Thank goodness it's Friday. I am looking forward to another relaxing weekend filled with sleep and rest. The weather is mellowing out, so I'm hoping to light some candles, maybe even burn some wood in my fireplace type thing and read the book I brought with me. My week was pretty run of the mill, with work and coffee and some rain showers. The week seems to have flown by though, and feels as if it were just Monday morning and yet it is Friday afternoon. And so September has run out, like sand in an hour glass...I always think hourglasses a bit paradoxal, as it looks like the sand will run out quickly from the speed of it falling and yet it takes however long it is supposed to take for the last grain of sand to fall. This is what September feels like. Like it flew by and did not fly by at the
same time... Maybe I'm being too thoughtful today? I did not have a lot to do in the way of work today, so maybe I'm looking for a mind challenge :)
That's a little hedgehog that Rasa saw near the dorm and was able to snap a photo or two of...so cute! I haven't seen one yet, but now I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for the little guys.
I must start eating breakfast, as I get hungry so early in the day and with three basic choices for lunch (Michaelsen cafeteria, IKI the grocery store and a small cafe near the school) the lunches I do end up having are far from inspiring. I get the same thing at the cafe near school if I go (chicken cutlet) and always end up buying one of a handful of combinations of food from the grocery store (peach yogurt drink, a pastry and maybe some cheese) and Michaelsen cafeteria is only okay...Also, I thought the milk tasted like string cheese when I first had it here last year, and again this year upon initial drinkage, but now I LIKE IT. And this sour milk 'kefyras' is growing on me as well. I never thought I'd actually grow to like either thing, and lo and behold - I do. Oh Lithuania, the strange things you make me like :)
Anyway, I'll try to be a more interesting person so I have more things to report, but for now life is life is life!
So here's this map thing that is supposedly supposed to track the location of the visitors to my blog...so I guess if it works, I get to see where people are reading and where they're not!
It is Tuesday afternoon, I'm finishing up at work and have nothing awfully exciting to report. Typical two work days, administrative duties are piling up and my volunteers are on the ball with reporting their hours! I had a really fun weekend, just relaxing and enjoying the 
unusually nice weather. I even got to convert a Lithuanian to a Harry Potter nerd! Go Slytherin! I did get my vacuum and some awesome speakers (both of which have been claimed if I 'don't take them home with me'), but was unable to find suitable bedding at Maxima (like Walmart) and so I have to go to a nicer place to find the size I need for my 'huge' double bed. I felt so much better after vacuuming my apartment, as there were no more families of dust bunnies living in the corners and my rugs look nice again. I have yet to make my apartment as cute as I want it to be, though - I have got to get a nice cheap vase for flowers and some picture frames for the photos I brought from home. I'm surprisingly not homesick yet, as I get to talk to my family, Travis and friends all the time, which helps as a loneliness-killer. Some friends and I decided that we will have a 'Mexican Night' at my house sometime soon over a weekend, with nachos and burritos and the like...should be fun hunting for those items at Lithuanian grocery stores, but I look forward to coordinating that and having people over. I have a Mexican cookbook, so hopefully something will turn out yummy :)
Oh, and my apartment is in the direct vicinity of the following three buildings: the wedding palace, the psychiatric hospital and a funeral parlor...so, as my Mom put it "I can get married, go nuts and die in the same day, conveniently!" Nice location, right?
I guess that's all for now folks...Tune in next time when I might have more things to say!
My community day post is late, but here it is...Wednesday was Community Day at LCC, which means we had an opening assembly (where I sat on stage with staff/faculty, so weird!) and then a Mugė which means carnival or fair in Lithuanian. It was outside on the Michaelsen lawn where there were 'booths' from each department offering various carnivalish games and information on clubs, etc. There was a staff vs student tugowar which I participated in to the best of my weakie ability, and they beat us 2 out of 3 rounds. Then due to popular demand, more burgers were served like at Serve Day! This time there were no pickles, just cucumbers and 'marinated onions' for topping - but I wasn't in charge so I was glad I didn't have to worry about food for 600 people! I was on the decoration committee, so I bought tons of balloons and ribbon and put them up so the area looked fair-like. There are some photos posted of the event in my photo album.Other than that, my week has been busy as ever - pairing up student volunteers and faculty members as assistants, placing students into orphanages to spend time with children and so on. I'm so proud to be able to be helping the LCC community and the community of Klaipeda by providing helping hands where there are needs. I am glad it is Friday though, as the weekend will be a welcome break...
Happy Birthday Dad! And Auntie Irene!
I've posted several new photos from this weekend's adventures, which consisted largely of enjoying the various cafes around Klaipeda, introducing Chad to the 12th Floor restaurant with a panoramic view of the city, participating in a leadership retreat on Saturday and enjoy friends' company.
I started to look into sheets and stuff for my bed to make it cute and homey, but apparently Lithuanians do not believe in fitted sheets, which is mildly annoying. I've got a list going of things I want for my apartment to make it more my own, so things like cute sheets and photo frames and a lamp (maybe) for my living room and a toothbrush holder and other home-ish things. I can't put anything on the walls, but there are already decent looking painting/prints on the walls that make it okay.
Work is back in full swing...I'm very busy with meetings all the time and doing things for the entire department, while trying to coordinate my volunteer program at the same time. Student Life will be hiring another student assistant to help cover the hours I won't be available to work at the desk, namely during lunch time so I can eat during the day and meet with students in the SEEDS program during that time. More updates to come, and check out the new pictures!
So the school week has begun! Students have arrived in droves, dressed to the nines for their first day of school on Monday. Guys came in full suits even! I wore a dress as part of my deal to dress up if Chad would dress up, so we represented Amerika in style. I have been attending meeting after meeting and doing loads of work. See picture of my 'office' workplace at your convenience. The "welcome" sign was my idea. 
It was so boring the first few weeks and now I'm swamped. Already students are asking me for volunteer opportunities and I haven't even met with my "student team leaders" yet (that meeting is tomorrow). I also attended my first Lithuanian language class for staff & faculty and took part in repeating things like "Mano vardas Chelsea" (my name is...) with about half a dozen older staff members, who were struggling with the š & č characters, but we all pulled through just fine. I do have a small foundation in the language, so it has been review for me so far, but I know that I will be learning proper grammar and pronunciation, which will help in conversations. Our homework is to figure out our name in Lithuanian, and mine is: Čelsė Liuis - which technically makes me a man thanks to the 's' ending of my last name. If I were an unmarried Lithuanian girl and my father's name was Liuis, my last name would be Liuisūtė and my mother's name would be Liuisienė. Complicated, right? I totally love it though and hope to be able to hold a conversation longer than 2 minutes upon completion of this class.
Also exciting in my life - I've discovered the frozen section of the grocery store. I did not have a working freezer in my fridge last year as a study abroad, so I never bought frozen stuff unless I was going to eat it right away. Well, upon shopping this evening for dinner, my companions suggested frozen crab cakes to compliment our frozen veggies...and with those two items and a rice a roni Mom sent me, our dinner was surprisingly delicious. I stupidly refused the offer of someone doing the dishes in exchange for dinner, and so now I have a sink full of dishes 'soaking' that will ultimately need doing quite quickly as I only have two plates and two bowls total. I will probably put those on my list of things to get for my little apartment - along with my badly needed vacuum. We didn't have carpet in the dorm last year, and so now these rugs are filling up with colorful bits of whatever...
It's late...so I'll finish this with a promise to update more often and that I'll be posting more pictures soon. I plan on taking my camera with me to school and snapping some photos of random goodness, so look for those soon!
same time... Maybe I'm being too thoughtful today? I did not have a lot to do in the way of work today, so maybe I'm looking for a mind challenge :)
