Personally, I think the Eiffel Tower in the background is a nice touch.

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I saw a flock of seagulls today at work, in the early morning. It was surreal. What are seagulls doing, like, really far from the sea? I could only surmise they'd flown down from the Great Lakes, and were possibly wintering up at the Latrobe reservoir. In any case, they made me tremendously homesick...seagulls in Maine are, well, a huge nuisance (chipping ice off your windshield nine months out of the year is bad enough; adding seagull waste products to the mix is insult to injury), but they're also a permanent fixture of the coastal environment, and they--to me, at least--embody the sort of rugged survivalism and/or sheer bloody-mindedness required to live in the Pine Tree State year-round. These gulls today were different from the ones we have back home, though: much whiter, with black wingtips. The Maine gull is more of a dark, mottled grey. Still, I found myself missing Mount Desert Island a lot, even moreso than usual, despite the fact that (isn't "the fact that" a terrible little saying? So incredibly redundant! But I use it anyway!) the winter is still strong and brutal up there, not yet having calmed down like it has here in Pennsylvania.

My car is freaking me out. It's in the 100,000 miles vicinity now, and beginning to develop some ominous signs of impending doom. I already couldn't afford to get the transmission fixed completely (you don't even want to know how much money I owe Saint Vincent due to the necessity of quasi-repairing my transportation), so the prospect of some other important bit breaking literally gives me nightmares. This, coupled with the aforementioned dread of the unsolved debt accumulating at the Business Office, keeps me up at night, and that is no exaggeration. I say this not just to vent, but because if there's anyone reading this blog who is (or perhaps will be) a non-traditional student like me, you're not alone in feeling the frustrations of...well, the non-traditionalness. I'm slightly lost in the wilderness at the moment when it comes to working out the dollars and cents of it all; but, God willing, I'll think of something. While I may not be Catholic, I do have my own spin on faith and the Man Upstairs, and I think Christian-ish people of any denomination can agree on how necessary it is to possess some of that divinely-driven determination during life's more difficult stretches.

Wow, check out all that consonance. Pretty hardcore.

I got an A- on my Latin test. The - bothers me...in fact, I think an A- bothers me more than a B+. I realize this makes no sense...neither do the new chocolate Skittles (disgusting, trust me). Pepperoni rolls are pretty awesome, though. Also, biscotti.

There's still a mouse in here, somewhere. He must be the smartest of the bunch, because he's successfully eluded my fiendish traps. Clearly I will need to "step up my game," as the hip kiddies say...calls shall be made to the Acme Supply Company.

In the morning, though. It's half past midnight, and (alas) work becomes a reality at seven o'clock. I'm gonna go try and pass out before the demonic dollar signs and decimal points show up to haunt me.