Of life and limb (six limbs, to be precise).

Yesterday was a violent kind of day.

First, I ruthlessly exterminated the colony of cockroaches that was living behind my fridge. (Mugi, my Japanese hallmate and friend, should really get a lot of the credit for this, since she both informed me that behind the fridge is where cockroaches live and provided me with the toxic chemicals used in their extermination.) This took up most of the morning and some of the afternoon, since after I sprayed I had to leave for an hour and let everything stew, and then had to air out the room, and then had to spend quite a bit of time stepping on cockroaches (here credit is due to my trusty hiking boots), because many were intoxicated rather than outright killed by the poison, and came crawling drunkenly out of their ravaged home in something like droves. I counted eighteen total that I stepped on and then picked up with a napkin and threw away.

Then, in helping Anya to make a pumpkin cheesecake, I proved that my skills in carving the skin off a pumpkin are nowhere near as well-honed as my skills in carving the skin off my own hand. It's an ugly gash, but not threatening to life or balalaika-playing (thank God).

I acquitted myself well in both these endeavors, I think - the only screams came from Mugi (who had the misfortune of opening the door to my room just as I was pulling the fridge away from the wall) and Celine (the newest addition to the foreigners' dorm, a girl from the Netherlands who apparently doesn't like hearing about bits of skin getting stuck to knives... sorry, Celine...). And probably the cockroaches, in whatever cockroach-y way they might scream. I almost feel bad for the little guys. It didn't look like a very pleasant way to go.

The cheesecake, by the way, was delicious.