In some ways this is a week of goodbyes: lots of friends who graduated with me in the spring are now headed off to all sorts of places for more school, work, travel, and so on. Dalhousie, University of Calgary, Ottawa, Boston, Oxford, Berkeley, London, Istanbul, Senegal, all these places are lucky because of the Vancouverites they will be receiving soon.

I had lunch yesterday with two friends who are leaving this week for law school, one to Ottawa and the other to Calgary. It was surprisingly sweet. These were guys I'd only befriended in my final undergraduate year, and far more likely to get into a heated debate than any sort of sappy sentimentality, and yet we all maybe showed our soft sides a bit. We're all headed off to tackle new things this year, and all feeling a bit insecure about it, a bit afraid of what tomorrow will bring, and of not being able to meet it's challenges. I'm not usually one to admit when I'm feeling afraid or unsure (it scares the people around me) but in this case it was something we all had in common, and it was nice to get to let my guard down a bit. We parted with three or four hugs goodbye, countless assurances that "we're all smart enough, we can handle this" and so on, and one quickly quipped "Years from now we'll all laugh at this" which might have been the only thing that kept a tear from escaping. It's a scary prospect that. Did I make the right choice? Will I be good at this? Successful? Happy?

And most of my week will be goodbye like this, but I sure am glad to be seeing everyone before they leave. And tonight I'm having coffee with Milan, who doesn't leave for another month, so there. Also, I'm making a point of enjoying my last weeks of freedom before I get worked to the bone for the next year. Our downstairs neighbour took us to la casa gelato last night and I had a scoop each of german chocolate cake and maple walnut. mmmgluttony.

Headed up to campus someday soon, for the final pre-school round of paperwork and book selling. According to their website, I've got about $120 worth of books to sell to the bookstore, but those guys are such bastards, they only take the good stuff. Boring crap from British and Irish lit class or old French text? No. Old sucky computer science book? We don't know what you're talking about. But Tom King, Fred Wah, and Classics in Political Philosophy? Sure. Bloody evil bloodsucking monsters. I hate selling books, especially good ones. I really love my books, and I wish I could keep them all, but if I can't more afford to replace them in the future than I can to keep them now, then I'll have bigger concerns than being forced to badly paraphrase Tom's turtle story anyways.