, or I poke through one or two news sources before giving up. The mornings, if I'm good, have been going to homework. The evenings, I'd just as soon not read, but just go straight to sleep.
• After reading about davidlevine's adventures with listmaking, something crystalized in my own twisted brain (ouch, now there's a mixed metaphor...) and since then I've tried to keep atop my studies with a list. Mine's not the mind-mapping wonderfulness of his; however, even a table of several rows and a couple of columns, one per class/major area of activity, seems to have helped organize my thinking. However, it doesn't make the work go away - it only brings the tidal wave into sharper focus...
• A goofy aside on mind-mapping - for aikido, I have a blank book, for the days I'm not quite ready to be on the mat. I watch (mitori geiko, or literally learning by pulling with the eyes... God, I love this language!) and take notes. It's also the book I spend time coloring in when preparing for kyu exams - grouping related things together and using colored pens is very relaxing. Anyway, one of the dojo mates saw one of my kyu exam prep pages - it's quite a colorful double-page spread, and he instantly recognized the technique. Weird, the things we can share coming to light so unexpectedly.
• Despite my un-love of gardening, I may soon be talking myself into working as someone's helper. That's because two friends who are not well have recently had worse news (on the health front: more like a confirmation that the back problems one of them is suffering aren't going away any time soon...), and they have a lovely garden that's getting on to the spring-time. Originally, I was half-volunteering Mr Sweetie. Bad of me, I know; however, when time permits (that being the operative phrase), he was always the more enthusiastic gardener. On the other hand, I feel strongly enough that I'll go over to our friends' even if he's not available.
• I managed to knock a cold out before it really got going - it involved doing the thing most everyone says they should do, but often don't: staying home before it becomes a non-negotiable crisis. It was actually quite hard: I missed an aikido because of it, and I was pretty annoyed at that. But also figuring it was a necessity. And no luxury, since I spent the next day in recuperation mode. But the following day, I was in pretty good form. (Just in time for the spring-allergies, muttergrumble.) Still, in the end, even if I wasn't "that bad", I was doing stupid, stupid things, like constantly misplacing my pen while studying. Definitely a sign to stop, before the universe arranges something less... ignorable.
• The Evil Neighbors... have dug up the sidewalk on the side opposite ours. For some kind of under-road works. With lots of drilling and thumping (good for studying - not); I'm just hoping they'd hired people who actually knew what they were doing. At least no one hit a gas main, nor a water main, or any underground cables.