We have had a somewhat low-key weekend here in the Triangle after a busy week. I returned from Washington DC Saturday morning to find it even colder here than it was there due to a blast of dry, cold winter air. Today, though, it warmed up and turned into a beautiful day.

Shu Wen and I both ran in races at Southern Village in Chapel Hill, which is one of these insular, "self sufficient" communities that could only be considered self-sufficient in America. It's a strange place, with sky-high property values, nice schools, and an array of restaurants, businesses and banks that are intended to make it a village all on its own. For running, it was excruciating, because the whole place is full of pretty major elevation changes. I ran well considering the difficulty of the course, finishing the 5K in just under 16 minutes. Shu Wen ran the mile in under 8 minutes, which is quite good considering that she has not been running for very long at all and is not nearly as neurotic about it as I am. She looks to be on the right track for getting up to 5K by the time the Swarthmore alumni meet rolls around next September. We won a dinner to the Carolina Inn for my performance; a nice prize, since the restaurant is pretty fancy and convenient for us, being right on campus. Shu Wen says she likes it best when the prizes I win benefit her, which the last two have been (this dinner and the free pair of shoes she got previously!).

I will be preparing for my Masters defense over the next 48 hours. That is slated for Tuesday at 3 pm, and will hopefully not be too grueling. I worked hard on the paper last spring and summer, and have spent much of the fall making it satisfactory for members of my committee and making revisions. I feel like it is a pretty complete piece of work, but there are always improvements that could be made...and curve balls to be thrown.

Shu Wen herself is still working on paper revisions for a manuscript that came back from the Journal of Nutrition with some substantial comments. She hopes to get that finished before we leave Thursday, and I also have some work to do on my Nile water resources project before I leave. I will bring my computer with me as I have some other things to write up as well while "on vacation."

We are looking forward to our coming trip to France. We will spend most of our time there visiting with Mamie and Marie Francoise, who will surely be feeling the absence of Papy for this first holiday season without him. I expect that it will not be an easy journey to Vitre in some ways, but we think it is important to sit back and offer our support in this way.

While in DC, I was happy to see some old friends from Swarthmore (Marc Rockmore, Keith Gilmore, Ambrose Dieringer and Gene Yoshida), who all seem well. They may not all be in Washington for much longer; only Ambrose is likely to stay there long term at this point. One of the highlights of my frequent trips up there is seeing these guys. We went out for Ethiopian and then had drinks at this "hip" place called the Reef which has aquariums spread all about the bar area, and an interesting assortment of beers.

I had better sign off and work on a few more Christmas cards before getting to bed and starting a new day tomorrow.