Many people talk about the sacrifices you make as a grad student: social, financial, and years of your life spent in the library hunched over books. One I've noticed in me is my ability to write. I used to dabble some in poetry, and write essays some people loved just for their aesthetics. In grad school, however, you spend so much time worrying about the technical definitions of everything you don't have time for anything else. I just came back from a walk that took me along the lakeshore and saw lots of little things that a few years ago would have immediately caused me to pen a few lines. At one point I stopped, and tried to bring to mind a poem in my head. And there was nothing...no words, no imagery - just a vague sense of beauty that affected me, but that I could find no way to express.

And incidentally, AIM appears to be horrifically slow tonight.