The sound of things falling into place

Slinky's been, despite being assaulted by idiots, been having fun.

Driven around by a bunch of happy flyboys, a bottle of wine in cold white sand, the freezing surf making your fingers and toes tingle from cold, bodysurfing in the fading maple colored sunlight and having a conversation about raising piranhas while surreptitiously trying to make sure that your right boob hasn't tried to make a break for freedom from the tenuous confines of your duct tape bikini after a particularly rough swell. Sitting on the sand at twilight and watching smoke curling up between your fingers and feeling young and free and absolutely glorious.

Coffee breaks between classes when you should be studying but really, you're talking about your common belief in the therapeutic power of shopping, your shameful addiction to Hugh Laurie and Grey's Anatomy, the more recent antics of the South African roondut ("He actually tried to PULL the leg off my dog!" "Oh my gawd!") and how everyone is working too hard except you.

Reading an email while you are listening to your new favorite song of the moment (The Fray's "How To Save A Life") which tells you that, yes, you got the job, could you come down on Tuesday to hammer out the details?

You are sitting in a breezy sidewalk café having an extremely good milkshake (your treat of the week which won't blow your budget), eating honey-crackle macadamias with a friend, planning what it would be like in your shared rented place and dreamily thinking about how far you have come from the first year, and how everything seems, inexplicably, and wonderfully, falling into place.