Oh deary me

I've been putting off posting for a few days. No particular reason - I've just been too lazy to go to the internet place. But I find that the longer I put off writing, the more things tend to pile up and I therefore have a lot to write about.
I could only find an electronic copy of Crime and Punishment. I'm frantically reading it, but won't be done until sometime next week. I've put off my normal Thursday afternoon literature lesson until I finish it - she insisted that that was the best plan. Which I'm fine with - I'm always happy to have one less class to go to in any given week.
I nearly lost a finger the other day. Damn bus driver closed the door on me and my middle finger got caught. Good thing no one seemed to speak English around me - I have to admit I let one or two obscenities fly. But all is well - got the finger back in one piece and it didn't even bruise that badly.
The powers that be at UTD have finally released the course listings for the spring semester - a week before registration starts. Which means I only have two days to decide on my schedule, since I'll be gone from Friday until Tuesday (more in a minute) and have to email someone back home to register for me because the stupid login times for registration don't jive with the time difference + working hours of the internet cafes. Luckily, Gina is da bomb and is helping me out. THANKS!!!
I'm in for a rough semester next spring. 18 hours again. And 5 days a week too, three of which start at 9.30. But at least it's a better schedule than the one I have now - where I have to be at the university at 8 am four days a week. Ugh. And I'm taking some pretty interesting classes - "Oz, Narnia, and Hogwarts" (yay for Dr. Towner), "Native American History (19th c.)" (yay for Dr. Edmunds), "Native American Cultures", "Gallery Management", and "Modernism" (woohoo - another DMA course). The only downside - "Literary Analysis". I need to stop skipping prerequisites - they come back to haunt you. It's like when I was a senior in high school, sitting with a bunch of freshmen in a health class. Oh man.
But after this semester, there's only one more required class left for me. Everything is just a bunch of electives. Woohoo!
This Friday I'm heading to Ulan Ude (capital of the Buryati Republic, the region on the east side of Lake Baikal). It should be pretty interesting. The crew at SRAS set it all up for us. I don't really know yet what all we're going to do, just that I don't have to plan anything (always a plus). This means I'll be out of touch until about Tuesday, if anyone is looking for me. Hehehe. Yay for disappearing! :-D
Oh, and one more piece of news. Lies has been replaced. My new roommate is a grad student named Maiya. She's Korean-Chinese (meaning she's Korean by descent but grew up in China). While she doesn't speak English, her Russian's REALLY good (she's been here for five years already). So far everything's good. Our room is pretty now :-D. She put up curtains and stuff. Hopefully the room will stay pretty.
The best part - she claims to have internet on her laptop - we'll see about that.