what a week.

Monday night, Carolyn and her friend Aubrie got here. They were to be staying in my dorm until Friday morning. I didn't get to hang out with them much, though, because I had school and work and reading and things to do. At about 7:30, they decided that they wanted to go DC for the inauguration.

After about an hour and a half of trying, they were able to find a way there, along with many of the good people of Manhattan... by taking a bus to Baltimore and then... figuring it out from there. They then took off, about 3 hours after they had arrived. This decision of theirs brought it to my attention that I am not very spontaneous. Had I wanted to go to the inauguration, I would have looked into the great student packages they were offering and figured out exactly how I would make that happen... at least two weeks in advance.

So fine, I'm not spontaneous and they are. They do things like go on buses all night to go to DC for Obama and I do things like go to class. I'm boring. I get it.

Classes were good, though. After now having had two of Pat C. Hoy II's writing classes, I can assert with great confidence that most of the people in the class are better at this stuff than I am and are very smart. Ironically, the class this semester is about reviewing films. Why is this ironic? Last semester, the class that made me want to slit my wrists on a regular basis was the basic film class I took for a core requirement. Fuck.

This will be different, though. There are two final essays that the class builds up to, one being about film. The other one can be about a book. Thank goodness. I chose When Harry Met Sally to review for my essay. Obviously. Our first assignment relating to that (and not to the reading we also have to do) was pretty cool. We had to pick the "two most vexing scenes" in the movie and write a paragraph about why we find them vexing.

Treatment of Child and Adolescent Mental Illness looks like it will be good, too, and with Chadly and Jenna, I think it will definitely be a good one.

Cognition looks hard, and it's a huuuuuuge class crammed into a lecture hall with barely any extra seats. I know only one person in it, and I don't sit with him (so far). I make myself pay attention. Lots of note-taking.

And ASL 4 is a huge class, too. For a sign language class, that is. But it's been fun. The first two days were good. I am a little scared of its kicking my ass, but let's be realistic. All of these classes are going to kick my ass in one way or another.

I start babysitting for Christopher next Thursday. Yesterday I went over and Estera showed me the places they like to go when they go out. The three of us went to this cool fish store that has this really intimidating and fucking crazy parrot, to a pizza parlor, to a park, and to Baskin Robbins. I guess there's another park they prefer to go to, but in the winter they close at 4... and Chris doesn't get home until like 3:45 anyway, so that sucks. And they like to take a train to go to Barnes & Noble, but we didn't do that.

In an hour, I am going to meet my first mentee (if that's what they are even called) Wendela. I get fingerprinted on Wednesday and get my PPD on Friday. After all the paperwork stuff is done, I hope to start working with that ASAP.

Tonight tonight we are going out and I am so exciteddddd. The only people missing are Rachel, Abeer, Amy, and Sam. This whole study abroad thing is a bummerrrrr.