[ edmondchang.com ]

JANUARY IS ALMOST DONE. Where has the time gone? I cannot believe that we’re already a month into the new year. My awareness of the the passage of time seems heightened these days. It’s because of the dissertation. Or more accurately because of the fact that I have not done enough work on the dissertation. Every day that goes by, every week that goes by, and every month that goes by is a reminder of how much time I have wasted, how much time I have let slip through my hands, and how much time I have been stuck in my process. It has been over a quarter since my meeting with my dissertation advisor. I have done some reading hear and there. I have done some free writing here and there. But when it comes to any kind of substantive, structured, even-near-well-articulated writing, I have little to show for the last three or four months. It’s disheartening, even as I understand that this is all part of the process.

I know that everything that I have been doing, even the down time, is all part of the preparation for the next chapter, the next steps, and finishing. It’s all up in my head. And it’s swishing around. And there are moments, mere glimpses, usually when I’m doing nothing in particular — like washing the dishes or riding the bus home — where I see an idea coming together. But it’s nascent. And I really have nothing to put down on paper, although I might try. So, I sense that work is being done one some subconscious, unconscious level. I hope from simplicity comes complexity. The writing will emerge like Athena from my brow. That is not to say, of course, that I am just going to wait around for it to happen. I keep fiddling, I keep scribbling, I keep reading, and I keep agonizing. (Alas, it’s much more of the latter than the former these days.)

It doesn’t help that the past few weeks have been unusually full and volatile. A lot has been happening — fortunately not to me directly — but to people around me, people close to me. Jane, my roomie and fellow dissertating grad, suffered two tragedies in a row (her best friend’s mother passed away and her beloved dog Thor died, both quite suddenly). It’s been an tough few weeks for Jane and for me. Then my friend Rebecca’s favorite riding horse, the one she learned to ride on as a child, died. Then my friend Jason’s father passed away. It’s been an incredible confluence of extremely high emotions for all involved.

Life has just been busy, full of the odds and ends that seem small and manageable on their own but when grossed together make troubling logjams in the flow if things. For example, I usually have Monday, Wednesday, and Friday off this quarter. I only have to be on campus on Tuesday and Thursday during the week. But I have had to go in on my off days to help cover Jane or Jason’s classes. Or I have a meeting for one group or another. Or I have to take care of some detail like returning a recalled library book or dropping off a letter of recommendation to a student. In of themselves, they don’t take up a lot of time. But combined with my daily duties of teaching and life, the hours just get whittled and whiled away.

To be honest, I have whittled and whiled time away doing nothing but procrastinating, too. Procrastination is the number one coping mechanism for PhDepression. Some of that procrastination takes the form of other kinds of work — like working on teaching stuff or cleaning up the apartment or trying to have a life — but some of that procrastination is simply time to turn the brain off (or try to anyway) and just be. I have watched a lot of television. It doesn’t help that Jane is also going through the same kinds of PhDepression pains. We simply park ourselves in front of the TV and just let the day go. Lately, the LOGO channel has been showing random episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s a decidely happy distraction. I am tempted to buy the whole series on DVD so we can watch it from beginning to end.

Some of the “fun” time has been really helpful and even therapeutic. I have managed to put together a Tellings gaming group. I have six players gathered from school and friends, a mixture of new and old, and it seems to be going well. My friend Josh, who played with me when I lived in San Francisco, and his friend Andrea are playing. My friend Curtis and new friend Michael from grad school are playing. My former student Rebecca, who has taken four classes with me including my tabletop RPG and LARP classes, is playing. And, lastly, Greg, my partner, is playing. We have been playing for a couple of months now, and I am happy. In fact, Curtis has mentioned to me that I seem happier and more outgoing. I knew that gaming was an important outlet for me for my creativity, imagination, and extroversion. It’s sad that it’s taken me nearly five years to get a group going here. But better late than never.

Overall, the same formula has been holding true: life = pretty good / dissertation = death. Hopefully, the next month will be better in both regards. More soon.

HERE ARE SOME PICTURES FROM THANKSGIVING. I really haven’t had much time to update my site at all. It’s a shame really. Suffice it to say that a lot probably did happen last month, but I did not have time or energy to write it down. Maybe I’ll have better luck this month. Probably not.

More soon. Maybe. Maybe not.

RETURNED. It’s been over three long months since I have written anything here: I have been away. More mentally, emotionally, and intellectually than physically or geographically. It seems like a gulf of time between now and then, between the start of fall and the end of spring. I cannot believe that I left my site, my blog for so long. I think this is probably one of the longest hiatuses in the history of my site. I don’t know why it happened exactly. I know that it was partly due to the fact that I wanted to try migrating the site over to an actual blog platform like WordPress. (I didn’t like any of the templates. And I don’t really have the time or the energy to learn how to build a template.) But the majority of why I haven’t been writing is because I have been writing — anything — at all. Writing right now has been a bit of a curse. I feel like I’m more than just blocked. I’m all mixed up and paralyzed right now. My dissertation has come to a dead stall. And because I’m stuck there I’m stuck in all of my other creative, expressive endeavors. I suffer and so my blog suffers.Fortunately, some instinct for self-preservation and self-motivation and self-creation takes over after any extended period of “blah,” and I start nudging my way back into working, writing, growing, and changing. It’s still just a trickle. But some progress is better than nothing. It’s all about finding the rhythm, the routine agian. I hope that if I can get back on the horse with these personal projects, which are really low stakes, then I can find some confidence and energy for my academic and scholarly projects.

Here’s to a promising start: I decided that I will keep on keeping on with my site until I actually can find a blog platform that I am happy with. And in the spirit of starting fresh, I have updated the site’s color scheme. It’s bold, deep, sharp, and strangely in line with the mood of my current days. I like it. We’ll see how long it lasts. In the meantime, here’s a hasty recap of months missing:

MAY

I really can’t believe that it’s been so long since I last wrote. My last entries were back in May, back around my birthday. And then that was it. Radio silence. Suffice it to say a lot has happened since then. Again, some of the sudden hiatus can also be attributed to the fact that the end of last quarter was a really busy, really stressful time for me. I had a major deadline of turning in a draft of at least one of my dissertation chapters in order to meet the normative time deadline for funding. I am sure I went over this, but basically, I came into the program with four years of guaranteed funding. Normally, it is five but I came in with my master’s. And even though I have only been at UW four years, I am considered a “fifth year” because of my MA degree. Anyway, this past school year was my last year of funding. The upcoming year, as a “sixth year,” I would be put into a pool of those needing funding. Throw in the financial crisis, massive state budget cuts, and a dwindling appreciation for humanities programs and what you’ve got left is a lot of grad students scurrying and scrounging for money. So, to try to make things “fair,” the department installed normative time deadlines for completing certain degree milestones like taking exams, prospectus approval, and dissertation chapters. In order for me to be competative (something I hate needing to have to worry about), I needed to get a draft done at the very least.

JUNE

The quarter ended in the first week of June. I got my chapter draft in before the deadline. It’s a total mess and needs a lot of work. I literally cobbled together a bunch of different ideas, readings, pieces of past papers, and attempted to frame its wanton unruliness. I think there is some merit to what I wrote. I like some parts. I like some ideas. But it’s far from being a “done” chapter. I also wrapped up my high school novel class. I had some really good students, but overall, I think the class could have been a lot more engaging and interesting. Teaching literature at eight o’clock in the morning and trying to get kids to let go of their high school preconceptions and prejudices was difficult. I still had a good time. I still thought it was a good idea. And I got a lot out of the experience, which is success in my book.

The end of term also brought a cavalcade of university functions and obligations. I mean it wasn’t bad. Just busy and tiring. I was honored by the University for my Excellence in Teaching Award (here’s the official write-up). First, I attended a luncheon held by the school for teaching award recipients and members of the award committee. Then, I attended the actual university-wide recognition ceremony where I got a fancy framed certificate and a medal! If you want to see Provost Phyllis Wise give me my award, click here.

Finally, I was invited by the Department of English to speak at graduation. It was a great honor. At first I wasn’t going to do it, but my department chair thought I should. How can you say no to that? So, I got to dress up in regalia. I got to sit up on the stage with all of the professors. And I was the first guest speaker. I only had five minutes or so. So, I kept things really simple. The first part was sentimental: I told the students that they needed to make sure they continued to be curious about the world aroudn them. The second part was practical: I advised them that no matter what they wrote, no matter what job they had, they had to read everything out loud. Then I proceeded to tell my number one best student error story. I had a student once who wrote a paper about the disposal of nuclear waste in the US, whether it should be disposed of in a centralized facility or remain decentralized. There was a quote in their paper that was supposed to read: “Nuclear waste spread across the US is like dirty socks strewn about a bachelor’s apartment.” Unfortunately, what they actually typed was: “Nuclear waste spread across the US is like dirty cocks strewn about a bachelor’s apartment” (my emphasis). This got a lot of uncomfortable laughs. But I immediately followed up with: “I wrote in the margins, ‘OH, MY GOD!’” And that got them laughing. All in all, it was a success. People kept coming up to me afterward saying how much they enjoyed my speech. (There was report of one complaint from a parent who did not find the story appropriate for public.) It was one of the hardest things I’ve done — and I’m usually comfortable speaking in front of audiences — mainly because it was in front of like a thousand people and I didn’t want to fuck up people’s graduation experiences.

JULY

The bulk of July was spent prepping for and teaching ENGL 108 for Summer LEAP, a live-learn transition program for incoming freshmen athletes. I’ve been with the program for several years. This was my second year teaching, co-teaching with my friend and roommate, Jane. And like previous years, it is really fun, really tiring, and really challenging. I always have a blast; I always feel like I’m learning how to be a better teacher. And I really like working with this particular population of students. The four weeks were intense and intensive. We taught every day. We usually had grading every night. And on Fridays, we would take the students on field trips into the city. It’s pretty much all I did for the entire month.

AUGUST

Much of August was spent recovering from July. Much of August was spent trying to get back into dissertation mode. And much of August was spent just wallowing, stressing out, trying to not let the “PhDepression” wipe me out completely.

To be fair, my life and my world are generally pretty good: I have had a very full and productive (in different ways) summer, I am in a great relationship with Greg, my social life is generally cool (I think in part because I really don’t worry about it as much as I used to), I got to visit with my sister a little when she came up for a visit, I am still doing my best to exercise and eat well, I am still playing World of Warcraft, and I adopted a cat.

Pigeon is technically my friend Jamie’s cat. Jamie needed to find a new home for Pigeon. So, Jane and I decided that we’d foster her (indefinitely). She’s a very sweet, very playful, very vocal, and sometimes very needy little furball. But she’s added some life and energy to the apartment. And she’s offers companionship and comfort to both of us.

So, the general state of things is fine. But, alas, as with most things when it comes to graduate school, the dissertation has really got me down. Like I said, though, I’ll figure it out. I mean I want to quit every single day. I keep thinking that there’s got to be better things to do, easier things to do. I am half-tempted to just find a fun job and live out my life. But I know that I really do want to finish the degree, close this chapter, and hopefully make it as a professor. I am hoping that the school year will give me some structure back to my hours, days, and weeks. It’s really nice to have all of this “free” time, but I tend to just feel anxious, feel guilty that I’m not producing, or just feel disappointed and depressed. So, with the new school year, I’ll have things to work around, things to distract me, things to cheer me up. I hope.

That’s it in a nutshell. More soon. I promise.

EDSTRAVAGANZA CONTINUES. Yesterday was a long, long day. I got up way too early after a night of a lot of birthday drinks at the College Inn. I had to go to campus for the Queer Worlds: The Will to Institutionality symposium. I had promised my students that I would be there and they could attend for participation extra credit. So, I had to go. It was interesting, good, but boy was I in bad shape. The rest of the day was spent recovering and getting ready for the evening’s festivities: Day Two of EDstravaganza! I decided to invite people for drinks at the Satellite Lounge (1118 E. Pike Street @ 11th), which isn’t a great bar but it’s spacious, usually not crowded, has a good jukebox, and the drinks are reasonable. It was a nice mix of people–school friends, nonschool friends, extended friends, some of Greg’s friends–and a lovely time was had. I had many birthday shots of Patron.

Then some of us wandered over to the Madison Pub (1315 E Madison St @ 13th) for nightcaps.

Thanks to all of my friends, “family,” and adorers (new and old) for a really nice, relaxed, convivial, and cheerful night! I had a good time. Today, EDstravaganza continues with brunch and then a double feature: Star Trek and Wolverine. Then sushi for dinner.

EDstravaganza next year is a big one! The big 4-0! I need to start planning now. I’m thinking maybe a birthday cruise.

EDSTRAVAGANZA HAS BEGUN. My birthday celebrations started last night at grad pub at the College Inn Pub. Birthday car bombs, it seems, were in order last night. Yummy, but so bad for the next day. I am a little more than feeling it this morning, and I have to head to campus for a day long symposium. Happy birthday to me!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEETHEART, my babe, my Greg. It’s been a big year for you. A lot has happened since your last birthday. And I’m really happy I get to celebrate this one with you. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday! Much love, many hugs, many kisses, and lots of birthday wishes!

We had a good weekend past, actually. From Thursday through Saturday, we popped down to San Francisco for a short trip. I wanted to see my sister and to get out of dodge for a bit. We left really early Thursday morning, flew Virgin America for the first time (it was swank), and stayed at the Hotel Triton again. I had to cut my winter quarter short by a day so I could go to SF to present a paper and have a mini-vacation. I put together a panel called “Save Points: Gaming as Writing, Production, and Play in the Contact Zone” for the Conference on College Composition and Communication (otherwise known as the 4Cs or just Cs). My friend Jamie Bono from University of Pittsburgh and my sister, Alenda Chang, were part of the panel. It went really well. I did my whole “Gaming as Writing” thing. Jamie presented a paper on alternate reality gaming. And Alenda showed a short film of hers called “Confessions of a Woman Gamer” and talked about game design. I thought we were going to have a small audience given that our time slot was Thursday afternoon from 4:45 to 6:00 PM, right when everyone wants to go to dinner or go out or in our case go to the Bedford/St. Martin’s gala.

It seems every year as part of Cs, Bedford/St. Martin throws a huge schmoozefest for conferencees. This year they rented out San Francisco’s city hall for two hours of eating, drinking, boozing, and networking. It was awesome. I met some new peoples, other grad students into video game studies. I ran into other grad students from UW. And I ran into the illustrious Geoffrey Sirc, who came to my panel and who continues to treat me with grace and respect. I did feel a little like a dabbler, an interloper, a poser since I am not in rhetoric/composition. But as I say in my teaching portfolio, I am interested in pedagogy, in teaching reading and writing, and in rhetoric. The party was a lot of fun. I left stuffed full of food (which was decent, though every time I go to a catered event I always think about Top Chef catering challenges) and full of liquor.

After the party (Alenda went home, Jamie moved on to another publisher’s party), Greg and I wanted to go out and see the gays. So, we went to the Castro, met up with one of my sister’s grad friends, drank, chatted, and then ended up meeting up with another Berkeley grad at one of the diviest gay bars in SF: Aunt Charlie’s (133 Turk Street @ Taylor). As soon as we got there, I was like, “Everyone here looks like a Seattle hipster…except they’re actually gay.” By that time, I was already several sheets to the wind. And I got one of the strongest drinks I’ve ever had. So strong, in fact, that I could barely drink it (even at Greg’s constant insistence). Hilarious. Fun. Blurry. And the walk home through the Tenderloin was fun, too.

Alas, sleeping in was not on the menu the next morning. At roughly 9 AM, the hotel’s fire alarm went off. And kept going off. We had to drag ourselves out of bed, get dressed, trundle down the stairs from the fourth floor, and head out of the buildling. At first, we thought it was a drill or some sort of disaster simulation. Five fire engines showed up. There was a lot of running to and fro, dragging equipment and hoses and ladders. But no one seemed to be freaked out. It turns out there was a fire on the fifth floor. The firemen dragged out a half-burned, totally soaked bed, linens, and headboard. Either someone was smoking in bed (dumbasses) or left the iron on or something. Luckily, no one was hurt. It was a mild inconvenience (though the hotel did not give us a discount or anything). But it was really interesting to watch the whole process.

Friday day, Alenda, Brian, Greg, and I went down the coast. Alenda and Brian drove us to Pescadero, CA, a little town south of San Francisco. We went there for lunch at Duarte’s Tavern. It’s a strange little place: part diner, part bar, part restaurant, part saloon, part tourist attraction. It’s known for artichoke soup, which we did not have sadly. It was tasty. The seafood was good. Greg and I tried a calamari steak sandwich — basically two squares of battered and fried calamari sort of po-boy style — which was yummy. Then we went to the nearby beach. It was super windy, foggy, and the tide was rolling in. There were tide pools with fish and sea anemones, mussell covered rocks, and pelicans. I love, love, love the ocean. It was a nice little day trip.

Friday night, we went out in the Castro again. This time Alenda and Brian and a bunch of Alenda’s grad friends came out, too. We went to Moby Dick. Again, more drinking. It’s actually the first time that I’ve seen my sister really drunk. Hilarious. Gregarious. And fun. Fortunately, we didn’t stay out too too late. Greg and I had some late night pizza and headed back to the hotel.

Saturday morning was all about getting packed up, getting some brunch, and meeting up with my sister to go to the SF MOMA. It turns out that morning was the St. Patrick’s Day parade in SF. It hadn’t started by the time we were up and about. But Market Street was closed and there were lots of people walking around in green. We skipped the parade to go to food and museum. We met up with my sister at the Powell Street BART station and then walked to eat. We had brunch at a little place in SoMa called Triptych, which was pretty yummy. I had really wanted to go to Absinthe, Jamie from Top Chef’s restaurant, but there were no reservations available. After brunch, we went to the MOMA. We only had a couple of hours before Greg and I had to head to the airport. So the walk through the museum was fast but really neat. Then it was goodbye to my sister, goodbye to the City, and back to the rain and chill of Seattle.

I love SF. I miss SF. There will be another trip there soon, I’m sure.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY VERY TALENTED FRIEND, KEVIN. Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!In other news, video games class got written up in the UW Daily student newspaper. The story is by a former student of mine and features classes about video game studies at the school and the Critical Gaming Project @ UW.

FIRST OF ALL, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FRIEND JEFF!  I hope he is well and has a great day. Second of all, Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! And third of all, Happy Inauguration Eve!  (I’m sure the poetics of the inauguration of Barack Obama falling so close to MLK Day will not be lost, even though such logics bespeak of certain racialized — if not racist — hopes and desires and guilt.  But, let me be positive and “yes we can”-y for now.)

In other important, national news, it’s been about a week since I finished my course of antibiotics.  Moxifloxicin.  What a great name. I think I should name my next cat Moxiflox or Moxifloxi.  I definitely feel better.  I no longer feel like I’ve been dragged through the sewers.  Fever is gone.  Aches are gone.  General well-being is up.  Energy is returning.  But, I am still resting and recovering and healing. I still have a little bit of a cough, which thanks to an inhaler is lessening each day.  And I still can’t really exert myself too much.  I get tired fast and out of breath fast still.

I went back to work last week.  I taught Monday through Thursday.  It’s been really good to go back to my routine and back into the classroom.  I was feeling bad for having to cancel the first week of classes.  And I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to get caught up. But things are moving along swimmingly. I think we’re back on track.  Though, I must admit that I have never taught this class before, and I am learning as much as my students are about how to structure things, about the readings and the game texts, and about what it means to study, do, use, analyze, and understand “cultural studies.”  I’ve framed my class with the idea that we’ll look at certain cultural studies terms, ideas, interventions, and keywords as we dive into “virtual world” and “video game” texts. In other words, the games we play and the texts we explore become the occasions for thinking about cultural studies perspectives and methodologies. But the class is set up so that we’re thinking about the texts first, then linking them up to the cultural studies second.  It’s inductive, but I think productive.

The first part of last week, I just went in to school (early since I go in with Jane, who teaches at 8:30 AM, and I teach at 9:30 AM), taught, and then went home. Walking across campus was more tiring than I expected.  On Thursday of last week, I decided to see if I could do a full day.  I went in, taught, had office hours, had lunch, hung out, had collegial hours in the afternoon, then went to pub. By the end of the day, I was exhausted.  There is something qualitatively different about sitting at home and resting (or “doing nothing”) and sitting in my office or on campus resting and “doing nothing.”  I think it’s because at school I am always “on” and talking to students, talking to people, watching my behavior, doing work, thinking about work, being extroverted, and such.

Thursday was also an emotional day because Greg got laid off from work.  I was on chat around lunch time, and he told me that he had just lost his job. He called me shortly thereafter to tell me what happened.  Basically, his company was downsizing.  In his workgroup, he and one another senior person got laid off.  It’s all about saving money, right?  Why pay a senior employee’s salary when you can pay someone much less to do the same job? I think it was a shock to him (though he had a feeling the week before about it).  It was definitely a shock to me. I thought he was safe given that he worked on key projects and applications for his company. I could tell he was shaken. He’s in good shape, though. He’s got a generous severance package, and his company is bending over backwards to make the “transition” a good one. Of course, this doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck to get dumped. Greg met up with me at the pub.  We talked. He talked. He commiserated. He vented. I think it was good for him to get out.  And I think this can be a good opportunity for him if he’s creative, proactive, graceful, and patient.  He needs to not take it personally, though.  He’ll be okay.  He’ll be more than okay. Besides, he’s got good friends, good contacts, lots of experience, family, and me.

The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent just hanging out, decompressing, and doing more of the “resting” thing. Friday night, one of Greg’s (former) coworkers had a little gathering at her fancy house on the coast of western Magnolia.  It was way out there. The party was “German sausage” themed.  Basically, they served different sausages, sauerkraut, pretzels, and German beer and sweets.  I brought the fixings for my almost world famous “ginger cape cods,” which I should name “Tina Louises” or “Ginger Grants.”  The party was okay. I was really tired.  And I really didn’t know anyone there.  Plus it was mostly “grown up” types, I guess, consisting of couples and professional world people and such. Even though most of these people are in my age group, I don’t feel like I am in their circles and leagues. I’m fine with that, actually, but it makes for awkward conversations. I had a nice time and am glad that I can hang out with Greg and his friends. But afterward it was nice to go home, be quiet, and sleep.

Greg got World of Warcraft as a holiday present from his mom.  So, he’s been slowly learning how to play the game.  We spent the weekend playing together.  He made a Draenei warrior named Missoula.  I made a Draenei shaman named Ocoro.  In just a few days, we’ve hit level 12.  He’s still getting used to everything.  There’s a lot to take in in WoW and a lot to learn how to do.  But it’s been fun, diverting, and distracting.  I think I get a little bossy, though, because much of the game is second nature to me.  It’s been a really long time since I’ve met a completely new player to WoW.  But Greg’s bright and just by playing around he’ll get it in no time.  Interestingly, I bet a number of my students taking my class will also be WoW newbies, and I’ll have to try to find ways to ease them into the game. I think, though, that part of the challenge of learning a game is part of the fun (or can be part of the fun, I should say).

Saturday was spent mostly hanging out and playing WoW.  Then we went to see Slumdog Millionaire, which was good but a little rougher than I expected. I also expect the current hype surrounding the movie might do well to be filtered through a little bit of Edward Said.  Moreover, the “feel good movie”- and “triumph of the human spirit”-ness of the film does little to stray from conventional narratives about rugged individualism, the “American Dream” or better yet the “Capitalist Dream,” and idealized romantic love.  That said, I think there are things about the film that are brilliant.  I particularly like the actors of the first third of the film; the kids are amazing.  The images of the city are staggering and dense.  And I love the music, particularly M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” remix and A. R. Rahman’s “Jai Ho” used in the closing credits. I would have liked a little more commentary on issues like class, race, religion, and such. But I very much liked it and recommend it.

Sunday was spent hanging out some more. Greg and I did head up to Alderwood to check out the Circuit City ”going out of business” sale — which alas was not really a sale and the quality of the store seriously bespoke of why the company was bell up. I did pick up a few things, but for the most part the sale prices couldn’t beat Amazon’s regular prices or Best Buy’s prices or even Target’s everyday prices. After Circuit “Shitty,” we hit up our favorite gay-for-pay store, Target.  We went there mostly for household sundries, but I did manage to pick up a couple of really good deals on an orange hoodie, a shirt, and a vest (though I think I’m going to have to take the vest back because everyone says it makes me look like I’m trying to be a gangster).  The rest of Sunday was spent WoWing.

Now, it’s Monday.  A day off.  And I’m trying to get caught up with some little projects here and there.  That’s about it.  Hopefully, it’ll be a good week and a good rest of the month.  Chinese New Year is next Monday.  I hope for a better new year than the one I just had.  More soon.