For the Love of Plaid

So it’s been a very long while since I last posted…and I have no real excuse besides the fact that life got really crazy, really fast.

Basically, in the past two weeks or so, I’ve been to the hospital because my roomie dislocated her shoulder, written and given a speech worth 15% of my final grade in my rhetoric class, accepted a bid to Theta, and much, much more.

It would seem that the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving break are some of the busiest yet, if not the busiest. Every professor seemed to suddenly realize that we were going on break…and that they needed to give us plenty of work beforehand to make up for it.

But I slogged through it, as did my fellow students, and here we are – on Thanksgiving break! I am currently waiting outside of the gate of a plane headed for Las Vegas. I’m not actually going to Vegas, though – I’m headed home to Texas, albeit to a different city than my own, to spend Thanksgiving with my family. I arrived so early for my flight, however, that the flight before mine has not even left yet! I actually just overheard the conversation between a couple who are headed to Vegas to get married and another, older couple who have been married for forty-eight years! The elder couple was doling out congratulations and marriage advice. It was adorable.

Otherwise, my wait has been uneventful, so I figured I might as well bring this blog up to date on the past few weeks.

As I mentioned, Celeste dislocated her shoulder. That was probably the worst thing that happened: it was not a fun day, to be sure. She was playing ultimate, and it popped out of place . The ambulance was called, and I went with her to the hospital, where they eventually popped it back in and loaded her up on painkillers. She was in a sling for a while, but eventually she got out of that sling and is doing better.

The other note-worthy event would be that I actually got a bid to Theta, the sorority that I was rushing! My friend Anna did as well – we both accepted, and now we are quite excited to be members of the pledge class! It’s going to be an adventure, to be sure.

Otherwise, there’s been a lot of work and a lot of play. Although I miss my Dougies already and feel weird to be leaving Wooster for the first time since I got here, I am going to be happy to see my family, and this break is well needed.

But I know that, come Sunday, I’ll be just as happy to come back.

Here’s the great thing about the library – if people want to bother me and I don’t want to deal with them, I can just hunker down and look studious until I guilt them into going away.

It’s rather pleasant here; it’s nice and quiet, and it smells marvelously of books. I think when I get tired of looking up sources for my term paper (SO MUCH KENNETH BURKE ERRYWHERE), I might just go wander up and down the rows of books. Maybe I’ll check one out. Not even a novel or anything, necessarily, just a book to read because I love books. They are marvelous.

Also this affinity for the library might be increased by my fascination with the topic that I am researching – every time I pull up an article to check and see if it is relevant, I can read it and enjoy it even if it doesn’t apply! It’s so interesting!

…except it’s a bit troublesome, since it’s severely slowing my ability to gather the requisite nine sources before my 3:45 deadline, but I’ll get there. I’m actually almost done, so that’s nice.

Soon, though, I will have to abandon my perch and go print/take papers to my professors/the like. Then I think I will go back to my room and take a nap, because I am ridiculously exhausted. Because of my prospie (who was a delight to have around!), I was busy until late in the night and didn’t get to start my work until rather late. (Oh, who am I kidding – I probably would have been up that late anyway.) Regardless of the reason, though, I didn’t get to bed until around 3AM, thus rendering me verrrrrry tired, especially because I got up at 7:30AM (whaaaaaat) to go to breakfast with Mia (my prospie), Celeste, and Sam.

Still though, it meant that I got breakfast today, and I even ate lunch too! That’s crazy! In fact, I ate in Kitt for the first time, and the quesadillas were rather tasty.

But the point is, I’m very tired. I am very much in need of a massive nap. Or maybe I’ll just try to get all my work knocked out and go to bed early.

But knowing me…I’ll probably nap.

Anyway, the moral of this whole story is that I love the library. That’s pretty much all that matters.

I have literally spent this entire weekend cleaning.

For me, it is a slow going process. In fact, it was a stroke of luck that Celeste was not here, because I am very self-conscious about a.) my tendency to make a ridiculous mess in a ridiculously short period of time and b.) my odd cleaning process.

Because cleaning for me is like going through meth withdrawal: it gets worse before it gets better. In order to be clean, I must dump ALL THE THINGS onto the floor and then sort them into their respective piles of where they’re supposed to end up. Then, with all of my surfaces cleared, I can begin to rearrange and return order to things.

I know what you’re thinking. It must suck to be my roommate.

In fact, it probably does. I oftentimes feel terrible about my tendency to slovenliness…at least Celeste is no neat freak, but she is certainly more organized than I. (It is worth noting, however, that my mess is rarely disgusting food-rotting-under-the-bed mess and more look-at-this-mountain-of-clothes-and-various-detritus-on-the-floor mess.)

At any rate, it’s clean now, after much suffering and a battle with the washing machine. Celeste will come back to a more organized (I can’t say organized, since my general organizational style is to have no organizational style at all…) space. This is also the space where I will soon bring a prospie! Hurray!

So that’s that, and now you’ll have to excuse me while I go make popcorn turkeys.

You read that right. Yay, November!

Which means, “I want to sleep, but I have too much Chinese homework.” (I think I wrote it correctly.)

I just thought that – while taking a break from Chinese handwriting sheets so that my hand doesn’t fall off – I would comment on how COOL (很酷) it is that I can complain about my Chinese homework in Chinese.

I mean, if I’m going to have ridiculous loads of work, it’s at least nice to know that I’m actually getting something out of it. And the other day, we even argued IN CHINESE that we didn’t/shouldn’t have a test that day! (It didn’t work, but it was cool that we could do so.)

In short, Chinese class is boot camp. But it’s a super effective boot camp. So I’m super conflicted.

Actually, not at all. I love Chinese.

I will admit that I very rarely utilize Lowry’s stir-fry station. There is something about my combination of awkwardness and impatience that makes it a less-than-desirable option for me on most days.

Today, however, I decided to go for it. (Okay, full disclosure: I decided to go for it mostly because I felt really disinclined to “go for” any of the other Lowry options of the night, due to their overall unappealingness. AND the pasta bar was closed, so I couldn’t even get pesto pasta. TRAVESTY.)

Anyway, I decided to get myself some stir-fry. And ultimately, it was delicious! But – as is to be expected with stir-fry – it took a very long time. So long, in fact, that by the time I got it, I had to get a to-go box to dump it into so that we could rush off to watch Dom and Josh compete in a pie eating contest! (They both lost.)

It was then that I came to the realization that stir-fry is THE PERFECT FOOD if you are coming to Lowry with your friends but not hungry. Because sometimes EVERYBODY wants to eat and you are just not hungry because you have been snacking on Texas food (or popcorn or whatever it is you normal people snack on) in your room. But you don’t want to turn down their dinner invitation because they’re so much damn fun to hang out with. So you go and you get a to-go box, and it’s awkward or you go and you eat and your stomach hates you for it.

BUT.

If you get stir-fry, it is the perfect solution! You don’t have to worry about wasting everybody’s time with belated food arrival/consumption, because by the time your stir fry is ready, maybe they are ready to go! And if not, it’s okay! Because you were just going to dump that sucker in your to-go box anyway! And you get to hang out with your friends and chat with them AND then have delicious stir-fry later back at the dorm when you are stricken with hunger.

It is the most beautiful solution to a (not that) worrisome problem.

But! If you decide to use this stratagem, it is very important to remember one thing. YOU MUST ALWAYS BE KIND TO THE STIR-FRY PEOPLE. Not only are they people too, but they are very, very nice people who are making delicious food for you, and they do not get anywhere near the appreciation they deserve.

SO SMILE AND SAY THANK YOU, DAMN IT.

Yesterday was my birthday.

I think that makes today the best day for me to return to posting, since no one can be mad at me for not posting for a long time ’cause hey – I was the birthday girl! …yesterday, at least.

That logic made a lot more sense in my head.

Anyway, I’m telling you this not to get some extra “Happy Belated Birthday”s – especially because I’m pretty sure no one reads this – but rather to brag on my friends and how wonderful they are.

In fact, allow me to prove it with this bulleted list of the amazing things that they did for me.

• Came to my door and serenaded me at midnight
• Gave me a hug in the wee hours of the morning
• Decorated my door with streamers and balloons
• Wrote “WE <3 U” in streamers beside my door
• Left assorted “Happy Birthday” notes/posters/etc on my door
• Gave me cards
• Sent me on a scavenger hunt around Dougie that ended with a cute stuffed cow and a bag full of York Peppermint Patties
• Surprised myself and my birthday twin (Kristina Schiavone, who organized the scavenger hunt and is AMAZING) with matching pumpkin heads full of cute things (like soup and socks!) and goblets full of “wine” (sparkling grape juice!)
• Took us out to dinner
• Were just generally fabulous
• and much more

Oh, and my dad sent me a Texas Survival Kit, which contained lots of delicious Texas food. And he got me a cake, which I got to go pick up at Mom’s. And my other family members were wonderful as well, but I won’t list all of the ways here. Suffice to say that they rock as well.

So that was my birthday! It was WOOnderful!

First of all – to get sidetracked before I even start – let me say that if you ever need a quick way to make friends in college, you should just bake up a large batch of bread in your dorm’s basement. The permeation of the fresh-baked-bread smell throughout the hall will quickly draw all sorts of characters down to your perch in the kitchen, where they will beg you for a nibble of the hot bread in exchange for eternal gratitude.

I’m only exaggerating a little.

That was what I did last night, at any rate. I whipped up a batch of fresh French bread rolls for my reading buddy up at the elementary school, and I shared a few with my hallmates. Not to brag or anything, but they were pretty scrumptious.

Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that while I was waiting for the dough to rise and bake (a total of 1hr 40min rising time and roughly 1hr baking time), I was knitting.

You see, I love to knit. My grandmother taught me (and ALL of my cousins and brothers) back when I was just a small thing, and while my skills have improved only marginally since then, I still find it to be a pleasantly productive way to relax. So when I had to go to Walmart to pick up yeast, flour, and other bread necessities, I couldn’t resist stopping in to the knitting aisle and picking up some knitting gear as well. (I spent a good chunk of time admiring the yarn, actually, and trying to decide which variety to purchase.)

When I got back to the dorm, I wasted no time in casting on and starting to knit. As I settled in to my nice little knitting groove, I was soon surprised by the number of people who gazed longingly at my knitting needles. “I wish I knew how to knit,” they told me, or “I haven’t knit in so long!”

Which led to me somehow  promising to teach at least six people how to knit and promising to cast on for a handful of others.

So there you have it – bringing sexy back, in the form of knitting. It would seem that my fall break will be spent working on my scarf (of which I’ve already knit four inches, being that happy to be back to knitting) and teaching others to knit.

I am by no means an expert, but I do make a mean hot pad, and – as grandmothers are in short supply here on the Wooster campus – I guess I’ll have to do!

We are discussing majors. It is both my favorite and least favorite topic ever.

I am constantly surprised by how many people here already have it all figured out. I suppose I shouldn’t be, seeing as many large universities require incoming freshmen to declare right off the bat, but that’s a crazy thought for me. Since my sophomore year of high school, I have been hopping back and forth between topics that interest me. I mean, sure, they’re all sort of related: sociology, anthropology, education, communication, etc. Still, though, as I’m spending more time here and taking courses and talking to people and doing research, I am becoming more and more worried about the thought that I can’t do it all.

I oftentimes wish that I could say without a doubt what I want to study or what I want to do. Some of my hallmates can (although I’ve been told that they’ll likely change their minds; it would still be comforting for now). There is a girl in my Chinese class who is talking about how she wants to work internationally with women and children…I love the idealism and the “I-can-do-anything-I-set-my-mind-to” attitude that pervades many first-years. I’m sure I have that idealism – in fact, I know that I do – I just don’t know where to apply it.

It’s frustrating, but it’s also exciting. I am currently toying with the idea of designing my own major. I know that lots of people say that, but being the obsessive person that I am, I’ve already downloaded the guidelines and scoured the course manual for classes that might line up with what I want to study (languages). I want to meet with my advisor and get her take on the issue – because on the one hand, I would love to design my own major, and on the other, I’m afraid that in doing so, I would miss out, or I would be making a mistake…and, in the interest of full disclosure, I would be bummed not to be part of a department/have the camaraderie that comes with commiserating with other majors, etc.

My other major qualm, then, would be that I’m moving too fast. Which I’ve gotten. It’s the first semester of my first year, and I’m already obsessing about what courses to take and when. I’m worried that I’ll miss out on taking a really great course just because I have some set idea of what I “have” to take. But the other side of me reminds me of my father’s cautionary warnings to be intentional about the courses that I take, and then I think of how I only have eight semesters here, which equates to 32 courses (disregarding the possibility of overload), three of which will be I.S., and that’s not even taking into account study abroad.

So I’m stuck trying to find my happy medium. Which is where I wind up a lot, actually.

I think I’m going to give it a bit of time, and then I’ll talk with my advisor. I’ll get feedback from lots of people, and hopefully eventually arrive at the plan that works best for me.

Until then, when people ask me what my major is, I’ll just have to grin, bear it, and stick with my standard response. (Which is, of course, “Not neuroscience!”)

What is college for but adventures?

Today, I will be joining a few of my hallmates for drastic appearance alteration, which means different things for different people. My friend Anna will be piercing her nose. Lauren will likely be piercing her ears. Annie may cut her hair, Sarah is going to dye hers, and I am going to cut and dye my hair.

We decided to make today Drastic Appearance Alteration Day because we’ve (myself and Anna especially) been wanting to do this for quite a while. So we figured we’d do it together.

At the moment, we’re trying to figure out where to get the piercings/how to get there. Later, I’ll hopefully get Celeste to help me pick which hair dye to use, as she is more knowledgable and is going to be the one cutting/dyeing my hair.

So that’s that! The next time I write here, I’ll look totally different. Not that you’ll be able to tell.

But still, it’s exciting.

When I first received an email from my dad telling me my roommate’s name and my room number, I had no clue what to think. I was on the other side of the world in Paraguay, so there wasn’t much I could do about it, anyhow. I shot off a Facebook message and an email introducing myself and went back to my merry life.

It wasn’t until I got here to Wooster that I started to realize just how well Celeste and I were paired. And I mean, we were paired ridiculously well.

Admittedly, the first night, if not awkward, was a bit strange, since we were both still trying to figure everything out. We googled “things you should tell your roommate” and tried to get all of the important information out of the way so that we could get our relationship underway. That helped to break the ice, even if it was zany and not very helpful, and we spent the rest of ARCH and Orientation fairly glued to each other’s sides, awkward and meeting people.

As the year has progressed, we’ve learned more about each other in the normal way – by experiencing it. We know each other’s sleep habits and odd tendencies (I sleep curled up in a corner; she raps along to her hip-hop collection). We bond in unique ways (putting together a list of curse words in Spanish to help motivate her to study). We take care of each other (we bring each other cupcakes, or pizza in bed; I leave her notes and she brings me Diet Coke). We just click as roomies.

But it wasn’t until last night that we really had a moment that made me step back and reflect once again on how incredibly perfectly they paired us. I won’t go into details, but essentially it all culminated in us giggling in the C-store, buying chips and salsa to enjoy in our room, and understanding each other a whole lot better. If that was even possible.

It’s exciting, to say the least, if a bit unnerving in that we wonder how on earth Res-Life figured out how to pair us so perfectly.