Thursday, September 19, 2013

The Proof of the Skittles

Sometimes things happen so fast that I doubt they happened at all.

For example, my 12-hour roommate.

I got back to Provo at about eight or nine in the night. My new roommate was cheerily unpacking her belongings, moving in. Said hi. I went to sleep pretty early. And then I left at eight or nine in the morning and she was asleep in the other bed in my--our--room. When I came home at four in the afternoon, she and all of her belongings had evaporated. I was so shocked that I went and found my other roommate and asked if I hadn't had an extremely vivid dream or something.

But no, my other roommate had seen her (but hadn't witnessed her exit), and there were marks in the carpet where her boxes had been, and that was it.

I have not heard or seen her since. Some pretty good theories I have:

  • aliens
  • witness protection program
  • kidnappers who also wanted to stock a college apartment
  • she was a ghost the whole time
And then there have been these tiny, explosive[ly powerful] thunderstorms. Maybe it has to do with the ghost theory--can ghosts influence weather? Is ghost-roommate mad that I put bedding on her bed? The storms have at least given us something to talk about in Russian, because a good part of the unit we just finished consisted of complaining about the weather.

When I got hailed on the other day, I thought, Yes! Now I have something to write about on my Russian exam tomorrow! All the thunder, lightning, hail, and rain had started and finished in ten minutes of fierce downpour. The hail was quickly melting into the ground, but I wanted to keep a  dime-sized bead of hail because... of reasons? Hail is cool. In the ten hot, sunny minutes after the storm, the hail completely disappeared from my jacket pocket, much like my erstwhile roommate. Well, she wasn't in my pocket. But you know. 

But I have proof of that storm. Sticky, sticky proof. The rain liquified a cache of skittles in the front pocket of my backpack and it coated everything in the vicinity. I've been wiping the stickiness off of way too many of my belongings the past few days. Most are salvageable. One pen, encrusted in blue sugar substance, no longer writes, but at least it was a cheap pen.



Thursday, September 5, 2013

Us into Temptation

I can already tell that Russian choir is going to be interesting. The conductor? instructor? in-charge-guy? doesn't speak Russian. Rather, he speaks music. Which is useful, but also today we were singing the Lord's Prayer and we kept repeating the same line over and over. Not that he knew it, but we were singing "us into temptation, us into temptation, us into temptation, us into temptation." Somewhat  sketchier/darker than the intent of the Lord's Prayer, I feel like.

Also, I love teaching. I've only taught two classes so far (as a TA) but I am in love. I can't wait for next week when I get to incorporate Star Trek: The Next Generation into the lesson. (We use some episodes as examples of bioethical dilemmas and ethical schools of thought. It's wonderful.)

And I'm learning tango. Aaaah it's so great. What else? Oh yeah, campus is SO CROWDED compared to the summer. I kind of forgot how it was. You can tell who attended summer term because they mutter things like "we need a plague" as they shove through crowds walking between classes. Not that I would ever say something awful like that. :)