Lots of ups and downs over the past few days.

Down: Wednesday I wasn't feeling well. A bit of a fever and headache. Nothing I couldn't work through just fine, but some people advised me that those symptoms are exactly the kind of thing that's contagious, so I took Thursday off.

Up: I felt fine most of Thursday. A little tired, and I had a headache in the afternoon, but no worse than usual on a day when I don't have coffee in the morning. Got some stuff done during the day while still relaxing.

Down: As soon as I came in Friday morning, I learned that a meeting I missed Thursday was more important than I had expected. Someone wanted something big from me that came out of left field, three different supervisors (his and both of mine) had got involved, there were a number of problems, etc. By the end of the day I figured out that it (probably) would have been no big deal if I had been there, but since I wasn't it seemed bigger than it was and became bigger than it would have been.

Up: I'm grateful to Shane because he got me into using meetup.com, albeit unintentionally. I joined a French conversation group, and Friday night I went to a dinner/dancing thing. It was fun. Chatted with some nice people, including a cute girl. She saw me smoking and I got the impression it was a turn-off for her, but I didn't get her number so I'll have to hope to find her again at a future event and in the meantime there's no point worrying about the impression I made. But, fine, even if she never comes to another meetup event and/or if she was turned off, the night was still a victory: the organizers gave me a bottle of wine because I was the only person for whom this was my first meetup event with the group (well, it wasn't my first, although I didn't realize that until afterwards. And I know there were newcomers there besides me, but I guess I was the only one willing to stand up in the spotlight and say that it was my first time). It's cool because even though I didn't wind up with a date or something, I still got something great out of a night out like that. I'll try to remember to make another post about this in more detail.

Up: played Magic again for the first time since moving down here, via another meetup group. Fun. Bringing at least some of my cards down here with me the next time I visit my parents just became more important. I only have two decks with me, only one of which is any good, a binder of rares, and some assorted cards I bought in booster packs. None of the above matters if I mainly play Draft and Limited, which I think is the most likely, but on the occasions when the format is casual it would be nice to have more than two decks to choose from.

Up: my roommates and their girlfriends and I had quite a party Sunday. No reason that I know of, just, well, hanging out and drinking and stuff. Good times.

Down: two of my three roommates have girlfriends. I get along with all five of them just fine - one of the roommates is really annoying, but I've learned to manage him - but that just replaces one problem with another. For a while there when the two with girlfriends paired off for a bit, it got depressing. I thought I was past that, thought I had outgrown it and/or had enough positive experiences of my own that I don't worry so much about dry spells in my love life. But it seems a bit different that Shane and Andrew have friends and lovers, which I haven't managed to do so well even when I have been dating someone. One or the other, but I haven't experienced both in a while. Or, of course, maybe the alcohol was just making me maudlin. But still, that's the mood I was in for a little while yesterday afternoon.