Olaf Olaf - whence springs the butterfly? from snow?

Hello folksies,

I'm back at Olaf now, what a treat, what a terror! Life is good. Since I am among the living again, I haven't been spending nearly as much time on teh internets, which is good for me and bad for this blog. I'm not sure if I will maintain this little binary corner of mine, but I suspect I shall, as another way to express and communicate the wild ride that will be my last semester of undergrad and the leap into the great beyond after that... And perhaps I will write in run-on sentences all the time. Just brainstorming here!

But I wanted to say one little comment that has occurred to me tonight as I read back over some of these posts - I can hardly remember writing them! Time moves and moves me and pushes old memories off the wagon in my brain! That's a good sign to me, a sign that I AM indeed "among the living" since I'm not stuck grinding the same gears I ground in Budapest. But it also means I am doubly grateful for having created this blog in the first place - not only as a place to vent, but a place to seal my memories for later consumption. Maybe a little like dandelion wine (ha! Ray Bradbury reference!).

At any rate, J-term has been a blast, both of fun, and of cold wind. GOOD GRACIOUS I FORGOT HOW FRAKKING COLD IT GETS IN THIS STATE. Holy mackerel. I have learned a lot re: history and humanity, and that is always good. I have also been exercising - exercising the core "forgive myself" muscles, and those "ask for help" latissimi dorsi (seriously, that's how you spell the plural). And I must say, I'm excited for the coming semester. I'm at a great point in my life when I've realized that I do need help with a lot of things I formerly thought I could handle by default, and now I have opportunity to reorganize and sort of mentally hit 'refresh' in terms of my academic focus. Of course when things heat up a bit and the stress comes out with guns a-blazin' it will be difficult, but I am learning to really deal in healthy ways and these are lessons that can only help me. Hooray! Go life!

Two other things to mention (for my later consumption, if nothing else...):
- Scholastic book orders!!! Today at lunch Claire brought up one of my most favorite things from all of elementary school. Did anyone else just LIVE for Scholastic book orders? And the BOOK FAIR! OH MY GOODNESS. Just thinking about it makes me a little high - with joy.
- My olde neighbor Budapesten Elara came to visit Olaf today. AWESOME. I miss her a lot. I miss ye olde roommate Fai a lot. I miss awesome Star Trek buddy Arolyn a lot. I miss Budapest a lot. Not enough to go back right now - I'm barely just getting reacquainted with life here! - but a lot.

Now, I must return to reading! A Holocaust survivor is visiting our class tomorrow and I want to be all kinds of prepared, at least as far as that is possible. We are SO fortunate that she is coming to speak with us.
Seriously, this class is Nagyon Nagyon Jo'.

Love,
Me