we started the Russkii Klub today at SLU. :) it's going to be awesome. we gabbed a bit, then went out to eat at Dvin's, a local Russian restaurant. so far we have four members...but there are going to be lots more soon enough, when the word spreads. now i have a new Russian music cd...the band is called "Splin."

ran today, after the restaurant. my bike is hurt. it got in an accident while someone else was riding it.

one of my friends' father has disappeared. and left a suicide note behind. i pray everything will be ok. i'm really worried about my friend.

i'm working on a poem. it begins with old, tsarist Russia (troika=trinity), goes into Soviet Russia, then into the rebirth of Orthodoxy. so far, it sounds like this:

//troika//
different
immediately, immediately
red lesson
second gathering.

and another, same style:

//three//
to talk among
to arrive
to shout
director of time
he looked
third
interesting.

i'm going to Triad's homecoming game tonight. it's a highschool in Troy, Illinois. i'm going to have fun!

i'm going to get into scrapbooking. it's basically what i'm already doing, with journals (my paper-ones), but with art. :)

i simply want this next week to RUSH by. i want it to be Oct 4th, so i can get in my car and DRIVE and DRIVE. i'm going to Pensacola. i'm stoked. it's going to be fantabulous. i'm going to the Navy Birthday Ball!!!

i went running at the indian mounds again. this time i took my roommate Carly and my friend Tom. it was nice to run with other people for a change.

i am tired. sleepy.

yesterday was noneventful, although i did go for a run at sunset. i like running around the cahokia indian mounds. there's something mystical there, something empowering. there's nothing like being on top of monk's mound (the biggest one) and being able to see all around, with st. louis in the west, the mississippi river snaking along to the south, and the bluffs in the east. i feel like i'm in an upside-down bowl because the sky is so perfectly domed around me. truly, i feel like i'm in the center of the world up there. it's best to be alone, too.

then i came home, received TWO letters at once from someone in Pensacola -- :) -- and then read a little of "The Bear and the Dragon" by Tom Clancy. i thought i should read that novel. i was asleep by 2330 and didn't wake up until 0830. yeah, i know. i slept too much.

now i have to go to "History since 1500" --- ugh. i usually sit and read in this class. and the teacher always calls on me, especially since he knows my name out of the fifty other students.

Parks Guard Rifle Drill Team (yeah that includes me) marched in Dwight, Illinois' Veteran's Parade today. i was in the color guard, carrying the US flag. i was so proud. i love that feeling.

here's a really adorable poem my friend Valerii wrote for me. he's taken only one year of English, and it's such a good poem...

The sound which the forest gives
On a cold day of September
When the wind rustles by leafs
It brings me a word – Amber.

isn't is sweet? now i need to write one in Russian and send it back to him.

i felt like a boy today, in uniform, with my short hair and the black beret.