Okay!

are you holding your breath?

Step 472 of the 589-step process for Getting a Tourist Visa to Brazil has been completed.

How many steps does that leave? I don't know, I'm not a math major. Too many! All I know is, I'm only going back to the embaixada do Brasil ONE more time. And that's final!

Unless they tell me I have to come back again. Then I will, because I am a sucker for a well-dressed government employee. Particularly if it's not my government.

Stay tuned for step 473.

Halloween

Halloween was a very long time ago, I know. So much the better. Now you aren't all exhausted and bored of looking at peoples' costumes all day.

The devil costume was hard to capture in one frame. It mostly consisted of horns and a tail and pointy eyebrows.



And some blue suede shoes.



Then there was apple bobbing. Kitty bravely went first.



and the Devil even took his horns off to compete; he narrowly beat out Kitty's score of some number of seconds, only to be immediately trounced by Alyssa and her whole-body immersion technique.



Then we all went back to drinking beer (everyone) and changing costumes a lot of times (me).

Here is me being a cowgirl and Laura being a bound morpheme. You can tell I'm a cowgirl because I am wearing not only cowboy boots and a super-authentic cowboy hat, but also because I am wearing the traditional cowgirl outfit of black lace tights, a black miniskirt, and a black tank top.



You can tell Laura is a Bound Morpheme because she has sparkly chains all around her and her shirt says -ish. This is a hilarious joke to me and my hilarious linguistics-student-friends, and we don't care if nobody else thinks we are funny.

Here are my two best jobs of costume-making: Flamingo and Venus Flytrap.



These are good costumes, but the best part of the picture by far is Lindsay's face. AAAAH! It's a scary plant with teeth!

I'm back!

I hope.

So, I had a big Halloween party for Halloween, but I didn't take any pictures of it. Some other people did so hopefully I will have lots of visual aids soon. I made some excellent costumes for other people and I changed my own costume every hour on the hour.

Here's what the costumes I made for other people were:
1. Flamingo
2. Venus Flytrap
3. Devil in Blue Suede Shoes
4. Mariachi guy
5. Bound Morpheme

Here's what my costumes were:
1. Big Giant Head
2. Witch
3. Princess
4. Cowgirl

Also at that party we had Bobbing For Apples which was Alyssa's idea. And she won, by diving headfirst into the bucket up to her shoulders. If you ever need lessons in how to win at apple bobbing, Alyssa is your man.

Then I went to New Mexico and was all grown-up and conferency. And played with my friends and a kitten. And ate a lot of foods with green chiles in them which are delicious.

Now I'm back in good old Washington DC, where my cat is friendly and adorable and my bedroom is a disaster zone and my homework is not done.

I have 2 weeks before leaving for Brazil. I got a new passport which I needed because my old one was going to expire next May and Brazil is cranky and requires 6 months of validity AFTER your trip ends. Plus a lot of other things, like proof of hotel reservations and a reason to be in the country and your mother's maiden name and your shoe size in both European and American measurements.

And a visa. Which I don't have yet. What? Last-minute? Poor planning? Nonsense! I still have TWO WEEKS, which is enough time for anyone to accomplish anything.