:-) , :-) , }:-[ , :-) , :-) .

:-)
My school choir director is funny. Examples:
"Well, we have ten more minutes and I think we can knock out five more pages. [disbelieving muttering among the choir] Well, look at how little the tenors sing, we should be fine." (He was joking, and said so)
"Yes it's staccato, but it's not an Offenback operetta. Do it nicely."
"That bass line is deadly, don't you think? Well, this is a requiem we're singing..."

:-)
Numbers in Dutch are fun. The best part is that they're always one word, so you get words like 999,999: negenhonderdnegenennegentigduizendnegenhonderdnegenennegentig!

}:-[
Only in America... telephone menus. On Wednesday I transferred myself nearly the entire contents of my checking account, but it hasn't arrived yet. I just spent twenty minutes searching my bank's website and half an hour on hold and talking to telephone bankers to hear the simple answer of "International wire transfers usually take three to five business days." It was SO frustrating. I tried to e-mail an inquiry, but I gave up. [Details: They wouldn't let me leave the "home phone number" slot blank, they didn't accept my receiving bank's name or receiving bank contact's name because of the illegal character é, The wouldn't accept the bank's phone number, and after I put the whole 12-digit international phone number in the comments box and just put my home phone number in the bank phone number box it didn't like that, It wouldn't let me leave the late fee amount box blank even though I'd selected the circle for no late fee. Nightmare.] So I called the 800 number over Skype, finally got to talk to a person, who transferred me to a menu which led me back to the same type of person, who transferred me to a person who she thought would be able to help, who transferred me to some cheesy, staticcy hold music, and then I got cut off. Repeat the tail end of that process, ending with "Yeah, international wire transfers usually take three to five business days." Thanks a lot. At least now I know that I have two more business days before I should start to panic. I don't understand why a company as big and professional as Chase bank would have such terrible quality hold music. It's like they just have a badly-tuned radio on.

:-)
I finished reading the sixth Harry Potter book in French, and the seventh comes out at the end of the month. I hope there's a midnight party somewhere!

:-)
Exciting travel coming up: I'm planning to go to Lyon two weekends from now, I'm in the process of deciding which three cities in the south of France I want to visit over Fall break, and I am probably going to go to Milan for a weekend in November, since Air France has a deal that'll make it significantly cheaper than taking the train.