寒假快乐！

It's really bizarre and reprehensible that I haven't taken and posted more photos of the cats so look at this random one.

I bought the kitties a bunch of cat toys to ease the guilt of being away for two weeks while I'm in Arkansas. Their instant favorite is a little straw cone with a bunch of feathers coming out the top. Lozhka's been carrying it around in her mouth like a dead bird all day and with the feathers all over the floor, it kinda looks like I shot a pigeon or something in here. I also decided that instead of throwing away all those boxes that have been piling up, I would just turn the apartment into a kitty box playground. There are some of them you have to jump into, some you can crawl in, some to stand on, some to play in, some to sleep in. Cats love boxes. A lot. I'm hoping that if I distract them with enough junk, they won't even notice I'm gone. I'm gonna miss my kitties so much when I'm back home. However, I will not miss the cold, the snow, or my car sliding around on the road even though I was only going 15 miles per hour. On a somewhat related note, I saw the Trifecta of Emergency Vehicles on my trip to go get cat food: ambulance, fire truck, and police car all with their lights on. Plus, bonus tow truck.

I got the best freaking Christmas present from Mirri and Travis today. I drink a lot of white grape juice. Like a bottle every 1.5 days. Well Mirri and Travis bring this big box over, I open it, and there are 11 bottles of Welch's white grape juice inside. I was so happy. That's gonna last me like 3 weeks! That gift was thoughtful, practical, unexpected, and hilarious. Mirri and Travis got an owl pitcher and a koala mug, respectively.

In academia-related news, school's over! Finally.

This semester in review:

• English professors love the way I write, what a shame that I am squandering my apparently ample writing talent in physics.
• Astrophysics is hard. I still don't know how to integrate over the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. It has something to do with the error function but I don't like the error function what with it being all...erroneous?
• While I love, love, love Chinese class, it was sadly less awkward and hilarious than last year. It was almost completely without incident except for this one gem: During our lesson about shopping, Li Laoshi shows us a picture of a store with a bunch of sale banners in the windows. Also in the window, a sign reading "SLUTSPURT." We all laughed and laughed and laughed and poor Li Laoshi who, I'm pretty certain, had no idea what happened but could tell from our reaction that it was highly inappropriate, changed the slide and never spoke of it again. However, someone did bring it up with Zhao Laoshi the night we all went to Szechwan Village but none of us were brave enough to tell her what actually happened. I think we were just frightened at the prospect of having to explain the potential meanings of "slutspurt." I wonder if that would be more or less horrific than explaining to Xiong Laoshi why you can't say "China looks like a cock."

I should probably get around to packing and cleaning and those other sorts of unfun activities that precede going on vacation. If you're in Arkansas, see you tomorrow. If you are in Iowa, see you in the new year.