A DISTURBANCE. That's what they call the 3+ inches of snow we're supposed to get tonight. How funny! This place has the most curious things. A post office with a nuclear fallout shelter sign on it, indicating that in case of nuclear holocaust, 52 people from the good village of Worthington can hang out in its basement until the radiation clears. A shopping mall with tornado shelter signs in the restroom area, making one wonder about the possibility of post-tornado sales. A citywide weather warning system that gets tested every Wednesday at noon, which translates to a hell of a lot of sirens go off all at once all over the city at noon each Wednesday (very eerie sometimes, depending of where you are and what you're doing). It's interesting, getting to know a new city, a new place of residence. It's one thing to move around in California -- you definitely get some differences between the places, especially when you move from a generally urban area to a predominantly suburban area -- but moving three time zones away to the heart of the actual Midwest is crazy different. It's like dating a city: every day you spend together, you find out new and interesting things about it (some good, some not so good). Ahh, romance.

I'm trying to relearn what it means to relax. It's strange not having anything I'm required to read, or papers looming over my head. Today I crawled back into bed when the weather got cold outside, and I read for a couple of hours. It was absolutely wonderful! Right now it's snowing outside and it's warm inside with my cup of tea and the promise of hot chocolate later tonight. I'm going to go and drive around to look at Christmas lights one of these nights soon; they love their holiday decorations out here in Ohio. I thought they liked Halloween (so many amazing decorations), but they really go all out for Christmas. The storefronts look adorable, the houses are twinkling, and the trees lining the streets and all the shrubs and bushes are shrouded in little lights. It's pretty amazing, but I'm still looking forward to the sunshine and above-freezing temperatures of California's Central Coast.

D O N E ! ! That's right, I'm finally finished with my first quarter at OSU. After 5 days of intense paper-writing (three 16-page beasts with bibliographies and notes), I'm breathing the free air! Alright, so I'm being a little melodramatic. But still. I feel so much more relaxed. No more of that pressure for me, thank you very much. :) At least, not until March anyway. So now it's wander-around-Columbus time for me, and top on my list is finishing my holiday shopping. :) For now, I think the first thing on the agenda is ... A NAP. Peace.

Well, there's snow on the ground, a nip in the air, and clouds in the sky. It's winter, and it's freakin' awesome! I am looking forward to two glorious weeks of running outside in California this month, but am also really stoked on the snow out here. It's amazing, even if I'm the only one in the entire state who thinks so. So I am almost done with my fall quarter work at OSU. I wrote a 15-page paper on Friday, another one yesterday, and am planning to finish my last today. Anyway, can't wait for the holidays -- it's all wreaths and twinkle lights out here (they really do a bang-up job of decorating for the season) already.