Last week started with weird digestive issues that morphed into less-weird-but-more-debilitating respiratory issues by Wednesday. Almost a week later, I still feel an awful lot like this pup, but I'm on the mend.

On top of being a walking biohazard, I've been busy! I went to New York City last Friday to celebrate the birthdays of two of my good friends from college. I don't think they read this, but just in case—hi, Jordyn and Julie! My boyfriend and I went to their party that evening, stayed overnight and got to spend some quality time with them on Saturday. Quality time included delicious Mexican brunch, long walks in the sunshine and giant waffle cones full of vanilla soft serve and rainbow sprinkles. It basically made up for being a mucus factory.

I spent the rest of the weekend chilling, and by chilling I mean throwing myself into Coursera assignments. A sub-goal of Shaina's "what the heck do I want to do with my life?" project is the "where the heck do I want to go to grad school, and what for?" project. I've been brushing up on my statistics skills and learning how to code in the stats programming language R. Learning to code is unlike most other things I've done—you have no choice but to start from square one, and it can be frustrating as hell—but I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying the challenge.

Anyway, all this is to say that books and blogging have taken a backseat this past week, but I'm still reading, I swear! Dewey's cannot be coming at a better time.

In addition to finishing Tell the Wolves I'm Home last week, I also wrapped up an ARC I'd been plodding through called Loving Day by Mat Johnson. I think I liked it, but I want more time to sit with it and sift through my notes before getting my review up. Thankfully, I read ahead of publication (it doesn't come out 'til late May), so I have that luxury!

I'm continuing to make slow but steady progress in Bill Bryson's The Short History of Nearly Everything. The friend from whom I borrowed it moves away at the end of next month, so I'm kind of on a deadline. It's not that it's bad—it's just unbelievably dense. You'd probably have to pause every few paragraphs if you actually wanted to absorb everything. Naturally, I'm learning a lot of fantastic factoids from this one, and I'll definitely share my favorites here once I'm done.