Excitement!

First, a drabble, inspired by the word "elocute":

She feared becoming the teacher from Charlie Brown – standing in the front of the room, pontificating, while all anyone could hear was “wah wah wah”. She could envision her students’ eyes glazing over, the boy in the back of the room falling asleep, the two girls in the corner passing notes.
That was, if anyone asked her, why she chose to speak so clearly. Sharp consonants and round vowels would keep her from fading into the ignominy of incomprehensibility.
But she couldn’t explain all that to Johnny when he asked, “Why do you use your teacher’s voice all the time?”

I have many reasons to celebrate today. First (and most important): I am done with my first quarter of graduate school! W00! I finished up my last final today, hand it in tomorrow at 10 AM, and so that leaves me with a week or so more time to really dedicate myself to my rotation lab before I go on vacation and start my next rotation. This is pretty thrilling to me.

Second: my silks instructor today (I celebrated by going to the city for lessons. This was not an abnormal activity for me, but it was celebratory anyway.) looked at me at the beginning of class and said "You know lots of tricks. You should start trying to tie them together. Your job for today is to make a phrase of two or three tricks." Which was happy (I know lots of tricks!) but terrifying (What do I know about stringing them together?) But I did it, and at the end of class she had everyone (which meant both of my classmates and herself, so not many people) watch while I did my little phrase. It was probably terrible, but I didn't fall down -- I actually came out of the last trick gracefully (which is a big deal for me) and so I was happy with it, especially for the first time. Chris (a classmate) had the same duty, and while his had a lot more cool tricks, he got tired halfway through and it was sloppy afterward. On the other hand, he has a lot of dance experience so he probably has a better idea on where to start with this "choreography" thing.