It IS Fall

It rained. It is raining. It will rain.

Yesterday night, all of today, and some of tomorrow. Water, water, everywhere.

Fall is here.

No, these are not supposed to be lines stuck together to form some stanzas; searching for discovery with words.

It's just indicative of how my mind is working of late -- sporadic, slow, momentarily excited, observational, but a little bored.

I am due to give a speech in less than 48 hours, yet I have not written it yet. Not that I don't have an idea, but my idea is ... "too big" ... or I have no confidence in my idea. I never have confidence in structured speeches. If the world ran on impromptu speeches and gave out awards for those, perhaps I would feel more justified to push myself.

Graduate school is interesting. May I say, for once, that I am finally feeling challenged in an academic setting; that I am actually learning new things. Half of the semester has not even passed yet, so this is progress for sure.

And Fall is here. I need to wear socks again; I need to slap on lotion religiously.

But for now, I don't care about all of the above. The following things have been on my mind. I can remember the last time I've had these:

Namaste!

Pure, ergonomic, uncompromising Italian luxury. You really need to know about the luxury set's best kept handbag secret. Please seek yourself some Valextra and tell Hermes to shove it.

Anna $ui for Target

You've heard rumours about it. It's was even rumoured to only be a rumour, but the collection debuted this weekend at New York's Spring 2010 Fashion Week, and on sale today at Target. It's here and looking pretty spiffy. Can someone just explain to me why the prices are way above the Target designer series price points?

Available online and at limited Target stores, so don't wait for a sale. Yeah, tell my bleeding wallet that.

First Week of School

I cracked open my first jar of Bonne Maman peach preserves this afternoon. I wonder what took me so long to give this stuff a try. Rows and rows of these have been staring me down in the grocery aisles for decades and it's not as if American supermarkets are filled with great jams/spreads/jellies to begin with.

What makes this French jar of fruit and pectin so good? I don't know. Maybe it's because it's not too sweet (I'm talking to you, Smuckers and Welch's!), not tasteless, those little bits of actual fruit, or the fact that it does not gel up or get hard after you take it out of the fridge. It's just really good. I'm not fussy about jams; good is good. So do American jams have any hope?

Actually, yes. American jams are pretty decent. I had originally gone back to the store to re-purchase a jar of Made-in-USA "peach butter", which is formulated to perfection. Then I made a beeline for the homely-looking Bonne Maman. But do try Braswell's of Georgia. Tell them I sent you. Bonne Maman vs Braswell's? It's a tie.

The first week of graduate school just ended. It didn't really occur to me that I was a grad student until after Wednesday's class. If there was one thing that was nudging me to stop mucking around, it was definitely my classmates. They were all so ... serious ... and this is beyond the fact that they weren't very much older or younger than I am. Everyone behaved as if they had enlisted in the army. It felt like I was sitting in a room full of Type As. In fact, we had three bankers in there pitching their wares. Welcome to grad school.

Fortunately, I'm looking forward to a productive semester. My professor appears to be one with a big personality and wisdom to offer. I assume his national and European awards aren't for nothing.

Happy Labour Day

I've been labouring a lot for the weekend, spending the last 72 hours in three different types of campus orientation programs for graduate assistants, international, and graduate students. Needless to say, every time I think I might be an extrovert, my introvert really kicks in in super large (community imposed) crowds. It's time for a re-evaluation of my Myers Briggs personality type.

I deserve the day off today. I shared a lot of oxygen with a lot of people for the past few days.

Happy barbecue-ing, people. Let's hope it doesn't rain.