It's Earth Week here at Baylor. Today people are asked to wear green, or, if they purchased one, the Earth Week shirt. It's green and it has "B(ECO)ME" written on the front a la the Gap "RED" shirts (i.e. DESI(RED)). They were out of smalls, so I had to get a medium, which is rather large on me. I feel like a pillow. Ah well. I only wear it for one class and then go to work anywho.

Sometimes I worry that my peers in my Tues./Thurs. class think I only own khakis, because I always wear them on those days; I usually have to go straight to work afterwards.

So, this time in two weeks class and finals will be over. EEeeeeeee.

So I have this theory--you may have heard me mention it before--that everyone is a snob about something. It's different for everybody--music, food, fitness, clothes, bikes, outdoor equipment, jeans, books--whatever. I believe this to be true, but have had trouble pinpointing the snobbery in me. I sometimes take pride in the fact I listen to some obscure artists, but I also love to jam to artists like Usher and Rascal Flatts, and I don't lose respect for a band when their music is played on a commercial or TRL. So I don't think I'm a music snob. I just haven't been able to diagnose myself, but today I think I've figured it out. I think I'm a sandals snob. I love my Chaco's, Teva's, and Gurkee's. Even when my Chaco's gave me blisteres I enjoyed wearing them merely because I knew they were Chaco's, and they cost sixty bucks (they don't anymore, by the way. give me blisters I mean). I recently found my missing Teva in the back of my closet and so they've barely left my feet since. They're so comfortable and rather cute, but also, they're Teva's. I take pride in having sandals made by respectable outdoor sandal companies. Hi, my name is Laura, and I'm a sandals snob. And I don't plan on changing. I love my sandals. (My Gurkees smell though--they absorb my feet sweat. That's kind of annoying.) I'll probably eventually be an art snob too. I think it's inevitable, being an Art History major and all.

Phew. I just finished an annotated bibliography for my English class. I'm writing a research paper on art restoration. I've found it to be pretty interesting, and now I have a new idea for a future career for me: art restorer. One of the sources for my bibliography is an article about this group of American students who were in Florence restoring art that had been damaged by floodwaters. I was very jealous of them.

I'm glad I'm not Pre-Med. Those people are always studying and when they're not studying they're thinking about studying or freaking out about their grades.

I'm at Common Grounds right now and they're playing a song in which a girl keeps singing, "I was made for you." Well, there are other words, but those are what keep repeating. I don't know if I buy that--that people are "made" for each other, romantically speaking. I don't think there is a guy out there who was made for me and that, with him, I will be complete. I think relationships and marriages and love are well and good, but not the culmination of our exsistence. I don't believe I'm made for any person. Well, I think I'm made for every person, we are all made for each other, and to love each other, but that's another story. I'm talking about romance. It's nice, but I refuse to believe that it's what I'm made for. I hope that it's not, I hope there's more to life than that.

That was just a thought I had. Now to get back to my annotated bibliography

Today turned out to be a really pretty day, weather wise. That's always a nice surprise--when a day starts out raining(ish) and turns into pretty.

I got a chicken caeser wrap from work today that was unwanted because someone changed their order to a low carb chicken caeser wrap and so the girl who was making it said
"Laura, do you like chicken caeser?" And I said,
"What?" because this girl (who is a manager) doesn't usually talk to me if she doesn't have to and the question was unexpected.
"Do you like chicken caeser?"
I said, "Uh, yeah." Still not understanding.
"Then this is yours." She said.
So she put it in a to go box and placed it in the back room. I grabbed it on my way out, hours later, and ate it back at my apartamento whilst watching an episode of Friends. With the wrap, she added the customery field green salad with raspberry vingarette dressing and, to my surprise, a peanut butter cookie. And a napkin. I was touched. A peanut butter cookie and a napkin. Hm.

I just finished a little paper for English. That is satisfying. As was my chicken caeser wrap with a side field green salad with raspberry vingarette dressing and a peanut butter cookie and a napkin.

I should start being more randomly and quietly nice to people. It makes days.

So I am getting super excited about Florence next semester. I have a friend that's over there right now (also named Laura) and I just read through a bunch of her notes on Facebook (it's like a blog, if you're not familiar) and now I can't wait. One thing I was kind of surprised of is that she said in a post from March that she hadn't spent one weekend in Florence, but had traveled around Europe every weekend--Spain, London, Prague, around Italy, Brussels etc. That's amazing.

I've finalized my class schedule for next semester. Wanna hear? Ok. On Mondays I have Literature in European Cultures from 3-5:30 (that's cool, I didn't realize my first class of the week is so late in the day. That could be nice if I'm traveling all weekend.) My next class is on Tuesday, 9-11:30--Renaissance Art in Florence (which includes frequent field trips around Florence.) Then on Wednesday from 6-8:30 I have Italian (but that's up for change depending on the results of my placement test). Thursday I have two classes: Introduction to Classic Photography 9-2:30 and Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and Bernini 3-5:30. That will be a long day. And then there's no class on Fridays. Pretty sweet. The classes I'm most excited about are my art history ones. And I think next semester will tell me a lot about how serious I am about Art History, as far as the rest of my life goes. I'll be surrounded by it, and either I will get really tired of it, or enraptured. And either I'll fall in love with Italy and want to do something there later in life (like graduate school or something) or I'll decide it's a cool place to visit, but not to live.

It's going to be such an adventure! I can't even imagine.

And then before that is Kenya. Eeee! I'm so lucky that I have all these opportunities to travel and learn.

April 1st always makes me feel really lame, because I am never able to think of a cool April Fool's joke. Throughout the greater part of the year, I think of myself as a moderately funny gal. But then April 1st comes and I feel all this pressure to do something funny/amusing, and I can't think of anything. I think I'm just more subtley funny. We'll say that.


It's been a buon weekend, by the way (every Friday my Italian professor says "Buon weekend!" which means "Good weekend," because, even though there is a word for weekend in italiano, they usually just say "weekend"--according to her. Oh, and another fun fact [hey Claire]: in italiano, you don't capitalize languages. Like francese and inglese and italiano. See, wasn't that fun?). Friday night we had a Disco at UBC to raise money for our trip to Kenya. It was a lot of fun (see adjacent photo of Sandy and I. I know it looks like I'm reaching for something, but really, I'm stiking a disco pose. And I know, my feet look awkwardly placed. It felt right at the time). Oh yeah, and before that was the crazy stormy weather. That was pretty exciting. The street in front of our apartment building flooded. The water was almost up to my knees in some places. A bunch of people were outside in swim suits, frolicking about. It was amusing--a break from ordinary life. Other than that my weekend has consisted of working and chilling.

Oh! And this morning we had church outside. If you're familiar with Waco, it was near the suspension bridge at an area called Indian Springs, I think. That was really awesome, if a little warm. People were baptised and we partook in communion. And it was beautiful.

And next weekend consists of 4 days and I get to go home. I'm excited about it; I haven't spend much time at home since January. It will be refreshing.

So that's my life right now, pretty much.