• Four thousand word essay written in two days: check.
  (Actually I should be more precise: four thousand words of dribbly and incoherent stream-of-consciousness ranting, check.)
• Impressive Eagles win that I had to miss on account of said essay: check.
• Remaining alive despite having had about 30% of my RDSI (recommended daily sleep intake), due to several factors including said essay: check.
• Change of leadership in Japan that was supposed to confirm one of the points of my thesis, but has actually invalidated it: check.
• Leaving previous employer on account of being generally overworked: check.
• Confusing, horribly eventful, and altogether up-and-down birthday last week — from being surprised by Awesome Helen with cake, to being stressed over not completing stuff on my last afternoon at work, to catching up with other awesome people at lunch, to being forced out of the Social Sciences building by a fire alarm at 8.30 pm, to forgetting to do a bunch of crucial tasks, to ROFLing at Adam’s take on Monty Python: check.

Now with all that out of the way, I feel like I might actually get something done now!