great quote

The primary reason to study Blake and Dickinson and Freud and Dickens is not to become more cultivated, or more articulate, or to be someone who at a cocktail party is never embarrassed (but can embarrass others). The ultimate reason to read them is to see if they may know you better than you know yourself. 
- Mark Edmundson 

imagine

This little treat is from the time that Rachel, LiLi, Bethany, and I went to Central Park and walked by the John Lennon memorial.  Rachel really wanted to walk on it, across the rose-strewn peace sign, but Bethany didn't think it was a good idea.  I think if she had walked on it, the people sitting around strumming guitars and singing "Imagine" would have jumped up, forgotten about world peace, and killed her with their guitars.  Just a guess.

I need a visa

Lately I've have been checking my email in hopes of seeing one about my work visa invitation letter.  I finally got one last night.  And now, it's looking like I might not get the invitation letter that I need to apply for my visa for another two weeks.  So the visa probably won't arrive until the day of or a couple days before I leave.  Yikes. I'm hoping to fly out August 26th, so that I can get over at least some jet lag before teaching starts on September 1st, but that might not happen.  Well, either way, I am getting more and more excited!  Now to figure out how to stuff 10 months worth of my life into a couple suitcases...

a crash in the night

Our house had no air conditioning, so the heat hit me like a fury whenever I left the frigid St. John's University after a day of class to come home. Some nights were awful--I pulled up a small fan next to my bed and set it on a chair to cool me off point blank, but that didn't always make sleeping easy.

One particular night, I was dozing off and on until something like 3 am, when I thought to myself, this is the last straw, and pulled the fan up even closer. I woke an hour later (or maybe I never fell asleep again) by a tremendous crash. I sat up, bleary eyed and feverishly hot, wondering if the crash came from outside or inside. Then, as I sat debating what to do, I heard whispering and giggling from the hallway. I cracked my door and peeked out, and saw that Naomi's door was open, and so was Lisa's. I stumbled down the hallway as I put my glasses on, and saw that Naomi was in Lisa's room, peering out the window into the front yard and...giggling.

I stepped inside the room and they both started and shrieked a little, and then they started telling me what was going on. Our neighbor next door, who is renting a room in the large house there, decided to install a contraband AC window unit in his room. Who could blame him? However, his landlady does not allow them because they drain so much electricity, so this guy thought he'd be smart and install his unit at 4 am. So he put it in his window, and it promptly fell out...and smashed in our tiny flower garden three stories below, between the two houses. Yeah. Naomi was basically falling over herself, just laughing and laughing as quietly as she could, because the man could probably hear us since we had all the windows open. It was such a pathetic sight, that AC unit all smashed up. I can only imagine that the man was wringing his hands or shaking his fist at the sky.

Then, the doorbell rang. And rang again. But we stayed upstairs, giggling and still feverishly hot, because we weren't about to go down there and answer the door at 4 am. The poor man probably thought we would call the cops on him if he didn't alert us first, but he eventually gave up. And left the broken thing in our flowerbed so that he wouldn't have to deal with it.

We all went back to bed, and I think I slept after that. All I know is I needed loads of coffee the next morning.

an unwelcome visitor

A week and a half after I moved in to Naomi's house in the Bronx, the Roberts' cousin Emily moved in. Emily and I became fast friends, but before this, there was an intruder in the house that threatened her when I was away at school. Emily was setting up her newly moved-into room, and began to hear something making its way up the stairs. A fuzzy black head and beady eyes protruded over the top stair as Emily watched, I can only picture her in horror, from her room. The black squirrel dashed into Rachel's room (next to Emily's) and hid itself, and Emily screamed out the window for Jesse (her cousin, whose backyard is shared with Naomi's house) to come help her.

So Jesse, whose pride and joy is a well-muscled Rottweiler named Scrapper, came inside to help--all Jesse had to do was yell "Scrapper! SQUIRREL!" and Scrapper betook herself up three flights of stairs and into Rachel's room to hunt around. There was no squirrel to be seen. Emily and Jesse began to talk in the hallway, and all of a sudden, the squirrel raced out between their legs, bounced off the closed door at the end of the hallway, and ran back into Rachel's room...where it was met with Scrapper. The squirrel made one last desperate leap to the windowsill, but Scrapper met it mid-air with her jaws, and shook it, and killed it. Poor squirrel. From what I heard and what I saw as documented in pictures, Jesse was beaming as if his daughter had won an Olympic medal.

So, the squirrel was disposed of, and Rachel moved in the next day--to the room where it met its end. The squirrel smelled awful, I'm told, so when Rachel moved in, I watched her closely. She said to me at one point, "does it smell funny in here?" I told her to ask Jesse why.

I have been home now for a week after a month living in the Bronx, and honestly, I miss being there! I got used to Spanish music blasting at all hours of the day and night, cars honking just for kicks, riding the subway every day for class, and walking with my eyes straight ahead instead of saying hello to anyone. Definitely a switch from the casual grocery store conversations you often have in the South. But besides all those negatives ( I guess you could say, unless you're really into Spanish music at 2 am) I listed, there were so many other things I loved about living there that those were canceled out.

The house I lived in was fantastic--a lady from the Roberts' church, Naomi, rents out rooms to women, and I was one of five renting from her. I had a great time getting to know them, and I was surprised at how fast I felt at home there with them. We hung out in the backyard a lot with the Roberts family, playing knockout and Dutch Blitz. I beat some people soundly at knockout, but sadly, I didn't win a single game of Dutch Blitz. They beat me every time. But, it just gave me a great incentive to get better at it, because I'm part Dutch anyway--I should be decent at it, or so I'm told. :)

I went to Chinatown three times while I was there, which is kind of funny to think about in retrospect. I wanted to go there, but I didn't know I'd go back two times after the fact. My friend LiLi Roberts, who is Chinese herself, introduced me to the world of haggling. I am not a natural-born haggler. I smile too much. I look like someone who would just give in, because lowering the price 2 dollars doesn't make that much of a difference. Oh, but I have changed my ways, and I am now on the road to being a better haggler than before. However, I think I might still need a friend with me to make it look more convincing. Here is our haggling routine:

Me: "How much?"

Chinese man: "15 dollars. Very quality. Very nice."

Me: "That's too expensive. 12 dollars?"

Chinese man: *wrings hands* "You make me go out of business! 14 dollars."

Lili: "C'mon, Laura. We can get it cheaper at another store."

Chinese man: "14 dollars, best price!"

Chinese woman:" Don't listen to her. She is ugly. Best price!"

Me: "12 dollars."

Chinese man: "13."

*LiLi and I start to walk away*

Chinese man: "WAIT! Okay, 12 dollars."

On a side note, the man's counterpart at the store (possibly the owner) was very rude, but that was a pretty hilarious moment. Don't listen to her, she's ugly. Goodness.

I have to stop writing for now, but next time, I will write the squirrel story and the AC unit story.

Dad and I are going up to NYC tomorrow morning on the Amtrak, and I can hardly believe I'm finally going! I had to laugh, talking with my friend (who lives in the house right behind the house where I'll be living in the Bronx) about it. He said, "oh, you're bringing your dad with you? he might want to take you right home when he sees our neighborhood!" Yikes. But owing either to being naive or just brave, I'm not that worried about the neighborhood. I'll have friends nearby who grew up there, some friends who will be new there as well (including Rachel and Noah, yay!), and I'm more than excited about the classes I'll be taking, enough not to worry too much about the rest.