Back.

I'm climbing in your computer screens, I'm snatchin' your people up...

(No? Read this.)

Back after a lazy end to vacation and a 0-60 start to Mandarin training. Seriously, they don't mess around. We are flying through the basics, and I must say... I LOVE it. I was worried I would get bored by so much FSI time (and perhaps that point will come), but I think I had forgotten how much I really, really enjoy language classes.

Of course, I am not sure why I would forget that, since I used to take language classes as a leisure activity in New York. Note this does not extend to classes of any other sort--life as a professional student made me perpetually cranky--but I get SO excited about a new language that I find it pretty hard to contain myself.

This enthusiasm doesn't really extend to studying, so that's less fun. I have long been aware that I'm not a particularly self-motivated person. Classrooms are fun! They have people in them! Yay! (Can you tell I turn out to be an extrovert in those Myers-Briggs assessments?) My desk at home, however, is a solitary, lonely place (well, James is around, I guess). Boo.

Otherwise, I haven't done much since getting to DC. I got to see some lovely friends from Dhaka (also back this summer) and am super excited to meet up with the Washington-based set of my college friends tonight. Opera tomorrow! No studying tonight! Woot.