All that notwithstanding, I turned to mass consumerism in search of winter break employment. Yes, I have to admit, the businesses I despise most are probably my only source of temporary funds. So, sucking it up and vowing only to avoid Wal*Mart and working with meat, I drove everywhere within 30 minutes of home scouting out Now Hiring signs.

And found... not one. None. I applied at Kohl's anyway. But no signs. And nothing in the classifieds. Can no one use holiday help? Besides Boston Market and meat-lovin' catering departments? What's scarier than selling my soul to Sears for a month is this: sitting around the house every day with nothing to do and starving in my dorm room in Utrecht next April because I've run out of spending cash.

I've asked both my parents to keep their eyes open for job opportunities and their ears open for babysitting needs, but by now I'm a bit discouraged. Perhaps I can make it abroad on the $1200 I'll have by the end of the semester, less holiday gifts, less plane fare, plus $1000 credit card "money," plus my tax refund. But I'd feel so much better having an overflowing bank account when I set foot in Europe, knowing I can go anywhere I want to go, see everything I want to see, and experience everything... yeah.

And even then -- this is where I really start freaking myself out -- I'm not going to get back until late June/early July next summer, so all the summer jobs will be gone. And I'll have to pay for the GRE and grad school apps. And my senior year of college. Not to mention -- oh, god -- I'll have to take the GRE, work on all those apps, worse, decide on schools to apply to, figure out how to fund grad school, stay focused on my senior year, complete an honors thesis... Okay. Yes. Serious freakage going on here.

If I can't get a job, not the end of the world. I hate to work, anyway. I have a million books I want to read, I have a language to learn and a scarf to finish. Presents to work on. I will keep myself occupied, no doubt.

I need the money. I do. But if everything goes horribly wrong, I will still be in the Netherlands. Beat that with a stick! Worse comes to worst, as Miss Douglas and I were joking, I could survive on peanut butter and jelly and take vitamins.

Because the sun still does beautiful things to the sky, and even though I'm all stuffed up I can still smell my mom cooking my absolute favorite: cabbage rolls. She figured out how to make them vegetarian. Come on. What am I complaining about?

This is probably not interesting, but. Last week I told Lani I have so many clothes I could probably wear a different outfit every day for a whole semester. And today I realized I wasn't really exaggerating. So I took three garbage bags full to a Planet Aid clothes depository, and was glad to see it was overflowing with donations. Perhaps they don't pick the clothes up that often, but just maybe people are that generous (or have as many surplus garments as I do). So overflowing that I had to put my bags on the ground beside it. But I thought, even if the wrong people take them, they must need clothes, so it's all good. And then I took one more bag to Plato's Closet to try to sell them. If you don't have one near you, they only buy name brand stuff. You know, Abercrombie and such. So I thought this was funny. They only bought one pair of pants out of my whole bag of Gap and Express, which was just Mossimo, a Target brand, which I bought from Gabriel Brothers. Haha, I thought that was great. But I could see how it wouldn't seem so funny to you.

Aaand, just a warning. "Warning" is too strong a word for something as trivial as this, but. Since I have absolutely nothing better to do on the last week of class before finals (hahaha, right), I'm going to be revising my links system. Because I've accumulated too many even for this set-up. Most of what's on the right will be relegated to a Links page, and new things shall pop up on the index. Oooh, I know you must be so excited for this.

Well, I'm out. It's all cabbage rolls, pumpkin pie, a 2-hour drive accompanied by my new $1 cds, setting up cameras in Hermann (mostly writing that here in case I forget), unpacking, and then... yes, as lazy as I've been this break, workng all night long. Okay. Sounds like a plan. Peace out, as they say.

You try to talk me down, but I'm running all around. You try to talk some sense to me, but there I am in pieces on the ground.
Jonatha Brooke