I really have been quite lucky in my life. I have a family that I see quite regularly, more than most families I hear. Today I lost one of my uncles, that I haven't seen in almost 10 years. My memory of him is great, he drove me and my brother around when we visited him to get ice cream or a sandwich. Took us to the waterpark and the river I almost drowned in. My father always loved to hear from his brother and his other siblings and his nieces and nephews never failed to mention how much they wish he were around. I'm glad that I have those things to remember him by, he's a pretty special person to our family and I'm happy that for even just those 4 weeks in Tenares I got see what my family loved about him.

Rest In Peace Tio Chepe

-Mikhail

This weekend marked a couple of significant last moments of my time at Penn State. First was my last snowboarding class, by the way did I mention I was taking a snowboarding class? It was a pretty rough ride compared to last week when everything came together quite nicely. I got a few nasty bruises and my hip couldn't hurt any more than it did before riding, but of course it then did. I'm definitely pretty glad I got to spend the last six Saturdays doing that and actually learned something.

The other thing was THON. It was definitely the first Penn State tradition that really became a big part of my experience. It did irk me that I wasn't picked to dance (again) and part of that was probably my fault for being a person with commitments to anything and everything (except to another human being). I experienced this a little last year, the randomly seeing everyone I've met over the years and just reinforcing whatever connection I had to them (or catching up as some may call it) and of course whatever connection brought us to THON. I love that part of it because it could be someone who I've known since day 1 or someone I helped out just last week. This year more than the last three, tried so hard to pull the tears out seemingly making every reminder possible that the third weekend in February 2011 may not be the same as it had been since 2007. I'm convinced that I will make an attempt to dance as an alumni in the future, though hopefully sooner rather than later.

I can't believe Spring Break is less than two weeks away and that I'm spending it at home, but I really couldn't picture it any other way.

-Mikhail

I often tout my success with groupwork whenever someone talks of their misfortunes in the situation. Now I've joined the ranks as it seems evident that my class isn't without those that you simply can't work with. Except for one group, we all have someone that has given us a difficult time. One many of us barely could identify her if she were standing in front of us with her name written on her forehead, while being the team leader; the other two (one of which I'm partnered with) are twins that couldn't be any more alike. In the month we've been in class, these two have logged more talk time in class asking the most centralized questions ever to our teacher, none of which pertaining to things the rest of us care about. Unlike other twins I've encountered, they have no indistinguishable traits physically or characteristically. I don't really care anymore, I think it's become clear I won't be working with either of them once the first show is done.

In other news, while I haven't started my job search fully, my summer concert schedule is already awesome! Yeasayer, The National at Radio City, Passion Pit and The National again at Prospect Park. Very excite!

-Mikhail