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...