whew

well, it has been a while. but it's mainly because school is so awesome and busy, so that's a good thing, i suppose. i have a lot of different things going on, but i'm excited about all of them. i want my roommate to teach me how to sail, we'll just do that random days. and we're trying to learn how to play bagpipes, because he also has a chanter. i'm doing yoga on saturday mornings, i might write an article for the gadfly with my friend, i'm a freshman lab assistant, and liz and i have not yet given up on getting an acapella things together. i've started doing morning workouts (crossfit, it's been painful so far, plus i don't know how to lift weights, but i'm sticking with it for now). and then there's the ever-present need to play croquet in the afternoons, and do tennis on free weekend days. pretty sweet. it's important that i record all these things here so that it all becomes more concrete and more likely that i'll actually do it.
in other news, one of my toenails has fallen off and the other is not far behind. here's a little montage (from my sweet new camera that we got from the bank for free).
pre-removal:

post-removal:i'm not really sure what to do with the leftover nails yet, although my current favorite suggestion is to turn them into earrings as a christmas present for mom.
other cool news...let's see. i managed to get all the guys on the hall to do hall bonding in the form of a moustache-off. starting last saturday, none of us can shave anything above our upper lip, but everything below it has to go, and it lasts until long weekend, or until someone shaves. the person who shaves has to get some 30 racks and then there's a hall party. what bonds people like shared embarrassment? we will all look like this. although, honestly, i'm still convinced that all girls secretly love facial hair. they just do. get over it. also, i might dye mine because otherwise it might not even be noticeable until just when the 6 weeks or so is ending. cool stuff.
one final thing i've noticed this past week when eating in the dining hall with people not my family...how is it that so few people know how to use a knife and fork? a lot of people just grip them with their whole fist and stab into whatever their eating like the fork is a skewer and end up moving the whole plate back and forth. it's really weird, i hadn't realized it was such a poorly taught skill. i think proof of this is the fact that when looking for a funny picture of people using knife and fork, nothing came up. and "how to cut food" only brought up chefs. maybe that's how i'll become rich and famous, by modernizing emily post.