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I just spent a week back at home from law school. A week's not a whole lot of time... so many things on the agenda, not the least of which was relaxation. I'm told that the difficult stretch is these next six weeks... the approach of finals heralds more than just the associated weight of books and stress involved with the finals themselves. There's a whole lot of other things that are supposed to go with it, most of which are ominous if only for the fact that I can't yet make out the sources of the impending threats.

So as in other things, the key is to relax without making so much of an effort in doing so to add to the stress. Wonderful paradox, that... I liken it to stretching in martial arts. You don't want to tense up your muscles, because that impedes a good stretch, and forcing tissues that aren't yet that flexible can lead to pulls and tears. Oddly, just as it starts to get uncomfortable, you need to breathe out, release as much of the tension in the straining muscles as you can, and then lean into it a little further. You can't go farther if you don't relax. Yet, with the shaking strain which accompanies a stretch near your current limit of flexibility, it's only natural to tense up, as somehow trying to stretch farther creates the strain in the first place.

So it goes until you get really flexible, anyway. I can't say I'm there yet. Hopefully I'll get there by finals.

I rested some and studied some. More than either, however, I caught up with my friends :) Friends from all over... mostly recent friends. I wasn't able to catch up with everyone, either. I had a whole week, and I wasn't able to give everyone enough time... a small guilt trip for keeping the visit so short, but that was drowned out by the flush of happiness that comes with realizing that you've got so many friends, you can spend a whole week home and yet have nearly all those meetings end sooner than anybody really wants. And that includes my family... I didn't quite get to see enough of them, either.

Cheers to all of you with whom I did manage to catch up in the past week. Love you guys :)