Wednesday

Oh GOD, so tired. Lots of running back and forth today. Rachel's lil' birthday gathering was at her place last night--so much fun and good food. It was especially lovely standing on the balcony watching the snow come down. I spent the night at Kelly's (THANK YOU!) and then took the PATH back into the city, went to my doctor's for my weekly Vitamin B-12 shot (I have a new PCP, my old one retired and she did bloodwork and apparently I'm deficient in all sorts of vitamins so weekly shots. Yay. The co-pays are killing me). After this, took the train back home, studied a little before my discussion section, then took the train back to Morningside Heights for class. I LOVE my discussion section--we actually get to talk! And discuss! And ask questions! In fact we're required to do all this! My TA asked us what we thought about the professor and it's awesome that we all have pretty much the same take--although his lectures are interesting, he jumps around WAY too much, and the handouts are spiraling out of control, like the brooms in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Interestingly she asked if we'd been doing the readings--uh, I thought that was required! I've been obsessing about whether or not I'd mastered every nuance of the readings, so I guess I'm doing okay.

Anyway after class I went back to Inwood again--I was going to close my eyes for just a few minutes (Tibby climbed adorably onto my chest to suzz) and woke up awhile later. I was so tired, I literally staggered out of my room and almost fell over. Oy. I meant to pick up my laptop but that didn't happen.

My Nicolae Ceauşescu Austerity Program to Repay Romania's Foreign Clara's School Debt* is still going well. We have so many handouts for this class (well over 100 pages so far and this is only the third week of class), I had to get a folder just to keep up with them, and I ONLY bought a folder, the least expensive kind, didn't buy one other thing at the bookstore! Plus I went through Cafe East, a little coffee place on campus that serves bubble tea and various kinds of Asian food and I was very tempted to get some sushi but I didn't!

*I made reference to this last night and Alex didn't understand what I meant--during Ceauşescu's regime, he financed a lot of domestic programs by borrowing heavily from Western powers. The debt devastated Romania's finances so he instituted a very severe austerity program to pay off the debt--just about everything was exported, electricity and all sorts of other utilities and services were strictly rationed. The standard of living in Romania plummeted during all this. Romania's history fascinates me--Ceauşescu was a complete villain by the end of his regime (and life, they ended at basically the same time) but when he was younger, he was quite a maverick vis à vis the Warsaw Pact signatories, openly condemning the invasion of Czechoslovakia and participating in the '84 Olympics and all.