I think YeMin and Marina have just discovered the real me...

mood: procrastinating. surprise!
music: billy. shh...don't tell.
random word: жестокий

---

So I have yet to do work today. Except that I actually have excuses today... Except that I suppose they don't really count seeing as I'm on the blog instead of now doing my work. And yes, this does have to do with the title of this post. Ok, let's go through my day today. No, really, it'll be fun...

- Class in the morning and afternoon...that's not exciting and definitely not an excuse as to why I have yet to do any work.

- After my afternoon classes I had theater rehearsal until dinner. We've got just over a week until the show, which is exciting. :)

- After rehearsal I had like 20 minutes until dinner and I just lied down and listened to music, which was actually really nice because I needed to rest and relax for a few minutes (p.s. rest and relax are the same word in Russian, which would have been convenient here, but English decided to be complex and confusing...complex and confusing are also the same word. actually, this is cool. it means i'm slightly thinking in Russian. anyway, to continue...)

- Dinner was...not exciting. But then I got back from dinner to a message on my phone from a few family friends from Delmar who were in Middlebury! Apparently, they were on vacation, eventually to Southern Maine, but were in between Lake George and Maine and had a night to do whatever, and decided to come to Midd. hah. It was actually nice to see them. We walked around campus; we turned the other way when my Russian teacher walked toward us; and all in all, it was a nice 30-minute tour of Midd. Needless to say, I didn't get any work done then.

- Found an Alaska car, ran up to my room to get my camera, ran back to the car, and then back to my room. Yes, I do already have Alaska, but it's not the best picture in the world, and I figured, how often do you see Alaska? So I might as well take another picture. I've been taking doubles of a bunch that I had bad pictures of because on the new facebook photo printing thing, you can make a poster of lots of little pictures, which means I actually have something to do with my license plate pictures! Oo-rah! :)

- Then I had to go down to the Gamut room to watch the last 20 minutes of the movie we didn't get to finish today in class. And holy crap did it have a Russian ending. It's called "Cruel Romance" and to make a long story short, she dies in the end. Hope none of you wanted to see it. It was actually good, except for that part. Well, except that was really the only way it could end, so I think I'm ok with it, but still. Oh, Russia.

- Then I came back to my room, went on facebook, checked the weather - 95 degrees tomorrow!! 95!! That's unacceptable. I don't think I can handle that.

So, basically, as most of you know, it was a normal day for me. No work done, but busy enough, and plenty of procrastinating as well. The funny thing is that after about each of those things that I mentioned, I ended up in YeMin and Marina's room to talk or tell them what happened. And about 10 minutes ago, when I went in to announce that it was going to be 95 tomorrow, they both laughed at me. It was then that I realized that I haven't been doing the whole procrastinate and run to other people's rooms to talk this summer. As you all know, I'm very good at it... how often was I in Suite I last year? hah. Anyway, I explained this habit to them, they laughed harder, and then I walked away, head bowed. ;) But yeah, I guess it's a good sign...? Because it means I'm comfortable with them or something...? Right. I'll just go with that.

I should go read now. This was a long post...I'm not sure why. I'm also not sure why I seem to have a lot of energy. Interesting. Anyway, miss you all, so happy to hear from Laura and Cata, and I shall talk to you all soon! - just over 2 weeks until I can speak English again! (shut up. I mean speak English on a regular basis. I DO obey the language pledge.....more or less.) Спокойной ночи!

Things I Once (not too long ago, mind you) Had Never Done Until I Did Them All in One Night (fear not, there are still MANY things I have NOT done)

mood: freezing
music: typing in cybercafe
random word: bloop

---

1) see a shower freeze in July

2) go to a pool hall

3) like beer (could´ve been caught up in the moment and knowing that it just fit; could´ve been the beer was damn good)

4) drunk pool

5) drunk bowling

6) arrive at a night club rarin´to go at 2:00 a.m.

7) dance with so many Latin men

8) say ¨no¨to as many Latin men and their propositions for just one little ¨beso¨

9) have so many Latin men claim to be in love with me. What? Just because my ass shakes like the tin cans hanging off the muffler of a ¨Just Married¨couple´s car dies not mean I have any desire to put said ass into said car

10) dance until I may have actually hated it

11) fall over on dance floor on top of Latin man who is actually my host brother after he saved me from sketchy latin man who was very short and obviously comensatin for something with his...how would we say it...sharp and pointy to the point of being phallic...voice!

12) cry on the dance floor as my brother tried for the 4,267th time to teach me a dance that way apparently called Uno, Dos. But Uno, Dos is much harder than it sounds, especially when, although you may have sobered up by 5:30 in the morning, your partner is still chugging cerveza andyou´re so tired that when you look out the window and see light you have no idea whether you´re hallucinating or the sun is rising or both.

13) knock over a glass bottle and secretly feel kind of sexy at the sound of the glass shards crushing uner the merciless heels of the boots I´m now thanking God I chose over flipflops.

14) hear the sound of breaking glass not followed by¨You May Be Right¨and nod your head, thinking that Billy is most definitely right

15) stumble into a taxiat the same hour that I would´ve been boarding the bus to work just last week. Uncanny.

16) sleep in ski clothes with a hot water bottle between my legs. Yes, it´s that cold.

17) wake up at 3:00 in the afternoon not having slept 8 hours

18) immediately write it all down knowing it is certainly blogworthy. And not the public blog that my family and coworkers read.

Oh, and I left my phone at home and it has all of you lovely phone numbers in it. So it would be awesome if you could email them to me. I miss you all very much!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mood: ecstatic
music: Gipsy Kings "Ben, Ben, Ben Maria"
random word: BANDA ANCHA

---

I'M ALIVE AND I'M IN CHILE AND I HAVE BROADBAND IN MY ROOM!

Nostalgia in Suite I Form

mood: tired, but all right.
music: none yet.
random word: светофор

---

So I'm walking back from Prescott (that's the ADP house) from taking my exam. The exam did not go very well. It was probably the hardest we've had yet, but it sounds like everyone is saying that so that's better than just me thinking it was hard. Anyway, I walk into Gifford, walk up a flight of stairs, and see the door marked "2". More than anything, I wanted to run into that door, run into Suite I, find at least 5 of you in there, and complain about my test. But sadly, had I done that, I would have found a bunch of offices instead of beds and desks because, yes, they have turned Suite I into offices for the summer. Anyway, my story is basically just that I miss you all and wish you were here. And now I have to prepare for my oral exam...

By the way, no one has posted in 3 days. What's up with that? You all suck. But I still love you.

Blogger Question

mood: content. content enough.
music: Аквариум
random word: чай

---

Ok, guys, I've got a question for you all. I was playing around on my new blog just to try things out and I can't get it to publish the changes. It's, supposedly, publishing correctly and everything should be showing up, but when I go to the official site, the post doesn't show up. So I'm confused. This has actually happened to me a few times on this blog as well, but I think because you all post and re-publish and such, it ends up working out. So now I'm confused and don't know what's going wrong. Oh, and it was like this afternoon that I made the changes, and I have re-published at least 10 times since then, so it's not just me having to be patient...it should definitely be up by now. Help?

Momenti linguistici!

mood: sorridendo
music: Alex Britti
random word: ananas

---

Ciao tutti! Okay, ho avuto un lapsus d’italiano questo fine settimana (ho parlato con alcuni voi e ho visto Mark!), ma sono tornato alla via giusta adesso. Comunque, volevo condividere con voi un piccolo pezzo di bellezza dalla nostra propria bella poliglotta, Cata. Ho ricevuto un messaggio sul telefonino che cominciava così:

Ya Kevin! eina an - oh, merda! Ho parlando oh ah ah ahh ho parlato in in arabia... mumkin... um... uh, mi dispiace....

Questo va essere salvato per un tempo lungo :-)
E Cata, non sono sicuro se ti ho capita e allora ti chiamo più tardi oggi. Anche, spero che quando Laura legge questo, lei sia sicura e felice in Cile!
Mi mancate!

~Kevin/Tiberio

Wishing it wasn't cloudy so I could wish on a star

mood: very tired, and very much wishing break wasn't over yet
music: Billy (shh..it's still technically break, whatever.)
random word: stargazer

---

I have never in my life needed to do homework more than I need to do my homework right now. This has been the case since about 8:00. What is wrong with me?!

Ok, I'll tell you what's wrong with me. I just had the most wonderful weekend, and I want anything but to be back at Russian School right now. As much as I needed this break and was so happy last Thursday, I now kind of feel like it was a bad idea. I realized all I was missing - English, friends, music - and now just want it all back.

This weekend was amazing, though. To tell you the truth, we didn't do too much... All weekend was kind of cloudy and rainy, so we didn't even spend too much time in the water. We did go swimming once, though. Kyle and I did A LOT of speaking English; Dan and I put on Buttercup for one wonderful dance; we stayed up until 1 or 2 each night; we watched a couple of movies; we played a ton of Scattergories; I discovered I am the worst Scattergories player who ever lived, I exaggerate not. All in all, it was a great weekend. It was so good to see people again - friends and family. And it was so good to be able to just speak freely again. However, it also made me realize how much Russian School is not my favorite thing in the world, and I would much rather be spending my summer somewhere else. *sigh*

I'm also in kind of a yucky mood right now. I don't know, I just miss friends, and people, such as all of you and everyone I saw this weekend and others. Sometimes I wish I wasn't doing summer school, but I suppose that wish will have to stay a wish.

By the way, if anyone wants to see pics from this weekend, they're on my shutterfly site in the end of the Summer '06 album (http://beckyb.shutterfly.com). I miss you all terribly. Hope all is well.

One more reason why I love Midd and its smallness...

mood: excited...ecstatic...jumping out of my chair...these do not even begin to describe it. BREAK TOMORROW!!!
music: ДДТ
random word: флиртовать (pronunciation: fleertovat'...to flirt. haha. i love russian.)

---

I JUST SAW KEVIN!!! I was walking out of the Grille, he was walking into the Grille, and we literally saw each other, looked at each other as if saying "is it really her/him?!", ran at each other and hugged. and then we hugged again. and again. haha. Yay!! Kevin, I loooooove you!

In other news, I made a blog today! No, I am not leaving within the next week, but Laura and Cata made me excited about it, so I now have a blog too. And let me tell you, I am oh-so-good at this whole html thing. And by that I mean I search through the whole template, trying to find what I'm looking for, change it, look at the blog, realize it changed the whole other part of the blog that I didn't want changed, and start the whole process over again. But that's ok, I spent my whole afternoon doing that...instead of doing work, obviously. It was a true success, though, seeing as I was able to change all of my fonts to Trebuchet (!!), and really, that's all you need in a blog. Anyway, the site is http://beckybabroad.blogspot.com/ It is currently extremely boring, seeing as I have not posted anything yet and won't be leaving until August. However, it's there, and you can bookmark it or whatever so that you can look at it next year and such. :)

In yet other news, I HAVE A BREAK TOMORROW!!!! To tell you the truth, that's all that matters in life right now. Holy crap, I'm so excited. Turns out my suitemate HyeMin is going to come down with us too. It's going to be interesting...she's from Korea, has never been to the US before, and definitely speaks better Russian than she speaks English. But, I mean, it's something for her to do, cause she obviously can't go home, and I'll just translate into Russian whenever needed, I guess... Anyway, it's going to be an awesome weekend, I'm so super excited. And it doesn't even matter that I'm not doing my homework right now. Oh, crap, I have to pack too...haha. whatever. I'm in a good mood. I love you all. Good night!

Seeking technology advice....

mood: technologically frustrated
music: Bealtes: White Album
random word: fart, I can't help it, I'm in 5th grade

---

I think I just made my own blog! It's called "Estoy Aqui," (shukran alShakira) but I can't figure out how to link it to this one. Anyone who knows should offer advice immediately. I think the direccion is http://cata-estoyaqui.blogspot.com/ . My plan is to still update this blog because I feel more comfortable saying whatever the hell I feel like and I want people's comments to be uncensored, you understand. The other one will be informative updates that I would certainly enourage you to read, but I think it will mostly be a safe version of Cata's life for those who only want to know certain things about me. Ok, time is up.

Many hugs,

Cata

PS What are Laura, Becky and Ali doing about blogging?

Even virtual Cata creates kitchen disasters!

mood: amused
music: "Everybody Says Don't" - Anyone Can Whistle
random word: smustle

---

So, a very important update from the crazy world of the virtual Omniglot household. Cata Omniglot tried to cook and set the house on fire THREE times (twice in the same day), and then fell down on the floor in a hysterical fit and then a little therapist flew down from the sky and hypnotized her until she was...back to...normal Cata. This was followed by an epidemic of the flu (or mono? who knows...) that struck the whole house and left us all bedridden for a couple of days. I blame Sam Omniglot. Michael Omniglot, of course, has accelerated ahead of everyone in the departments of music, art, logic, cooking and every other skill point category. However, the game has proven once and for all that Becky Omniglot makes the most amazing noodles out of everyone. She is the resident culinary expert. They had a big house party the other day, and there is this brilliant function where you can click the stereo for each Sim and select the option "Dance the Smustle," and then, no matter where they are in the house, they all break out into this ridiculous choreographed dance number. It's kind of amazing. And I have to admit, I get incredibly nostalgic when all of the Omniglots are chatting on the floor of Dan Omniglot's room, especially since the Sims sound effects are human voices but nonsensical words, as if they were speaking different languages. There are times I swear it sounds like Arabic...or maybe Russian...and it makes me smile.

Which brings me to...they need jobs! But the options are lame, so I've decided to let you choose your own fate. I had Laura Omniglot enter the "politics" career track, and I'm just pretending in my head that she's actually some cool UN diplomat and not the mayor's intern (though I did just get promoted, booya). Let me know which one of these tracks you'd like your Sim to enter: military, culinary, law enforcement, athletic, politics, business, criminal, medicine, science, and slacker. Or you could just shake your head and tell me to pack for Chile instead of spending time on this Sims nonsense.

Okay, that's all I have to say for now. My actual life is comparatively boring and irrelevant. I thank your virtual selves for giving me something to think about :)

Today, I ate a Proctor panini.

mood: hot. again. that's it. there's nothing else.
music: машина времени
random word: пешёчина

---

Yes, that's right, I had lunch in Proctor today. It was wonderful.

I met with the directors of the School in France because they're on campus. This also meant that I had to speak French...but I couldn't! Every word out of my mouth was in Russian, and I literally had to pause before every word because if I didn't, it would come out in Russian. It was so weird! Before, it's always been that when trying to speak Russian, a French word comes out, because I've always known French better than Russian. I don't think I know Russian better than French now, but I think it just has to do with the fact that I've been thinking in Russian for the past 4 weeks. But anyway, it was just really weird. It was cool, though, to have to switch back and forth between languages in one day. :) I felt like a true linguist, or polyglot, or something...

On a completely unrelated note, but not really, at dinner tonight I talked with a guy who is a student at Lawrence University, studying linguistics. It was fun, and I remembered why I love linguists. It was just cool because we immediately had a connection - we both knew that the other one was interested in the same thing we were interested in. They don't have a real program at Lawrence either, although, it seems like they have a little bit better program than Midd (although better than nothing isn't saying much). I also decided that if I had to narrow my linguistics studies right now, I would want to specialize in two things: language acquisition, and semantics/pragmatics. I've realized that pragmatics is exactly all things I'm interested in linguistics (...well, obviously not all, because I feel like I'm interested in all linguistics, but the most narrow things, I suppose). Here, go here: http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-fields-mean.cfm. Actually, that's a cool site because it's got a couple of really good, concise articles about the different fields of linguistics. But anyway, pragmatics has to do with language past the grammar books, is how I look at it. It says ok, here are the grammar rules, and here are all the definitions of words, now how do we actually use all of that? So it takes into account things like idioms and slang. It looks at how people use their language to interact... it's all about meaning, instead of just grammar and definitions. Anyway, it just got me excited to pin it down like that. And if you go to that website I pasted above, and look at the "applications" section, it's cool - those are all totally things I could see myself doing. Oh, and it says, "can help make us more aware and effective communicators" - is that not exactly what Linguistic Moments would do? :)

Ok. I'm going back to the lounge cause it's air conditioned. I'm actually seriously considering sleeping in there tonight...one girl already said she definitely is going to. If it doesn't cool off soon, I just might die. That wouldn't be very fun, I don't think.

Why I Should Not be Allowed to Work for Corporate America...

mood: sweating bullets (look out, or you might get shot!)
music: The Beatles :)
random word: split

---

I discovered today that it is ilegal to pop popcorn at work. So naturally, I had just finished challegning any man who would stop me to a duel (I was conveniently wearing in my hair the pink, plastic sword that I got out of my virgin daiquiri the other night; you never know when you might need it) and had gone back to the boring and tedious process of filing yet again. It was then that something extraodrindary happened. Well, maybe not extraordinary. Maybe just ridiculous. Maybe just a little sad. Wait, double-check the author of this post. Ok, maybe just believable.

For some unknown reason, I was suddenly struck by the urge to laugh. It started as a simple smile, mumkin a bit of a grimace, then a discreet giggle and pretty soon I was nearly drowning in my own guffaws. Yes, it is safe to say that I was hysterical. As most of you know, this is not all that unusual for me and probably wouldn't have been a real problem if it hadn't been for the circumstance under which it occurred: I was alone in a cubicle in an office as silent as the grave and nothing funny was happening.

The more I became aware of the oddity of the situation, the harder I started laughing and the more terrified I grew that someone would call security because I was clearly a threat to the accepted mundaneness and general sanity (this is perhaps the only place in the world where I find that these two characteristics actually coincide) of the office.

So I bolted over to Kaleb (the other intern)'s cubicle so that I could pretend I was laughing at something he said. But when he asked me what was going on, I couldn't muster the breath to tell him. So he started laughing too. And all of a sudden, it was like a party. I found it shockingly uplifting, considering the setting. One day I will write a book: "A Guide to Time-and-Cost-Effective Techniques for Brightening Your Office Morale." Just send in a crazy person, it always works.

It's a Family Affair

mood: hot. so unbelievably hot. every bit of me cannot think of anything except about how hot it is right now.
music: Widow in the Window, GBS (not really, because now i'm back to that whole russian thing, but i listened to this on the drive back from maine and almost started crying. i don't think i've ever really listened to the words before, or something, but wow. it's beautiful, and so sad.)
random word: жарко

---

So, remember in like January when we'd be walking back from the CFA or wherever, and we'd walk through McCullough just to warm up? I just did that, except for the opposite reason. I walked through McCullough because McCullough is air conditioned, and it is that hot out. It's disgusting.

Anyway, believe it or not I'm not going to write this whole post about how hot it is...although I could...cause it's really hot. I just got back from my weekend in Maine with my family. I think I mentioned this in a high and low or something, but my great-uncle passed away about a month ago, and the memorial service was this weekend, so the whole family got together. Bill, my great-uncle, was a truly amazing person. He and my great-aunt, Cal, who is still alive, were two of the most accepting, non-judgmental, genuinely nice people I have ever met. Bill was always joking around - at the service everyone was talking about the puns he always used. And Cal always looks you straight in the eye, with a smile on her face, and asks you in the softest, sweetest voice I've ever heard, how you are, how everything's going. Somehow she always knows or remembers what's going on in your life, and she's just wonderful. We never saw them a whole lot when I was younger, which makes me sad, but still they're just wonderful people.

Now, the interesting thing is that all of their children (my mom's cousins) are crazy. Ok, not crazy, but just...let me explain. There were four kids. The first was a gay, jazz musician in San Francisco in the 80's. He was supposedly really, really good, and my mom said she thinks we have a CD or some sheet music of his somewhere, which would be really cool to see/hear. Unfortunately, though, he died of AIDS when he was still pretty young. The next child has been married 3 times and has 4 kids. Her name is now Spirit Dove (she was born Nancy) and her current husband is Spirit Eagle. And one of her kids had a son at age 18, and possibly never finished high school. The next child has only one wife, and just 2 kids, but they are super crazy religious. Their children were homeschooled for a while, and they're the kind of people who can't say a sentence without it somehow involving God. However, they're also really really sweet, genuinely nice people. Their daughter, Rebecca, has a habit of writing on my facebook wall as if we're the best of friends, but she's super sweet, so I forgive her. The last child has been married twice, and when he married his second wife, he only had 1 kid, but seeing as she had 7 it kind of made it interesting. Some of those are adopted...I'm not sure how many. Then the two of them had a child together too.

Trust me, that was the short story, and if you got confused, just wait til I tell you the long story. Anyway, the family with all the adopted kids I had never met before; I hadn't seen Spirit Dove's family for probably 7 years or so; and, the super religious family I saw about 3 years ago. So we don't see them a whole lot. Anyway, as crazy as they all are, it was truly an amazing day. They had a ton of old photo albums out, and we watched a video from about 19 years ago when we were all together - it was Cal and Bill's 40th wedding anniversary, and they did this really cute little tap dance, and Spirit Dove wrote a song for them, it was a fun video. Somehow, I just got such a feeling of family while I was there. Maybe it had to do with the fact that there were so many people, all of them related to me or not really related to me in some different, crazy way, but they were all there, celebrating Bill's life, in a way. It was really wonderful.

The one thing that really got me was during the service when people went around and told any memories of Bill that they had. And Jenny, one of my second cousins, (so Bill was her grandfather) talked about how much in love Cal and Bill were, and how you could tell just by looking at them all the time. And the amazing thing about it was, as infrequently as I saw them, even I knew that and remembered that, and I'm pretty sure everyone else there did too. They got married in 1947, if I remember correctly, which means that they were married almost 60 years, and you could still see, when Bill just looked at Cal, how much in love he was with her. I think that if I can find that in my life, then I will be truly happy.

On a bit lighter note, I then drove back from Manchester, NH, which is where we stayed the night, on my own, which means I have a car on campus now! Hooray! AND I listened to Great Big Sea and Billy Joel and other NON-RUSSIAN music the whole drive back!! mwahahaha. AND in 4 days I'll be on my way down to the Lake House with Kyle to meet up with Dan, Becca and Kristen! As we say in Russian school, Oo-rah!!! Anyway, I'm going to go back to drowning in my own sweat...and possibly write a paper. Talk to you all soon!

Who knows?

mood: content, for the first time all week
music: "Kiss Me" - Sweeney Todd
random word: nightingale

---

So, all week I've been really high-strung and moody and irritable and incapable of shaking a constant feeling of panic. I've been snapping at people over crossword puzzles and freaking out in bowling alleys and breaking down crying at least once a day over mounting responsibilities or looming fears or my mom or family tensions or, you know, moving to a different hemisphere. And silly things like getting shots and having trouble understanding the Chilean accent at the consulate and finding a tick in my leg and getting random nosebleeds and having ten thousand mosquito bites aren't helping things. Poor Sidney has been a trooper of a shoulder. Anyway, altogether it's just been a hard state of mind to snap out of.

But then, tonight was my going away party. Sara made a few phone calls, burnt some CDs and bought some burgers, and within a few days she managed to put together one of the nicest get-togethers I've been to all summer. After a round or two of pickup volleyball and an intense game of Sharks and Minnows, the founding of the "Blue Club" by Sara's 7-year-old sister Mary ("You can be in if you're wearing blue, except no boys allowed. It's boy-proof. But Sid can be honorary helper because he's a DOCTOR."), the staged blowing out of non-candles on a cake that read "Buena Suerte en Chile!" after the hit song "HavagoodtimeinChile, Lau-ra! HavagoodtimeinChile, Lau-ra!", and lively arguments about whether the fact that some "chick" offered C a Jell-O Snack Pack means that "she wants me" and whether the water really does spiral in a different direction in Chile and how exactly it would be possible to change the speed of the Earth's rotation with a shitload of windmills and whether it's actually creepy to facebook Tyler Hinman (some other Wordplay fans are following suit) and whether you can use the math word "orthogonal" to describe two points of view and whether you could make liquid pants with water and an antigravity force field or shoot cake instead of coke ("Frost my veins!") or change the polarity of water to make it dry and put the towel companies out of business or tan faster with liquid lenses instead of sunscreen, I felt completely content. These were my high school friends. This was High Tech. And even though we rarely see each other during the year, there is something so natural about the way we fall back together and can be the same dorks we've always been. I laughed the whole night long.

It's nice to know that people care about me. And that I have amazing, irreplaceable groups of friends to fall back on. And that maybe, just maybe, I can continue this pattern in another world that's even more different than quaint little liberal artsy Middlebury was from geeky, gawky High Tech High School. Although, when you think about it, sitting around a table late at night and chatting about everything and nothing with a bunch of quirky kids who love each other, Middlebury and High Tech are not so different. And hey, maybe Chile won't be, either.

"F" is for...

mood: sweaty
music: musiqua ayrabia
random word: hefalump

---

...four file cabinents.

What did you think "f" would be for, sillies?

So I had just finished going through 8,000 files (the project for which I was hired) and had no sooner finished stroaking my own ego after having finished a week and a half early when my boss rounds the corner and casually says, "Oh, Caitlin, we found 4 more file cabinents full of service contracts." That's 16 drawers. That's probably over 150 a drawer. That's a big fat capital "F."

My cube-mate and intern friend weren't there today so the lack of talking left me linguistically frustrated and I wrote a poem to keep myself occupied, mentally occupied, that is. It's kind of like something you would find in a picture book for little kids. Behold, how I spent my day...

I was sittting at my desk today

Filing and filing and filing away

Singing the ABC's in my head

I wish I were still asleep in bed

The 8th floor is much too quiet today

There's got to be someone with something to say

I looked at my watch, it was 10:33

Just the perfect time for tea!

I went to the kitchen to fill up my mug

Then into that tin of spiced Chai I dug

"Trade Winds" is the name of the tea

On the can is a picture of a boat out at sea

It looks to me like a pirate ship

I think to myself as I take a sip

Out of the corner of my eye I see

My poster of Johnny Depp winking at me

What fun it would be to be a pirate

Hell, it's Friday, I might as well try it

Around and around I spin in my chair

Like a mate in the crow's nest without a care

I can sail on now for miles

On my pirate ship through a sea full of files...

Thank you, Corporate America, for making it possible for me to dream.

I'm alive!

mood: antsy
music: "I'm Not Afraid of Anything" - Songs for a New World
random word: squeezle

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So it just hit me that I haven't posted in like, a month. I keep thinking that I'm such an active blogger because I spend 90% of my free time checking the blog, commenting on the blog, scrolling down to tally all the new comments on the blog, using babelfish to understand the language schoolers on the blog, referencing the blog, thinking up things to post on the blog, and, well, you get the idea. Anyway, here goes an actual, productive contribution.

Since last I arose from the blog-stalker shadows, I have made friends with a Mexican waiter named Andres at the Broadway Grille, seen Cirque du Soleil with Kevin and Ali, swing danced and run a 5k with Dan Kelley, run my fastest 5k of the summer two days later with Sidney at Lake Takanassee, seen Spamalot, watched the Company DVD with Kevin at his house, gone on Shannon's whalewatch boat with Mark, gone to Shannon's 4th of July block party in Maine, sung through the entirety of Into the Woods around three times with Shannon and Mark, been awkward at a second-cousins-once-removed-type family reunion, watched fireworks with Sidney in Red Bank, had a very Italian breakfast with Cata and Kevin and Sidney at Otter Creek Bakery, visited Juliana and Mario and Erik (!!!!), had dinner with said crew plus Becky at Tully and Marie's, traipsed around Lake Dunmore, written a lot of letters and journal entries, got my student visa for Chile, and seen the fabulous documentary Wordplay.

"Wordplay?" you ask, as any linguaphile should. Wordplay. The documentary about the New York Times crossword puzzle, its makers, the celebrities and superheroes who can complete them in minutes, and the National Crossword Puzzle Tournament. And its winner. The twenty-year-old RPI student Tyler Hinman. Whom I promptly friended on facebook (creepy!). Who promptly friended me back with a jolly message. Upon which joyous moment I noticed that CAITLIN IS HIS FRIEND AND WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH HIM. She was basking in greatness and she didn't even know it.

Sidenote: Sidney and I have recently become crossword obsessed, if you couldn't guess.

Anyway. On a totally different note, when I swung through Kevin Tierney land around two weeks ago (this is getting cliche, but walking down Kevin's driveway is like walking into a Jane Austen novel. It's just beautiful.), Kevin did me the honor of showing me Final Fantasy (it's a video game, to all those non-tekkies with their minds in the gutter). He, creepily enough, had designed a host of characters based on...you guessed it. Us. My favorite parts were Cata's crazy boobs and the fairy wings on Ali.

Anyway, that was just a prelude to the next tidbit. You probably don't know that I have a weakness for The Sims. It's a computer game that is basically...a dollhouse, I guess? You design people, then you design their house, then you control their lives. It's really, really addictive. And so last night I followed suit, upped the creepiness level, and designed a quirky little suite-family full of...us. I made the little people look just like us (Dan even has freckles and Converse and Kevin has a goatee and his director blazer) and put a bubble machine in Cata's very pink and orange room and a giant bookshelf in Michael's and an easel in Jessie's and a big karaoke machine in the middle of the house. The most frustrating part is getting them jobs (they need them in order to make money and continue to afford such luxuries as giant bubble machines), because so far in the Sims-paper there haven't been any starting-level positions in...uh, linguistics. Or even theater. But somehow I'd rather they be poor than force them to succomb to the sports career track as a team mascot. And somehow the military and business tracks don't seem very us, either. That aside, here's the best part:

Our last name? Omniglot.

That's all for now, kids. I'm off to go hiking (yes, you can hike in Jersey, and it's pretty, too) with my dear friend Seth. Oh, and just so you know, I just set up my Chile blog last night. The URL (which I'll link to this page soon) is http://chilelaura.blogspot.com. Because, holy shit, I'm leaving in less than a week and a half. To move. To South America.

Hugs to everyone who is shaking his head right now and saying, "Wow, that girl's a spaz." Extra hugs to all who like me anyway.

Apologizing in advance for the lameness of this post

mood: avoiding getting Yellow Fever
music: radiobilingue
random word: boligrafo

---

Ok, so what happens when my family goes away and I am ;eft in charge of the house for 2 weeks? Many things. Among them not is checking the blog. Reading sentence again. Wondering if something is wrong. Choosing to move on. Growing sleepy. It is 8:30. I think it's because I am currently battling Yellow Fever. Oh and Typhoid. And Hepatitus A. So yay! It's like a part of antibodies! They're all hanging out drinking rum inside of me. And the world is spinning a little bit when I look at it. Oh well, at least they'll let me into Uruguay. I hope.

I am going to admit that I haven't read the blog yet so if I seem ignorant it's because I am. I would like to start by saying that I love each and every one of you. I don't know why, I just felt it would be appropriate to say. I feel like I can't think. This must be boring to read. So I shall tell you about my life this week. I went up to Midd on Friday night with Laura and Sid, where I spent 2 days speaking Italian with Kevin (somehow, it was quite amazing, I totally have to learn Italian for real). Then, we visited Juliana and spoke Spanish all day Saturday! It was really great to see Juliana, Mario, and their baby, Erik. They are so wonderful. And then we went out to Tully & Marie's with Kevin and Becky where we sat in a corner quietly and stealthily (ok, picturing myself being quiet and stealthy and mumkin la) anyways, we spoke English. But shh...don't tell. The next morning we ate brunch at Ross and it made me sad that it made me so happy to eat at ROSS. We ran into a couple of Arabic schoolers and had a grand ole time speaking Arabic. Basically I would describe my weekend as an orgasmic explosion of languages. I was in Heaven. Not to mention I was at Middlebury and surrounded by friends that I hadn't seen in a while. It was quite nice. Worthy of a few tears. Which broke out as I was crossing College Street between Gifford and Forest. Poeverino Tiberio trying to console me in Italian as I screamed the realization that I was leaving in due settimane. Which is now more like a week and a half. Oh, and Kevin and I are mumkin the coolest people in the whole world. What did we do Saturday? Not much, just hang out watching Finding Nemo in Italian projected onto the wall of Atwater Dining Hall, speaking Italian with some pretty cool cats and you know, smoke a hookah. Your typical Saturday night fun, I would say.

Things I've learned this week:

~ You have to dial 011 if you want to make an international call. Yes, I called Uruguay and talked to my host mom, who seems super cool!!! Her name is Ana del Bene and as soon as I know the address (I probably should have asked) I'll post it.

~ My brother cannot be trusted to be in our house by himself. I won't rant but basically during the time that I was at work tyring to earn money so that I can survive a year in Uruguay without working illegally, my super cool bro managed to use 5 bowls, 4 plates, 7 glasses, 3 water bottles, half a drawer of silverware, a sacepan and a collander (all of which he left in a huge mess all over the kitchen for me to clean up), eat my food that I had to go to the grocery store and buy with that money that I earn by getting up at 6:00 every morning (not that he would understand because he has never worked a day in his life), open my bank statement which came in the mail and use it argue that I certianly have enough money to pay for food for him and all of his obnoxious friends, especially the one that always stares at me in weird ways and is ALWAYS here, leave the garage door open after leaving late last night, which is not exactly my idea of safe when I am sleeping alone in my house and there have actually been breaking and enterings on my street, let my dog eat an entire box of cookies so that I had to clean up vomit this morning and poop this afternoon (supertypooperty exciting).

On the brighter side, it's raining, and ever since those last 2 days of school, that always makes me think of my 2 very wonderful friends, even if it is just a tinge of guilt and lameness that I feel for holding an umbrella as I wait for the bus in my work clothes.

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

mood: wonderful. absolutely wonderful.
music: машина времени
random word: лужа

---

About four hours ago, I walked into my suite and I was feeling horrible. I was tired. I was bored. I was supposed to be doing homework. I was procrastinating from any homework I was supposed to be doing. I wanted to go home. I wanted to speak English. I, literally, groaned and whined, and Marina laughed at me.

About four minutes ago, I walked into my suite and couldn't have felt better. Marina and I just went on a puddle hunt around campus. It's raining, quite hard. And we went running and dancing and jumping around campus (it kind of reminded me of a certain last day of school with a certain 2 wonderful friends of mine...). And now I feel sooo much better. :) Somehow that was exactly what I needed. I love that something so simple can make me feel so happy. And because all of you make me feel happy too, I thought I'd share. So if you're feeling crappy, go running in the rain. It'll work, I promise.

p.s. I just realized I wrote Marina instead of Marion. Yes, I did mean Marion. haha. oh, Russian names.


Oh, and my mood was, of course, also lifted a hundred times by reading the new title of this blog. :D I literally laughed out loud. In a "give me 2 hours, I'll be there" kind of way, obviously. While my spirits have been lifted, I'm still itching to get out of here. Thank goodness my family is coming on Friday. I don't know what I'd do if I still had a week to go...

When I grow up, I want to be a linguistic consultant.

mood: весёлая (happy, almost. it's got a fun connotation too. it's a little better than happy.)
music: new Земфира cd!
random word: безопасность (security. без=without; опасность=danger. so they don't have security in Russia, only non-dangerous times. oh, and guess what the B in KGB stands for...)

---

So this is definitely my second time writing this post. Blogger.com is stupid. :-P

Anyway, this post is about our futures. Yes, all of us, because you are all being recruited.
Dan and I were talking today and we decided that when we grow up we should totally be like private linguistic detectives! ... Then, reality set in, but we realized that it was kind of still possible. THEN, we googled "linguistic consultant" and found out it actually exists! AND THEN, we realized that we have a whole lot of really smart, lots-of-language-speaking friends, and we could totally have the best linguistic consulting business out there!

So, this post is to announce the official (future) establishment of "Linguistic Moments" - linguistic consultants, extraordinaire. (NOTE: the name was only decided upon after the oh-so-clever "Becky Bierman is Better than Dan, Co." ...and, of course, in Mark's honor) The best part about it? It's totally possible! It's basically public affairs kind of stuff, but with a linguistic twist. I mean, there's communication within companies, and to clients, or, what I think would be really cool, is to work with advertising companies and work on advertising slogans and themes, all in terms of linguistics. It would be so neat! And even if (god forbid) our company doesn't actually happen, there's got to be people who work for big corporations who do this kind of stuff. Sooo neat!

Have I ever told you how much I love linguistics?

mood: La nostalgia
music: La mia musica italiano, inclusa i 34 brani che ho rubato con MyTunes
random word: goffo

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Ciao tutti!

Okay, sebbene mi manchiate tantissimo, non controllo il blog, perché sto provando a non dover pensare in inglese il più di possibile. Mille perdoni! Ma, volevo dirvi come sto, e allora ho deciso di scrivere un messaggio in italiano. Voi potete andare a altavista.com per tradurre in inglese un po’ brutto (Daniele – viola scimmia lavastoviglie), usare il vostro spagnolo, o mumkin chiedere a Cata (chi parla la lingua bravissime!). O, forse se chiediate dolcemente, Anna Murray potrebbe tradurre poiché attualmente parla l’italiano.

Tuttavia. Sto benissimo! Ovviamente, poiché noi tutti amiamo gli sport, sapete che l’Italia è il campione del mondo. Ho visto la partita cominciando all’inizio dei tempi supplementari, perché non posso ancora guardare una partita intera. La scuola italiana non è molto organizzato, e allora hanno domenticato di riservare uno spazio per noi vedere la partita in italiano – i francesi avevano Dana per guardare in francese, ma agli italiani bastava guardarla al Grille nell’ebbrezza. Quando Zidane ha dato la testata a Materazzi, tutti i professori sono diventati furiosi, urlando e gesticolando alla tv. E poi, quando abbiamo vinto (uso la prima persona non sono sicuro perché, ma mi piacerebbe pensare che era mia squadra anche, almeno un po’) era pazzia totale. I gridi, le lacrime, e gli abbracci per tutti. Dopo, i professori hanno marciato in centro con una bandiera italiana. Sono sicuro che era uno spettacolo.

Ma, non potevo participare nel trionfo, perché dovevo giocare a pallavolo. Si, quello è coretto. Io, Kevin John “Tiberio” Tierney, sono sulla squadra di pallavolo per la scuola italiana. (Io sono anche andato alla piscina per nuotare un po’ alcuni giorni fa, ma questa è un’altra storia.) Alla partita, c’erano molti studenti italiani che volevano giocare, ma la maggior parte di loro solamente hanno tifato. C’erano tre ragazze e un ragazzo che hanno giocato per tutto la partita, una ragazza e due ragazzi che hanno giocato per tempi abbastanza lunghi, e poi c’erano Andrea (Andrew Amstutz) ed io. Dopo i sei giocatori principi avevano giocato per un tempo, il nostro coach ha detto “Cara! Vieni fuori! Andrea! Vai dentro!” – la prima sostituzione. E poi, dopo un piccolo tempo, “Andrea! Fuori! Tiberio! Dentro!”

Ma, cosa? Mi scusi?

Lui voleva che io giocassi. Ero felice, ero orgoglioso, ero sorpreso, ma sopratutto, avevo paura. Ma, giocavo come bene così potevo giocare, e la mia squadra era felice avermi. Ho giocato per non so quanto lungo, e eventualmente sono stato chiamato dentro. Ma, questi momenti erano fantastici. Alla fine, abbiamo vinto gloriosamente contro la scuola portugese.

Ci sono tante cose che posso dirvi, ma questo messaggio sta diventando molto lungo. Spero che voi abbiate sentito del viaggio di Cata, Laura e Sid da loro. Buoni tempi. Specialmente l’hookah. (Cata – sfortunamente, credo che Seth abbia una ragazza. Perché mi piacciono sempre gli eterosessuali? Boh, non lo so.) Allora, dico “ciao” a tutti fino alla volta prossima, e non vedo l’ora quando posso attualmente sentire da tutti voi in inglese in sei settimane.

Baci e abbracci, fighi!

~Tiberio

call for aid

mood: thirsty - water fountain ho!
music: "A Book Report on Peter Rabbit"
random word: arrow

---

Hello my dear friends

Dan Kelley here, with a request of some (though relatively mild) urgency. I'm bored. You cannot imagine how bored I am. This job will be the death of me (just kidding, it's not that bad).

My available resources are: the Internet.

What can I do for fun online? I'm desperate for new ideas. Any and all suggestions welcome. Thanks kids.

Middlebury Update

mood: tired. very tired. kind of headachey.
music: ундервуд
random word: ремонтировать

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Ok, guys, they totally ripped down Hillcrest (the building behind Gifford, next to Proctor) today! It was actually really cool - they had big bulldozers out and basically pushed the whole building in on itself. Well, it was cool except when they started at like 6:30. That wasn't so cool. Adam Irish (mr. big man on the SGA) says they're building some kind of environmental studies building there or something. The whole thing came down though, and now it's just a big pile of wood....





Crazy, huh?









Anyway, just thought I'd keep you all updated on the Middlebury happenings.


Ahem, that is all.

hello once more!

mood:
music:
random word:

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my dear dear dear dear dear friends

how i've missed you all! as you may or may not have known, i've spent the past week on family vacation on a cruise through the caribbean. despite the ridiculous and wasteful gluttony of it all, i actually had an awesome time. though, i missed all of you so much

coming back to the blog and seeing all the updates from people's lives that were waiting for me though = literally the biggest smile i've made in a week (though, i haven't seen laura yet, so competition may be in the making...). a few notes on that:

-sam: you live!! the package was awesome, by the by
-becky: theater?! awesome
-michael: see comment on journal (and, i'm not ashamed to add, i was a D&D kid at one point)
-cata: you made me cry. i'm so glad the wedding went so well. see you monday :)
-budzyna: what? no post. boo. good thing you made 1000 comments
-ali: your city life never ceases to amaze and entertain
-kevin: miss you, hope italian school is going well
-jessie: swordswomen barbie? ten points

ps. i got a note from ben, he's alive. and i had a million other emails, but that's another story

and some highlights on the trip:

-got burnt, clearly (despite extraordinary amounts of sunscreen...so there budzy)
-swam with dolphins, tres cool
-actually got kissed because of a certain tshirt i received
-scuba diving in a coral reef (so neat)
-beaching
-reading a shit ton
-hearing a million languages and thinking of every single one of you
-desperately wanting to lindy to all the music
-playing bingo and losing miserably
-sneaking into a casino and playing slots
-missing middkids
-missing middkids
-missing middkids

if that's not clear enough, i missed you guys. a lot. i heard everything from arabic to italian to spanish to portuguese to english to seeing ASL and everything in between, which, obviously made me miss all of you. and then there was the dancing - oh the dancing! if only you all were there, we would have had quite the party. and the eating was oddly reminiscent of proctor. god i miss that place. basically, i spent the majority of the cruise missing all you kids.

basically, i love you all. be in my life more. i'm sorry i suck at phone calls. i will do my best to call you all and stay in touch more. miss you!

And the Oscar goes to...

mood: pleased
music: Ногу Свело (Greg said it reminded him of Billy...I'm not so sure yet, but it's good)
random word: пьеса

---

Ok, so Oscar, not quite. BUT we found out our roles for the play! First of all, the play is Горе от ума (Gore ot uma, or Woe from Wit). It's by Aleksandr Griboyedov, and is basically your classic early 19th century comment on high society. I was reading about it online, and apparently it's a really famous Russian play. They called it the "Russian Hamlet" a couple times, so that's pretty cool. Oh, and Colin Firth played Chatsky (the hero - one website said that a good Chatsky is as revered in Russia as a good Hamlet is in England) in a translated production of it. Hah. That made me laugh.

So, I'm the babushka! :) It's a pretty small role, but that's fine with me, and I was expecting that. And it's, in my opinion, one of the better smaller roles. I mean, there's 3 daughters who are boring, or "Mrs. N" and "Mrs. D", and I mostly just didn't want to get one of them. The grandmother is funny, at least. It'll be more fun, so that's good. And Grisha (haha. Greg. his Russian name is Grisha.) is basically the village idiot. No, maybe not idiot, but he's the one no one likes and is a gossiper and gambler, and I think drunk too. It should be a fun role too.

Mostly, I'm just excited to be doing this. It'll be fun. hehe. Yay!!

Russian Sign Language

mood: a i'm-drinking-hot-chocolate, i-just-watched-the-sun-set, and i-have-yet-to-do-any-work-at-all-today kind of mood
music: soundtrack to питер fm (romantic comedy movie from the other night)
random word: глухой

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Today, I had the best lunch of my life.

I met with this girl, Elizabeth Zane, who just graduated from Midd this year. She was a Russian and Biology major and is on campus now...I'm not really sure why, but she's sitting in on some graduate Russian classes, I know. She's been an occasional member of ASL Club, and by that I mean I think she's come to two meetings in the past two years. She also just finished her thesis which was on RUSSIAN SIGN LANGUAGE!! And she has received a Fulbright scholarship to go to Russia next year to study RUSSIAN SIGN LANGUAGE!! And she will be in MOSCOW!! All year!

I found this out right at the end of school, and basically jumped for joy, because, I mean how cool is that?! I'll be in Moscow. She'll be in Moscow. And she knows, or is learning, Russian Sign Language!!

So, we met for lunch today to talk and it was wonderful! First of all, her Russian is good. Really good. She spent the first semester of her junior year in Irkutsk, and went through the whole Russian School thing, and it just made me feel so happy that she was so good. All I could think was that she went through exactly what I am in the midst of going through (especially because she was only in Russia for a semester, as I will be), and it worked! She can speak Russian! And well, at that! So, yeah, that was exciting. It was also cool because not only did she speak well, but I could understand her. There were a couple times when I didn't quite catch something, or had to ask her what a word meant, but for the most part, I understood her perfectly. And lastly, I was able to, more or less, express myself and say what I wanted to say to her without feeling like a complete idiot. It was really, really cool, and that alone made me really happy.

But the exceptionally cool part is that she is going to be in Moscow next year!!! She's taking classes at RGGU, which is also the university where I will be taking classes (well, where I will be taking one or two classes.. most of my classes will be at the Midd school). And apparently they have an RSL department, or at least, some classes in RSL, I guess. When she was in Irkutsk, she worked with the deaf and learned some RSL, but apparently there are a number of different sign languages throughout Russia! I had no idea! I'm not sure how many there are, but she said they can't even understand each other. So she's assuming that the one she learns is Moscow will be different from the one she was learning in Irkutsk. Although, then she's hoping the one she learns in Moscow is kind of the "western", most popular one - like, they speak it in Moscow and Petersburg and stuff - cause that would definitely make everything more useful. She's not sure where she's living yet. Apparently Fulbright told her she could live in a dorm, but now the university says she can't, so she doesn't really know yet.

She seems really excited, I think just to know someone over there, which is good cause it means she'll contact me and stuff. So, yay!! Between the whole "wow, I actually can understand and speak Russian" thing and the whole "you're going to be in Moscow next year and be working with the deaf" thing, I basically walked out of Ross with a huge smile on my face that I couldn't wipe off. It was awesome. :)

Русская школа - давай, давай, давай!

mood: happy. maybe happy's too strong. calm. content. that's better.
music: Аквариум
random word: мобильник

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Things that make me quite happy...

- My first Russian writing assignment. It was a stupid "summarize the story we just read" 1-page thing, but I had fun with it, and added my own little comments here and there.
- Getting back my first Russian writing assignment, with a big red A on the top.
- The sunset outside my window right now. again. *sigh*
- E-mailing back and forth with Becca Steinberg all day, planning my trip down to CT in 2 weeks. We sent a total of 10 e-mails between the two of us in a period of about 20 hours. hehe.
- Nantucket Nectars Orange Mango juice. 20% juice. Normally, I would shudder and put it back. But for some reason I love it. A lot.
- Going to McCullough to find 3 packages in my mailbox. And all of them being from my family :)
- Letters from Michael in Arabic, English and Shavian, and letters from Cata completely in Shavian!
- Everyone posting on the blog again because now I don't look like so much of a loser.
- Russian movies that fall under the Romantic-Comedy category (trust me, they're few and far between)
- Watching such a movie without subtitles and understanding, for the most part, what was going on.
- TEA! There is tea downstairs right now! And right when I'm done writing this, I'm going to get some.
- Клуб театр! Theater club! Yeah, that's right, I'm going to be in a play! And a Russian play, at that! I kind of couldn't believe it myself, but I need some way to spend my time, and Greg was pushing me to do it with him, so I went, I tried, and it was really fun! So, I'm pretty excited, and yet extremely, extremely nervous! :)
(wow, there were a lot of exclamation marks in that bullet. every sentence had one. hah. !!)
- hahaha. this one makes me laugh, but I'm saying it anyway. Cute Harvard linguistics grad student, who I met the first day, showing up at Theater Club.


Things that make me not so happy...

- Missing my phonetics class because of the theater club, because phonetics were really cool. I could go talk to the lady and make it up some time, but I'll probably end up just not doing it.
- Yesterday we had to come to theater club with a little scene prepared - we had to be a person from the early 19th century, cause that's when the play takes place (no, I don't know what play it is yet...). I think I did well, except for a little thing called freaking out. I had to look up a few new words for my scene, and all would have been fine, except right after I said one of the words I saw one look on one person's face that was a "What did she just say?" look. And so for the rest of the scene I was worried I wasn't making any sense. Eh, oh well. Overall it certainly didn't go poorly, just maybe not wonderfully...
- Not going bike riding. I really need to work on that. My plan for the summer was everyday. I've gone once since getting to Midd. Oh dear.
- My dad sending me 4 CDs, including 2 BILLYS THAT I DON'T CURRENTLY HAVE!!!, and not being able to listen to them because of this ridiculous thing called the language pledge. Gah!


Hey, at least all the happy things have seemed to out-do the not so happy things. Miss you all!

My family just got bigger...

mood: lonely, despite title of post. I am home alone for 2 weeks and the strange sounds in the woods at night scare me.
music: My Lives
random word: pinenut

---

In the past 2 days, I have acquired a step-father, step-sister, step-cousins? and an Uruguayan familia! I don't know which I'm more excited about!

The wedding was beautiful :) I won't go on about it but there were flowers and sunshine and we were barefoot on the beach and the wind was blowing my hair in my mouth as I played the flute at the ceremony and my feet got wet from a big wave and I signed an official document (witness on marriage certificate) and I gave a toast and I didn't know what I was doing and I was so scared I was shaking and people laughed at the beginning beacause I tried to be funny and then at the end I looked up and every person in the room (except my Mom who doesn't count because she doesn't cry unless she's in physical pain) was crying and I hoped that was a good thing but was too petrified to tell and was embarassed because when they handed me a glass of champagne I accidentally drank the whole thing in one gulp. My mom told me it was beautiful and gave me a hug. It was the hardest she's ever squeezed me and I don't think I've ever heard her use the word "beautiful" and so I didn't care that she didn't cry because it might have been the first time in my life that I wasn't left wondering if I'd been good enough for her.

Why I'm never leaving. Ever.

mood: tranquil. although it shouldn't be.
music: Браво
random word: закат

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I love Middlebury. Love it. Russian school, yes, I will leave it, and probably with a smile on my face. But Middlebury, well, Middlebury I don't think I'll ever be able to leave. Not for good, anyway. I just witnessed the most beautiful sunset ever. And not even "ever" because there's always beautiful sunsets here. I love Middlebury. Wow.

See picture below. It doesn't even do it justice, obviously, but I just had to take the picture. It was too amazing.



















p.s. I post on the blog too much. I think it's becoming a serious problem...

Today, I almost died.

mood: exhausted.
music: none. i'm going to bed soon.
random word: осторожно

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Ok, so I didn't really almost die. It was actually really fun... We went hiking on Mount Ellen. First of all, we got lost on the way there. Although they had mapquest directions, Adam and Greg were apparently at a complete loss as to how to find the trail, and we ended up asking at least 3 people before we finally found the way. But we finally found it, and then they take off running. Ok, so they weren't exactly running, but they were going awfully fast considering we were hiking and it was all uphill and yeah.... I think I'm going to blame it on the fact that I had mono and therefore haven't done anything in quite a long time and am therefore very, very out of shape. Yup, I'm going to blame it on that. Anyway, we didn't exactly make it to the summit (because apparently it's 8 miles up, which I also didn't realize until we got there...) but it was still fun, and I definitely felt good after doing it (after. note: after. during it, i felt like i was dying. hence the title of this post). And we made it back in time to watch an absolutely crazy Russian movie. But at least it wasn't depressing. Most of the movies we've watched have been depressing. This one was just crazy. And then we spent the rest of the night talking and drinking hot chocolate. So all in all, it was quite a nice day.

All the other schools are here now, and the campus seems much more lively and exciting. I saw Kevin (obviously) and Katie and Lauren Horton and other random people who I didn't even know are doing language school. I also saw another girl at brunch today and I can't for the life of me figure out where I know her, but I know, obviously, that it's from Middlebury, and I can distinctly remember having conversations with her. And she waved at me, so I know I'm not just going crazy. But I can't remember her name or anything. It's driving me crazy, but, oh well.

Anyway, I'm absolutely exhausted, so I'm off to bed. For anyone who's interested, I have put up some pictures from Russian school on my shutterfly website, so if you'd like to look at them it's http://beckyb.shutterfly.com :)