7:30 AM....

It's eerily beautiful out in the mornings, in the hours before dawn. The sky is not-yet-light from the east, but its blue is translucently pure, illuminated by the rays of the coming sun. It's beautiful and empty and waiting; a canvas waiting to be filled. I stopped to get gas on my way in, since the little orange "You're going to get stuck somewhere, you moron" light was intermittently coming on. With prices what they are, I tend to put it off until the last moment. Filled the tank, remembered that I should not ever top off Michel-Ange (poor fidgety baby spits it back out the next time I stop if I do), and wrote down my numbers. Checked them again. Sure enough, I got 20 miles further on 0.1 gallon less than the last time I filled up. Most likely due to the new front end, since I haven't done any out-of-city travelling. 270 miles on 12.6 gallons gives me...21.4 mpg, city driving. Not bad for a sixteen-year-old car. That pleased me. Angel dragged himself out of bed and made me coffee this morning. What a man. Now to hope that and the adrenaline and the two small blueberry muffins (moist, as advertised, but not all that tasty) will sustain me through studying. Now to hope I learned something. I went through my exam. I would've done better if I'd taken it today. I learned something this last week, but I doubt enough. So I'm going to Pathology because it's Pathology and I go to Pathology. I can write notes. But when every lecturer in Endocrinology tells us that "well, the handout from Indy is pretty good" and then doesn't really give us any notes...it's not worth going; I'll just pass out. And I could use those two hours to review factoids. Meig's syndrome: fibroma, ascites, and right-sided hydrothorax. Gardner's syndrome: Adenomatous polyps, Epidermoid cysts, fIbromatosis. Reiter's syndrome: Nongonococcal urethritis, uveitis, arthritis. There are more. Damn things. There's something about a lab exam that just kills me.