I’ve got to finish backing up the files on my hard disk, which is about two DVD-burns away, and chuck some MP3s onto my player — I listened to a lot of what I had on it during my China trip — and reinstall my laptop to run dual-boot with Windows XP and Ubuntu — the newer Ubuntu version, mind — and pack (of which tasks, packing is certainly not a big deal, even with the presents I’ve got in tow). Transfer some money to people who I’m supposed to send it to, today, and go to my office to print a couple of stories by Clarion West classmates for crit — airplanes are perfect workspaces because there’s nothing else to do but watch usually-crap movies on them, and maybe write up the column I’m planning to do for Cahoots, and that’s about it. Which is good. We’re checking in at the airport tomorrow, you see, so I need to get all that stuff done today. And sometime on Friday afternoon, we’ll be in Saskatoon.

I am looking forward to a February made up almost completely of relaxing. Even if I have syllabi and courses to prepare, a novel to redraft, and exercising to do, it’s still, comparatively, very relaxing.