Skills: Taking Tests

I'm very good at taking tests. I don't just mean I'm smart, or that I'm good at the material, or that I study hard. I mean I'm especially good at the test taking itself. It's an interesting skill to have in the sense that it's been very, very helpful until now. But as I finished my master's degree this month and will be starting my first real job next month, I guess I've outlived most of its usefulness! :) That's funny to think about.

Anyway, why do I have this skill? What does it even mean? And do I have any observations about my own test-taking abilities that others can take away? Hmm. Well, here are some thoughts:

General Advice

1.) Stay calm but focused: In any test, but especially a timed test, you have to find a special place between relaxation and forward motion. If you let the stress get to you, your brain will turn off. This is why, when I play games with short timers, I do terribly. I can't function during the last minute or so because the ticking timer is all I can think about! In a test, however, timed or un-timed, I remain mostly calm. After all, once you enter the testing room, you either know the material or you don't. I find a certain amount of calming comfort in the inevitability of the test itself. So, relax... but don't relax too much. Move forward at a steady pace. Try to be confident that what you know will reveal itself, you just have to let your knowledge flow through you and onto the paper.

2.) Prioritize: When managing time and energy restraints, I will often do all of the easy questions first and get them out of the way, then go to the questions that require more thought but which I know I can do well, and then move onto the hard questions. I save "impossible" questions for last. If I run out of time and don't get to them, well, I probably wasn't going to get them right anyway... and if I had spent longer on them, I might have missed more easy points along the way! This especially applies when the questions of varying difficulty are weighted the same, such as on a multiple choice test. If I am taking a test that does not allow scanning through the whole thing or moving forward and back again, and it is timed, then I will go through limiting the amount of time I spend on each question. On a standardized test, for example, I will often skip a question outright if it looks to be in the "impossible" category, especially if I am still early in the test. On an intermediate or difficult question, I'll do a bit of work, but if it's taking too long, I'll cut my losses, make my best guess based on the work I've done that far, and move on.



Those first two pieces of advice are normally what I tell people going into exams. I think anyone can follow them, or at least try to. The other things that help me are a bit more mysterious and difficult.

Advanced Advice

3.) Learn from/during the test: I'll start off by saying that this is never something you should consider before you are locked into the exam room. Study, study, or you'll dearly wish you had in a few days/hours/whatever! But once you are locked in, if you don't know some of the material AND you have enough time, I find that you can often learn from and during the test. I go through and do all the things I know how to do first, and then when I have time I return to the questions I considered hard or impossible and start trying to work though them the best I can. The thing is that sometimes you can figure things out by the way the test is structured.

Sometimes hints towards finding one answer are revealed elsewhere in the exam itself. For example, on a language exam you may be able to steal grammatical structures, conjugated verbs, vocabulary, etc from the reading and listening sections to use in your writing sections. A science or math exam may ask early on for a definition of a term whose meaning you can deduce from a word problem or graph later in the exam.

If I am close to understanding how to solve a math equation, but not certain, I'll try several different ways until I arrive at a "pretty" answer. If you can't remember if the last operator in the equation is + or -, and trying a + gives you 56.099843 and trying a - gives you 85, I would go with the -. The same goes for multiple choice questions, where if something you partially remember yields one of the possible answers, you might be good to go!

This obviously isn't foolproof, as sometimes answers are messy and sometimes teachers put in cleverly false multiple choice answers or even pretty solutions to false equations to lull people into a false sense of confidence. Still, it's way better than blindly guessing, especially if many questions are asking you to use the same process/equation and you can figure out something that seems to work on one and apply it to the others. If it seems to work on all of them, you probably learned the correct equation at the last possible moment.

4.) Unlock the exam structure: Sometimes you can examine the exam itself -- the layout, the ordering, the multiple choices available, etc -- to understand what exactly it's testing, how it's expecting you to screw up, and, most importantly, what the right answers actually are. This can be hard to do and hard to describe, and sometimes depends on knowing the exam-writer well enough (in a classroom setting) to anticipate how tricky they are on their exams and what types of tricks they like to use.

If the teacher is not very tricky, you can usually tell the correct answer because it will be the median one in varying ways. For example, if I saw the possible answers A.) 1/2  B.) 1/3  C.) 2  D.) 75 on an algebra problem and didn't understand anything else, I would guess A because I would toss out 75 immediately for being a crazy outlier, then reason that A is in between the other two in value, is a fraction like 2/3s of the remaining choices, and is related to 2 in a way that looks suspicious, like if you screw something up you could easily get 2 as the answer instead. If most of the multiple choice answers are whole numbers, for example, you probably want to get a whole number. If most are negative, you probably want to get a negative number. If out of five possible answers there are three negative numbers and three fractions and only one negative fraction, I would probably lean towards the answer being the negative fraction.


5.) Trust your intuition: When all else fails, if you have a weird feeling that the answer is A, go with A. Sometimes our brains are tapping into resources we aren't even aware that they have access to. I sometimes jokingly call this "magic understanding power," and the more you read, the more general knowledge you accumulate, etc, the more often this will happen to you.

6.) Combine all of the above:

One of my favorite examples of "cheating" on an exam was when I took a German placement test in my sophomore year. I was pretty far through the exam and the questions had gotten pretty difficult. Suddenly they seemed to get suspiciously easy again. I had to fill in the blank of a sentence with the correct verb form, multiple choice. Now, I recognized most of the verb forms, and thought one of them would fit the sentence, but it seemed too easy to be that far along in the test, and there was also the matter of the strange, strange sentence. *Unlocking the exam structure* At the time, I didn't know that German had different verbal moods, but I knew Spanish did, and it seemed to me that the sentence was set up awkwardly so as to force the subjunctive mood. *Trust your intuition* Therefore, I picked the verb form I did not recognize, hoping that German did indeed have subjunctive, I was currently being asked to use it, and the unrecognized verb form was in the subjunctive mood. I became convinced that I was right when the next few questions followed the same pattern and had similarly strange verb forms as possible choices. *Learn from/during the test* I got 100% on that exam despite having never before learned the subjunctive mood in German.



Examples in action:

Now, this is not an exam but a language learning website called Babadum, which gives you games to learn and practice words in various foreign languages. https://babadum.com/play While playing it, I became aware of some of the above processes going on in my head. I don't know very much French, and could probably only produce 5-10% of these words on my own, but going through at a quick pace I have gotten 80-85% of the answers correct. How? A few different ways.

Some I just know, like écrire - to write.

Some are easy to guess for an English speaker, like le bracelet - bracelet. You can usually trust your instincts on these, though the occasional "false cognate" is possible, especially if taking an exam that was created by a person with the intent to try to trip you up. As Babadum is automated and multiple-choice, false cognates are very unlikely to pose a problem.

Only slightly harder are words like sceptre and bobine, which require you to know and think about the English words scepter and bobbin, which we don't use every single day.

Now we move into the harder category of words that don't look like their English equivalents, but which we can guess based on semantically related cognates. The possibility of error goes up, but far more often than not our guesswork still pays off.

With le dentifrice, I saw "dent" as in dental and guessed that the word meant toothpaste. Yup!
With le pneu, I thought about 'pneu'matic tires and guessed tire. Yup!

Then there are words that you can guess by knowing some Latin, another Romance language, or perhaps some very high level English vocabulary, such as castor, meaning beaver. In my case, a lot of words are in this category because I already speak Spanish.

Another trick is to use process of elimination. If you know the French words for two or three of the wrong choices, you can make a very good guess as to what the correct answer is! The same goes for elimination based on other factors. I know that an -er or similar ending and a lack of article in French usually means I am looking at a verb, and I can usually tell which pictures are depicting verbs. Therefore, while I don't know what éternuer means OR what exactly is going on in the upper right picture, I am able to guess that they go together because the upper left and bottom right drawings don't look like verbs at all, and the bottom left is only possibly a verb, but the upper right drawing is almost certainly a verb and so is the word in question. Likewise with "les" marking a plural noun and these slippers being the only plural item in sight...

And finally we get to the words that are pure guesswork... or are they? Even when I don't think I know the word at all. I sometimes have a strong intuition about it and generally have a success rate of about 50%, or twice what chance would predict. Sometimes it just -sounds- right... I may be drawing on subconscious memories of Latin, Spanish, or some passing exposure to French, or merely on universal sounds and onomatopoeic tendencies. Either way, I've learned to trust my intuition.

Nothing is worse than second-guessing yourself and then realizing your first, impulsive guess was right after all... and yet that, too, happens frequently. Sometimes I find that I do better on these guesswork questions the faster I am going and the less attention I am paying!

La sucette means pacifier: I thought the -ette sounded cute, and suc- reminded me of sucking and something sweet and comforting.

 Why is cobaye hamster? Is that even a hamster? No idea. It just felt right.

Come on, puits just sounds like a well. Right?

Private?

I'm thinking about posting more here. But I'm also thinking about making the blog private. If you would be interested in reading once this becomes private, email me at Elindomiel@gmail.com and I can add you to the private list. I'm going to leave this up for a while first to give anyone interested the chance.

The Basics

I know I never really write here anymore. I guess I just produce so many footprints in emails and articles and assignments and more formal blogs that I'm all out of words. Or maybe I've just grown passed the age and time of wanting to write everything down in a bizarre, semi-private, semi-public space. But here I am, so here's what's up:

- My parents are getting divorced, and it's not pretty.
- I've somehow ended up in grad school.
- I'm not sick of Columbia, Missouri but I am kind of sick of writing about (and photographing, and recording, and editing) Columbia, Missouri.
- I'm not sick of living poor, but I am kind of sick of being poor. I love my shoebox apartment and paying my own rent/utilities/tuition/food money but I'm kind of sick of mooching and knowing I couldn't handle my dentist bills, my car insurance, etc on my own yet.
- I'm finally ready to enter the ordinary human workforce, at least for a few years (and then I can always reevaluate and if I'm bored or miserable, try something else.)
- But first, I have to get through a year of grad school classes and a thesis/project.
- For my thesis/project, I'm doing something really unusual: a journalistic-style ethnography of the Faroe Islands.
- So now I'm trying to learn Faroese and everything about the Faroes.
- Everything else is kind of feeling like a distraction.
- Friends/family are a welcome distraction (but still kind of a distraction).
- Classes and work are not-as-welcome distractions. ;)
- Life is good and peaceful and the world is beautiful.
- This fall was the most beautiful ever. I say that a lot, but this time I think I mean it.
- If this is to be farewell to Missouri, then it has been a good farewell. 

Missouri Summer

The leaves were long, the grass was green

The Queen Anne's Lace tall and fair

And in the glade a light was seen

Of a thousand fireflies shimmering

We crossed over a gate, walked along a high rocky ridge and down into a river vale, frightened a flock of deer, sat on an old railway bridge looking down at the river.

Nights like this I think I love Missouri too much to ever leave it.

Groceries and a Heart Split in Two

Time for summer foods, away with the heavy curries. But now my heart is torn between the sunny flavors of the Mediterranean and the light fresh delights of a Scandinavian summer...

So of course I buy:

- Hummus
- Olives
- Pita Bread
- Italian Bread
- Chevre
- Tomatoes
- Salmon
- Sour Cream
- Fresh Dill
- Tiny Shrimp
- New Potatoes

Change

Becoming an adult is a curious mixture of happy and sad events, mundane accumulation of experience and dramatic accumulation of experiences. In a way I've grown from winter camping in Norway, from canyoning in Spain, from mastering the German public transit system like any native. And I've grown from the day to day tasks of paying rent, and filling prescriptions, and studying, and balancing, and I'm actually looking forward in a way to staying in this summer and working and saving. And in a way I've grown from graduation, from that beautiful 17th of May, from standing underneath the Miyajima gate, from watching the Missouri river freeze. And I've grown from fights and heartbreaks and what's going on right now.

And then there are moments, checkpoints where you realize things have changed a lot, and you make real choices for yourself beyond what you could have imagined before. When you 'casually' book a last minute plane flight no one told you you needed to take, which won't be easy and won't be fun, but it's the right thing to do and in a way, it's where you need to be.

And you realize things have changed quite a lot. And half of you says its good, and half of you says its bad but it really doesn't matter, it's just inevitable. Because childhood had its charms but also its chains, and we can't just live in a fairy land of fjords and fjells and fantasy forever. The process is painful. But there are always beautiful moments. To think only of the good or the bad is a mistake. Don't forget, you had sad days, even in paradise. Don't forget there was joy, even in the darkness. There will always be people to be there for you, and there will always be people who let you down. Sometimes, usually even, they are the same people. With some of them I'd like to say that I passed the love, passed the pain, passed the poison and now I see it all clearly, but we always think we see clearly from the place we're standing, don't we? And you see, they don't realize how inconsistent they're being, because they are, all of them, consumed by their own infinite complexity - just as I am. It's a weird sentient thing.

And choices are still ahead, and they stretch wider and wider as all the old structures, restrictions, safety nets are all breaking down. Funny how its the same things in life that hold us close, keep us safe, keep us down. And when they start to break down, wear out, fall away you start to see the world in that sort of terrible beauty they always called sublime, and realize that, really, all that's stopping you is the frailty of your body and the inflexibility of your mind.

Driftwood

Everything is open
Nothing is set in stone
Rivers turn to ocean
Oceans tide you home

Home is where your heart is
But your heart had to roam
Drifting over bridges
Never to return
Watching bridges burn

And you really didn't think it would happen
But it really is the end of the line
So I'm sorry that you turned to driftwood
But you've been drifting for a long long time


- Driftwood, Travis

Just East of Nowhere

"A Missourian gets used to Southerners thinking him a Yankee, a Northerner considering him a cracker, a Westerner sneering at his effete Easternness, and the Easterner taking him for a cowhand." -Blue Highways

You want a movie set in a city, you set it in New York. If you really want it in the Midwest, then, fine, Chicago. Never St. Louis. Never Kansas City. And forget about ever setting a movie in a city like Columbia. You have to go Wilderness, Super Rural, Stereotypical Small Town, or BIG CITY. Those are the choices, that's how it feels anyway. The in-betweens are not as poetic, not as interesting, not as archetypical.

You want a book set in the South, you set it in the South. You want a book set in the North, you set it in the North. Eastern settings demand, well, eastern settings. Western settings demand, well, western settings. And if you really want to aim for the middle of nowhere, pick Kansas. Every once in awhile they decide to go colder, and hit Wyoming instead.

Missouri, now? Forget about it. Where's the drama, where are the extremes, where are the easy archetypes? It reminds me of the dilemma of the Madonna and the Whore, the Maiden/Mother/Crone. What's an archetype, really, but a prettier word for Stereotype? But I digress.

Nothing ever happens here, to hear them tell about it. Even nowhere has a name. Superman's from nowhere Kansas, and so is Dorothy. What does that make us, sitting here in Missouri? Somewhere Just East of Nowhere. Less than nothing. Invisible.

There's no legend for me to live on, no story whose plot I can follow. Sometimes at crazy parties across the world, I get laughs telling everyone I'm an Ozark Hillbilly. I can talk about Meth with the best of them and adopt a pretty good hick accent, too. Other times, instead, I play the cowgirl. After all, I am most comfortable in plaid shirts, jeans, and good boots. When none of that suits I, instead, pontificate on the horrors of my childhood, the dangers of my hometown, St. Louis - nevermind, please, that I grew up in a squeaky-clean suburb.

There's no drama in a suburb.

Suburbs are just where people are from.

And I don't even mean the hero.

The hero is from NOWHERE, don't you know that?

The hero is not from a 'somewhere' that lacks a vital confidence in its identity, a some place that's east of west and west of east, north of south and south of north, not a capital, not a cowtown, not a backwaters, just an ordinary, decent place where ordinary, decent people live.

That hero from NOWHERE archetype is pretty old. When they came to America they saw Kansas, and recognized a new NOWHERE.

You know, I'm thinking that growing up in Kansas wouldn't be so dull, after all, with neighbors like those and strange things coming out of the sky every day.

I don't mean tornadoes. We've got those here too. Not that anyone ever notices. 

Look, maybe there's a new nowhere. Nowadays even farm boys get a certain amount of street cred. They're no longer the ignorant peasants they once were.

If you really want an unprepared, unnoticed and unassuming hero, how about sending them out of a new nowhere, not the great NOWHERE of Kansas or the outskirts of the unnamed country where the nothingness is so great it develops a presence and a quality all its own - the roar of the so-called big sky, the infinite yearning of plains that stretch on forever - but the true unsung nothingness of bland, cookie-cutter suburbs and the places that exemplify neither this not that, not even nothing.

How about a reboot of the archetype?

Maybe it's already happening.

I've noticed something interesting, you know. The only thing that ever puts Columbia on the map - this city exports storytellers, wanderers.

I'll be reading a book, any book, and, entirely coincidentally, I often upon certain eerie, all-too familiar references. And I realize that although the story takes place in China's Three Gorges, or the highest regions of Tibet, or the homes of the African pygmies, the author knows where I'm coming from - because he, too, is from Just East of Nowhere.

Impending Graduation

I feel nervous because I'm about to graduate, first in May and then, most likely, again the next May, and then I'm not sure what to do. The dream life seems so far away and the path in between is more confusing than I ever thought. And I'm not sure I have the drive. I'm sad because I miss the mountains. I lack energy; I don't exercise; I've lost my Norwegian muscles. I dream about Norway too often and then I wake up feeling sad because I don't know when or if I'll be able to go back. I miss being able to go on a short afternoon hike and finding the ruins of fortresses and castles or else views over high mountains. I miss sea-breezes and snow and history and learning a thousand new things every day. And I feel like my road map ends here. There's no longer a checklist of how to be a big girl and do well. Its more subtle and complicated and confusing and wide open than that. Just right now I'd like a slightly more linear storyline, or maybe a strategy guide, or you know, maybe one of those silly characters whose only purpose is to give you a hint, point you in the right directions. Because life is simultaneously long and short, too short to try every path before I find the right one. But then, they say the right path is the path you choose, as long as you can be content with it.

On the other hand: I love my classes this semester. They seem hand-chosen just for me, all except Magazine Design. Even there, the teacher is nice, my TA is nice, and its something I need to do, and its far from awful. Then I've got Advanced Writing with a memoir-focused professor, Food and Wine Writing (!!!), and Travel Writing (focused on old dead British writers, but oh well...). Even my Spanish capstone exceeds all expectations. Instead of reading Cervantes or some other dusty dry literature, as I'd expected, I'm learning about the Andes! The Incas! Did you know they had this super-elaborate system of exchanges and roads and inns and oh, it's just wonderful, reading about this huge lost empire. Although I almost wish I had yucky classes so I could be more eager to be done with this whole undergraduate thing!

Memories

Funny how people remember things differently:

Thinking back to Winter Semester 2011 in Germany, I asked Corbin,

"Do you remember how it became spring just as soon as we arrived, and kept on being beautiful for months? Easter was just a dream..."

"I suppose it did get warm for awhile. But I remember 2011 as 'The year without a summer'."

Semester and Photo Problems

This fall has sped by faster than any other season I remember. Despite the drought the leaves have been pretty. The weather is even sillier than usual and we've had several late, lovely days. The chaos of the beginning of the semester has leveled off, and going into the final stretch I can shoot for A's and be assured of B's.

I watched the election at Ragtag with Tina and Nash. Kind of funny to see Obama's first and second elections during my first and last years at Mizzou.

I don't have proper internet this year, just 3G bluetoothed over from my iPhone. So that's meant less surfing, less Facebook, less emailing, less Skyping, less blogging.

I somewhat lament the blogging. I definitely lament being in such poor touch with various internet and far away friends.

But there are good sides to it, as well. I've read more and watched more movies. I've definitely been enjoying living in an apartment and being able to cook.

I'm slowly, slowly working through the knot of all my photos. It's tricky, trickier than it should be. I should have just been more careful and organized along the way. Here's what happened, basically -

I ran out of space.

Several times, really, but most critically in my final month-or-so in Scandinavia, post-Faroes.

Pretty much out of money and wanting very much to spend my last kroner on Icelandic pony rides rather than outlandishly expensive Nordic storage medium taxes, I threw pictures everywhere I could. I filled up my two external hard drives. I filled my macbook so full that, as I've later found out, I'm lucky it never corrupted and crashed. In the last stretch, pictures of my farewell parties, those last mountain hikes, my trip to Stavanger and Liisa's Iceland pictures got crammed onto my netbook.

My own Iceland pictures were left on the memory cards.

In D.C., I bought another hard drive with excellent intentions. I put the Iceland pictures on there, as well as various photos from my time in D.C., as that went on. I also backed up the Faroese pictures, which were precious to me and which I hated only having one copy of. I had intentions of sorting the rest of it, too, but I didn't have much time and it's all way more time consuming and difficult and confusing than I reckoned, so my half-hearted attempts only made things a bigger mess.

I'm honestly amazed that I (knock on wood) never lost a single photo in all of this, in lugging external hard drives and laptops across borders and messing around with them and moving stuff here and there and cramming stuff here and improperly labeling this and putting these folders in the completely wrong album and blah blah blah. No hard drive crashes (though there were scares!), no accidental formats, no deleting one folder when I meant to kill another.

And, two new hard drives later, I'm finally getting somewhere with the organization. At least the macro organization of being able to see all my photos (sort of) in the right place, have the presence of mind to know they're all there, back up that collection properly, and, maybe, this year or next, getting ready to start ACTUALLY sorting them.

All 200,000 of them.

O.O

Fall

It's October, and fall is here. Due to a combination of dry summer and slightly damp autumn, it's not very spectacular. The sky's as blue as ever and the smells are right, but the leaves aren't as vibrant - only the yellow ones are really making a go of it (the big tree next to Rollins is still, by far, the loveliest on campus) and I don't see much red or orange in the forest, only green, not-green, and the bit of yellow here and there.

I literally can't process the fact that I'm halfway into the semester. I've never had time fly by this quickly. I've just been busy, busy, busy - almost every day is full and when I do take time off I feel like I'm purchasing it dearly, can't just relax with friends and build the emptiness of days - we have to each steal a costly hour to spend together, to prove our worth to each other - and it's almost too stressful to enjoy. I don't like this part.

Things are better, now that I've recovered from the conference. If I work my butt off during the week, I can rest on weekends. I only have four classes, but they're trying their best to take me down. I'm actually getting organized out of sheer necessity.

My place feels like a home by now even though I've only unpacked 2/3s of the boxes and the map poster keeps falling down. Also the oven still doesn't work, which is obnoxious.

But living downtown is still great. I get annoyed with early morning construction noise (sometimes its so insanely loud, and I can't even figure out WHAT they are doing - sounds like a truck but louder than any truck I've ever heard - certainly not just a hammer or a drill or GAAAAHHH WHAT IS THAT!!) and I get annoyed with people partying at 2 am in the alley right underneath my window (really guys?) But I have such a nice, short walk to class, and I love being able to go get Sparky's Ice Cream or India House or whatever. Btw Columbia is even more diverse and perfect now than ever. The Middle Eastern Market has a huge new location, there's a French bakery with Macarons and a Korean barbecue place downtown with $5 Kimbap. 

Tutoring is blarggghhh. I'm scheduled for 9 hours a week but people keep not showing up. Oh, they're sick. Oh, they have car troubles. Oh, they just don't show up and later tell me they overslept. Is this just my bad luck? I didn't have these problems last year. Two students have even cancelled. I'm not even hurt or sad - hopefully the new ones will be better. 

I went camping last weekend with Nash and Isa, who is my American Life partner this semester. She's tall and German, a biologist, and the way she talks reminds me a bit of Rachel. She's a nice girl.

I'm thinking about graduate school next year. Not sure what to do.

I'm reading a bit. I don't have a car and there's no exciting hiking to be done here anymore and it can be hard to get friends together at the last minute, so I'm discovering this ancient old-fashioned past-time of spending time with paper and ink. Last Places is the kind of travel book I want to write, but maybe a bit too exaggerated for my taste - or have Iceland and the Faroes really changed so much in 30 years? Probably a mixture of the two. Travel journalism has certainly changed. Sometimes I think the title refers to the "Last Places" you could get away with writing about like that - certainly the last places in Europe.

My friend Jerry from Florida turned 100. Still writing, still learning all the new internet tricks. He's an inspiration.

And now, I have to run again...

Damage Assessment and New Plans

I'm not doing so great right at the moment.

I've neglected my friends, I've neglected my sanity, I've neglected my family, I've neglected my nutrition. I've neglected my bandwidth limits.

I've neglected the honor's society I'm president of, I've neglected my boyfriend, I've neglected my blog, I've neglected my tutoring job. I've neglected other work possibilities. I've neglected my organization, which in turn has affected everything else.

I've neglected my stories, and I've neglected my studies.

So I've said it, admitted it - I've neglected everything.

This will have consequences - some in more cases, less in others.

My friends, family, and boyfriend will forgive me. My blog will have to cope. I've managed to keep my head just above water for the tutoring and the honor's society. I probably won't take any other work this semester, tempting as it might be for both money and experience. The bandwidth issue is only a ten-dollar fee, as long as I'm careful the rest of the month.

Sanity is slowly returning - and I got an overdose of protein and veggies and yum in Indianapolis.

My grades will take a hit. This will not be one of my better semesters. I might be looking at B's instead of A's and C's instead of B's. It depends how the grades come in and how resilient the overall marks are, and whether I make a strong recovery.

My Spanish professor in particular is disappointed in me - I've missed quite a few classes, my essay was not up to par, and I'm sure I've missed homework assignments as well. My gun story is not all I wanted it to be, not for myself nor for my professor nor for those I'm writing about. I'm managing in German, but need to play a little catch up and I don't know when. Editing is a mess. Not sure how much of a mess but it's not what I want from it. Managed not to miss any homework, but today was an exam and I learned the hard way that missing a week of class was not actually such a small matter, and that I need to take better notes because yes, it's one of those classes where if they mention 'types of magazines' or 'qualities needed in a good editor', there will actually be a huge blank space on the test for you to regurgitate the list you were given.

But but but - The others are stressed out too. Some have done worse than I have, and with fewer excuses. I've done worse myself with fewer excuses. I've had tests where I guessed at almost everything because I skipped the classes for no good reason.

I had good reasons, this time, that I either couldn't help or can't regret - Moving into a new apartment and having lots of problems with that, attending a travel writing conference where I learned a lot about my career and made good contacts, and writing a major feature story for Vox, which I'm very proud of. I haven't been slacking off.

And it turns out that, due to a bit of luck, I've only missed one Spanish assignment. I still have the weekend to massively improve my essay, and when I met with the professor in his office hours I realized that he thinks all the essays are crap, and at least he can see that I'm trying. I thought my Magazine Writing professor was disappointed with me, but after talking to the other students I realized he's criticized me perhaps the least. I could do better - I agree myself, completely - but apparently even with the Vox story and the conference crowding me from every side, I did better than some of the others. There was a lot I didn't know on the exam today, but there was a lot I did know. And part two is tomorrow, and I think I can do better on that.

And in exams and essays and what have you, Even a worst-case scenario 50% is a big improvement over 0%. I haven't dropped the ball on anything that big.

Yes, it's discouraging to start a semester this way. But I still have a lot of room and chances to recover and improve. Later work is usually weighted more heavily.

Yesterday, I cleaned my place. I can see more clearly now, think straighter.

Today, I'm going to go buy the school supplies I should have bought a month ago - folders at least so I can organize my papers properly. I'll make a point of going through the syllabuses nightly so I don't lose track of anything else. I'll take better notes. I'll find study sessions and understand my professors quirks better. I won't miss class again.

It's been a rough start. There will be consequences. But I have reasons, if not consequence-altering excuses. I can't truly regret or blame myself, and even if I can - there's no point. I just have to take the wake up call, mitigate the damage, organize myself and move on more strongly.

Leftover Management

Back in school for my last year at Mizzou.

1.) Everything is going fine.

2.) I am insanely busy.

I also have to cook for myself now. This should be - I get to cook for myself now. But, see number 2 above.

And anyway for me it's always a matter of leftover management.

I don't eat enough at one time.

But I'm not complaining, it's cheaper this way and faster after the first time. I've really only made three seperate meals here:

1.) Spaghetti with ground-turkey marinara sauce -) leftover sauce over rice with fried egg (5 meals)
2.) Leftovers from Indian restaurant with more curry seasoning, tomato sauce, added chickpeas and mushrooms (3 meals post-restaurant)
3.) Thai tomato-vegetable soup with bamboo shoots, carrots, and peas (4 meals).

This last is non-intuitive but pretty damn tasty.

Tidbit

 Tidbit was so fat.

Tidbit had a big grey naked belly with lots of speckles on it. It was wrinkly in places but when she rolled over it got stretched pretty much taught like a drum. Dad liked to give her raspberries. I just liked to give her little kisses. But when you did she would freak out and start kicking to turn herself back over again. Sometimes she kicked us in the face accidentally with her little paws.

Tidbit had little hairless places behind her ears and on her elbows and even little patchy places on her tail. It got worse as she got older but she never had thick fur like Tootsie. I always thought of her like the Velveteen rabbit, worn out with love over the years.

When I cried, Tidbit used to get very serious, but she would lick the salty tears off my face.

Tidbit loved opening presents.

Tidbit loved laying in the sun that came in through the windows. 

Tidbit loved laying by the fire in the winter, and out on the pool deck in the summer.

Tidbit loved laying around. :)

Tidbit loved riding in the car.

Tidbit loved going out on boats even though it freaked her out a little bit, she wouldn't be left behind. Once we went out on the kayak, and found some fish lines hung out to catch bass. I messed around with them with my paddle, and got some fish to jump out. Her face was hilarious! Intrigued and yet frightened. Getting her up and down from the boats was hard but we did it anyway, held her tight.

Tidbit didn't like to swim but she would sometimes let herself be put on a raft and set adrift in the pool on a lazy day. And once or twice when it was really hot at the Ozarks and we were coving it, she let me lower her into the water and hold her tight. 

Tidbit had routines - a bedtime routine where she would stand up when we turned the tv off, stretch, then jump off the bed and head towards the door, ready to go potty, come back in, get bedtime snack, then go to bed. As she got older she would decide it was bedtime for us, sometimes mid-movie, stand up and start stretching. We'd all laugh. After all, it's not like we were even keeping her up - she was passed out as we watched the movie!

When she was young, Tidbit would leap off my bed every morning! I tried to teach her to at least go down to the wooden chest first, but she didn't learn fast. Both the dogs used to jump on and off the beds and the sofas and up and down the stairs as fast as they could. It was great - you could say, "Go outside go potty?" from the kitchen, run across the floor and down the stairs and to that door, and they'd run right behind you, nails over hardwood then marble and then thundering down all the stairs in a rush. So much energy! 

Tidbit was incredibly vocal and would - not whine exactly - but grunt and moan and make the cutest little noises, almost like talking. She did this more and more as she got older.

Tidbit used to strut around hotel lobbies like we owned the place. Don't know where she got that sense of entitlement!

Tidbit cried the first night we had her home, but the second night we put her in with Tootsie and she never cried again. Tootsie took care of her, but Tidbit got fat and big quickly and soon was dominant. They used to stay close together in the woods and wrestle together in the living room. But Tidbit was a bully and ate all the food and was the boss. The big ugly bully boss. Dad and Mom secretly liked Tootsie better, but afterwards they said Tidbit was the best dog they'd ever known.

Tidbit fit in my arms perfectly and always wanted and expected to be held. 

Tidbit was good at tug-a-war when her teeth were still good, but she never figured out fetch.

Tidbit would eat everything in her bowl. Then she'd have a nice long drink of water. Then she'd lick out what was left in the bowl. Then she would burp. Then she would go back to sleep. You didn't have to see it to know. You could hear all the sounds and they became as familiar as anything.

Tidbit lifted a leg to pee, like a boy dog... but she was so short you could hardly tell. 

For a long, long time, Tidbit loved going for walks. She'd freak out if you asked her, "Wanna go for a walk?" and she'd run towards the leash and almost wouldn't settle down long enough for you to get it on her, especially once we started using the harness. 

Tidbit stopped wearing her collar after awhile. Then we thought, maybe she should wear it to lose weight? Then we realized it was a ridiculous thought and laughed until we cried.

When Tidbit got cold by the campfire we'd hold her inside our jackets. She would shiver and shake so much it was silly. :P 

Once Tidbit was scratching at a snake, and when I saw it (she was on the leash), I jerked so hard she went flying through the air! She was so young, then.

Tidbit was so proud whenever she would get a treat! She would parade it around grunting and wagging with her head held high. And when she wanted a treat, we would always act confused, "What is it, Tidbit, what do you want?" She'd fall for it and try to show us again and again how to open the cabinet. She must have thought we were idiots sometimes. :)

Tidbit got so excited whenever dad would fire up the grill. We used to give her steak bones. But later they were too rich for her and we ate less steak anyway, so she started getting salmon skins. We'd break them up into little pieces for her because we wanted her to enjoy them, but she just gobbled them down as fast as she could. 

When we went for walks I would bring water for Tidbit. Stephanie used to say, "It's important to water your dachshund!" When Tidbit got overheated she would stand in a puddle or plop down in some shady grass and pant. She loved to run! And she would eat every dried worm and berry off the sidewalk. Even grass. She refused to lose weight. 

I used to sing to Tidbit all the time. A lot of sweet lullabies. And a lot of random shit. When mom was out of the house, Melissa and I used to turn on music and sing it loudly to Tidbit, replacing every other word with her name. XD

Tidbit used to fall asleep on my lap when I studied and when I ate. All through high school I kept these insane hours and she kept them with me. She'd wait for me in her bed in the kitchen while I worked and played Racquetball and then I'd come home and she'd be in my arms from then until I left for school in the morning, shower the only exception (and sometimes she'd wait in the bathroom then.) But when I left she adapted well to sleeping in her little bed at the foot of mom and dad's. 

Tidbit actually got cuter as she got older. In the old pictures she looked like a mobster dog and a bully with that thick neck and barrel chest. But when she got older she just got so dear. And when her little face and paws turned white, it undid me. Almost until the end, some people still asked if she was a puppy. I guess because she was small. Like me.

Tidbit used to sit with me while I folded laundry, and I would start placing it gently on her. She never decided if she liked it or not. The warmth relaxed her, but the act confused her. I would always do it anyway, a piece at a time like Zanga to see how much she would tolerate before it got 'too weird' and she moved away with an indignant grunt. 

Tidbit loved the four of us and a select few others. Our grandparents for example. She tolerated a range of others to various degrees and learned that she had to be nice to all people, even strangers. But she never did learn not to hate other dogs.

I used to hold an umbrella over Tidbit when it rained and shovel out a space for her in the snow. She never figured out how the umbrella worked through and always looked at me like I was crazy for getting so close to her while she peed, and always ran back to the house so fast I couldn't keep up, and she got soaked anyway. When she got old and fragile dad built ramps for her everywhere out of plywood and old carpets. She didn't like to use those either. She knew she was supposed to but she didn't know why, so sometimes she'd go over and tag them as an afterthought, mid jump, as if they were springboards.

When we moved to Florida Tidbit's bed was placed precariously in the back of the Armada, surrounded by crates etc. She found a big black snake in Ocala and was like, "What have we done?" (like the rest of us, at the same moment!) and she was always a bit unnerved by the big salty water. And she always got the painful sandburs stuck in her feet! (Luckily dad was good at taking them out) But she loved the warmth and the lack of steps was good for her. And when we first arrived she chased lizards all the time! Even caught a few. Once she charged a big pelican, who didn't budge. She decided she didn't see him after all. 

Tidbit had a funny, rolling, sideways run, like she was always about to fall over. I think to her right. How quickly we forget...

Tidbit had a swagger and a strut until the very end. 

Tidbit snored and sneezed and burped and it was all adorable. 

Tidbit had skin tabs and I loved those too. 

I carried Tidbit home when I was 8 years old. We put her to sleep 14 years later. I'd gotten though middle school and high school and four years of college. Everything had changed, except Tidbit. She was like something from another world and another life, by the end. I almost kept forgetting she was still around. A little link to my past. But I was so different, it was like she was different too. But now it's hard to realize she's really gone. God, I loved that little puppy.

I'm so happy I had her for all those years. When I think about how we so easily could have not gotten her, or sent her back, or how she could have died from the poison as a little puppy, or in the river that day both dogs almost drowned, or when they fell into the cold spring, or that time she had the neck spasms and we almost put her to sleep... it's really amazing that she lived so long. A blessing that she could grow old surrounded by love and comfort and even got to retire to Florida. I wasn't there for her at the end - something I'll always feel a bit sad about - but at least she had Melissa. And mom, and dad, of course.

But I loved her, and I miss her. And it's hard to believe that nothing's left now but a collar she hadn't really worn in years, too many photos, and a lot of memories. Memories every one of us will carry until our own last days, memories of a little red-brown dachshund who was as much a part of our family as anyone else. Memories no one else will ever be able to understand.

In many ways, Tidbit was my childhood. She taught me to be a mother, and a friend. First we grew up together, and then I blossomed as she got old and started wasting, slowly, away. She saw me through some of the hardest times of my life, and she was closer to it all, in so many ways, than anyone else. She's seen more of my tears and more of my sorrows, alone in our room, than anyone. But she's also seen more of my joy - the happy days I would run home, throw down my bag, and as soon as she came running to see me I'd throw on her leash and collar and we'd run out together, like the whole world was waiting, the big blue Missouri skies and the endless green lawns of suburbia waiting for us.

And I'll never, ever, forget that feeling.

I'll never, ever, forget my little girl.

Things that happen

I hadn't seen her since Christmas.

Every time I left, I knew it was for a long time - a long time even for a person, much less a dog... and still less for an old dog like Tidbit.

Still, she was healthy for her age. Doing okay. Still had a little bit of attitude and a lot of appetite.

They called me Sunday. They made the decision last Monday and they put her down Friday.

They talked about it and decided it was best not to tell me, that it would be easier on me to wait until Sunday. Didn't want to ruin my weekend (who gives a shit honestly). Thought it was better that I didn't try to fly down or anything.

Yeah, well. I'm trying not to make a big stink about it. They thought they made the right decision, and it can't be undone. I feel like dad should have known, I thought he felt the same way when we put Tootsie down, but I guess not. And it's not like I can ask them to do something differently 'next time' - there will never be a next time. I guess I should have been more explicit, about what I wanted them to do. But I don't think I myself knew until it happened. I knew she would die, I didn't know it was coming that soon, but I knew it was coming soon. I was ready in some ways but not in others. I hadn't thought out the details. I hadn't realized that I wanted to be there, that I wanted to hold her for her last minutes.

But I hadn't seen her for months. I never said goodbye.

And she was my girl.

I carried her home, I fed her under the table, I told her everything, we had all our secret places, she slept in my bed for 11 years.

I should have been told. I should have had the choice. I should have been there.

I wish she could have had her mommy come home, one last time. 

I held her all the way home, and I wish I could have held her, at the end of all things. 

I wish I could have sung her one last lullaby. 

Last night, I sang to her, into the darkness, thousands of miles away and days too late.

Just close your eyes
The sun is going down
You'll be alright
No one can hurt you now
Come morning light
You and I'll be safe and sound

Don't you dare look out your window darling
Everything's on fire
The war outside our door keeps raging on
Hold on to this lullaby
Even when the music's gone
Gone

Sure, this way was 'easier'. But it wasn't right. Tidbit deserved better from her mommy...

Iceland to Internship

Iceland was great, really fantastic, I lived hard and had six incredible days clambering over glaciers, hiking over lava fields that reminded me more of the moon than of the earth, watching seabirds swoop in and out of their cliffside homes, soaking in remote hot springs and standing awe-struck at the power of four enormous, thundering waterfalls. I ate whale sushi, sheep's head, and rotten shark, strolled down the city street's of Reykjavik and the line between Europe and America at Thingvellir. Liisa and I put some serious kilometers behind us as we drove our 'too pretty for Iceland' little red rental car from Reykjavik to Hofn, Hofn to Arnarstapi, and back again to Reykjavik.

But the trip didn't seem real until my flight landed in Keflavik, and it faded back out of reality somewhere over the Atlantic.

Suddenly, I was back home.

Loud, smiling, friendly, lovely Americans everywhere.

I could understand everything - it felt invasive.

I was suddenly eating every meal out - the extravagance was almost too much.

The heat is cutting me a break this weekend, it's only in the low 80's, but still it's weird to leave the house with a t-shirt without scarves and jackets tucked into my bag.

Arrival Friday.

Saturday was clean up day, cutting the extra hair off the mountain girl, scrubbing the dirt and callouses off her feet, painting her toenails pretty pretty red, and shopping for clothes that haven't been dragged through heaven and hell and everything in between. The shopping mall - my god. Talk about culture shock.

Sunday I went with Nash, Aunt Rhonda, and Uncle Chris to the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. Boats and barbecue and scenery bursting with Americana. Skyscrapers, flags, airshow, military displays, corn on the cob.

More culture shock - moving from impoverished student accomodation to a cushy, luxurious set up at my relatives. The towels and carpets are white and soft. The room is big, dark, quiet. I have my own bathroom and the shower is lovely. The pantry and fridge are full to overflowing. We drive in nice cars from one garage to the other and hardly notice that it's raining.

The end in sight

You can't actually spend two solid weeks saying farewell. As the very last days arrive, it's actually getting a bit easier. 

Reluctantly I accepted one last couchsurfer. He was in a tight spot, so I helped him out. We joined Ffinlo and Jens for an acapella concert at Kvarteret, then drinks at KAOS. Next morning, I toured Bryggen one last time and finally made it to the Bryggen museum.

Then I met Lukas and Monika for Vidden. Monika came as far as Ulriken with us, then ran down to cook with friends. As promised, the hike took 8 hours. It was pretty cold up there and sometimes sun, sometimes threatening clouds. But we didn't get wet, and there were a thousand shades of green looking down towards the lake, and new perspectives on all the old familiar places, and at the end we managed to get lost at a place we should have known well by now! And there was a lovely sunset shining through all the cotton-puffy plants whose names I never learned, and we found an old burned down cabin and the ruins of a huge ski slope under the full moon, and walked back along Svartediket.

Slept in late today after all of that! Then we had a Dugnad cleaning of the kitchen with all the suitemates, and got a picture of everyone together! And then I ran downtown to Friday's to see Monica and some of her friends one last time. How funny to eat at Friday's, everything was super American except the Bergen scenery out of the window, the people from this semester, and of course the Norwegian prices! Gave Monica back the movie she lent me, as well as a Florida magnet and postcard and an American flag. We walked back together along the harbour and said goodbye... :)

Now tomorrow morning I leave early for one last trip. Destination: Stavanger. The primary reason I'm going, at least why I'm going now, is to see an old friend from my first trip to Norway! :) But I'll also enjoy seeing the city, might meet up with the couchsurfer again actually, and am planning to do Preikestolen on Tuesday.

Then it's back in town for one last day, I'll meet the cleaning department, do the last bit of packing, some last shopping, give friends photos, and have a nice party on the balcony here at Alrek!

And then, the next day, I have an early afternoon flight, to....

Well, home eventually, but first... one last exciting European destination! ICELAND! A few days stolen from the responsibilities on both ends, and time with one of my best friends. :D

The Wild Woman of the Mountains

I'm tempted to pack an empty bottle, my waterproof everything and my sleeping bag into my backpack, go up into the mountains and not come down again.

Sleep when it's dark (those rare three hours).

Walk when it's not.

Enjoy the sun and blue skies and the views over the sea and the islands.

I'll get dark from dirt and sun, and grow a wild beard.

They'll never catch me alive, they'll never make me leave.

:)

It's tempting...

Summer in Bergen

It's been incredible, incredible weather lately. Especially for Bergen. Pretty much two weeks straight with no rain.

No rain, hardly any clouds, and only three hours of darkness a night.

This is becoming a problem.

I'm trying to see everyone again, check those final things off my list, use every minute...

And there are too many minutes.

And I have to force myself to stay home and pack, sleep, rest, do anything except wander around outside until I collapse of exhaustion.

I feel like a moth, drawn to the sun like a flame. Weak as it is here I feel the slight redness on my face when I come home each evening. Always gone by morning, but still.

These last days are killing me.

I will leave a lot of my heart here.

And yet I still find time for a few words, typed here and there, a short blog post.

Because there's a magic in words, in expression, and something beautiful for the future knowing I was here in this wonderful place when I chose these keys from the keyboard and wrote these last things when it was a living description of the present, not yet a memory.

Today was a sort of Rennaisance Festival thing, the Bjørgvin Medieval and Viking Market down south at the Hordamuseet alongside the Fjord. Very low-key but lovely. Cool but sunny. Harps and ocarinas, viking soup and butter with wild garlic, and delicious Israeli hummus (oddly enough). The costumes were simple but nice, and with so few tourists the percentage of people in costume was much higher than at most such events. Cute families, children playing with fake swords and drinking out of little horns. Becky and I learned how to shoot the bows and each got a bulls-eye (out of 6 tries - best not to ask about the other five. ;)) And we listened to the story of Odin's quest for knowledge in a 2,000 year old stone-circle.

Waited a long time for the bus, way out in the sticks and with the strike going on. But it was warm at the stop, and we had a view over lovely green farmland. A tractor driving about kicking up dust and followed by a cloud of seagulls. A father and a sun flying a red kite in the distance.