I taught my last seminar of the term this morning, so I've only got one more stressful To-Do item on my list--write a new conference paper by next Wednesday. Not too bad, in other words. I'm feeling tired but relieved, and tomorrow, to celebrate the end of the week, I'm going out with a friend to indulge my inner 12-year-old and reward myself with a nice cheesy helping of Phantom of the Opera at the movie theater! (I know it's un-classy to like Andrew Lloyd Webber. Most of the time, I manage not to. But Phantom is different. It's about opera!!! And when I was twelve years old, I had every word of the lyrics and dialogue memorized by heart. I can't miss this one.)

I just spent way too long browsing through Amazon.co.uk, trying to come up with a Christmas list to send off to my brothers. Bizarrely, I spent about 40 minutes and came up with...three items. I'm sure--no, I know--there are more movies and books being sold there that I would like. But trying to find them by browsing categories is a nightmare! My eyes and head feel numb. I had to give up after finding three DVDs. It's like walking up and down the aisles of a massive supermarket without any maps or signs hanging up to point me in the right direction.

Oh well. I finished Chapter Ten of Music of the Stars this morning, which made me very happy. Better yet, I started re-reading the early bits (so that I could insert clever foreshadowing, etc.), and I liked them a lot. Woohoo! Now if only I could come up with a geographical name... (This is why I don't write high fantasy! I hate and am terrible at coming up with imaginary place names.) Can anyone help me out with this one? I need a name for a non-existent Italian city-state, which I'm making up and squeezing into the map next to Tuscany. Any ideas??? Undying gratitude and a mention on the dedication page would be your reward!