Well, it was a challenging semester, to say the least, and extremely full of Very Late Essays. The next semester will not be. *
glares at next semester* Anyway, as final exams drew nearer, came and went (I did not miss or needlessly mess up a single one! Yay!), I began to become increasingly excited about Christmas, and, most especially, being home for it. You see, my life as a spy hiding in Siberia has prevented my celebrating Christmas with my family every year for the last decade, since going home would have broken my cover, compromising my career as well as the safety of myself and my relatives. This year, however, as a spy hiding at a small Canadian university, not only
can I go home, I am
expected to; it would seem strange if I had to stick around over the holidays, and the last thing I'd want to happen would be for people to be paying too much attention to me, maybe asking the wrong questions and accidentally finding out that the name on my student card doesn't match the one on my driver's license, and then... well, let's just say I wouldn't want that to happen, especially now that I've been fool enough to go home to my real parents for the holidays. *
sighs*
Anyway, it was great to be back, although it was quite disorientating to get there and see just as much snow there as there was here before I left. You'd think I would be used to the time passing while I'm gone thing after my many travels, but I guess that is simply not the case; despite all my intelligence, common sense, and knowledge to the contrary, I expected to arrive back on the very day in late August that I left. Such things would amuse me if they were at all justifiable or even understandable, however, in this case, I do not believe them to be either. It was nice it really was winter, though, because I got to go skating three times. I love skating; I expect it's the closest I'll ever get to flying (Airplanes don't count. They may as well be buses, except for the shape and the scenery.), and someday when I have the time, energy and dedication, I'd like to learn how to do spins and jumps and things. I took some figure-skating lessons as a kid, but we never got past the basics, and I've forgotten most of it anyhow. Also good about winter is not being depressed (I get it really bad in the summer, for some reason, usually about from mid-July to mid-October, which also makes October and November pretty bad since I feel overwhelmed trying to catch up with everything I've been mostly ignoring in the hopes that it will go away.) and the fact that there are no Christmas presents any other time of year...
One of the things I like most about Christmas is the exchanging of gifts. Perhaps this makes me materialistic, but, no matter how frustrating the search has been, there is no feeling quite like that of finding the perfect gift for someone. (There's also no insecurity quite like that of wondering whether it was too much, or too little, or whether they'll even like it, but that's an entirely different ball game.) I confess, however, that I also enjoy receiving gifts (even when they constitute self-help books or alarm clocks, which I have to pretend to hate for the sake of my tough image :p ), and I got a rather good haul this year. (People who have already heard this list or who have very short attention spans may skip to the next paragraph if they wish. I write this entirely for my own pleasure and will thus probably indulge in very minute detail, although just saying that probably makes it less likely despite my prior knowledge of my own unedited writings.) First of all, I have to mention my socks, as socks are the most wonderful clothing item there is (Shoes come in second and shirts are third. That's why I have so many.), even beating out jewellery, which is not strictly a clothing item, I suppose, which is why it doesn't figure on my list. I have been known to plan an entire outfit around a nice necklace or a pair of earrings, but I will wear whatever socks I like regardless of the time of year (Yes, I have been known to sport "Merry Christmas" socks in July - and find it very amusing to boot.) or whether or not they clash (eg. white-and-lime-green froggy socks with my silver-and-teal running shoes). Okay, maybe I do like jewellery better. Anyway, the point is that my parents got me eight lovely pairs of socks in a package of five (one each of white, orange, blue, green and red) and another of three (two navy blue pairs with green and multicoloured diamonds and another pair that was just plain navy blue). Which is nice because, as you have probably already figured out, I like socks. Other notables included a sheep pencil case (Its tail is the zipper pull, and, yes, I was amused in a juvenile way when I first realized where that meant the pencils go, which was almost right away, but who wouldn't be at least a little?), my very own mp3 player (I've been wanting one for months but could never quite justify the expense. And it's such a lovely shade of blue...), and a book, recommended to my mother by Heidi's mother, which I was very much helped by, but which I will shut up about now because it's not like I'm being paid to sell it or anything, whatever it may look like to the casual observer. Then my sister gave me the CD I've been wanting, plus she let me put her new Skye Sweetnam and Avril Lavigne CDs on my computer, which was almost as good as giving them to me, so I have a lot of new (also old but that I couldn't get before) favourite songs for my mp3 player... My brother the vehicular extremist gave me a real mouse for my laptop (Yay! I have a laptop! I couldn't get my own computer before because my lodgings were so uncertain and the Siberian cold would have done it in the first night I was forced to sleep outside - for details of how I managed that, google "how to survive extremely cold weather" and hope you come up with something useful - plus it would have completely blown my cover, given the exact nature of my assignment, which I'd rather not go into... *
shudders* Laptops are the norm here, which makes me happy because I'm really enjoying mine.), and my other brother, the commie
[Editor's note: Kate's brother is not actually communist, to my knowledge. He is interested in political and military history, but his own beliefs on the subject remain even less clear than his sister's, if such a thing is possible. Perhaps this is a cleverly disguised reference to her uncle, who claims to have been selected for random strip-searching on three consecutive airplane flights because he is a vocal Democrat?] [Author's not: Ignore my editor. He is stupid. <_< ... Although I will admit that my brother does not profess to be a commie. I merely use the term to distinguish him from the Ford-hater, aka vehicular extremist, which sounds cooler. (Vehicular being a four-syllable word and all.)], gave me... an alarm clock. (He said it was a joke.) It's actually kind of cool, though, considering what it is... It's bright red and shaped like one of those old-fashioned ones with the bells on top. Plus it has a picture of a rooster on the clock face and it crows like a rooster when it goes off. Hard to set, though: the numbers aren't perfectly evenly spaced, so there's a fair amount of trial and error involved... There were more things, but either I don't remember them, or they are not worth mentioning. It's not the things that are important anyway.
Shortly after Christmas, my - what was it they call those now? Oh, yeah,
statement of results - came, and, as always happened during my high school years, my grades were higher than I expected, so I'm not failing English. I got a C+, and I have a whole semester to get it back up to an acceptable level. (My humblest apologies to anyone who read my last post and was really worried, as well as to anyone who routinely gets grades lower than a C+ and considers them good; I know I set very high standards for myself, and I did not in any way mean for the above statement to reflect negatively on your intelligence. *
refrains with some difficulty from breaking into a rousing chorus of "A's for acceptable, B is for bad"* Anyway, there are more important things in life than grades - I just haven't found them yet.) All in all, then, it was a refreshing, relaxing break from school, spy duty, trying to remember which name I'm supposed to be answering to now, everything. I feel more ready to face the world than I have in a long time, and I hope all of you (Yes, all two of you.) feel the same.
Much peace (real peace, that is) in the new year,
Katharine Genevra Black
