TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i can't believe it's friday. it's been one *cRaZy* week.

* monday: REU field trip... lots of fun... also 7+ hours blocked out of my day before i did anything else. :P
* tuesday: met students on campus in the morning... studied with baxter for his qualifying exam all afternoon
* wednesday: meeting for my 2nd job, and sticking around all afternoon to learn more of the ropes so i really CAN take over in august.
* thursday: misc studying on campus, writing a lecture, REU seminar, and other such fun.... and for my first break all week: i got a much needed haircut (first in 3 months), and ate pizza with leigh and sara.

summary: every day, running for at least 10 hours straight, in many different places... at least my life ain't boring!! :P

today is off to an interesting start... for as busy as i've been, it's better told from leigh's perspective.
leigh was home visiting family in TX for the past two weeks. she was supposed to fly from TX to NJ directly on wednesday afternoon. due to crazy storms, her 3 hour flight became a 12 hour flight with a several hour stall in washington dulles, and she arrived home exhausted and hungry (the plane had no food or drink either!) at 5am on thursday.

leigh spent all day unpacking and repacking... she's in MN for the next couple weeks for a canoe trip with colleen and others... then flying directly to maine to work at a math camp for the rest of the summer... she had stuff to package up to ship, stuff to pack for the canoe adventure, etc... all on no sleep. already a long day... she locked herself out of her car and i had to rescue her... she forgot to lock the house when she went out (so i guess there's balance in the world)... point is, she was exhausted.

*then*, last night happened.

leigh was supposed to fly out of newark airport (on the same airline as wednesday) at 10:30 am this morning. with all her ridiculous amounts of baggage, i was just going to drive her door to door, leaving our house at 8am. instead...

12:30am: i'm getting ready for bed, when leigh goes to online checkin for her flight and announces that it's cancelled.

1am: after being on hold with non-helpful employees for half an hour, leigh finds out that all flights from newark to chicago on her airline are cancelled for today... she can wait til saturday (not good for the canoe trip)... multitasking like crazy, leigh searches online and suggests to the airline phone people that she could fly out of any NYC airport and into any city within 100 miles of minneapolis/st. paul... she gets booked on a 8:30am flight out of laguardia.

1:05am: leigh announces her new schedule and says she doesn't want to put me out by making me drive all the way into the city... she'll struggle with her own bags gladly if i can get her to the local train station in time for the 4:15am train. i announce skepticism about the availability of connections from penn station (where our train comes into NYC) to laguardia.

1:30am: after 20 more minutes of research, leigh realizes that yes, she can get into manhattan but there's no good way from manhattan to laguardia that early in the morning (needing to arrive by 6:30) without just getting a cab. i offer to drive her, and she accepts, sad about putting me out.

4:30am: after 1.5 hours of sleep for me, and 45 minutes of sleep for leigh, we load the car, get hot drinks and a full tank of gas and head off

6:45am: after 2 hours of ridiculously stupid drivers on the BQE, i drop leigh off at laguardia

8:15am: after a slightly less stressful 1.5 hour return drive i come back home to crash

9am: i realize that i really can't sleep when it's light outside, so i'm destined to be awake and running on 1.5 hours of sleep all day... woot!

never fear, fun is coming... i have a meeting at noon, errands to run, etc.... but tonight i invited all the REU students over for board games and movies... i'm looking forward to it! (provided i really do stay awake and coherent that long!!!)

tomorrow, i don't care what happens, I'M SLEEPING IN!. so indeed... back to the title... THANK GOODNESS IT'S FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the end.