a sign in the hall at school:

"Please don't spit your tobacco into the recycling bins. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated."

My current best friend

seems to be National Public Radio. Since I live alone and don't have much work to do yet, or a TV, or social interaction, I have a lot of empty lonely space to fill. NPR rides with me in the car, greets me when I come into my apartment, and keeps me company while I'm here. News, Car Talk, A Prairie Home Companion, a conference on the Vietnam War, Celtic music, stories from Katrina victims. I'm even hearing repeats of everything.

Feeling Old

Last night I went to a Goo Goo Dolls and Counting Crows concert. We sat on the grass in back and were surrounded by a sea of teenagers. I often go around still feeling like a teenager myself, until I actually mingle with them. Jumping up and down, screaming into cell phones, and flirting like there was no tomorrow, it was more than I could handle.

Then I go to school, which is swarmed with thousands of undergrands, and I again feel out of place. I often complain that my apartment is too far from school, but after a day on campus I'm more than happy to drive very far away.

Try to be like the camel

Several years ago my dad and I went to an art show in downtown Santa Fe of works by John Lennon. The piece I liked the best was a colored drawing of a camel walking past a pyramid in the desert. The handwritten caption below it read "The camel dances and having danced moves on." I cut out a black and white copy of it from the newspaper and it has hung on my bulletin board ever since, in several different places. Tonight I was hanging up a few pictures around my apartment and once again posted this in my room. Not only do I like the little camel, but I love the lesson that goes with it. He dances, lives life to its fullest, and then he's not afraid to move on. This is always hard for me. Each time I hang it on a wall I've just finished or left a great time in my life. When I hung it my senior year in Tacoma I had just come back from studying abroad in London, and that was an experience I didn't want to let go of. Then I hung it in Richmond when I had just moved away from my best friends in my beloved Tacoma and had no idea what joys or perils awaited me in Virginia. Now it is happening again. I had an amazing year in Richmond, where I spent a lot of time hanging out with my grandparents, made some great friends, and explored a fun new city. I danced in Richmond. But now it's time to move on, and discover a new dance in Raleigh.

some things

I'm in Raleigh. That's right, I live here now. I know I mention that a lot, but sometimes it blows my mind. How did Andi from New Mexico (via Tacoma and Richmond) end up down here? Anyway, I'm mostly settled in my apartment, except that the phone lines don't work and I have no food. I have milk though, and that's pretty much the most important thing so I can still drink my chocolate milk in the mornings.

Today was orientation for us history grad students. I don't really feel intellectual enough for this, since everyone's talking about how they want to study ancient Greece or Japanese fascism or US environmentalism. But not all of the public history students are like that, so that's reassuring. We all had lunch together, and then after the TA meeting some of us went out for drinks. They seem fun, and it's a pretty social program. This is good because I have zero social interaction outside of it so far.

I saw Little Miss Sunshine. It is really good, and you all should see it. Part of it takes place in Albuquerque, and there are lots of desert scenes. Ah, New Mexico, my homeland. That reminds me, today I saw a car with a decorative NM license plate in the front, though it had a normal NC plate in the back. I, too, have a NC plate now, which is sad because I loved my yellow NM plate and the way people would peer at it long and hard trying to figure out where the heck I'm from. It was also a good excuse for when I looked lost on the road.

Call me crazy

Seriously, does this not look like a man with a briefcase and a woman with a purse? Some pedestrians walking to work, right? Because that is what I've always thought- that it's a pedestrian crossing sign. Luckily I studied this morning before taking my North Carolina drivers license test and learned it's a school crossing sign. Apparently everyone knew this but me, but I've sure never seen kids who look like that on their way to school.

This is it folks

In the morning I'm moving to North Carolina. How weird is that? I've never moved someplace in a morning. It usually takes three days to get wherever I'm moving. This is new for me. I want to be excited about it, but so far I'm not. I'm sad to leave Richmond. I know it is close by, and I will come back to visit, but still. Anyway, wish me luck.

p.s. The title of this post doesn't mean no more posting. It just means further posting will be from a new North Carolinian, not whatever it is I've been the past year or so. Alas.

How cute is that?

My grandmother (in Santa Fe) recently had some dental surgery, and the first thing she said to the dentist when it was over was "how long before I can kiss my husband?"