I feel like there\’s some metal ring around my head that keeps getting smaller and smaller. Sigh, the consequences of getting sick.

I have a presentation that I need to do in class tomorrow. It should be easy, EXCEPT that I lost my voice. I e-mailed the GSI about me being sick, but he wouldn\’t let me change my presentation date to Wednesday.

Many things I did not accomplish this Thanksgiving break! Namely, the letter, my two projects, my 26 things. Oddly enough, the most I have accomplished this break is the nanowrimo.

A few weeks ago after having a successful meeting with a graduate student, I came out of Soda Hall and a woman ask for directions to the Haas Business School. I told her that I was just happened to go that way (actually it was slightly out of the way for me) and asked her if she would like to walk with me. She gladly obliged. She was dressed in formal attire-a business suit, but she seemed ruffled. I admitted to her that I had difficulty finding the school my first year at Berkeley. I asked her if she was a professor. Indeed, she was…a economics professor from the University of Technology in Sydney. She was in Berkeley to do research and was going to Chicago later that week to attend a conference. One striking thing she asked me after we had five minutes of conversation was that she asked whether I was Japanese. Because she was pleasant, I didn\’t snap back as I would have. I said simply that I was American and was born near Berkeley. And that my ethnicity was Chinese. As we continued, we made pleasant chat, me talking about my major and my intentions for graduate school. Then we finally arrived at the Haas business school. She seemed so grateful for my help. To my surprise, she handed me her business card and told me to drop by the University in Sydney if I was ever around. And to tell her that I was the one who helped her through the UC Berkeley campus. I walked off, knowing that I would probably never meet her again, sort of sad that I was not an econ major…but knowing that I had made her day.

EDIT: i finished the nanowrimo! 50,088 words! The majority of what I wrote was in my feverish haze this morning at 7 am. That is, 50088 words of…CRAP. If you really want to read my \”novel\”, then let me personally know. It\’s over 400k in Word.