No Carnival

Oh I love the airport.  I really do.  Where I'm sitting, I have a perfect view of the airplanes taking off 100 yards away, and beyond that, I can see the close horizon and the clouds settling on the edges of my view.  It's beautiful.  My flight isn't for another hour and a half and I've been here for two hours.  I came with my neighbor, Nathan, whose flight is departing right now... I could have come on a later bus, but I am so ready to be going home and I like airports, so I figured I might as well just have some chill time here instead of staying at school where I would just be restless.  

My roommate had these two fish that she brought to our room after winter break... Well, they both died this week.  It was pretty sad.  I've never seen anyone care about fish as much as she did.  She named them Finnigan and Gilligan, which are about the cutest fish names I have ever heard.  We called them Fin and Gill.  Hopefully there will be more fish in our future.  

Housing for next year is starting to come into everyone's radar.  I am going to live with Danielle, whom I adore, and we're going to try to get a room with our other really good friends, Lauren and Casey.  But there are so many pressures and options for where to live and how to do all of it... it's kind of a mess.  I think that what it brings up for me is the idea of how much will change, which reminds me how much I will lose and gain by whatever new situation I am in.  It's prenostalgia, you know?  I know I will feel nostalgic about this year, I have had so many important experiences.  

I'm seeing my last view of this city's beautiful rainscape before I leave for a week.  It's stunningly beautiful.  I'm hoping to land tonight in time for the sunset.  

I think I could have made it through this semester without going home, but I'm glad that I get to.  I know I couldn't have made it last semester.  This semester I just have so much of a better grip on things.  Myself, my life, my reactions, etc etc.  It's something I can really pride myself on.  I have been bringing so much more presence of mind to all of my actions and as such I've been able to really analyse my reactions to things that come my way.  I think it's not the same as internalising in such a way where negative reactions can very easily become self-directed, but it's internalising the reaction so as to allow it to dissipate.  It feels very mature, but maybe it's just how most people do things and I'm catching up.  

Earlier this week, I went to the Dean's list dessert, which was basically just the school offering us cake in congratulations for our success.  It was pretty sweet.  The cake was fine, but the dean was actually there and my friend Jared is really set on getting Arabic at the school, which is something I really believe in even though it won't directly benefit me.  Anyway, we asked to talk to him, expecting him to not really be all that interested, but he came and sat with us where we'd been sitting on the floor and ate cake with us and listened to us talk to him about why we think Arabic would seriously benefit the school and the students.  He really listened, too. He took out a little pocket notebook and took notes and took down all of our email addresses.  It was fantastic.  Every time I start to think that this school could be kind of average, something happens to remind me that it really isn't.  The kind of faculty and students that it attracts are quality, for sure.  

This was in the BBC this week: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7951838.stm

In the style of Lauren, who did this in the style of High Fidelity, I made a list of the top five careers I would love to have.  So, in no particular order, here they are:

1.  An international lawyer, or judge.

2. I don't know what to call it, but working as linguist and international affairs or international law expert for an NGO 

3. Working in some capacity with the UN (if the UN gets their act together sometime soon)

4. Grant allocation specialist for an organization like the Gates Foundation

5. Revolutionary.