Senior Year Abroad

I suppose it’s official now that I signed a contract, am verified tuberculosis-free, and passed the rectal exam with flying colors: I’m going back to Antarctica!  I have metamorphosed to my third phase:

1) cafeteria lady (‘14-16)

2) telephone switchboard operator (‘16-17)

3) bus driver/penguin chauffeur (‘18-19)

Everybody pile into the van, it’s time to drive with extreme prudence!  If I’m lucky, I will pilot the mythic-stature conveyance knows as Ivan the Terrabus:

One of the best parts of being a professional Vehicle Operator is that, to clarify radio communication, I attain the moniker Shuttle Claire.  While not overly creative, it is nonetheless a nickname, something I’ve long (semi-)secretly desired.*

*Cat, I’m embarrassed I asked, but it was kind of you to indulge me with Beans.

**Spence, I adore that you and you alone call me C-Money.

***Tim, I don’t think it counts as a nickname since you actually just think my name is Emma.  Thank you for remembering to say Claire at my wedding.

****Si vous m’adressez en français, vous pouvez m’apeller Sabine.

It’s been…whoa, shit…almost a year, guys.  I missed writing here.  But it didn’t seem like the right place to report on my experiences with online ESL homework, laminated dough and pie baking techniques, or attempting to charm the local 29-year-old male population.  Here are a few key takeaways:

- English language learners benefit from both aural-visual and kinesthetic lesson plans.

- Bake croissants at a high temperature, such as 425F, to prevent butter leakage.

- Pipefitters know all the good dick jokes.

- When a guy says it’s been a while since he was on a date and holds up a splayed palm, he might be indicating not five weeks or months, but years. When a guy says, “Nothing surprises me anymore,” it might turn out his ex-gf was a prostitute.

- When I like a guy I will commit unspeakable acts, such as petting his dog and enduring it licking my face.

That’s mostly it.  My family is awesome, Matt and I are in touch, my friends are there to help celebrate with fine wine or commiserate with Boone’s Farm, we had a real northern MI winter with a fuckload of wonderful snow, I swim and eat good cheese and take pictures of pretty flowers.

I will likely submit dispatches from a Euro adventure in September (Aud wedding! Historically accurate British vintage car race! Marta-Paris-cheese-baguette party!)—and then it’s back to the Ice again, for season four of fantastic people, places, and things* bathed in eternal sunshine.

*OMG YES NOUNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. - Okay, I did try to come up with a version of the blog for life here. Inspired by the at-times-comically-inane rural weeklies, I called it The Boardman Courier and Mail, Rucksack Local Edition.  I never got further than the almanac.  Its mission statement: “Our intrepid reporters will cover the minutest neighborhood developments, the narrowest of civic pursuits, ever endeavoring to fulfill our motto: cogitare umbilicus.”