WTF!

Were the first words out of my mouth this morning. I exclaimed in response to the 6 inches of snow that had fallen in the night (that is still falling...we may never leave this place), but I'm blaming Matt. No one else I know (except for maybe my roommate C when she's feeling very sassy) can use this expletive with any success and here is academic nerd-faced me trying to pull it off. Not succeeding which is ok because I was in my pajamas bleary eyed and bed-headed and only C heard me. I resent this intrusion of your voice into my head Matt, though it fit the moment perfectly. Matt's goal in life (as of yesterday) is to be one of those people that you think only exist on tv shows. I think he's a good 70% of the way there.

And complete subject change, my goal(s) in life: 1. Date an Italian girl. The story behind goal number 1 goes like this. My roommate L is amazing. She brought Sarah, a friend's girlfriend who had newly moved from Italy (she's from Sicily originally but had been working in the north) and is starting school at the ELC with her back from Arizona. Sarah can't get into her house Sunday night so ends up staying a couple of days with us which is perfect L (she also insisted Sarah get reassigned contracts because they didn't like the apartment they found themselves in) and perfect us and we never go too long without someone sleeping in our basement. Anyway, my goal might just be to date Sarah, but she's sweet and dresses in black and she answered a phone call from her boyfriend with a joyous "Amore!" Who would not want to date this? Adorable.

2. Become Brandie Siegfried. These are a few of the reasons. a) she's one of those teachers who talks soo fast and has soo many good and interesting things to say that you can't zone out and instead feel like you're riding this whitewater of information that leaves you thrilled and also mildly nauseated. I love these teachers more every semester and I love the numb-brain afterglow and that's that.
b) I saw her running up Provo canyon last summer and she does triathalons.
c) She seems genuinely thrilled with her life, which is a life of constant learning. Her husband is working on PhD #2, and she'll go back too if she can and part of me thinks that there's something to leaving the university and pursuing real life, but the other part thinks that this life is as real as any other and there's a lot to learn.
d) Dr. Siegfried's take on education and its ethic imperatives. From what I gather, the issue is that knowing things obliges you to share them, which blooms out to a more general implication: we learn so we can teach. And the pursuit of knowledge in order to share it is a goal in and of itself. Later I will articulate this better. It made all the world shine gold though for like 3 hours yesterday. Blink and sigh. ke