I just got home from celebrating Pineapple and Baked Beans' last day of work. Baked Beans is headed back to the UK to finish university, and Pineapple's bouncing around Scotland, talking about getting a job in Poland, maybe coming back in Se;ptember, maybe not even leaving at all if some sort of visa problem doesn't get solved.

On the way there, I met Katie and another American girl coming out of the metro. Katie doesn't get a fruit becaues she's leaving in the next few days (plus her name is anonymous enough...takes one to know one), and I don't really know the other girl.

Katie is very Ivy League. She went to Brown, and has that aura about her of suspecting she's better than you, but not being certain enough to disregard what you think of her. When she talks it sounds like she;s trying to calculate precisely what she should say to you in order to do well on some social achievement test or something. On the way to the bar she was relaying a story about a French guy (I assume they have some sort of history) who was proud of himself of getting into a pretty good grad school in France, then he caught wind that she was going to Harvard and got really self-effacing. I bit my tongue to keep from wondering aloud when the rest of the world would start doubting the clothedness of the Harvard emperor as Americans are. It came up again when she and Baked Beans and I were talking. Baked Beans said Harvard's pretty much the top of the top , isn't it, and Katie said Yes, yes it is, and by that time there was enough vodka and apple juice in me that I said, well, it depends on the program and it depends on who you ask. They both chose to ignore it, rightfully so. I know I'm snarky because a tiny part of me wonders if I made a bad decision by turning my back on places like that, but mostly it's just tiresome how people blindly buy the hype.

That being said, I love how she's smart. She's starting a Ph.D. in Russian literature, and she clearly has a lot of cool ideas. I think the first time I met her I cornered her and thoroughly explained the pros and cons of MIT's science writing program because I saw so starved for the company of anyone who could relate to that. Katie reminds me vaguely of a version of myself that might have been (how's that for concrete?) if Dad were still alive. She's still on the track of clearing hurdles (Ivy Degree, check; Structured Travel Experience, check; More School, pending), and blatantly hasn't had that wait-what's-it-all-for moment (at least not in the same way I did). I kind of envy her.

What cracks me up too is that she seems to think I'm one of the cool girls. It's funny being recontextualized into the American girl social scene after not really thinking about it for a year and finding that not caring has elevated me in the eyes of those who do.

I need to save my roubles and get a new laptop...The backlight of this one is dead, so I have to shine a desklamp at it at full blast so I can see what I'm typing. I think I'll have enough money byJuly 7th (or even June 22nd, if I can stretch $40 for 2 weeks...long shot)