Summer Reading List & Reviews

Whittaker Chambers by Sam Tanenhaus

It took me a while to get through this biography because I had to learn a lot about the Soviet Union and communist theory as I went along (it is also 500+ pages long). Whittaker Chambers' journey from the communist underground to defection gave me some much-needed insight into the minds of the multitude of people I have been around through my four years at an American university. Tanenhaus quotes Chambers' explanation of the appeal toward communism in his generation that I think can be easily transferred to my own generation today, "Marxism-Leninism offers an oversimplified explanation of the causes and a program for action. The very vigor of the project particularly appeals to the more or less sheltered middle-class intellectuals, who feel that the whole context of their lives has kept them away from the world of reality....They feel a very natural concern, one might almost say a Christian concern, for underprivileged people. They feel a great intellectual concern, at least, for recurring economic crises, the problem of war, which in our lifetime has assumed an atrocious proportion, and which always weights on them. What shall I do? At that crossroads the evil thing, Communism, lies in waiting" (pg.274). Chambers was a genius man and lived an interesting life, to say the least. His autobiography, Witness, is next on my reading list.


Selected Stories by Andre Dubus

Fiction of this kind is usually the last thing that I would choose, but after reading a few of these stories for a class this spring, I thought the author was well connected to the issues that I face at this particular time in my life. What caught my attention was Dubus' ability to capture a feeling so personally and realistically. He draws much of his inspiration from his own life, being taught by the Christian Brothers. One passage that was particularly expressive to me was, "For ritual allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to preform the spiritual, as dancing allows the tongue-tied man a ceremony of love" (A Father's Story pg. 461). After reading on through a few more stories, I started becoming uncomfortable with some of the emotions that he portrayed, feeling at first like they simply hit too close to home, but after a while realizing that the characters' lives were bordering on bizarre and depressing. I had to stop reading at least two of the stories part way through because of the blatant eroticism and twisted relationships. I am not completely turned off to his writing but not sure yet if I will dive into it again any time soon.


The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I have been piecing together a complete and detailed review of this book to add to the bajillion of them already out there and then decided that it was not worth my energy, a waste of nerve impulses. An intellectual analysis of this book is not possible because it is overshadowed by poor writing exemplified through forced dialogue and adolescent suspense. My favorite criticism is how every seemingly dead-end was resolved by the character having an unexpected epiphany. It was a near complete waste of my time.


The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

I actually only made it through the first section of the first volume of this masterpiece because I had to return in to the library. It is long and intense and I did not want to miss one beat of what Solzhenitsyn is trying to relay. It amazes me how he can even begin to give explanations for the atrocities that occurred in the Soviet Union throughout much of the 20th century and that these explanations make any sense at all when most of what occurred was utterly senseless. I have only just begun digging into the work, but I already feel as though I have a better understanding of the chronology of events that brought the Soviet Union through its toughest times as well as eye-opening insight into human intellect and behavior.


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

I felt almost the same excitement and emotion as I did reading The Chronicles of Narnia. It is a light-hearted adventure through childhood imagination but you still get a sense for the wisdom that comes with old age and experience. I can't wait to make it through the whole series.


Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

I have heard my share of opinions on Chris McCandless from Alaskans and wanted to judge for myself what this guy was all about. Admittedly, Jon Krakauer delivers his own suggestions of the content of McCandless' character but I still feel like I was left to make my own opinion. I am glad that I read his story and can gather that many people around here with strong opinions about Chris McCandless have most likely not bothered to do the same. The book was really more than an attempt to follow and understand what lead to the death of this young man. Krakauer draws parallels between the turmoil of McCandless' youth and his own quest for discovery that is evident in each one of us to one degree or another. I read the book today sitting on the beach looking out onto the Kenai Mountains. Some themes in the book might have seemed more outlandish had I not experienced the unrestraint of Alaska for myself. Thankfully, I did not get too caught up in "finding myself" here and expecting this great state to somehow absorb all of my inhibitions. Had I done so, I probably would have come to find, just as the author experienced on his Alaskan mountain climbing excursions that, "I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams" (155). I'll let you know what I think of the movie once I see it.

Cousins and Friends

As the summer winds down, the town is getting quieter and we haven't had a lot of guests around. The air has started to feel like fall but spruce trees just don't pack the same punch in the autumn as the fall colors of Minnesota :) AND, there are not any apple orchards around here so I'd say it's about time to head home! I'll be leaving in about two weeks, after the people that I am house sitting for get back and as soon as I can find a ride to Anchorage to avoid paying for a flight. I will be kept busy these next couple of weeks though. I hope to go fishing with Captain Pete one more time to bring home some more halibut. You might be asking yourself, "is she CRAZY?" but even though I got deathly, horrifically, viciously seasick the last time I went out, Pete is a nice guy and offered me another trip out if he can't fill up his boat with paying customers some time in the next couple weeks. Plus, he contends that now that I know what it's like and if I can go on a calmer day, I should be just fine. I am trying to convince myself. I also want to go kayaking, the one big thing that I have been wanting to do but haven't yet. If I can foot the money I'll be out there next week. There are a few guests in and out of the lodge here and I am spending the rest of my time working for Ahna Iredale, a local potter. Ahna is a production potter here in Homer and makes really quite exquisite pieces, a lot of them! She has a large studio that I am helping her organize and if I were to stay a bit longer I would actually get a chance to use her facilities for my own purposes. There is always next summer.

A few weeks ago we hosted a wedding rehearsal dinner at the Inn which was a lot of fun. Half of the family was from Pensacola and stayed with us all week. They were very sweet, extremely considerate, southerners which was a refreshing change from some of the high maintenance people we've been dealing with this summer. The dinner went well and was really more like an actual wedding if you ask me. They had so many toasts I was afraid they were going to run out of things to say at the actual wedding. Here is Mindy setting up the buffet.

I also made a friend at the wedding who hung out with me for a couple days after the whole wedding business was over. It was nice to have someone my age to go hiking with! I showed him my favorite spot in the entire world, the Diamond Creek Trail, and we spent a good part of the evening hanging out at the beach.I finally got to prove to everyone here that I do, in fact, have friends...really good ones at that because they came to visit me!!! Lydia and Joe managed to pull together some money and flew to Alaska two weeks ago! It had been raining for a good two weeks before they got here and the minute they left the rain started up again but while they were here it was gorgeous! We went out for halibut tacos the first night they were here and spent some time on the harbor looking for the Time Bandit, which we found.

I took them right over to Bishop's Beach which was at low tide so we did some tidepooling. Joe, the aquatic biologist that he is, was in heaven. Here we are touching a jellyfish.The next day we dropped Joe off at the fishing hole to try and catch some salmon while Lydia and I toured the art galleries. He didn't have much luck his first time salt water fishing so we decided to go up to the reservoir. Lydia and I went canoeing while Joe fished for trout. Here are the three of us at the reservoir. Notice the hats, gotta represent.I love this picture of Lydia and Joe. I think it is quite representative of their relationship thus far an also a glance at what a large portion of their marriage will be like:

On Friday, Lydia and I hopped a water taxi across the bay to go hiking while Joe (you guessed it) went fishing. Although I had done it before, we went on the glacier hike because it is just too beautiful to pass up. I tested my "popping glacier ice" theory but it didn't really seem to do anything. Then Nick and I licked a piece, just to say we've done it. We hung out in the sunshine at the lake for a good hour, mostly because we were not anxious to make our way back into the forest among the bears. We successfully avoided seeing any but they were around all right.While we waited at the end of the Saddle Trail for the taxi to pick us up, Lydia put her feet in the ocean for the very first time :)The water is frigid cold but we were good and sweaty from hiking up a small portion of the alpine ridge trail which is the steep ridge that runs along the right side of the glacier if you go back and look at my picture from my first hike to the glacier. On our way back across the bay we could see the fog rolling in and pretty soon we were engulfed. It was very eerie feeling like we were lost in a bubble in the middle of the ocean but we made it back after a while. We were so excited to hear if Joe caught any salmon while we were goneand he did! Even though we were all tired and it was super foggy, I took them to my favorite spot, which you all know by now. The Diamond Creek hike is so beautiful because you can hear the creek roaring underneath you as well as the ocean approaching as you walk down the bluff side and if you look to the horizon through the trees you get a good view of the distance volcanoes and the Kenai Mountains across the bay. The fog hindered any such view, but I think Lydia and Joe really understood what I was talking about as I raved about this hike all week. When we got to the beach it was high tide which is not very exciting and so we decided to hike a bit up the creek. We came across a couple little waterfalls that we played around for a while.

What I'm not showing you is when Lydia and I took off our clothes and jumped off the waterfall. The picture kills me...even though we are jumping, our heads are still above the waterfall, we could have stepped down but jumping seemed more exhilarating.

The next morning we dropped Joe off with Captain Pete to go halibut fishing and then went back to bed for a while. Those fisherman get up too early if you ask me. Lydia and I then went for a trail run up here on the Homestead Trails to the blueberry patch. Let me reword that, I took Lydia on a "run" through the "trails." Finally, someone I know can laugh with me about the Alaskan version of a hiking trail. We considered going to the spa after our run but realized we didn't have enough time. I told Pete what us girls had planned for the day when I dropped Joe off in the morning. When we picked him up later that day, Pete asked us how the spa was. We told him we didn't go to which he responded, "let me see, you didn't go to the spa so my guess is you hit up the Salty Dawg, the meadery, the brewery, and the winery." He was on to us. Lydia and I went wine tasting and scoped out the Salty Dawg that afternoon. Joe had an amazing time on the charter and caught two good sized halibut and a bunch of cod that he also got to keep.

I snapped a picture of Pete filleting Joe's halibut. He is cutting out the cheeks which are supposed to be the best part of the fish. To me, they taste like halibut. Alaskan's call them butt cheeks. (Get it, halitBUT cheeks?)That night we hit up the Salty Dawg and tacked our dollars to the wall. Lydia and Joe's said, "The next time we come back, we'll be MARRIED!" Which I thought was cute. They started talking about coming back the second they got off the plane.

Unfortunately, they had to leave the next morning but I couldn't send them off without seeing a moose!This was exciting for me too because it was the first bull moose that I have seen. NOW my moose experience is complete. No more moose pictures, I promise.

And so, they headed back to Minnesota, back to school and job searching just like I will be doing in two weeks. They felt the connection with the landscape here after just a few short days as I knew they would. You just can't beat days like this,

or nights like these.

The Sunny Trenches

I can hardly believe that over a month has gone by since my last post and we already have a good foot into August. This is my first August that I'm not beginning to think about going back to school!

A good portion of my time last month was taken up with the flower sniffers. I could easily conjure up an entire stand-up comedy routine on my adventures that week. Just to spur your curiosity on what sort of interactions I had with a group of 30 flower essence practitioners for 8 days, I will offer you some buzz words and elaborate more when I return to Minnesota: fairies, tarot cards, mother's milk, love triangles, crystal healing, rock essence, ohm, macrobiotics, gluten-free-fat-free-sugar-free-garlic-free-soy-free-dairy-free-meat-free, and flowers. You can't pay for this kind of humor, folks, in fact, I got paid.

On the last day of their workshop we made a special dinner for them, drank some wine, took pictures, and said goodbye. It was actually sort of disappointing to be done. I liked being busy and I met some nice people in the bunch. There were people from five different countries that came all the way to Alaska for this workshop. One woman from Brazil brought with her her husband and son who hung out in town all week. I had a nice time talking with them. They live in a German settlement in southern Brazil and it was fun to see how much I had in common with people that live so far away. Plus, if I ever go to Brazil, I now know somebody!

I've gone on a couple adventures with the kids on the limited nice days that we've had but I don't want to post pictures of the children online. I love hiking the Diamond Creek Trail. It is the one thing that makes me homesick because I am sad that nobody I love can see it. It is three miles from the inn to the trail head on a paved road and then another two miles on a dirt road to where you have to hike down the edge of a large gully on the bluff down to where the creek meets the ocean. I am reluctant to take pictures because it won't really show how beautiful it is. The kids love the hike too (we drive as far as we can with them along and then walk the short distance down to the beach) because they like to play around in the creek and swim in the tide pools.

I have heard that you can hike from Diamond Creek to Bishops beach in town along the beach at low tide and I have been wanting to do it all summer. A couple of weeks ago it happened to work out that I had the afternoon off, it was a BEAUTIFUL sunny day, the tide was right, and it worked out to have someone pick me up in town. Nick (dog) and I did it in about five or six hours. It was slow-going through the gravel and sand along the beach but so worth it. All along to my right was the Pacific and to my left a steep bluff shoreline. Once in a while I would come across a little creek that was running down the bluff.

I even came across a whole bunch of sea lions perched on some rocks and their friends, the sea otters, swimming around. The ones that were close enough to me to take pictures of scattered when I came by so I couldn't get a good shot but I was excited to see some of the ocean wildlife. I have yet to see a whale but I am determined. I spend a lot of time on the beach but not so much on the water. But-I did finally make it across the bay!

Mindy, the kids, and I took a water taxi across the bay to do the glacier hike. The taxi dropped us off on a beach and then picked us up at a different destination point. The hike to the glacier was only a couple miles but I was uptight the whole time. It was through the bush and we came across a couple piles of bear scat. Granted, we had Nick with us, a bear horn, and we were singing and make as much noise as we could the whole way but I don't care, bears are still wild animals and I am afraid of them. It was raining and buggy the whole way but the scenery trumped any discomfort.

The trail led us to Grewingk Glacier Lake. We kept hearing thundering noises from the glacier and the best we can come up with is that it was echoing from cracking in the glacier. I am told that glacier ice, because it is so compressed, pops and fizzes when you put it in a glass of water. I wasn't about to swim out to get a hunk but it would be neat to see if that is true. After eating a snack we hiked another mile or so to a little lagoon where the taxi picked us up. From where we were on a rocky shore we could see across a distance in binoculars a black bear walking around the beach and some sea otters playing in the water. It was a good day and I am absolutely flabbergasted at what these kids will do (with few complaints).
We've had more sunny weather this week. When it gets above 65 degrees we call it a barn-burner and the kids and I are usually in our bathing suits before noon. The neighbor, Sandy, and I have been going on quite a few trail runs. Sandy is over twice my age and in way better shape than me. I am a wimp on the trails but I just happened to be concerned about little things like breaking my ankles or getting mauled by a bear. What Alaskans consider a trail is comparable to walking through a row of a corn field in August with added obstacles such as tree roots and pushki (large plant with skin-irritating juices). Given the terrain, our runs are probably about the pace of a walk but I love being out on the trails, especially with Sandy because she knows where she is going. This week we saw lots of berries but not enough to gather quite yet.
I'll be house sitting for Sandy and her husband for three weeks toward the end of this month which will be a nice change of pace. September is going to be a busy month here at the inn with the Photo Fest and and a wedding at the end of the month. I'm still formulating a plan for the future. I was offered a paid apprenticeship with a prominent potter in town if I happen to stay through the winter. It would be the experience of a lifetime but she also said that the offer stands for next summer or whenever I might be here. It sounds like a no-brainer but I am starting to get anxious to get home and begin to settle down, really anxious. Plus, I am truly in the liberal trenches up here. These are the don't shave their armpits liberals, the on the school board liberals. I pretty much walk around town as a moving target. Speaking of hippies, I got some killer footage of people dancing at the Concert on the Lawn last week, I mean killer, but I hate my voice in it so if you want a good laugh let me know and I'll send it to you.


I rarely stay up this late to see the darkness and I'm scared about running to my cabin tonight but I probably should before the monsters come out, or those liberals (shudder).


Blessings.

Fire, Wind, and Water

I made it late to a solstice party last week where I hung out with a few hippies, listened to some good bluegrass jams, ate nummy snacks and drank a good share of mead. The people whose house we went to own the meadery in town. Mead is like a wine brewed from honey and berries. It is mm mm good and will get you druck fast. Don't worry girls, I'll bring some home for you. At the party I met Ahna, a potter here in town who wants me to do some work for her. I don't have a lot of extra time but I hope to make it over there sometime soon. I did make it to Lisa's house this week for a wood firing that she was doing. She is another potter who lives in Homer and wanted me to see how she does things. It was very cool to see her setup and style and she let me help stoke the kiln.

Yesterday I went on the ocean for the first time. I took a charter to go halibut and king salmon fishing. We started out about 17 miles down the bay from Homer, only about a mile from the Cook Inlet. There were five other older men from Montana, Captain Pete, one deckhand, and one other guy. The first five hours or so were easily the worst experience of my life and those poor gentlemen had to listen to my wretching. Lesson of the day: don't go on the sea if you get sea sick. The water was pretty choppy and the weather was chilly and it did not sit well with me, hence the painful smile I barely cracked in this picture. I managed to reel in a pretty small halibut that in any other situation I would have thrown back in hopes for a bigger one. It turns out it was a good idea that I kept it because we had a really slow day fishing.

After halibut fishing we went to calmer waters to try our luck at king salmon. I had the option of getting off when we drove by the Spit but I was feeling a little better and decided to stay...I'm glad I did! We trolled around salmon fishing in a beautiful part of the bay with a great view of the glacier. It started to get real wavy again but for some reason I was totally fine the rest of the day. Maybe it was the scenery.We didn't have any luck catching salmon so Pete took us to an oyster farm in this little bay. The woman there told us about how oysters are harvested and despite my loss of appetite from previous events, I tried my first oyster, fresh from the bay!

This woman, along with a few other farmers, lives on the bluff in a little bay where she sells oysters off of a floating dock or brings them across the bay to Homer. There are all sorts of little coves and lagoons across the bay from Homer which is still considered the Kenai Peninsula but the people who live there have to take boats to get around. I was hoping to see some orcas which are plentiful in this area but we didn't run into any. I did see all sorts of sea otters but didn't get close enough to take any good pictures. They are so cute, they float on their backs and play around in the water. Before we headed back to the harbor, we cruised around Gull Island which has more than 16,000 birds on it everyday of all different species. My favorite are the puffins.

And so, I took my bag of halibut filets and was glad to be on land again but it was an amazing adventure and if I knew it would be a calm day, I'd go again in a heartbeat. I'll probably make it across the bay a couple more times to visit another potter, go kayaking, and hike Poot Peak...all plans in the making. Tomorrow starts a busy busy week here at the inn. There is a group of about 15 guys from Wisconsin who are staying at the lodge next door and I'm stuck with the flower sniffers. Maybe they'll make me an essence that can find me a man.

No Joke

A man on a skateboard gave me the "hang loose" yesterday.

Quick Pictorial

I was in town today checking out some galleries and I caught a neat picture of the sky. The left shows the beautiful 70 degree blue sky and the right shows how colorful and smokey the sky was from a forest fire nearby. The smoke floated over to the mountains and is hovering over them which looks really wild.

I also went to the Pratt Museum and was really interested in what they had to say about different species of bears. When I got home I was looking up some information about them and was talking to Mindy about black bears. She ran to town and I went outside to go for a run but changed my mind when I saw this

I know you're probably sick of the wildlife pictures, but this was really cool and ironic. Like I said, even though there are a lot of bears around here, they have only seen them on their property a couple times in about five years. This was a pretty big guy too. I decided to rethink my run when the bear turn and headed up the gully to the road that I run on. (Don't worry Daddy, when I go for a run I take Nick [their HUGE black lab], my cell phone, and a bear horn. I only run on the paved road, not the hiking trails. They also have bear spray to take when on the trails, but experts say that the horn is more effective at scaring bears away).

Midnight Sun

I got a sunburn! As promised, it did warm up a bit and so I weathered the bug bites and dirt in the garden to wear my bikini and pretend it was warmer than it actually probably was. Tonight I am back in my sweats. I've been busy working the past week cleaning rooms, baking, gardening, etc. but I have managed to get out into town a bit. I went out on the Spit to a few gift shops and I got a chance to see the docks and go out on to a boat. There is also a small farmers market in town on Saturdays that I went to and bought a mermaid bone hairpin. Today I went to church and then walked to one of the many galleries in town. I have met a couple potters in the area and word got out to another potter that I was here. She gave me a call and wants me to come to her studio and do some work for her which is exciting! This week another potter who lives near by wants me to come over and watch her do a firing in her wood kiln. These will be great experiences for me and I hope to learn a lot, there is so much in the world of ceramics that I have yet to see.

I regret to say that I haven't taken many more pictures because I haven't seen a lot of new things but I promise to post them as I see them. I am planning a halibut trip as well as a kayaking trip and I hear there are a lot of parties and celebrations for Solstice. I did have a close(er) encounter with some moose which are still a thrill for me but I'm sure it won't last too long.

North to Alaska

Even though I am 3,358 (driving) miles away from home, this city reminds me so much of Minnesota. Take all of my favorite aspects of the land of 10,000 lakes, add snowcapped mountains and a few more fishermen and you'll have Homer, Alaska. The B&B that I live at is up on a ridge above town and it looks and feels a lot like the bluffs of the Mississippi River Valley. The harbor and bay, because it isn't as vast as the open ocean reminds me of Lake Superior and Duluth. Now, I've never been the type of Minnesotan to complain about the cold weather but I just was not expecting the chill around here and I feel like such a baby. I've been cold since I got off the plane (not on the plane, I was sweating on the plane and not because of the chill in the air...because of the effects of turbulance on a 10-passanger aircraft flying over the ocean). I am told that it stops raining sometimes and that it can get into the 70s for a portion of the summer. I'll be waiting for that.

Flying here was actually more beautiful than being here. For a good part of the flight we were over the Canadian Rockies and it blew my mind. Some of the peaks reached above the clouds and the farther we got into them the more glaciers and rivers there were. I couldn't believe how rugged and unexplored they looked. From Anchorage I took a small plane to Homer. I was only in the plane for 59 minutes and I tried to breathe through it but 5 more minutes and I might have lost it. I was not afraid going into it but it felt much more like a rollercoaster than I anticipated.

My hosts picked me up from the airport and welcomed me in right away. I can't get enough of their adorable children and they quite obviously can't get enough of me. About five minutes in the car and their little girl was asking why I had to leave so soon (the end of summer).

The good news is that there aren't any ticks or mosquitos. The bad news is that there are moose and bears (black and grizzly). I am not too concerned. Actually, I would like to see a bear, at a distance. I was getting the low-down on the wildlife and was told a number of times that they really don't see bears on their property, maybe twice in the past five years. When I woke up this morning they told me last night when I was still awake getting ready for bed they saw a young moose booking it up the ridge behind the pond in their back yard. It was followed by a black bear. They debated telling me. I hadn't yet seen any moose but I was told they use the trail that runs right in front of my cabin. I woke up the morning and the first thing I did was look out the front window and sure enough

Today they took me around town getting me acquainted with the lay of the land and the way of life. Things here seem really easy going. We went down to the spit which is a 5-mile jut of land out into the Kachemak Bay to pick up some halibut that was getting processed for them. The fishing lifestyle is something so out of my rhelm of everyday living but so interesting, I've already learned so much. We also went to the beach which was at low tide so I got to walk out a ways and do some tidepooling. The weather was rainy and windy but it cleared for a moment to get a shot of the mountains across the Bay. This is also pretty much my view from on top of the ridge.

I won't start working here at the inn probably until tomorrow and I am looking forward to helping out and exploring the area on my own. They really want me to meet people and try new things and I am all for it. I just got here yesterday and have seen so much but I have the whole summer to soak it all in.

Here, Home, Homer

So much has changed in the past few months that I can hardly wrap my mind around it all. I no longer:
Am a student.
Have health insurance.
Get my Moonlights at my beck and call.
Find any thrill in going to the bars.
Write papers (well, I didn't do much of that this year anyway).

Yet here I am, still in my house sitting at my computer with nothing in my room packed up. It would all make more sense if I was out of this town and could deal with all the changes head-on but that will have to wait a couple more weeks. I have some business to take care of here, then it's home, then it's Homer! Alaska, that is. I thought that going to college for four years would satisfy my need to get out into the world but I am not certain that it has. I'll be living and working at a little inn on the Kachemak Bay. The ocean has never really done it for my but my heart has always belonged in the mountains.
I guess this will do:



















I'll be working a lot but I hope to find time to take in the beautiful scenery and amazing art culture of the area. I have a few other goals for myself for the summer too.

Anna's To Do List
*Finish my leisure book that I've been "reading" since January
*Hike my butt off, quite literally
*Relearn how to ride a bike (I'm pretty sure it is something you can forget)
*Find a job (in Minnesota!)
*Kayak for the first time
*Write a short story
*Have some long conversations with the most important Man in my life
*Get away from all the other men
*Make money
*See a moose and a whale
*Avoid bears
*Meet new people
*Explore watercolors
*Draw everything I see
*Soak in the beauty
*Get the need to get away out of my system, for the most part
*Come home

Oh, and update my blog too. Because I haven't posted anything from this semester, I'll leave you with a quick update. I absolutely love MSN's "The Week in Pictures." Here is my Semester in Pictures: