For a change, I was on campus in the middle of the day, late last week.

Usually, my campus visits are limited to classes (mostly at night), labs (also at night) or freak occurences (think along the lines of flash floods, or something else rare). But I needed extra lab time, and that was all I could get, so shortly after 10 AM on Friday I was strolling through campus, ipod in hand, tunes cranked, comfortably numb to my surroundings.

Stopping, waiting to cross a street, it hit me. A dose of melancholy, and a bit of longing, for the days when going to school was what I did. Day in, day out. Sure….I worked a small-time job all hrough my first year of university while I went to school full time, but after that, it was all downhill. Work outweighed school 10 to 1. When I was lying in bed at night trying to fall asleep, the likelihood that I was thinking about school was slim. Work? High.

Strange how things get altered when you get a “real” job. A job that requires you to think. A job you could call, ahem, a “career”. It changes everything. It changes the risks you are willing to take, and priorities. For years now (four at least), I’ve been more employee than student, more marketing than academic, more caught up in work politics and things to do than in heavy books about communication and music and the things I really enjoy.

Usually, I don’t miss it. Out of sight, out of mind. But on Friday, it was like the reason I went to university in the first place came back and hit me square in the face.

It is the crisp days of fall-not-quite-winter and the brisks walks across campus, the hours spent in the lab knowing it is still daylight outside, the presence of other students and new ideas in my life that make me sometimes wonder why I made the choices I did.

Oh, how I would love to be just a student, again.

I have been neglecting my writing lately because I am just too busy.

Max got adopted last weekend, just in case I haven’t mentioned it, so he’s gone to a new happy family, where, hopefully they like sharing everything.

We got two more kitties on Tuesday – Gryphon and Cleo. They’re dolls, but are sick, and sometimes a bit needy. As I write this, they are each underfoot. Gryphon is sleeping my lap while I balance my powerbook over top of him on both knees, and Cleo is perched on one knee, trying to decide whether she should go after my quickly typing fingers or the cursor on the screen.

As much work as they are, it is good to have a full house again.

Been up to a lot of stuff lately, but not much of anything at the same time. Went to see VEO and Elevator at the Black Sheep on Thursday. Elevator were good, though I got a migraine at the beginning of their set, and that just makes it difficult to enjoy much of anything. VEO were, um, interesting. I especially enjoyed the very subdued video of the farmers fields and manure piles. Classy stuff.

We also went to see Eleni Mandell on Friday. Great show. Just Eleni and her bassist, Ryan Feves, on his upright.

Saturday night we went to see “I (heart) Huckabees” which was marvelous. Better than we had hoped – especially since we didn’t know what it was about at all going into it.

Today, we went on the Haunted walk – after so many years of living in this city, it’s nice to finally get around to something touristy. Nice time, and I even won a prize! Bizarre…

A very good piece on undecided voters on a reasonably interesting site.