New Semester

It's only 3 days into the semester, but I'm already very busy. My semester started at 9:00 am on Monday morning with a coaching for Giulio Cesare. It went well, but I still need to do a lot of work as far as bringing Nireno to life, something Daniela is helping me accomplish. I worked with Marcello on Tuesday, and he was very pleased with my diction, telling me how much I had improved over the break. This made me very happy, seeing my work amount to something!

Of course, whenever I come back to school from a long break, some homesickness lingers for the first week or so. It makes me frustrated, seeing as I really haven't found a way to rid myself of it. One of the things I miss most when I'm at school is having my cats around. Yes, I'm one of those cat people. ;) There's a Petsmart not far from campus that has cats up for adoption, and on Monday, I discovered that you can hold them for as long as you want. Which I did. And I'm going back today. It's really too bad I can't adopt one, although the cats at home would freak out if I did.

The other big news is that I'll be moving again next fall. While I like the location of the house I'm at now, there's just too many people and too much noise. Part of this comes from being on a very busy street corner and me not being used to traffic noise, having grown up in the middle of nowhere. But some of it also stems from there just being 11 of us, and the majority of the housemates being very extroverted, which sometimes clashes with my introverted personality. So, I'll be living with 3 or 4 friends in a townhouse a little farther from campus. But it's about half the price I'm paying now, in a much quieter environment, and closer to things like the grocery store. But it's still close enough to campus that I won't need a car. I'm excited for this change and think it will be the best for me.

College, Take 2

I'm finally all moved into the house here in Bloomington and am beginning to feel settled in. The first few days were a little rough, missing home, my parents, and my cats, and just feeling emotionally lost. But I'm adjusting to college life again, and I'm glad I made this choice. There are, of course, some aspects of the dorm that are still appealing; not having to go across campus to hang out with friends, the food that's just there, and having the staff looking out for you a bit. But living off campus is much better. I have my own room, and the house is fairly quiet. Nobody runs down the halls screaming at 3:00 a.m. Plus, my room is good-sized, and I have lots of storage space (two closets!!). And we're only a block off campus, which is almost closer than my dorm was last year. So even though its a little scary having to do my own grocery shopping, I'm glad I'm here.

My desk.

My bed and dresser. The big yellow cat poster I got on sale last year, and the other four small posters are parts of old Met calanders.
I'm hoping to put a chair in the nook so that I'll have some reading space, but right now, it's just there. But I love having two closets.