And you read your Emily Dickinson, and I my Robert Frost

"Try to reason about love, and you'll lose your reason." — French proverb

Today I've been watching "Throw Mama from the Train" and hanging out with our Colombian exchange student, Cata, and her friend from Chile, Karin. It's cool to learn about other cultures from the perspective of students in the United States. Karin is studying speech pathology, the same as my sister Andrea, but her job prospects are kind of more interesting because she is bilingual.

We also used Google Earth to look at South America and Alaska, where S called me from today. Ketchikan looked interesting from the photos I found on the internet, and had surprisingly clear cell service. These first few days really are the hardest, according to Eve. She gave a good perspective yesterday when we hung out, since she and my cousin Simon were apart for four years while she was in school in St. Louis and he was back in Lincoln, Nebraska. This is nowhere near four years for me and S, and I am trying to keep a grip and have fun and not worry too much about the "what ifs."

I did end up in the Bloomindale's dress department yesterday, and I tried on about 15 dresses with advice from Eve, Andrea and Chris. With their excellent help, I found something I like that strikes a happy medium between affordable and attractive. When I modeled it for Cata, she said, "Ohh, it's very Beth... conservative with sex appeal." It's black lace, to the knee, v-neck, cocktail dress style. And it was a $350 dress for less than a fifth of that amount, plus I already have shoes to wear with it. Sweet.

Walking around Lake of the Isles was also great. Next time we do that, I'm going to bring my camera for the shot of the Minneapolis skyline above the million dollar houses along the lake's edges.