And since I've got no place to go...

New England really is gorgeous in the snow. It's made to look good in the snow the same way Claremont was designed to look like crap unless it's bathed in sunlight. Waking up in the morning to see the ground covered in a blanket of white, the sun reflecting off the pristine surface, the trees standing majestically, looking like the label from a maple syrup bottle--it's a beautiful experience.
And then you have to get off your ass, shovel the driveway, and clear the snow off the car, thinking all the while that as long as you can feel the biting cold in your hands, they won't have to be amputated, and suddenly New England is a hellhole again.
Today I was put in the unfair position of having to explain to a Georgian woman (that's the Soviet republic, not the state) why black people and white people don't go to separate schools anymore. I also had to figure out what complex librarian terms like "database" and "ISBN number" meant, then attempt to convey the meaning in Russian. I decided that translation is not one of the things I'd like to do with my Russian major. OK, maybe I'd do it again, but I wouldn't do it for free--or, as in the case of today, for a mozzarella sandwich.
Another one of my realizations: I'm going to have to gain at least fifteen pounds if I ever want to survive in Russia two semesters from now. My current build, that of an uneven, muscle-less layer of fat spread out over a small bone structure, isn't doing much for me in this cold, and it certainly won't help when the temperature is ten degrees below whatever it is here. We'll see if my Bridget Jonesifying plan works when the time comes. It'll be a riveting battle between my primal survival sense and my desire not to be ostracized from Forever 21.