The Wormlips Scrapbook

What happens when I leave my children behind? The younger takes up skydiving. I don’t know whether I’m more afraid for her life, or envious. My older wee one, however, is being a model child (well, 30-year-old child) and has even mailed me two actual real tangible letters. I miss my habibee. (I learned that yesterday from my classmate from Baghdad. It’s the plural form of an Arabic term of endearment.)

Last night in my dreams I took some astounding pictures for this blog. However, since my dreams are surreal and filled with desolation, black skies and dead things, be grateful that only I can see them.

From my third-floor window where I’m writing, I see a chipmunk hopping across the mowed grass into the woods like a gazelle. A very small gazelle, and rodent-like in manner.

I’m nearly settled in my apartment, and have surrounded myself with artifacts from Important People: the pillow Anna made me, the tin dog of Bulwinkle’s, my sister’s “Yellowbrick Road” sign, photos of friends, Adi’s Virgin of Guadalupe hanging, Lulu’s miniature Virgin of Guadalupe, Pat’s “Man Shorts” mini-book, Mom’s pots and pans and sheets and stuff, Yo-Nenny’s postcard that reminds me “No U-Turn”…

Here are some Turkish words, and a teacher trying to make us understand them.

The life of a student is hard even on the young: all the frozen food, and then there’s the lack of sleep.

I blurred that subject’s face since I haven’t had a chance to get her permission to put up this photo. Not that more than ten people look at this blog anyway. She zonked out while reading our Second Language Acquisition homework. Today another student fell asleep in the same place doing the same thing.

Though I hate being as busy as I am, with every moment either in class or studying, it helps keep my mind off of homesickness. And the scenery… Every morning when I drive to school I nearly veer off the winding road as I try to take it all in. If it’s starting to get light by then, I usually stop to take pictures.

On the way home, if there’s still light, I do the same. I love the old fallen barn in the distance.

And here’s the view from the foot of the stairs to my apartment.

One last thing for you today: My classmate Moloko from South Africa agreed to sing her national anthem with me this morning. I look hideous but will put up the video anyway. Here you go. It’s a big file so you’ll probably have to hit play and then pause and wait a bit for it to load before it plays without jittering.

Yesterday it rained. After school I came home and lit a fire in the woodstove.

It’s starting to be fall already, with spots of pale yellow dotting the deep green of the woods, and leaves whirling off with every gust. The poison ivy winding up the tree trunks is scarlet. The sky was grey and heavy yesterday. This morning it was misty. Now it’s brilliantly sunny with a handful of high, translucent clouds. I approve of Vermont’s aesthetics.

The only fun-ish thing I did this weekend was to go to Scott’s Farm a mile up the road from school. They produce 75 varieties of apple, among other tree fruit. One of them is a variety of crabapple that Thomas Jefferson used for hard cider. Across the street there is a friendly llama. I thought it would spit on me, but it politely refrained. And there were sheep and sunflowers and who-knows-whatall.

A few feet down the road is Rudyard Kipling’s house where he wrote Jungle Book and Captains Courageous. The place is available for rent.

In the rare moments when my mind isn’t occupied with some academic task, I am counting to three in Turkish (bir, iki, üç), or saying the second half of “pleasure to meet you” (bulduk) because I can’t remember the first part (hoş). This week is my last of Turkish and then I move on to my next chosen language: Kiswahili. I am a practical person. But who knows: maybe I’ll wake up in Tanzania someday.

I got my first phone call on my land line the day before yesterday, and had my first visitor (Kim) who was also my first “study buddy.” Baby’s First Study Buddy. We worked on our résumés and cover letters for our internships. She was a huge help. She has teaching experience. I don’t. I’m applying to sites in Mexico, South Africa and Costa Rica. It’s taken me about ten hours thus far and I’m still not done, and I have a ton of homework to finish today as well.

I feel as though I’m running down the track after an accelerating train.

It’s raining in Vermont, and cold.

Yesterday after school Kim and I tried to learn how to pronounce properly the name of our Iraqi classmate, Sabah. Success was partial.

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

This is my Russian classmate, Tatiana, who seems to be feeling a wee bit less homesick. I’m very glad.

The photo was taken by Bill, the only student older than I. We learned today that he has withdrawn from school. Sad to lose someone we were getting to know, with all his foibles, and sadder still for me to be the oldest person within hectares.

I’ve been making up Turkish words. I can get to “one, two, three” but then I get carried away: “humvee, no-doze, sickos, febreeze, yeti.” And when called on in class, Greek, of all things, comes back to me. Po inne to meros? Epharisto para poli. And then my one word of Tibetan came back unbidden: Tashi delek. But in class this morning my very tired partner for the day, Sabah (see above), outdid me on the absurdity front. She hadn’t slept since midnight. —“Do you have any 61 lira stamps?” I asked in Turkish (sort of). —“Oooyoo guhlooboo!” she replied spontaneously. I couldn’t stop laughing and almost had to be disciplined.