Blue Skies

Lugano weather has finally turned to autumn--and it's been beautiful! All week (well, except Monday, but no need to mention that) there's been glorious blue sky, sunshine, crisp air, and falling leaves. Looks like fall is finally coming around. Just in time for me to go to Sicily and back to the summer heat... But that's all right! It's nice not to show up totally drenched in sweat and rain by the time I get to class in the morning.

Sorry to have avoided posting the last few days; not too much of note has happened, so I thought I'd wait until I have more to say and consolidate it and make one super post! Let's see, what happened after I went grocery shopping on Monday, was it? Well, Tuesday wasn't too exciting, I'm rather sure, or else something would probably stick in my memory about it. Wednesday I went to yoga, which was excellent. There was lasagne for dinner that night. There were also a few kids whose parents apparently just got their first credit card bill sent home... Whoops for them.

Yesterday turned out better than expected. I went to the 8:30am yoga class, and I was one of two who showed up for it. Patrick, the Taiwanese yoga instructor visiting Natalie, was there in the place of Natalie. We were outside for it too, since it was so pretty; the cold air was nice too because I avoided getting too gross before Western Civ. It was nice to have only two of us, since he was able to help us a lot with the poses and whatnot. I think I'm actually getting better! Then there were classes, blah, blah, blah. I went back down the hill after English (I received that essay that I procrastinated forever on, and ended up finishing about 10 minutes before I had to go to class... B+... would've been an A with proofreading though. I was rather ashamed of turning it in, I will admit.) Okay, so I went back down the hill, and did some homework and whatnot until about 5:45 when I was heading up to dinner. There was a big group of people from Girasole heading up at the same time, and they were all heading to the auditorium for a lecture, so I decided to join them, and I was glad that I did. The lecture was interesting, although I wouldn't say anything especially awesome; but it was good. It was titled "The Devil Wears a Blue Helmet--Why UN Reform Cannot Wait" with the speaker being Edward Patrick Flaherty--he's an American lawyer who works in Geneva/Zurich. He was very pro-UN, and pro-UN reform. He brought up something really interesting points and ideas, so that was good. After that I had dinner with a few other girls from Girasole who were at the lecture, and we had Chicken Curry & RICE! Yes, I did get seconds of rice as a matter of fact. So that was all good...

Oh, how could I forget?! I hosted a Western Civ Midterm Study Session for the Writing Center on Wednesday. It was rather successful--Christina said she'd never had such a big turnout before (thanks to my promotion; so Student Council did teach me something!). Anyway, kids weren't so much as interested in studying as they were in being told how to study. Christina sort of put me on the spot by asking me to rattle off some random examples of identification questions; but I did it! And successfully too, thanks to an hour of studying prior to. They were impressed that I knew at least the basics about the Battle of Qadesh. Yes, I know, awesome party trick, right? Christina was happy with how it went anyway. So that was good.

Let's see... today not too much has happened so far. It's 2:06pm. I'm walking up to yoga with Katie and Margie at 3:45pm. It's with a different instructor, so that makes me a little bit nervous, but it should be good. I had German and Marketing this morning. And then I went to Writing Center and ran it for two hours on my own since Christina's out of town. No one came in for help; people have a tendency not to really bother with unnecessary classes & scholariness on Fridays. But that's all right, I finished my Marketing reading. Then I went and had Pegasius Fish for lunch... And walked back down the hill.

I still need to 1) buy my ticket for Munich and 2) figure out what to bake for the Residence Cup Baking Competition. It would be easy to figure out what to bake except that they don't have all the same ingredients here, as they do at home. Or not in the same forms. You know how it goes... I think I'm going to do some sort of cookie, since I entered myself in the "Dessert of Choice" category (rather than pie or cake). I want to do something both delicious and unusual/interesting, as there are points for creativity. Maybe I should just focus on very delicious? And I sort of want to do something with "Girasole" (our residence name, meaning sunflower); maybe butter cookies decorated? They're simple & good... I don't know! If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to contribute. I think I'm going to go shopping tomorrow morning.

On Munich: I think I'm going to go back to Lugano with everyone else from the Sicily trip, rather than flying out of Milan directly. The flight from Lugano to Munich is actually cheaper than Milan to Munich, and that way I can drop off my enormous suitcase and clean up a bit maybe. So I'm thinking I'll stay in Lugano for one night then fly out early in the morning to Munich? And I'm debating whether I should skip a couple of days of school to visit them, and I think the answer is yes. Family > School. And I don't know when I'll get the opportunity to visit again. So I think I might skip my Monday and Tuesday classes, then fly home on Tuesday. I haven't missed any classes yet, and I'm only planning on skipping classes one other day (for Barcelona). That way I can stay for five nights, and six rather full days. How does that sound?

In other news, to Baba specifically, I finished The Egyptian on Monday. And to Mehran, who I am quite sure never reads this, I started reading White Noise (by Don DeLillo). Sicily in only nine days! I've just four midterms standing between me and my travels... Oh and tomorrow night is International Food Night, which I'm way excited about, although a lot of people don't want to go for some crazy reason. I think I'm going to go with Margie (haven't mentioned her before, but she's from Orange County); she's excited about it too. Plus they're going to have Asian food, and Middle Eastern food, and TexMex food... Why would I want to go? I hope this weather stays just like this until we leave. I actually got to wear a sweater today! And my red hat from Oma... Okay, I've GOT to clean my room and organize myself a bit before yoga!

I miss you guys!

Smile, Ari :-)