As of today, I have been living in this dorm room for a week and three days.
The funny thing is that sometimes I forget that, and think panickedly to myself, “You’re not doing enough!” I stress that I’m staying too much on campus, or not doing enough outside projects (children’s books, or my P4A video), or procrastinating too much on some of the not-for-class things I need to get done. And then I remember, with a start, that I’ve only been here for a week, and feel much better. In fact, I’ve done a lot in this first week. I’ve gone to the art museum, almost gotten enough sleep, missed only one of the orientation activities, done many homework assignments (including an adventure one), seen a show with my class, started my P4A video, gone to Office Max twice, figured out the printers in the library (which are surprisingly complicated…), had one minor panic attack, read four books for fun, made several friends, Skyped with my parents, gotten sick, gone to Whole Foods, called my sister…you get the point. It’s weird how quickly I’ve gotten to feel that I’ve been in college forever—maybe it’s just that I’ve been waiting to be in college forever.
Saturday was a bit of a drag. I got up early (for a Saturday) only to discover that the cafeteria doesn’t open until 10:30 on weekends. So I went to get myself breakfast at the coffee shop nearby, and sat and ate my breakfast while reading Stargirl, which I’ve been wanting to read again since I put up a quotation from it on my wall. Ergo, I got distracted, lost track of the time a bit, and went to the bus stop later than I had intended, but still with what should have been enough time to get to the art museum while my professor would be there. She’d told us that she’d be there from eleven to twelve, and the Google (as everyone has started calling it) told me that it would take me forty-five minutes to get there. I rounded to an hour to be safe, but the bus ride took me instead and insane TWO HOURS, meaning that I got to the museum way after my professor had left! By that time, I was all tired and cranky, and the ancient section of the Minneapolis Institute of Art is incredibly tiny and not terribly exciting. So I found some works that were pretty interesting, but by then both didn’t feel like doing the whole assignment (I have two more weekends that I can do it in) and had to leave enough time to get back to campus for my a cappella audition. So I left, got back to campus, spent an hour worrying about and waiting for my audition, auditioned, and then went back to my room and crashed with some food (lunch had been skipped) and an episode of Buffy. It was a depressingly useless day.
Also I’ve been feeling homesick lately. I’m homesick for good food and hugs and my room and cats and some of my favorite restaurants and real, nice showers, and mostly hugs.
Especially I miss hugs now that I’ve gotten sick. It’s incredibly annoying to be sick right now—the first week of school!!—not only because I don’t feel like I can miss class, but because the teachers wouldn’t believe me if I told them I had to miss class because I was sick. They’d just think it was some sort of freshperson wimpiness (I just used two words that Word is convinced do not exist. Silly Word.) and that I should just get over it and come to class. Which of course I will, although I’m not sure how great I am as a member of the discussion when my voice has gone all deep and weird and I sniff about twice a second (it does not matter how many times I blow my nose—believe me, I’ve tried—I STILL SNIFF!). I’m annoying myself, let alone my classmates and poor roommate (who fled the room about an hour ago for the library—I’m really hoping that it wasn’t because of me and my very-loud-nose-of-doom). In the past two days alone, I’ve gone through almost an entire pack of (delicious, berry-flavored) throat lozenges, and just this afternoon I used up an entire travel pack of tissues. I’ve told myself that’s enough tissues for the first week, so now I’m stuck with the obnoxiously rough paper towels that I steal from the bathroom.
Yesterday I decided to do something radical—revolutionary, daring, and courageous! (at least in college terms)—and go to bed absurdly early. As in, 9:15. I was feeling all slowed-down and snuffly and tired, so I thought that one night of crazy early bedtime would be good for me, and then tonight I could stay up super late working on homeworks of all kinds. Then, of course, at 9:16—one minute after I had laid my head down to rest—the insanely (insanely because it drives its hearers mad) loud fire alarm went off. After my initial heart attack had subsided slightly, I pulled on some non-pajama shorts and shoes and went down the many flights of stairs in a fire-warden-nightmare-cattle-going-to-the-slaughter-type herd only to discover that the nighttime temperatures had dropped ridiculously and that I was freezing. We stood out there for a couple of minutes, listening to the bellow of the alarm and shivering, before finally being allowed to mount the many flights of stairs back to our rooms. Once again, Murphy wins.
Today was gorgeous—fall has finally come. The evenings are gusty and cool, the mornings brisk and crisp and breezy, and there are now more fall leaves than can be counted in twenty seconds. I’m very much looking forward to fall, although I must say that I wish it would come after I get over this absurd cold. I went to Whole Foods with several friends today, where I bought clementines (full of vitamin C, and therefore good for warding off colds. also delicious.) and a little chocolate and two peaches and some seaweed snacks and dish soap (this may be what I’m most excited about. oh, college.). It was very energizing and college-like.
Tomorrow (hopefully), I will write all about Hamlet (sorry, Grandmarina! Soon, I promise!) and other adventures, but tonight I must spend all my leftover energy on the on-going debate in my mind: sleep, or theater essay? My rational, I’m-not-going-to-procrastinate-at-ALL-this-year-because-I-am-turning-over-a-new-leaf-(well-at-least-I-shouldn’t-procrastinate-this-early-in-the-semester) part of my brain is saying, “You’re going to be sorry if you don’t start that paper now!” in a voice eerily similar to that of the planners Hermione gives Harry and Ron one year, while my I-am-sick-and-therefore-cranky-and-possibly-classifyable-as-neanderthal-at-the-moment part is simply yelling “SLEEEEEEP. SLEEEEEP NOOOOWWWW!” It’s a problem.
Anyway, goodnight all, including the kitchen sink and moon (depending who I’m talking to), and I promise to write more (and hopefully of a more cheerful nature) at a later date! Also hopefully something with fewer strange, strung-together-with-dashes adjectives.
Love to all!
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