Power Nap in the Library !

It's 2:28 AM and my Monday has already begun with a whimper. Just dozed off for what I thought was a few minutes but in fact was almost a half-hour in a sofa at the library.

I find myself here starting to work on a homework that is due tuesday morning, but needs to be ready for review with my study group at 9 PM tonight. That meeting will be right after a 6-9PM class which would have followed a 1:30-4:30 class which would have been preceded by a 12PM-1PM study group meeting. The latter class I am hopelessly behind on already, but next week is a 'catch-up' class and that's what I hope to do by then. All said, when I finally find myself a bed monday night I would have gone close to 40 hours straight without sleep. Not counting the aforementioned power nap of a few minutes ago.

It's not all work though. If it were, I'd be dead by now. Woke up this morning at 8 AM to a call from a credit card company, showered, and headed out to prepare for a study group meeting for a case for tomorrow's Commercializing Innovation class. The meeting lasted over 2.5 hours but it was very productive and we have what I think is a pretty solid report to hand in for class tomorrow and good talking points for the class discussion.

Stopped by to get some coffee on the way back to the I-House and got a call from my ex-roommate in Boston. Ended up talking for almost a half-hour and it was good. Also made me realize that I've reached that point in this experience where I am starting to miss Beantown. We talked about - we had to, really - baseball and I was getting an update on the final game of the season. Well, for a few days at least, Boston's coming to Chicago. The match-up of the Sox-es in the AL playoffs should be interesting.

Then I spent 3 hours of travel time to-and-from a dinner that lasted an hour-and-a-half ! Columbia College in downtown Chicago has an M.A. class where the students go out with their professor in groups to various ethnic restaurants to learn more about the food/culture/arts of the place and review them ! And, me being me, I just have to know someone in said class :) I had managed to finagle an invite to tonight's dinner as the 'date' of a friend, and it was a much-needed break. We went to a restaurant called Ethiopean Diamond and there were two highlights of the evening - one being the owner of the restaurant stopping by the table to talk about the history and settings of the art on the walls, said to have been painted by one of Ethiopia's greatest living artists. The second was being given, on arrival, a printed special menu for the meal personalized with my name on it ! how cool is that.

Long journey back via train and bus to the I-house around 11-ish and I walked over to the dining hall to see what was going on there. The dining hall at the I-house is a great place to meet other residents and also has a (i think) 60" projection TV. There was one guy watching the World Series of Poker and I started talking with him about it, and pretty soon the conversation had covered MIT's blackjack team, places to play chess in Hyde Park, and in Harvard Square, and ended with thoughts on kick-ing off a regular Poker Night. On my way out, I ran into 3 students of International Relations. There was this Irish lad whose mastery of trivia is fantabulous. Over games of foosball, I spent the next hour trying to answer his trivia questions ranging from capitals of the world(totally stumped at moldova) to which state other than W.Va had the name of another state in its name. This is one of the reasons why I decided to stay at the I-house - you get to meet so many interesting people with varied interests.

But, now, the fun is done and it's study time. I'm the only one in the library we have at the I-house and though there is no coffee around, the vending machines have been thoughtfully been stocked with Starbucks Double Shots and Amp energy drinks, and I have a bunch of dollar bills to destock the supplies.

Off I go now. Microeconomics beckons. Y'all have a nice Monday.