Hi y'all!

I'm a very irregular weblogger, aren't I . . . but I hope to make my monthly appearance with a post to amuse and delight the most intense studying-abroad Xanga enthusiasts, and also fans of hip hop, internet videos, and/or P31.

Behold Baby Got Book!

Also, I just got back from a trip to Reynosa, Mexico with some other college folk from my church, having spent a week working and playing at the Casa Hogar Benito Juarex orphanage that Emmanuel, esp. the youth group, has had a close relationship with for years. In a nutshell, it was my first time to go, it was really cool, I spoke a lot of Spanish, I got to be with old and new friends, and it took me completely out of the every-day and made me make the transition away from a very full (and wonderful) spring semester in a complete and total way. Four days' worth of road trip, sunscorched Mexican dirt roads, endless painting of stucco, and a couple dozen dark-eyed, bright-smiled children-- what an antidote to the Vanderbubble.

Breaking news of the week:

• I'm officially accepted for Vanderbilt in Spain, Fall 2005! ¡Voy a Madrid este otoño! ¡Qué maravilloso será estudiar al extranjero! Our first big info meeting is on Wednesday night, and I'm excited that everything is about to start becoming real.
  
  
• My parents put a contract on a new house today. (I think I will really like it, but I don't think I'm ready to give that statement an exclamation point quite yet.) After years/months of what I'm deciding to call passive-agressive looking at houses, the matter is finally settled on a yellow house in Germantown. We'll move in early June, and I'm very glad we'll have our new home antes de yo salgo para España; I will like living in it first for a while, and knowing the rest of the family is happily acclimating to it while I am abroad. Even though at first glance it may not be what I would have pinpointed as the next Dorian home, it is beautiful and comfortable-looking, and you really need little further convincing once you know that from his new bedroom window, Evan will have a perfect view of the train tracks. =)

My computer, it seems, crashed today. BOO. Totally out of the blue. And I hardly even have time to call the Dell hotline to try to resuscitate it, because I still have two papers to write, one midterm to study for, four classes to attend, one trip to Target to make, and one big fat suitcase to pack before I leave for spring break at two o'clock on Friday. I *would* like to sleep some, too, but I'm not sure where that fits into this picture. Not till the multi-day drive to New Mexico?

I fear for my hard drive, but I know everything that needs to happen will happen, to one degree of completion or another. Even if I'm trying to type it on the tiny keyboard of Kelly Winner's Mac laptop, where my fingers are really really really clumsy.

Also, Kelly Winner is, in fact, a winner, and wonderful, and my hero for sharing her computer tonight!

Ok, I really didn't plan for that entry to happen in bullet points. Nevertheless it did . . . as they practically all seem to have . . . although, mere html bullets and not ingenious and symbolic ones. I am prompted to conclude that the rhetorical liberty to jump from one idea abruptly yet acceptably to another . . . which bullet points provide . . . is very well-suited to the xanga medium. Proper paragraphs are so passe.

Because I generally do read xangas and generally do not post much on my own, I'm taking a couple of minutes before bed to make up for it by illustrating how having a four-year-old brother makes my weekend-after-one's-21st-brithday different from yours.

• Going out to dinner at Ted's Montana Grill, the closest thing to pick-up lines we saw was Evan suddenly out of his chair and engaged in conversation at the next table over, attracted by the two Thomas trains possessed by the toddler there.
• I danced not at clubs, but while buckled into the minivan listening to such hits as "The Belly-Button Song" and "The Library." My favorite line from "The Library," sung by Disney's Ludwig von Duck to the tune of the can-can and hinting at the wealth of timeless information available there, is: "Where's southern Mississippi? Just what was a hippie?"
• We ate lunch at the Loveless Café (YUM), and afterwards, sitting outside on the swing, Evan was speculating on some of the places that God is, since God is with us everywhere. These include: God is on the roof, God is on your shoulder, God is in the chipmunks who sing.
• Like Alvin and the Chipmunks?? me, I want a hula hoop . . .
• He started saying "SWEET" about things he thinks are cool. When asked where he picked this up from (it sounds suspiciously Napoleon-esque), in the Mayfield today, he pointed first to Julie, and then to . . . Mackenzie's bedroom. Yep, definitely picked up the "sweet" thing via the Napoleon Dynamite poster on her door-- read it and made it his own!
• Birthday-wise again . . . I won't be feeling any after-effects of the weekend as a hangover, but as rather sore muscles from the hours of intense playing outside that I did at both Dragon Park and Edwin Warner on this sunny Saturday.
• I'm getting countless hugs, kisses, high fives, giggles, tackles, tickles, smiles, stories, and sundry other precious and hilarious moments that going out just doesn't afford. Little brother love? I'll take it.

I don't mean that I don't plan to start taking advantage of being of-age (woohoo!!), but the contrast to the typical Vandy 21st is funny to me. As were some of the Evan moments noted above! There are more, I just can't remember them, and so now I am going to bed.