So today I was listening to some Led Zeppelin and it reminded me of all those days cleaning the office while listening to "Trampled Underfoot". Quality times. Then I got sad because I wasn't cleaning those floors anymore. But then I was like hey, I'm not cleaning floors! I'm moving up in the world! But then I realized that my town is at a lower elevation than Vershire, so I have actually moved down. But then I realized I've grown a few centimeters since May. And then I found $5. Sick story, right?

These posts may be a bit long now, but trust me... they shorten up as the sanity fades.

Day 5

Oh man I have a lot of work today. I'll have a lot of work tomorrow. Let's get to recapping. Slow morning, but I did devise a system for my chore: every other day I'll do a different part of the office. One day I'll sweep the stairs and central office, the next I'll sweep the adjoining offices. Breakfast... pancakes! And a type of mash I think. I had wood crew first thing, which was awesome. How to cut down a tree: Mark three feet up from the base, saw in a quarter of the way, chop at an angle until you've cut to the end of your cut. Then cut from the back of the tree, until it falls. I worked with Phoebe and Patrick. Phoebe was surprisingly vicious with an axe. We got two trees down, with plenty of sugarwood, or wood for the maple sugaring process (somehow). Lunch was next, and I was very tired after sawing the three-foot sections off of the trunk, and lopping the limbs off the tree and putting them all in a brush pile “about as big as a dead horse”, said Jack. Cool guy. I was also tired from the cold and the walking; my work gloves are not as good as my mittens.

Lunch was a type of kale soup (so I heard) and a selection of bagels and toppings, prepared by Charlotte. Following Bruce, I made a bagel sandwich: a cinnamon bagel with egg salad, lettuce, and turkey slices. It was very good, better than I expected. I had a free next, and went on facebook and checked email in the library. Responded to Mark Kernohan's email, learned I got a B- in math and an A- in Spanish. I'm quite glad that my final Colbert grade broke the A barrier, and that I got above a D in math for once. Yay. I sort of guessed that history wouldn't be that great, C, and English was meh at a B+. But Marine Biology yielded an A- for the semester, so that's a plus.

My two classes for the day were History, where we had a great discussion about Organization Kid and workaholic students (where I finally got my point in after being shut down a lot) and English, where we drove for 15 minutes up a mountain with Jack giving a lecture about the history of Vershire and how nature and old Vermont coexisted. It wasn't until we reached our destination, an old cellar hole, and reread Directive by Robert Frost that I realized how awesome the speech was: he used quotes from the poem as we passed what they were describing. That moment, with his voice and those images and words, was incredible. It was also cool because it was snowing and I could see on my jacket that snowflakes actually did have the shapes we always draw them as. I melted them with my breath (moment officially and successfully killed!)

After we got back, I looked for Susie for our advisor meeting, but instead of meeting we hooked up flags for the faculty curling game and paraded around campus waving the symbols of Canada and Malawi. [I think I meant flags.] The next few hours were work: I read some history and some English. For dinner, there was spaghetti, green beans (which had an odd flavor.), and bread. I talked with Susie to make up for the missed meeting before. We covered a variety of topics. After that I headed to the library to do Spanish, which was insultingly easy (present tense activities? For 24 pages?), and more history, which was long. I sat with Sam and Megan B (I sat with Charlotte earlier. She burned her hand making bagels.) and during a break chatted with Elias (this was before dinner) and Kasey. I really want hard Spanish again, though I suppose some review of commands wouldn't hurt... I sent a message to Nacho saying it was easy. I want to see him again.

After that I went back to Miles (with 2 flashlights!) and Sam and I went behind the sheep barn to throw away some trash. We would've gone to see the cows, but they were too hard to find. I did more history work the dorm, while having a laugh with Jimmy, David, Taylor, and Rafi. I wrote in the English journal about the song Electricity during the check-in, and after this I'll read a Spanish article, listen to music, and get ready for bed. Tomorrow will be a tough day. Focus will be necessary.