This is a trip­tych I made of my good friend Kelsey smok­ing a cig­a­rette in the San Telmo Fair in Buenos Aires.

I could use a cig­a­rette. (Un)fortunately for me, I don’t smoke. Tea is my nico­tine, it soothes my head and makes me think straight… if only jobs allowed you to take a tea break instead of a cig break.

Finals are now here and two are under my belt cur­rently. A 30-something page research paper has been authored, a dark­room illu­sion has been built (and the illu­sions stay pinned) in my itsy-bitsy bath­room, and 300 vir­tual nuggets have been claimed prov­ing my worth as a cog­ni­tive neu­ro­sci­en­tist. All that remains is cog­ni­tive lin­guis­tics tomor­row. I can’t be more thrilled to be leav­ing San Diego for once as there’s a whirl­wind of non­sense right in front of me across state lines. This time next week I’ll be hop­ping aboard a swanky Prius to be mak­ing the Great Amer­i­can Road Trip with my girl Eden — New Orleans bound with many a camp­ing in between.

And did I men­tion I got a job? As the man­ager of a music venue? Today’s a great day and this year is shap­ing up to be quite the inter­est­ing year com­pared to last one’s shenanigans.

Tomor­row on begins my film days again, can’t wait to load up some 35mm and get shoot­ing once again it’s been quite a while. Study­ing awaits and my rumbly tummy requests Five Guys. So it goes.

Kian Lavi