April 30th, 2004

A haiku for you:

Pure crystals drifting

Full white clouds bury the ground

The clean Earth ascends

Not much else is new. I have a week of work left, after which I will take several weeks off to visit family, friends, and bounce around the state, quite possibly holding several going away parties. My friends want to do something for me, centered around, obviously, vodka. I don't know what I feel about this. Not because I think it's bad to have a drink, but because I might have to drink that stuff for the next two years. Over there it's literally the national beverage, and you have
to drink it for any sort of celebration, for example, host families meeting their American live-in,
birthday parties, holidays, eating dinner, eating lunch, eating breakfast, etc. I can imagine that just like the British have "tea-time," the Russians have "booze-time." But that's just my imagination. Maybe.