Day 49: I'll pay you a visit and my respects.

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As part of Flint Hill's Spirit Week leading up to Homecoming, Miss Priya had Decade Day today. I helped her put together her 80s outfit (comprised entirely of my clothing) -- it is interesting to note the similarities between her "costume" and my daily attire.

Today turned into my day of multilingual car conversations.

In Mrs. Bergman's automobile this morning, I requested that she help me practice my Spanish. What resulted was a wonderful "lesson" in Argentine Spanish (arguably the most beautiful, and certainly the most quickly spoken, type). Once at in DC, I read my sonnet and the Times before doing some research about which author I will read daily after Shakespeare's 154 poems run out. I learned that Petrarch (the "father" of sonnets) wrote 366 sonnets -- reading his poetry would have been so convenient for my year, seeing as this blog's url ought to be http://365gapdays+1leapday.blogspot.com/. However, the writing of anyone as obsessed as he was with one woman named Laura can't be all that interesting to read. :) I also read a bit about Ovid's influence on the sonnets of both Petrarch and Shakespeare -- cool.

At work today, I "womanned" the front desk while Gina and Carolyn worked next door to the administrative office. In between phone calls and other inquiries, I did some research for Vicki, searching for an evidence-based life skills curriculum which could be used to teach youth in the foster care system about health, education, employment, and household management. After searching for quite some time, I finally found a set of modules which I think will do very nicely! http://mhtransformation.wa.gov/MHTG/partners.shtml The introduction to the curriculum discusses the need to put this information on a website to make it more accessible to youth, so I contacted the webmaster listed and asked if I could help to enter the curriculum into a blog-based site for youth to reference. When Vera got in, I went over my fact sheets from yesterday with her, and promised to take fantastic notes at tomorrow's Ethics Training!

At the end of the day, I hopped on the metro, headed for home. At the Vienna stop, I met a cab driver from Afghanistan who had lived in India for 6 months and was fluent in Hindi! Driving from the station to my house, he asked me about the latest in Bollywood cinema, and serenaded me with music from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

While Cleaning
After Cleaning
Once home, I set up an "About Me" page on this blog (click the menu bar above to see it), crashed for 28 minutes, and fetched Priya from the bus stop. After saying "hi" to Dee Dee, I went for a jog in the neighborhood. As a cool-down exercise, I cleaned another monstrous corner of my room. I know Mama, wherever in the world she is right now (i.e. Bolivia), is smiling as she reads this.

I look forward to a relaxing evening with Nani and Priya, and can't wait for Gap Day 50 tomorrow!

P.S. MY GRANDMOTHER MAKES THE MOST DELICIOUS FOOD.

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