On a Brighter Note...

Raphael has agreed to be my country! My citizenship proceedings have been going well, and with any luck, I will be sworn in sometime next year;-)
In other news...Hi Kara! Ja vim že, neznameneš potřebuju omlouvat. I was just implying that those of us with my personality might need that knowledge even without the help of swear words-- but your English ones are very good-- who taught you those??? :-P

Afterglow...

No- not that kind, silly! Not with my Raph 4,000 miles away (Hey- that's 6,000 miles better than last year!). I mean the kind of afterglow you get when your midterms-- good and bad-- are OVER. All that's left now is working off the Halloween candy I'm going to eat, taking the Psych GRE, turning in grad school applications, finals and moving. It's difficult to imagine that I'll be finished with my degree in 7 weeks, and living somewhere other than NYC in just 9 weeks...perhaps never to return (sniff). Unlikely. But there are times when I feel I don't fit in even here, that I'm still misunderstood by... everyone, or that I somehow come across as too aggressive or over-ambitious (even to Americans!)...I tend to stick my neck out a lot (or it just sticks out naturally), so Kara's right-- I need to start learning to apologize in Czech.

Little Paragraphs...The New Short-Short Art Form

Since Miss Kara is the only one reading my blog, I will compose her a little paragraph:-)
Ahoj, Karo! Jak se maš? My Czech teacher is getting very frusterated-- not with us, but with the Czech language...he says it's a ridiculously difficult and useless language, and he's only just realizing it now that he has to teach it (as opposed to 26 years of speaking it). But I find it fabulously useful for cursing...you guys leave the conversation group so early you miss out on learning wonderful phrases like, "Maš kramy" and "kurve" when everybody gets drunk...

Wicken Wayes

Am gathering the remnants of wicken wayes to wash away the raynie dais...because I have a Renn Faire to go to tomorrow, dagnabit!

Relativism in strange places...

Know what I learned in Czech class today? If a masculine (active) noun, ending in a consonant, is used as the "object" of a sentence (accusative), the ending changes to an (otherwise feminine) "a." So if I want to say "I love Raphael" (I love you, baby), it would be "Miluji Raphaela." I find that hilarious....proof that being female can be as simple as being put in the objectified position! Ha!

Mission Control, do you read me?

The time has come for those of us less willing, to go into that dark night of cyberspace. And so, here I am. It's not as pretty or personal as my former journals, but frighteningly more accessible and editable: Anne Frank would be proud.
For those of you whose Italian is rusting, my blog title ("Michela illesa") is best translated as "Michela Intact," although this really doesn't do it justice. The word "translate" actually used to mean "transform," and I find this gives me a more accurate understanding of what exactly is lost in translation.
So, intact, or as Sondheim would put it: "still here," here's to making staying "in contact" easier...