Saturday was spent on a tear trying to get my life in enough order to leave for a week, without completely neglecting studying. Sunday I woke up and did some practice questions and then packed up the car to pick up some friends who had arrived from England to see some Huey Lewis and the News concerts in Boston later that week. Since I was going to go to the show on Sunday in Saratoga Springs, and since it's only 30 minutes or so north of Albany where I had to be the next day anyway, I'd offered to take them. On the way out of town I plotted the scenic route, which inadvertently ended up with a detour in Cambridge I hadn't quite intended and being accosted by a park ranger when we drove by the house where JFK grew up. We'd only meant to swing past to take a look from the street, but the ranger was determined to give us a survey of our impressions of the place. While it is a noble research project to make sure the national parks are being all they should be, we weren't quite sure of the benefit that could be derived from administering a 15 page survey to people who'd only just driven by. But he was bound and determined to make us take it, so we did.
Once in Saratoga Springs I tried to study, but I couldn't. The mental focus that had been deteriorating earlier that week was pretty deteriorated by then. I decided not to worry about it, and pretty much just issue-spotted the various conversations I had that night instead. Then there was the concert, which was good, but I nonetheless sort of regret having gone to. Not for any bar-related reasons (yes, I probably ended up staying up too late but there was a definite derived benefit from having done so that ended up evening out the cost-benefit ratio) but for some other reasons of its own. More on that later.