Classes resumed on Thursday. Though the start of a new school year is always exciting, it was also strangely sad to see the university quickly fill back up with students--it was mostly upsetting because this meant I would no longer have the gym all to myself. But still, the start of every new year is always nicely energizing, nostalgic, and familiar.
To make the most of the last couple days off, on Tuesday I skipped the lab and headed downtown to meet with Cindy. We had lunch in Chinatown at a surprisingly awesome Vietnamese sandwich shop, did a little shopping for sweet buns to bring back to our fellows, then took the T to the Museum of Science. Shamefully, I had never been there before, even though I have applied for numerous jobs with them. I made a point to check it out before the end of summer and booked tickets through the public library. The museum had its strong points (like the live owl demonstration... God I love owls...) and weak points (like the evolutionary time-line drawn embarrassingly out of scale), but overall it was a fun day out, topped off with a walk along the Charles.
The first two Italian classes have gone well and I haven't yet totally failed at learning the new language. I do get really nervous in class, however, especially since it is so interactive and I am no good at participating. I also partly just try to fit in so I don't get attention for not being a Brandeis student or even for being older--hopefully I can at least pass for a graduate student. Yesterday I asked the guy next to me if he took Spanish before. The conversation went like this:
Guy: Yeah. I took it for four years.
Me: Me, too. It is kinda confusing me.
Guy: Did you take AP (a college-level class offered in high school)?
Me: No. This was... a little while ago... (*trying to hide the fact that I took my four levels of Spanish in one year, seven years ago*)
I hope I don't blow my cover.
After a long day Thursday Seth and I headed to Chrissy's place in Brighton to drop off Fishy. It was nice to visit with them and ask about their trip to Germany--it also reminded us of when we stayed with them this time last year--but I wish we got to keep the little orange guy for a little while longer :o(
One more reminder of the time of year has been the fantastic change in weather. We gladly exchanged the humid 90 degree weather for crisp and cool 70s. I hope it stays like this for a while :o) Though annoyingly, the hot muggy weather helped the poison ivy around town to get even worse (we didn't think it was possible). Seth and I trample straight through clumps of poison ivy two to four times every day, and every day I wonder if it will be the day we break out in horrible rashes. Well, miraculously we have managed to avoid it, but over the past couple days we both developed a single coin-sized itchy splotch on our left arms. Don't know why we got it on our arms and not near our ankles, but whatever. Could be worse.
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