This semester, I’m getting a 4.0. I don’t care what you say or think. I want a freaking 4.0. I have side projects, twelve semester hours, five jobs and the motivation of a trucker in the desert, keeping his wits about him as air pressure and heat pound down upon his forty-ton, steel road machine. I’ve got the eye of the tiger, and this is the final countdown, and I don’t care who tells me no or don’t bother or why because I’m taking home a freaking 4.0.

Yeah.

On a different note, fifteen minutes ago, I stepped in something gross in the stairwell, and I don’t know what it is, nor do I want to look, so I’m pretending like it never happened.

I still need to return my rhetoric teacher’s book. I think I’ll stop by tomorrow. It’s called Deep Survival, and it’s about human evolution’s role in modern day society. The writing’s good—a little dry in some parts—but generally solid, and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes science because it’s factual and somewhat entertaining.

I’m stuck in a creative drought. Writing feels like starting an old engine because sometimes it runs, but most of the time it stutters and drops dead, but you can always replace an engine, and you can’t replace a brain. Maybe a muse needs to inspire me. I just read about them for Classical Mythology, and they always pop round to give a heads up or hello, so maybe they’ll visit soon. I don’t know, things are odd right now, and I think it’s because of the new semester, and everyone’s falling into place and getting used to the old environment.

This post will be random because I can’t think of any stories right now except for the brownie-thing I ate at breakfast today. Every time I eat this fudge-brownie-blondie thing, my stomach grows a little queasy, but I eat it anyway because it tastes good. Maybe it symbolizes my life, or maybe I just get nauseous easily, like the way I get with Papa John’s pizza. I mean, it’s not that I don’t like Papa John’s—I love them—it’s just that my friend, Eliana, and I ate Papa John’s as we watched Paprika, which nauseated me, so now every time I eat Papa John’s, I feel nauseous.

“I’m a horrible person,” she said (she isn’t. How could anyone who wants to host a Jewish girls segment on the radio with me be a horrible person?). “I scarred you for life.”

“No you didn’t.” She laughed. “I just feel queasy when I eat Papa John’s pizza now. It’s not your fault.”

“It’s all because of Paprika.”

“It’s just the colors and the motion.” I ate, but then set the pizza down because the thought of this freakish robot in the film made me sick.

“What’s Paprika about?” asked Molly (a journalist who wins every writing contest).

“It’s about this detective who enters other people’s dreams with this technological device, and then the device gets stolen, and the line between reality and dreams blurs.” Eliana glanced at the pizza “Do you want the last slice?”

“No, you can’t have it,” I said.

“I feel bad taking all your pizza.”

“Don’t. I feel queasy.”

“Do you want it, Molly?”

“No,” she said. Libby (who works at Hillcrest and got an awesome hair cut over break—short in back, long in front, brown) also denied the slice, so we gave it to Kelsey (who has fake candles that smell like pumpkin pie).

I’m also hungry because I didn’t have time to eat much today. I went downtown with Alyse (funny and wears large, rainbow-framed glasses) because I lost my textbook and had to buy a new one (I believe the old one was klepto’d), and I purchased tickets for Tattoo Girl (a play).

Yeah, that was pretty much my day. I also scored full marks on my quiz and wrote an essay and a play. Tomorrow, I have class, which will keep me fairly preoccupied, and then I have work on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Hoorah!

(Alas, my tablet and I are separated by miles. Sad face.)

I miss college and I’m not lying. I miss having food besides cereal and also quiet because there’s a firefight in the living room thanks to Call of Duty. I want to study Dinosaurs and write my speech about voting. Also my cat has a limp, which is annoying because I feel bad shoving her off my keyboard and books when I need to work. She kind of hobbles away and I think, man, I didn’t have these problems in college. When I wanted my friends to get off my computer and books, they just left. They also didn’t make me feel bad because their legs weren’t broken.

Anyway, my sister seems kind of irritated about that opening paragraph, which is upsetting because my college audience would probably laugh at it (or maybe they would think I’m a horrible person. I don’t know).

“We don’t know that Stacey’s leg is broken,” she said. “And also, the only reason you have cereal all the time is because you don’t eat anything else in the fridge.”

Not my fault, though I am hungry for some Burge food. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a household where no one cooked, but I enjoy the cafeteria menu. I eat real food there, not the stuff you pour water in and microwave for thirty seconds. It’s a nice change for someone who grew up on canned dinners and take-out.

I kind of wish my Dad would turn down Call of Duty. I mean, at the dorms, I could just knock on someone’s wall when I wanted them to lower their volume. Instead, I must go all the way downstairs just to say, “Dad.”

“Eh.”

“Dad, can you turn down the volume?”

Then the little volume bar would inch its way back a notch or two.

“Thank you.”

In fact, I’m done listening to men dying in battle and gunshots. I’m going to enact that conversation right now.

Well, that went nicely. We had a chat about the amount of work I needed to complete, which includes my speech about voting and studying. I’m happy with the flashcards I made for Dinosaurs, which I created on a flashcard website (The Flashcard Machine). The site turns all your flashcard terms and definitions into a multiple-choice quiz and it’s helpful for studying for the real thing.

I wish I weren’t so afraid of homework. Maybe I would get it done faster if I didn’t feel like it were a hassle. I bet if I look at it as a challenge, I’ll feel differently, but I’m reserving that for later because I want to finish this blog post.

Zach says I should write more about the campus. He seems to think I give too much experience and not enough Iowa, so here’s a brief campus walk-through:

The University is pretty. In autumn, the leaves change to a lovely set of browns and golds and everything looks pretty wonderful, especially at sunset, when the sunshine makes everything heavenly. Sometimes it gets weird at night because people have haunted rooms and you remember their stories and suddenly every creak and whistle becomes another ghost out to get you. This feeling mostly follows horror movies, though, so try not to watch them in the windy seasons, like autumn and winter, because it gets dark early and the wind howls like crazy.

The river flows by the main dorms, separating the east from the west, and everyone says it’s beautiful, but I haven’t had the time to gander. Sometimes I think about heading out there to write since everyone else does, but then I remember work and stay inside. It’s warmer there anyway.

The people are a nice, well-tempered crowd with their faults and flaws like any group of people. Occasionally conflicts arise and people get angry, but it’s not so much their fault—it’s more the fact that they all live together. Other times, competition finds the worst of people and tensions rise, but I wouldn’t say it comes from the experience. It’s mostly because we’re teenagers and we walk in believing we’re the best. However, I wouldn’t blame anyone for it because we’re still lovely people.

The classes are alright—I prefer smaller groups to lectures, but with Gen-Eds, you can’t do much else. If you do your work and show up on time, people tend to like and notice you, but if you fall behind, there are ways of making up work. Sometimes, you need to stay up all night and obliterate your homework like The Elite Four in Pokémon Red, but it’s usually well worth it.

That said, if you finish your work before it’s due and you’re a god of smarts, you’re well ahead.

…And there’s a ton more, but I should really write my speech.

I miss you, Iowa. Much love.

(And shout-out to my girls, Alyssa and Kelsey. Love ya, dearies!)

I have thirty minutes before lunch, so this is another quickie.

Tonight’s Rosh Hashanah—my first real attempt to visit temple since I’ve moved here—and tomorrow’s the Alpha Xi Delta cowboy dance party. Then, I have various errands to run and homework to do, making for a busy couple of days.

I’m also a smidgen worried about my first year seminar. As it turns out, I’m a B grade comic artist (NOOO) and I have tons of reading to finish before the semester’s worth of homework is complete. I already finished my Rhetoric curriculum’s reading (both recommended and required), but there’s still much to do for Art History, including an appointment with the Writer’s Center and Works Cited page for my essay.

So. Much. Stuff.

Aside from that, my friends, Kat and Kristen, created a crumpled paper-pet for Rhetoric. They tried to sell it to me yesterday, but since we can’t have pets in the dorms (save for goldfish, which would die in my care anyway) I declined.

It was a shame, though. It was cute in a quirky, mismatched eyes, random-daisy-popping-out-of-a-spinal-column sort of way. It would have made a cool pet.

Also, in response to a commenter, I spoke with Zach today his morals and the horrible things he could have done while I was gone for Labor Day weekend. He stopped by for a second and I asked, “Hey, Zach, would you hang my underwear to the door if I were gone?”

(The plants were fine, by the way. He watered the bonsai and majestica like I asked. They were a little brown, but the orchid blossomed, which was nice. He added ice cubes to the soil like I requested and even refilled the tray.)

Response: Shock and disgust.

“NOOO.”

“Somebody commented saying that.”

“I don’t want to see anyone’s underwear.”

“Alright then.” I typed our conversation on my computer. “I’ll defend you.”

This sentence is Zach’s official defense. I hope you’re happy, Zach. /thumbs up/

Yesterday, I also spoke with my Rhetoric professor about the recommended reading (Stiff, Mary Roach: a book about cadavers and how they become crash test dummies, medicine, fertilizer, and other amazing and useful things).

“Remember the part about the brains?” I asked. “They can be detached from the body and they live in a state of permanent memory.”

“Well it depends on your definition of memory. There’s physiological memory and memory as society interprets it.”

“What do you mean? Do they differ vastly?”

“Physiological memory is literally memory running lines through your brain. It’s like when military airplane fliers permanently ingrained the way they’re supposed to land on the docking station. If they come in from the wrong angle, they can drive their plane straight into it.”

We talked airplanes, memory and elasticity. I like how I can learn things at college even when I’m speaking recreationally.

Aside from all the stuff I’ve yet to finish, college is pretty awesome. You can have dance parties at midnight, watch free foreign films, buy physically impossible pets and do a ton of random, cool things.

It’s nice, and I love it bunches.