Journalism school has a strong, definitive hold on my brain.

You see, right now, I'm officially now taking a break from writing by... um... writing.

It's Saturday night. About 45 degrees at 935 here in Chicago. Traffic is heavy. Streets are crowded with weekend revelers. And I'm holed up in my tiny apartment, trying to write a 2000-word paper.

I'm certainly not complaining. Really, I'm not.

The thing is: I'm sick of this paper in particular. It must be written like something you'd find in the Columbia Journalism Review (www.cjr.org), where stories are written with tact and insight by grizzled 30-year journalism veterans.

Training the brain to work in different ways to write this longer, more comprehensive piece is killing me. My head hurts. I'm hungry even though I've just eaten. I'm tired even though I slept 10 hours last night. I don't know what's wrong with me. I need to get my shit together and get this thing done so I can return to a semi-regular state of normalcy.

I can't wait for Thanksgiving, and a much-needed repreive from academia.

I feel like I'm complaining. But, really, I'm not. Really.

Compare this to sitting in my beige cube mindlessly combing over budgets and designer hats, and I'd call myself somewhere near Utopia. (Only near Utopia, because I don't have any discretionary money, and my fiancee is 412 miles away.

I'll bridge part of that gap on Tuesday.

Can't wait to see you.

But for now, it's back to the laptop and my cache of jazz.

Hope you had a good night.