Home Sweet Home

America. Culture shock. Wow. It was so weird getting off the airplane and hearing EVERYONE speaking English. I mean, even though I go to an American school, you're always hearing Russian or Spanish or Portuguese or German and the chances that the English you're hearing doesn't have funky accents and a whole bunch of foreign words thrown in is pretty slim. And the fact that food is cheap...
I got home and while everything is the same, its not exactly how I remembered it. I feel like I've grown a foot. The sink is a lot shorter than I remember it being, my bed is smaller and bigger at the same time, the refrigerator is short... I don't know what happened because I didn't grow more than two inches. The mountains are all small and...small. The sky is big because I don't have a huge mountain behind me and an even huger one across the valley that block off most of the sky. I think tonight I will go stargazing, since at boarding school you get locked into the dorm at 11pm at the latest and hence can't get up in the middle of the night to go stargazing.
But I'm home now, and really jet lagged (I think) and I want to go to sleep even though its mid-morning.

Packing

Packing implies leaving. Sarah is having a hard time convincing herself that that's what she really wants to do because its all snowy and sunny and prettyful, and its just so gorgeous and sparkly and finals are over and I just want to go skiing and never ever leave here and frolic in the snow with my roomie and friends and have fun and eat chocolate and fondue and read good books and listen to music and live happily ever after in the merry old land of Swizz.
Song of the week: John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane. If you don't know it, you're....(fill in the blank). If you don't like it, I guess I can forgive you, but only barely.

So here's what I did during study hall last night after *hopefully* acing my math exam (I can't say for sure, but I know I did well). I figured I could take some time off from studying. My hope is that hopefully everyone will recognize what picture this is, otherwise I did a very, very, very bad job. If you can't tell who/what it is, please let me know. PLEASE. Again, comments, compliments, and constructive criticisms are all welcome.

Actually, I changed my mind. This sketch might not be that recognizable. The face is too wide, one eye is much darker than the other, its unbalanced, etc, etc. My shading and bridge between light and dark is all wrong.
So heres the original. I like to compare my drawing to what I'm drawing to see how close I am, so heres the real thing:

Cravings

I'm not just craving Kataluma. There are some foods that are just plain impossible to get in Swiss Boarding schools. There are some foods that better be in the house when I get home (note-Mom-shopping list!!).

Bagels, for one. I haven't had a bagel since August. Right now, I want one with cinnamon-sugar and cream cheese, or blueberry with strawberry cream cheese. I miss the Bagelry.

Squash. I want butternut squash.

Ice cream with stuff in it. All you can get in most of Europe is plain flavors. Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, etc. Swiss ice cream is much creamier than American ice cream, and now I know why. They put lactase in it. Lactose makes ice cream grainier, so by breaking it down with lactase, you get nice, smooth lactose-free ice cream. Benefit for those of us who are (supposedly) lactose intolerant (although I really don't think I am because I've been pigging out on cheese and yogurt and dairy for the past three months with no problems). But oh, what I'd give for some moose tracks or that coffee with fudge chunks.

Chili. Living in a ski town and not having chili is also a problem. I want some good EDGE chili-the stuff I would fill up on on cold, blizzardy powder day lunches.

The Swiss are masters of chocolate, but somehow they missed out on the peanut part. They've got hazelnuts down to a tee, but something about peanut butter and chocolate didn't fly here. And of course, Swiss candy bars are much different than American ones, so that means no Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. Which is bad. VERY BAD. While Bounty is freaking amazing, it can't make up for Reeses.

There were a whole bunch of other things that I can't think of at the moment. Part of what I miss about food in the states is that its cheap. At home, the thought of paying $15 for an entree is really expensive. But here, thats pretty cheap. I miss the $0.99 menus at Wendy's and McDonalds (not like I ate there often), because it sure beats 4 Chf for a burger. OOH! and Chipotle. I haven't had a burrito full of happy goodness since I've left either. The closest I've gotten are Kebabs, which don't seem to exist in the states. Unfortunately. Because they are really good.

I'm getting sick of school. I have fourteen hours total of final exams left, plus a whole bunch of studying, and after that I can sleep. Today school made me miss a great day of skiing. Nobody would go skiing with me because they were studying. STUDYING!! When they could have been skiing. What is wrong with these people? Anyway, I should get back to reviewing math because I have a final tomorrow. crepes.

So Sketchable

This is perhaps my favorite photograph of all time. Steve McCurry's Afghan Girl. Such beauty, such power, such honest truth. Theres a look in those eyes that is completely indescribable. And photographically incredible. Theres a beautiful red-green contrast throughout the photo. How anyone can see this photo and not be moved by it is beyond me. Either they are unfeeling, or I'm seeing things that others can't. As you guys know, I've started sketching. I spend about fifteen, twenty minutes almost every day with my pencil trying to replicate an image, so I decided to be ambitious and try my hand at some famous photos, especially my favorites. This is the first in a series that will include some more pictures from me, my friends, the web, national geographic, and everywhere else. If you've got a great photo you think I should try, let me know. Again, its not a finished product. This sketch didn't take me very long, and I know the shading is way off and nowhere near complete. I just have a thing for sketching faces with great eyes. I like drawing eyes. they're fun, theres so much more emotion. They can be so powerful, they're like doors into the soul. I know that's been said before by many people, but I think it really takes drawing them to understand how true it is. Every pair of eyes is different, different in every photo, every moment. You can only capture them once, you can resketch them, rephotograph them, but you will never twice get the same eyes. They're such a challenge to get right sketching. If you've got lines a little bit off in the hair or folds in clothes, its not a big deal because it doesn't change the overall appearance. The eyes, however, hold the key to all emotion. Any stray line, any problems with shape or position--it COMPLETELY changes the drawing. Its the challenge that makes the eyes so intriguing. I think I need to work on my skill with noses too. Please let me know what you think (and preferably more than just "its good" or something generic like that).

Happy Monday

I'm sitting here, bored in English class, supposed to be revising a journal entry that I actually did well originally. So I'm not bothering to revise it, because it's fine the way it is. We're listening to some music all calm and acoustic, and its snowing again. The temperature finally dropped enough to turn the weekend's rain into snow. Happy Monday. I never thought I'd think of Mondays as being happy. They're mondays. Happy Monday is almost as oxymoronic as saying Good Morning (ok, well for certain people. I happen to like mornings on occasion). But today is a happy morning and a happy monday. To have a happy monday morning is just...weird. Already it's snowed about an inch. With any luck, it will continue to snow here to get a nice solid base on the mountain, and it will snow some more back home so that more runs will be open when I go home to ski over winter break. Hey! Speaking of winter break, this is the last monday morning I will spend in class. Next Monday morning I will be studying for my Monday afternoon exams. The semester is almost over. I don't really know how I feel about that. I mean, I'm excited to go home and see everyone, but I think the semester went by too fast. Before I know it, school will be out, and I might not get to come back here for another year of school. For that reason, I don't want this semester to ever end. I love being this age, having these opportunities. I don't want to let any of it go. New Years isn't a celebration for me, because it symbolizes the passage of time. I wish I could just press the pause button on life, freeze, and live these past three months over and over again. I don't want next semester to go by quite so fast as this one did.

Craving Kataluma

Today I was in Vevey to see The Nutcracker. It was great. When it was over we went to dinner and then I settled down at Starbucks with a nice cup of steaming hot chai with whipped cream. Their single flavors only in hot really made me miss Kataluma's twenty-five or so flavors in hot, iced, blended, and milkshake varieties, with all their toppings and deliciousness. The first thing I want to do when I get back home is to go to Kataluma and get some chai. My flight home is going to seem so long knowing whats waiting for me on the other end.
I've never been away from home this long. I think I got through the past three months by blocking out all the things aside from friends that reminded me of home. But now as I only have two weeks left until I can see the familiar landscape, the mild roll to the hills I once considered mountains. I hadn't looked at any pictures of my room until yesterday, because I was afraid of feeling like this too soon. And while I don't want to leave this place--I'll never want to leave here--theres a big chunk of me that wants to go home for a little while. I don't want to go home for a long time. The thought of having to go home in June and perhaps have to stay there all of next school year scares me like none other. Its hard to make a change when you know its for the worse, or even when you think its for the worse.

<3 Sarah

Fall Like Rain

It is December First. In Switzerland. And its raining. Yes, RAINING. What is wrong with this picture? Its december, its winter, in the mountains: its supposed to SNOW!