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This week featured the first real snow day I've had in a long time. Dropping the normal Portland cold drizzle/mist for a while, Tuesday morning I got up to two or three inches on the ground. It didn't even occur to me that school would be cancelled, but there it was.

I went out to walk around the South Park Blocks and take a few pictures. I wasn't alone; I think 85% of the people in the park had cameras. A group had gathered around the statue of Lincoln to get shots of a seagull that was perched perfectly straight on top of Abe's head. One photographer scared him away, and that was that.

Manager: All right, settle down. We've got a lot to get through today. Reports?

Transition Guy: The transition from nerd in Beijing to nerd in Portland has been completed. I think we've got all the loose ends covered... [Shuffles papers] I mean, mostly, yeah.

[Team members grumble]

Transition Guy: There were complications, sure. I mean, this whole plan of going to lots more rock shows—there was no way to know that shows cost more money in the US, and that we'd have less time. I mean [sheepish grin] I know we missed Iron & Wine, but we saw Rachel's, yeah? And Deerhoof, and Kevin Blechdom! We've gotta get something for that. And you can#039t blame the transportation situation on me.

Driver: [Unshaven. Tie is already undone.] Hey! I said I was sorry! Besides, if you had gotten us a place off this damn hill we could have walked to the others.

When I woke up this morning, all of Marquam Hill was covered in fog; from the living room window I could see about fifty feet down to the house across street below. As the fog lifted, I could see what is now a familiar sight: mist rising from between the trees behind a small row of houses past SW Gaines Street. It looks the trees are on fire.

On Saturdays and a couple days during the week the Portland Farmer's Market is open on the Park blocks that run right through the center of campus. On my way to the library I passed asian pears, lots of pumpkins, fresh bread, cheese, and wine, and massive sweet potatoes that look like they had been cut out of solid earth.

From the window next to my table at the library I can see massive old trees that stretch higher than the five story building. The building is shaped in a semicircle around the largest, so the study tables seem focused towards it.

It's a good day.

One day of classes down, many more to go.

Tuesday was my first day of class as a graduate student, and at two in the afternoon I nervously edged in to Theory of Computation. I have to say, I've been incredibly anxious about the start of classes, and while I've made it safely through one day of classes, I'm not fully satisfied in my ability. It's not that I'm afraid my abilities are too low; it's more that I'm anxious that I've forgotten—or never learned—things that will be taken for granted by faculty and other students.

I know, of course, that this anxiousness is worthless. If I don't know it, I have to learn it. Anything that can be expressed in such a simple sentence must be simple, yes?