occupied.

Can't write now, studying...

I have finals this week. I'm a bit frazzled, but thankfully the multitude of cold germs I've been plagued by seem to have found new hosts, so I'm mostly free of illness as I commence finals week. Mostly I think I'll be ok for the tests, though one is obliged to be a bit unnerved and stressed before finals, so I feel a bit of stress at the unknowns.

I went to study tonight with friends Rob and Carlo, and after a few hours of looking over books and discussing possible exam questions, we headed downtown to the harbor for the parade of lights. Not the kind of parade your mind would immediately conjour images of, this parade takes place on the water: a goodish number of boats docked in Santa Barbara, lavished with lovely, colorful Christmas decorations of varying motifs glided past a crowd assembled on Stearn's Wharf. The same sort of spectacle took place on Friday in the harbor where I work, so all this weekend at work, between diving boats, I puttered past sail- and powerboats decked out in their finest holiday regalia.

And strangely, there in the harbor, it finally started to feel like Christmas time.