Wow.

This past week or so (or half-month or so) has been quite intense, and frankly, I´ve been a complete stressball, which I don´t turn into frequently, nor do I like at all.

Friday was my last day of work. I was trying to complete a rather ambitious project that ultimately ended up incomplete, although mostly not due to my lacking, but rather because of unfulfilled dependencies (Although there are scenarios that could have played out where I actually did fulfill completion so there are some lessons learned). I have very mixed feelings about the internship that I did, but all in all, it was a positive experience where I learned many things that I didn´t know before, and I met some really interesting people (although I do contend that I could have learned the things I wanted to learn in much more pleasant ways). I do know that I absolutely abhor wearing ties to work. Who wants to strangle themselves on a daily basis?

Tonight was my Quartet concert. That went as well as could be expected (maybe better than could be expected). I didn´t get the "just-finished-performing high" like I usually did after performing - maybe it´s because I´m already completely exhausted and beat-down, but I think it´s because the experience was more us trying keep the piece together and not falling apart rather than the focus being crafting music and communicating it. This, in turn was because my imminent move out of DC necessitated an un-idealy timed performance. We were really only about half-way to where I normally would have liked to be for a performance. All that being said, I think we played well, had an engaging performance, and I think the audience got something out of it.

So, the last bit that has kept me a stressball is this moving out of DC bit. Since I´ve been focusing so hard on finishing work and getting the Quartet together, Amy´s been doing most of the moveout preperation (Thank you amy!) I´ve been trying to help out where and when i can, but I just haven´t been able to do that much.

I guess either one of these three things are enough to make someone frazzled. Anyways, now that the work and the quartet are completely out of the way I´m much more at ease. I´ve pushed the move-out date back a day, so that´s even better for my sense of well-being. Amy and I, over tea and Cosi S´mores, started looking at different things to do in Hawaii. It´s going to be a great trip. I´m going to miss her a lot :(.
I´ve been meaning to do this for a while, but I´m going to start writing entries in Chinese (and eventually work my way up into doing it 50/50). I´ve wanted to do this in order to practice composing thoughts and writing in Chinese, to help improve my writing ability, especially since I´ll have to be writing papers in Chinese this coming year. In any case, I hope nobody feels alienated by not being able to read these entries (if you want, I can translate the entries too)

以后我想开始用中文写一些这样的网点文章。这是所以我可以联系我的写作才能。如果我有什么写的错，我请你们帮我改变。谢谢！

[apparently I can get this stuff to publish correctly, yet, but this is forthcoming]