fieldtrip

Of everything I miss about home (basically my family...) I miss this little lady the most (no offense parents!). Kirsten sent me an audio clip of her saying all of her new words like baby and bike and fish and dog and beebo and balloon and nose and then telling me buh-bye and it made me want to cry! The background of my phone is a great picture of her throwing a fit, tears running down her face, fist in her mouth, scowling at the camera. So I thought I'd put up a few pictures I took of her this summer at dinner eating chocolate zucchini cake (which I would really really really like a slice of right now) and just being her fabulous self. I can't wait to see her at Christmas!

I suppose college really is about trying new things because I'm about to defy all of my instincts that tell me do not go camping after September. I'm going on an overnight camping field-trip an area in Eastern Washington to study its formation by the Spokane floods and the draining of Lake Missoula. We are staying at Steamboat Rock. I'm taking my camera. It should be a pretty good time. I need to go to Safeway (I'm leaving as soon as I finish this post and decide if I'm walking or biking) and get breakfast and lunch for myself for tomorrow. We are leaving at 8AM, but Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast and Saturday lunch are all going to be provided. I'm sharing a tent with a couple girls from my class named Corrie and Serena. I'll be back sometime on Saturday. It is supposed to rain, so I will be wearing a raincoat the whole time! Whoop Whoop. I am also going to see if I can rig up some kind of raincoat for my camera.

Tonight, I think Margaret, Valerie, and I are going out to dinner. I'm excited. We are going to walk to this place on 6th Ave called Silk Thai. My peer adviser told me that it is delicious and cheap. I have eaten primarily sub food for the last month. It is time for a bit of a change.

I went and talked to my French teacher about my problems in that class. I know I can speak the language, maybe not quite as well as the rest of my class, but well enough, but I get into that room and I can't function. I understand what is being said, and then I get called on and my mouth refuses to form words. She says it is called language breakdown, and that perfectionists (AKA, ME!) are especially prone to it because when they mess up they get mad at themselves that that just stresses them out more. It is a vicious cycle. I think just talking about it has helped a little though. I spoke three whole times in complete sentences on Thursday without wanting to curl up in a hole and die.

I am also starting to get papers back. I'm not as pathetic and worthless as I thought. I got a 93% on my Smokey Bear case study in Communication. He told me I may have over-analyzed. I thought well, if you weren't so vague! and then he told me he was shocked by my conclusion that smokey needs to be a bad-ass enforcer of the forest. I told him that I am from the home of the Montana Meth Project, and he said I had a point, and that sometimes if there is a lot of shock-campaigning, other campaigns can't get any attention if they don't have the same amount of shock value. I also got a 93% on my International Political Economy paper.

Soooo... off to safeway with me. Love you all! <3