Chai To Keep Up With Me

This is just a roller-coaster ride of emotion. First Madison tells me I'll know by the end of April if my Cairo application was accepted or not. Then Cairo tells me I'll know by mid-May. Now Madison just told me I'll find out by the end of the week. How about someone just makes the damn decision instead of putting it off? With all this, "Maybe..." stuff, it's convincing me I'm not going to get in. Perhaps avoiding making a decision is their form of wait-listing you.

Anyway, Bodnar (my current roommate, for those of you who aren't familiar), got a puppy on Saturday. His name is Apollo. His mother was found by Bodnar's cousin, a pregnant, dirty tramp bitch (the dog, not the cousin). So then Apollo and his adorable siblings fell out of her vagina.

Right now I'm puppysitting while Bodnar's at work, and Apollo is sleeping by the foot of my bed. Oh, wait. Now he wants to play.

Okay, I'm back. Here's a picture of him:

Told you he was adorable.

On Saturday, while we were playing with Apollo, Bodnar and I were talking about what we would name a cafe that exclusively sold Chai tea. Bodnar started with "Don't Be Chai", then I came up with "Hello, Good Chai" and then at the exact same time, both of us said "Me Chainese, Me Play Joke, Me Go Pee-Pee In Your Chai". Another suggestion we both had a hand in forming was "The Third Chaiumvirate", but you would obviously need three owners for that store name to work. Got any suggestions of your own?

Are You A Dominican Or A Dominican't?

It's the penultimate day of Spring Break. And there is snow on the ground. So this post will only be about warm places. First of all, still no word on Egypt. It's been one month since I got my email from Andrea something-or-other informing me that Madison accepted my application and forwarded it to the AUC offices in New York, and it's been two months since I first submitted the damn thing at all. Aside from when I was in the Dominican, I think I've checked my email at least once every two hours for the past two months. Hopefully something arrived in Andrea's mailbox over Spring Break and I'll hear about it when she returns to her office on Monday.

Anyway, the Dominican was awesome. Since it wouldn't be a vacation without me getting sick/allergic to something/having my face swell up/receiving near-3rd degree sunburns, I opted for the latter this time. And it wasn't all over my body; it only chose select patterns, making it look like I had some sort of awful skin disease. See?:
Other than learning that applying SPF 40 sunblock does absolutely nothing, here are some other things I learned during the week:

• Dominican men love blondes. Melissa was hit on to no end. Some were fairly subtle, just giving her sly winks, but others thought the proper way to go about it was to request, "Let me have your body just once, please."
• At all-inclusive resorts, a truly excellent meal is rather rare.
• At lower-class all-inclusive resorts, there will only be one or two attractive topless women on the beaches. The others will make you wish for only four senses.
• Scottish people, no matter how drunk, can still be amazing pool players.
• Michael Jackson travels under military escort.
• From what I've seen, all sharks are pussies.
• If you're being shoved into a small motor boat by two men who speak almost no English and, technically, no motorized vehicles are allowed on the water, just go with the flow.

And that essentially sums up the trip. Just like you were there with us, huh?

A Very Chinese St. Patrick's Day

I'm really not going to be writing much of anything here until I get to Cairo (if I get in), since my life won't be very interesting until then, but I figured I should record this for posterity. So if I die, at least this one accomplishment will be recorded.

I spent the weekend back home in Appleton. Friday night was my parents' giant 19th annual St. Patrick's Day party (and the second-to-last one in our house), which was fun, I guess. But Saturday night, the real St. Patrick's Day, I spent at the lovely Pearl Hu's house. Her mom made the most delicious Asian food I've ever had in my life. Judging from how it's pronounced and what Google tells me, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's called Dao Xiao Mian. But, to paraphrase William Shakespeare, you could call it Stir Fried Semen and it would still taste as superb. I don't know what was in it, exactly, but it was missing cucumber, which Pearl assured me was comparable to "sprinkles on ice cream," so with that description urging me on, I raced to the grocery store in ten minutes, bought a cucumber, and raced back so we could throw sliced cucumber on top.

We then made 3 quarts of mango juice. The afore-mentioned accomplishment is: I drank one and a half quarts of mango juice. Although I felt slightly queasy by the end of the night, I also felt like a champion.

Now I'm back in Madison. Only two midterms and one term paper stand between me and the Dominican Republic.

I'm turning in my Cairo application tomorrow. The study abroad advisor made it seem like it's easy to get in, so now my hopes are up. I hope they don't get crushed. She showed me some of the classes they offer there, and a lot seem really awesome. I can't wait to learn about their perspective on our war of terror.

My Solio is begging for me to go. It has spent the winter suctioned to my bedroom window, trying to squeeze any energy it can from the three hours of daylight Wisconsin sees. And it's only a fourth of the way charged. If we make it to Cairo, I think it'll suck up enough energy to power half the city.