One year ago today, I wrote a little post called “Welcome to Lylium.org.”

Happy birthday, Lylium. It’s been quite a year.

… It wasn’t me, that’s for sure!

They say time flies when you’re having fun.

Apparently it also flies when you have so many responsibilities putting a vice grip on your skull that your eyeballs are in danger of popping out.

Of course, I’m sure that magical time when I will have magnificently fulfilled all of my responsibilities and am able to spend all my time cuddling in a cozy blanket with a warm cup of tea and surveying the wickedly-organized serenity that will characterize every aspect of my life from my sock drawer to my day planner is just around the corner, right?

RIGHT?

Ah, well. I have a vague notion that all of this is good for me, somehow. And by “all of this” I guess I mean “life,” because I honestly do not expect it to get any less hectic. But we’ll see.

As I mentioned Last year (which, by the way, makes me feel old and vaguely nauseas as I contemplate the speed with which that year has sped), snow is a big deal in Oregon.

Today (or rather, yesterday), it visited us again in such grand proportions that some friends and I were forced to abandon our studies and spend the morning building a snow fortress.

Because in Oregon you can STUDY every day; but how many days can you build a snow fortress? Eh? Eh?

That’s what I thought.

This was also the first snow I recorded with my “new” camera. You can see the photos from today here.

• Cockroaches.
• Cats.
• Flying Squirrels.
• Owls.
• Moths.
• Tree Frogs.
• Skunks.
• Me.

Readjusting to a school-like schedule has not been easy.

2:00 am is a perfectly reasonable time to eat dinner, don’t you think?

Don’t let me down, camera.

Don’t let me down, weather.

Don’t let me down, mind.

Don’t let me down, hands.

Don’t let me down, eyes.

Wish me luck, all.

(P.S. Figures I would pick today to majorly break out. At least I’ll be on the right side of the camera, eh?)

My long-time friend Hope made me this lovely garment for Christmas:

Freakin’ Sweet.

(A Christmas post is a’comin. In the meantime, Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that Santa brought you exactly what you wanted, or if he didn’t that you take this opportunity to build some good, solid character out of the whole experience.)

I’ll explain more tomorrow. Tonight I am pounding my head against the keyboard attempting to get a 20Below article finished.

Goodnight!

Today I sat in a Eugene coffee shop, hunched over my copy of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, scribbling furiously in the margins.

I really enjoy studying and reading in coffee shops. Somehow the environment is just busy enough to be stimulating without being too busy—it envelopes you in its bustling, warm environment, and because there is so much noise, your ears don’t tend to pick out specific, distracting threads of speech. But sometimes someone else’s conversation will become just a little too loud or a little too interesting.

This happened today.

I don’t try to eavesdrop. And I don’t think it’s a respectful thing to do, on the whole. But when two college girls seat themselves on the quiet end of the coffee shop and start gabbing in unavoidably loud voices, they don’t leave you much choice.

Despite the volume of these two girls’ conversation, however, I did not listen to them—at first. I was concentrating very hard on my reading. But you know that little tape recorder in the back of your head? The one that kind of “hears” things when you don’t really hear them, when your mind is elsewhere, and then plays them back to you when the world slides back into focus?

Well. My little mental tape recorder slowly began to recognize a, ah, pattern in the speech of these two young ladies. They both had a bit of that… certain something in their speech. I will call it “Valley Girl Speak.”

Now, I don’t have anything against individuals who are valley-girl-ish. It’s just that, as a concept, it is rather easy to laugh at. Observe:

I decided to try a little experiment. I identified three key phrases that one girl in particular used repeatedly. Then, for a mere two or three minutes, I left one ear open as I continued to read, and casually recorded a tick mark in the margin of my book any time she said one of these phrases.

And, I don’t bring this up to humiliate or point the finger at anyone, or with any kind of hostility—let it just be known, for history’s sake, that in those two or three minutes, that poor girl used the word “Like” Twenty-seven times.

“Oh my gawd!” and “That’s SOOOO funny!” tied for second and third with a mere Six times each. Practically nothing.

Also, the phrases “Oh my gawd, like, so…,” “That’s like a little like…,” and “That’s SOOO funny… when did he text you that?” were each uttered at least once.

I actually had to bury my mouth in my arm to prevent myself from laughing around the sixth time that she said “That’s SOOO funny!”

But really… TWENTY-SEVEN times?

That takes skill.

Today a friend of mine told me about how she used to be terrified of “the Joker” from Batman, and how her older brother used to hide behind the shower curtain and jump out when she walked into the bathroom, yelling, “The Joker’s got you!” Naturally, this did not make my friend very happy.

Last night, another friend told me about the time her brother and his friend, who were babysitting her and her sister, convinced them that there was a man outside waiting to KIDNAP them. Great babysitters, those.

I think I got pretty lucky in the older sibling department. The worst thing my brother ever did was indoctrinate me with his fallacious beliefs that clear Christmas lights and gravy are evil.

What about you? Any sibling horror stories?

(P.S. I do not really mean to suggest that brothers who torment their younger sisters are not good brothers; both of the friends I mentioned adore their big brothers. Just so you know. )

Thank you for visiting Eugene this evening. You brought some much needed excitement into one girl’s humdrum evening.

Love,

Erin.

(This afternoon in discussion, David, the PRESIDENT of Gutenberg College, told us that if it snowed overnight school would be cancelled in the morning. When we asked him how much it would need to snow before that happened, he said, “Enough to play in.” Let it be known that Gutenberg has the coolest. president. ever. )