This semester's ticking and trickling by, by and by.

It's amazing the capacity we have to make ourselves miserable, if we try. Lots of good things in my life present and future: good friends at Notre Dame, going to senior week at Tulane in a month, working in Switzerland at a camp this summer - all kinds of craziness. But I have special ways of torturing myself, making sure I'm not *too* happy. We want everything, sometimes. And all at once.

The family's good. Mi madre is married, and living in a swanky lake house with a snazzy new boat, working from home and finding her own ways to make herself miserable. My sister's writing, living at home and getting by. My eldest cousin is getting married and having a bebe! From what I can tell, my dad's life is the same. Married suburbia in Jacksonville, thumping the Bible and FoxNews.

I've found a little life for myself here. Dinners with friends, a weekly Grey's group, a few radicals to keep me from drowning in future MBAs. Took an awesome trip to DC earlier in the semester to protest the war. Getting by, as per yuzh. Making future plans and chilling with the roomie, who keeps my head above water when it gets rough. I hope I do the same.

The mountains were super cold. There was snow. It's beautiful back in Durham. Reading and "tanning" were had.

I loved the whole holidays thing, but I'm kind of relieved it's over. Entertaining people all the time or being in party mode gets old. I did get to wear lovely dresses and heels though.

Yesterday we went to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. I'm glad I went...but it's always difficult to deal with the fact that my lifestyle comes at the expense of so many other ways of life and at the expense of so many other people. I guess all you can do is live your life the best you can with what you've got, but I've always suffered from bourgeois guilt.

Yay, j'ai fini, shikenwa owarimashtayo! Tests = complete. Heck yes.

Of course...in the next eighteen hours (dix-huit heures, juuhachiji) I still have to finish a paper, do laundry, pack, sell back my books, and defrost my fridge. But it's manageable.

Grace a dieu, this semester is almost completely finished. By the way, the final I just finished...we were encouraged to write in Franglish, so I apologize - it hasn't quite worn off. Hopefully I didn't write any Japanese. I think Franglish is probably my favorite language ever. Especially for writing about literature - I've taken so many more literature classes in French than in English the past few years, but my French grammar is still bad so Franglish it is.

I'm going to the anti war protest in DC in January! So hyped. I've never done the march on Washington thing before. Anyone coming with me?

Sometimes I really wish Al Gore never claimed to invent the internet, because it marginalizes his work on global warming. Sort of like sometimes I wish Clinton kept his pants on more often. I don't know when I became so politically minded.

Every now and then, I realize (or it is brought to my attention) that I can't afford to go here and I'm pretty much fucked.

Here's to not finishing college, and fucking up! I wish I had alcohol right now. Or ten thousand dollars to pay the bills.

Now would probably be a bad time to stop doing my work and spend half the day in the gym, but it's really tempting.

I went to a Ben Folds concert last night, and it was a kind of lame experience cause I was working with the first aid team, so I had to be all serious. Boo. Note to self: rule out almost everything in life that requires being serious. It's bad for the soul. Plus, Ben Folds is kind of lame. As a person. It seemed. I shouldn't bag on anyone from NorCarolina though. It's a good place. Perhaps not the most musically inspiring.

I slept until 1PM today. It was beautiful.

It's going to take me a million years to learn to carry on a spontaneous conversation in Japanese. I can't wait to live in France. I can almost really speak French. Almost.

I'm waiting on an interview to do a fellowship/volunteer thing someplace far away. Like Thailand or India or Uganda. I'd really rather go to Turkey with Katie though.

I've decided I love Catholics but not Catholicism. I suppose loving an institution isn't necessary to my spiritual development. I can live with my distaste.

I forget how many of my friends here are Protestant. It's really easy to assume here that everyone's Catholic. I have this feeling being Protestant here would make you feel even more marginalized than being non-religious. Not because of the Catholic students of course. Just the system. I never realized how difficult required Catholic theology could be on other Christian faiths.

And the days roll on and on.

It's happening man. This is your life.

I love that there are so many places in the world I want to live. There are so many dreams still open.

I have a confession to make. I'm watching the Tyra Banks show.

Oh my gosh - high for tomorrow - 66 degrees! It hasn't broken 55 in recent memory. And it's supposed to be sunny!!!!

This is very good news. Maybe we can have class outside.

What an odd weekend this has been. I've actually been getting to the gym, which has been AMAZING. I love endorphins and sore muscles. Last night I was going to see You, Me and Dupree on campus, but instead I went out for pizza with Jennie, Rachel, Camille, etc. Jennie's been having some boyfriend issues, so after a few glasses of wine...she got rather upset. So I just ended up reading in our room trying to make sure she was OK, although it was one of those what-can-you-do situations.

I've been spending way too much time in our room, so I decided to take my laptop and some work and camp out at one of the student study lounges, but it was reserved for some lame retreat, so I moved the plans to Reckers, a food/lounge place instead.

I still need to change all my clocks.

Oh, and can I just say how LAME that Grey's Anatomy was not new this week with no warning. At least LOST was good. I hope Desperate Housewives is new tonight...

This week has been pretty sweet because I've had so little work (and the little that I've had, I've been getting done). Plus the fun thing about weather change is a different wardrobe than your usual, so all your old clothes from last winter have an initial appeal because you haven't worn them in months and months. And you can buy new clothes! (Theoretically.)

I'm stoked about next semester. I'm only taking 14 credits and 4 classes. One of them will be super easy - intro level theology - though probably boring. History shouldn't be too bad - I think I'll take Ancient Japan. It's crosslisted as an anthro class, plus it's related to Japanese, so it seems applicable. I was considering taking one about French history, but when you've taken French history classes in French, taking them in English seems awfully boring and repetitive. Next semester of Japanese, with the same awesome professor. And an anthropology class with my favorite professor from this semester. Plus my earliest class would be 10something :).

Graduating in May instead of December is a beautiful thing.