the coolest kid on campus

Monday - the first day of my senior year of college. I flounced across the dewy academic quad in my new dress, backpack stocked with new pens, waving excitedly at all my old college chums I hadn't seen since my semester in New Zealand. (Okay, that last sentence is a lie. I didn't actually see anybody I knew. Somehow 80% of the student body look like freshmen this year. But so do I, so that's not saying much.)

I hurried into the grand old stone castle of the humanities departments to be a fashionable 5 minutes early for my poetry class. I sat down on a bench next to a dumpy girl in sweatpants and glasses.

"Are you here for Spanish class?" she asked.

I glanced at her and shook my head. Why was she waiting outside of the classroom for modernist poetry? Weirdo. A student walked into the room and I jumped up to catch the door before it shut.

I sat down at a chair in the middle of the room and looked around. I knew a couple people there. My roommate Libby was supposed to be in this class, but she wasn't there yet. More kids filtered in. A couple political science majors. A girl who'd once thrown up on the cross-country team's couch. A kid in a flat-brimmed hat. The dumpy girl from the bench. Where were the ironic square-framed glasses? Where were the leather messenger bags? This was all wrong.

I opened my planner. The numbers didn't jive with the numbers on the door. As quietly as I could, I shut the planner and slid it into my bag. Then I snuck out the door and hurried upstairs into the loving arms of my fellow English students.

I never found out if it was a Spanish class or not.

Coming back to campus is a bit of a shock, mostly because everything has shifted about five feet from from where it used to be: the printers in the library, professor's offices, the dressing at the salad bar. There's an entirely new gym and fitness facility, so I never know exactly where the exercise machines are or how to use them correctly. The English faculty's gotten rid of a bunch of old people and brought in a bunch of new ones. And the library's been reorganized yet again to help people locate numbers in order on a shelf.

Sometimes I find myself wandering around lost trying to remember my mailbox combination, and then some nice person intervenes to ask me how I'm liking my first semester of college.

Very much, thanks.

Besides being a poorly-adjusted upperclassman, I'm also kind of busy. I've got a senior project to work on (details pending), cross country practice every day, a whole bunch of photography supplies to buy, and a digestive system that's still adjusting to the cafeteria food.

Luckily, I found this blog to distract me.

I love this ice-cream-headed man so much I might set him as my desktop background. Or marry him, because what says romance better than an edible face?

Also coming soon - a compendium of Coach Rice quotes and pictures of tie-dye shirts.

Preview: "You all look like you've got tar on your shoes right now. But by the end of the season, you'll be so fast you won't believe it. You know what? I'm going to dip all your shoes in tar and see if it comes off at the end of the season. Right in time for the Conference Championship. Heh, heh."

conGRADulations!

I'm just so proud of that alligator.

Hahahahaha. My word play is extremely hilarious, I know. I'm sure you're all rolling on the ground in laughter. Or ROTFLing, as the kids would say (I think).

Anyhoo. Over the weekend, the family van drove out to Meadville, PA to see my big brother's graduation ceremony. The tiny little town was so packed full of grandparents and relatives and parents that my family had to stay at a hotel half an hour away. I opted to crash on Brother's couch for a couple days. My back still feels all wonky and crumpled up.

To simplify, here are some proportions of how I spent my time:

1/5 driving to Meadville

1/4 wearing a skirt, saying "hello, how are you?", chatting politely with Grandma

1/4 sitting through the commencement ceremony (feels like: 5/4. wrap your head around that fraction. It's a lot.)

1/3 waiting for food in overcrowded restaurants for a salmon salad (salmon omitted due to technical difficulties)

1/4 watching Dad try to uncork a bottle of champagne

1/2 drinking various celebratory beverages with Brother and friends, giving high fives, laughing

1/2 recovering from the previous activity

1/16 running

1/18 sleeping

I know these don't add up in the traditional mathematical sense. Think about it as liberal math-- in the spirit of all the liberal arts colleges sending their graduates off into the real world this month... To strike out into the land of young people with philosophy degrees scrambling for jobs at Barnes & Noble.

But it was seriously a great weekend. I have photos to prove it.

This was commencement. It was so long and boring that I had nothing better to do than take pictures of chairs.

Then we stormed the campus and took pictures with an alligator. My family acted characteristically silly and did embarrassing things, but I left them out of this post to represent my relatives in the most positve, glowing light possible.

I also got super cute picture with my brother's lovely girlfriend in her adorable summer dress. Maybe I'm biased towards humans of my stature, but she's probably one of my favorite people.

Then we went back to the house, and laid out congratulatory snacks for everyone. Mom hoped the cake would look like this so she could have something to contribute to the Interent, but it was disappointingly normal. But she was very thoughtful to get some Nut-Thins and vegetables that I could eat with reckless abandon.

Here's where the photography takes a dramatic turn into the realm of tomfoolery. I took a crappy picture on my cellphone to commemorate the event (because I didn't trust myself to keep track of my nice camera.

I think those are boys. And a doorway. They might be dancing, and it might be 3:25 a.m.

*By the by, here's a warning to all the gluten-sensitive college students. Don't delude yourself into thinking that FourLOKO is gluten free. Even though you'll be having a whole heck of a lot of fun while you're drinking it, you will feel ill immediately after consuming a quarter of a can. In other words, just don't drink it. Unless you're seriously committed to fun.

Which I am.

And here's the last lovely view of Brooks Walk, the central avenue on campus. So collegiate-pretty.