Ahhhh. This afternoon was wonderful in all its pre-autumnal glory. On the way home, I looked out on the Charles River Basin and decided I wanted to go jogging, so I did. I came back (it was wonderful), showered, grabbed my copy of Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and a falafel from Falafel Palace, and retired to a park just up the way from my apartment and ate my falafel while reading about Haruki Murakami looking out on the same Charles River Basin and renewing his laid-away habit of running. Huh! Msr. Murakami also noted Cambridge's summer inevitability of Sam Adams Summer Ale, of which I've quaffed my share these last months. Fun to have some degree of empathy with possibly (for reasons I don't necessarily understand) my favorite author ever.

The director of biology sat me and the other intern down and told us that we should know where we want to be and run for it. She said she stumbled from one position to another almost by accident, and wishes she'd had a little more direction. I was chatting with one of the senior scientists (who's not all that senior, either) today and she said something similar! And neither of them are US natives; the director is Iranian by way of England and Australia and the scientist was born and raised in China, so it's not like they didn't take big steps for their careers. I guess I should give a little thought now and then to the idea that inshallah I'll be thirty, forty, fifty someday...

Also, thought this was funny: Someone did a quick survey and the Hillary Clinton alumni email list is putting its money on Joe Biden as Obama's VP pick. Though who knows how informed they really are -- Hillary got 23% of the votes. (Wishful thinking?)