is my cousin's daughter my second cousin? that's what i'm going with.

okay, tell me this is not the most smushably cute baby you have ever seen:

and the cutest little family:

congrats to my cousin aimee and josh...and welcome to the world, baby lyla!

from the man who was the graduation speaker at NCSSM in 1999...

“Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.”
—Orson Scott Card
(1951-); Author, Critic, Public Speaker

wins

the braves won last night, 12-3, and erin and i had such a good time watching them play well.  hooray!  and can we talk about how perfect the weather was?  low 80s, looked like it was going to rain THE WHOLE TIME (only about 75 raindrops actually fell, though), breezy.  perfect baseball-watching weather.

after having brunch this morning with nora and joey, i laid on the couch all afternoon and watched the braves win a NAILBITER - down 2-6 at the top of the 8th inning, and they won 7-6 on a walk off home run.  yes, i did a lot of yelling at the tv and then jumping up and down in excitement, much like i do while watching duke basketball.  in you were wondering, this makes me charming, not weird.

beautiful

some incredible photos from the middle east and asia - what i would give to be able to take photos like this.  photography is my favorite kind of art, by far, and this stuff is gorgeous.

changes

in the past 8 hours i have received two emails from my mom:
one of my cousins got engaged...
and another cousin gave birth to a baby girl!

it's exciting to have a day full of such good news. :)

baseball

"It is designed to break your heart.  The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.  You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."
     --Bart Giamatti


the braves are still at the top of the NL east.  and i'm going to the game on saturday - hooooooray!  it was originally scheduled to be a day game: 4pm start.  i have learned from experience that I DON'T DO DAY GAMES.  in atlanta you will sweat through your clothes by the end of the second inning.  but now it's a 7pm start and it will be less than 90 degrees, and i can watch the sunset over the city as i watch the game.  DONE.

things i missed while i was in england: baking

i needed an excuse to bake a cake (because one can't just bake a cake for no reason...unless you have people to bake for...because otherwise one will have an entire cake to eat all by oneself, and that is not good for the waistline).  this weekend we had a little back to school party at other claire's house and i needed to bring a snack - voila!  excuse to bake a cake!

so i baked this one (i love this blog) AND OHMYGOD IT WAS INCREDIBLE.  reasons why:

1. i got to use my new bundt cake pan that i bought with a gift card one of my students gave me at the end of the school year.  the cake pan is from william-sonoma and it is fancy.
2. it was easy to make - lots of ingredients (though, what the hell is "dutch process cocoa powder"? i did not use that), but no fancy techniques required.
3. the recipe said to cook it for an hour, and after an hour it was PERFECTLY COOKED.  not overcooked.  didn't need to keep it in the oven for extra time.  an hour was perfect.
4. after cooling it slightly, IT SLID OUT OF THE CAKE PAN PERFECTLY, no bits left behind on the pan.  i don't know if this is (a) a good recipe, (b) a good cake pan, (c) a good chef (thankyouverymuch), (d) luck, or (e) all of the above.
5. upon eating it, it was moist and chocolatey, but not TOO sweet, with a thick chocolatey glaze that i could eat by itself (and i am NOT a frosting person).  honestly, i thought to myself: i am amazing and no one can tell me otherwise and i will be baking this cake for every birthday party i go to from now on and if this teaching thing doesn't work out i will open a bakery and this will be the only thing i sell.

in short: make this cake.

NCSSM

a new chancellor has just been named at NCSSM, where i went to high school.  NCSSM is on the site (and includes many of the old buildings) of watts hospital, which was in operation until 1976; NCSSM opened in 1980.  my math classroom was in a room used for surgeries back when it was a hospital; the computer lab was in a former baby nursery, with the tiny windows at eye level through which new parents looked at their babies; my dorm room was in a former nurses' station.  and this new chancellor was born at watts hospital, back when it was a hospital and not a high school.

O. M. G.

i love things like this - coincidences (or not) that give me chills.  welcome to science and math, todd roberts.  i love that school - of all the schools at which i've been a student, this one is the most special to me.  be good to it.

there was sheep poop everywhere

on the isle of skye, walking up to the ruins of dunhulm castle.

there are ruins of castles and churches all around scotland.  one of the amazing things about the isle of skye, though, was that these ruins were just casually marked on the (amazing) map (that dad bought).  you pull off to the side of the single-track road, walk through a gate into a sheep pasture, and out to a falling down castle with a small sign identifying it as such.  at dunhulm, we were the only people there; an older couple was leaving as we arrived.  you poke around, look at the gorgeous view, and then walk back to your car and continue on your drive.  

the isle of skye was rural in a way that i've never experienced before.  it wasn't empty of residents - you were almost always in sight of a house and a pasture full of sheep or cows, but that's all there was: an occasional house or two.  five or ten houses plus a store?  that would be marked as a town on your map. i don't know how to explain it.  being in skye felt like being at the edge of the earth.

rain

my new favorite song (on repeat right now) - patty griffin's "rain" - for your listening/procrastination pleasure.

in the running for our christmas card picture

at neist point on the isle of skye:

looking out at the ocean after eating lunch and walking around for a while, mom saw a whale surface and then dive back under.  we all looked where she pointed and saw it happen again.  really cool.  this is one more whale than we saw on our two hour boatride the next day that was supposed to show us cool animals, but that's another story.

the day we drove out to neist point was probably the warmest day while we were in skye, and mom and becky took their sweaters off to take this picture.  so, yeah: it was sunny and clear and beautiful on this day, but in no way were we hot.  the sweaters went right back on after the picture had been taken.

the day after this it was chilly and rainy and in the 50s and i was cold with jeans, a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, and my rain jacket on.  in august.  we were driving and stopped to try to get a view of the old man of storr, but he was covered in clouds, and as we were walking back to the car we passed an older man with his dog.  we smiled* and said hi, and he said, upon hearing our american accents, "you come here for the summer?" after a two second pause, he continued: "that was yesterday."

oh, scottish humor.  old man with the dog: i enjoy you.  you and your isle of skye quasi summer.


*it was probably more of a grimace.  we were cold.

sailboats in the bay

portree, isle of skye:

hikers in iran

inconceivably scary: being held in a prison in iran for more than a year with no trial date scheduled and no access to a lawyer.  i can't even fathom this.  I LOVE AMERICA.  I LOVE THE BILL OF RIGHTS.  i am scared for these three americans in iran - for them now and for what the rest of their lives will be like, post-release (if and when that happens).

sheep were EVERYWHERE

at the edge of the culloden battlefield, outside inverness:

actual question on the customs form when reentering the US: "are you bringing with you soil or have you visited a farm/ranch/pasture outside the united states?"

i checked "no" because i knew that's what i was supposed to check to ease my reentry.

day two: check!

i went back to work!

cons:
meetings
work emails
waking up early (only sort of a "con" because it's still happening kind of naturally anyway)
not knowing where anything is in my new office, probably because i haven't really unpacked yet

pros:
seeing all my work friends and wasting lots of time talking to them
free (delicious) lunches
a new office, with a window that is literally four times the size of the window in my last office.  this window isn't large - the last one was just teeny tiny.

artsy

calton hill and the firth of forth (best name for a waterway EVER) through a cannon window (i'm sure these have a real name, but i don't know what it is...) at edinburgh castle.

"hiding in plain sight"

really enjoyed this blog post on the recent prop 8 decision in california - it's from the new york times - "hiding in plain sight" - kind of a long read, but worth it.  i particularly liked the stuff about gender roles in marriage...and the link to the recent CNN poll about gay marriage.  that stuff gave me chills.  we talk in my government class about whether the supreme court needs to make decisions that reflect public opinion or whether that isn't something they should consider...i'll definitely be bringing up this poll in, oh, february when we talk about the judicial branch.

merit badges

mom and becky and i at holyroodhouse abbey, edinburgh.  photographer: dad.  as per usual on this trip.  he bought a new camera before we left and took some really gorgeous shots throughout our vacation.  this allowed me to be free to not take a single photo, since i knew he'd cover our trip well.  and he definitely did.  we gave out imaginary merit badges at the end of the trip - becky got the napping merit badge for her daily (she didn't skip a single one) naps, i got the map-reading merit badge, and dad got the driving-on-the-left-side-of-the-one-lane-road merit badge.  and the photography one, definitely.

in oriel college's third quad, after much human-pyramid-making

one of my last days in oxford, with almost all of my favorite people from this summer:

sniff.

goodbye, summer.

i just want to sleep in...

the only (ONLY!) benefit of this jet lag is that when i have to wake up tomorrow morning at 6:30 for work it will only be an hour earlier than i'm waking up currently.  as opposed to every other year of my life, when it's a good five hours earlier than i'd been waking up normally.  maybe my body does have a plan, after all.

so i'm up, and reading in bed: the hour i first believed, by wally lamb.  i've been reading this book for a couple days now, and it just hit me where the title comes from.  in fact, i found myself singing this song and then it came to that line and i was like EUREKA!  like my brain figured it out but didn't clue me in - made me sing for a while before i figured it out myself.  the title is a lyric from a song you ALL know, i guarantee.  can anyone place it?

home

i'm home!  i got in to atlanta 45 minutes early (how is that possible?) last night, lilly picked me up from the airport and i managed to stay awake until 11:30pm atlanta time.  go me.  woke up at 7:30 this morning full of energy when i really just wanted to sleep in, but it means i've been productive already - laundry, unpacking, grocery list made.  it's good to be home.

it's a little overwhelming thinking about all the things i DIDN'T blog about that happened this summer...it's like i needed an extra hour in every day this summer just to tell you about all the cool stuff i did and saw, particularly in the last two weeks when i was in scotland with my family.  so, for the next couple days i'll bring you a few more photos, hopefully not being repetitive or getting boring...

peaceful church and graveyard* in iffley, near oxford, that i stumbled upon during a long walk one day.  i love this picture - it feels right out of a haunted story...

*i have learned that there is a difference between a graveyard and a cemetery: a graveyard is connected to a church, whereas a cemetery is not.  this is your fun fact for the day.

departures, again

internet access has been spotty this week (in portree the bed and breakfast's idea of "wifi access" was "if you sit outside on a bench - assuming it's not raining and your laptop would get wet if you did this - you might be able to pick up the slowest internet access ever"), and continues to be so...but mom and dad and becky and i are back in edinburgh for the night before flying home to the us tomorrow.  if all goes according to plan, i'll be back in atlanta by bedtime on friday night.  i'm NOT looking forward to the flights, especially after an hour by bus and six hours by train to get back to edinburgh today, but it will be GREAT to be back home.

goodbye england. goodbye scotland. goodbye summer.

lambs on the lam

this is the pretty little town we're staying in on the isle of skye: portree. it's right on the coast, and for a tiny town (2,100 residents) it has a lot of restaurants and cafes and things - because a lot of tourists stop here. according to my guidebook, edinburgh is the most visited place in scotland, followed by inverness and then the isle of skye. so basically our whole trip. but there's a reason for that! these are great places to visit! skye is gorgeous…we've done a bit of hiking around the area around portree, with a big walk planned tomorrow.

today we drove from portree to dunvegan castle (not nearly as cool as edinburgh castle) and then to neist lighthouse, in the northwest corner of the isle of skye. more photos of that soon, but the point of today's post is this: to get to neist lighthouse you drive 20 miles on a two lane road, and then turn down a one lane road (one lane! for both directions! there are "passing points" where you pull over to let other cars by) for 9 miles. neist lighthouse - and the view of the outer hebrides from there - was gorgeous, and totally worth the 9 miles on a one lane road, even though i had four mini heart attacks when cars would come flying at us from around a corner and we had to hope that a passing point would emerge in the next 3 seconds (and it always did). my life expectancy has been diminished by a considerable amount because of this drive. good thing dad is a BEAST at driving on tiny winding roads or we would be dead at this point. along this one lane road there were no fences and lots of sheep. LOTS OF SHEEP, i say. they were spraypainted different colors to indicate which farm they belonged to, we think. at several points the sheep were hanging out RIGHT NEXT TO the road, and at one or two points the sheep were in the road. here are some lambs on the lam. we had to stop and wait for them to finish their jaunt and get off the road before we could continue. this is also a good indication of how wide the road was, with a passing point on the righthand side here. you'll also see that all the road signs here are in both gaelic and english, just to confuse me a little more while i'm being the navigator.  (i think you can click on all pictures to enlarge them.)

at another point a farmer lady and her two kids stopped traffic to have their herd of 30 or so cows cross the road.

so basically: if you think you live in a rural area in the united states, you haven't been hanging out on the isle of skye. additionally: if you think you live in a pretty place in the united states, you probably do. but the isle of skye is very pretty, as well. (neist lighthouse, with the outer hebrides islands in the distance.)

(i took the photos of animals in the road...dad took the actual high-quality pictures of portree and neist point.)

bus ride of death

we've made it to portree on the isle of skye.  a 2.5 hour train ride from inverness (gorgeous - we saw highland cows and calves, lots of sheep, lakes, mountains, rain) that cost 11 pounds per person (about 17 dollars)...and then a one hour bus ride that cost 13 pounds per person.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  most expensive bus ride EVER.  i also thought i was going to die on this bus ride.  it was from kyle of lochalsh, right outside the isle of skye (the farthest place the trains go), up the coastline to portree, where we're staying until thursday.  (this map might help you visualize it...)  the bus driver PASSED CARS on this tiny two lane winding road.  oh yeah: and he passed a dumptruck.  A DUMPTRUCK.  winding roads, crazy driver, hot bus...i thought this was going to be the last day of my life, as i would either (a) die when the bus hit something or went off the side of the mountain, or (b) throw up and not want to go on living.

happily, we made it to portree (mostly) unscathed.  it's gorgeous, but CHILLY - 15 degrees celsuis (59 degrees fahrenheit) at 4:30pm.  glad i've got some sweaters...

driving and hiking

inverness:

we rented a car so we could explore the highlands a little bit.  dad drove.  it was a manual transmission.  it was slightly scary at times, but dad really was a rock star driver (as expected).  i was the copilot.  "claire to the curb" was our motto (in terms of remembering which side of the road to drive on).  even on a one lane road (!) in the highlands, all went well.

today we drove from inverness along loch ness (no nessie sightings, unfortunately - just a beautiful lake with several pull outs so you could take photos like this one)...

...and ended up 30 miles later at glen affric.  we did an 11 mile (!!) circular hike around loch affric, through some gorgeous country.  we saw a snake, a caterpillar, a couple bees and birds, and 1,382,092,374 bugs.  i have 3,421 little bites from these bugs.  they annoyed me.  and my feet hurt by the end.  (quote of the day - becky: "that hike went on for an hour past fun.")  overall, it was a beautiful way to spend our day - and really nice to get out of the cities/towns and into the wilderness.  that's where we belong.  i mean, seriously - are we on a movie set??

and we clearly have our christmas card photo already.  family: pretend to be surprised when you receive this in the mail in early january, since that's definitely when our christmas cards go out every year.

(all photo credits to the rest of my family.  i have decided three cameras is enough and i just order other people to take photos of things i'd like to remember.  so far that's working out well.)

today is the national holiday better known as one-week-until-claire's-summer-is-over-and-she-has-to-go-back-to-work.  sniff.  but let's not think about that now...we're on to the isle of skye tomorrow!

fighting over the arm rest

fun (and totally accurate) visual diary of a red eye flight across the atlantic.  oh, how true this depiction is...

and as i look through this blog, i'm falling in love with this guy.  so poke around a bit, if you like this entry...and perhaps you can waste 30 minutes like i just did.

i want a kid with a scottish accent

cute kid in a park as we walked by today...he was bending over to pull up weeds: "dad! i'm getting grass for me bunny!"

kids with scottish accents?  cutest. thing. ever.

inverness

after three days in edinburgh we've taken a 3.5 hour train ride north to inverness, where we'll be until monday.  gorgeous views from the train as we drove - desolate hills with wildflowers and sheep galore and maybe a highland cow or two (becky has her eyes peeled) and an occasional small town with little stone houses.  we found our way to our bed and breakfast here in inverness, and i am already in love - adorable little rooms and homemade ginger shortbread cookies on the bedside table for us to snack on.  (i've already eaten three.  if becky doesn't hurry up i will eat the fourth and final cookie and she will lose out BIG TIME.)  it's great to unpack a bit and be in a comfy bed after an afternoon of toting my belongings everywhere.

becky's favorite parts of edinburgh:
"the dog cemetery [at edinburgh castle - those who have been there before will agree that it is awesome...soldiers who worked there made a cemetery to bury their dogs - complete with headstones.  the dogs had awesome names like gyp and winkle and scamp and tinker and the gravestones call them "a loyal companion" or something similar]."
"i liked the scottish parliament except when i get chastised by you for asking too many questions. [okay, she asked like a hundred questions during our hour long tour.  well, maybe five.  and they were good ones.  but the tour needed to go on!  at least she didn't ask how the cleaning staff cleaned the intricate windows on the building like one ridiculous woman on our tour did.  this ridiculous woman's husband later asked if one of the walls was a load-bearing wall.  WHO THE HELL CARES, BUDDY??  there was a lot of becky-claire eye-rolling at those two.]"

i would ask the other members of my family the same question, but mama is in bed and dad is out at a pub listening to folk music.  so they'll have to chime in later...

thoughts

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
—J.R.R. Tolkien

arrivals

we've arrived in scotland!  i woke up very early (4:15am) on tuesday to get on the first flight of the day from london heathrow to edinburgh, and met mom/dad/becky very easily in baggage claim in the edinburgh airport.  they were much more tired than i was, seeing as they'd taken an overnight flight from new york and apparently didn't sleep very much at all.  a little nap was had in the afternoon, which improved things greatly.  since we've arrived the following things have occurred:

a bird pooped on becky's face.  she freaked out.  my antibacterial wipes came to the rescue.  i am the best sister ever.

i got to share the glory of marks & spencer's food hall with the rest of my family.  i think they were duly impressed.  i had my favorite sandwich - a falafel and hummus wrap - and was very happy.

we went on a tour of holyroodhouse abbey and palace - the abbey dates back to the 1100s and the woman who gave us a little tour was full of cool information.  the palace is the official residence of the queen of england when she visits scotland.  it was pretty cool, too.  this is the palace with the abbey attached on the right hand side (photo credit: someone in my family who isn't me).  the photo was taken from the top of arthur's seat...

we hiked from holyroodhouse to the top of arthur's seat (my lonely planet guidebook said it was a 45 minute hike.  45 minutes my ass.) - beautiful, with great views of the surrounding area.  this is arthur's seat from calton hill, another high point in the city.  holyroodhouse is the furthest building on the left that you can see.

we went to sandy bell's, a pub that has traditional scottish music every night, for some pints of beer and some GREAT music.  the musicians (a harmonica player, guitar player, fiddle player, and mandolin player) sat around a table right next to us and played for several hours.  no photos of that, as we were trying hard not to look like tourists, and taking photos in a pub is a surefire way to look like a tourist.  we were perhaps not succeeding in our efforts, but definitely trying.

so far, scotland is not disappointing us.

text message conversation:

mike (a friend from the program i worked at this summer): hey hey you still got your mobile?
me: yep!  in edinburgh with the family - it's gorgeous.  and oh my god an oxtrad kid stopped me in the street!  no clue what her name is...oops...
mike: i saw your mates romeo and mercutio at mccoy's again yesterday.  plus today saw benvolio at the train station!
me: aww yay!  romeo and mercutio have good taste in kebab vans, obviously.

back story: we took about 150 of our students to see romeo and juliet at a theater in oxford this summer - it was an outdoor amphitheater, gorgeous outside on the night i went, and a really well done performance.  four or five of my friends and i went along to chaperone/see a performance for free.  in the weeks that followed we kept seeing romeo and juliet and mercutio around town - they were spotted walking down broad street or at mccoy's, the kebab van that parks outside pembroke college every night from about 9pm-3am.  i was really excited that they were friends in real life - i wanted romeo and mercutio to be friends in real life - but i was grumpy that everyone but me kept seeing them.  and then one night i get a phone call from mike.  he's whispering.

mike: romeo, juliet, and mercutio are at mccoy's right now.
me: ohmygod!
mike: if you run you might be able to see them - they're sitting on the curb and eating their food.
me: ohmygod!  i'm on my way.

and then i ran through the streets of oxford from oriel college back towards pembroke and i pretended to just notice them as i was walking by and i chatted with romeo and it was fabulous.  romeo made some comment to me that they don't always eat at mccoy's and if they did they'd be fat and the performance would be no good anymore.  and now mike has seen them at mccoy's again.  tsk tsk.

getting this text from mike kind of made my night, but i'm also sad that this story means nothing to anyone but me and about 6 of my coworkers from this summer...sad that this inside joke has to be explained to others.  we had a lot of fun working together this summer, and i'll miss being around people that i shared this experience with.  the inside jokes that come from shared experiences...the nicknames...the six, ten, and fifteen (oops, fourteen) man pyramids...the subsequent facebook banter.  i'll miss the people and i'll miss the place.  i'm hopeful that next summer will allow another trip back to oxford, and that my friends will return, as well.  but i know, too, that it might not happen - that i have to be content with those moments and these memories and not look forward too much.  (i'm a planner, though.  this is hard for me...)

hooray for summers.

happy birthday...

...to mike voelker and barack obama!  mike, i'm sad that i will miss celebrating your birthday with you, but know that i'm thinking of you.  i owe you a drink when i get home!  and barack, i'd love to buy you a drink, too.  just let me know when you're free.

pixar

on my day off two weeks ago i saw toy story 3.  and it was incredible.  i laughed a lot.  i was on the edge of my seat during some scary moments.  (the two kids in front of me got so nervous they had to stand up on their seats for part of it.  they were little, though, so i could still see over them.)  i got really teary at the end.  love and devotion and friendship and loyalty and growing up.  it's the best movie i've seen in a really long time.  i left smiling ear to ear, like an idiot.

the pixar short at the beginning, day & night, was just as good.  i love that pixar does this - puts a short before each feature length film.  the short doesn't have to be commercially marketable, so i think it's able to be really artistically good.  this one contains this line - one of the few spoken in the whole short:

"You know, to me, the most beautiful things in all the universe, are the most mysterious."


(you can read more about it here...it's a paraphrase of something albert einstein said.)

moral of the story: if you haven't seen toy story 3, you NEED to.  you can watch it as if you are a kid for an hour and a half, and then as an adult for the last ten minutes.

departures

in 5 minutes i'm out the door of my room in pembroke college - the program is over, the kids have all left, the staff have dismantled the office, taken everything to storage, had the computers and copiers picked up, had our final dinner, done a bit of drinking, packed our own lives up, said our goodbyes, and are walking out the door.

this summer went so quickly, so smoothly.  and it was so much fun.  IS so much fun - tomorrow mom, dad, and becky fly in and we're spending 12 days in scotland.  i'm SO looking forward to this.  but this summer on the program was a lot of fun, too. i went into this summer thinking it was probably my last - not because i don't like the program, because i do, but because i don't know what my life will be like in 12 months and it might not include the program.  i am realizing that i would miss it so much if i wasn't able to come back here next summer, though, so i'm hopeful that i can make that happen again.

i'm sad to leave these friends - some of whom have become very good friends.  that's the trouble with adventures, right?  you can't have both your life in atlanta and your life in oxford at the same time.  sigh.

goodbyes are NO FUN.

day off, week 4: walk to iffley

a bit of a belated update, since the kids left yesterday, but here goes:

on my day off this week i slept in late, had lunch at a cafe near pembroke, and then walked along the thames river and into the town of iffley.  it was a BEAUTIFUL walk - 45 minutes each way on a paved path that runs right next to the river.  i passed a lot of people walking and biking, and every 5 minutes or so there was a park bench next to the path, looking out on the river.  at the same time, though, the absence of any vehicle traffic made it feel really isolated.  (note the ominous sky.  i decided it was just pretending to threaten rain and i didn't bring my rain jacket.  and it didn't rain - hooray!)

loved this break in the fence that ran next to the path - "step over me HERE," the fence is saying.  (i didn't.)

i stopped for a while to watch mama swan and three swan babies swim around (well, the babies seemed to be napping while their mama stood/swam guard).  swan triplets!  so cute!

on the walk back to oxford i passed the same spot and the whole family was grooming themselves on shore.  hi swans!  don't attack me while i crouch down and take pictures of you!

to complete my day off i went to a bookstore and bought three books (it was a 3 for 2 special), which felt so luxurious.  i had indian food take away for dinner and watched a movie with my friends.  it was exactly what i needed in this crazy last week of the program - lots of claire time (if you know me, you know that claire time is crucial to my happiness) plus exactly the right amount of time with friends before we all go our separate ways on monday.  sigh.  saying goodbye is hard, and i'm about to do a lot of that...