I love long weekends. So far, I've done my long run for the week (5 miles), bought two new cable-knit sweaters at Target (at twenty bucks a pop, I couldn't resist), and started rereading an old Jodi Picoult book; L and I have also gone to brunch at the Flying Biscuit with our friend Kelsey (a weekly tradition), done our grocery shopping for the upcoming week (a necessary evil), and gone to see Julie & Julia (which was surprisingly cute). L also bought her iPhone on Thursday night, so, for her, much of this weekend has been spent doing all those little tasks one does upon getting a new phone -- updating contact lists, downloading apps, syncing necessary photos and music, creating and assigning ringtones, etc. She's not nearly as bad as I was when I got mine, however; the thing barely left my hand for three weeks. (She joked that I was flaunting my mistress in front of her.)

In other news, there are suddenly so many clothes I want to buy that it's ridiculous. Look at these and these and these. I've never really been a "clotheshorse"-type, but some odd combination of being 25 and of having lost a little weight is suddenly causing everything I try on to look super good. I don't know if nine pounds have really made that much difference or if it's just that I'm "learning how to shop" for my body type -- or both -- but it's nice. It's also frustrating, though, because I really don't make enough money to be able to go out and buy clothes more than once in a blue moon... so this may be the first year in recorded history that my Christmas list is composed almost entirely of clothes!

I also just revised my prepared list of PA interview questions for my next interview (which, if I'm lucky, will probably be Duke). Before the UF interview, I had written up a list of things they might ask me and how I planned to respond, just as a way of organizing my thoughts and making sure I remembered to hit all the "high points" and didn't walk out the door thinking, "dang, I should have said ______!" It was a good tactic, but there were definitely certain things that I omitted and other things I added once I was actually speaking, so I decided to edit the file to reflect that. Based on last year's postings on the PA Forum, the first wave of Duke applicants people got their interview invitation emails on the first Friday in September, then had their interviews on the first Monday in November. However, the priority deadline was two weeks later this year, meaning that everything else (emails, interview dates, acceptance emails) will probably be later as well; still, that means I can probably expect an email sometime around the middle/end of this month if I'm selected. Cross your fingers...