August 30th

First things first: I have a car. And that makes me very happy. And i have been having some very interesting discussions with J., which makes me happy too. What makes me less happy is trying to sleep, that is not working very well. And then the days seem less sunny as well. I felt lonely today, for the first time I think. I miss having a social life, being able to go play tennis. BUt I have had no energy or time left to organize that part of my life here (save emailing a number of people who never responded). Tomorrow I am going to try and organize some tennis.
And this evening I decided, after a run, to finally get my shopping done. So off I go in my car. I guess you can feel it coming, I got entirely lost, very much so in fact. TOok me 1.5 hours to get my shopping done. BUt you know, Americans are really extremely nice. I asked in the store if they could tell me where I am. The cassiere made the effort of asking someone else, and then I am sitting in my car trying to find my way on the map when a man comes up and offers help again - he had been behind me in the queue. Thanks to him I managed to find my way back. I decided to take the safe route through the center of COventry (safe in thatI knew how to get home from there). Just my lack that it was closed off due to some accident. Had to stop and mapread myself back where i had come from and up some country roads - nearly hit a skunk too, and they really stink I can tell you. Sometimes you can smell them in the car (made the mistake of saying to L that it smelt a bit like B, she said "that was a skunk" in rather an offended way). I am going to try and sleep once again now. LUckily not so many meetings tomorrow. Am getting more to do again as I have to do homework for 2 courses ( i have not had to do homework in years(And I discovered that in order to get a parking place on campus you have to be there before 9 am so have to leave here early). Took me 20 minutes to find myself a parking space this morning....