Music: Come on Home by Indigo Girls

(courtesy of my launchcast radio system) So much has changed since I last posted, namely my hair. Yes I finally did it folks, I got that perm I have been considering for the past few months. On Friday (which I have off work every week!), 4 out of 5 peace housers all drove up to Excell Academy in Castleton. A hair saloon school, it features cheap haircuts done by beauty students. Miriam got her hair straightened, Anna and David got theirs cut and I got myself a spiral perm. After a small fiasco about the price and some great lawyer skills provided by Miriam I got my perm for the advertised price of $15 (plus the $5 for the extra perm solution). While my immediate reaction to the perm was one less than happy (I thought I looked like an electrocuted wet rat), I have since come to like it more. In fact I like it quite a lot. But back to my weekend, we arrived home and packed our bags for Goshen. After a three hour trip including a Fazoli stop, 1 potty break, no wrong turns, and about a million radio station scans, we arrived in Goshen. It was great to see people I hadn't seen in almost exactly a month, (ie Meryl, Jess, Libby, all the other girls from my floor). Essentially it was a nice homecoming. However it didn't take Meryl long to put me to work helping with her birthday party meal. She made two Russian Mennonite classics zweibach and verenika (spelling is all wrong, I know). This was quite the process starting with preparing the verenika Friday night and continuing early Saturday morning working the whole way up until 12:30pm when we ate. It was delicious and a great crowd of people showed up. The one difficulty of the time was using the electric grill in doors, the College Cabin got quite smoky. After all that I went home for a little while and visited with Mom and Dad. I also got to see the finally completed kitchen, which looks amazing! I think it is the best room in the house now. It fills easily with light and Mom has her plants all over the space. Lots of cupboards and storage spots with a high usefulness quota. Then Saturday evening was the International Student Club Coffeehouse and Dinner. I had never attended the dinner before and it was yummy! Although by the time I started eating the various dishes I couldn't remember which countries they were from or their names, each of the ones I tried were quite good. I should also mention that this event was the first time I wore my boots to a dress up occasion. I wore them with my little blue polyester vintage 70's dress. I think I looked like a hooker but I loved it! The outfit also caused my brother to double-take, which I thought was hilarious. The coffeehouse was a blast, lots of talent and lots of amazing dancing. The highlights for me were 2 African dances and a solo Haitian dance. One from Tanzania and the other from Ghana, the African dances were great examples of how amazing hips can be when moved correctly. Good lord, I wish I knew how to make my hips move like that. After the coffeehouse was over, girls from the floor and myself had a mini dance party in Steph and Meryl's room, although we couldn't replicate all the hip movements we had seen, we had lots of fun trying. Sunday morning came all to early, but it was Carnival at Assembly so I was at least somewhat motivated to get out of bed. Carnival this year was very unique and I think probably one of the oddest I have ever been too (and that is saying a lot). The theme was compost, so there was a big compost pile of shredded paper in the front with three worms (John Glick, Julie and Ian Keim) crawling in it. Then for second hour Mary Lehman Yoder gave a great sermon on the life of Christine Weaver and how she composted the difficulties in her life in to a spiritually rich life. Mom and Dad made lunch for us all and it was a good crowd (Meryl, Steph, Krista Ehst, Jonathan and the parents). Good food and good conversation. Then after playing a few games of sequence with my parents and meryl, I did my taxes and found out that I neither get a refund or have to pay. Then I took a lovely hour nap before Anna picked me up for the drive home. So there you have it the basic picture of my weekend. I will try to post a picture of my new hair shortly.