Random Conversations

9/10/12

So, the last two days here on the Hill have been rather nice. They have been slower days, a lot of getting my readings done so that I would have time to hang out with my friends later on in the week, but that is not too bad. The main reason I have so much work is that this weekend, Lisa, Phil, and I are all going to Phil’s house to ride horses and spend time together as well as to visit my lovely kitten Kaie. I will be really glad to see her because my pets are probably the one thing I miss a lot when I am away at school. At my house, I have three cats – Gremlyn, Jasper, and Brie and I love them all very much. I keep pictures of them on my wall in my room so that even if they are not at school with me I can always see them. At Phil’s house, I also have several pets – Kaie who Phil and I rescued this summer, 2 horses (Phoebe and Resica), and two wonderfully goofy dogs – Rafi and Dylan. I have to say though, writing this makes me miss my pets very much, so I am glad to be getting to see at least half of them this weekend when we all go to Phil’s house. Plus, one great thing about this campus is we have a Puppy Club, well actually it is Canine Companions for Independence group, but a lot of people call it that. So, if I miss my pets too much, I can go find Hudson, an adorable black lab, and give him lots of attention. Also, people walk their dogs here all the time so it is actually pretty easy to find a pet to give love and attention.

Also, just a bit of a side note, as I am writing this blog, I am sitting in Ensor Lounge in Decker Center. Someone is playing the piano quite well, and it’s really rather nice sitting here, listening to the piano, and working on my blog and the abstract I have due Wednesday. I like working in Ensor because the windows are huge and you can get a lot of natural light, plus there are people in here playing music quite frequently. The guy playing on the piano is playing something very upbeat and bouncy; it is rather interesting background music for an abstract about the Arab Spring and the change in public opinion. Another place I really like to work is the balcony off of Academic Hall, because the view is really pretty especially as it approaches dusk and it is usually very quiet.

There were definitely some interesting points on Sunday, it is always fun trying to spend a day being productive and seeing what you get up to in avoidance of homework. For instance, I work in the language lab on Sunday nights and meant to get more homework done after the fact, but instead I got in a delightfully awkward conversation that ended in a poke war late at night. So basically, I did not get anywhere near enough sleep before my 9:10 class, but I had a lot of fun. Plus, over dinner a bunch of us got into a conversation about some of our favorite shows and it is fun to see who likes to watch what and find out what they like about it. Plus, it is a good way to find new shows to kill some of the spare time I have (which granted is not much). It was also really pretty outside on Sunday, so we spent a bit of  time in the afternoon working outside on various assignments. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the view of the clouds from the grass by my apartment was quite lovely. It was a really nice way to work on homework and still enjoy a pretty afternoon. Today the weather was more cool, and I absolutely loved it. It finally felt like fall, although it will probably get warm again by the end of the week.

Today, I had all of my classes, which went well. This afternoon, I had a bunch of errands to do – running payroll information to Thompson, picking up a shirt for one of my jobs, picking up my last textbook that finally arrived in the mail, and such. This evening, I had conversational hours – this is a requirement for the language houses where basically you sit around and talk in the language in question. The conversational hour tonight was in Glar, which was a nice change from our usual location around the kitchen table. It was admittedly a lot more distracting being in Glar though. Nevertheless, it was fun and I always enjoy conversational hours – in our conversational hours on Friday we played Scrabble in Arabic. It was really difficult but it was also a lot of fun. The conversational hours are a good chance to ask the house moderator, who is from Palestine, questions about words or simply practice speaking and understanding Arabic. I really enjoy my Arabic classes and learning the language overall.