A real post from Matthew

So the kids are still sick. Luke's cough persists, and Hannah's is growing slightly worse. We had wicked bad morning, as Luke and Hannah both woke up at 3am. Luke didn't go back to sleep until 4:30. AM! In the morning! He wanted to sleep in our bed; he wanted to sleep in his bed; he wanted one of us to sleep in his bed; he wanted to go "down tairs" [sic] to play; he wanted cold water; his water was too cold. UGH! It was infuriating. And then Hannah would only sleep on top of Anastasia, so naturally, Luke followed suit. Finally, they fell asleep, but I think around 6 Stasia moved into Luke's room with Hannah, leaving Luke and me to sleep in our queen bed. Despite all the real estate, he still found it necessary to kick, punch, and slap me while he slept.
All in all, it was a great morning. One bonus is that while I was awake I did some of the exercises I am supposed to do everyday on my knee. What better time than 3 or 4 am? If you answered, "11am, before you eat lunch, while the SUN SHINES!" then you answered correctly.

Today is the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple. Since it is a major feast of the Church, and I go to a school where Church is kind of important, then we had no classes today. Hooray! Liturgy was mandatory, though. Anastasia took Hannah but left me home with Luke, as his cough was still too nasty to take him out in public. Also, there is a horrible flu-virus going around the married student community, as most of the families were afflicted with puking children in the last two days. We thought it would be too risky to expose Luke to recovering puke-a-holics at Liturgy.

So Luke and I had a good morning together. We bonded in manly fashion: Luke in his underwear and shirt and me in my pajamas having a balloon fight. Good times. I also gave him the worst tasting medicine of all time (see yesterday's post by Stasia), which he promptly through up. After smelling his vomit-breath for an hour, I took him upstairs, set him on the toilet (he is potty-training and it was time for him to urinate), and then I made him brush his teeth. Good idea, right? Kill two birds with one stone. Potty training and vomit-breath elimination. I was thinking that I was an efficiency genius until he started wagging his head back and forth with the toothbrush in his mouth without using hands. Then the tooth brush dropped.
Uh oh. Maybe my idea wasn't so smart.

Fortunately, it landed on his leg, not in the toilet. But that was enough to convince me not to have him brush his teeth while using the juan.

I had a typical NEPA moment last week that I've been meaning to share. I bought a plane ticket for one of my schoolmates to go to Athos this summer (I'm looking forward to going, but y'all will hear more about the trip at a later date). I put the charge on my credit card to earn airline miles, and we agreed that he would pay me back. Well, he paid me back in cash. Yup, $1065 worth of cash. So I took the wad of loot to the bank to deposit it. Unfortunately, I was not able to put so much money through the ATM; I had to go inside. I hate going inside banks, but whatever.
So I walk up to the counter and give the guy a huge envelope with cash and checks in there, stuff that needed to be deposited for a while anyway. I had written my account number on all the checks, thinking that it was good enough to deposit since I wasn't making any withdrawal. Now, at my favorite bank, AlaskaUSA (in Alaska), all you have to do is write your account number on the check and it's good to go. At PNC in PA, the teller asked me if I had a deposit slip. "Nope. But I signed all the checks with my account number, so you can use that. Also, there's x amount of cash. I counted. You can count it." "Sir, we need a deposit slip." Me: "Well, I don't have one." Teller: "Ok, do you have your ATM card with you?"
At that point, my gast was flabberred. I was standing inside the bank, and I was asked to pull out my ATM card. I told the guy again, "I wrote my account number on the checks. It's right there." "Sir, I can't pull up your account with that, but I can with your ATM card. Then we'll fill out the deposit slip together." Stunned silent, I gave him my ATM card. I could not believe it. I was thinking, "Hey Jacko! You ARE my deposit slip!" I would've asked to speak with the bank manager, but I think he was the manager.
NEPA IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO RIDICULOUSLY RETARDED! I hate this area of the country. It sucks worse than a commercial-strength Hoover. I want to take all the stupid locals and show them what civilization is like--in KENYA! I'm sure the bank there would let me deposit my money without a slip if I gave the teller my account number.

Maybe I've just been spoiled by AlaskaUSA, but it seems like too many things back here are too difficult for people to process. I guess the lesson here is to never ever ever ever ever ever ever live in Carbondale, PA. Ever, ever, ever. Unless you absolutely have to.

School is fully underway. We are only two weeks in (this is the third week now), and I have completed 1 small paper, 1 large paper, and 1 seven-minute oral presentation (actually, I think it stretched to ten minutes, but I digress). I have 3 more large papers and a "reflective, integrative final" for history, and then I'm done. In May. Nevertheless, I am satisfied thus far with my progress. My goal is to do one paper per month, with 2 coming in late April/May. Once again, I hope to be finished with my finals before Finals Week rolls around so that I can have a week-long vacation with my family. We'll see how it goes. Good start so far, but I haven't tackled the difficult papers yet.

Anyway, I'm tired of typing, so I'm gonna sign off. Have a good week.