Cardinals and Snowflakes

Hello again!

Firstly, I saw a snowflake today. Yes. One, single, snowflake. Not much, but it was enough to keep my hopes up for a real winter. Secondly, I just finished my last piece of work for Philosophy EVER. Thirdly, yesterday was my last day of work at the Stables until next semester. So... yes. It's been a good day.

...I've got to figure out what I'm doing over the Winter break. I have a few plans laid out: I'll be visiting Mallorca in January, and I'm really excited about that. Of course, there's the annual Holiday party at home. This will be the first one I haven't been preparing for for months prior with our little a capella group... and there's the obligatory giant get-together with my high school friends. A few of my friends from Goucher may also be coming up for New Year's... so that should be good. But other than that... I mean, it's not like I'm going to have class work to do, or finals to study for. What am I going to do with myself?

A lot of hiking, hopefully. But other than that, I've been attempting to... well. Lots of non-academic projects going on, actually. A list might be the best format...

1. I'm trying to get a jump start on Arabic (which I will be taking at some point) by teaching myself the Arabic alphabet. So far, it's going as one would expect it to... slowly. I'm not worried, as I taught myself Elvish in the space of two weeks over the summer. If I can teach myself a made-up language in two weeks, then I can figure out a real one in the space of a few months.

2. I'm teaching myself basic Egyptian hieroglyphics. Which is exactly as practical as it sounds. Which is not at all. But it's a lot of fun, and the way I see it, if I get an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which is what I'm trying to do, but more on that later), I can hang out in the Egyptian Art section and try reading the 'glyphs for myself.

3. Applying for internships. My most ambitious is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's unlikely I'll get this one, since they want college juniors and seniors, and one question on the application concerns how many languages one speaks...

...er... how about (barely) fluent English, basic and very slow Spanish, random phrases in Elvish (plus the Quenya alphabet), half the Arabic alphabet, and some random Egyptian hieroglyphs?

Not gonna work.

Seriously, though. I'm suffering from a bit of... how do I even describe this? "Language anxiety?" I don't know. But everytime I let myself sit around and think for too long, I start worrying that I don't know enough languages, or the right ones. Which is a competely valid worry, thank you very much. I keep telling myself I'm gonna really get down to work on my Spanish (I'm saving up for a Rosetta Stone program for Spanish, to help me practice and hopefully, get me beyond kindergarden level), and that I'm gonna try to teach myself Arabic/German/French (any of those, depending on what mood I'm in that week), but... urgh. Maybe I am worrying about it too much. Probably not though.

Anyway, I'm also looking at an internship at the Archaeological Department at Colonial Williamsburg, which I think would be... well. Pretty perfect. Colonial American and British History are my favorite areas of study, and I'm curious about Archaeology as a study... AND, the College of William and Mary is literally right there if I want to take classes and get some credits out of the way.

I'm also looking at internships at the Museum of the City of New York (where I saw a great exhibit on Dutch New York a while back), and at Mount Vernon (George Washington's home and plantation).

4. Knitting myself a sweater. It's the first time I've ever actually tried to follow a pattern, and it's coming... slowly, but well enough. I only work on it when I have nothing else to do (which is pretty rarely), so... yep.

Anyway.

Not much more to talk about... except... well. Okay. My friend Chris and I are thinking about getting a pet shark.

...yes. A pet shark. The ones we were looking at grow to 14 inches long.

In any case, I'm just thinking about it. It started out as just his pet shark, and I was gonna get him a tank for Christmas, but if we decided to share the shark, and split all the costs, it would probably be a bit more beneficial for both of us... and more fun. (Come on. Who doesn't want to be able to say they have a pet shark?)

Well, I'll keep you up to date on that. And... that's about it. I'll write again soon.

Love to all,
Tasha

Shakespeare and fireworks

Hello all! (And to my fellow Americans: happy 4th!)

Well, still not much to tell, really. Lots of World Cup and Wimbledon watching... I realized the other day that my ability to speak, write, and generally understand Spanish has diminished in just the past two weeks, so I've been trying to practice. Mainly, that consists of re-reading all my notes, changing the language on my computer and facebook to Spanish, watching the World Cup on univision, and attempting to "think" in Spanish... well, as you might expect, it's a bit difficult to tell how it's actually going.

Yesterday evening, we went to see Troilus and Cressida put on by the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. It was fun, as always. This is, however, the first time I've seen the play interrupted by fireworks. All the actors (as well as the audience, of course) left the tent to watch the fireworks going up across the river, and it was... well. Quite magical, actually. I've never really seen fireworks... the last time we went to see them, I was rather little and too scared to actually look, and whenever I had a chance to see them at camp, we got rained out. So that was quite special for me.

Edit: These photos are from another evening I spent at the Shakespeare Festival, this time seeing The Taming of the Shrew, but I thought I'd post them anyway.

Sorry to cut this one short, but I have to be going: Fourth of July celebration preparations are calling.

My love to all,

Tasha