The Christmas Non-Post

I should write about Christmas, but I don't feel like it.

I should write about the quaint Christmas meal with its quaint little traditions. Throwing walnuts over the shoulder for luck, eating little wafery things with honey for some antiquated, superstitious reason, that sort of thing.

But I'm not in the mood.

I ought to thank all y'alls for your brown paper packages tied up with string, and maybe skip over the part where 1:30 in the AM saw me sitting on the bathroom floor sobbing.

While you might be interested in the family visits that took up all the 25th and 26th, I'm sure you don't want to hear about how the constant peopleness of those days left me all aspburgersy, so much so that I've spent the past week crocheting until my fingers bled.

Were I were to write about that, I would probably brag about the matching hat, scarf, and gloves that I've made without a pattern since then.

But I'm not in the mood for blogging.


So I won't.



But one thing I would do

If I were going to blog--

I would make every sentence a new paragraph.



'Cause it makes every

Indented

Isolated

Statement

seem more significant than it actually is.

Clever like a radio.

Wow, it's been a while. Sorry about that. I guess I'll pick up from last weekend-the Rotary Bratislava trip. A very bare-bones summary would be that all of the events were pretty pathetic and poorly organized, but we exchange students had a fantastic time anyway just being together and speaking lots and lots of English. To make a short story long, the whole thing started when Jan (host dad) drove Haley and I to Bratislava, where we stopped at Ikea to get some Swedish Meatballs for lunch. We ran through Ikea real quick like, stopping to get my secret santa gift, which I, in typical me fashion, had completely spaced about until that morning. One awesome stuffed rat later, we were back in the car headed for the bus station, where we met up with everyone else and left for the hotel. We went up to our assigned rooms, crammed into itty-bitty elevators, and dumped our stuff on the beds before putting on our silly rotary blazers and going to some bank place, which apparantly is one of the tallest buildings in the whole, entire country, which would have been a more impressive boast if they hadn't been simultaneously boasting that, on a clear day, you could see two other countries from the top. Before they let us head up to the top, though, they had us sit and listen to some bank guy talking about the euro in slovakia- or at least that's what we think he was talking about. I felt sort of bad for wasting his time. Anyway, we went up and took pictures, then went back down again. We then loaded back on the bus and went to the old city, which was all decked out for christmas. Chelsea and I made it our aim to get lost early enough that we had enough time to find our way back. We succeeded, then hung out at this bar place which was gorgeously decorated with glowy colorful lighted walls and giant black and white pictures of beautiful people on the remaining walls. I could be confusing this with another day, but I think we then went to this pub place which we totally took over to give our secret santa presents and play pool, at which I lost magnificently, which is how I do everything. It was Whitney's birthday, too, so we had cake and sang "happy birthday," first in English, then Slovak, then the Mexicans sang in Spanish, and the Brazilians sang in Portugese. It took a while. Anyway, afterward, we went back to the hotel and hung out. I taught a roomful of exchange students how to play Ruckus in Slovak, since View is Thai and doesn't really speak much English. So that was sweet. It should also be noted that every three rooms shared a bathroom and toilet, and that my roommates and I were unyieldingly sarcastic to one another, making up for nearly four months of a) being polite and b) speaking Slovak. It was awesome. The next morning, we all got up and breakfasted on tea, rolls and hot dogs, which is, unfortunately, pretty typical Slovak breakfast fare, then set off on a whirlwind sightseeing adventure. The bus dropped us at Bratislava castle, where we were left to wander around and take pictures of ourselves for maybe three hours, before the bus failed to make its rendezvous, so we walked around by some church for about another hour waiting for the bus to come. When it finally did, it took us to the tv broadcasting tower for another view of the city and adjacent countries and lunch in the fancy restaurant at the top. Afterward, another bus ride brought us to a little red tourist train. Those of us lucky enough to sit in the back car with no adult supervision had a grand old time not seeing the sights of Bratislava. We eventually started randomly waving at strangers and pretending to take their picture and generally pretending to be stupid tourists. How fitting, then, when our little red tourist train was ambushed by a crowd of randomly waving and picture taking Japanese tourists. The little red tourist train drove all through the old city, ("hey, we were lost here!" said Chelsea) and took us- why not?- back to Bratislava Castle. The intercom voice lady then pointed out several bridges over the Danube, mentioning that the smallest one was damaged by Americans in the second world war. We all looked at our shoes. I muttered, "sorry". When we loaded back on the little red tourist train, we in the back car were joined, surprisingly, by some random Irish tourists. "We haven't paid- we're just hopping a ride," they said as the train pulled away, "Where are we going?". When we explained that we were with an organization and had no idea where they'd take us next, they jumped. Off the little red tourist train. Yeah, it was nuts. Anyway, we then walked across the bridge to the biggest mall in Slovakia, for what it's worth. I bought a pair of skinny black pants, then spent the rest of the night in a state of nervous breakdown over them. Never did I think I would own a pair of skinny black pants. Anyway, after a mere three hours shopping, we all gathered and went back to the hotel, where we got ready for the club that night. I spend most of the getting ready time wandering around, panicked, in my new skinny black pants trying to borrow a shirt that would make me feel less like I was wearing tight black pants. The disco itself, despite being "the biggest club in Slovakia" was sort of a letdown. Basically just a smoke-filled room full of people who thought they were cooler than they probably were. There were two slutty dancers (and I use the term "dancer" loosely) on the stage, even. Eventually, the girl who was kicked off of Slovak Superstar the previous week came out on the stage and sang, and that was kind of it. We went back to the hotel around midnight. The next morning was the dreaded test, which I still maintain was poorly designed. I don't really want to talk about it, then after breakfast, we went home. Jan came and picked us up, and I slept most of the way back to Banska Bystrica. And that's about all.

Living with Strangers- Again.

Thursday night saw me trying to cram all my worldly possessions into the two suitcases they all came here in. Strangely, they seemed to have multiplied to the point that they barely fit. How can it be that I have so much crap and still I feel like I have nothing to wear? After that escapade, I resolved to stop buying clothes for the rest of the year (I use the word "resolved" loosely, meaning that I probably will anyway), and use the money for vodna fajkas. Gotta love the hookah. I just wish I knew exactly it is I'm smoking, but I have been assured that it's neither tobacco nor drugs, nor indeed anything harmful to my health. Anyway, yesterday my stuffed-to-the-gills-or-would-have-been-if-they-were-fish suitcases and I moved to the Rapcan residence, which is a gorgeous old house perhaps 45 minutes' walk from town, which is a significant improvement over the hour and a half it took took to walk from the Velky's house in Kremnička. My new host family consists of a mom, Anna, a dad, Jan, and a 20-year-old hockey playing older brother type, Lukaš. They are all extraordinarily nice, and Lukaš speaks flawless English. He said he liked the way I spoke English, with my "wery nice accent", which is something a west-coast girl like me doesn't hear all that often. Anna has been studying English for the past three years, and is eager to pick up more words, but they all speak Slovak to me, since I asked them to. I've learned that, however much the other party wants to speak English, if you consistantly respond in Slovak, they'll eventually give up and speak Slovak to you. The house is fantastically old-style, even by Slovak standards, so think pre-communist era. The upstairs, where the three bedrooms are, has doors only on the bathrooms, making the whole place really open. My room is just sort of... there, once you pass the bathrooms. The bed is in a little alcove, and the closet is plenty big enough to get dressed in, so no worries on the count of privacy. Oh, and they have a sauna in the bathroom. Which is awesome. In the parts where they've updated the house somewhat, they have heated floors, which is also awesome. The internet, though, is like than molasses going uphill in January- with crutches (bonus points for you if you caught the reference before you read the next sentence). Speaking of which, I said a sad little farewell to my carefully accumulated savegames when I uninstalled Psychonauts from the Velkys' desktop. Anyway, that's about everything I have to say at the moment. I'll leave you with my address so that when the Christmas and birthday presents start pouring in, they'll end up at the right house. Just don't send too much stuff that I'll have to fit into my suitcases! What I really want- ok, this sounds silly, but go with it- is a pair of spiffy glasses with clear lenses, so I can feel like I look smart even when I don't actually feel smart. I still have to get the stuff I've bought for my family home, and finish my Christmas shopping. Oh, well. Ok, so that address:

Skubínska
Cesta 96, 974 01
Banska Bystrica, Slovakia

Skiing and the Spazzy Internets

Ok, so the internet is being a spaz and whisked away this beautifully composed post to never-never land, never to be seen again, so I'll do a quick recap for those of you who weren't...um... me, sitting here writing it.

Skiing is cool. I fell down a lot, as predicted. The Velkys have a little apartment place, where we spent the night. I fell down less the second day. I went real fast, since it's hard to slow down and stop once you get a certain amount of momentum going, so they all think I'm this crazy speed demon. A good time was had by all.

I wrote out for your enjoyment the little chart I made of dates and their cooresponding percentages through the year, but frankly I can't be bothered to re-write the whole thing. Suffice it to say that I reach the 1/3 mark on the 23rd, and plan to celebrate with some zmrzlina or a trip to my favorite little čajovňa for some tea and a vodna fajčie, despite the controversy it stirred up among my readers. A good time will probably be had by all.

Posts still to come:
•Excerpts from my journals- wacky stuff I wrote while bored in school
•Crappy poetry that I've written over the years
•More mundane details than you or your grandmother can handle
•Whatever other random flotsam I dredge up from my murky mudpuddle of a mind of to regale you, dear readers.

Anyways, please take a minute to comment with questions or stuff that you want me to write about. Comments=Love, to a blogger.

Weather and Other Mundanities

Warning: stream of consciousness ahead. Strap on your life jackets and keep your hands and feet inside the raft.

It seems that, despite my frequent protestations to the contrary, folks seem to think that, merely because of my current location, my life couldn't possibly become routine, boring, or anything other than exciting and exotic. I repeat: this is not the case. My phone is now relentlessly and absurdly throughly programmed to beep when I reach significant percentages through the year, in addition to the weekly update and the monthly update. For those of you keeping score at home, I arrived on August 15, almost three months ago, and my calculations are based on spending 300 days here, which puts my departure somewhere in June. Makes the math easier, anyways. It's started to snow in earnest, I think. On Monday, it snowed more than we ever get in a year back home in Eugene, then it all melted and rained on Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday... more rain. Rain depresses me here. It's too much like home. Today, though, the snow started again. Every time I look out the window at the couple of inches of snow covering everything, I get all giddy and gleeful and start to dance around like a crazier person than I am. We're going skiing next weekend. That is to say, my host family will ski and I'll probably fall on my face a lot. I'm friggin' excited. The Christmas-themed commercials have started... but despite the snow, it simply doesn't feel like the "holiday season". They don't celebrate Halloween here... or Thanksgiving... so that might have something to do with it. My host mom's constant, slightly passive-aggressive worrying about me being cold are beginning to look more legitimate, what with the snowing and freezing of mudpuddles and all. Therefore, I succumbed and meekly accepted her offer of a proper winter coat today, for which I need to pay her back. Note to self. Anyways, my current to-do list has, maybe, two things on the horizon: the Rotary slovak test in December and a presentation for Fyzika (physics) on the sources of energy in my area shortly thereafter. Mostly hydroelectric, as far as I know. I'll have to do some googling for that. I went to an Irish pub with Haley on Friday. Tried my first sip of beer ever, and didn't like it. Also tried a sip of some bright blue drink that, I swear, tasted exactly like mouthwash, and a sip of some mysterious clear substance that tasted exactly like rubbing alchohol. Not that I've ever drank rubbing alchohol. Some girls in school asked me what an adverb was, and I sat there for five minutes humming through all the school house rock songs I could think of before I could answer them. It was pathetic. All these questions about tenses and parts of speech leave me wondering what 12 years of education taught me after all. The other day, some emo kid asked me to look over some crappy song lyrics he'd written in English and make corrections, which I did. They were mostly nonsensical, with a bunch of disjointed, rhyming lines that made just enough sense that I couldn't really correct them for anything in particular, but just little enough that it was obvious that the kid didn't really speak English. I suppose, since I have nothing more to say, I should stop typing now. 3/10 of the way done with the year! See you all in 7 months!

So, yeah.

Just letting everyone know I'm still alive. This week was some sort of Autumn holiday thing, so we had no school Wednesday on through the rest of the week. Which was nice. There is no such thing as Halloween here, though. I never would have thought I'd miss it so much. On the plus side, though, my host family and I went to this waterpark/spa place three times, with three different groups of other friend-type families. On the minus side, Psychonauts doesn't work on my lappy. Back on the plus side, though, it does work on my host family's desktop computer, so I get to play it there. Honestly, that's a lot of why I haven't been so much in communication with all y'alls this past week or so. Two Fridays ago, I went to this fantastic čajovna (that's teahouse) with some girls from school and some friends of theirs, and last Friday, I went again with one of Barbora's friends who I sort of inherited, and some of her friends. I had Japanese tea, which for some reason I always think I like, but then it turns out that I don't really. Tastes like fish. That doesn't stop me from drinking it, though. Anyways, they also had these spiffy voda fajčie things (literally, 'water smoking'). Basically, you inhale flavored smoke from a hookah (which is the thing the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland smokes. Don't know why I know that word.) They assured me that it was not bad for you, just sweet flavor. I sure hope so, 'cause I sure liked it. Three or so of us shared an apple-flavored one on my second trip, and it complimented my Japanese tea quite nicely, making it much more palatable. Yesterday, I went and spent all my money for the month, including the cash from a card in my package, my rotary allowance, and then some extra from my debit account to make up the difference, on a pair of warm boots for winter. About 3200 crowns. I have intentionally not done the math on how much real money that is, since I'm afraid of cringing so badly that I'll cause permanent damage to myself. It's supposed to snow Monday, and my host mom keeps on worryin' at me about whether I'm cold. For the ridiculous amount they cost, I intend to wear the silly boots until they are so worn out that they no longer qualify as viable footwear.

I have now exhausted everything I can think of to say. I'll probably be online next weekend for an undetermined length of time at an undetermined hour for when I have something more to say. I do, however, want to give a quick shout-out to my hype/hope buddies. Miss you all buckets, and don't forget to send me a copy of Narnia this year. Not a DVD, either, all of you have to come here, 'kay?

Dance-o-rama

Last week was frigging amazing. Forget every bit of whining about a lack of modern dance in this town. My two-monthish absense from my primary means of self-expression was certainly made up for, if only by sheer quantity. There was this four days of dance festival thing, with roughly six hours of workshops in the morning and afternoon, followed by some sort of performance in the evening. Every day, mind you. The workshops varied from "cool" to "amazing" to "oh my, I seem to dislocated my shoulder". Over the shoulder rolls, it turns out, are only one of the many ways you can roll around and injure yourself using your shoulders. I had no idea. As for the performances, they varied rather more in quality. Most of the teachers for the workshop were there to perform, and we often learned sections of their choreography. The best piece was by a group of dancers from Poland, who took the workshop with us, asking questions and recieving answers in English, since they didn't speak Slovak. My least favorite piece was very, very strange indeed. I have no idea what it was about, but there were a couple of girls wearing these knee-length sort of Quaker-looking dress things with hoods, and they ran around making sheep noises while some other guy wearing white tails without a shirt read some Slovak about the Tatras, pausing to strangle one of the quaker-sheep-girls, much to her amusement and prolongued bleating. The first night, there was a piece with many other strange things, including a girl eating a lemon, peel and all, while announcing "I do not need to eat chocolate to be happy", blowing up balloons while singing, tuning a guitar, a girl dancing around in her undies, only to put on pantyhose, a dress, and high heels, sit down, and eat a sausage that she pulled out of her purse. Quite surreal, but very entertaining. There was even a dance where the lady wore nothing at all. Not so much as a pair of shorts or a loincloth or anything. Bupkis. The lighting was low, so you could mostly just make out her sillouette, but you could see enough to know that you could see too much, if you catch my drift. So, yeah. I have many bruises, marley burns, gouges, scrapes, bumps, and scars, both mental and physical, to show for last week. All my arts school friends, the ones with whom I take ballet and folk dance, think I'm this amazing modern dancer, and I just let them keep thinking that.

By the way, this is my seventy-fifth post. Woo hoo. If I had one of those little party horn thingies that unroll when you blow them, I'd be blowing it now. Since I don't, I'll just have to sit here going "toot, toot".

Toot.

Details, details...

I have not had a huge amount of culture shock since I've been here, but there are things that, every time I see them, make me think about how they are different than at home. None of them really have much significance, but all of them together ensure that I feel that I'm in a foreign country now. And now, ladies and gentlemen, let's have a big hand for your favorite format and mine: the bullet points!

• Doorknobs. There are no round doorknobs anywhere in this country. They're all the kind that are shaped like the letter L, with the short end in the door and the long end parallel to the floor.
• Lightswitches. Rather than the neat white rectangles of my youth, these are all square.
• Chalkboards. There's nary a whiteboard to be found anywhere, but the chalkboards slice, dice, make julienne fries, and even sort your socks. The board is comprised of a rectangular piece with two folding wings, which open or close to allow the teacher to write on both sides of them, provinding a surface area three times that of the original rectangle. They slide up and down about six inches, too, the better to write at both the tippy top and way down at the bottom.
• Notebooks and other school supplies. Rather than aisled upon aisles of notebooks, binders, and the like, students here have only about three rather hideous styles of little staple-bound booklets of lined, plain, or quadrille paper, in addition to the three styles of more expensive spiral bound notebooks.
• Radiators. The big old-timey ones. There's one in every room. No central heating here!
• Very, very narrow streets. Coupled with the ridiculous speed at which these people drive, their utter disregard of seatbelts, and pedestrians' habit of jaywalking, it's a wonder I'm still alive.
• Yellow lights. They come on both sides of the red light. The cycle goes green, yellow, red, red and yellow, and back to green. Pretty good idea, actually.
• One last rant about socks, and then I promise I'll shut up about it. What the crap is wrong with not wearing socks? Seriously, these people are obsessed. And it's not just socks. If you're going to wear a skirt or even a pair of capris or something, you'd better be wearing nylons or tights (unless you're a guy. But if you're wearing shorts in the winter, apparantly that means you're on drugs). Otherwise you will be accosted by everyone you meet, even total strangers on the bus, with the thrice-accursed phrase: "Nie si zima?" ("Aren't you cold?")
• Shoes. There's some sort of rule about "inside" shoes and "outside" shoes, less strict than in Japan, but I still haven't figured this out. I think you're supposed to change shoes when you get to school, and we wear old, worn-out birkenstock knock-offs around the house. But some kids wear similar shoes around school (with socks, naturally), so I have no idea what that's about.
• Lunch. The school lunch system is complicated. The day before, one must register their choice of meal by stamping bot hhalves of a perforated ticket and depositing one of them in a little box. Then, the next day, you hand the lunchlady the remaining half, in exchange for which they provide you with a steaming plate of... food. The problem: 1. I can't read the menu, and therefore, my choice of meal is utterly random, and 2. I didn't get any more tickets for October. I'm working on that.
• Dubbing. Roughly half the TV shows one sees here are dubbed into Slovak from some other language- usually, but not always, English. I've seen episodes of Friends, CSI, Monk, NCIS, some random German show about a crime fighting dog, and any number of Spanish soap operas, in addition to the local programming- sitcoms, reality shows, soap operas, and the like, all in Slovak.
• It's funny to read the back of the shampoo bottle and see four languages, none of which are English. Often, you get Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and sometimes German.
• Public buildings, including my school, are all in such bad condition that, were they in America, they would long since have been condemned and torn down. Cracked linoleum, broken windows, graffiti all over the desks- there's even a mural of the Simpsons on the back wall of one classroom. That and the bars on many windows and doors gives the place a very strange vibe, like a converted prison or insane asylum or something
• The oldest building in Eugene is on campus and dates back to the 1870s. The oldest buildings in Slovakia date back to the 12th or 13th centuries. Note, for instance, this conversation that took place when the language camp kids went to see a castle:

"There was a fire here recently, and this ceiling was the only wooden thing to survive." "So all the other wood is a reproduction?"

"Oh yes. We replaced it shortly after the fire."

"When was this fire?"

"Oh, 1800."

• Every name has a special day, which the bearers of that name celebrate much like a birthday. The upshot of this is that there are only a couple hundred names for the entire population. I know two Martins, about four Barboras, four Ivetas, two Dominikas, and countless Sashas.
• The bathtubs here have a little seat built into them and a showerhead. Lots of families don't have a shower, so they shower in the tub. They never fill it up and take a bath, they just shower sitting down. Which is actually kind of nice, especially for leg-shaving.
• Everyone uses umbrellas in the rain. If you don't have one, then friendly strangers walking your way will often offfer to share, which is kind of nice.
• Gym class is wild. There are usually about three classes having PE at once, in the same little gym. Seventh graders duch under the volleyball net as they run laps, a crowd of 11th grade girls ignore their male counterparts' football game as it weaves through their volleyball game, and against the far wall, sixth graders do situps- the kind that were condemned as "bad for the back" years ago in America. It's beautiful and dynamic to watch, if loud.

The Moment Before Reason

For a moment, I thought I saw you yesterday. But it was just a particular shade in a stranger's hair, a tilt of the head or the angle of a smile on an unknown face. It seems you are refracted-my images of you, fractured, playing across a million foreign faces like glimmering rainbows cast by the prism of distance, intangible, insubstantial. I would not have thought I knew you well enough to see you where you are not, in the glint of a man's glasses on the bus or even the feet of a fellow dancer. The way a nose wrinkles in a smile, the shape of a slender finger, a neck's particular slope as it becomes shoulder- you are all around me, silent strangers reminding me of your absence. In the moment before reason, there is just time enough for an inhalation and the flash of your name across my mind like lightning across the sky and then you are gone, swallowed alive by harsh reality, and I realize, having had to say goodbye again, how very much I miss you. We are separated by thick walls of time and space, penetrated only by a feverish imagination starved of you. I did not think I missed you until my heart leapt at the sight of you, only to be cut down by reason, shouting its truel truths- that you aren't here, that you can't be here- and i realized just how much I wished you were.

I write this to you, my friends, so you will know, as I now do, that I miss you more than words can say, more than reason can explain or even describe. This is my love letter and my lament, for though neither of us is irrevocably removed from this fallen earth, the distance winding between us, literally oceans away, feels as impassable as the gap 'twixt life and death. We stand on the edges of the chasm and shout, scream until we have no breath, and ultimately, we turn away and live our lives apart. Living, simply being, causes our characters to change, grow, evolve, When I return, dear friend, who will you be? Will I recognize you in the flesh? Perhaps more frightening still- who will I be?

When such thoughts cloud my mind and precipitate into tears, your wise words, spoken in a quiet, tearful moment, decend about my shoulders like a warm arm-

"It's only for a year."


Note to readers: I wrote this in a very blue moment. Rereading it now, it seems extraordinarily overdramatic, but that's what makes it fun to write. It's not always this bad. Some of the occurances of the word "you" in this post are plural, some are not. You're smart. You can figure it out. But hey- it's got imagery, analogies, metaphores out the wazzoo, just a dash of alliteration, heck, even death. By gum, It's a bona fide piece of literature!

New comic! Fun times!

And for those die-hard fans out there, here's the very fancy, digitally remastered version of the first comic thingie!

I miss my Xbox

I wrote this in class and then put "Blog this" at the top of the page. So I guess I will.

I'm such a long way from home, yet the distance bothers me less than the simple fact that I'm not there, if that makes any sense. It doesn't feel as if I'm a couple thousand miles away, it only feels like I have paused my life there and time and space have conspired to change my surroundings. As if, in the middle of a game, I saved, quit, and played something else. The problem is that the game's still going on without me. But you sit in the same chair. You use the same controller and watch the same screen. Sure, the buttons have different effects and so must be used differently, but you still, at least, push buttons. I'm living a different life here, analougous to playing a new game, but I see it through the same set of eyes. The new world has the same sky, the same sun and clouds and rain. The pavement under my feet may be different, but I stand on the same two feet, in the same pare of cream leather converse that I got at Buffalo Exchange for $16.00.

I think I'm almost through the tutorial. It's taking for-freaking-ever.

Fruits of Idleness

See what happens when I don't have internet access in the wee hours of the night? For some reason, blogger won't let me make this nice and legibly big for all y'alls, so you'll just have to figure it out. Sorry.

*note* Emo's quote is some of a poem I wrote one day some months ago when I was feeling particularly down, so it's not to be taken as a reflection on my current state of mind. *ahem* Dad.

Miss you!

Jarmok

So this weekend is Jarmok, a nation-wide festival sort of thing, complete with booths and people running around in native costume doing traditional things and selling traditional, hand crafted wares. The most bizarre element of the whole thing is that, according to tradition, the boys give girls smart whacks to the bum with traditional wooden spoons. Not even kidding you. (Michael Eckerdt, this is your chance.) There's also a bunch of the obligatory festival-type portable rides of questionable safety and/or legality. So that's what I did this weekend.

This was my first week at school. I'm taking a bunch of classes, presented here in handy-dandy list format:

• French. This seems like a good idea, but they are all way better than me, and half the time, I don't even know what language the teacher is speaking.
• PE. I suck at Volajbol. And at basketbol. And futbol. Oh well. At least I don't have to talk much.
• Chemistry. This class is probably the one where I understand the most, as far as Slovak goes. I mean, it's not hard to tell that "etán" means "ethane". Unfortunately, I don't remember much of the content.
• Remedial Slovak. Private lessons. Yay!
• Math. Same deal as Chemistry.
• A bunch of other classes. It's horrible, I know, but I don't understand them at all, so I sit quietly and draw pictures. The other day, and I know my readers will be either appalled or proud of me, I wrote out every bit of diologue from the first ten minutes of Serenity. I checked later, and I only made 27 mistakes. Not bad, I think. Try it some time. We'll compare scores.

So, that's about all for now. I've been quite busy. I've been learning to ride šelda, sasha's horse, and I start dance classes on Thursday. Dance will be three days a week, ballet once, (I think) modern once, and folk dance once. I'm excited!

I miss you all incredibly much.

First day

So today was my first day at school. After being shuffled from office to office, following my host father around, I went to my first class, which seemed to be sort of a homeroom sort of thing, where the teacher announced their schedule, pausing to tell me that mine would be different and that I'd get it tomorrow. After class, some girls nervously approached me and asked in broken English if I wanted to go into town with them. I said yes, not knowing if they meant after school, sometime next week, or skipping the rest of the day and going now. In any event, I then followed the teacher to an office, where I met the headmistress/principal/director of the school, who welcomed me graciously (via the best efforts at interpretation my teacher's limited English could furnish), and shuffled me off to yet another teacher, this one with a more functional knowledge of English. She informed me that she is basically in charge of exchange students, and that I would be taking various subjects with various other classes while my class took English, which makes sense. When she finished, the girls who had approached me earlier came in, and I followed them, much to my bewilderment, out of the school and a couple of miles away, through the mall, through the old city center, to a sort of outdoor bar kind of place, where we drank kofola (one girl smoked) and played fooseball, at which I continue to suck. Seeing as it was about nine or ten in the morning, and we were gone for more than a good hour, I was understandably confused and freaked out. However, my fears were allayed when we met up with my host mom at a cafe in the mall on the way back, after several phone calls. Turns out that we weren't delinquent hoodlums sneaking out of school to smoke and drink (only kofola, but still). The best I can tell is that today was just an orientation sort of day and that's all there was to it. Oh well.

Oh, and I had my first rotary meeting today. I was asked to introduce my self (in Slovak, of course), which I did. "Your Slovak is perfect," said one high-up looking sort of guy. Then I sat, legs crossed at the ankles and back straight as could be, for about an hour, pretending to understand. I perfected the art of looking from one face to another, following the conversation without understanding a word. Well, I understood words. About halfway through, I started a drinking game with my mineral water- every time I understood a word, I'd take a sip. I made it through the whole bottle, even. Yay for me! Afterward, I met my counselor's girlfriend, who plays the violin and teaches English to little kiddies. She offered to take me to concerts and the like, and asked me if I would come to her class every so often so they could hear a native speaker.

I don't have a snappy way to sum up this blog, so I'll just have to let it die here. Sorry, folks.

Language camp debriefing

Just got back from language camp. Overall, I would say that it was a good, productive, and fun experience. However, it seems that every roommate-type person I have ever had, both here and at SEP, has to have some sort of life crisis while staying in the same tiny room as me. Oh well.

One of the first things they told us about at the orientation meeting was "inbound syndrome". Exchange students huddle together in their panic and don't experience anything. The essence of what they said was "don't make friends with the people with whom you will be spending every moment of your waking, and even sleeping, hours for the next two weeks". We failed.

The classes were extraordinarily long, but chock-full of good information. If you look at my notebook, however, you can see a steady trend downward, from the organized, labeled, and color-coded pages upon pages of notes of the first couple of days, to the couple of jotted down phrases and fantastic pieces of artwork drawn toward the end.

The activities were sort of a mixed bag. The highlights were:

• The "walk" that turned into a five mile hike- the second half running back frantically toward the school where we were staying through pelting rain and steadily nearing lightning and thunder.
• The castles. We visited two- the first was a generic, though fantastic, tourist trap. The second required a half-hour hike and was merely ruins, but was the better of the two. It was awesome to imagine it back in the day.
• The waterpark. Really, it was more of a spa-type place. We walked in and were greeted by gently steaming pools full of murky brown, mineral-filled water, which is supposedly extremely good for the skin. It must have been, because my sunburn went away after only a couple of days.
• One day, they brought about five horses to the school. A gaggle of young kids lead us around in circles, talking to eachother about how they didn't know how to say "the horse's name is Dusty". Somewhere along the way, one of them decided that I was competent enough to keep my seat myself. Which I could. Steering remains a problem, though.

I'll think of more eventually.

I had my first bout of homesickness while I was there. Coupled with being surrounded by people 24/7, I wandered off to a deserted corner of the school one night and sobbed for a good half hour. Tanner, I took the scarf you bought me and wrapped it around my shoulders and imagined that it was one of your famous violent, yet cuddly, hugs. It helped a little, but I miss you so much. Geez, I'm crying all over again. I miss you all so very much. Mom, thanks for the cards. They helped a lot. I don't know how I'll make it through a whole year. I have been listening to the Superchic[k] song "I belong to you" a lot. It pretty much sums me up at the moment.

One more language camp-related thought: lunch and dinner were virtually always some variation on pork and rice with all the rolls you could eat and/or sneak to your room and eat later with nutella. Good times.

I miss you.

So far...

Wow, it took me about thirty seconds of staring at the blinking cursor to remember how to speak English. I just have a few minutes before we leave to go to the disco (!), so here come my experiences so far in easy-to-swallow morsels. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... the bullet points!

• My first day, Barbora (my host sister) and Ivena (her friend) took me shopping at Europa shopping center (pronounced "eh-oo-ro-pah"). We stopped for blended drinks, non-alchoholic, of course, and headed down to the city center, which was awesome and old and stuff. We met up with Peter, who will be my host brother in my third host family. He spent a year in Nebraska, so he speaks flawless English. We all walked down to the holocaust museum, stayed there about two minutes, then went and got ice cream. I had grapefruit flavor, which was fantastic.
• The next day, Brano (my host father) took me to all the places to get my visa and stuff, which was sort of a hassle, but okay. We ran into another rotary kid, Haley, and her host mom at the police station. Haley does not speak a word of slovak. Literally. She didn't even seem to be trying to make herself understood. I myself have eschewed every part of my English grammar and most of my vocabulary in an attempt to communicate, and it seems to be working pretty well. Anyway, that night, we went to a kid's birthday party, which was at Donovaly. There was a folk band that played all these slovak folk tunes, which was really spiffy. There was a baby boy that belonged to one of the women at the party (which, for some reason, had no other children present). A middle-aged woman introduced him to me as her "son in law", but somehow I thought she was mistaken.
• Today, Ivetka (my host mother), Barbora and I went to the mall to find some luggage for Barbora's trip to America. This afternoon, Barbora, Ivena, several random men, and I piled into a car to go to a football game. Not soccer, mind, football. I am so in Europe. Our team won, and I discovered one of my new favorite drinks: Kofola. They explained it as "Slovak Cola", but it has this licoricey sort of bite to it. Fantastic. After the game, we rode back in the bus with the team, who all flirted with me, despite the prodigious language barrier. Barbora translated what she could, but it was still hilarious. We went to what I think was a sort of post-game barbecue, except with goulash instead of hot dogs. Then we went home and watched Top Gun in Czech. Which made me laugh.

Also worthy of note:

• Almost everyone smokes almost everywhere.
• Driving is dangerous.
• Seat belts are optional.

Safe and sound!

Just letting everyone know that I have arrived safely. My host family seems fantastic, and the flights went smoothly. It is funny that the longer the wait, the fewer words it takes to tell how long it is. Such is the case concerning my six hour layover in Detroit and my seven hour layover in Prague. Much sitting, sleeping, and eating took place.

Departure

The Plan:

August 14th, I will get on an airplane in Portland in the wee hours of the morning, then fly to Detroit, sit around the airport for a good long while, then fly to Amsterdam. From there, it's off to Prague, where I have another really pretty long layover before flying to Sliac, which is just outside Banska Bystrica.

If I don't post again before I leave, know that I will try to pass on whatever tidbits I may have for you, be they mere impressions of my surroundings, the deep philosophical insights and witty saying that we at the aublog strive to provide for all y'alls, or the whining and ranting that we inevitably fall into anyway. However, depending on the availability of internet access, these posts may be infrequent and/or inconsistent.

Pray for me, please!

Goodbye

This goes out to my 12 years at YG. As you listen, keep in mind that a) this is a very, very rough cut and b) I couldn't hear myself when I was recording the harmony. Listen mercifully.

Wisdom

This morning I was anesthetized while some folks poked around in my mouth and pulled out two teeth I didn't know I had.

The good news is that now, twelve hours later, I can finally feel my face and even move the left hand side of my upper lip. Plus I get ice cream.

The bad news is that, while I can move my previously incapacitated facial muscles, the feeling that has returned is not at all a pleasant one. Not only can I now feel my tongue, but I can feel the waves of nauseating pain emanating from the gaping holes in my gums where, I'm told, a couple of teeth were lurking, biding their time, waiting to erupt and wreak havok, causing incalculable pain and damage to my mouth on their way to take over the world in the name of all things toothy. Well, we sure showed them.

My face hurts. Whether that has anything to do with my preference for words both rather larger and more plentiful than I generally would thrust upon my innocent readers is up for debate.

So here I sit, typing with one hand while the other holds a bag of frozen peas, specially purchased for the purpose, to my cheek.

Augh.

(PS. The title of this post, while somewhat nonspecific, was specifically chosen to not break the now six-post long streak of one word titles. It is my solemn vow that, until now, this was entirely unintentional. Thank you.)

Linkfest!

Just a pointless quickie note to buy me a few more days before people start asking about my next post.

I am so tempted to blow all my graduation money on this dress, but won't. I have next summer's end-of-the-year trip to save up for. Travel around Europe vs. really cool but expensive dress... the travel wins out. Oh well.

In other news, I like all the music on this site. I put almost all of it on my fauxPod and listen to it alls the time. I still don't approve of the name, though. I bookmarked it as "Spiffy Music" instead.

As long as I'm linking to stuff, I might as well refer any and all of you who may not have read it to xkcd. I went back and read all the archives and felt really smart and laughed really hard when I actually got some of them.

In other news, cramps suck. I wanted to curl up and die all morning. If you are male, count your blessings, or at least add that to the preexisting list.

Lackadaisicality

I have not blogged in a very long time. Mostly, life as a graduate is not that different so far. I'm teaching ballet, trying to learn some Slovak, babysitting fairly regularly, being roped back into DTO (they're paying me this time!) and taking whatever dance classes I can fanagle into my schedule (Including some ballroom stuff! With a real boy! If you read this, thanks for being such a good sport, Ryan.) In addition to all this stuff, since I don't have a "real job", I've basically been put in charge of all the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, tapestries, and draperies for the household, under the threat of being charged rent. However, despite all of these demands on my time, I can often stay in my pajamas until nigh on 6:00 and delay showering for several days at a time, besides wasting my "sleeping" hours on my lappy. It's hard to get motivated when I know I'll only be around for another month and a half.

Anyway, the thing I've laughed hardest at in all this time can be found here. If you haven't played Monkey Island, you probably won't laugh at all, and if you actually speak German, you might not laugh as much as I did. Oh well. If nothing else, this will provide you with some insight into my strange mind.

In actual news, I'll be getting my wisdom teeth out soon. We'll see how that goes. If I later learn that any photographs of me with a puffed up face-full of cotton exist, I will personally make sure that they are destroyed by any means necessary. I'm just that vain and/or insecure. But we already knew that.

Lonely.

Tonight marks the second time in my life that I have felt lonely. The feeling that there is nobody here, and that this span of time could be better spent in the company of others, is somewhat overwhelming. As with the first time I was lonely, I am at a place in my life where there are actually people with whom I could be having fun, which is not a state to which I am accustomed.

Yesterday, Ryan, Bobby, and I (whom you may remember from a previous episode) went to Detroit lake, where we hiked about five miles and met a group of exhausted elderly-ish people at the top of a mountain, then meandered down to the lake itself, where we swam- that is to say, the boys changed into swim trunks in a nearby port-a-potty, then we all stood around, knee deep in the murky water, watching Bobby shiver. Later, we rented a paddle boat, and peddled our way hither and yon around the lake. That is to say, Ryan and I peddled while Bobby sat in the back and tried (unsuccessfully) to catch something with his newly-purchased fishing pole. We ate some pasta salad left over from my graduation party, and some leftover sandwiches from Ryan's graduation party. Two of the three of us ended up with pretty wicked sunburns. Around 4:00, we discovered that there really isn't that much to do in Detroit, and started for home. I nodded off for about 45 minutes on the way home, thanks to the sunburn, which always makes me sleepy. We all came back to my house, where we all hopped into the pool and ate some barbecued chicken and veggies. (Aside: we recently purchased a new barbecue. Now, our food choices largely revolve around what we can cook thereupon. Never before had it occured to me that pizza could be barbecued. In Ryan's words: "the same thing happens when you get a deep-fryer. Suddenly you want to deep fry everything." End aside.) Dad then invited them to play a shoot-em-up-type-man-game on the 360. I sort of spoiled the fun, however, by chainsawing them all to death with the Lancer. They exacted their revenge, however, by subjecting me to a racing-type game, where I made an utter fool of myself by running into walls and driving better in reverse than I would have otherwise. All in all, June 14 was among the most fun days I've had in a very long time.

So today I'm lonely. The moral of the story: people need people- in much the same way that smokers need their cigarettes. The first time you try it, it makes you cough and gag, but when you get used to it, you can't not have it. Or so I've been told. At the moment, I'm going through friend withdrawals, which is really all that loneliness is.

Graduation

Graduation was Saturday. Theoretically, I am now an adult. The world feels no different, it's just that every day now feels like a Saturday for now. I 'knew' that I would cry at some point, but the forecast eye-showers never materialized. I came close when I said goodbye to Patrick-sensei, Japanese teacher of six years, but I ended up just sort of welling up. The all night party was fantastic. Though I didn't walk out of there with any mini-fridges or toaster ovens, I had a fabulous time playing craps, on the verge of breaking out into "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" from Guys and Dolls the whole time. Around 3:30, they gathered us all up to pass out whatever prizes we may have won. Unfathomably enough, someone (probably The Man. It's always The Man.) decided that, rather than any reasonable order, they would call the names totally randomly. Twice. On the positive side, I left at 4:30, $50 richer than I was when I arrived.

Humility

I'm all the time thinking I'm so much cooler than everyone around me, and I have to let them no it by being the smartest, strongest, and funniest thing since Calvin Coolidge, put together. Recently, however, I've become aware that I am fundamentally insecure, and I'm all freaked out about making sure nobody knows about the ugliness I see inside. That's where the pride comes from. I try and hide my many faults, end up overcompensating, and come off as prideful and arrogant, which I recognize and add to my list of things wrong with me as a person.

While my self-image may be somewhat skewed by my history as a really mean kid, which I deplore about myself, there is a lot of truth to be found in my insecurity. Theologically, it's all about the depravity of man. I am, as a human being, naturally inclined to evil. I am flawed. I am a hopeless case of selfishness. And, in a way, it's good that I recognize that about myself. Amazing grace saved a wretch like me, not a basically good person like me. Paul was all vibin' on that.

The epiphany I had the other day was that I am insecure, but not humble. I still have to learn that it's okay that i'm scumm and that I don't need to hide behind my own puffed-up coolty.

(The word SCUMM in the last paragraph, by the bye, is a very, very oblique reference to the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, with which most of my game collection was made. Adventure games forever!)

So, yes. I looked up and saw that it was a blue moon, and since I write a deep post about once in every one of those, I figured it was time to plumb the slimy depths of my tattered soul and dreg up something for all y'alls enjoyment.

Incidentally, senioritis is running rampant at the moment. Only three days of compulsory schooling left... ever!

Melancholy Post #54

My room is rank with the stench of dying flowers from last weekend's recital. It's quite depressing, really. My last recital is over. Forever.

For the few people who I have not yet regaled with this tale, I'll tell it again, briefly. At dress rehearsal, I slipped and fell in the middle of Swan Lake. At the first show (which, of course, was the one that was videotaped), my left pointe shoe slipped off my heel, which is pretty terrifying. As the piece went on, the entire shoe slipped off my foot and hung from my ankle like a ball and chain. I finished out the piece as best I could, cranking up the smile more and more as the thrice-accursed shoe slipped further and further off my foot. For the rest of the weekend, I was completely paranoid and continually and compulsively adjusted my shoe.

Sunday night, at the last curtain call, I did something I'd always thought would be fantastic. I strutted out there wearing the white swan lake tutu from Ballet IV, walking gracefully in my pointe shoes- and the bright orange top from my Modern IV costume. It seemed to me that the applause doubled in volume when I came out.

After the show, clutching my flowers, I retreated to the shop behind the stage, which, every year, dancers have been running through to get to stage right in time for their entrances. I burst into tears. I cried for the better part of a half-hour. Sobbed, in fact. I was joined, before long, by other seniors and some hangers-on who wanted to comfort us.

I really ought to get rid of these rotting flowers, but it feels like they're the last remnant of my time at Hosanna.


I keep forgetting that I still have until August.

Graduation announcement

This is the exact text that will be on the announcements/invitations that I need to send out soon. Just for fun, since it's recital weekend, and I really am not able to engage my brain long enough to come up with anything insightful at the moment. So I'll settle for something preexisting that is somewhat clever. Here it goes:

Edit: The party's actually off. Never mind the content, just enjoy the verse. Here it goes:

Eleven years of toil spent in school
Now finished! And, to celebrate the day,
Iambic greetings send we to our friends
To say, “Come, revel on the tenth of June,
‘Twixt the hours of two o’clock and six!”

The Honors I have earned may yet serve well,
As ought North Scholar. All in but three years!
‘Tis but the dawn of life’s first journeys forth
Into a wider world–Slovakia,
Where I will be soon dwelling for a year.

In this last couplet, I entreat thee, come
And with me celebrate what I’ve become.

Pass the Ketchup, 'Cause I'm Eating My Words

I went to prom last night.

I had a lot of fun.

I realize now that high school doesn't totally blow, it's just that I didn't try to make it fun.

Friday, I called to make a reservation at Ambrosia, to which my parents had a gift certificate which they donated to us. I asked for a 6:00 reservation.
"Well, we don't actually have a 6:00 slot open."
"Oh."
"But we give you a 20-minute grace period before we give away your table, which gets you to 5:50, and then if you called and said you were running a few minutes late, then we'd definitely hold your table until 6:00."

So on Saturday, Ryan showed up at my house in his Jetta and a tux. We got in the car, which, mysteriously and suddenly, refused to start. Half an hour later, I was pulling my parents' new hybrid out of the garage.
"I love your parents," said Ryan.

We went and picked up classmate Bobby, who, despite being a cool dude, inexplicably didn't have a date and would be coming with us for dinner. I tried to make the car tell us which way the restaurant was, since none of us had any idea, but for some reason she thought that another restaurant called Ambrosia in Seattle would be a better place for us to eat and was desperately trying to get us on the freeway. We ultimately found the place, no thanks to the car's navigation chick, but I had to call them again and say we would be even later than I had already said we would be. The restaurant was full of other high schoolers headed to prom a couple of blocks away.
"Hey, how'd you get two dates?" one girl asked jokingly.
"Well, the others couldn't make it," I answered, smiling dazzlingly. Well, at least it felt dazzling. Wit and makeup make me feel dazzling when combined properly.

Ultimately, we walked to the MacDonald Theatre, dropping off our leftovers in the trunk on the way. A number of students were already waiting for the doors to open. One girl had already taken her shoes off.

The dance, though it contained relatively little true dancing, was really strangely fun. The three of us largely stayed together the whole time. After four hours of moshing in high heels (try it sometime. It's no picnic), we hit the coat check and then went to get some milkshakes at Shari's. We dropped Bobby off and went home to see about Ryan's car, which they subsequently managed to jump start.

I'm really still just surprised that I didn't end up sitting in a corner alone the whole time.

Rotary District Conference- Part "the rest"

So I decided it was too much work to give you the play-by-play of my weekend. So here are the highlights in handy bullet-point format.

Saturday

• Sat around all day.
• Talent showed. Ostensibly supposed to begin at 8:30, the award thingie preceding us went long. Very long. By the time we started, the buses were waiting to take us to...
• Back to the house. Primped to go to...
• The "dance". Which was actually in a bowling alley. The plan was for us to stay there all night, partying. However, I and several of my cronies raised Cain, saying that we had AP test this week, and we could possibly stay up all night, thank you very much. So around 2:30, the most praiseworthy Giff rescued us whiners and took us to...
• Their house in Sunriver, where, upon entering, he informed us we could avail ourselves of the hot tub if we chose. So, for all my moaning about staying up all night, I found myself at three thirty AM in a hot tub with three guys, only one of whom had thought to pack some swim trunks. The scene was thus: Me, in my 'kini, which was all I had thought to pack, that kid Gary, bound for Sweden next year, in his undies, Victor, who's going to Chile, wearing a pair of trunks, and Albin, from Sweden, also in his undies. Yep. It was a good time.
• Next morning-slept all the way home.

Now, I'd just like to say that I probably didn't represent this event fairly. I exaggerated some elements for dramatic effect and probably totally forgot about others. Don't hate Rotary just because they locked me in a dungeon all weekend. Don't be a hater in general.

Now, for something completely different, I will relate a tale related to me, in turn, by my dear sister, Tanner.

Apparently, Kerry came up to her in dance and said "Can you say I'm the coolest thing since sliced bread? "Tanner, in her infinite wisdom, recalled a statement I had made recently, and responded, "No. Aubrianne is the coolest thing since sliced bread."
"Oh." Kerry said morosely. "Well, can you say I'm the coolest thing since Aubrianne?"

Yay for Kerry. That was exactly the best answer possible. You will receive your free t-shirt in the mail within 6-8 months.

On a similarly random note, I am going to Prom on Saturday.

Rotary District Conference- Part Two

For part one, see yesterday, for parts three through ___, see tomorrow.

Friday, we woke up and, for a time, the house echoed with the sounds of girls showering, blow drying, make-uping, eating, and whining about the polos we were expected to wear- some of which came down to the knees of their unfortunate wearers. Finally, we piled into the car and drove back to the conference center, where we sat in the dungeon until called forth into the meeting. We were paraded across the stage with the flags of our respective countries, then sat through several hours of Rotarians telling other Rotarians how great Rotary is. We were finally released back into the dungeon for an hour or so before lunch.

"One student to a table," they said. I found a table to myself near the corner just in time for the doors to open and the room to flood with hungry Rotarians. I ended up between a man from India and some guy named Bill. Throughout the meal, Bill would occasionally go on a tirade about the political party he was planning to set up to revolutionize the world, using Rotary both to promote his system and as a model for the way things would be run. Since I was being paid, essentially, to make a good impression, I sat and listened politely, nodding and making listening noises occasionally. Since I felt as though I had done noting but eat all weekend (even though it was only Friday,) I only ate about 2/3 of the food offered. During desert, some terribly important guy from Thailand came up and spoke for a very long time. All the while, the remaining 1/3 of my cake was sitting on the table (on a plate, obviously. They were at least that classy) tempting me.

After lunch, we were permitted to go back into the dungeon and change back into real-people clothes before setting off for a nearby bowling alley, where I played a couple of frames, getting steadily worse as the afternoon wore on. We eventually returned to the conference for "talent show rehearsal". In other words, we sat around in the dungeon for a very long time.

We finally were driven back to the house, where we ate a nice meal and sat around talking about different countries' attitude toward nudity, which lead to several embarrassing stories. Before you ask, I have no idea how the topic came up. Ultimately, after some ice cream, we slept.

Rotary District Conference- Part One

Thursday, I went to school for a couple of hours, having spent much of the previous night packing. (I was very proud of having fit EVERYTHING into one bag, including sleeping bag and pillow.) I hopped into the car with my parents, drove across town, picked up a bunch of other kids, including inbounds from Germany and Belgium, and drove for about three hours, stopping only once for a visit to the world's most vomit-inducingly unsanitary rest stop, and finally arrived at this nice, new conference center. We all disembarked, said goodbye, and lugged our luggage inside, where, near both a prodigious fireplace and a waterfall that spanned two floors, we received nametags and packets full of junk inexplicably advertising this conference we were already attending. My nametag, unfortunately, was misspelled "Aubrienne", so I spent a good quarter-hour trying to get it fixed by a particularly loquacious registrar-type guy. Finally, with my slightly smeared, but correctly spelled nametag in tow, we were ushered downstairs, past the silent auction and behind a curtain into a very odd space indeed. The walls were lined with empty cardboard boxes with "Office Furniture" stamped on them, and a large section of the floor was covered in neat rows of these boxes, perhaps two hundred in all. The floor was cold, plain concrete, but at least someone had thought to use one of the mysterious boxes as a table for some store-brand granola bars. Throughout the course of the weekend, whenever we were not needed, we were herded down here into what I will affectionately refer to as "the dungeon".

Shortly after our arrival, we outbounds were pulled aside to be given our official Rotary blazers, complete with an embroidered Rotary Youth Exchange logo, a unisex (aka elephant-sized) white polo with the same logo, and a name badge in the shape of Oregon. Interestingly, my name was spelled "Aubriann" on the badge. We were told that we were to wear these all the next day, along with the khaki pants we had brought and the "rotary smile" that we were expected to be able to muster up, despite looking like four-year-olds playing dress up with their dad's old clothes that went way out of style a decade ago ("Mommy, look! I'm a pilot!").

In all fairness, these people are paying thousands of dollars to send me and my comrades all over the world. The basic point of the weekend was not that we have a good time, but that we be paraded out on stage to show these people who their money's going to.

We were then given several hours of "free time", where we sat around the dungeon, sometimes sneaking out into the silent auction to nab some of the chocolate, popcorn, coffee or tea that had been set out for the Rotarians. Over the course of the weekend, I managed to make off with six teabags of assorted flavors. Eventually, we were told to come upstairs to meet with the families that would be hosting us for the weekend. One by one, my fellows were picked up by strangers, until finally there were only fourteen girls left. We were told that we would all be staying in a rental house that Rotary had managed to acquire for the weekend, since they couldn't get enough host families. We arrived, unloaded our suitcases, and left to get dinner at the Mongolian Grill.

This particular establishment provided relatively decent foodstuffs, but as I poured my sixth ladle-full of lemon sauce on the stack of noodles I had pieced together, my converse slipped and stuck in the remains of others' Mongolian endeavors. Leftovers in tow, we trooped back into the cars and set off for the house, where we were offered yet more food, mostly desert-like. Eventually, we settled in to sleep in various bedrooms around the house.

To be continued...

Not feelin' so hot....

Well, unfortunately, several of the shiny things that I blogged ebulliently about last week are pretty well dead.

The AP Japanese test? Sorry, no. The dude at Churchill called and told me that they couldn't give the Japanese test after all, and no other school in the state that is giving the test can admit an extra student. So, barring a miracle and a school in Washington somewhere having someone drop out from taking the test, my 12 years of Japanese will all be for naught. Well, not naught, but not college credit.


The Vivaldi? Guess when the concert is. That's right. The night of dress rehearsal for the recital. Before then, I need to invent a time machine so I can be in two places at once. All I have to do is find a way to travel at right angles to reality, and I should be set.

Unfortunately, I have 5/3 of a chapter of history and a 1000+ word essay due Monday, so the time machine will have to wait until next weekend.

Just kidding. Next weekend is some Rotary district meeting thing, including a talent show. For reasons I cannot fathom, "weekend" in this sense includes both Thursday and Friday.

And it's only gonna get busier. I have to get a job this summer.

I'm $10,000 a year short of Whitworth.

For these and other reasons, I burst into tears the other night in ballet and then came home and literally cried myself to sleep.

The good news:

Jeff Harris gave me a CD by E.S. Posthumous, which is awesome.

I somehow found someone to go to prom with me.

I watched Stranger than Fiction last night. Excellent film. I'll post my family's discussion of it some other time.

Mom made bread pudding for breakfast this morning. Nothing like carbs, sugar and fat all in one convenient, delicious food.

Shiny news!

One big piece of news and four small ones.

1. In Japanese, Patrick Sensei pulled aside the smart kids (e.g. me and all the kids with Japanese parents) and said that we were going to learn the 450ish kanji required for the AP Japanese test. Now, I am the only one taking the test, and I would have had to learn them anyway, but now I have specially sanctioned classtime to do it in rather than wasting my precious sleeping time on it. Huzzah!
   
2. Orchestra. Johnny (the second most qualified cellist) and I have been working on Vivaldi Concerto in G minor for 2 Celli for the past few months with the intention of playing it at the end of the year concert. Wednesday, the rest of the orchestra got their parts for the piece, so I will be playing with a whole orchestra accompaniment. I need to practice before I can get too excited, though. Huzzah anyway!
3. Japanese again. At the start of class, Patrick sort of pulled me aside and told me (in Japanese, of course) that he had nominated me for some award for foreign language students. "You'll probably get it," he said. Actually, he said, 「たぶん、もらえる。」 but I knew what he meant. Huzzah!
4. Report cards came. I had been anticipating an unprecedented two B's, one in AP English and one in AP History, but when the envelope was opened, low and behold, I had three A's and two A-'s. Not half bad. Huzzah!
5. Ok, here's the big one. I received an email that informed me of my fate for the next year. I will be staying in the city of Banska Bystrica in Slovakia. Yay for mountains! It's about the same size as Eugene, and even has a university. It was also the center of anti-Nazi activism during WWII. What with the political activism and all, it sounds an awful lot like Eugene, but about 700 years older and a lot snowier. Just in time to tell all those lovely Rotary folks at this weekend's meeting. Super Huzzah!

Ok, before bed, a random, humorous literary quote for your edification:

"Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail."

-Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

Don't ask why I was reading it in April...

Mary Poppins Bag

I'm cleaning out my purse tonight. Always eager to dispose of as many of both birds and stones as possible, I am posting a list of its contents. Lists are excellent blog fodder: easy to write without all that tedious engaging of the neural synapses. Psychoanalyze away.

• Hand Sanitizer- Warm Vanilla Sugar scented
• A mint teabag
• Planner
• Reminder for last week's Orchestra field trip
• Checkbook, including receipts from lunch at the Safeway next to my school, my AP tests, Buffalo Exchange, Fred Meyer, and Paintball Palace.
  
• A leotard (dirty)
• A lemon ginger teabag
  
• My Creative Zen (aka FauxPod)
• Two programs from church
• Keys
• Another mint teabag
  
• Three (3) granola bar wrappers (incidentally, bought at Safeway)
• A second lemon ginger teabag
  
• My Life, by Isadora Duncan
• A CD that my friend asked me to bring to my dad for the recital
• A "Mint Medley" teabag
  
• Cell Phone
• Bookmark, sans book
• A third lemon ginger teabag
  
• Headphones
• A fold-up-able umbrella (never been used)
• A set of blank notecards
• A plain old lemon teabag. The package says "Lemon Lift", but it's actually plain old lemon.
  
• Colloquial Slovak, by James Naughton
  
• 7 pens and pencils, ranging from a highlighter to a golf pencil.
• Dove "cool essentials" deodorant. Apparently it is "Ultimate Clear".
• A packet of Emergen-C
  
• Cello Rosin (cracked)
• A Japanese fan
• a toothpick (used)
  
• A fourth lemon ginger teabag
• The official DMV Guide to Provisional Driver License Restrictions
• Burt's Bees lip balm, in plain, champagne, and nutmeg
• Two tootsie roll wrappers
• Six dollars (Cash)
  
• A cello mute
• Nine hair clips
• A large binder clip
• a button that came off of my dress last week
• Sixty-two cents in change
• 3 ponytail holders
• Warm Vanilla Sugar hand lotion

Things that aren't in my purse at the moment, but have been recently:

• Three apples (They weren't that good. I gave them away.)
  
• Metronome (I took it out because it started ticking... and someone yelled "BOMB!")
• A Kanji dictionary (I put it in my school bag)
• The cord to my lappy (if it were in my purse, then I couldn't be posting this now)

Now you know why I was cleaning it. That mess was heavy. I could have lived through a Russian winter on the teabags alone.

An Emo Post.

At this point, I don't know who I am, exactly. Up to this point, I have been Aubrianne: dancer, cellist, flinger of witticisms, fairly good looking, and generally okay. Who knows, however, who I will be next year.

I know that this means my identity is misplaced, since, if I were centering myself around being a child of God, I would be fine when everything else in my life changes as it's about to.

I've been going through some sort of identity crisis lately. I have come to the conclusion that I am less afraid of leaving my surroundings than I am of losing myself, shucking the things I used to define myself by like an ear of corn. What will be left? Not a creamy nougat center, I'd wager.

I worry about leaving people and places pretty much to the extent that I define myself by them.

Who am I?

I know the right answer, but for once it's not enough.

A post a week?

I have recently come to the conclusion that the "one post a week" rule currently informally in place within the Carson extended family is entirely fallacious. If I have nothing to say, I shouldn't waste my time and yours trying to come up with something that will not turn out to be entertaining, insightful, or edifying. On the other hand, one should probably have at least one entertaining, insightful, or edifying thought worth articulating per week. However, I am hereby declaring my renunciation of making up fluffy posts with no substance just so I can say that I have posted this week.


Incidentally, today is one such day. I have nothing to say, but I said it brilliantly. (Oscar Wilde said that. Either that or Dr. Who. One of the two.)

Tag, I'm It.

I have been tagged with this survey thing by my dear Aunt Cathy. Never one to pass up an opportunity to go on and on about myself, I am posting it here.

1. What time is it?
11:43 when I started this madness, 12:15 when I finished.
2. Name (include any nicknames):
Aubrianne MacKenzie Carson. My parents certainly didn't scrimp on syllables. Nicknames: Aub, Baub, Baubitt, Bibbidy Baubitty Boo, Bibbit, Auby-Bauby (an old one, c. 7th grade)
3. What are you most afraid of?
Being inferior.
4. What do you drive?
White Dodge Caravan, baby!
5. Have you ever seen a ghost?
No... but in elementary school my friend told me she had. I laughed at her.
6. Where were you born?
Sacred Heart Hospital, Eugene, Oregon, USA, Earth.
7. Ever been to Alaska ?
No.
8. Ever been toilet papering, or rolling in decorating trees?
No. I live a dull life.
9. Croutons or bacon bits?
Croutons, with or without salad.
10. Favorite day of the week?
No.
11 FAVORITE RESTURANT?
Cafe Yumm. I like the Yumm baby and the edamame Yumm. Rice kicks butt!
12. Favorite flowers?
Ummm... not carnations. Those things just look fake. I like lilies, I guess.
13. Favorite sport to watch?
Dance is a sport. Anyone who says otherwise can convince me by getting a football team to wear pointe shoes without complaining.
14. Favorite Drink
Various tea-related cold beverages, but not just iced tea.
15. Favorite Ice cream:
I have recently decided to eat ice cream despite my lactose intolerance, so, for the first time in my life, I have an actual answer to this question! In my opinion, it's hard to go wrong with a good vanilla.
16. Favorite fast food restaurant:
Eaugh. Why don't you just deep fry my soul while you're at it?
17. Hobbies?
Aside from the obvious dance and cello, I enjoy crocheting, origami, reading PG Wodehouse (favorite author of the week), reading Douglas Adams, reading almost anything I can get my hands on, eating, playing "classic" (i.e. old) Lucasarts adventure games (They have done nothing but Star Wars for far too long. Just who do they think they are, trying to make money? Sheesh.), exploring unusual relationships to gravity, sleeping, and boiling water in my 'lectric kettle.
18. What color is your bedroom carpet?
Dirt color. Not because it's dirty, it came that way. At least this way I don't have to vacuum.
19. How many times you failed your driver's test?
None. Ha!
20. From whom did you get your last email?
Someone who had some update about some Rotary exchange thing.
21. What do you do most often if you are bored?
See hobbies and TV shows.
22. Bedtime?
No.
23: Favorite TV show(s):
Mythbusters, Dharma and Greg, Whose Line is it Anyway?, Scrubs.
24. What are you listening to right now?
David Crowder band.
25. What are your favorite colors?
Either green or dark gray, depending on my mood.
26. How many tattoos do you have?
None, but I've had two henna tattoos.
27. Do you have any pets?
Not unless you count Tanner.
28. Which came first the chicken or the egg?
God came first. Then he made both.
29. What would you like to accomplish before you die?
Skydive, learn to fire a bow and arrow, hike around Europe for a while, fall madly in love, go on a LONG road trip, grow dreadlocks, go vegetarian for a while, play the cello in a tutu, do aerial ballet, play a major role in a Shakespearean play (Beatrice, maybe?), etc. Didn't I do a post about this a while ago?

I tag... Tanner. And Dad. So you guys had better answer these questions. I'll be looking.

Today

I just got home from dance. Of course, by "just got home," I mean "said 'Hi' to Mom, went into the kitchen, gulped a huge glass of water, refilled it with juice, gulped that, then came upstairs, put the kettle on, checked a few websites, contemplated checking either the 11 emails or 20 voicemails that somehow stacked up while I wasn't looking, put on pajamas, came back to the computer and opened a new post, went to get a sweater because the sweat had dried and I was cold, got a lemon-ginger teabag out of my purse, threw away the teabag left in the otherwise empty mug on my desk, turned on the David Crowder Band, rinsed the mug a little, made the tea, and finally mosied back to the computer and started typing."

Today was a crazy day. Yesterday, I overslept until 10:30, missing all of Orchestra and part of Japanese. I'm still feeling a little off. Today, I woke up (relatively) bright and early, took out the curlers that I had put in my hair the previous night for no real reason other that boredom, went to school, and was pretty much bored all day. After school, the sun was shining, I'd managed to slip out of class a minute or so early to beat the rush out of the student parking lot so I wouldn't be late to teach my little ballet girls, and all was right in the world. Plus my hair was curly, which is always a plus.

On my way out of the parking lot, I passed some weird kids with the windows rolled down and some hip hop music blaring. The lightbulb went on above my curly head. Down went my windows. Up went my volume. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was cruising down River Road, Vivaldi blaring at an inexcusable volume. In a minivan. I did turn it down before I got to the studio, just in case one of my little girls' parents started to question my fitness for the job.

We tried on costumes today. All twelve of them looked fantastic in their little orange leotards. Unfortunately, many of the yellow and orange feathers molted off of their costumes and lay on the studio floor as if Big Bird had got in a fight with...um... something orange...and feathery.
Nonetheless and never the more, they looked adorable.

After class, I went home and played this silly game called Outpost Kaloki X on the Xbox that I have become shamefully addicted to. It's basically like Sim Space Station. Except funny. I had rescued the princess and was trying to build a wildlife reserve, but by the time I had enough money, all my power sources were exploding. I hate it when that happens.

I was about five minutes late for dance, but that was okay since class started about five minutes late. All through barre I was feeling about as shiny as a happy hippy, but without the drugs. Center went by without any serious problems. We put our pointe shoes on and went to run our Swan Lake stuff for the recital. By the way, it's really, pickin' hard. Roughly five exhausting minutes later, we finished, bowed and walked serenely off stage (left, right, left, step small so I don't run Kyla over, right, left), then collapsed, gasping, all over the floor and crawled painfully over to our water bottles. Mrs. Jennifer then said the thrice-accursed words: "Okay, let's do it again." I stood painfully, leaving a small, muddy puddle of sweat on the marley.

The second time through was torture. Before we had even made it to the cabrioles, I was literally wheezing. The air was thick with pretty much everything but oxygen. My throat wouldn't relax enough to let what little air there was into my lungs. By the time we got to the baby swan variation, I was in tears. It was no good.

So here I am. Feeling crusty and sore. Tomorrow are the auditions for the junior company (Hosanna Prepatory Ensemble, or HoPE), and I'm on the spot, teaching choreography I'm working on to "I Saw the Light" by the David Crowder Band. It's pretty cool that, even though I'm old and leaving, there'll be a piece in the repetoire with my name on it for quite a long time to come. I've got roughly 45 seconds of the 3:10 minute piece done. Tonight, I need to read two poems for AP Lit and a half-chapter of Lord of the Flies for my English for the Apathetic/Ignorant.

O, pray for me. I am so very weary.

My life on the Internet

So, if I post twice in one week, am I covered for the next two weeks?

Anyway, I just thought I'd tell you that, while looking through my list of sites that I check periodically (i.e. daily), I found myself going to my own blog to see if it had been updated. Sad. This marks a new chapter in my absentmindedness. By the way, my blog hadn't been updated, and, frustrated by the lack of updates I had found on the sites I frequent, I decided to do something about it in a sudden, unwonted burst of activism. I do live in Eugene, after all, which is right on the corner of Activism Street and Protest Lane.

"Just what are these sites that you frequent?" I hear you ask. Well, since I don't have much else I should be doing at the moment, and because this post is far too short to warrant your attention, I present to you: THE LIST!

1. World of Monkey Island
   
2. Homestar Runner
3. Facebook
   
4. Ask a Ninja
5. Grumpy Gamer
6. My own blog, to see if anyone commented on the latest lame thing I had to contribute to cyberculture.
7. The "add a post" page for my blog, which I stare at for a while and then decide that I have nothing to say.

Once in a while, even when I have nothing to say, I rant on for a while about the first thing that comes into my head. My cursor hovers above the "Publish" link as I contemplate whether I really want my friends and relations to read this drivel. Usually I figure "What the heck," and click anyway. There was that one about sweats which didn't quite make it. We'll save that for the director's cut.

The Adventures of Little Baubitt

Christmas 1995ish- Little Baubitt is hard at work sticking peppermints on a gingerbread house (actually made of graham crackers). Dad comes up behind her with a video camera. Ever eager to be immortalized in film, I look up sweetly and say, "Can you say I'm very creative?" (Actually, it was more like "cerative", but I thought you might not know what I was saying.) Dad, stifling a laugh, obligingly says, "You're very creative." Little Baubitt, satisfied, gives a little half knod and returns to decorating her house. Sometime when you're at my house ask Tanner to show you the video.

The reason I bring this anecdote up is that, apparently, even at the tender age of five, I liked people to give me words of affirmation. Nice words. It's probably the primary way that I receive love from others. Hugs, I could take or leave. Sorry, Tanner. I can appreciate it when people do practical things for me, but it doesn't mean much to me. Presents are nice, though. Quality time drives me nuts since I always think I ought to be doing something else. So say nice things to me. The end.

Life Lessons

Just to remind myself that school isn't totally pointless, here is a list of some things I've learned this year:

1. Pi day (3/14) is only commemorated by people writing "Pi day!" on the whiteboard in the school.
2. Homework for fourth period can almost always be done during lunch.
3. Getting hit by a car is an excellent way to get out of things
4. Whatever you might think a poem is about... you're completely wrong.
5. The librarian refills the candy dish at the start of lunch.
6. Assemblies are never mandatory.
7. The secret to writing a good essay is coming up with one good point and restating it as many ways as you can.
8. Even if you did the assigned reading, looking over the sparknotes can still save your bacon.
9. $5.00 is two weeks of lunch money.
   
10. Never, ever try to invade Russia in the winter.
    

Good news is good news!

Happy day! Here's why:

1. My knee is hardly even purple anymore

So, yeah. The whole "hit by a car" thing really just petered out pretty quick. If I didn't know better, I'd say I just bumped into a coffee table in the middle of the night. Or that I had some rare disease which gives you kind of purple splotches on your left knee.

1. I got my license last Friday

Beware, world! Stay off the streets! I passed with a reasonable score, although I did get marked down for going WAY too slow, but hey, I was nervous. The written part was super easy. One question was something along the lines of:

You're coming up to the top of a hill and you can't see what's on the other side. Do you:
a) Slow down
b) Speed up to get there faster
c) Honk your horn and turn on your fog lights

I almost laughed out loud in the middle of the DMV. A small mountain of paperwork and a camera flash later, I was a licensed driver. Afterward, Mom wanted to see the route we took on the test, so I tried to reconstruct it. Ironically, I almost got in about three wrecks. Since then, I've been driving myself and others to school and dance while mom does DDR.

1. I got accepted to Whitworth! With honors!

This is the big, super exciting news. I got the letter today, and now alls I got to do is ask for a deferral for next year, then the insanely huge plug gets pulled out of the bathtub that is my and my parent's savings. Fun times as a poor college student are just around the corner. Freshman 15, here I come!

My latest adventure in stupidity and DDR

Last week on stupid things I did I poured boiling water on my foot. In today's episode, I get hit by a car.
So yesterday, as I was riding my bike home after going home for lunch and my free period, I was kind of zoning out, and of nowhere there's a car right in front of me pulling out of a driveway. I don't remember if it was moving, and I can't stop at this point, and there was a split second in midair where I thought "Oh my gosh. I just got hit by a car," followed shortly by "Hmm... I seem to be screaming." I hit the ground on my hands and knees (yes, I was wearing a helmet). I picked myself up carefully, shaking like it was Friday night. The driver got out of his car and helped me put the chain back on my bike, and I proceeded to school, choking on sobs. After all, I had an in-class essay in History. I'd like to add at this point that while there was a car involved, I could just as easily hit any stationary object with similar effects. I locked up my bike, went inside, took off my coat and went to the bathroom to try and get some of the mud off my knees, the adrenaline still moshing in my system. Back in class, I started to calm down enough to feel my knee ache a bit. Rolling up my pants I saw a bit of a scrape, so I went to the teacher and asked to go the nurse's office because I was "kind of hit by a car". That's when people started freaking out. He sent me to the nurse's office, all right, with an escort in case I passed out or something. Twenty minutes later, I was back at home with a leaky baggie of ice on my knee playing Psychonauts. As I calmed down, the pain got worse, and, on the school nurse's recomendation, Mom took me to the doctor to get it checked out. Since I had was having a hard time walking, I got a to ride in a wheelchair while I sat around the waiting room. Fortunately, it's just "soft tissue trauma", which is a pity-eliciting way of saying "the queen mother of all bruises".

In less traumatic news, my mom just went out and bought DDR for our 360. While I was trying to illustrate the concept of an upbeat, I had a brilliant idea, in kind of a super dorky musician kind of way- Conduct Conduct Revolution for the Wii! I crack myself up.

The Two Stupidest Things I've Done Recently

1. So I have this habit of sitting on my vanity counter and soaking my feet in the sink. The hot water feels really nice, and I will often sit there for hours reading a book and perpetually draining and refilling the sink as the water cools. So the other day, while I was thus engaged, it occurred to me that the water might be just a little bit hotter. Now, if this were a movie, you would cut to a shot of the new electric kettle sitting right next to me. So, yes. I poured boiling water, 100 degrees C, directly on my foot, leaving an angry red burn. Not my most intelligent moment.
2. I was making my bed with fresh sheets for the first time in two or three months when it occurred to me that I hadn't posted to this blog for a while. So naturally, I decided to regale you all with tales of my own idiocy.
   

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

No news is good news...

I have nothing to say. Life has continued much as it has this past age.

I have taken to staying up until about 11:30 before deciding to begin my homework, foolishly enough, and am now earnestly practicing my handstands.

Apparently, one of the semi-symptoms of Aspburger's Syndrome (which I may or may not have some mild form of) is enjoying unusual relationships to gravity (which I do), along with hypermobility (which I definently have some of) and difficulty interacting in social situations (...yeah...).

My mom's side of the family gathered at our house last weekend to exchange Christmas presents. The electric kettle I received is a big hit at the parties I have been having alone in my room between the hours of "bedtime" and two. I absconded with a mug from downstairs and have been slowly eroding away at the seemingly bottomless supply of teabags that I habitually (e.g. compulsively) collect from hotel continental breakfasts and the like.

My right shoulder is an inch higher than my left until I can fit in a chiropractor appointment, which makes my left arm longer, which in turn throws me off balance.

I don't think I ever mentioned that I was playing the 'cello in a children's production of Cinderella. It's over now, anyway.

I have also decided that I will further the cause of the 'cello's coolty by putting an apostrophe before it in good old timey style as a reminder that it's short for violoncello.

I went on a laundry-folding rampage earlier, which sucked my evening dry and left the living room full of stacks of clean, folded clothes.

My spine feels out of alignment.

I came across this group's videos on youtube and have watched them between 10 and 12 times since. I bit my fingernails down to nubs the other day and started in on the skin around them, so now my fingers hurt and snag on things.

I took a bath last night and listened to my computer read the assigned reading for British Literature in its mechanical voice, which, for some reason, seems to be incapable of pronouncing the word "passed" normally.

The problem with baths it that the water grows temperate so swiftly. Were it not so, I would never come out.

The second piercings I put (or rather, had put) in my ears for my 17th birthday are technically past the 6 weeks required before I can change the studs out for something more interesting, but they kind of swell and pus and feel warm to the touch. Just a little. Not enough to prevent me from messing with them. Plus, the hole my left earlobe seems rather at an odd angle, making it nearly impossible to reinsert an earring--at least without it taking the better part of an hour.

I had a dentist appointment today, which means

1. I got a new toothbrush. Purple.
2. I got to play Mario on their Nintendo 64. That game, while literally as old as I am, is very special to me, evoking all kinds of fond memories of toothbrushes from years past.

My SAT score of 2050 is good enough to get an automatic $12000 scholarship to Whitworth. Huzzah! Now all I have to do is get accepted. Interestingly, Whitworth has none of the majors I'm interested in. Dance, Japanese... all woefully lacking. (I'm not a serious enough cellist to consider that as a major). The way I see it, however, is that I don't really know what I want to be when I grow up anyway, but I do know that I want to go to Whitworth. I guess I'll just take it from there.

Midnight. I guess I'd better start in on my homework.

Will you be my Valentine?

Here it is; the long awaited Valentine's day rant. First off, were it not for the candy and greeting card industries, there would be no holiday, especially for those of us who are... romantically uninvolved. Forever. Before this spirals further into self-pity and self-depreciation, I will change the topic. At my school, there is a pageant for senior boys known as the Mr. North pageant wherein the contestants have to raise as much money as possible for charity. Fine and good. However, on Valentine's day, you can pay money to have a "Val-o-gram" delivered by one of these strapping young lads dressed in a tux for the occasion. For an extra dollar or so, you can have the messenger sing the contents of said Val-o-gram. Now, allow me to ask, who would enjoy receiving such a val-o-gram? That's right, enamored high school girls. Is it likely that these girls' boyfriends would be terribly excited to shell out $3-$7 for another boy to sing a sappy valentine to his girl? I would guess not. So, logically, the majority of the valentines delivered will be from these girls' fellow girl friends. Friendship, however, is not the point of Valentine's day, romantic love is. Therefore, the entire concept underlying the Mr. North Val-o-grams is fallacious, and the whole venture ought to be abandoned. Plus, the word Val-o-gram is just dumb. A valentine is already a message, and adding -gram onto it is just redundant. On the other hand, maybe I'm just bitter. Yes. That's probably it. Sorry.