Explosions and dying. Make that dyeing.
Events! Today is the first day of fall break, meaning much relaxation. Tomorrow I'm headed of to New York to visit Mary until Tuesday. Yesterday was quite relaxing. I worked a little bit in lab, went to class, and had lunch with Sophie. As I was walking with Sophie from Talbot towards the theater building, we passed an unusual sight. There were three cars waiting at a stop light and the third car had large plumes of smoke billowing out from under the hood. The driver, however, continued talking on her phone as if nothing was wrong. Now, I'm not talking a small trickle of smoke that one might not notice but a large, steady gushing of smoke from the crack where hood meets body. The driver did seem to notice when part of the engine caught fire. She screamed and ran out of her car, then stood next to it while yelling into her phone, "My car's on fire! My car's on fire!" Meanwhile, the light turns green and the first car doesn't go; the woman in it kept asking us what street we were on (we forgot the street name, but it was right across from the art museum). The person in the second car starts madly honking her horn, not wanting their car to catch fire, too. The two cars pull away, leaving the third car. The flame has by now grown, no longer contained underneath the hood. Sophie calls 911 (someone had already reported it, though) and the gathering group of bystanders starts yelling at the lady to get away from her car, as she was standing too close for comfort. Several cop cars arrive along with an SUV from the fire department. The firefighter suits up and tries to use a giant fire extinguisher on the ever-growing fireball. No luck. We periodically hear minor explosions as more parts of the car catch fire. For people coming down the road, the car was largely obscured from sight by one of the Smith houses, coming into view right about when they reach where Sophie and I were standing. We assure passersby that no one is hurt, everything's fine, etc. At one point Bruno (Italian teacher) walked by and asked me in Italian what was happening. I wasn't very articulate because I wasn't expecting to suddenly have to speak Italian, but I managed to blurt out "Fuoco! Macchina!" A firetruck finally arrived and doused the car with one of the big hoses. A small girl walked by with her dad/grandpa and asked me very seriously, "Did someone die?" "No, of course not, everythings fine, nobody's hurt," I replied, a little shocked that the girl was so direct. Anyways, nobody did die, but the car was seriously charred and shattered by the end of it. I just don't understand how someone can sit in their car with that amount of smoke coming out. Craziness.
That had to qualify as the most exciting part of my day. Afterwords, I went with Sophie to the theater building to dye wool for one of her art projects. She bought 30 lbs of raw sheep wool and will soon be felting it into trees. We did some more dyeing today, too.
I had fun exploring the set shop and pretending I was stirring a cauldron of sheep soup (most of the pots we used were considerably larger than the one pictured; actually, you can see the bigger one in the background).
In other news, it has been gorgeous out. Absolutely gorgeous. It rained a bit at the beginning of the week, but the rain was needed. It has been sunny and cool the past couple of days. I lay out in the grass today, reading, soaking in the sun. Lovely.
In my Dante class on Thursday, we had to do a quiz. It was so-so. I mean, I obviously didn't fail, but it could have been better. But I did get our second quiz back (100) and our first paper back (A), so I'm fine. Classes in general seem to be going pretty well.
Leigh is visiting Talbot. Woo! This makes it the 3rd weekend in a row I've hosted someone from the former class of 2010. How exciting. On Thursday night, we (me, Leigh, and Sophie) had Camilla over for beer and tales of Dan. Friday was Liza's birthday, so there was cake, Herrell's, and wine and Kahlua. All around happy celebrations.
I probably won't post again until I'm back from New York. I'll keep you all updated on the Cousin Dan baby news. Stay tuned!
I bought myself a cheap kaleidoscope to take pictures through. It is a considerable amount of fun.
That had to qualify as the most exciting part of my day. Afterwords, I went with Sophie to the theater building to dye wool for one of her art projects. She bought 30 lbs of raw sheep wool and will soon be felting it into trees. We did some more dyeing today, too.
I had fun exploring the set shop and pretending I was stirring a cauldron of sheep soup (most of the pots we used were considerably larger than the one pictured; actually, you can see the bigger one in the background).
In other news, it has been gorgeous out. Absolutely gorgeous. It rained a bit at the beginning of the week, but the rain was needed. It has been sunny and cool the past couple of days. I lay out in the grass today, reading, soaking in the sun. Lovely.
In my Dante class on Thursday, we had to do a quiz. It was so-so. I mean, I obviously didn't fail, but it could have been better. But I did get our second quiz back (100) and our first paper back (A), so I'm fine. Classes in general seem to be going pretty well.
Leigh is visiting Talbot. Woo! This makes it the 3rd weekend in a row I've hosted someone from the former class of 2010. How exciting. On Thursday night, we (me, Leigh, and Sophie) had Camilla over for beer and tales of Dan. Friday was Liza's birthday, so there was cake, Herrell's, and wine and Kahlua. All around happy celebrations.
I probably won't post again until I'm back from New York. I'll keep you all updated on the Cousin Dan baby news. Stay tuned!
I bought myself a cheap kaleidoscope to take pictures through. It is a considerable amount of fun.