What color are their hands now?

I survived the last of finals and work, packed everything I owned and finally got home again. (Insert huge sigh of relief here) I even managed to get my best grades ever this semester. Now I'm in a bit of a holding pattern until I leave for the big "study abroad adventure". So far during this waiting period I've visited Cedar Point, Baltimore, and Colonial Williamsburg. I've also gotten to see several friends from school and home, though I have big plans to see many more before I take off again.

I should probably disclose, probably should have disclosed a while ago, that I broke my resolution. I said I wasn't going to get involved with a guy for 2 years. I made it 9 months. While the timing wasn't what I'd planned, a guy got into my heart. He's amazing and, I'll admit it, I'm smitten. So, for all of you who didn't already know, now you do.

For everyone out there who aspires to be juvenile delinquents, I have a recommendation for you: packing peanuts. Think of someone you really hate, then take tons of styrofoam packing peanuts and scatter them throughout the person's lawn. This happened to my family this week, and it was a huge pain. These non-biodegradeable objects must be picked up before the lawn can be mowed and are INCREDIBLY irritating. And if I ever find out who did this to my family, I'm going to put limburgher in their exhaust manifold. Oh, SHNAP.

I have no terribly exciting stories to tell, I've been mostly spending time with my family, reading, and relaxing over break so far. Should anything terribly exciting come up, I'll blog about it immediately. And by immediately, I mean sometime between now and the time I leave for South Africa.

T-Shirts and Transitions

I put on my Sociology T-Shirt this morning, only to discover that it had the words "Question Your World" on the back. I was pleased... I hadn't even noticed that there WERE words on the back when I bought it, much less an amazing, stimulating message. So then I got to thinking what a T-Shirt for Interdisciplinary Studies (which doesn't actually exist) would have on the back. I came up with these suggestions:
"I don't understand it either"
"Translation: Indecision Studies"
"Who Says You Can't Have It All?"
"Categorize THAT!"
"Future Owner of a Van Down By the River"
"Knowledge Without Limits"
"Think Outside the Curriculum"
"Wait, I have to get a job after this?"

My last two weeks have been completely shrouded in unreality and I just realized at 4:00 today that the school year is totally over tomorrow. I had been so focused on papers and finals and stuff that I totally missed the coming of the end of school. Even the arrival of finals week didn't snap me out of my reverie. Tomorrow, way before I'm ready, all of my friends who haven't already bid me adeiu will be departing, not to be seen again for 8 months. It's bizarre coming to grips with that sort of separation. In three months nearly all of them will be back, but I won't be here with them. Then I'll return in January for a sort of strange half-life before leaving permanently for seminary.

Dashing Toward Sleep

I can't wait to go to sleep tonight. There's just something about the idea of collapsing under my covers and sleeping for a significant amount of time that has me on the verge of drooling. I've been writing papers like mad for the last three days, which has left me with only 10 hours of sleep in the last 72 hours. It's not my favorite condition, but it does give me terrifically random thoughts to impart to you.

-Some words should always be mispronounced for the sheer hilarity it produces. Take, for example, the word analysis. This word is pronounced "aNALysis" in the general public. I propose that we instead enunciate it, "ANalYsis." (I wish I could use the pronunciation symbols, but my powers are limited). Other words to try: emPHASis, fumBLE (pronouced fumBLIE) and, DISturBANCE.

-Instead of the automated bucking broncos at fairs and country-style bars and such, I think we should have huge automated buckign squirrels. If you've ever watched a squirrel run, you'll get what I mean. They do this crazy back-arching thing that would make it really hard to hang on.

-I've always said that of all the animals in the animal kingdom, I want to be a sloth. However, if I were a sloth, I couldn't write this blog b/c I'd only have two or three fingers and no opposable thumbs. And then you wouldn't have this to read. Come to think of it, maybe it would be a good idea to be a sloth...

-Maybe storms aren't so bad after all...

-Africa is very large and very, VERY far away.

-Two of my friends' moms DO go to college.

-Bureaucracy is a torture device invented by someone with OCD, enhanced by computer nerds, then forced on the rest of humanity.

-I'm less likely to fall asleep in class when I'm running on 3 or 12 hours of sleep than I am when I've gotten 7 hours of sleep. Somewhere between 3 and 12 is my problem.

-A thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters would still have to learn to type and not to eat the typerwiter ribbon.

-10 more days of this insanity and I can go HOME!

Cheeseball? ME?!

I don't really have time today to write a long, coherent post. And besides, writing is not all that appealing to me when I'm in the middle of a 4-paper rush. So, dashing:

-There are only 3 more days of classes left, and I couldn't be more pumped. I'm buried in the writing process for 4 papers, but in 3 days they'll be done, and only four finals will stand between me and break. YAY!

-That said, I'm a bit sad to be departing from school for 8 months. It will be so strange to come back having missed a semester. I'm sad that I won't see my friends from FARC and Wesley and school in general again until December or January. It'll be surreal walking back into my life here after being gone for 8 months. We shall see how that goes.

-I am going to South Africa. I'm going to South Africa. It doesn't quite seem tangible yet, but it gets more real every time I say it, so I just walk around repeating it to myself. I discovered at a meeting the other day that I'm the only student from my 26,000-student school that will be in the country of South Africa when I'm there. On the other hand, I'll be living and traveling with other international students in my program and I actually met someone who used the same program to study in South Africa, so I'm going to get some guidance from her. It'll be nice not to be completely in the dark.

-I need a job that doesn't require me to blacken things on 300 sheets of paper with a Sharpie, I can't afford to lose the brain cells. I think someone just floated past the desk... this can't be good!

-A quick note on the amazing people in my life: The Wombat (who has a name that will not be uttered here) arranged to surprise me with two of my friends from home coming to visit this weekend. One flew out for the weekend, the other drove five hours each way to visit overnight during her finals week. I'm blown away by how cool and kind all three of them are. I'm blessed to have such wonderful people in my life!

-I finally understand why my high school physics teacher called graduation the g-word and tried to avoid it. I realized that a lot of people from school who've had large effects on my life here are graduating now/soon. People who have been examples for me like Mel and Sara are graduating. Friends and confidantes like Chaz and Caleb are taking off. Then the folks that I thought would be around until I graduate are getting out of here early, like Andy and Jenny. It's terribly sad to know that I'll come back to a campus that's missing a bunch of the really cool people who made me love it so much! Then, the most frightening prospect of all, I'm going to graduate and go to graduate school far away, leaving a bunch of people that I care about behind here or going in opposite directions to pursue their futures. For all of you who are graduating, congratulations. But you'd better keep in touch or I might have to find you and superglue phones in your hands so I can reach you!

-I'm not a cheeseball. I have merely decided that boys might not be ALL bad. And maybe one in particular is very not bad. More details on that in another post

-A couple of people have requested song selections and/or soundtracks for me, and I'm in a slight conundrum as to which songs are the most important to include on my list. Any suggestions?

Well, back to killin brain cells. Oooh, green sorority girls flying past the desk...