Dear Charlotte,

It's Wednesday September 16th, 2009 and at this time next week I will have left the United States of America for Moscow, Russia. SO STRANGE.

I began my final travel preparations not by packing, but driving 5 1/2 hours to Ithaca, NY for the weekend. Now you may ask, "Why this weekend? What's so special about it?" Well, shut up and I'll tell you. So this past weekend was in fact the weekend of Freshmen Party, an illustrious tradition held annual at the beginning of each year. For those of you who aren't aware of said Party, I'll explain. Freshmen Party is a show written, directed, choreographed and performed by the upperclassmen for the incoming freshmen class. This performance is filled to the brim with belting, face-kicking, riffing, viewpointing, designing, Bad Assery and above all else HILARITY. Seriously, the senior class must have been drinking Fool-Aid all summer, because the show was amazingly hilarious. Once some of the videos hit youtube I'll post them. But here's a facebook video, you we'll see if that works too. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=586464613189&ref=nf

Seriously, the show doubled as an ab work out, that's how funny it was.

But Freshmen Party aside I went to visit Ithaca for a few other reasons. One of my closest friends Ben was visiting Ithaca while he's on break from touring with Spring Awakening. It's a big deal because he'll be gone for the whole year, so like all of us Russian Zolls he'll be without the Class of Zoll in it's entirety. But, let's get real, that's not a bad deal in the long run. So seeing everyone together, even for the brief amount of time, was very important to me. I love my class so much and we all came so far last year both individually and as an ensemble that being around them reminded me of where I left off last year. I was hoping that would happen while i was in Ithaca because a lot of this time away from Ithaca has started to get to me and make me bored and lazy, so rediscovering my passion in the place where it started was in my eyes essential before going to Russia. I'll write again soon.

Faithfully,

Justin