Graduation Plan

So, it's time for me to do the ritual I do every semester, once my schedule is finalized and I'm thinking about registering for the next one. I always have this panic when I think of how much I need to do to graduate... but after wrestling with it for about an average, I always get there.

It's tight. I'm not going to lie. And my failure to take a Spanish class here, and maybe even to take one of my Journalism electives (I'll find out soon), has not exactly improved the situation. (In the chart below, I'm operating on the assumption that I'm going to get credit. If I don't, I'll probably take another elective during the fall when I return. I only have 12 credits listed there now, and even with reporting, I won't be working, so I'm pretty sure I can bump it to 15 with something like photojournalism and be fine). It's tight, but doable, and I have two areas of flexibility that I can and will utilize in order to graduate on time, these being:

1.) I can drop the anthropology minor... this will save me a few credits.
2.) I can stay home instead of studying in Norway... if everything goes according to plan, it won't slow me down to go... but if much more goes wrong, I'm going to need to stay home to get Journalism credits.

So, here we go:

Colour Key:

Red – For Magazine Journalism Major
Orange – For Spanish Major
Blue – For German Minor
Purple – For Anthropology Minor
Green – For General Education, Electives, and International Studies Major

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PAST
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Transfer Credit: (37)
Spanish I
Spanish II
Intermediate Spanish I
Intermediate Spanish II
German I
Introduction to Western Art I
Comparative Political Systems
English Exposition and Argumentation
English Literature

Fall 2008: (16)
General Anthropology
Advanced Spanish Conversation
Regions and Nations of the World I
International Relations
Introduction to Psychology
Exploring Study Abroad *

Spring 2009: (16)
Advanced Spanish Composition
Career Exploration in Journalism *
Principles of American Journalism
Intermediate German II - Language and Culture
Introduction to Statistics
American Government

Fall 2009: (16)
Cross Cultural Journalism
Biological Anthropology
Micro and Macroeconomics
Twentieth Century American History

Spring 2010: (16)
Journalism 2100 - News
Anthropological Theories of Religion
Introduction to Hispanic Literature I
Modern German Culture
Catalan Language and Culture
Special Problems in Geology


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FUTURE
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Fall 2010 @ Pamplona: (12)
Cultura Visual
Literatura y Cine
Fundamentos Culturales de la Communicacion III
Introduction to Linguistics

Spring 2011 @ Bonn: (9 +)
German Language @ Bonn
German Culture/History/??? @ Bonn
Spanish Language/Civilization

Fall 2011 @ MU – (12)
Introduction to Hispanic Literature II
News Reporting @ MU
Communications Law @ MU
Intermediate Writing @ MU

Spring 2012 @ Bergen (12 +)
Spanish Language/Civilization
Anthropology
Anthropology
Norwegian Language

Fall 2012 @ MU (15)
Spanish Peninsular Literature
Spanish American Literature
Journalism Solving Practical Problems @ MU
Magazine Editing @ MU
Magazine Design @ MU

Spring 2012 @ MU (12)
Spanish Capstone @ MU
Advanced Writing Capstone @ MU
German Culture/History/??? @ MU
Journalism Elective

Gradution!! (:D :D :D!! …….. O.O)

Catalan Class 2010 is in the news!

Monica's crazy Catalan project was by and large a great success, and now there's an article about our class in the Diario de Mallorca, the biggest newspaper in the Balearic Islands. Check it out: http://www.diariodemallorca.es/mallorca/2010/08/21/missouri-habla-catalan/596601.html

There was a photo of our entire classroom, from the back of the room, and this one of Emily's Ensaimada:




Some excerpts:

¿Por qué un chico norteamericano se interesa por una lengua que se habla en regiones situadas a más de 7.000 kilómetros de distancia? "Tienen mucha curiosidad por las lenguas minoritarias", explicaba Marcos en una reciente visita a la isla: "Muchos han estudiado español y les llama la atención, otros vienen de cursos de otra lengua románica, algunos tienen ganas de ir a Barcelona o tienen que ir allí a hacer sus prácticas".

Basically: Why would a North American kid be interested in a language that they speak more than 7,000 kilometers away? "They are curious about minority languages," Monica explaied on a recent visit to the island. "Many have studied Spanish and it calls their attention, others come from other romance language courses, some want to go to Barcelona or have to go for their studies."

"e incluso investigaron sobre la valenciana fiesta de la Tomatina, adónde se han animado a viajar tres de sus alumnos."

And they learned about the Valencian Tomatina festival, inspiring three students to go.

Un motivo mallorquín recurrente es Rafa Nadal, señala Marcos: un estudiante hizo un proyecto sobre su vida personal y profesional usando vídeos del tenista con diez años; otros hicieron un trabajo representando una entrevista "en broma y en serio", con el manacorí.

Basically: A recurring Mallorcan theme is Rafa Nadal - one student did a project about his personal and profesional life using videos of him as a ten year old tennis player; others did a project representing an interview "in jest and in seriousness", with the star.

Mònica Marcos está encantada con la buena acogida que ha tenido su curso introductorio de lengua y cultura catalana y sueña con poder ofrecer la especialización en esta facultad donde hasta ahora se enseñaban todas las lenguas románicas excepto el catalán y el rumano. Gracias a ella, a la University of Missouri ahora sólo le falta el rumano.

It says thanks to her, the University of Missouri has gone from only missing two Romance languages: Romanian and Catalan, to now missing only Romanian. What about Galician?? But still, a nice sentiment...

Incluso puede seguir disfrutando de las ensaimadas, aunque sea casi rectangular como la que hizo con toda su ilusión y de motu propio una de sus alumnas. Asegura que "era buena".

A bit about Emily's Ensaimada. ^^

Routine Flights

Today I came back home to Columbia after a weekend in Dallas. Usually I absolutely love traveling, am so filled with excitement and positive energy that even annoying things either fade completely away or become part of the epic. This time, however, the flights and drives were isolated and just felt routine. I imagine that my dad feels this way a lot, but it's new to me.

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I was amused by the airport people's expectations of me.

"Take care, dear."

"It's the second stop. God bless you."

"Are you old enough to be traveling by yourself?"

Me: "I really hope so, seeing as I've flown by myself internationally. And I am nineteen, just so you know."

If people actually see me in action, they rarely say any of these silly things. I check my gate and time on the flight monitor without slowing down, I never pause and look confused, I switch my bag from rolling to carrying and back again quicker than any but the most experience business travelers. So take that.

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On the flight from Dallas into Memphis, we were on a smallish plane. There were twenty rows, with four seats in each row. The girls sitting across from me kept freaking out about how it was the smallest plane they'd ever been on. There was pretty bad turbulence at one point, and they shrieked a bit. When we got off, I heard other passengers complaining to waiting family members in the terminal about what a small plane, what a bumpy ride it had been. I laughed.

The plane from Memphis to Columbia had 20 passengers, one flight attendant, and of course the pilots. It was a propeller plane and shook the entire trip.

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With aspirations as lofty as mine, you would think I'd prefer to call some big city home. You know, someplace cosmopolitan and famous and connected. Actually, I'm proud of being a bit provincial. And while Tokyo and Paris definitely had their charm, I also have a perhaps less common fondness for the smaller, more out of the way destinations, and regular flights on a twenty seat plane, among other things, are helping prepare me for them.

And there's something wonderful about Columbia. It's a bit of brilliant civilization surrounded by a mix of ruralness and wilderness that I love just as much. :) I'm not sure I'll be one of the many graduates who stay here after finishing their studies, but I will enjoy my two and a half remaining years in Mid Missouri.

The Quiet Before the Storm

Classes start Monday. My God, that's tomorrow! I've been here for so long already that it's hard for me to believe that classes haven't started yet, but on the same token I'm getting used to life here without them. And that's dangerous - especially this weekend, when we're not completely swamped with reslife stuff and being tempted by freetime. That said, today I have to lead the first community meeting for our floor, and finish my syllabus and lesson plan for tomorrow. I also need to do a little bit of housekeeping and figure out where all my classes are, send a schedule to my mother, etc. And I haven't completely wasted the weekend. I cleaned my room pretty nicely, to the point where other than a bit of evil chaos under my bed, things look nice, and I can find everything, and it's actually relaxing to walk in. And I got to meet Zahra, which was lovely. :) I really hope she has a good experience here.:D

And finally I did a bit of grocery shopping, buying Nutella, seaweed, and a few of my favourite snacks from Japan from Chong's Market downtown. I bought Pepero (which is almost Pocky), Choco Boy Mushrooms (which are almost Mushroom Valley Mushrooms), and Korean Shrimp Flavoured Cracker (which are/is almost Japanese Shrimp Flavoured Cracker). So far I've only eaten the Pepero, which I remember happily eating all through last year. It tastes hard, dry. The chocolate is thin. Just - not quite as good. XD But happily I can get real Japanese Pocky at Wal Mart for only 2-3 times the price I paid in Japan. So it's all good. Mushrooms and Shrimp Crackers are more elusive, however, so I hope the knock off brands pull through. :) I wanted to buy Naan and Furikake as well, but I'm really quite thoroughly out of money until September, so I'll wait. :) And thank God for my meal plan.

First Day of Real Work

Today the sorority girls, and a few other kids, mainly a handful of international students, moved in. It was a pretty long day, starting at 6 am. The worst were the two hours I had to spend outside in the middle of the day, directing traffic. I was the only one from my hall's staff working that location, so they more or less ignored me since they were more used to working with each other. It rained quite badly during this time.

Even though I had my umbrella the streets were flash flooded to over my toes, and moisture came in sideways so that even my hair was covered with droplets, and my pants were absolutely soaked. When people would come to talk to me, their windshield wipers threw cups of cold rainwater straight at me. Oh, Missouri rainstorms. The whole atmosphere was frantic and depressing, the skies were so grey and wet that it was hard to see. Before the rain started there were only a few of us doing the traffic, and we could yell orders from about ten cars down. After the rain started we had to be five feet apart, and had to run back and forth giving directions. Even at five foot I was lucky if I could either hear them yell or see how many fingers they were holding up. Still, I was working and it was just part of my job. I was in clothes that could get wet, it wasn't freezing cold outside or anything like that. I felt much sorrier for those who were moving in, whose wardrobes and pillows were getting drenched.

I think the secret to my sanity throughout the day was that whenever things got really slow and the staff was just sitting on the sofa watching golf for an extended period of time, I would steal away to my room for ten minutes and have a snack in peace and quiet. When I woke up this morning I cooked a cup or two of jasmine rice, and when I had a few minutes I added to that the chicken I sauteed the other day, and a teaspoon from a Cantonese spice packet I've had for a startlingly long time. It was, perhaps surprisingly, quite yummy.

I'm on call for the first time tonight - I'm actually the first one of us to be on call. It involves carrying a pager and if anyone gets locked out of their room or has some other problem, they page you and you rescue them, and no one cares if it was 4 am and you were fast asleep. You also have to make a few rounds of the building and make sure everything's okay. I've been on call for almost an hour now and I've done my first walkabout. There were some boys with their music on extremely loud and their door open, so I asked them to either turn the music down or shut the door. They shut the door. Not a big deal. :)

The End is Near

We're in the home run stretch of actual training. Of course, this doesn't quite mean a break - we kick off the year with one of it's most stressful events: move-in day. For now it continues to be tough, but things are coming together. My bulletin board is almost done. It's huge, but it filled up faster than I expected.

I picked up my textbooks, and got to my storage bay today to bring everything I was missing to my dorm room. I also went on a trip to Wal Mart to get other things I needed. It was a pretty stressful Wal Mart trip because I was on a tight budget. You see, I dipped into my August money in Japan, so I'm not working with much cash at all at the moment, and I had a pretty long shopping list. About 1/3 of the items are things I will need regularly (aka groceries), 1/3 are things I will need occasionally, including at the beginning of the year (aka laundry detergent), and 1/3 are things I need (new!) for this year (aka landline phone).

I went 16$ over budget, and came to 116$, but I bought:

- Five cheap ceramic microwaveable bowls
- A set of four ziplock tupperware containers
- Dish soap
- Dish sponges
- Dish drying rack and tray
- 8 rolls of paper towels
- Laundry detergent
- A set of towels - 2 full size, 2 hand, 2 washcloths
- A pretty nice bathmat
- A plug-in thing that makes the bathroom smell good. :)
- Super cheap landline telephone
- Clear push pins, coloured push pins
- Nice stapler set with stapler, staples, and staple remover
- Pair of scissors
- A big white binder
- Pilot G2 Pens (One set of black, one set of multicolour, see note below)
- Canned carrots and mushrooms
- Granola bars
- A few bars of candy, and gum

Note: The only things that I really consider luxuries are the pens I picked, at about a dollar per pen. But they are really nice and should last me the semester for sure.

I am trying to get everything in the room. It's starting to get interesting, but I know that I now have everything I will have, so it will be okay. I moved the table in and set it up. It goes very nicely in my last available corner, and I think the room needs the additional bulk, but it's not yet in a super functional location. I may wait until Laura and Tabi move in (not long now!!) and ask their advice on room arrangement. It would be nice to have the table in the center of the room, even though I like my empty hallway now. :P

I emailed my Figgies (refuse to call them Figlets, the official term. My Co-Fac calls them Figgers). Four of them have replied and they seem cool. I already feel attached to all of them although I have no real reason to. :P The P.A. luncheon was today and my Co-Fac and I had a good discussion. As soon as FIG move in is over I'll have time to write up the syllabus, even though we agree that a very flexible syllabus is best.

Training Update

Wednesday was the worst day of training for me. I felt discouraged, tired, almost fell asleep in some of the meetings. Today, however, I knew as soon as I woke up that I was on the upswing again. I had more energy, more optimism. We're starting to get tiny increments of 'free time' that we can use to put up bulletin boards, etc. So, I actually see work getting done, and I feel like things are possible. Our schedules are starting to come together, with our floor meetings, staff meetings, and on-call times accounted for. I've unpacked a slight majority of my things, and all the chaos left fits under my bed, leaving me with a pretty nice living environment. Tomorrow I have managed to find time and friends to travel to my storage bay and get a few things I forgot, and then we're going to Wal Mart where I will buy a few new things I've decided I need (stapler, paper organizer), as well as things I used up at the end of last year, like laundry detergent.

We are learning a lot, but I think part of the craziness of training is probably to prepare us for how crazy it might be during the most stressful parts of the year, and make us grateful for the freetime we have in the less stressful parts. By now I have pretty much given up on having personal time - my brain is sort of in crisis mode. I just now found myself with 45 minutes before the next event, and at first I felt lost, directionless. I'm using the time to write this blog post, clean my rice cooker, and shower. When I click on the start button and see things I do when I'm bored (like Stumble, Storybook Creator (Scrapbooking), and Rosetta Stone), it has almost no reaction on me. Not "I wish I had time for it". Just a very deep acceptance that I don't. Not right now.

Mid-Training Update

Staff training is pretty intense, but more useful and relevant (at least it seems to be so) than I feared it might be. I feel like I'll use a lot of the information we're learning about. All in all, the whole thing seems more serious and more work than I ever realized as a resident - and that's probably part of the job, acting like it's all easy. :)

Since training is from 7:30 - 10:00 every day, and they really encourage us to get 7-8 hours of sleep, that leaves me with about 90 minutes each day for personal hygiene, keeping my room tidy, continuing to get my stuff organized, cooking (I am starving by the time training ends, and cooking is my relaxing comfort activity :D), and, oh yeah, anything we're supposed to do like making schedules to send our Student Coordinators, or doing work on our bulletin boards. Ahhh!! Okay, so we don't usually have too much in that last category, and I am surviving, probably because I am getting about 7 and a half hours of sleep each night, cooking pretty simple things, and putting showering and things with looming deadlines first. It's all a test about how we manage our time, I know it! :D

My room depresses me, though, because I have a goal to be organized this year, and I think it would be a big help if I thought of my room as an organized and tidy place from the get go. But I really have no time to finish unpacking - I can't rationalize making it a priority. As a consequence, I'm getting more and more used to the sight of my room in shambles.

I'm also an idiot and forgot several important things either at the lake or my storage bay. The lake things are mostly small (shampoo? duh...), and I'm just buying most of them, since I won't be back there for a while, but the storage bay is almost accessible (except that it's only open during the day and I can't go alone...), and the things I have in it are a bit bigger (towels, for example), so I'm having a hard time with the idea of buying them.

I also have to buy a landline phone, and want to buy a printer (doesn't matter how basic), and a rolling file cart thing like Laura Thal has. It's awesome. Also a dish drying rack, since I have a bathroom now, and some ordinary office supplies like notebooks and new pens. The ones I have with me went to Japan and are almost out of ink.

Tonight I made cheddar broccoli macaroni (from a mix) in my rice cooker, and also wanted to cook some chicken breasts. Since I brought my big skillet, but not my spatula or even my wooden spoon, I improvised tonight and cooked with chopsticks for the first time. It worked quite well for stirring and not even terribly for flipping. The hardest part was definitely cutting them into smaller pieces to see whether they were done, but even this wasn't too bad. I think the tender and thin cut of chicken that I used helped, but I just sort of stuck the ends of the chopsticks in there and moved them apart, ripping the chicken more than cutting it. On further reflection it would probably be better to cut meat (or whatever) into small pieces BEFORE cooking them, if using chopsticks. Oh well. It was yummy.

The other people in the South Staff are awesome. A few of them are hilarious, and I think that we will all work well together.

So, things are going okay. Even though I'm sure the next year will bring times that are even more stressful, I am eager for the residents to arrive and the year to begin. I think it will be more energizing to be doing the real thing, interacting with real people, instead of just talking about theory and bracing ourselves.

Moving In/Pandora Radio

Staff training has started, and we had a bit of free time tonight, starting around 8. :D I am continuing to get my room organized. I have so much space!! I think I'll even be able to move in my table.

I cooked some rice (finally!), with chicken broth. I realized that I don't have any salt, just every other seasoning on earth. XD Must have left it at the lake... oh well. With that I ate my mom's leftover Thai chicken. It made a nice first meal.

I just discovered Pandora Radio. I actually like it. You enter in a song that you like, and it tells you other songs you should like based on that, and here's the clencher - WHY you should like them. I never knew all these musicky words that explain what I like to listen to, so it's very educational.

To start with, I put in The Cranberries as a band I liked, and it gave me an old favourite: Thank You by Dido. :)

Sulfur

Well, I got home from Japan and spent a night at Laura's house, and then two nights at the lake with my family. I spent today moving into my new dorm room. What can I say - it's awesome. I just took a shower in my own, private shower. :) There are a lot of things I have forgotten, though, like towels, so I had to use the small one I brought up from Florida and still have in my suitcase.

It smelled funny. Not like mildew, though. I couldn't figure it out...

Sulfur. From the hot springs in Nikko. On another planet, in another lifetime.

Homesick

It rarely happens to me that I wake up in the night, unsure of my surroundings. But it's happened here, in the darkest hours of the night, when I'm woken by rain on tile roofs and the swishing of palms on my windowpane. I stretch, am surprised by the cool metal of the home gym as my arm hits the weight machine, which comes right up to the edge of my mattress. I don't know where I expected to find myself - at home on Burgundy Lane, or back in Laws.

Laws, Mizzou, last year, is an awkward memory for me. There are moments, especially in the waking day, arguing with my family, that it's hard to believe I ever went away, and lived for a year alone, with a bunch of loveable and crazy foreigners (and even crazier Americans) in the huge concrete monstrosity of Laws hall. Mayumi, Mitsuki, Ben, Clint, Mimi, Laurence, Tomomi... Timur, Santi, Pat and Maria... even Laura, Tabi, and Jorge to a lesser extent - is it really possible that we met, lived together for a long year, and then, now, it is over? And Mayumi, having been my roommate, that is the strangest.

When I wake up at night I don't wonder about having lived there - the whole environment is absolutely present in my mind, less as a memory than as a reality. Without my eyes, I could climb out of my bed, make my way out of my room, and to the bathroom, or perhaps down the stairs. I might even get as far as Dobbs.

But no, I am here in Florida. And that's strange indeed. My family is here and all of my things. The furniture and paintings that surrounded me throughout my childhood have been transplanted to a new climate, almost a new nation. It feels like a crossover fanfiction or something, strange.

I am vaguely aware that this is one of those magical places people leave their own homes and spend loads and loads of money to come to and go to the beach rain or shine and take pictures and bring home memories. And that's strange. I've never lived in such a place before, and I always thought that if I did I should appreciate it a bit more. But the beach isn't really my scene, at least not yet.

When I walk on the beach I feel old. I feel like walking slowly and watching clouds and sunsets and seagulls and thinking about my life, maybe even writing about it. Except that I haven't hardly lived my life. It is a peaceful place - no place for me now. I am not ready for peace.

Being transplanted has had another effect on me - one that raises questions and may have long term implications. Or it may mean nothing. I am homesick for Missouri. It happens a little bit with silly things, like longing to hear "Dierbergs" and "Schnucks" instead of "Winn Dixie". And it happens more with bigger things, like Winter.

I miss it for myself, a bit. I watched a few minutes of Greys Anatomy and Meridith walked outside in a coat, the whole world grey and her breath coming out in a mist, and I felt it in my chest. I am so grateful that I am going back to Missouri in the fall - I'm not sure I could manage without the winter. Go ahead and tell me it makes no sense, I already know it.

But it gets more complex than a longing for snow - I was playing Rosetta Stone, and some of the pictures show late fall, and early winter... and in no exotic way whatsoever, but perhaps a little girl in a little coat, smiling shyly and standing in front of a suburban street with bare trees and pale grass behind, the last few leaves of fall dancing on the lawn. That street could be in my old neighborhood, that coat could come from Wal Mart or Target, that child could be my own -

I understand suddenly, this want to have your children grow up in the same way you did. It gives me a certain feeling to imagine my children growing up in colourful warm parkas, playing with scattered leaves, feeling their cheeks and ears and nose turn bright red in the cold, going door to door on halloween, going off to the woods because they know thick winter clothing makes the thorns more bearable, cracking frozen puddles with their feet, watching sleet hit the windows as they snuggle under blankets indoors...

A lot of images go through my mind. I don't require my future children to experience each and every one of them, but each one of them makes me smile and think of them. Not that we need be in Missouri - almost all of these things could happen, for example, in New England, and most of them (swapping out Wal Mart and giving up Halloween) could happen in Scandinavia (if I went far enough north I would lose the leaves, and they won't be exactly the same anywhere else).

Just some thoughts and feelings, is all. And even if I were to move off to some exotic land, there's nothing saying that I might not be able to take my kids home for a year or two for them to understand America. I am planning on shipping or accompanying them back to the states for a month most summers anyway. Still, it's imperfect - there's a difference between having Trick or Treated, and growing up doing it every year, from being carried by mommy dressed up as a pumpkin to being a little witch whose daddy follows her around holding pounds of candy to going to high school costume parties dressed as a... bunny?

And I've avoided mentioning deep winter and Christmas and New Years altogether! I've avoiding thinking about them, if you want to know the truth. If leaves falling and winter coats make me so lonesome, what will the thought of Christmas without snow or Santa do to me? :P But I'm sure I'll give it all due thought before I make any of that sort of life decision.

And one can't have everything. Even people who never leave their own small town grumble about "when I was your age", and I know my children won't have Pokemon or Pottermania as part of their childhood. So, I dunno. :)

I'm just thinking onto paper.

AMG - Foreign Language Honors Society

I just joined the foreign language honors society here, and I've got my fingers crossed. If there are language fans here at Mizzou, this is where they'll be... it's my best hope, and in a way, my last hope. Wish me luck and joy.

I am participating in the first event tomorrow, and getting up at 7 am for it.

Potluck

I was thinking about making cream cheese swirl brownies, but I didn't have a brownie pan, so I was just lazy and made some slice and bake cookies instead. My pan was still small, though, so I had to make one batch and then, right as I was about to put in the second, the British girls came down to bake a cake for the same event. That's fine, because they had a lot of organizing and stirring to do before they would need the oven, so I hurried and put in another pan of cookies. But around the same time that the timer would have gone off, they started using the blender... And a few minutes later I though, "What happened to the timer...?" Sure enough, the cookies were burnt. Not horribly burnt, mind you, but I didn't want to take them to the potluck, so I fed them to my friends at Laws, who loved them. And Tomomi was so sweet, she washed all of the dishes because she ate one of the cookies! :D

Later Pai picked me up and we left. I found out that Kanchana goes by Ju, and Chaowalit goes by Pai. XD It finally makes sense now! I knew I couldn't be pronouncing Kanchana THAT badly...

"Ju" made a delicious soup for the party. It was a Thai mushroom-chicken type soup. They warned me that it was spicy, but it was that kind of spicy that is warm and fine in your mouth, and then burns as you swallow. Which is actually the kind I prefer, because the flavour seems to be changing as you eat it. It's a really warm feeling soup. I kept getting more and more tiny bowls of it. The Serbian dessert (some sort of egg, cream, sugar concoction) was also really good.

I met a lot of people at the party, although I found out that most of them are a lot older than me. It's funny, how ordinary people walking down the street mistake me for being quite young, but at a party I always wind up talking to upperclassmen or graduate students. I met a senior here named Austin Coates who studies Journalism and spent the last semester 'at sea' - he's spent a pair of days almost everywhere, including South Africa and with a host family in India. So he's definitely got some cool stories. His plan for next year is to drive the Wienermobile... okay... XD

I met Mammajamma Jess Fischer at last. It turns out that it is her apartment where most of the parties are held. (Austin Coates lives there too) I also (finally) met the Danish girl. But more on that later. ;)

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...

Overdose of Americana

Today was my first day of The Principles of American Journalism and American Government. The two classes took place roughly at the same time as the inauguration. Both of them decided to show Obama's full speech in class. The first time it was nice. The second time I kind of felt like cutting off my head. I was also getting really hungry because I didn't eat a proper breakfast.

Nevertheless, some nice lines:

"These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights."

"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage."

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

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

Scar Tissue

I guess most people are surprised to hear that when they exert themselves, what happens is that their muscles tear, microscopically, and that it is the rebuilding of these muscles that gives definition and greater size. What is comes down to is this - strength is scar tissue.

It works the same way with the heart. And this is how the heart grows, breaking again and again, in lesser ways or greater ways, and rebuilding.

It wasn't more than two months ago that my family brought Tidbit up to Mizzou, and Jorge and Mayumi and I went out to play with her, and chase her around. The sun was bright and warm and the leaves were still green on the trees. Tidbit dashed around through those that had already fallen and Mayumi laughed.

I feel old, because I am a different person than I was then. I was a different person then than I was last summer. And last summer I was a different person than I was at graduation.

And the difference is scar tissue.

Chinese Food and Dorm Life

We had our Chinese food party today. Half of it was made by the Chinese students, and half of it we ordered in. All was delicious. It was fun to try different Chinese dishes than the few I've gotten into the trap of always ordering. And we received offers to be taken care of if we ever visit China. Anywhere in China. Quite an offer, if you think about it.

Tabby and I talked about where we would stay the rest of our college career, after the thought that after four years in Laws (International Dorm) we would be able to travel through the whole world staying with people we met. The whole thing became a bit of a headache... It's a bit pointless to think about it though, really. We are here now and we should enjoy this for what it is. :D And it's lovely. We're all living together, it's an adorable little community... ^^

Mayumi writes up a few vocabulary words each week and puts them on the back of her desk, so that it's the first thing she sees when she wakes up in the morning and the last thing she sees when she goes to bed at night. I'm thinking about imitating it. But for what language? :S Last week she had Flier, Razor, Get a Tan, Sunburn, Arrange, Put in Order, and a few others. This week she has Adorable, Underarm Hair, Seaweed, Squid, Gross, Disgusting, Mole, Firefly, Lightening Bug, and Ambulance. ^^
If I was a bit better at Japanese I could use her list and learn in reverse. Alas.

Still, Laura's studying Japanese and it's a bit funny, because she took it for a year in high school and I've never studied it formally. Still, my vocabulary is a bit higher than hers, although I'm willing to bet she has a more solid grip on the grammar and she's a MUCH faster reader. She has a quiz tomorrow so I helped her study, reading the words to her in Japanese. It was interesting because I had trouble reading them, whereas she seemed to interpret the symbols almost as easily as the Roman alphabet. However, we came out even because I was quicker with the vocabulary. :P

It was such a nice community feeling as we sat together studying and making up mnemonics. For example:

Shigoto: Job = What does Tabitha do on Fridays? She go to job.

Isha: Apple = "Isha" apple each day and you don't have to go to the doctor.

Gogo: PM = You sleep all morning so you can GO GO in the afternoon

Bengoshi: Lawyer = Ben (our P.A.) gets caught with alcohol, so... Ben Go "Shi" A Lawyer.

Weekend Slacking

I have done absolutely nothing all weekend. I went swimming once, had a few meals, including an outstanding one at the Indian restaurant nearby, I spent some lazy hours with friends, I caught up on my sleep, and typed about 16 pages of Anthropology notes. Which is all fine and good, but I also wanted to do laundry, type my Geography and Political Science notes, and figure out my finals schedule. :( I guess I can still do that last (and most important) tonight, but while I think I've done well with time management during the week, I've definitely slacked off this weekend. :(

One Last Library Rant and some Random Stuff About Japanese Roommates

Went back to the library today to check out the Finnish and Synesthesia books. The Finno-Ugric language section blew me away. I'll be honest - I was expecting a display half the size of the Scandinavian one. Instead, it was easily twice as large. For a few minutes, I'll admit, I kept my hand on it as if I was touching earth, I almost couldn't bear to take my hand away and not touch them, afraid they would stop being real. They even had a few very, very poor books (by poor I mean very small and falling apart) on Sami. One was a sort of dictionary arranged in some non-alphabetical way that translated Finnish into four dialects of Sami. One would have to be really desperate to work with that.

But the Finnish books were much nicer. I picked a big huge volume, fully half the size of my Unabridged English Dictionary back home. It barely fit in my backpack. It's called a Basic Course in Finnish, but it's absolutely humongous. I giggled a bit to see that I could flip to the end of the book and still get the main idea of many of the readings. That's what even the tiniest slice of immersion does to language acquisition, I suppose. Still, I can learn A LOT from it, I can already tell.

Another surprise - I went looking for books on Sami culture and I found a big section and, here's the kicker, on the way through the eastern stacks I realized that I was staring at a whole block of encyclopedias in Scandinavian languages. ENCYCLOPEDIAS! That's the most glorious thing, which I haven't even begun to tap yet... the fact that here the books in foreign language extend far out of the foreign language section and into the main stacks! Oh, the awaiting fun! :D

And it occurs to me that the tight fear I've lived with for a while, that I would run out of materials, that I had to ration myself... all of that is over now. I no longer need to grasp at fragments, at anything. A few years ago I would carefully fold and save a candy wrapper if it listed the instructions in anything less common than Spanish. Of course in todays world it was always a little silly, because there's so much content available online in different languages, but there was something oddly respectful... almost venerating about it... a sort of waste not, want not attitude, that even this wrapping paper had worth... I could use it to learn perhaps two or three new words... like corn syrup or hazelnut.

It would be lovely if I could keep this sense of desperation, as ludicrous as it is now and has ever been, and apply it to the almost guilty excess suddenly available to me. I would tear through that library like no one has before. :D I seriously feel my mouth water a bit just thinking about it. I'm such a lazy little child polyglot, though... if I had more discipline I wouldn't even be taking the time to sit here and salivate and fantasize about it, I would be eating the books right now.

Unfortunately my brain does have it's limits and I spent 3 hours in class today, 4 hours studying stuff from class, 1 hour learning Arabic letters, 30 minutes smashing my head against the Faroese pronunciation guide, and 20 minutes chatting in Swedish-Norwegian. And at the Arabic lesson today Ashley seemed to have some sort of emotional bond with every letter... she couldn't let us move on without saying it again and again and cuddling it in her mouth like it was something precious or something sweet or occasionally (take Ain) something deliciously dirty. Given my reading material lately I almost felt like she had some sort of personality synestesia about the whole thing. Mah interdisciplinary erosion!!! But soon to bed, soon to bed. ^^ I am happy now and it's almost too much, it's too good for me and makes me feel a bit desperate. Let's be honest, I can't have all of them, ah, life is so finite...

Enough with that. Not that again. XD

In other news I love the Japanese roommates and how they constantly feel like they have to apologize and not only that but they are always asking me for help translating these bizarre apology phrases. Such as the traditional Japanese thing to say when, for example, you are at a friends house and the friend's husband or wife comes home and you say something bizarre to him/her like "I am sorry and grateful for intruding".

And I'm still trying to help them figure out the difference between a tan and a sunburn. I thought I made it clear but they keep arguing that both are bad for you, which is true but it's about the connotation and denotation damnit! :P

Funny Mispronunciations: Room - Loom, Rice - Lice.

I have too much imagination, see, I keep imagining Mayumi and I sharing a loom or they all eating lice out of each other's hair when they say the obvious things. :P There are a few others too... it's the kind of thing you can never think of when you want to but every time you hear it you giggle again. ;)

I totally <3 living with foreigners. And books. So far other than feeling slightly like a loser for really, truly, madly, and deeply not giving a shit about parties/drinking, I'm loving University.


P.S. - It was a strange feeling to find that they had an entire WALL in the library devoted to books about poultry. There was one huge shelf easily the size of the Scandinavian and Finno-Ugric shelves combined, perhaps even as much as 50% bigger, devoted to a series called "Poultry Science". And there were more "Poultry Nutrition" books than Icelandic, Faroese, Old Icelandic, and Old Norse combined.

It's none of my business, of course, why should I begrudge the poor student who is obsessed with feeding chickens as I am with languages his jollies? I shouldn't, of course, that's the easy answer, and of course agricultural science and stuff are actually majors here unlike all but the most famous of European languages, so they really have more of a right to be on the shelves, but it's also at once hilarious and a bit sad. :P