Things I learned in college

...besides what you read in textbooks. You'd be surprised how much knowledge doesn't cost $99.95 at the campus bookstore. (Unfortunately, professors don't seem to buy into this.)

1. Converse may make your feet look cool, a la New Kids on the Block, but they are not good walking shoes. Plan to buy many Bandaids for your blistered feet. And while we're on the subject of shoes, clogs aren't good for long distances or up hills, flats will make your heels cry out in agony and turn purple, and flip-flops get dirty and wear out really fast. Just fyi.

2. Unless you're a naturally filthy person, or you make a habit of this and you stink after three days without bathing, people typically won't notice if you don't shower before going to your early morning class. 

I'm not saying make a habit of it, but if you need to roll out of bed and throw on some jeans every now and then, people don't care. Especially in a lecture hall setting. Repeat after me: THEY DON'T CARE. They're way too concerned about themselves. This rule may not apply if you attend a prep school of 1200 students that judge your brand of sweatpants.

Not to mention, this gives you an opportunity to shower over your lunch/afternoon break, which is a lovely, lovely experience. I could write a whole post about this. You get your favorite stall (and come on, we all know you have a favorite stall). You can take 20 minutes moisturizing, picking out your outfit, etc. You're not rushing anywhere. You can dry off in sunlight. I'd still wear shower sandals, though. 

3. Get to know your adviser. If you don't like him/her, get a new one if you can. A good adviser is the person who will point you in the right direction when you have one of those days where you love the arts but you want to make money and you were good at chemistry in high school, so maybe you should major in that? but you've never taken psychology so maybe that's a good option, but you don't want to waste your elective credits that you're planning on using for sign language and Harpoon Skills 101.

Yeah, anyway, sit down with them. They'll draw you up a plan. Speaking of electives, #4...

4. You can take an elective in almost anything, especially at a big school, like my Typical-East-Coast-Large-Public-University. 

Sometimes, though, you have to be in a certain major, or have a certain prerequisite course. If this happens, beg. Talk to the prof and tell him that your uncle was famous for harpooning whales in Alaska, and you always admired your uncle and wanted him to teach you the trade, but he never did because he thought it was too dangerous and he didn't want to see his niece/nephew get hurt. Ask if you can sit in for a class and have a syllabus. Sometimes, if they see you're putting in the extra time, they'll add you to the roster.

If this doesn't work, cry. That seems to get the job done.

5. You will get addicted to Facebook. Even if you swear you won't. Even if you give yourself a limit to the number of times you can log on per day. Even if you say, "Well, I won't comment on anything, so no one thinks I'm a creeper who spends my life on Facebook." You might eventually break yourself of the habit, but for a while, Facebook will be a good portion of your life.

6. No matter how awesome your classes sound when you pick them out, you'll probably be sick of them by the middle of the semester.

Unless, of course, you're taking Harpoon Skills 101.

Of Bumbles and Best Friends

So. For the past two days, the Abominable Snow Monster (fondly referred to henceforth as the Bumble, a la Rankin Bass) has been turning my Typical-East-Coast-Large-Public-University into a winter wonderland:

...or rather, a winter slushland. It's so strange to see brilliantly colored autumn trees covered in white, and patches of green grass that those colored autumn trees protected from the Bumble.

Now it's just doing a misty rain thing. Gross.

The good news: I don't have to trudge out to the Homecoming game in this icky wetness (no tickets, and there's no bitterness there at all--I didn't really want them. Shhhh.)

The bad news: My best friend in the whole wide world, who goes by the name of Kirsten, just texted to tell me her planned visit today is not happening. Suddenly my day is reduced to online shopping for Underarmour and catch-up reading.

I can postpone that, though! I'll take a trip down memory lane to tell you about how I met Kirsten (unless you are Kirsten, in which case, you already know). It's kind of an interesting story.

Kirsten and I aren't the typical best friends that met in kindergarten, shared our lunches in elementary school, fingerpainted each others' names in art class, dressed up in sparkle jeans and went to awkward middle school dances together...none of that.

 In fact, the first time she recalls seeing me, we were both at a meeting for middle school choir, and she was annoyed that I was a dumb seventh grader talking during the presentation. Thank goodness we didn't actually meet for two more years.

I entered high school as a quiet (imagine that) freshman knowing almost no one (I'd had the typical eighth-grade-falling-out-with-friends that summer). BUT I was in choir. (Yes, I was THAT kid. Refrain from being judgmental. I actually kind of liked it.) And in choir, we used to have students get up to do warm-ups and announcements and that sort of thing.

One day in September-ish, a tall girl with long, curly brown hair, a cute skirt, and a mellifluous voice taught everyone a tongue twister:

Articulatory agility
Is a desirable ability
Manipulating with dexterity
The tongue, the teeth, and the lips!
(repeat, many times, going faster each time)

(My memory's actually not that amazing; I've recited it many times since for theatre.)

Kirsten and I didn't actually meet then, oh no. That's just when I became aware of her. She's pretty awesome, I thought, to be able to get up there and teach everyone that so easily. (She later revealed she felt like the biggest dork.)

From there, our friendship came together in pieces. I actually don't remember this, but she recalls trying on Halloween costumes at the same time after school in the girls' bathroom and realizing that we liked a lot of the same things. "We're pretty much the same person!" she cried. I vaguely remember being excited about this.

Our friendship was cemented, though, when Kirsten and I, and a few of our friends, stayed after school to chill and wait for the football game that night. (All right, fine, I'll admit it: we were decorating the choir room. Remember, NERDS.) I hadn't been planning to stay, but Kirsten had convinced me, last minute. "You don't really want me along," I'd said, and she and another friend had replied, "Yes, we do." That was all it took.

Anyway! That night we bonded, I found out she was a vegetarian, and we decided that we had to watch Titanic together (neither one of us ever had seen it). A weekend or two later, she came over to spend the night. At 4 AM, we were still up...playing Barbies. Yep, we'd found a tub of my sister's Barbies and were using them to mock everyone at school. That began the first of our countless inside jokes.

The next weekend, I spent the night at her house, and we finally saw Titanic. She might think differently, but I think we were pretty much cemented from then on. Four years later--that's hard to believe--we know pretty much everything about each other, and we never get tired of talking. In fact, we spent most of the past summer together. And we have oh-so-many inside jokes, I don't think I remember them all.

In short, if she was a man, I'd marry her. We're best-friend-soulmates (and I don't even believe in soulmates). And even the Bumble can't stop us.

Oh, and Kirsten, if you're reading this..."I got you coffee." "Yeah, well I got you a pony!"

Don't Ya Just Know It (A Case Study in the Blues)

I was going to write a post yesterday about my ridiculous Macbeth notes, or this picture, but to make a long story short, my parents called.



Ok, so that needs some explanation. See, I attend the Typical-East-Coast-Large-Public-University, the kind that everyone expects you to attend because it's in-state (and therefore, affordable) but still pretty well-known for churning out decent degrees in every category you can think of. You know the type. We do the football thing and the school spirit thing and the rolling admissions thing. You can probably think of a few fine specimens, and hey, I won't deny it's a decent education. But that's all I'll say about that for now.

Anyway, I'm a freshman at this Typical-East-Coast-Large-Public-University, and being separated from home and family and all has been a bit rougher than anticipated. I'm pretty tight with my family, and being separated from them for this long, on a campus with about 40-50,000 strangers, has taken its toll. After a visit with them last weekend in which I used up no less than half a box of tissues, I was in no hurry to talk to them again. Of course, that means they inevitably called yesterday:

*Zombie Nation plays on my phone. I look at the number, sigh, and pick up*

Dad: Hi! How's school?
Me: Fine *mumble mumble mumble*
Dad: You sound kind of down.
Me: Just tired. Mumble mumble.
*Awkward silence*
Dad: Well, I love you. Here, talk to your mother.
Mom: Heyhoneyhow'sschoolhow'slife?
Me: Mumble.
Mom: You sure sound down. Cheer up.
Me: I'M FINE [or was until you called] mumble.

I'm having a hard time with this separation thing. Either I'm clingy and don't want to stop talking to them, or I don't want to talk to them at all because it reminds me that I miss them. Needless to say, after that fun conversation, I was in no mood to blog. Or do homework. Or take a walk. Or do anything but procrastinate and grumble.

So, Macbeth/ the mysterious picture at the beginning of the post will have to wait...