Dainty and Magical

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope the first two and a half-ish days of 2010 have been good! So far my 2010 feels much the same as my 2009. :)

New Year's Eve was quite wonderful-- Kay had a party at her house with plenty of rum and champagne. I went over with Kacey and my cousin, Josh. We all went to The Lost Dog Cafe for dinner, then we dressed for the party. I've missed dressing for parties with Kay. It makes me feel all Betsy-Tacy-like, putting on make-up together and having her do my hair. I wore my new silky shirt from Maxazria, which I got on sale at Potomac Mills just after Christmas. Kay and I went there and met up with Callie around December 27th-- we had a very nice time of shopping and lunching, and bought lovely outlet mall items.

After dressing, we played Apples to Apples before everyone arrived (thus, 'dainty,' and 'magical,' two adjectives that I won), and prepared trays of cheese, meats, crackers, and fruits. The party itself was great! We all watched the ball drop in Times Square at midnight, of course. I met some new people, which is always fun, and got to speak French with my cousin. We have joked about how when I get a little drunk I speak French much better than when I'm sober, and Josh speaks French fluently, so this was the first time we have spoken it together. All in all, a lovely time.

The next morning I woke up early (around 8:45), like I always do, and read some more of Kushiel's Chosen. Seriously, this book has me in its thrall, which has meant that very little work has gotten done on my thesis. Part of me wants to continue to power through the narrative, but part of me wants to savour it, because once I'm done with the book-- it's over. I mean, there's another book in the series, but when will I have time to start another 650 page novel for fun? And I need the escape, a bit in the way I did a few summer's ago. Hopefully New Orleans will be a more perfect escape :). With Kay and Kacey! Hmmm... maybe the airplane ride to New Orleans is the perfect time to start the final book of this trilogy... No! Bad Abigail! Must read for thesis!

Anyway, here we are now in 2010. Thus far, I have almost completed my History of Renaissance Performance syllabus with the generous help of Carter, Callie, and Katie, and with the "Look Inside-- Table of Contents" feature available on Amazon. I swear, trying to piece together a syllabus without that would have been impossible. Swem doesn't reopen until January 4th, and I don't have time to get there until the 12th, so I am eternally grateful to whoever put Tables of Contents online. I'm pretty proud of the syllabus; it's challenging levels of reading, but also fun, I hope. I know I have great book suggestions thanks to my friends at MBC and Carter, so we can't fault my historiography!

I have also watched tons of The Tudors with Kay and Brian, usually while working on my syllabus, which I'll just put down to doing background work. I mean, Shakespeare lived shortly after Henry VIII... yeah. So, obviously, I need Hollywood's rendering of Tudor England to inform me about conditions just prior to the Elizabethan Golden Age... right? Mm-hmm.

And finally, I have gotten to spend tons of time with my mom in the past few days, which I have loved. We are becoming pros at Wii Bowling (although she does better than I do, typical) and we're both still novices at Wii MarioKart. We've also nearly completed a jigsaw puzzle of Cinderella's Castle; we usually work on it while my dad watches NCIS in the same room, so it's almost like he's helping, too. Certainly, this means I've done very little on my thesis, but... well, I think family time is pretty important, too. :)

Happy New Year!!!!! God-willing 2010 will be better than the past few years!