This post is very short. The pretentious rarely fiddle with blog posts during supper.
Tonight’s dinner consists of vegetable-roasted crackers and brie with a side of Italian bread. Mozart’s fifth violin concerto plays in the background. I have changed from the dress I wore for today’s photo shoot into a comfortable tee-shirt and shorts. I will relax in my comfy blue chair with The Ethics of What We Eat and learn about agriculture or study art history and learn of the world’s greatest artists.
Yesterday was fun. I showed Zach and Jimmy my drawing of them, which resembled The Scream and featured Zach screaming as Jimmy ate my potato chips.
“‘Jimmy ate potato chips and watched’,” Zach said. “That’s so accurate.”
We laughed and talked about the Readings for Writers session they missed. I went with four girls to the Iowa Review’s presentation at Prairie Lights. On the way there, we passed a car that read: “The greatest lie ever told is that vaccines are safe and effective”.
“That bothers me,” I said to Kristin.
“That car back there?” she asked.
“Yeah. I mean, do you know how many lives vaccines have saved? Just because you see it on Oprah doesn’t make it true.”
She laughed. We discussed healthcare.
“I wish I knew more about healthcare,” I said. “I’m a little fuzzy on the details, so I can’t really form a good opinion.”
“I like how you look at both sides of the argument before you pick one. Most people just pick a side and stick with it.”
“Thanks, but growing up where I did, I kind of had to.”
We talked until we reached Prairie Lights—a bookstore famous for its quantity of novels and home to a coffee shop that sells a mean cookie—where we looked at the books displayed throughout the store.
“I want to read that,” I said, pointing at The Anatomy of an Epidemic. “I heard it’s good. It’s about why kids are so screwed up these days. The author thinks it’s because of overdiagnosis and a lack of discipline.”
“Interesting.”
After the reading (which was decent), we headed home.
“So what do you write?” Skylar asked.
“Mostly fiction—short story and novel,” I said.
“I was just offered a book deal.”
“That’s exciting. From who?”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s an actual book deal. It’s from this Serbian publisher I’ve never heard of.”
“If you’re not sure, don’t take it. Did you check out that Inkpop thing I told you about? They’re pretty legit.”
Inkpop is a website where people submit young-adult targeted books. Every month, the five most popular manuscripts are reviewed by Harper Collins editors.
“Yeah, I think I might do that.”
“Cool.”
We entered the dorms and split.
I slept like a rock.
It was a good night.
(On another note, I think I’ll read Delivering Happiness when I have time. I’ve been a little busy, but I always make time for a good book.)
This is a quickie because I have class in twenty minutes.
Yesterday was fun. I went to Drawn into Learning (which I love—for homework, I drew a portrait of myself and wrote an introduction for the class) and Rhetoric (which has an awesome instructor). I planned to pull an all-nighter, but that was unsuccessful because of a floor meeting. I sat next to a girl on my floor named Alyse, who wears the coolest, multicolored glass I’ve ever seen.
“I feel bad because I missed the Hillel barbeque,” I said.
(For those who don’t know, Hillel is essentially Jew club, and I didn’t miss the barbeque by choice—I got lost.)
“No way.” She faced me. “I’m Jewish too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Do you know any other Jews on our floor?”
“There’s one other girl, but she doesn’t practice as much.”
“Oh. Well, we should go to Hillel together.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
We listened to the speakers at the floor meeting and assembled in small groups afterward. I met this awesome kid named Dan, an awesome kid named James and another awesome kid named Zach. We stopped by my room with a few other writers (The boys were fascinated by my bonsai and majestica tree. Their awe was appreciated.) and then headed upstairs to the boy’s floor, where we created a writers’ handshake.
“I drew a portrait of you on your door,” I said to Dan. “It kind of looks like Harry Potter, but whatever.”
He ran to his door.
“THIS IS AWESOME.” He ran back to me. “You’re my new best friend.”
“Aw thanks. You’re my new best friend too. Can we be NaNoWriMo best friends?”
(NaNoWriMo is a project in which you write a novel in November. It’s really fun and a lot of pressure. Sometimes people throw parties for it.)
“No,” he said.
I gave him my saddest face. He didn’t care. It looked like this: :<
Today I woke up at 6:00 and headed over to the IMU with a friend for breakfast. She had a friendliness about her that welcomed all sorts of people. We watched a rerun of Rachel Maddow and had a few laughs, after which we walked to breakfast.
We talked hometowns as she ate her citrus fruit and I devoured French toast covered in chocolate chips.
“Sometimes we have grizzly bear attacks,” she said. “A grizzly bear swims to the island and everyone freaks out. It’s pretty scary and awesome at the same time.”
“That’s really cool.” I ate some toast. “I wish we had stuff like that.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.”
We finished breakfast and headed out. We walked to the Pentacrest and split at MacBride Hall.
“Well, here I am,” she said.
“Take care.”
I waved goodbye and headed for the library. The walk was sunny and hot, and the hill lengthened it a little, but I didn’t mind. The trees shaded the streets and I’d be inside soon enough.
As I waited for class to start, I discussed college with sophomore who reminded me of a lap cat (those cats who plop onto your lap as you read or watch TV—they’re cute and funny) and we sat together during the lecture. She gave decent advice—show up for class, keep up with the reading, ask more questions in discussion than in lecture—and being an unknowledgeable college freshman, I was happy to listen.
“If you don’t show up to class and keep up with the reading,” she said, “You’ll miss a lot of information. Some of the things on the test are only discussed in lecture and if you don’t read, you’ll find yourself reading 100 pages a night before the final.”
She laughed and said:
“I learned from experience.”
After lecture, I went to lab. The hill seemed harder to cross this time, and I went to the wrong classroom (Doesn’t anyone else think room 35 would be on the third floor?), so I entered late. It was a little shameful and everyone watched me…not the right way to start a new semester.
“I hate it when people are late,” said the TA as I took a seat. “It’s a sign of disrespect.”
Although the statement wasn’t intended for me (it was spoken as I entered), I still felt embarrassed. I was pretty silent the whole time and completed the homework before leaving, but I didn’t want to worsen my first impression, so I left as quietly as I came.
The hour between lab and lecture, a friend took me to this organic grocery store called The Bread Market. She got a sandwich and I had a truffle (it was cookies and cream—I highly recommend it). We talked about the origin of her incredible math skills as we walked to the Pomerantz Center. She said, “My parents didn’t start us off on books or anything. They let us go straight into math and science.”
“That’s really cool. I wish my parents did that.”
“My parents are big on education.”
“Yeah?”
“They’re professors.”
I thought that was pretty awesome. It seemed like all my friends who had professor parents head-started their education. I envied them a little.
We entered the auditorium and sat through an intense slideshow about fluffy dinosaurs; dinosaurs with wings and extended torsos; dinosaurs that came about with flowers and many other dinosaurs I can’t recall. We took a few notes, but we mostly watched the slides and listened to the professor describe their descendents, traits and many other things difficult to recall at 10:36 pm.
Generally it was a pretty good day. I got lost after class a couple times, but things worked out and I found where I needed to go. Iowa City needs some navigation, but after a while, the roads and buildings become familiar and everything falls into place. It’s a sweet little city with all sorts of people and lots of kids who play on the playgrounds and in the sprinklers of that cobblestone section by the grocery. At night, musicians come out and you can hear the bongos playing as you move from the business of class to the comfort of your home. The light of the bars can guide you back sometimes, and there’s always a crowd around if you need a conversation. Tonight there was a yellow moon that lit up the sky and everything tied together in a strange, lovely kind of way.
It’s nice, I thought as I headed home, and I think I’d like to stay here a while.
