Finishing finals...Portland, Oregon

*Whew* I am now done with all final exams and therefore officially finished with Spanish Lit (To be continued next semester), Early European History, and Colonial Latin American History. May the histories rest in peace and never never never plague my semester schedule again. Seriously. How is it that 2 400-level foreign language classes were a breeze while 2 100-level history classes gave me so much trouble? History is no good, I say. But it's over. All I have left is a presentation in my German class (gender roles in the Nibelungenlied) and then I'm home free.

Jay and I are moving into a huge on-campus double apartment next semester, so we have to move all our stuff into the storage facility of that hall. We're pretty much done though, so that's not particularly stressful. While I'll miss having an oven, I will absolutely not miss the women I lived with for the first part of this semester. Guh. In one case especially, I had to deal with pretty much the preppy/immature/spoiled type that I spent all of high school avoiding. And then we lived together. Lovely. Personality clash to the extreme.

On that note, next semester will be the first ever that I've actually selected my roommate. Honestly, I had great luck my first two years, and technically lived without a roommate last year, so a few duds were bound to come my way at some point... The residents of my old room were clearly they. Blah. I am, however, eagerly awaiting my return to Berkeley, especially since my family's new cat is probably the size of a small tiger by this time. Oh, and of course seeing family and friends will be wonderful. I'm also looking forward to a potential mini-road trip to Death Valley with Jules, which would be amazing if we can figure out how to do it.

For the most part, aside from looking forward to vacation, I'm just trying to get a grip on my senioritis and uncertainty for the coming year(s). South Korea is looking like a very attractive (and rather likely) possibility, as both Jay and a good friend of his are interested. This of course serves to re-spark my interest in Asian languages, so I'm back to making flashcards to learn Japanese and Korean. I have to say, Korean is a lot less complicated than the languages of its neighbors. I just wish I'd put in the effort to maintain the small amount of Korean literacy I had after my semester in Chile - after a year and a half of concentrating on other languages, I'll have to start all over by re-learning the alphabet.

Additionally, I'm excited to visit the art store this weekend to prepare for creativity bursts next semester. They're bound to happen... I hope. If not, I may as well try to find an off-campus job, since I have two free days during the week and I should keep myself entertained somehow. Maybe I'll just raid the libraries in the area and try to learn Italian, Korean, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Finnish, and Arabic. Oh, and maybe Greek. ^_^.

Honestly though, I don't quite know how I'm going to do justice to what very well may be my last year in Portland. My time here has gone by so fast... And while I regret that my time abroad precluded my ability to keep strong connections here at LC, the time I spent in Latin America and Europe was invaluable to developing the person I'm still in the process of becoming. At the least, I have some pretty photos. At the best, I have an infinite source of inspiration to keep exploring. And all the while, I haven't even thoroughly explored Portland and what it has to offer. Maybe in the coming months (as the sun begins to reappear), I'll have a chance to run amok through the bridges and streets of Portland as I should have by now.

Much love to everyone, and here's to hoping the holidays and the new year are wonderful. May we not get tangled in Christmas lights (though, if our cat does, I promise I'll pass the pictures along).