Beef!

Claire and Dave have been here visiting me this week. They have now experienced first-hand the joys and tribulations of nannydom. I talked about them to N a lot, so he was way excited, especially about Dave the "real live artist". When I came up to start work on Monday morning N's first word to me was "DAVE!" and he repeated the refrain when I went to pick him up at school, but Dave was in Philly for the day so he had to wait until Tuesday to meet him. He pretty much flipped out when he finally did. So they painted together, and he was basically kept delightfully occupied. B also fell in love with Dave. I think it might be partly because he bears a slight resemblance to her pop-pop. She wanted to give him all her toys and food and said hi to him over and over and over at the table. What a flirt! She also couldn't say "Dave" so his new name is "Beef." Haha.
Today we are driving to Manhattan to spend the next few days hanging out with Bianca and Andrew. Yes, it's a rough life we live. The only thing missing is Shelly, our fourth Cloister sister. It won't be quite right going to The Cloisters without her.

The BIG One!

Nothing is in writing yet, but the director of the Institute said "Congratulations! You are our first choice." [Actually, as of a few minutes ago it is in writing!]
I don't think it ever fully sunk in how important my application and visit to Baylor were, like course-of-life-determining important. Neither has the fantasticness of my admission, but I did celebrate by eating three Kolaches on the way to the airport and getting myself a "Don't Mess With Texas" t-shirt.

All the clothing issues worked out fine, of course. I took pictures of myself in bathroom mirrors.

Today I Learned . . .

. . . that it is going to be made legal to shoot wild hogs from helicopters in Texas. Seriously. This came up during the comparative sociology lecture I sat in on today. I also learned that, according to some tv special, women in Texas need to carry guns both for protection and because it is hott. I also noticed that most of the news on the radio is a thinly veiled attempt to undermine Obama, but I sort of expected that. Yep, Texas is it's own animal.
Today I had an interview, a tour of the totally drool-worthy Keston archive that is all stuff on religious persecution under Communism, lunch with current students, and the aforementioned sociology class. Tomorrow I have two more interviews and two more classes before I head back to Jersey, another decidedly insane state but for very different reasons. If y'all are lucky maybe I'll even take some pictures to post.