"...I know because I've done it thousands of times."

So there haven't been any updates for over a week - and I guess that's because my heroic quest to quit smoking sort of flopped. Well, it didn't "sort of" flop. It nosedived into a field. To someone who's never smoked, it must seem silly that a person can't just up and quit. Believe me, I say that to myself at times. I have one particular neurosis though that makes quitting a little more challenging. I can't just have one pack of cigarettes on hand. If I'm down to my last pack I feel like I'm running out of ammunition - and you never want to be low on ammo. So by about that time I'll invariably head out to the corner store to pick up a few spare clips, and lo and behold, my "low ammo anxiety" will immediately dissipate. The problem with that is I'll set a quit date, mark it on my calendar, be deadly serious about it, enjoy my "last day" of smoking, and go to bed. Then the next morning I'll wake up, groggy, nicotine deprived, and see a pack of unsmoked cigarettes a few feet away from me on my desk. And I'll light up. What I need to do is just immediately stumble into the shower, stumble out, slap on a nicotine patch, and flush the bastards down the toilet. I'll get there within a week or two. You just watch.

So in other news, classes are going well, though I think I've read more about labor relations and capitalism than I ever thought would be possible to cram into a single semester. I'm enjoying it though, and that's what counts. My excessive schedule has kept me from my afternoon/evening cocktails though - something I plan to do something about this coming weekend, perhaps in conjunction with my next quit attempt; maybe as a reward. That's all for now... have more industrial relations papers to read...