Finals Week

I'm down to the finishing touches of my first round of Germany paperwork and my final (other than housing, etc) round of Spain paperwork. I've been working my skin off for Reslife the last few days. I didn't have any finals on Thursday, so I did extra RICCs Wednesday night and Thursday morning/afternoon. Apparently most of the building left yesterday. The good news about all of this is that I think we're going to be DONE by 11 o'clock tonight. The bad news is that I haven't had time to breathe, much less start packing yet. So I'm thinking tomorrow will be packing day, leaving me Sunday and Monday to do the essays. The essays are everything except written - massive 8 page fleshed out outlines complete with quotes, that I just have to run through, flesh out, and polish. Anyway, I've been doing a lot of RICCs so I'm not going to feel too bad about trying to sneak out later. I'm going to pick mom up from the airport and I think I'll leave an hour early, take my last passport photos and buy two folders at Walgreens, buy a money order at the post office, pick up my recommendation from Monica's office, turn the Germany application (sans essays, which I can write this summer) in at the International Office, and turn the Visa forms in at the J-School.

I said goodbye to Zahra the other day, we ate breakfast together at 7 and she caught the Mo-Ex in the rain. It's hard to believe I won't be seeing her next year, unless she visits me in Florida over Winter Break (she better). I said goodbye to Amanda in the hallway, a quick hug and then she left, carrying a soccer ball casually under one arm. She's doing Vet school at Mizzou, so I'll see her again. Last night I made the not so smart but really emotionally necessary decision to have a girls' night sleepover with Ju and Fangbai. We watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which was enjoyable albeit one of the most ridiculous movies I've ever seen. Prite actually stayed and watched that with us, then we were all tired so we slept. I had to get up at 7, though, and Fangbai at 8, so we didn't have quite the wild abandon of a normal sleepover. When my alarm went off I changed in the cold air (the window was open, so it felt snug and nice under the covers but sad to get out of them) and tried not to wake them, but Ju's house betrayed me with every step on the creaking floorboards. I think I'll see Ju this summer or even this weekend, but I can't say for sure when I'll see Fangbai again. I'll miss her a lot.

Mostly, though, I'm too tired for emotions. I'm not even normal head-achey eyes-closing tired, it's manifesting itself more in a sort of nausea and frustration. X( As interesting as it is, I stare at these essays and just want to curl up and sleep instead of typing... typing...

Bullshit

Final exams are all finished. I only had three - Catalan, Anthropology, and Spanish. Monica told us Catalan would be easy, but as Shelby said, "she said that about all the others too!" But this final one was easy. Too easy. It was all "introduce yourself!" and "describe your family!" and only worth 12 points, which is scary because it's 20% of the grade or something unreasonable like that. I'm going to accidentally misspell mother or something and drop down to a B. :P Anthropology on the other hand was the toughest test yet, talking to Tina and Troy we all guessed and conjectured about the same though, and Troy has 100% in the class so far and Tina and I aren't far behind, so I'm not super concerned. Still, when I was writing about hedonism for example I tried to just give Palmer what he wanted and I found myself too conflicted... so I gave my own arguments more on this test than on any of the previous ones, which won't help my grade but hopefully won't hurt it too bad. The extra credit questions were insane - I'd never even heard of the people's names. And I kept almost falling asleep while taking the exam. Meh.

I went straight from that into another essay test in Spanish. He gave us surprisingly little space to write our answers, and yet everyone was like, "do we have to use all the space?!?" I used all of it, writing two small lines inside each lined space on the page. The first two questions weren't terrible - I had to talk about how people build their social image and how poems and plays differ (on a deeper level than 'poems are shorter'), but the third one was yikes. Like being back in Smith's class, but worse because there simply weren't any words. No, I'll be fair. There was one. One word. This is a literature class, and they were asking me to write a three page paper about a single word. This is what was on the top of the paper:


Instructions? - Analyze this.

I saw this while looking through and panicked a little bit. Was this a joke? I only had one crappy sentence to write in analysis of this poem: "Esta imagen representa que los poemas pueden ayudarte entender el mundo y la vida, porque las poemas abren la puerta al sabio, como llaves." Great essay, right? Well, great poem too, buster! I calmed down, and repeated to myself, "Do you think this is easier for anyone else in the room? Really? Just relax, you can bullshit your way through this." And it's true. I just have to relax and say one thing, and then here comes another and another. And I had no enthusiasm about it and no real ideas, of course, so each point seemed awfully contrived, just one step from being mockery of the assignment, but I just had to pretend to believe in my points, and for the duration of the exam, I almost forgot I was bullshitting shamelessly. Almost.

Bullshitting, right? So the teacher isn't even giving you a question to work with. So, first make up questions. Then make up answers. What can I say about this?

First. The obvious. Keys are tools. A poem can be a tool that the reader uses to understand something, and a tool that the poet uses to show the reader something.

Time to get more specific. Why poema (poem)? Why not poesia (poetry)? I realized with a start that I was a bit curious about this. Of the points I brainstormed, this was the one I could answer least well - some nonsense about poema being more accessible, less fluffy sounding than poesia, and how it's an individual poem that functions as a tool more than poetry in general... but mostly because i would look stupid at the end of the key. And yes, I did write that last part. Because style is important too.

What else? The poem is short. Only one word. If it was longer it would look ridiculous, too many keys! Why a key for each separate letter, instead of one key that has the whole word poem? BS - Well, when you write a poem, because poems are short, and have to express a message at the same time that they often have to maintain a rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, etc, each word has a high weight and needs to be just the right word. Even the single letters within the poem are chosen specially. That's why each letter has it's own key, because they were chosen that way by the poet.

Okay, come on, I just need one more crappy thing to say... I think I've exhausted the word poema now. What else is in the poem? Uh... the handles of the keys. Good enough. Keys have handles. Handles are what you hold to use keys. So seeing the handles around the letters of poema is interesting. I can see two possible interpretations: One, that to the poet the poem always looks sort of like this, the poet considers the the letters/words of his poem keys to open doors of understanding for the readers. Two, that the handles are hanging there looking all appetizing, begging the reader to pick them up and use the poem and understand.

And yes, somehow I managed to make all of this sound a little bit smarter, except for the last one because I don't know the Spanish word for handle, so that was a fun bit of circumlocution...

I got to turn in the Bernarda Alba essay as well, and knock out some of my study abroad stuff. All that remains now is...

- Staff stuff!!!
- A few more goodbyes...
- Getting mom from the airport on Friday
- More Germany stuff
- A little more Spain VISA stuff
- Packing!!!
- Nihonjinron!!!
- Andorra !!!!

Wa yeah.

My Advisers

I have 10 advisers at Mizzou. No, seriously. Count 'em.

- Journalism Degree Adviser (Jill)
- Arts and Science Degree Adviser (Jessica?)
- Spanish Major Adviser (Molavi)
- International Studies Major Adviser (Cassandra)
- German Minor Adviser (Monika)
- Anthropology Minor Adviser (Deborah?)
- Honors College Adviser (Miranda?)
- Journalism Study Abroad Adviser #1 (John)
- Journalism Study Abroad Adviser #2 (Kip)
- Germany Study Abroad Adviser (Wafa)
- Norway Study Abroad Adviser (Pauliina)

Not to mention that I have to see the financial aid and international admissions offices once in a while too. :D It's jolly fun, let me tell you. Some of them I haven't seen since Freshman year, which I know is naughty, but how much time am I supposed to be spending trying to get to the right place for the right office hours, wait, and chat?

Finals Week

Yikes yikes. I need to not freak out - I can get it all done if I don't waste time. I did the Catalan presentation and the rough draft of the Spanish paper, and I'm not worried about those exams. So I put in an hour to spruce up the paper and I'm covered in those classes. In German I have a paper due tomorrow but it's nothing exceptional, so I'll knock it out tonight with no trouble. Even the profile isn't too bad, just gotta get down to business. It's due Friday at 3. I just finished all my News stuff, and that's a big weight off my shoulders - profile and convergence projects vanquished as of fifteen minutes ago! I'm not much worried about the Anthro final either, and there's no German final or News final.

So, basically, I have a week to do my VISA paperwork and write two research papers. The papers aren't supposed to be all that long and they wouldn't even have to be perfect, except that my teacher's expectations are crushing me. I'm still not 100% sure what I'm going to do for the Catalan paper and I'm worried that a certain percentage of it is going to be bullshit, that I'm not going to be 100% proud of the result. But maybe I'll surprise myself if I just dig in up to my elbows and focus. The Nihonjinron paper I'm more confident about, but I still hope I can give it what it deserves. Both of the teachers are excited to see it and are even talking about trying to get it published, and I haven't even written the papers yet!! O.O It's a lot to live up to, I wish they'd keep their mouths shut and afterward either say, "okay, it's adequate" or "sorry, I can't give you credit", or, if it at that point warrants the praise, "this is brilliant Miranda, let's publish".

To do: (not in order, except for #1)

1.) Figure out what I need from mom and dad for the VISA, send them the information for that. (est. 1 hour)
2.) Write the Nihonjinron paper (est. 6 hours)
3.) Organize Catalan ideas (est. 6 hours)
4.) Write the Catalan paper (est. 6 hours)
5.) Do work stuff like being on call, etc (est. 45 hours)
6.) Put in a bit of time studying for Anthropology (est. 2 hours)
7.) Put in a bit of time studying for Spanish (est. 2 hours)
8.) Revise Spanish paper (est. 1 hour)
9.) Do my paperwork for the VISA (est. 2 hours)
10.) Random commitments like EI, banquets, mom, saying goodbye to friends, packing??? (est. ???)

I say I have a week. I actually have almost two. The goal is to get everything done by next Thursday, but I have the next weekend if I absolutely need it. I've also talked to Palmer, at least, about how I'll probably turn in a rough draft and make edits over the summer. Maybe Monica will accept that too?

Fifty Hours of Springtime

It's spring. The trees around Jesse and Memorial are breaking into tiny red flowers, and the Magnolia buds are swollen and fuzzy-soft. Some days it rains and the wind blows sideways and it's cold. Other days it's sunny and warmish and delightfully breezy.

Nash and I hike up the cliffs by the quarry at dusk, drinking mango juice from Taj Emporium. We walk here and there through the night, hit Noodles and then Starbucks, each right at closing. Then it's two a.m...

The next morning I can sleep in, so I finally slink over to Anthro-Religion right at 12:30, soaking wet and not looking forward to standing outside in it for an hour, but when I do, after class, it's not so bad - the giant apple costume is surprisingly well insulated, especially over my coat, and we sing and dance to get more money and stay warm. The peapod makes up a song and it isn't very good.

I go home for a minute, write up something quick about our field trips to the Missourian newsroom and the KOMU broadcast studio. Then I run over to News class and turn that in and we have to do some spot deadline writing for a fake news conference and then have a few minutes to plan our convergence project. My group is going to do sexting.

I run over to Mark Twain. News class went full time, unusually, so I'm a bit late to eat dinner with Zahra, (British) Laura, Yuki, and Palak. I have to leave, early, too, because I'm covering an easter egg hunt for News. I run back to South to drop off my schoolbooks and grab my keys, and end up helping Tina and Pelumi troubleshoot for their art event. I stay for and photograph the first few minutes of it, then I run out to the parking lot and head for Stephen's Lake.

I drive into the park and reach a parking lot at a dead end. I see the group assembled for the hunt - a quarter mile up the hill and across a bit of a drainage marsh. I'm just barely on time, so I cut my losses and park, working my way across the puddles and then up the hill. I realize after a moment that I'm walking through the hunting fields - brightly coloured eggs are scattered here and there. I suddenly worry that someone's going to accuse me of stealing the candy or something. They don't. Then I think a little bit longer about how random it is that I'm walking into the event from across the park, and it's all little kids and I'm showing no identification as a Journalism student or anything else and I feel grateful that I'm a woman so no one's likely to accuse me of pedophilia (coincidentally this immunity reminds me of a conversation I had with Liisa one time. :P) Its a flashlight egg hunt so by God everyone's brought a flash light and when the first wave is set out at 7:30 it's not dark enough that the lights can really be seen much less useful, but still all the mommy's and daddy's show their toddlers how the flashlights work and ask them not to shine them in the other kids' eyes...

Back at South, Tina's event is still going on so I sit and draw with Tina and Amanda and Tina's professor friend. There's hummus leftover and Tina wants to eat it with me and I say we really need some sort of bread so we discuss the possibility of making a pita run and then Tina gets this funny look in her eyes and says, "Let's go to a park and eat hummus and pita." And then she says, "Do you want to invite Sam Kennedy?" And Sam's a friend of Tina's friend and we've eaten lunch with him a few times and I say, "Yeah, yeah I do." So we call Sam up on the phone and tell him to dress warmly and high-tail it over to South and when he gets to Tina's room we blindfold him and lead him out to the car and throw him in the backseat with all the sleds and stuff. We drive to Hyvee and buy Pita and some chocolate and then further to Rock Bridge, specifically a trail that's supposed to be closed after dark but rather notably isn't, the gate is wide open so we drive in and sit at a picnic table at eat hummus and pita, like we planned. We can see a lot of stars from there and also the moon and we take a little walk because Tina apparently for all of her nature worship has never been to Rockbridge. And Sam and I argue about which direction to go and I tell Sam he's an idiot because the path goes around in a circle and we play by a waterfall under the moonlight and and there are bats everywhere down by the cave and when we start walking back to the car Sam says something silly about Sign-Bears and I say something silly about Totemism and Tina is ashamed of both of us.

We go home to South and Tina has to study so Sam and I play Super Smash Brothers for a couple hours. And then I sleep...

Spanish class, then more Local Food and Local People and in the morning it's cold wet and windy and I shiver in the Apple again and then two other volunteers start a little band, they're reasonably talented and as the sun starts coming out they don the peapod and the apple and a guitar and sing...

"Hello, my name is Peabody and I was grown here locally..."

The song is surprisingly good but I've already forgotten most of it, all I can say is that Tina has some creative and talented friends...

I have to leave for Catalan, but afterward I find myself drawn back to take pictures of the little red flowers in front of the Memorial tower, and before I know it I'm sitting in the sun with Tina and she is the Spinach fairy and I am a farmer and we are talking to Satoshi and one of his friends about Mt. Misen, the aquarium on Miyajima, and what Tina is on to be so passionate about Local Food and Local People.

Then I walk with Palak, a rather long way, send a package to distant Liisa which she'll recieve when she returns from Nepal. And Palak and I talk about life and love and the way emotions flicker, bend, and yet endure across cyberspace; she has her sad stories and I can be there for her in a way that's unusual, so I am, and Palak climbs into Flatbranch cave against her better judgement, thanks to my evil influence.

I meet Nash for dinner at Dobbs, he's heading back to St. Louis and I have to do Health and Safety Checks at South. Kevin and I and then Pelumi, too, we take the third floor and get done in relatively decent time but of course there are a few problem rooms and somehow I end up helping Miguel get those sorted out, including climbing up a bunkbed to remove a pair of flannel pants that someone had artfully pinned up around their smoke detector, not suspicious at all... ;)

By then I'm a bit late, I'd agreed to meet Satoshi and his friend Yasu and our friends Sara and Jenny. I'm tired and don't feel like going out, but they moved the whole event from a bar to Shakespeare's for me, because I'm underage, so I felt an obligation and anyway tomorrow is break so I can sleep then or when I'm dead, whichever.

By the time I drive over to Shakespeare's I'm feeling a lot better, it's weird huh? Almost like I'm turning into an extrovert or something. Sara and Jenny couldn't come but I feel surprisingly chill about being there with Satoshi and a bunch of essentially strangers. Our main group is Satoshi, Yasu, and an American named Matt. Some other Americans come in for a while and then leave. All the Americans seem to be from Chesterfield, close to my hometown, which is amusing. A Thai guy also comes, this guy I know - his name is Dong and he calls me Mirandong and I'm not 100% why. After a moment everyone (Satoshi, Yasu, Matt, and Dong) decide to go out and play pool, and I figure what the hell, my flights not until noon... so I come along too.

I haven't played pool for maybe 8 years and I'm not very good to say the least, but only Yasu's really decent so it's all relative I guess. Matt and I are on a team and at some point between games Satoshi sort of corners me and asks if I have a boyfriend. He says it too casually for it to be about himself, plus he's quite a bit older than me, so I'm wondering what's going on and waiting patiently for that to unfold itself. And afterwards Satoshi and Matt are having a bit of a conversation and the tone makes me even more suspicious, but again I decide to wait and see...

When the Billiards hall closes, the Asians head off to a bar and Matt and I decide to go home. My cars still over by Shakespeare's, and it's late, so Matt walks me over there and we talk. And right as we get to the car his voice changes and he asks me if I'd like to get together sometime and get to know each other. I say, sure, add me on Facebook, we'll talk after break... and I get in the car and drive home and pack my bags and go to sleep.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Two friends had their birthday parties this week. My E.I. for the semester is on Monday. I've been trying to organize AMG's volunteer week at Hickman High School. News Class is bogging me down in tons of work and obligations. I'm trying to get paperwork for study abroad figured out. Oh, and I somehow ended up signing up to be a captain for the food drive on Friday. Go me. :) Luckily classes haven't been too bad this week or I'm not sure I'd be able to cope. As it is I'm treading water, and only regretting that I can't spend a bit more time enjoying the weather.

Uni's Spanish is progressing nicely! By the time he leaves Spain I think we'll be able to have conversations. He's hard on himself but he's really doing well. Today I taught him my secret for past tense, since he hasn't learned it yet and I remember how frustrating it was to be forced to live only in the present. ;) (The secret is to use the pluperfect... haber conocido, etc, forms. Not 100% accurate, but gets the point across better than saying conozco ayer or something.)

Cabin Fever

A cold, long winter. No surprise warm days. Lots of snow. Temperatures occasionally falling below 0'degrees... Fahrenheit. It's been beautiful, and a bit exhausting.

Everyone's sick, tired, stressed, tensions are flying high. My skin, my head start to burn in meetings, like steam pressure building and scalding, when working out slight details, when interrupted, when fighting to make my voice heard. I just feel the need to get out, away.

I've been homesick in the last week, just a bit. A tiny bit. But it's the first time. It's strange.

Let's... not break...

Okay?

Grrrr Mondays....

8:00 - Try to talk to mom, get ready for class
9:00 - Spanish Literature Class
10:00 - Bookstore to order Catalan textbook, send postcards
11:00 - German Culture Class
12:15 - Lunch!! (And making to do lists)
1:00 - Catalan Class
2:00 - Talk with mom about schedule, talk to Melissa
3:00 - News Lecture
4:00 - Library for German project research
5:00 - Alpha Mu Gamma Meeting
6:00 - South Staff Meeting
7:00 - CET Meeting
8:00 - Writing Incident Reports for conduct, discussing hall issues with Nina
9:00 - Dinner!! (And German club stuff...)
10:00 - Dealing with roommate conflict
11:20 - Start Homework.....................................


The rest of the week is so much easier. After all, there's only:

To Do List:
Copy Catalan Pages (Tuesday Afternoon)
Anthropology Reading (Tuesday Noon)
Geology Reading (Tuesday Afternoon)
News Assignment (Tuesday Evening)
Keep up with current events, lecture reading for News (Thursday Evening)
(!) German Presentation (Wednesday Morning)
Bulletin Board (Friday Morning)
(!) Spanish Paper (Friday Morning)

Schedule:
Meet Sarah for German Club Stuff (Tuesday at 10:20, A&S)
Meet German Professor (Tuesday at 10:30, Strickland)
Meet Bryce (Tuesday at 1:45)
German Club Stuff (Wednesday 10-11)
Meet Spanish Professor (Wednesday at 3:00, A&S)

So....

Tonight:
News Assignment
German Project – powerpoint in german, vocabulary in german
Send German Club and AMG minutes

Tuesday:
Do anything in morning that wasn’t done at night.
Leave South @ 10
Meet Sarah @ 10:20
Meet German Professor @ 10:30
Between German Professor and Anthropology, copy Catalan pages
Anthropology @ 12:30
Meet Bryce and return Catalan book immediately after Anthropology
Eat lunch, do geology reading
Geology @ 3:30
News @ 5:00
Evening: Finish, practice German presentation, do Catalan homework, do German homework

Wednesday:
German Club Stuff (Wednesday 10-11)
Meet Spanish Professor (Wednesday at 3:00, A&S)
Study for News, get bulletin board stuff, Spanish paper

Thursday: (!)Spanish paper, bulletin board

Life is Crazy

It's fall. It's much warmer than a few weeks ago - we might not have a freakishly cold winter, after all. The last weeks it's been mostly raining and cloudy, and last night the sky looked red at midnight, the way it does when it's cloudy here. It's somewhat eerie. But today the sky was blue and it almost threw me off. I'm too busy for a blue sky at the moment. In the evening the light was long and golden and the air felt perfect.

It's a stressful time. It's not a bad time, I've had a lot of fun. But it's very stressful. There have been job stresses like iLife and the flood. I am worried about some family stuff. There are so many things I need to take care of right now - tests, projects, registration, changing the oil. I'm out of money again, or close enough, and angry at myself for it. That's what I get for taking two weekend trips and eating out all the time, though. My grades could be better, and I hate most of my classes.

I owe Liisa an email quite badly. I have written three cards I haven't yet had the chance to send out. I promised some of my residents a pumpkin carving party that I'm going to try to squeeze in tomorrow. I've got four parties to attend this weekend. I desperately need sleep but I'm not really going to get it until tomorrow.

I have travel rabies. I expected to take a bit longer to recover from Japan. Sometimes I feel that travelling only makes my wanderlust worse. I'm also very upset by the fact that I'm not really learning any languages right now. I'm so tempted to overcompensate and sign up for two or three next semester.

Life is good, but life is crazy. :( I am blogging so that I can ease myself into concentration.

Stress and Stupidity

This morning I realized that I didn't have my jacket. Or the map I got yesterday. With a bit of mental backtracking, I realized that I left it/them either in the computer lab in Johnston or in my Economics classroom. The Econ Classroom was more likely, since I sort of dashed out right when the bell rang to get to the FIG class on time. I asked at Johnston and they knew nothing. I found my jacket in the back of the Econ room :), but no map. :(

My schedule is now officially full to bursting, and it's jumped straight from quite manageable to full of irreconcilable conflicts. For example, I am supposed to be in two small groups this year.

One, for Cross Cultural Journalism, is one of the largest 'small groups' I've ever worked in. It's about 15 people, and they decided to meet tonight and asked for times we were available. I said I was available except for from 5:30 - 7:30, since that's when I have the South Staff meeting. Guess when they scheduled the small group meeting? 6-7. Right. So it's not even possible for me to leave one early and get to the other one late, since it's a half hour walk from where I live to where they're having the meeting (almost the furthest possible point from where I live). It's not personal, of course, I just think that if you have a 'small' group expected to coordinate and meet outside of class, it should be around 8 people at the most. Because I don't know how I'm going to do this.

The other is for Biological Anthropology. I was supposed to be able to get honors credit through contract for that class by attending a discussion group every week. This would really be my only chance at staying n the honors college, since most Journalism classes don't offer honors credit, and Biological Anthropology would potentially give me 5, and I'd be all caught up. But the teacher says he can't find a time for everyone to meet, so he'll probably have to cancel the honors discussion group. I want to know what he means by everyone - couldn't we pick a time most people could come and sacrifice the others? I mean, it sucks, yeah, but I would be less frustrated if they 'sacrificed' me, than if they just canceled the whole thing. It sucks for everyone.

While trying to figure all of this out, I came back to the dorm. I had a few packages and while I was opening them a lady came with stuff for iLife, asking for a Miranda, so I actually got three packages. Feel popular. :D The problem (of course there was a problem), is that one of the packages is something I ordered from Amazon about two weeks ago, and they didn't charge my credit card until it shipped or something... so here I was thinking that had already gone through and that I had 30$ in my account, and suddenly I have 10$. I was comfortably broke and now I'm just destitute. The other problem is that I had ordered an extra small t-shirt. Yeah, extra small my ass. The thing is HUGE. I mean, insanely huge. Reslife gives out really big shirts, but this is the size of their medium, and it's an EXTRA SMALL. I brainstormed ways to use it but gave up. It's so big I think it would even be uncomfortable to sleep in, and anyway I don't pay 20$ for sleepshirts. So I actually had to email the company about it and we'll see how that turns out.

AHHHH!!!!

A Crazy Week

The last week has been insane - both in good ways and bad. This is what I did:

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Monday - Flew home from Dallas, Texas.

Tuesday - South Hall had a fire drill, which I had to help conduct since I'm a P.A. Afterwards I went and played Racquetball with Ju, Prite, and Zahra for two hours. :)

Wednesday - I put up a bulletin board, had a staff meeting with my CET, then ran straight to Rollins for dinner with Tabi, and we went to see Tulpan (a Kazakh film) at the Ragtag.

Thursday - One on One Staff Meeting, then helped Kevin with Spanish a bit, and then ran to Middlebush for the year's first Alpha Mu Gamma meeting. We had great turnout actually. I walked home with Lucy and found out that we have a lot in common, and that we both live in South. Don't know how we missed that before. :P Then I made an email list for AMG.

Friday - I went to the Mosque with Zahra for Ramadan, ate yummy food, and then hung out with her and Maria, her roommate, for a while. Came back to the dorm around eleven and realized that the canoe trip on Saturday started really early in the day. So I had to make a really fast run to Schnucks for Canoe Trip Food before it closed.

Saturday - I woke up at 5:30 for the canoe trip. Do the math - I didn't get much sleep. It was really fun though. Ju and Fangbai were there. The river was low but actually the canoe that Ju and I were using was light enough that we just managed to drift over spots where other people were having to get out and drag. We skipped rocks and went swimming a bit. The water was the perfect temperature. On the way home I got to ride in a cool convertible, and I got home just in time to be on call. (First I ran to Dobbs for dinner and Carole happened to be there, so I ate with her and two of her friends) It was a football night. The stadium was packed with about 60,000 people and they were all chanting and shouting. A bit scary. Oh, and someone peed in the elevator and I got to clean it up. Charming.

Sunday - I slept until noon without even noticing. Then I got up, got dressed, and drove to Fayette. The drive was lovely with yellow wildflowers and old barns. Kristel made vegetarian lasagna and garlic bread which was very good, and then we studied Faroese with Uni for a while, interrupted for forty five minutes by an oboe recital across the street and a quick tour of CMU's campus. Then I drove straight back to campus just in time to meet Laura, Laura, and Peter for dinner at plaza. They were late, though, so first I sat with Allen, Esther, Amy, and Tina for a while, which was also nice. Then I was on call again.

My Life/Japan Stuff Coming: Tomorrow

Today Zahra and I went to Rock Bridge. I showed her around and we clambered all over the stream with remarkable surefootedness. ;) Then we studied a bit sitting on a large rock and utterly at the mercy of the sun, which seemed to regulate the temperature more than normal today.

I also cleaned a bit in the morning. It thrills me when my stuff is arranged nicely. But not in a satisfaction sort of way, more of a giggly, feel like I'm living in a hotel room kind of way. I never keep my stuff organized. I have a hard time remembering that this is my stuff. But it's also very nice to live in. In some ways it takes a lot of upkeep... or does it really? My mom always said that I'd never save a dollar driving around on empty, and she's right, of course, and I feel like it might apply in this case as well. If my room is a cesspool and I'm working each day to clear a walking path, does it ultimately require any less upkeep time than a more orderly room? A puzzle for the ages. So far I'm winning the struggle to be organized, just barely. And next week I get more money, which means printer plug ins and paper, a rolling organizer thing (which will help a lot... no more excuses for ANYTHING to just sit around), a paper towel holder, and a water boiler.

Tomorrow I've a bit of homework and I'm on call in the evening, but I'm also planning a writing frenzy. I want to finish the email to Liisa I'm more than halfway through, and I want to start writing about Japan. It's started hitting me. It was absolutely amazing and then I needed to concentrate on other stuff when I came home, so I distanced myself from it and it became not quite real. Now I'm having some sort of flashback. I can start remembering.

Florida - First Impressions

We are staying at a beach hotel, overlooking the gentle surf of the Gulf of Mexico and listening to the sound of the gulls. Those who have lived their whole lives by the sea, I know, regard them as pests, but they are still something marvelous for us - part of a vacation. We are still vacationing, in a way, since we're staying in the hotel instead of our new home. It's a fixer upper. We knew that, but we didn't really understand it until we arrived. The yard is smaller than we thought, the colour schemes uglier, the kitchen thirty years old. We've decided we must gut the house, and not only eventually but soon. It was supposed to be clean when we got here, but instead the whole thing is filthy. My mom's losing it. Well, part of that is just what you get for putting something, anything, on a pedestal.

We got up early today for the movers, but both the car mover and the furniture movers have delayed until tomorrow, so the only reason for waiting was the cable hookup. The hours dragged by. Melissa and I took a short trip to Winn Dixie, the southern grocery store. It's the closest one to our new house, so we familiarized ourselves a bit. They were very nice and we got a loyalty card. Quite near Winn Dixie is a little used and new bookstore and a library - the only one on the island, I think. We have to go to the mainland for Wal-Mart but it looks as though most of our other basic needs can be taken care of here.

I snuck a quick visit to the little bookstore. They had all the major categories, although even the new books (what few there were) looked used. They have a rare book section. The signage is bad so it took me a while and a lucky angle to find the foreign language section, but I was in for a nice surprise there. They had a reasonable collection of Swedish and Norwegian instruction books, the Norwegian ones predictably and unfortunately below my level, and most of the moderately sized shelf was German. In this part of the world I would have expected something more like the Borders back home - two shelves of Spanish, a handful of books in French, and, if you are lucky, one or two in German or Italian. As I was scanning the shelves, aware that I needed to get back home, I found a book in Finnish. Imagine! I bought it right away, even though it's a romance of some sort and I probably won't like it. Finnish! And for 3$! I spoke to the lady and she says if I come back later this week she'll give/sell me a stack of Norwegian magazines that her Norwegian friend gave her. If I'm incredibly lucky, I figure there's even a chance I'll run into one of her Norwegian friends. Wouldn't that be marvellous?

Yesterday at Wal-Mart I picked up a three dollar copy of Wuthering Heights. I'm enjoying it so far - reading about the wild, rugged, dark moors from the comfort of our little wooden dock. My skin is starting to colour already, although I try to keep in the shade. It's not burnt yet, but already glowing, and I can't allow it to get a bit worse. I'll be the strange northern girl who hides her lily white skin inside with her books if I have to be. For the moment, though, I notice the tides coming in. We have tides! The water was a foot or two under the dock when I looked out this morning, and it's near noon now and there are little waves and the waters almost up to the bottom of the sea wall. I see glinting in the water - little silvery fish are darting to and fro.

I could live here - just relax, live simply. Not worry about the ages old dirt under the stove. Cook in my rice cooker, sit on the floor, even, if I didn't have any proper furniture. Amazing how far some snacks, a few good books, and a computer will take you. And the location, if I needed more than that! But that's my age speaking, I guess. Tidbit snoozes on the sunbaked wood at my feet. My mother hollers and I go in to see what's bothered her.

We see something strange. While trying to clean out the refrigerator shelf in the sink, it collapsed and broke - the glass shattered. Little fragments cover the counters and the basin of the sink, falling down into the disposal. A giant mess. But what's really odd is that the glass continues to crack, splinter, fall apart. For long minutes it continues to crackle - a fragment of glass, lying in the sink, suddenly develops a long hairline crack along the middle, and then snaps along that line with a sharp sound. The sink full of glass crackles and glistens.

Tidbit loves to hunt geckos. They are her new squirrels and she doesn't yet know whether or not they are possible to catch. She catches them sunning themselves on the walks and runs at them. They remain still until the last moment, and then dart away, quick as lightening, into the lattice or bushes or lime trees. One evening she goes at one with such vehemence that the force of her impact throws her onto her back. For a moment she looks like a ladybug flipped over, running her little feet ineffectually in the air.

I've enjoyed almost all the food I've had on the island, and I'm eager to explore all the nooks and crannies, the variety of restaurants. Besides all the marvellous seafood there is more Thai food than I've ever seen before, and there seem to be a thousand places selling fresh fruit. Other surprises - a mariachi band beside one of these fruit stands, in a sort of alley on the way to Wal Mart, singing and playing for all they were worth, and hardly anyone to listen... a European Grocery next to the post office - I went in, and was a bit disappointed to find mostly Slavic products which I couldn't read and had no special attachment to. I did buy Nutella and have gotten my sister hooked on the stuff.

I've ordered a library card. On Wednesday they have a writer's group. I think I'll attend, for the few weeks I'm here. I'm hoping it'll be a casual sort of thing I can pop into on breaks.

Caffeine

I don't normally take in much, if any, caffeine. There is the trace amount in chocolate, but I don't drink soda, or coffee, or chew any of that caffeine gum or anything like that. So it has a profound affect on me.

I'm taking allergy pills right now that make me tired. Last night I got home from an event and fell asleep at 8. Normal bedtime here is 12-2, so that was really weird. Today I took the allergy pill together with a caffeine pill, hoping they would counteract each other.

ONE caffeine pill. It says on the box that it is the equivalent of one cup of coffee. Well, all day I've been jittery and restless, but still a bit tired, which just felt weird. Part of me wanted to collapse and part of me wanted to go for a run. It actually was worse when I moved - typing for example got me all worked up at the peak of it, and when I walked it felt kind of funny because half of me was slouching and taking my time, and the other part of me was shaking. I couldn't eat much for lunch but I ate noodles when I got back at 2 and I started to feel a bit better. I think I should scale back to half a pill next time, if I even follow this strategy again.

All in all it just makes me feel really stressed out, like I do for the hour before a big speaking test or something. But it also makes me want to work on things, which is what I need right now. I scheduled all the stuff I need to do for P.A., worked some more on the Japan itinerary, figured out where and when I'm going to do my last events and my extra credit for Journalism, wrote some emails, figured out meals and events for the lake house this weekend, coordinated rides for all the people going (the number kept growing), and figured out possible times for the proseminar next year, based on my schedule and the schedules of my Figgies.

I got a high B on the last Stat exam. It would have been a high A, but I lost 10 out of the 12 points I lost on a single written answer problem which absolutely stumped me. (But since I showed my work I recovered 3 of the thirteen points the question was worth :D). I can't get an A in the class, but my B is very solid, and the same goes for Journalism. However, I'm doing extra credit in Journalism and I've been to every review section for Statistics, so there's a chance that my grades will be bumped up to B+'s, which are worth more. Poli Sci is the only class I really have to worry about my C is solid, but... I really don't want a C. :( But poor Anlan! She needs an 87% to pass the class and she hasn't done anywhere near that well on the first tests! (well, obviously.). We're reviewing together tonight. She takes great notes, so I'll come up with helpful memorizing strategies for her and steal her notes. :D German and Spanish are A's.

It's an exciting time, but very stressful, and caffeine is either helping or making it worse, I can't tell. :D

The Birth Pangs of Spring

Spring is coming! Alright, so it's mostly here, but the weather is so fickle in Missouri that one can never be certain it's here to stay. For three weeks now we've alternated between cool, very wet days, warm perfect slice of heaven days, and freezing days when it feels like we're back in the heart of winter and all the rain from the day before freezes. It's a treacherous time of year. Check the weather before you go out!

Spring break is next week, which means a lot of work for us now. I wrote no less than three essays over the weekend. Two are for a pass fail class, so I didn't put much into them. I also slacked off a bit on the Spanish one, as I gave that professor some of my best work with the last essay and he didn't appreciate it at all. Surprise, I got the same grade on this one (93%), but he docks points without any explanation and he's too scary and wrathful to ask about it. (4/5 on content... what more was he looking for? I know I was the only person to pick the harder topic, and I spent an hour or so planning the content alone!)

Oh well. Tonight I have a Statistics Exam. And a Prom. Don't ask how that is going to work out.

But today I saw some little white flowers poking out of some mulch outside of Arts and Sciences. And after the rains, all the lichen on the trees glows an almost painful green. Observe...


Coincidentally, this is my answer. Look to the details...

Birthday Eve and Birthday

Birthday Eve:

I did not cook Singaporean food. I went to Dan and Sam's house with Aviel. They are all new friends. :D We made brownies instead of Singaporean food. Then I tried out a blow gun for the first time, and also played with a bow and arrow, and I wasn't too bad at either one! I was, however, pretty bad at nunchucks and Japanese hackeysacks, which I also tried out. We listened to some Spanish music, trying to translate it as we went. I am terrible at understanding Spanish in music! At first I figured that it would be the same for all languages, but it really isn't! XD German, Norwegian, and Japanese, for example, are usually almost as clear in a song as in speech. Ah well.

Later, we went to the potluck, which was fun. It was strange as always to eat lots of fried rice, some very spicy curry, fish in tamarind sauce, and other asian dishes alongside some good, old fashioned American food such as a western-tasting vegetable soup and corn bread. And for dessert, guava paste alongside brownies! :D I didn't know too many people there, but I find that I am getting more brave about things like that every day! Ju and Prite were there, and so was Linh.

Linh's English is still terrible! Poor girl. :D At one point I was being a bit silly and stood up on a stool so that I was as tall as an American girl I was talking to. Then later I was talking to Linh and I ended up patting her on the head. One second later I realized what I had done and said, "Ah! Linh! I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have patted you on the head!" I know that it is impolite in some places to touch people on the head... and I was sure Vietnam was in that region, although I wasn't certain as to whether that custom applied to Vietnamese. She told me it wasn't a big deal, though, because we are friends. :) Okay, I guess...

I entered an eating-with-chopsticks competition with some Asians. This wasn't as bad of an idea as it sounds, because they were Thai, mostly, and therefore only used to eating noodles and such with chopsticks. We ate rice grain by grain. :D I actually won! Haha...

Later we played a game that was essentially the childhood game of Telephone, but with drawings. It was really fun, if I get a FIG next year I'm going to make them play it as an ice breaker. :) Each person takes as many slips of paper as there are people in the group. Then, on the first piece, each person draws a simple picture. Then everyone passes their stack of papers to the next person. The next person looks at the picture and describes it in three words. Then the papers are passed again, and the next person looks only at the words, not the original picture, and draws a picture based on the words. The next person looks only at this second picture, and... you get the idea. :D There were really some hilarious things that came out of this! It was exacerbated by having foreigners that didn't know some words, but even in a group of native speakers a bad artist will mess things up considerably! Plus, one can always take more time and make more complex pictures if the group is doing too well. ;)


Birthday:

I slept in, rolled out of bed, (not literally, my feet is three and a half feet (1 meter) off the ground now), and went to Dobbs at 1, expecting Brunch. No such luck! Daylight Savings Time has begun here, so I ate nothing and liked it. XD Well, actually, cereal was still out, so I ate a few bowls of frosted flakes. I didn't expect to find anyone to sit with, but I saw Pat, Clint, and Maria, and thought... why not sit with them while they finish up? Pat left after a while, but even after I had finished eating Clint and Maria and I were still talking... we ended up talking for two hours, and then it was dinner time at Dobbs! We could have eaten for free, haha. But, we weren't hungry anymore, so I just stole a bit of milk and went back home.

I got some really sweet birthday wishes via the net. :) And otherwise just mosied around. Jorge actually came to see me, which was really sweet. And it wasn't overly awkward, like normally when we see each other now. I told him about adventures from last night and then he left, saying, "Smile, be happy!" I think that might be his new motto or something. Dunno why he needs a motto, or why that should be fitting, because he's normally rather gloomy, but there it is!

Parents called. Lucia/Lydia called. Both Grandmas called. :)

Then Tabi came home, and we hung out for a bit (she made me brownies! How sweet! :D), and then just as Laura got home too we had my birthday party. :D My cake was delicious! I think it was the best birthday cake here yet! Even though it was Spongebob Squarepants themed... and, erm... I happen to hate Spongebob Squarepants. XD Certainly I never once imagined that I would have a Spongebob Squarepants themed birthday cake, and I certainly thought that the window of opportunity for that was closed by now, but surprise! I am generally the cake cutter here, I dunno why, normally because they use my knife (one of the few big chef knives that we own), and I even cut my own cake! I almost cut Spongebob in half doing so... and actually all the Japanese girls squealed and complained! XD

Both Lauras and Tabi and I went to Laura's room for a while. We played with a plastic bag, which Laura said was my Christmas present from her. Laura T. made some lovely fashion statements with it after Laura W. ripped it. :( It was such a lovely pillow before that! Then something interesting happened... Jiyoung facebook chatted Laura.

She never facebook chats us. She never /talks/ to us.

Jiyoung: Um... can I ask you favour?
Laura: Okay?
Jiyoung: This sounds weird...
Jiyoung: But I am locked in room.
Jiyoung: The door is not able to open.

I went out of the room quickly upon hearing that, even though for some reason Laura called behind me, "no, Miranda, stay here!" I went to Jiyoung's door and knocked, and asked if she was okay. She told me she was trapped and the door wouldn't open. I was playing with the door handle a bit when Laura, Laura, and Tabi joined me in the hall. After a minute, none of us could do anything with it. The handle wasn't engaging. So I ran upstairs to get Ben. Ben came down and started playing with it. I ran downstairs to tell the desk supervisor. He called some other C.A.'s and soon we had a crowd playing with old credit cards, wire clothes hangers, and screwdrivers trying to find a way in. Unfortunately the doors here are all but break in proof, from the inside or out.

Jiyoung kept shouting, "I want to pee! I want to pee!" We were worried that she would have to pee in a cup, and word arrived that we had to wait 30 minutes for anyone who knew anything to arrive. Finally they did, and they had to remove the doorknob, piece by piece, with metal cutting tools, until they could pull of the twisty part and pull the... erm... stoppy part out from the inside. A full hour after the adventure started, Jiyoung was finally free to pee! Everyone clapped. It was quite an adventure, but Laura and Tabi and I stayed for the whole thing, partly because we felt responsible, having received her cry for help, and I partly because I am hoping to 'be' Ben next year and deal with similar issues.

Back in my room, Mayumi gave me a very sweet birthday card from Mitsuki, Mimi, Richard, and herself! :D Then I wrote this blog post... XD And it wasn't my birthday anymore. What a shame. :P

Edit: Then Tomomi came in. She had hand made me a beautiful... erm... paper thing saying, "Happy Birthday Mira Chan!" She also gave me a box of Glico caramels and a tiny book in Japanese about the Zodiac animals. Since it is all written in Hiragana (which I can read, albeit very, very, very slowly), and it is a story that I am familiar with, we joked that it was at my reading level. XD Of course, I really know less than ten percent of the words, so it would take a while to read! Anyway, a really sweet gift!

Tired.

I had a lot of things that I wanted to get done today, which didn't all happen. Still, I bought notebooks for the semester, and Foliotek, which I needed for two classes. I went to the pool with Laura, Laura, Tabi, Justin, and new Tom, which was fun. I got a microscopic amount of work done on my room, and I almost finished working through the genealogy information I dug up. It's really confusing and hard to read, but I've got it worked out from me all the way to THE Charboneau, and it's there that I'm missing a link or two between him and when the first Charboneau's came to America. Tomomi and Mitsuki came in and talked to me for a really long time. :D That was nice, but I wasn't in a great talking mood, and they kind of let me do most of the talking, and we were all standing... I just kept getting more and more tired and weak feeling. Mitsuki left and then Tomomi stayed for a while and we talked more. I had planned to study German, do some really good class preparing, or room clean, or all three, but I felt so weak and tired that I just studied modal particles in German and Norwegian for a few minutes, and then went to bed. I have no idea why I'm so tired... okay, well, I have some ideas, but I hope I recover soon...

First Day Emo

I'm blogging for one of the usual reasons - I am still gathering the strength to face the day before me. I slept terribly last night. I think it was a combination of having to get used to a small, hard bed, the massive amount of light that comes in our windows from the street, the noise from the hospital, having a roommate a few feet away, warmer temperatures, and weird forms of exhaustion. All except the last are things I adjusted to last semester and am sure that I will adjust to again, but it didn't make for a great night.

I was trying to finish cleaning my room last night, but I had to sit down at one point because my legs almost collapsed under me. I wondered why I was so tired, and then it hit me. Yesterday I woke up in Orlando Florida, rather early, went through airport nonsense, flew to St. Louis, went through more airport nonsense, packed the car with Mizzou stuff, drove to Mizzou (I actually drove :D), brought all the stuff up to my dorm room, unpacked it, cleaned 70% of my room, and stayed up until midnight. (Which isn't that late, but it made for a long and busy day, especially considering the one hour time difference between here and Orlando)

The newness and excitement is gone from living in the dorm, but I feel surprisingly neutral towards even some of the worse elements of it. The light streaming through the window is difficult for me, as is the high temperatures Mayumi likes in here. (Especially when I'm in all day). Still, the rest of it - communal showers, vomit smell, small spaces - I have totally accepted as a stage of my life, and I actually take a strange distant pride and fascination in it, if that makes any sense. It almost makes me feel good to live more simply, to live with less.

I'm going to go through now and check which textbooks I still have to buy and plan a map to get to my classes. I might read a bit to prepare for the history class, but I'm not worried about doing that for the journalism one, because they said that we'd be watching the inauguration in class.

New People:
- All of them except for one is English speaking. Someone hates me. XD
- Laura has a new British/Welsh roommate, named Bethan(y?).
- There is a new Australian guy named Tom who is nice and I think has been hanging out with my group. :)
- There is apparently a Danish girl who is nice, lives off campus, but hangs out in Laws sometimes. Now, Denmark/Danish is the least familiar to me of all the varieties of Scandinavia, but it would still be nice to talk to her. :D

Basic Day

My day starts out with my alarm going off and waking me out of some sort of nightmare or another. Strange, that... I didn't ever have nightmares until a few months ago. But even now I often persevere through the hardships my dreams present. Last night, for example, my mom and I had to hitch a ride from some dirty old man who was hitting on me. Then he took us to his house and kept us prisoner for a while, which wasn't fun. But at the end of the dream, when my alarm clock went off, I had him locked in a room and was ready to make an escape as soon as I had grabbed as much of his stuff as I could carry.

Anyhow, I wake up feeling like I was hit by a truck because I stayed up late doing homework if I had a lot or emailing Liisa if I didn't. I get dressed, look beautiful, walk Tidbit to the corner and back, eat a bit of breakfast, and then drive to school listening to Rush Hour Italian!

The school day is lovely for a while, starting with AP Art History. It's an Honours class, and so not exactly a blow off, but it's easy, too. And it makes me excited that I already know the Spanish stuff, and that I've seen most of the Latin and part of the Greek pieces in real life! Actually, having been to the Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, the Van Gogh Museum, Museo Nazionali (Napoli), and the Acropolis Museum, I've seen a fair amount of all of it.

After Art History I go to German, lovely little class which is in the Transition Mode of a year 3 language. Ah, I remember those times from Spanish, although I must say I was better with Spanish then than I am with German now. The class is mostly Sophomores, a bit immature, but that suites me fine - it makes things easy.

And after that I go to limbo - well, currently, that's Student Aiding for Sra. Altadonna, but as soon as we finish the paperwork it will be NORWEGIAN! What joy...

Then I go to Spanish class, which is a blast, though it's starting to think about challenging. We have discussions and debates and are actually trying to hammer out the mistakes that have haunted us all along. Kiser is merciful about mistakes, and you feel comfortable spreading your wings in her classroom, even if it means you occasionally call a hammer a suitcase. Lucia's in this class too, which makes it fun!

Then right when I'm thinking that this can't possibly be school - it's too much fun - I go to Lunch. A crazy, chaotic, noisy cafeteria that pulls me right back to reality, although I can be with friends. :D This year lunch is, strangely, almost the same cast as last year. Rachel, Gwen, some guy that belongs to gwen, Wendy, Lisa, and so forth - Luckily all those who take a level 5 in languages (except Spanish) have first lunch by default, so that's a lot of my friends. Kate and Stephanie, for example, are outside in the courtyard. Christy is still in Chazen's room, but our Lunch Bunch is disbanded and she's almost alone.

LATIN. Gah, what is to be said about Latin? It's a language that I once loved, and still find bits of enjoyment in. But it's too late to be a class... What can I say? If it had been a class from the beginning it would have been one thing. I would have learned well and never felt inferior and perhaps not have taken German. Who knows? But as it is... well, the days of the easy H are no gone, and we weep for McAllister. I feel like I'm starting to get things, and in the long run, if I do, I'll be grateful for the swap, but it's awfully hard and hurts me.

After Latin is the double whammy of Math and English, real classes. I like both my teachers, but not their classes. Dean teaches Calculus. She's a good math teacher - I understand when she teaches. But I feel I'm behind on the underlying concepts, and Calculus is still hard, and anyway no one can say Mrs. Dean is FUN, exactly. My goal in there is to survive. English, on the other hand, is intimidating.

Mrs. Smith is smarter than I am. A lot smarter. And I'm not used to that. Okay, I'm a bit of a snob, but hear me out. I'm quite used to beating a lot of people without trying, although I don't take any pleasure from that. More pleasing is the smaller group that are near my level, who I can beat with a little, or a lot, of effort. And then there are the people who I enjoy the most, whose IQ's are either matched with mine or quite different, so that in competing we bring each other to new levels, or so that there is no need to compete, only to admire.

But Mrs. Smith is none of these. She is smarter, a lot smarter - formidable, frightening... But nice, never forget that, and she has a sense of humour that you like to appeal to even when you feel that she is mocking you and are embarrassed... She's been teaching us Latin a bit, and that's bad enough. But English is completely her domain. If only the woman would let us speak! You get halfway through a comment and she's challenging you already! I love the challenge but sometimes she takes it too far, in such a strange direction... perhaps in more limited doses it would be more effective. We'll see, we'll see!

But although part of me enjoys the dialog, a part of me is scared to death that a grade depends on such things! I could never get a degree in English, much as I casually adore it.

Done with English, out to the car, home, play with Tidbit, talk with mom. I've got a new technique for that, by the way. I grab something to eat and let her bitch and complain about what a burden Melissa and I are. Every time I want to make a retort that's really deserved but will only exacerbate the situation, I take a bit bite instead.

"Wow, Miranda, you really are going at those Rice Cakes!"

No Shit.

But Later...

"Thanks for listening."

See, she doesn't really mean that she hates me and I cause her so much pain and that she wishes she'd never have children and why can't I just sit in the corner and grow up! Well, she does sometimes. But not always or really.

Then work. Library or Lydia. Or, if I'm lucky and it's a Wednesday, Japanese lessons! These are great - I got a book and so we're actually learning something this time! I'm finally getting the syllabaries down and some of the vocab, although Hirayoshi-san tires of the repetition at times. She's neither a language teacher nor a linguist, she doesn't understand... Oh well, I study it more at home, then.

Then I come home and shower and study into the night... And then go to the nightmares.

Summer Jobs