One glorious thing about the MIT experience is that I don't have classes on Friday. This is a godsend, since that day is therefore used for catching up on the avalanche of assigned readings. Another glorious thing is the existence of 'student holidays', which are referred to in-house as "suicide prevention days". Since I don't have classes today (Friday) nor on Monday (suicide prevention day), I'm taking the four-day weekend to fly back to Chicago to see my old friend Andy get married.

I'm very much looking forward to this, but the only cheap flight I could get by the time my schedule firmed up was the red-eye 5:45 flight. Which, of course, means I have to be at the airport at 4:45, so I have a taxi picking me up at 4:15AM. Given my usual bizarro sleeping habits, I decided that it was actually better to stay up all night and just sleep on the plane and then some more when I get into Chitown. So far, so good -- it's 2:45 AM and I've only got the occasional case of the yawns. By the time I finish packing, shower up and do a little tidying up around here I expect the cab will be here.

Ye gods, I hate going to bed when it's light out, but sometimes you have to take one for the team. Can't wait to see Caitlin and Talon and Sara and Andy and the whole crew! Alas, it doesn't look like I'll have much of a chance to see the rest of the Chicago crew on this trip – Kori, Ken, Jim, Kourtney, Andrew, etc. – but there will be other trips, I promise!