Return of the Genderqueer

Hey, everybody!  I'm back after a long hiatus and owe all the friends I've made here over the past two and a half years a big apology for disappearing and missing out on your lives.  Over the summer, I lived in a house with very flaky Internet service and got out of the habit of doing any personal websurfing.  As it turns out, that's a hard habit to pick up again, especially when in a new place and trying to integrate into a "real life" community.  Though I feel a lot more secure in my place as a member of the local community, I also have a lot more work to do, all the time, due to being a first-year grad student.  I literally went two months without checking my personal e-mail account! 

After a particularly rough ~100 hour workweek last week, I sort of burnt out and made time to catch up, simply because I had no way of getting my work done in such a state, and I expect I won't have time to catch up with everyone here for about six weeks when my winter holiday begins.  Probably by next weekend I'll post a few mini-updates I wrote off-line over the past few months just to get things off my chest.  In the meantime, I can best be reached by e-mail at ilan.the.first@gmail.com (and if you got this far, please feel free to drop me a line).  Also, I want to be the sort of "grown up" who sends people holiday cards (mostly because a certain friend's inspire me every year), so feel free to let me know if you'd be interested in getting one (with no obligation to send anything back in return).  I hope everyone is well and wish you all a Happy Halloween!