Extra! Extra!

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.

[Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray Love]

I'm going to Madrid tomorrow.

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about this.

I never really had Madrid as a "destination" in my head -

for places I wanted to see while abroad -

but, you know what?

I am SO excited about going!

I cannot wait for:

the tapas,

the sangria,

the Prado

the Temple of Debod

(yes, there is an ancient Egyptian temple in Madrid!)

the zoo

(yes I want to go to a zoo on vacation)

...and whatever else comes my way.

I am spending Sat night - Monday morning solo, and then Monday morning - Wednesday morning I have a friend coming from the states to visit me!

He works at an airport in the US - so this 3 day trip to Europe will cost him, oh, roughly $50 roundtrip; you can go ahead and be jealous (I know I am!).

School is going well,

almost have a chapter (20+ pages) of my thesis "done"

so that's something, right?

I'm trying really hard to find balance in my life these last few months over here. There cannot be only school-time, nor can there only me-time. There has to be a balance that exists in there somewhere that I can get work done and also go fencing and go to yoga. Maybe going fencing and going to yoga will make me more productive on the actual school working times? Who knows.