Dirty Sock Tea

That's right folks...I soaked my socks in hot water and am now enjoying a nice cup of tea after dinner. Actually...it's called Jasmine Tea...but I can't decide if it smells like dirty socks or hotel hallway. This could be on account of my cold, or it could just be really bad tea. OK...after taking a cautious first sip...it tastes much better than it smells...thank goodness!!! I have a small cold...which is really annoying. Which is why I'm drinking tea. And I actually kind of like this tea...as long as I don't inhale while I'm taking a sip. As long as I can't smell it I'm good! I opened a bottle of sparkling apple cider today. Had my own celebration while curled up on the couch watching movies...and watching the snow fall. Actually opened it because I thought it would both help my throat and just make me happy!!! Yum!!! Did I say in my last post that I baked a nice chocolate cake the other day...am very proud of myself!!!! It was so bizarre to be in the grocery store today and walk by the wine isle and realize that I could exit the building with a bottle in hand should I want to!! Because I had this automatic reaction of stepping away because I didn't belong there...but then I remembered that it wasn't off limits anymore. So of course I walked out of the store with a bottle of sparkling apple cider instead!!!

"And when you're with me if I close my eyes, There are times I swear I feel like I can fly..."

I just felt like putting a quote in the title line. I know it's supposed to be all romantic and everything...but I was trying to analyze that line and all I could think of was that he has to close his eyes because she's so ugly, so to feel great, to feel so amazing that he feels like he could fly he has to close his eyes when he's with her. So now I think it's kind of horrible. Anybody have any suggestions? Because shouldn't you want to look at someone if you really like them? I mean, really...yeah- sometimes things can be enjoyed so much more eyes closed...like picking a nice spot in the forest and closing your eyes so you can listen to the birds...I just think that if one is with the person whom one loves eyes closed or open shouldn't matter to make you want to fly. Just being in the same room as the person whom you love should make you feel that your feet could leave the ground!!!

So...that quote...that CD...It was so exciting...it was one of the last days of finals, and I'd been doing so much work...and then Windows Media Player updated...and I suddenly realized what "Closer" was...because a picture of an album cover popped up in the new version...it turned out to be Josh Groban...so his beautiful voice got me through the end of finals! (YAY!!)

I had a total of 14 things to do...and by Tuesday I only had my Final paper to finish for Latin and my Greek (non-cumulative) test to study for and take. By 5pm Thursday everything was done. (I probably only got a 25 on my Greek test since I was halfway done by the time I ran out of time and I probably lost many points on the translations and grammer questions and probably even the vocab...but if it averages in nicely with my other tests and my million quizzes the quizzes will keep me afloat!) I really don't care at this point. I'll pass, count it toward my major and not have to take it again. I really should have just been an English major or something...currently Medieval studies is looking really interesting...or maybe I just love my professor! (YAY...I'm in one of his second semester classes too!!!!!)

We went out to eat in town and then went sledding...five of us...after finals ended. It was so nice...at one point I was the only one outside and so I just sat on Foss hill next to me "sled" and enjoyed having the outside all to myself. I'd been hearing about sledding all semester so it was so nice to finally get to go!!! And I was looking at the lights and the snow and it was all so beautiful, and so peaceful and still...and I thought of all the happy students who had already gone home, and those of us there but still happily done!!! And then early Friday morning (I was still awake) several people headed to the airport. It's only me, Sam and Ann-Marie on this coast for break...Nadeem's family is heading off to India for a month to visit relatives. He'll also hear whether he got into med school at the end of December. He is so perfect for this program it would be so amazing if as a college sophomore he knows where he's going to med school!!! And if not he'll keep on the pre-med track and apply again to normal programs. AAHH! Makes the rest of us who don't really want to go to grad school feel like slackers, especially when we're juniors and haven't figured out what we want to do when we grow up. I mean, his goal of saving the world is so wonderful...I sometimes wish that I were going to be a doctor. I want to do something good for other people too. But I suppose I'll find a way to do that in my own way...as we all will.

Oh...I should go to bed...I need to be on home time...since I'm not at college anymore, so I don't need to go to bed at 1 or 2 am every night and get up at 9 or 10. I need to go to bed at 10 and get up at...6????? (Tomorrow we're driving into the city for the day for a family party.) Normally I think I'll try to get up at about 8am.

I've been home since yesterday at about 2pm...so why am I so bored already. There's too many movies to watch and books and cats to play with and I'm bored. I got to see Jess, though!!! It was so great to sit and talk to her since we really haven't talked that much this semester...and then I had to go way too soon...I'd just had my mom drop me off on her way to do errands in town...it was so weird to have to go when my parent came to pick me up...I didn't realize I'd gotten so used to driving myself places...then again...this is my 4th year of having my license!!! But otherwise...there's too much to do, and not enough to do...and too much time. I need something to have to do so I'm not completely afloat in a sea of nothing that has to be done! I did bring sewing projects back...one I started at school, but that I need to continue. I need to write also...and help out around the house.

OK...post is too long, as per usual.

Dinning Hall Trays

It's almost the end of Reading Week. I have so much stuff to do! I've been working a lot, yet I only have one thing definitely done. So we stole trays from the dinning hall after dinner and immediately Michelle, Sam and I put on snow pants and headed out to the hill. Other people had both real sleds and trays of their own!! It was so much fun!!! They really worked...as long as you found a path to go down on...and then I made a new one and the three of us worked at it for a while! I thought I'd lost my keys on the hill...somehow they'd fallen out of my pocket...searched the hill with Ann-Marie, dodging the other people still sledding...even more then...and then got the RA on duty to let me into my room for a fee of 10 dollars...checked email and learned that my keys were at the campus center...so walked over there...not sure if I lost them there or on the hill and they were brought to the desk there. But sooooo glad!!!! I got lots of notes taking/ studying done for Astronomy. I think tomorrow will be an essay and final paper day! It's snowed sooo much!!! (Not really, but it's so exciting!!!)

At Four in the Morning

Sometimes your world ends...but then you realize that the world hasn't ended...it has simply changed...and you pick up the pieces and move on with your life...your world reforms itself and things feel right...until it shatters again...but you just pick up the pieces and move on again...learning all the time...but knowing that that is what we are supposed to do in this life...the world shatters and we put it back together. Sometimes it is our personal worlds which need fixing, other times it is the whole world which needs healing. The point of life isn't to get through unscathed without ever feeling anything...it is to learn to move on when you feel that to move on is impossible. Change is scary...there are many kinds of changes, many kinds of deaths...some are of people...gone from this world into the next...some are of ideas and dreams, and these are no easier sorrows to bear.

Yet there is also so much joy. It snowed last night, and we were out in the middle of the field at midnight...we watched as students lined up at the top of the hill and sailed down on their sleds...we watched...as we rolled the snow which would become our snowman...though the snow had melted the next day and when we got up this morning our snowman had gone...yet I am grateful for that one night we had with our creation under the stars.

I hate Sundays!!!!!!

I hate Sundays with a passion. I can't remember this always being the case. Yes, they mean you're now only one day away from the rest of the week, but they don't mean any harm. Perhaps it's because I now go to a school which knows how to have a good time. At Smith on a Saturday night we sit around in our living rooms discussion lofty ideas, sort of doing home work, and playing board games. Here homework is generally not thought of until Saturday afternoon or even Sunday. But because you stay up going to parties or watching movies you generally don't wake up until late morning, then first have brunch, and then all your homework you had over the weekend has to be fit into one Sunday afternoon.

It makes sense that Sundays are not pleasant times!!!!

On this particular Sunday I have done a little bit of work, but still have more. I went to bed too late because people were watching a movie (which I slept through most of) and were generally staying up....including my roommate and I didn't want to try to fall asleep with the lights on and her talking loudly on her phone to her friends about how stupid boys are. So I got into bed at 3am...and was woken up a million times by my roommate hitting snooze a million times, then turning on the light, then banging around. So I'm kind of grouchy from that. Then there's the fact that I haven't gotten enough sleep this whole week (kind of my fault...I get distracted and like to hang out with people) and so am needing sleep generally. ("Generally" seems to be my word of the day btw.) Then there's the whole, I don't want to be up now by finally gave up sleeping. And it's almost 11:30am...so I need food...which makes me grouchy even when I'm fully awake and have had enough sleep.

Sundays are also annoying because you thought something exciting was going to happen and it didn't and this is the last chance until next weekend. Or, something exciting did happen, and now you're back to the ordinary week. Anyway... weekends are often let downs. I liked the semester when I had a great schedule of classes and I didn't crave weekends because all week wasn't too stressful!!

So I'm sitting in the mostly dark of my room...one dim light on...I wasn't going to turn it on, but I couldn't see my keyboard...and though I mostly touch type, it's still nice to be able to see the keys a little and to not hurt your eyes staring at a bright screen in the dark.

I've really loved being at Wesleyan this semester...but of course part of me wants to just return to Smith!! I'd get a single somewhere, and good food and have all of my friends, and be able to celebrate Shabbat and sing in harmony. AND...some of my friends won't be there next year...so it's not like I'll just see all of them next year. Yet...and yet...I'd really wanted to see Wes in all seasons...to feel less like a visiting student only here for a semester and to really find a place here. I mean, I don't really have a place here...there's nowhere yet that would miss me I don't think should I leave...I mean, my hall, yeah...

SORRY...remind me next week NOT to write before I've had breakfast on a Sunday morning! haha AND I drank the rest of the milk I had last night since I knew I'd go to brunch this morning...but now I don't want to go...I just want to sit curled up in my bed all day and work on homework. My roommate isn't here right now so the room is all mine. We have great times...mostly discussing boys...but I'm the kind of person who both needs to be often with people, and who often needs her own time too. OK...am drinking a chocolate soy milk now so I don't keep complaining! : ) I'm currently also wearing my glasses, so I can't actually see very much!

The week I've felt this urge to be back at Smith. Perhaps one semester away was enough. I miss Vespers. I never thought I'd say that I really miss our Christmas Concert...but I really do!! I can't wait until our Christmas Concert my Senior year!! Oh, Leah!! I miss the blue flowered china, and Tea, I miss Nielson and the Caverno room. I miss my friends...I miss singing. I miss Paradise Pond. I miss sitting around in the living room doing work and having a million study break! I also miss the food they give us for Reading Period. I miss self scheduled finals.

I've been so sure all semester that I just had to stay for the year but now I'm feeling a disconnect with things here. Though to be fair, I think anyone anywhere feels a disconnect at the end of the semester...finals worries, final papers, projects what have you...and preparing mentally to leave friends and go home for a month. It's complicated no matter what!!

OK...going to curl up in bed now and stay here all day. I have microwave mac and cheese which will be lunch...which requires walking all the way downstairs and over to the kitchen...then I'll do my work!!!