October.

The leaves are turning colors here, and it's surprising to see what changes happen overnight. I walk down the street on my way to school, and come upon a flame-red tree whose colors shimmer in the air and scatter along the sidewalk. Or I'll turn a corner and look down a long gilded archway of branches, with the leaves glowing golden above me. Though the days have been gray and rainy, the bright colors of autumn are bursting forth as if trying to make up for the lack of sunshine. They seem to be succeeding.

My coworker Marissa is down in Central America right now, vacationing. She and her fiance just got married down there--I suppose you might call it an elopement, since they took a plane to an exotic location and got married on a beach without any family or friends present. At any rate, we had a bridal shower for her before she left, which included lots of wine, good food, flowers, and, of course, fun gifts. Marissa is beautiful, and she manages to look elegant even while wearing a plastic Viking helmet with sexy underwear hanging off of it. Ya just gotta envy some people!
















Besides the occasional fun night out with friends, I'm back in the swing of school (well, mostly, anyway). Thankfully I'm only taking one class, but it's going to keep me busy enough, I'm sure! And then of course there's work . . . and the longer I work this 8-5 (or 7:30-5:30, or 9-6) schedule, the more certain I become that this is not they way humankind was meant to spend its days . . . and months . . . and years. Of course I am grateful for the income which allows me to buy plane tickets to visit friends in Toronto and go home for Christmas, or to pay for the gas so I can visit my sister, or to allow me the resources to eat out with friends one or two nights a week. At the same time, however, I am resentful; I feel as though I'm selling my soul for security, and how can that be a good thing? SIGH. Change is in the air . . . the first whispers of it, anyway, and I'm excited to think of the future and see where it takes me.


Sometimes, when life gets busy and you're being pulled a thousand different directions at once and you're just overwhelmingly STRESSED OUT, DAMN IT!--well, there's just nothing for it but to put on your footie pajamas and watch Brotherhood 2 videos and Daily Show clips online.
















Okay, so this is admittedly random, but I bought this completely gorgeous green pepper a couple of weeks ago and just had to take pictures of it. Isn't it lovely? Almost too beautiful to eat . . . but eat it I did, and it was GOOD. And I have a picture (or six) for posterity!
















So last weekend my friend Francie and I drove up highway 12 to the Woodman School, where Francie teaches, to decorate her classroom for Halloween. We did this last year and had a grand time, and have decided to make it a tradition. Francie & her skeleton:




















Cobwebs--and creepy spiders!--paying allegiance to the American flag:















Here we are, two gorgeous girls enjoying lovely Montana!




















I didn't take any pics of this, but yesterday I had the opportunity to attend one of Missoula's most popular and peculiar cultural rituals: a Montana Griz football game. Yes, indeed, I spent three and a half hours sitting in a stadium with 15,000 maroon-clad fans watching a bunch of guys fight over an elliptical chunk of pigskin. GO GRIZ! Around the stadium, filling the parking lots, were an unseemly number of RVs, around which people stood drinking beer, grilling hot dogs, and having loud, drunken conversations. We won, 24-23, with a field goal in the last 1 1/2 minutes of play, and I guess it was actually a pretty good game (??), but my favorite part was just before the game when three parachuters jumped out of a plane a mile above the stadium and dropped down onto the field, right onto the Griz insignia. Pretty sweet. At any rate, I was glad to expand my cultural experiences and to participate in an event that will allow me to better understand a significant percentage of the people in my community.

And now, on to my homework! Woohoo!

Really, ya'll should be impressed that it's only been two weeks since my last blog. Amazing! Truly spectacular! Take note! Who knows when this may happen again??