Normal

For the first time in a long time, I actually feel normal. Of course normal by my standards means studying for the next in a masochistically long line of exams, killing eight hours a day staring at a screen not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing, and spending my weekend either by myself or with people from the baby boomer generation, if not older. But even by my loose definition, I've been feeling far from normal for some months now. My life is still just as full of holes as it always was, but for once I can at least think about trying to fill them.

This afternoon I played pétanque with the Alliance Française mob, up at Browns Bay. The weather was surprisingly hot. My new boules, which I'd recently bought for $21 off TradeMe, were running surprisingly hot too. We actually won one game by the score of 13-nil. Apparently French custom dictates that the players on the losing team must down their trousers when this happens, though thankfully this rule wasn't enforced!

I'm playing tennis for my club again tomorrow night. Inevitably I'll write about it here, and maybe even give some idea of what these exams are all about.