I was with family this week: A lot of board games played. Wingspan, Codewords, Cover Your Kingdom, 3 Up 3 Down, Spy Alley…I think that’s it.

My brother is leaving his current job and finally finishing his undergrad degree next academic year; lots of discussion about that. I feel like I have an inordinate amount of “insider knowledge” about university after having been caught up in it and working within it for so long.

It took a long time, but I finally convinced my parents to buy me small, thoughtful gifts instead of whatever they think they should throw at me. Their impulses take over still; anymore, I just ask for books that I’d like to own—I borrow books from the library before purchasing them, so a book is a great gift for me. My parents were (maybe jokingly) a little upset that the books they had bought me I had read…it’s an annoying disconnect between the thoughtfulness of the gift, which is what I care about, and I guess the utility of the gift for them. It’s so annoying…why not take the list of books I give them to a bookseller and ask for a recommendation?