hello world.

since i'm terrible at returning phone calls and emails, here's an update for those of you that haven't heard from me in a while.

my brother has cerebral palsy. it's pretty severe and affects his motor functions. an effect of this is that he can't hold up his own body weight. so, as he gets older and grows faster (he'll be 13 in january), it gets harder for him to maintain any semblance of good posture. over the past couple of years, his back has been curving more and more, and he's developed a pretty severe case of scoliosis. to prevent him from curving over too much and crushing his organs, a team of surgeons, in an eight-hour operation, fused his spine with titanium rods and screws on monday, november 28th. he's had some complications during his recovery and is still in intensive care, but he's doing better now, and my best guess is that he'll be in a normal hospital room on wednesday or thursday, and home a week or so after that. i came home for thanksgiving and decided to stay to help out my parents and make sure everything was ok. i'll be here 'til he's out of the ICU, and i'll probably hop on the first plane to nyc the next day.

so, as you can imagine, life here has been pretty hectic. i'm trying to work from home and finish my applications while i'm here, but i've been basically failing at it. at least it's warm and beautiful, and i have some friends here who've been taking great care of me. still, it's hard to sit around doing not much of anything for days on end; i'm starting to miss my new york routine of getup-gotowork-workworkwork-gohome-watchtv-gotobed. but i'll be back soon enough.

ok, back to work.

mara good luck on your papers!