first week back - in class

And the apartment is adorable. We had bamboo blinds put in the front window this afternoon - cuteness prevails upon us all. We still have to find some more lights and get a coffee table, but we're almost to "home" status.

I love living with the McDonald sisters. Roomie dinners are scrumptious (yesterday I made Mom's famous mac and cheese and we've also enjoyed soups, deli worthy sandwiches, etc), and we've had rousing discussions over who is cooler, Leonidas or Hector (Hector by far), who said the famous "then we shall fight in the shade" quote (was it Leonidas or one of his generals?), and whether Hector was blond or dark. Going back to the Iliad it was revealed that he was dark. I won. But when Abby pulled down a copy of Herodotus, she won the "who said it" debate.

We've watched movies, eaten chocolate, washed dishes, and, yes, done homework. Plenty of it. And speaking of, I have more Iliad to read. =)

tornado watch

After two weeks of intense heat, the first week of school kicked off with a tornado watch. Yeah, you read that correctly. Moscow had a tornado watch. The rain poured down, the wind blew like nobody's business, and the lightning was fantastically huge. Despite the wind, no tornado materialized.

We had a hurricane instead. A hurricane called Jerusalem Term. They say that sophomore year is the hardest and in a way that's true. It's the unexpected, exhausting beginning of "Real Life" now that freshman year's boot camp is over. But Junior and Senior years were recently jacked up a notch, leaving me with the impression that this year's toughness quota will be very similar to last years, the main difference being that we've done this before. We're not fresh out of our first year. We're subdued.

We're Juniors.

back in moscow

The view outside my window is somewhat different than it was three weeks ago. Instead of soaring mountains, pine trees, kayaking gear and dusty horses, I am looking at downtown Moscow. NSA starts next week. My books for first term are on my bookshelf and the apartment is finally unpacked and looks like a real home. It's lovely.