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New design! I like green. And trees. And plants and stuff.

I decided to forgo the password idea for this blog. It turns out I can't really password protect it, but would have to invite via email every person who wants to read it and that's not my style. I like the idea of people I've never met reading this thing and I wouldn't want to make strangers send me their email address so I can invite them. It's a blog, if you're feeling offended by it, please either contact me or stop reading it. Gata.

I don't wanna jump the gun, but I got very excited today when I spoke to my Romanian tutor, who is on maternity leave from teaching English (they get two years of maternity leave here - two years!), about the possibility of starting up a drama/English club at her school. If there's one thing I truly miss from high school, other than friends, it's the drama club. One of the best ways to form strong camaraderie with others is through being on a stage with them, in front of hundreds of onlookers, whom you can not see because ridiculously bright spotlights are shining right into your retinas, dressed up as a bunny, and singing badly out of tune while dancing slightly off beat of everyone else. At least that was my experience. Good times. Seriously, despite the oddly harsh teacher, I loved every minute of my drama years and have always wanted to get involved in it again. Maybe this'll be my chance. Anybody know of any good Halloween-themed plays, as that'll be about the time for our first production :)

Gotta go bake cookies. My hopes are to make at least two batches for vineri, patru iulie, to share with my colleagues in honor of the great country I'm observing from afar. Speaking of which, it's quite embarrassing when your new Romanian friends know more about the history of your country than you do. I met some new people last night and they went into a big discussion about several of the past presidents and what they contributed to the country and who was good, who was bad, etc etc. Stuff that makes me snore. Sorry, but it does. I can not help it and I know many people out there are suddenly wishing I'd password protected this blog and not invited them. I have tried so many times to get interested in politics and read about what all the past presidents did for this country because I know it's important stuff and I hate being in situations where people are talking about something that I know nothing about, but I'm asleep by page ten. And about ten minutes into this conversation, I started noticing how lovely the park looked and how cute all the kids running around were and wondering which tree a nearby dog was going to pee on, and not listening to what my new friends were rather passionately discussing. They're from Romania, we're sitting in Romania, and they're debating my country and its past presidents and I have NOTHING to add. Shameful? This is something I've thought alot about...forcing yourself to memorize material and be interested in a subject because others deem it as necessary, basic knowledge to know. Should I really be embarrassed by the fact that I cannot list off all the presidents, or even half of them, and their parties, and that I don't care if you or your grandfather can? Somehow I managed to get through high school and college without knowing the names of any of the Supreme Court Justices and my question is: is that sad on my part or sad on my schooling's part? Or both? I seriously lie awake at night thinking about this and wondering if I'm a bad and ignorant American. I try to stay up to date on current political happenings. I vote. I caucus (even though I still don't fully understand the process). But I will never be able to dive into a conversation about Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon and Abe Lincoln and how awesome and/or horrible they were and feel even remotely confident in what I'm saying. Never. Sure, I could do some research and write a ten page paper about it, which I've done in the past, but does any of that info stick? Nope. Because I write the paper, get my A (or B...), and never think about it again until I'm surrounded by people who are discussing something I wrote about five years ago, and can remember nothing of. Yes, it's a very important part of history and who we as a nation are, I know, and I'm very glad there are people out there who are quite interested in it and have the ability to read about it and actually retain the information. They'll have all the conversations for me while I take a walk in the park and smile at the dogs and hope that people don't hate me for my incurable ignorance.

Wow...off into the tangents. Too late now for cookies. Tomorrow. Two batches. And I'll do it to the tunes of Nina Simone.