Finals Week:
Nightmarish. Seriously the worst finals week I've ever had, in the sense that it was so stressful and demanding. In addition, I was still trying to get 30+ hours of work in (unsuccessful), because I was going to be spending the next week and a half NOT working, and probably spending 100s of dollars.
My Chinese exam tortured me all of Dead Week, and I even managed to prolong the agony by taking it with a later section, giving myself more time to study. In the end, I think I pulled off a C, but it wasn't pretty. I always give up during the last sections of the Chinese exams, because it is a free-write, where you create your own dialogue using specific grammar structures and vocabulary words. Not horrible, right? The frustrating part is that the vocabulary words you're required to use don't tie together at all. For example, "apartment," "internship," "neighborhood," "sports game," "plane ticket," "dangerous," and at least 6-7 others. How am I supposed to create a brief dialogue involving all of these things, especially with only 3 (oh wait, technically 2 because I skipped a class) semesters of Chinese under my belt?
I know I barely slept that entire week. No, that's not true - I actually slept through one of my water aerobics classes, which Karen was fortunately able to substitute in on at the last minute. I drove up anyway and apologized to everyone, explaining how late I'd been up finishing a research paper, and I brought Karen an enormous coffee. My place of work is awesome, so everyone was more concerned for me, than they were about the fact that I overslept for my shift. That's what 2.5 years of relationship-building within a community gets you.
Weekend in Seattle:
After some hubbub and musical chairs, so to speak, with our ride situation, Laura and Marie (the Danes) eventually made it to Seattle Friday evening. It ended up being perfect, because Lukas (with whom I was staying) lives right in Belltown, and the girls' hostel was literally 1 block away from his apartment. I had envisioned us having to take a bus to get together every day or something, so this was a very pleasant surprise. Enjoying the downtown location, we walked all over the city. Experiencing Seattle this way gave me a much better impression of it than I've ever had before. In the past, I've always felt terribly rushed or stressed while attempting to navigate the downtown. This time, it was simple and lovely. I got all of my Christmas shopping done, and then some.
Only one bit of disappointment was when we went out on Capitol Hill (which is more or less the gay part of town.. not to suggest that the rest of Seattle isn't gay). I had been looking forward to this for a while, but when we got there, the bars were packed with straight people. I don't like to discriminate, but hello! If I wanted to go to an expensive bar and dance with straight people, I could've stayed in Pullman. I hardly ever get the opportunity to get out amongst the gays (especially away from the close-knit Moscow-Pullman nest) and here all of these straight people are taking over the gay bars. Feeling 3 sheets to the wind, I confronted some girls about it.
Ky: "Are you guys straight? What is with all of the heteros here? There are no gay people!"
Girl 1: "You're just in the wrong area."
Ky: "Wait, I'm in the wrong area?! We're in a gay bar."
Girl 2: "Look, there's a gay guy over there!"
Ky: "...That guy is definitely on ecstacy."
Oh well, I needed to stop being so whiny. I had an incredible weekend with friends there. The Danes all flew out before me, and it was so hard to let them go. We became so close, and it is difficult to find real best friends, so I'm going to miss them a lot spring semester. Plus, it was super convenient to be able to discuss things in Danish without other people knowing. It's like a private language.
Palm Springs/La Quinta:
Landed in Palm Springs to my bonita mamasita waiting for me. I had not seen her since July. I think I may have developed allergies to the desert, because I've been having cold-like symptoms, but they literally began the moment I stepped off the plane, and they worsen when I'm outdoors. After how much of my life I've spent living in the desert, I'm not sure how this could be possible, but it is the only explanation I can muster.
Anyway, it's been a nice time down here so far. Pictures to come, hopefully, but I won't promise anything, since I still haven't updated with the farmhouse ones I took. My parents' house is gorgeous! I had high expectations from the pictures I'd seen, and they were vastly exceeded. Been to a number of cocktail parties since arrival, explored the mountains behind the house with Mom & Grace, and looking forward to hot tubbing under the stars tonight.
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