Tuesday, September 27, 2011

screech.

i have no idea what this blog will be about. i just know that i have to blog RIGHT now and you'll just have to bear with me.

or you can close this, that'll be fine, because i feel like most of this is going to be my day and my ridiculous life and ridiculous future plans, as if you haven't heard that fifty thousand times.

if you haven't, welcome to the show.

here is what JUST WENT DOWN, this just in, call the presses.

emily, our protagonist and avid blogger and sophomore college student, had an epic flood in her dorm room of the first day of classes on september sixth.

trust me. it was scary as hell. as i tried to plunge the evil thing (that evil thing being my toilet) with my nine dollar walmart plunger, the water went WHOOSH and it was like the freakin' titanic and i screamed and jumped onto my bed as toilet water rushed into my dorm room and went all the way under my extra bed and stained my seventies carpet.

so, this just in, my toilet clogged again. do i dare plunge it with my nine dollar walmart plunger?

of course not. we just saw what happened the last time i tried to plunge it.

so i called campus security and wrapped myself up hopelessly in my phone cord and said in a really childish voice, "hi hi hi i know it's late but my toilet is clogged and the last time i plunged it, it flooded my room..." and the nice man asked me my name, room number, and said he'd be there soon and i better be in there when he came.

well. emily, our protagonist (not heroine. i am too cowardly) had to pee. and had to pee bad.

so i grabbed my omnipotent ID card with the terrible picture and ran out of my dorm building and pelted to wright hall with my shawl half falling off of my shoulders. i am not sure how i ran in those shoes, to be honest.

wright hall is the nice apartment style dorm that's only like, five years old, smells funny, and you have to apply to get in. the kids in wright hall are automatically cooler than everybody else and all they do is study study study study because you have to have a near perfect GPA to live there. it is everybody's goal to get into wright hall. not mine. i like having a dorm, not an apartment. i don't want to grow up.

i pelted into wright hall and managed to locate the bathroom. steph and sarah were sitting on the curb coaxing the cafeteria cat, but my high speed and endurance scared it away under the car. i felt bad.

i feel like i blog about personal things. here's one of them.

when i sat down on that toilet in wright hall, the seat slid. you know, how it slides and you feel like you're going to pitch off and then that little block under the seat catches on the toilet rim and then you nearly fall over and you're like, thank you jesus i didn't fall into the toilet now my heart is pounding and i'm not sure if i can pee anymore. mhm. it was fun.

when i was done peeing, i couldn't find the toilet flusher. i searched and searched and then realized... it was a BUTTON ON THE TANK. that really needed bolding for emphasis.

um. i'm not sure who invented this. i think it might possibly be ingenius. it's also very very terrifying. and i really don't want it to be the new social norm.

while i walked quickly back to my dorm to meet security, i ran into megan. i was excited to show her my cello, but she was on the phone, and by the time she got off, the gigantic plumbing van had pulled up behind me. so i ran like hell to my room, threw off my shawl, propped open the door, and quickly wrote "emily esta in su cuarto! dice hola!" because that's what i write when i'm home and i want you to stop by and say hi.

the last time (after the great flood of september sixth) my toilet clogged, the plumber ran this gigantic snake down it and plunged and plunged and plunged and talked merrily about what a fine job plumbing was. i told him i was going to be a teacher and winced as he busted up the pipes with his huge drain-o tool.

this time they just plunged it, flushed down a hunk of my toilet paper to make sure it worked, waved, and left me alone to finish my episode of criminal minds. it was the one with the insane psychiatrist.

there are a lot of reasons that could contribute to the fact that i had this terrible need to blog about this.

1. last night i had this intense dream that my dad was in the BAU and he found frank! (if you know what this means, i love you.) my dad's plan was to catch frank and eat him. and i was okay with this. it's a dream. i have the right to be okay with this. i think.
2. because of this dream, i slept badly. it was indeed a terrifying dream.
3. i had five classes, four in a row beginning at eight thirty. there was way too much philosophy in there.
4. i got poured on picking up a package that turns out wasn't mine. i'm still dealing with the disappointment.
5. I GOT MY FREAKING TEACHER PLACEMENT. BECAUSE I'M GOING TO BE A TEACHER.
6. i met one of those most prodigious latin american guitarists ever, and he talked to me in spanish for an hour and i had no idea what he was saying. so i nodded and said bueno a whole bunch.
7. i watched rio with the staff. that movie has way too much sexual tension.
8. i wrote out of the rest of my college life in brightly colored markers (watermelon themed) and tacked them to the cork board behind my laptop.

i. am. going. insane.

my next task of the evening, besides sleeping because it is twelve thirty in the morning, is to invent a fictional small town. i am going to name it screechington, and everybody who lives in that town screeches.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

the lion king.

today was a momentous, momentous day.

today, september twenty-fourth, two thousand and eleven, i saw the lion king in the theatre.

if you've read my blogs, you understand what this means. no, you actually don't. that's why i'm blogging about it.

back in the day when the lion king came out (1994), i was three. i saw it in the theatre with my parents and my brother, who was four. do i remember it?

no. of course not.

but today, i saw it in the theatre for the second time.

i didn't see it in 3D like the rest of my friends, and i didn't see it right when it came out like harry potter because i'm a student first before a crazed lion king fan. i have other things to attend to than to rush away and watch the lion king when i have placement paperwork to fill out and philosophy to study. another reason i didn't see it in 3D besides the fact that 3D is stupid and would ruin the movie is that my eyes can't see 3D. so really i'd just be paying extra bucks for some glasses.

no thank you.

my boyfriend and i drove to the alma movie theatre (a very shady place indeed) for the twelve forty showing of the lion king in good old 2D. there were four toddlers in the theatre and while the preflix was going, i quietly thought about how upset i would be if they ruined the lion king for me by crying, talking, or generally being toddlers. very unfair of me. but this is MY movie.

after the preflix were over, i wondered out loud whether they would have the previews that they have on my VHS tape. you know those previews. pocahontas (coming next summer) the aristocats (coming soon to VHS) and angels in the outfield back when christopher lloyd was decently young.

that didn't happen. the previews were for silly new animated movies. like the third alvin and the chipmunnks movie.

then it showed the WALT DISNEY PICTURES PRESENTS in red and i could hear the animals in the background in the dead silence. my whole body tensed. i was ready for this. it was time.

when that sun came up and lebo m began to sing "nyants ingoyama bagithi baba" i lost it. it was so big. it was so perfect. it was terrific, it was so epic.

this was my favorite movie (with arguably the best beginning of any movie in the world) coming to life right before my very eyes on a big, fat, movie screen.

i was so overcome with emotions i couldn't describe i sat there with my mouth open and tears streaming down my face.

the tears cleared up shortly after scar lost his little mouse lunch and i had finished singing the circle of life through my tears. i settled into the movie.

when mufasa died, there were more tears. i cry when mufasa dies even when i watch the lion king alone in my room on VHS while doing other things. this was absolutely no surprise.

i have seen the lion king probably fifty times or more. i watch it with rapt attention, i watch it while doing other things (like blogging and writing novels and reading), i watch it alone, i watch it with my family, i watch it with my boyfriend. i watch the lion king all the freakin' time.

but there was nothing like watching it in a movie theatre on a big screen. absolutely nothing.

everything was bigger. everything was better. i could hear the score more clearly than ever; hans zimmer's genius. i could see every expression, hear everything rumble with power of james earl jones voicing mufasa. all of this was crystal clear and perfect. this was the lion king.

i sang all the songs. i danced in my chair. i waved at the toddler in front of when he turned around, curious about how loudly i was singing hakuna matata. i enjoyed the lion king like i'd never enjoyed it before.

when simba took his place on pride rock and roared his kingdom, i cried. it was a struggle not to cry the whole entire movie, but here i was, losing it again, staring at the screen with my mouth open and tears sliding down my face.

when the credits started to roll, i realized it was over. i'd cried more here than i had at harry potter. the movie was over, it was time to go back to my life where i would never again see my favorite movie of all time in a theatre. this was its run, this was my run, and my god, the music in the credits was so fantastic.

i sat through all of the credits practically sobbing. luckily i'm a quiet sobber, so i mostly just shook with tears absolutely streaming down my face as elton john sang can you feel the love tonight and i got tears all over my glasses.

i do feel slightly bad about this. my boyfriend and i were the last ones in the theatre, and i could see the high school aged clean up kid watching us as the credits rolled. he wanted to clean the theatre and i was sitting here, hugging my knees and crying while my boyfriend rubbed my knee and kept saying, "it's okay, emily, it's okay."

the lion king is one of the bigger parts of my life. i've blogged about it before. it is obsessional. i firmly believe it is the best movie ever made. it has the best opening of any film in the world. disney has never come close to anything this fantastic, nor has anyone else.

the lion king is a pure masterpiece of a movie. it is my childhood. it is my adolescence, it is my college years, and it will be my adult years. then it will be my children's.

i won't go as far as to say "i am the lion king" but it's very nice to type it.

today, i saw the lion king in a movie theatre, and i was so moved by everything. it was absolutely magical. i have had a lot of magical life experiences like helping the homeless and traveling the world and becoming closer to God with 3,000 youth from around the nation in a gigantic auditorium, but this was up there with all of that. it honestly was.

this. was. terrific.

i don't know how to end this blog. i just keep seeing the opening of the circle of life on a big screen and i want to cry with elation. it is just so amazing.




this. is. the lion king.

Monday, September 19, 2011

do not obsess over this.

this is another creative writing prompt. do not blame me, blame dr. vivian and his creativity for making prompts (and his rose. don't forget that rose he brought to the first day of class).

today's objective: write a sprawling list of your obsessions.

here are my main obsessions.

1. serial killers. they're a hobby.
2. the lion king. we've had blogs about this.
3. harry potter. once again. i have blogged about this.
4. criminal minds. i just keep blogging about my obsessions, don't i?
5. chuck. we've touched on this. (last night was my chuck marathon. it was awesome.)
6. blogging. twitter. tumblr. facebook. social networking in a nutshell.

that's about it. for true obsessions.

sprawling obsessions are different. a sprawling obsession list is just anything that comes to your head that you think about. tics. little things. things you do. we had ten minutes to write on this.

ten minutes was not enough time. after i wrote out a three page list of things and had left class, i thought of about ten hundred more. i didn't even mention harry potter because i was so caught up in some of the things i had written down.

some of them were these: my hair. my feet. hands. tapping my toothbrush seven times. mismatching my socks. illness. the conviction i will die young. sticky notes. poetry. blogging. having my bed in a certain spot. shoes. ordering my fruit snacks. balloons. my computer. quotations. my glasses. bows that i put in my hair.

i didn't even get into some of the big stuff. little things. nitpicky things. things i didn't even realize were tiny obsessions.

from there i had to pick one (out of this sprawling incomplete list!) and write about why i think i have this obsession. does it stem from something deeper? how do i work around it in my daily life? what does it say about me?

lucky you, i'm about to to do that with one of my obsessions. and probably copy and paste it and turn it in as my paper on wednesday. you are now dr. vivian. grab your rose and recite a poem (or prayer).

the obsession: i absolutely have to know how a shower functions before i can use it. i have to understand how to turn the faucet on and off and how to turn the shower head on and off. i have to understand which way the knobs twist to make it hot or cold. i have to know if moving the knobs a teeny bit will make a big difference or i have to twist forever to achieve a tiny temperature change. i absolutely cannot shower until i know all of this. what makes it worse: i can't figure it out on my own. i have to have somebody physically come into the bathroom and show me. and they can't just tell me, they have to actually turn on the water and demonstrate.

if i do not know these things, i will not use that shower.

i want to come up with some logical explanation for this. some deep-centered fear or irrationality. maybe that's what it really is and i just can't place it. maybe. i'm not sure.

to shower is to be vulnerable. being vulnerable is hard for nearly everyone. nobody likes to be vulnerable. when you get into a shower, you're completely naked. that's just the truth of it. you are never physically more vulnerable. i also find that i'm more emotionally vulnerable. no lie, i cry in the shower. a lot. being in the shower is that one time when you're completely by yourself (unless you're into that showering together thing), you're naked, and you have that time to think while you get yourself clean.

when i have that daily time of naked vulnerability, i need to be comfortable.

i can't focus on everything that i think about when i shower if i don't know how the shower works. i can't even get into the shower without understanding this. how am i supposed to enter a time of vulnerability if i don't even know how to enter it? i'm not going to hover around naked in a bathroom trying to get the shower to work. this is too vulnerable. too uncomfortable. i need to be comfortable with my vulnerability.

there's something hypocritical about this. extremely hypocritical. remember when i said that i couldn't test these things out myself, that i had to have somebody demonstrate to me how a shower works?

this, to me, shows vulnerability. i'm letting my guard down and explaining (usually with embarrassment) that i absolutely have to understand how this works and i am too afraid to try it out on my own. i need this to be spoon-fed to me. i can't be responsible and be adult and figure this all out for myself. i need to ask for help. vulnerability.

i have to be vulnerable to be comfortable in what will later be my own different type of vulnerability.

living around this is decently easy. for one thing, i spent sixteen years in the same house with the same shower. that's my shower. that's my vulernable shower clean time. no problems there.

when i moved, i had my father show me how the new shower works. he wasn't entirely surprised by this.

i don't think he truly understands all of the stipulations that come with this obsession, but he understands that i have a problem. every year we take a vacation and every time we do, there is a new shower. on the first day of vacation, i call him into the bathroom and demand to know how the shower works.

i do this with every new shower. i have even had my boyfriend demonstrate a shower for me when i spent the night at his house. once i know how a shower works, i will remember it. i am fine with showers at my grandparents' houses. at my cousins', at my boyfriend's. they have been shown to me and now i am comfortable.

the first day of having my own bathroom here at school posed a problem. i had my boyfriend walk all the way across campus to figure out how my shower worked before i would even consider showering. once he figured it out, he showed me and then i was able to adopt the bathroom as my own.

i enjoy showering. showering is one of my favorite activities. if it did not waste water and take up time, i would shower three or four times a day. when i have terrible days and throwing textbooks isn't enough (i really do through textbooks) i take a nice, hot, relaxing shower. it's getting back to the vulnerable time. that time to let your guard down and cry and just be surrounded by hot water and as weird as this sounds, your own nakedness and vulnerability.

half of this was written as a blog and half of this was written as an english paper. it's a rather taboo subject. i've spent a decent amount of time writing about the one time that you're naked all day, unless you're in a nudist colony. if you are, that's totally legit.

i'm not really sure what this says about me. maybe i need to step out of my comfort zone. i honestly think that showering in a shower outside of my own shower is stepping out of my comfort zone. i need to push my limits. maybe i do have some deep weird fear and it's just manifesting in a shower obsession.

i don't know.

it's something i can live with. it's something i have lived with for twenty years. it's something i will live with. i don't think i can change it.

what does this obsession mean? i have absolutely no idea. i will be open and honest with this in my paper. unless suddenly i come to a realization tomorrow. then i'll probably leave a comment about it for your viewing enjoyment.

until then, i really do encourage you to make a sprawling list. it's actually very fun to make and you learn a lot about yourself.

if you're interested, i have a few more things from my list. but if you just honestly don't care, this blog is over. :)

the cd changer of my car. being tall. my mortality. having large feet. my brother. being liked. airports. wishing that life was a gigantic musical. my car. my college fridge. how many times i brush my teeth. my hair. having college ruled paper. color coding my classes. using specific pens. harry potter. the music i listen to. how often i blog. how my facebook looks to other people. speaking spanish. my fear of being murdered by a serial killer. how often i tweet. my grandmother. blindness.

i do have a decently large obsession with blindness. i think i might blog about that soon. :)

Monday, September 12, 2011

i'm not supposed to write this.

i have that terrible urge to write and not write what i'm supposed to.

you know, like my english paper.

i really should be incredibly excited about my nine thirty creative writing class. i don't write research papers or arguments. no, i write about how a patch of light makes me feel, and i can write as much poetry as i can stand.

today, in my dorm lobby while the sodexo guy watched it's always sunny in philadelphia, i wrote a rather simple poem about how i didn't think i could write a poem.

for the record, i can write poetry. and i'm rather good at it.

anyway, i should be really excited. i'm writing about awesome things. today's prompt is this.

1. think about a secret place you went to as a child.
2. where was it? what did it feel like? smell like? look like?
3. how do you feel about it now?

i've been trying to write on this all day, but my to-do list got the best of me.

my creative writing professor, dr. vivian, says this about to-do lists, and i for the most part agree: to-do lists make our creativity die a slow, painful, death. one time a student told him "a part of me dies every time i write a list" and he said that he was so moved by this simple truth that he cried.

dr. vivian is a very soft-spoken man who walked into our first class clutching a rose and begged to recite a poem. this is someone i would enjoy being married to.

i agree with what dr. vivian says about how to-do lists can slowly destroy the creative monster that lives within us. that childlike thing that still thinks, "what if i spent the day playing dress up or climbing a tree?" and would take incredible delight in it. to-do lists make that monster hide under the bed to never come out.

as much as i agree with this philosophy, i feel like it perhaps doesn't apply to me. as my philosophy professor, dr. stratton would say, i'm having a moment of touchstone proposition.

having philosophy directly before creative writing is proving to be very interesting.

you know if you've read my previous blogs about my need to be organized. you know that it often fails, but it never fails with my to-do lists. those get done. the things on them don't, but the lists do.

here in my college dorm room, i have my daily planner that travels with me to class and my weekly RA meetings. i have a gigantic calendar that lays across my extra desk (the one without my laptop) and it has everything i need to do. i have a dry-erase calendar on my closet wall. and i have another white board above my gigantic calendar that goes day by day with what i have to do.

right now it says in gigantic letters: MI VIDA! then it says "por lunes: secret essay. paper work. hall meeting at nine. go to bed early. return chapel games. make hall program advertisements. por martes: get up at eight thirty. turn in paperwork. buy spanish book. HOMEWORK. go to walmart?"

to-do lists. i have lots of them all the time and they make me feel productive and organized, even when i'm not doing a single thing on them. like blogging instead of writing that secret essay.

see, right now, i'm sitting at my computer with my back to all my to-do lists. i have a word document open that's completely blank so i can start writing about that secret place of my childhood, but i'm really sitting here blogging, wearing a cute shirt, one slipper, drinking dr. pepper out of a really cut yellow mug with feet, and of course i'm half-watching criminal minds.

to-do lists. distractions. my creative monster is dying. but i also, at the same time, feel like i'm flourishing. i take such pleasure in to-do lists.

but, dr. vivian would still be proud of me because i am writing. he does not care what we write, as long as we write, and that it genuinely comes from us. at the end of this fourteen week course, i will submit 100 pages of original, polished work, and he will critique at least twenty of those pages.

i could cheat and give him a hundred page excerpt from one of my various novels, but i think i'm actually going to write poetry. and i think i might put in a couple of blogs.

so. i have not quite abolished my terrible urge to write. perhaps when i click that big orange button that says PUBLISH POST in a super happy font, i will actually write about that secret place of my childhood.

post script: if you are curious about my poetry, here's a poem just for you!

I am not big enough to hold your big heart
It inflates with every emotion
That you or I present it

I am not big enough to hold your big heart
I have a heart of my own
And it swells with tides

I am not big enough to hold your big heart
Because I am not yet four feet tall
And you have yet to shrink

I am not big enough to hold your big heart
It is anatomical
And mine is from a valentine card

I am not big enough to hold your big heart



there ya go. :)

Saturday, September 10, 2011

the summer of the spider.

yesterday, my english professor gave us a prompt. it was pretty simple.

1. wander around campus.
2. find a patch of light.
3. sit with it. speculate about it. be philosophical.
4. write a three to four page personal essay about your philosophical speculations.

um. that was my first thought.

i just finished writing about my experience with the patch of light. and then i began to realize it sounded a hell of a lot like a blog.

so why not make it a blog?

i know you're absolutely curious about what happens when i philosophize about a patch of light. it's not nearly as epic as that gigantic ray that lights up baby simba in the lion king, but it is, after all, my patch of light and my speculations on it. so that's why you're going to keep reading.

you are generally curious. i still think i am too. here we go.

During the week, I am not apt to wander around the campus searching for a patch of light to speculate about. I am someone who is positively petrified at the idea of being late and often focus on getting places on my mysteriously long legs. This is somewhat remedied by the unnatural curve in my neck, which makes my head stick out for a world view.
          I had grand visions of wandering aimlessly around campus, examining light. I have often examined light in these fashions on slow, dull Sundays, but never on a Friday morning or afternoon packed with classes, meetings, and business. I do and do not die when I write things in lists. I flourish as much as I die. These grand visions where I found a beautiful tree with soft, dappled green light began to vanish as my to-do list grew and my planner slowly filled. They all but vanished as I headed to accost a professor about jumping a year ahead in my Spanish lecture.
          But that was where it happened, as I hurried with my summer school book, my summer school syllabus, and a plan to convince a stranger that I deserved to move ahead with my Spanish prowess.
          I did not have time to contemplate. I did not have time for speculation, for being philosophical about this magical piece of light. All I did was look at it for a total of maybe three seconds.
          I should not have been focusing on the patch of light. I was fast approaching Superior Street to cross onto north campus to find that Spanish professor. But I looked at the corner of the dorm building and there it was, lighting up a tangled, reeled, ancient garden hose and making the grass look more alive than I had ever seen it.
          In the less than three seconds in which I looked at the off-white sided corner of the Nisbet Hall where that tangled garden hose hung, I was transported back to childhood, to summer, to bright blue skies, fat clouds, best friends, and no thoughts of anything except my own happiness. I was taken swiftly into my backyard where I was pushed on my swing set by my father, kicking a soccer ball with my older brother, and inspecting the different colors of my mother’s vast garden. I sat on the picnic table with a gigantic slice of watermelon and macaroni salad and I waited in anticipation for a summer storm to roll through from the west.
          Three seconds.
          During those pleasant summers of my childhood, I had a best friend whose backyard connected to mine. Her name was Melissa, and every single day, I would scale the fence, cross her backyard, and ring her doorbell. She would come bounding down the stairs, throw it wide open, give me a tight hug, and we would bound off on an adventure. We built a fort in a gigantic pine bush and decorated it with hanging willow branches. We rode our bikes to the neighborhood pool together. We spent endless summer days catching and inspecting insects. We jumped on her trampoline, and most of all, we climbed trees and pretended that they had voices, that they could speak, and that they loved us as much as we loved them.
          One summer, when we were about ten, we caught four, gigantic, fat, bright garden spiders. Two of them were black and two of them were rust with an intricate olive and white pattern. They lived together in the cramped corner of my critter hut and we poked live bugs through the small door that kept them locked inside. We even built a maze out of Legos and tried to have them navigate it. We kept those spiders the whole entire summer. We finally let them free the week before the first week of school because the black ones had concocted an egg sac. Back then the egg sac was creepy. Now I realize that we created something magical.
          Melissa and I were summer friends. During the winter, while we wore sweaters and went to different schools, we never spoke. We never wrote, we never called. But as soon as the final school bell rang and I could scale the fence to ring her doorbell, she would answer it as readily and as excitedly as if I had been there all along.
          The corner of my house, the corner between the laundry room and the kitchen where my dad would wash dishes between hanging up clothes on our laundry line, had our tangled garden hose. Our siding was off-white. During that three seconds where I looked at the corner of Nisbet Hall and that piece of light radiating through the grass and lighting up the magnificence of a sad and tangled garden hose, I remembered one particular afternoon when I was twelve.
          Two summers after the Summer of the Spiders, my brother and I found a large, fat, black garden spider with a tightly made web in that corner between the laundry room and the kitchen. My brother, who was thirteen, was not afraid to poke it with a stick. It curled up into a protective ball and surrounded itself with its protective web while I stood uncertainly back a fair distance, arachnophobia beginning to set into my almost-teenage mind. The spider was fascinating to me; it was terrifying but such a wonderful reminder of what had happened two summers previously and the magical times that Melissa and I had had with those four spiders.
          My father came out to inspect the spider. He is a chemist and my mother is a biologist, and together they speculated about the species. My mother identified it and wandered off, but my father stood with us while we watched the spider. When I was twelve my father was tall and superman. Now that I am twenty and he is only an inch taller than me, he is more superman than he ever was when I was younger because I understand everything that he has done for me.
          My father did not poke the spider with the stick like my brother had been doing. He did not spray it down with the garden hose like I suggested. I was becoming more wary of the large spider, which was slowly uncurling itself from its cocoon. I did not want a large scary spider living by the hose. I did not like it. I was afraid of it because I didn’t understand it.
          We stood in silence, the three of us, watching the spider. Eventually my brother grew bored and went inside, but my father and I stood and watched it. He asked me if I wanted to come closer, but I shook my head in silence. I was afraid. I was very afraid, and I wanted my father to be superman, I wanted him to knock the spider down. He was imposing.
          I am twenty years old and have not unraveled great life mysteries yet. I have not discovered why looking at a ray of light that illuminates a sad garden hose for a mere three seconds can transport me to so many places at once; entire summers, best friendships that die when climbing trees is replaced by shoe shopping and there is no longer fun in catching bumblebees, and one, fat black spider that made its home in the corner of the outside of my house.
          My summers were magical. And I am beginning to realize that that spider is magical as well. I was afraid of what I didn’t understand, and what I understand now is that that spider is no different from me. He made his home in the corner with the off-white siding behind our sad garden hose. I made my home at the end of a cul-de-sac with my backyard connecting to my best summer friend. We were living together, living apart, living.
          Three seconds.





i should blog about my childhood more often. my childhood was super tight. and you should give yourself a gigantic pat on the back if you actually read this. you deserve major, major props.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

i'd make a good receptionist.

today just feels like one of those good days to blog.

you know, one of those days where you're sitting your in dorm room with the fan on, wearing a cute shirt, and listening to the new death cab for cutie album with your feet stuck in your fluffy slippers.

it's one of those days. it's one of those weekends.

last weekend was a big weekend for me. last weekend was what i thought my resident assistant job was fully going to entail; moving in the freshmen.

they moved in on saturday august twenty-seventh. where i live, on south complex, we are not allowed to have freshmen. it is a completely upperclassmen part of campus, including the greek houses. so i did not have freshmen to move in and adjust, i just had a few marching band kids who kept their doors closed.

i was excited to move in the freshmen.

i had wandered over to mitchell to help out their entire staff (with the help of steph) and i spent a decent amount of time behind a desk with a really long spiel to give the freshmen and their excited and tearful parents. it went something like this.

"here's your orientation schedule, it looks really packed but there's a lot of fun stuff going on, so get excited! everything that's starred is mandatory, so make sure you're keeping track of what you're going to at what times. right here is your campus map, and i know it's confusing, but don't worry, all of the RAs and OCs will help you get anywhere you need to go. right here is a sheet about IT, that's information technology. they'll help you get your laptop logged into the alma network, and don't worry if you can't get it yourself, it's really tricky. this is a list of churches and religious organizations on and off campus if you're interested, if you're not, that's okay. these two pamphlets are optional, you might already have this one, it's just letting you know what's going on on campus and off campus in the alma community. here's a list of all the first year seminars and who's teaching them. if you have problems finding your classroom, don't hesitate to ask! a word to the wise, you should move your furniture before you move in all of your things, it makes it much easier. also, you don't have your mailbox number and combination yet. your mailbox is located in the basement of hamilton which is right across the sidewalk. you'll get all that information either in an email or during your FYS. enjoy your move-in day!"

i'd make a damn good receptionist.

from there, chelsea and i wandered the crowded mitchell halls where roommates were meeting each other for the first time and parents were nervously contemplating the idea of bunking beds. i personally helped a pair of guys arrange their room and i managed to do it without actually touching a piece of furniture.

from there i found myself on the second floor with chelsea. she said something to which i automatically replied in spanish. then a rather large, burly dad turned around and said something completely imcomphrensible back.

i had known this day would come.

i responded with, "no, he tenido dos clases de espanol, hablo un poco!" i didn't really respond. i squeaked it.

from there i got to meet his daughter, and whaddyaknow, she was moving in a cello as well. her name was katie and we ended up hanging out later in the week.

when i freed myself from the trilingual father (he spoke portuguese as well?) i ran into a nice grandmother sitting in the hallway on a fridge. my grandmother would never be caught dead sitting on a refrigerator. it turned out that her daughter was joining the swim team, which then prompted me to say excitedly, "no way, I'M on the swim team!" and then the daughter coming out and saying, "OMG I SPENT THE NIGHT AND WE WATCHED A MOVIE TOGETHER."

i was with her and her grandmother for a good hour.

then i hung out with the other RA's on the third floor and we shot the breeze for a while. by this time i had been working for nearly four hours and i was absolutely going to eat the next thing i saw. possibly an unsuspecting freshman. so rai and i went to lunch.

i ended up eating with mariah and her freshmen residents. a terrified looking mother of a girl in bruske joined us, and after that, it was nothing but questions questions questions. and my mouth had nothing but answers answers answers and i thought to myself, maybe there really is a reason that i got hired for this job. my throat felt stiff from talking to much.

this weekend is much different from last weekend. this weekend is supposed to be MY weekend to shine, because everybody is moving into my hallway. but here's the thing; i'm not shining.

i have come up with a few reasons for this.

1. half my hallway was moved in already.

2. upperclassmen move in over a period of three days. it's not a giganticmadexcitedrush.

3. upperclassmen just don't care. they park their cars, grab their keys, move in, and close the door.

the most exciting thing i've done is sign a gigantic poster in wright hall that says WELCOME TO SOUTH COMPLEX and help my suite mate move in on the other side of the bathroom. she's still moving in and i'm sitting alone in my room blogging, waiting for my parents to call.

the highlight of my weekend is that labor day is my one year anniversary with my boyfriend and as soon as my brother gets up here with his car, we're going out to dinner.

when i signed on for this job, i was expecting to live on the other side of campus and have freshmen. instead i've got my own (almost) bathroom and upperclassmen who really don't care that i exist because having an RA is old news. moving in is old news. being in college is old news.

i love being in college. and i love my job, even if i don't get to move in nervous and excited freshmen. i just love being here.

this was an odd blog. i'm having more of those lately. i think it's because i just decided that i really wanted to blog and what came out was verbal vomit about my weekend.

and if you read my entire receptionist spiel, give yourself a big pat on the back.