Weekly update: Back to the Future?

After feeling bad last week, many wrote responses and suggestions that were nice to read. Thank you all for that.
This week was a bit better than the previous one. The amount of work was not reduced, of course, but now we have something to look forward to: Chicago! We booked a room for the weekend after the final exams week, and we are looking forward to having the best weekend possible. By the way, if any of you happened to be in Chicago and you are willing to share some ideas and suggestions, feel free to send them our way. There are two weeks of lessons and then another of finals, but it lifted our spirits to know that we have something to look forward to. I hope we won't be disappointed.
Another thing that lifted our spirits was that we decided to take some time off for walks. We're still very much out of shape, but at least we're moving again and are not just couch/desk potatoes. Today we even visited the gym in our apartment complex for the first time since we got here. It makes us feel better with ourselves, and I even feel that walking together allows us some quality time together, which we rarely share otherwise due to our other obligations. Hopefully the weather will continue to improve and we will keep doing it; it can only do us good both physically and mentally.
On Tuesday I will give my first conference presentation. It is a small conference in Dayton, Ohio, about an hour drive from here. The presentation is about the little research I was doing in the previous quarter. To prepare myself for this presentation I did some research and found out that I accidentally re-discovered a well known algorithm for solving mazes. Moreover, I expanded this algorithm to the multi-agent case. This suddenly sheds a whole new light on this four days gig.
Finally, a farewell wish to the only person (besides D) that I was talking with on a regular friendly basis: B, another graduate student (or should I say former graduate student). He left on Friday to his new job in a company in New England, and I hope he will have a great time there. He has finished his Ph.D. and awaits the defense of his dissertation in a month. I wish him the best of luck with the new job and the defense.