What to do today?

I like organizing and cleaning, and my mom seems to be on board with me doing that here now that I’m home. So, maybe, that’s what I’ll do.

About the photo — when I came home, I had a package waiting for me — last December, I bought an iPod Shuffle 2 on eBay and I left for school the day before it arrived. Now I have it in my hands! I did have one of these when they were new, but I was in preschool and my parents bought it for me because I was the annoying kid who wouldn’t sleep during nap time. They bought me a cheap iPod so that the music would keep me quiet. That one was blue, but I think the green one looks nicer now.

Aside from that, it’s always hard to get used to the distinctly different places to be that are school and home — I mean, for one, I can’t get around here at all without a car. There are roads everywhere. I can’t take a walk to the store because that would take several hours.

I could drive downtown, though, and take a walk around. The weather’s nice today — it’s going to get to a high temperature of something well above freezing, which means that spring is truly springing now. For the first meeting with my study-abroad group partners, I gave a little presentation on myself, the city where I go to school and the city where I’m from. As part of showing these places off, I had to remember the cool things to do that actually do exist around town.

Downtown, once I got there and parked my car, would have a cool little coffee shop, a nice square, a candy store, multiple places to get lunch, some places that are probably photogenic (although I stole one of my mom’s old cameras a while ago & loaded it with an SD card intending to make it my primary limited photo-taking device for the forseeable future. I forgot it at my apartment at school).

Whatever I do, I’d like to be really relaxing. I’ve been a little tired lately, but I haven’t necessarily realized it with all the momentum of the mid-semester. I can’t stop rambling about nonsense in most of my sentences, though, which in the past would’ve been a dead giveaway that I need sleep. The placebo from the daylight-savings clock shift was a good head start — I should try to continue the cycle of 睡得香 as long as I’m here at home for the week. The bed at home is infinitely more comfortable than the larger one at my apartment.

I could get my bicycle out and try to ride it around — although the only real destinations that I’d have would be downtown/near where the people are and, seeing as it’s a Monday and there’s traffic around, I don’t think my mom would approve of it while I’m around her.

I recently got myself a Legere european-cut synthetic reed for the clarinet & it’s pretty fantastic. No preparation, no soaking, no adjusting (I don’t even have an adjustment tool, I had to borrow one from a friend the last time I used one). I started practicing with it a few times yesterday and the dog doesn’t enjoy my noises (or, he really enjoys them and he’s trying to sing along).

I could bike to the middle of the woods and practice out there…

…but then I’d just annoy the bears.

哎呀。

Maybe I’ll just clean the kitchen.

And keep writing blog posts.

And then I’ll be back next week!

See you then.