How long has it been since my last post? Well if you know me well, I'm re-directive, rhetorical, and relativistic. Just like time. : )

It's been since before Christmas, and so let's begin there. Christmas was a lot of fun, but very different from the highly commercialized version I grew up with. It was low-key, and there was no 24 hour Christmas music constantly and ubiquitously everywhere. It didn't feel like Christmas as I know it, so there was a significant "Christmas Spirit" that wasn't there. One of my best friends said something really good: "There's something in the air. And it's not here." (that was me by the way.) I'm brilliant. : D

But all said, while I certainly felt a deep pining for the roaring pines, blankets of white snowy bliss, hot chocolate by the fireside with a good book or puppy at the foot, and the background din of 25 relatives reminiscing over a feast of kings for their own pasts, I was content with my life and satisfied to be in this exquisite country. *Giant inhale* I guess I should also mention that I miss the vibrancy and fluidity of expression that comes with fluency in a language. So Christmas came and went, and I don't think I noticed all that much. I don't know if I wasn't looking, or simply looking for the wrong things.

I didn't do much by the way of presents for Christmas, I plan on simply bringing all my gifts back with me, and celebrating with my friends and family at home.

After Christmas, we went on a week's vacation to the beautiful City of Rome. Caput Mundi. The Capital of the World. Wow. There's a civilization as arrogant as I am. Yay, I'm not alone. I think Rome earned the title however. It was incredible. By the time you read this, I should have a fairly good amount of pictures up on my Facebook, you can check those out there. Here's a preview, me at the Colloseum:

That was a bunch of fun. Rome was incredible. We stayed there for a week with some friends of my host-family. We saw all the major historic sites: The Vatican, The Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, Piazza di San Pietro(St. Peter's Square), the Colosseum, the whole lot. It was incredible. We saw so history and I certainly gained quite a bit of perspective on time. When you think about it, 6 weeks between blog posts is nothing. And when you extrapolate to geologic time, all of humanity's existence is a single frame of film, in a tape of the Earth's life stretching from Seattle to L.A. Really quite something to behold. And just think what we as people have accomplished in that infinitesimally small amount. Just makes one wonder what the Earth will be like and where we'll be a frame from now. Will Rome still stand as a testament to our origins? Will we still remember Caesar? Will we remember anyone? I can only hope that some of us stand our tests of time. And with these thoughts I leave you for now. Think, and ask big questions with me. And irrelevant and relative though it may be, I promise to put up some more new content soon, and regularly. I love you all, you're in my thoughts, and I wish you nothing but the best.

DFTBA - (Don't Forget to be Awesome)

-Caleb