Have you ever stepped away from your life for a month, and then come back to have absolutely everything staring you in the face?

While I didn’t actually go anywhere for a whole month, I did become somewhat of a recluse while I slowly grew more and more panicked about my impending actuarial exam. Pretty much all of my life that remained untouched consisted of the various dance practices, and Thursday-night visits to the Beanery with Brian. (You can tell where my priorities lie, eh?)

Going to San Francisco the day after my exam was both a blessing and a curse, it turns out. Curse in that I wasn’t quite physically ready for it; blessing in that I was able to enjoy myself without realizing all the crap I had put off around my house.

When I returned, I was physically exhausted—and all my delayed detritus stared me down. How do you get back into a normal groove after you’ve been in an abnormal one for so long?

My answer so far* appears to be a combination of sleeping a lot, and just gritting my teeth while plowing into things. After this weekend I’ve almost caught up on my housekeeping items; next I need to address the things I’ve delayed at my work.

[*I did try to play Metal Gear Solid 3 one evening, but that fell flat; something about being hunted in the jungle just didn’t click with the fact that I was freezing and pretty much ready to sleep.]

True to form, I did attend the final ballroom dance of the term yesterday evening. Against form, I arrived to the dance on time (I’m usually an hour or so late, just because I can’t manage my time)… which meant that I had an extra hour of dancing.

That was good, because I had fun dancing with Mandy—and she left early. That was bad, because I’m really not used to dancing that extra hour. (It’s always good in the end, though, because I do love dancing with people.) The dance was amazingly crowded, especially considering that the famed Battle of the Bands was being held concurrently in the quad; things were so bad that I frequently found myself stuck repeating a few basic moves simply because I didn’t have enough room for anything else. I discovered that Jenny knows how to follow my “West Coast 2” moves (an important revelation, because the leads for these later moves aren’t exactly intuitively obvious), that non-high-school Tiffany is done with her masters and will soon be heading to Portland, and that at least Jay and Connie will be around for summer’s Wednesday night practices.

Per new tradition, I joined Jay and others for a midnight Shari’s run following the dance. The run this time was characterized by a request for crayons and kid’s mats to draw on. (I abstained.) People entertained themselves by telling riddles; I only remembered Brian’s safe-sex riddle, and so kept quiet. (I now recall the lights/light-switch riddle, and have already kicked myself for forgetting it at a crucial time.)

Dance-related fun aside, however, I look forward to that day when I once again have my ducks in a row.