I'm here! I'm here!

I am still alive and kicking. The last 6+ months in a nutshell:

April: the post below has a picture of our view from our front door. We were outside the day after a really scary incident w/ some former neighbors and trying to show people that we weren't scared of living in Kensington, on our block, in the face of intimidation, etc.

It's kind of a long, complicated, and personal story. But I'll just say that there are a lot of things that we could be afraid of, living in a "rough" area like we do, if we let it get to us (such as getting mugged, assaulted, harassed, hurt in other ways, etc.) but we don't and we try to be as confident and unafraid as we can. This incident trumped these, as it involved a personal vendetta against my housemate, as opposed to being randomly hurt in any of the above ways. ALL THAT TO SAY, everything has blown over, everything is cool, everybody's okay, and I think said former neighbors are in jail.

May: school ended, I flew back to Washington for a month, my step-sister got married, I got sick...

June: flew back to PA, readjusted, worked a lot, got a new housemate, Travis

July: my dear friend Michelle from the West came out for a few days, I started summer school, worked some more, rode my bike a lot

August: went to Maryland for a weekend, finished summer school, quit my job, went on a road trip w/ my dad, step-ma and dogs, visited family in Missouri, flew back to PA, Travis moved to another part of Philly, got a new housemate, Derek, one of my dearest friends and former mission year housemates moved back West :( big fat booooooo

September: Derek moved to another part of Philly, I started my SENIOR YEAR, started back @ the Sisters as a social work intern, got two new roommates from Kansas, Micah and Aubrey(short-term, leaving in late Nov), got super busy w/ all of the above, turned 24, celebrated the return of friends who had been abroad all summer, bought an orchid

October: former mission year housemate Sarah came to visit for a weekend, started helping a couple neighbor boys w/ reading for an hour/week, started freaking out for all my friends who are all of a sudden soon-to-be engaged, got some good grades, went to a laaaaaaaame "Halloween alternative" kid's thing @ a local church, at a lot of candy (which is nothing new ever), Oh! and found out I'm not on the verge of diabetes

AND
November: pretty decent so far. One friend got engaged (semi-shocker!), saw "Baby Mama" (one of the worst movies of all time), painted my nails, skipped church, got a new housemate, Carl (but not Winslow, which is honestly a little disappointing)

To come, in case I don't update ever again: lots of schoolwork this month (lots and lots), Thanksgiving in Snohomish, live out a Barry Manilow song ("weekend in New England"), freak out within the next three weeks, drive to MO w/ housemate Cambria for Xmas, spend New Year's Eve in St. Louis (?), drive back out here, take a week-long class for some extra credits for my degree, start the new semester...


Whew, all caught up! I think I did a pretty good job... don't think I missed much... Oh wait, I bought a business suit too.