Guns, VA, Philly, whatever

As usual, it has been awhile.
After my previous post, which was the result of a night out in Harlem/UWS with a high school buddy whom I had not seen since I moved to NY despite living in the same city, travels and studies have dominated my life. I flew out to WI for a week and a half beginning on the Wed before Thanksgiving. I spent the evening hanging out with Simon catching up, and the next day early I went up with my father to this state forest in the middle of nowhere outside of Ladysmith. Since he has been with my stepmom, my dad has gone from, "goddamn redneck hunters drinkin' beers and shootin' shit," to a converted man who considers hunting to be an amazing sport rivaled by no other. He has been talking about the amazing experience that is the Grubb family hunting shack for a couple of years and urging me to come out. They are going to lose it in 2011 due to changes in the state regulations, so I had to come out now. It really was a great experience, although I did no real hunting myself. This place was the most wilderness place in WI I've been and the peace was incredible, improved upon by the fact that it was a terrible season leading to few gunshots heard. The nights were darker even than I remembered as a child in the country, with great views of the thickness of the Milky Way. I did some sitting, and some drives, and it was all quite interesting and I would like to go back again, although this time I'd like to have a license and a gun.
My time away in the woods meant I did not get much homework done, so I was swamped when I returned. My studio had imploded in upon itself where one of my group members who could not handle the pressure and apparently forgot how I told him I'd be gone way back when he skipped out for a week, had some horrible clashes with the editing team, etc, etc. That was annoying, but the insanely early deadlines foisted upon us meant that was out of our hair early, even though it meant lousy work. Strangely enough, nobody has gotten a grade in that class an nobody has heard from the instructor yet (grades were due by the 24th). Two of my other classes went alright as I got two As. We believe that the prof of one class did not even read the final papers since he got the grades in within a couple days of receiving our papers. My GIS class did not go so well since the prof said, "don't worry about deadlines, just do them eventually." Well, the obvious occurred and I still have a few hours of work to do on that.
Brandy, Lauren, and I went down to VA for Xmas, giving a ride to Alex, a dude who rideshared with us last year for Thanksgiving. We Couchsurfed the first night in Richmond with this American-grown Asian guy who does some nebulous business degree work. He had just bought his house in a fairly nice part of town and I cannot help but be shocked every time I find out how cheap houses are outside of NYC. I don't recall the price, but I can assure that it was rock bottom. The next morning we had brunch at this shitty diner that didn't even have maple syrup and then took off for Lynchburg. I can finally say that I am starting to visualize both Lynchburg and Richmond, or at least the parts where we go. This is always harder to do when I follow directions instead of having to make them myself. Brandy and I have started to make a place for ourselves in Lynchburg as we have explored most of what there is and found a really great coffee shop with good coffee, beer and food, and found a couple ok bars. There really isn't much around, but we've found the good stuff.
As usual, we didn't do much besides sit around, sleep, and visit family. I used the several days downtime to make a dent in Les Miserables and create Kwordquiz flashcards of something like a thousand Spanish words. I am taking an advanced grammar and composition class this semester with the hopes of finally becoming solid in the language, or as much as I can without actually living in a speaking country. I also decided to start rounding out my vocabulary by memorizing some of those simple, but marginal words that you never bother to learn in the beginning, like shovel, hammer, artichoke, crow, isthmus, gravel, and so forth. Not that I've actually spent much time studying them yet, but they're there for when I need them.
After we came back, my school and work were closed until after New Years, so I bumbled around the house trying to pick up all the loose ends of things that I've wanted to do over break, such as preparing vows and such for the wedding I'm officiating in April, and doing some research for the non-profit with whom I've been communicating, Project for Public Spaces. You see, I was on a train a couple months ago and I met the son of one of the founders. They were hiring, but since I have my GA work, I could not think to apply. Therefore we decided that perhaps I could do some volunteer research and perhaps writing until after school and we can see if there would be a way for me to get in. This was fortuitous since I've been wanting to get writing, but needed the motivation. Funny though, I was at my team's holiday party and chatting with one of the guys who plays with us, and I found out that this guy I met on the train is his brother, and he also works for them.
Looks like now is the time to go though. I am on my way to DC for Transportation Research Board, a really fun conference, and Brandy joined me for the weekend in Philly. This is really the first time I've ever spent any real amount of time in this city and I've decided that I really like it. Very relaxed and interesting people, cheap, and actually fairly nice. I also went from feeling like I knew hardly anyone, to suddenly having a ton of friends here. Actually, one couple I've known from Lancaster and they've been here awhile, and a classmate who was here doesn't live here, but his girlfriend does and so he spends a lot of time. We also met a bunch of cool CSers that we would like to visit again. Now however, we need to run off and catch our buses.