An Update

So, I finally got to spend a weekend in Oxford last weekend. It was nice. It was especially nice to not have to run around, drive for hours, and sleep on a couch or floor, but Oxford itself was wonderful too. Alydia and I went out to "The Park", which is pretty much the coolest park I've ever been to. I'm in love with it. We had been there a couple times a year ago (aka, last time I was in Oxford), but she wasn't big enough to explore a lot of the park, so this time was even more exciting. She learned to slide down the fire pole by herself and did that continuously for about half an hour. No joke.
This weekend I also cleaned the entire downstairs of my house, attended several invisible-tea parties, and participated in a dance marathon. Pretty successful weekend overall. And at the end of the day Sunday I wrote my linguistics paper. 'Twas exciting.

There's still no internet at my house, though that should get fixed this week. It's been frustrating with regard to assignments, but also good because I can't get lost on websites for forever. Still, the time has come for internet so that I can get things accomplished for my thesis. I've hit a few roadbumps already, like finding newspaper archives for 1984-2007. No one has them. They're not even in the library of congress. It's depressing. Still working on a solution to this problem.

So, I've been reading. And I've been reading non-school books. And I would like to announce that I read twelve whole non-school books in 12 months. It's pretty exciting. Yes, the last one was totally a guilty pleasure book that took all of three days to read, but still...

I've been talking a lot about various books recently. I'm taking an Astronomy class (to graduate!), and during lab, which is all honors students, we talk a lot about books because most of them are freshmen and taking the freshman honors english classes. We don't always agree, but there are a few books I've been convinced to try. One guy was particularly adamant about how wonderful C.S. Lewis is (and no, it wasn't David), so The Great Divorce is on my list of future reads. I, on the other hand, convinced people that they really didn't need to read Anna Karenina. It just wasn't necessary. And yes, I do generally like Russian literature. Just not that one. I'm also personally getting worn out on Holocaust literature and coming-of-age-in-the-south-as-a-black-woman stories. Subjects that require such an emotional investment are ones I can only handle in small-to-medium size dosages.
That being said, I am making up a reading interest list, so if you know of a book you'd recommend, let me know.

I've been having cooking withdrawls, so this week I'm finally going to get measuring spoons so that I can make fun things and make them correctly, instead of just guessing what 1 1/2 teaspoons looks like. It works for some things. Baking powder is not one of them. Lesson learned.
Mainly, I'm interested in making bread products. Bread here just doesn't taste as good to me, and since it's possible for me to make my own bread, and since I tend to eat a decent amount of bread, the goal is to make most of it myself. The colder weather settling in also makes cooking more appealing. Making a hot meal at the end of a hot day just isn't as much fun as making a hot meal as the day is getting cold. Pasta, especially, is about to make a huge comeback in my life.

The weeks have been flying by, and each Tuesday I'm ready for the week to be over. Tuesdays and I have never gotten along. Fortunately, by Thursday things usually look alright. Thursdays are my favorite days by default.

Friday is the day I'm shooting for this week, though, because there's a 99% chance I'll be seeing David on Friday, which pretty much makes my week already. I thought that being gone for a year would make two weeks seem like nothing... not the case. It's still hard. But the two weeks is almost up, so there's that. And that's exciting.

That's about all I have energy for right now, and it's probably all you guys have energy to read.

Next time? A surprise.