I've been profoundly busy all day. Working on teaching material, grading papers, working on stuff for class, researching my next story, cleaning the apartment.

Free time? Me time? What's that? Granted, I enjoyed working on my story, and I've decided to turn it into my thesis- mosquito-borne diseases in the modern world. There's all sorts of interesting stuff out there. My current story is going to focus on the Chikungunya virus, currently affecting swaths of Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. It's even taken hold in Italy. I'm looking at climate change and mosquitoes, as well as how a virus moves from one area to another. Fun times.

Anyway, since I haven't done much of anything interesting, I'm going to leave you with a quote from my professor. We had a discussion about how much of your first bit as a professional writer, you do a lot of flailing, trying to find a beat, a job, anything really.

She said: "It's better to flail here where people care, rather than out in the real world where they mostly don't give a shit."

Not exactly uplifting, but it's good advice.

I think that's what all of us here are doing: flailing in a safe environment. It's good. It's useful. And it's better than flailing in the real world.