Saturday, October 4, 2008

So a little bird told me...

. . .a couple of times that people miss reading my blog. Alas, sorry to leave you hanging! I thought my trip was over, so perhaps I had nothing interesting to write about.

But I do need a way to feel productive, to procrastinate, and I will certainly have some silly stories to share. My life at school is, if possible, more full of silliness and Questionmark Moments than my travels because I seem to attract the best and craziest people into my life, and keep them around somehow.

So what's new with me? Back at school, five weeks in, feeling remarkably unproductive. It's really hard to get motivated on writing a paper that's due in more than six months, even if said paper needs to be between sixty and a hundred pages. But I do have a topic, and a thesis committee, and other friends who are feeling just as unmotivated as I am. Some of them more unmotivated, I suspect.

My topic is going to be the Fox in Russian Folklore. The other day I decided that if I stick with this topic I may attempt to weasel the title in as: "The Fox in Russian Folklore: The Many Tails of Lisa Ivanovna". See what I did there? The pun, do you get it? How does it make you feel? Lisa Ivanovna is frequently the name of the folkloric fox character, who is the trickster in the Russian animal family. I had a dream the other night that I was walking through the woods, spotted a fox, and we started to play. She play-nibbled my fingers, and I threw a piece of food for her to go and find, and she came back to me and we cavorted. I'm hoping that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and that it means I have her blessings and guidance, in the form of nibbles at my fingers to get me typing. Perhaps it means that she wants to chew my fingers off, and I'm reading too much into it.

And the most recent silly adventure was last night. I fell asleep around 1, I suspect. I woke up (around 2, I later discovered) to murmuring from the bathroom, and for some reason this murmuring made me immediately think it was Christmas. Being sleepy + stealthy voices in the night = Christmas. Not that my Mum and Papa ever have cause to do such things on Christmas eve, it clearly is the fault of the reindeer. Sneaks. So I got up to see what the murmurings were about, once I realized I would still get my presents Christmas morning if I did so. Alas, Karen was feeling unwell, and was searching for Nyquil or some other suitable cough reliever. I searched, and we found some stuff, and then Baby Chicken Katie made an alarming discovery of a "BIG BUG". And so all four of us were all a-scurry. And I put on my clogs and went after it into the outer hallway. And the Katies followed me, and we locked ourselves out. And just as my Death Clog hovered over this disgusting thing, Baby Chicken Katie (henceforth BCK) said "Don't KILL IT!" And I sighed, and we mentioned that such infestations were unacceptable in a place of residence. Karen let Katie back in to ask her gentleman if he would care to get the bug for us. And he hates bugs too, so she came back out and we got locked out again. And we still weren't allowed to kill it. Karen let us in again, and Katie got a cup. And we said "JUST A CUP? YOU NEED A SCOOPER." Clearly some of us were raised differently. And so Karen got a piece of paper that didn't provide enough non-touching of the bug, so I got the sawed off top of a shoe box that suited our purposes far better. And Katie went bravely after this Thing. And it climbed up the wall. And there was lots of maneuvering. And then the Thing fell off the wall, and Katies screamed (I think I said "Whoa!" which is much more dignified?), and Katie leapt backwards and BCK leapt backwards into me, and I staggered into the wall, like a sleepy thing without glasses. And then the bug ran, terrified into the stairwell. And then Katie went after it, and was looking in at us through the window for a minute before we realized that she HAD IT IN HAND and needed us to open the door. And Katies scurried down the hall to the other stairwell to deposit the Thing in the woods.

And then we ate some pretzels in the bathroom to calm our nerves.

I know, you're jealous. You wish you lived in a circus, too. I wish you would write my thesis for me. Want to trade?

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