I really hope my father doesn\u2019t kill us.<\/p>\n
Now that I have your attention, you\u2019d be interested to know I\u2019m heading to Iowa City to commence second-semester fun. This semester features a playwriting, creative writing, non-fiction writing and classical mythology class, and two of them actually take place outside of the dorm, which means I only have<\/em> to leave the dorm twice a week. I can hibernate all winter long!<\/p>\n Hooray!<\/p>\n However, I may not make it to second semester because my father (the restless, driver) insists on taking us down a 70 mph road when he\u2019s running on low energy from playing Call of Duty\u2014I mean, working.<\/p>\n The road to Iowa City is long and dreary with many dead fields and run-down farmhouses. It\u2019s nicer in summer and spring, when the fields are green and alive and whatnot, but right now it just looks dead. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love fields and crops and wide, open spaces, but the trees are bare and the roads are empty, and the sky is gray and dull like the pages of My Life is Average.<\/p>\n In the front seat, my mother quizzes my sister on her lines in the play Sleeping Beauty<\/em> as my father switches between opening the window, playing the radio and different seating positions. As it stands, I\u2019d rather not be in the car right now because I fear for my safety as well as that of my mother and sister, but (although he occasionally snaps when my mother offers to take the wheel) I trust his judgment. He\u2019s still my dad, and he did a great job with raising me and my sister, right?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll die<\/em>.<\/p>\n Returning to Iowa City feels kind of weird because Iowa City reminds me of those teenage clothing stores, and everything looks pretty and cool, but the quality of the fabric rips and tears easily. It\u2019s like the city was made for college kids by college kids, and even though things look awesome, the quality is a little weird. Maybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m returning from the church capital of the world and you know what to expect around every corner (a church), but I\u2019ve always felt this way about Iowa City. Things are odd and different, and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s because of my hometown or the environment.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t wait to start the radio again, though. For those who don\u2019t know, Zach and I co-host the KRUI show Fresh Meat (Sun. 12-1pm), which gives musicians and writers the chance to perform\/read their work on-air and interview afterward. So far, we\u2019ve tried to work the station about four times, but I\u2019m confident this coming weekend, we\u2019ll have an EPIC premiere. Additionally, I can\u2019t wait to return to music and IT staff because I met Kate Nash through music (she said hi to me) and developed the station\u2019s technology on IT (over break, I straightened pictures!).<\/p>\n My mother attempts to convince my father to let her drive, and my sister repeats the lines of her social studies homework as I type and Doris (my father\u2019s GPS) orders him to turn. I think we\u2019re closer now, and I can\u2019t wait to see the people and things I\u2019ve missed the past four weeks, and I\u2019m confident this semester will rock its predecessor. I mean, I don\u2019t know what\u2019ll happen the next couple months, but it beats hearing:<\/p>\n Father: You have a dull, boring voice.<\/p>\n Mother: I was a thespian!<\/p>\n Father: I\u2019m not turning over.<\/p>\n At least in college, no one has cars. Therefore, no one can criticize their friend\u2019s driving.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve just crossed the Mississippi River, and it looks as icy and gray as the land around it, but I think it\u2019s better than the developments we\u2019ve passed. If there\u2019s one thing I can\u2019t stand, it\u2019s developments. All the houses look the same and you can\u2019t put some things on your lawn, and where\u2019s the originality? Sometimes, I don\u2019t like dorms because they all look identical, and you wonder how your room is different than anyone else\u2019s, but I lucked out with Currier because all the rooms are sort of different. In Currier, a single on the first floor doesn\u2019t resemble a single on the second, and some rooms have sea-foam walls and others have egg-white.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m in charge of the car.\u201d My father takes my sister\u2019s notes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re pulling over at the next stop,\u201d my mother says.<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re annoying.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, you\u2019re annoying\u2026Can\u2019t listen to the radio, can\u2019t sing\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n We pulled over at the rest stop and my father said to my mother, \u201cYou\u2019re always grumpy when we travel.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCan you guess what song is stuck in my head?\u201d My mother faced my sister and I.<\/p>\n \u201cVacation personality,\u201d we said (a jingle we created for when we travel). My sister and mother broke into song.<\/p>\n My mother guided us to the vending machines and selected a Milky Way for the road. \u201cI\u2019m going to put some stuff in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n My father browsed the vending machine with my sister. Glancing out the window, I saw my mother running toward the car. My sister said, \u201cCan you believe how many vanilla cookies I can get for one dollar?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a lot of cookies,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s way too many for one person.\u201d My father watched me retrieve my Three Musketeers from the machine. \u201cYou too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHey, do I put the dollar in this way?\u201d my sister asked. \u201cOr do I put it in this way?\u201d<\/p>\n We left the vending machines, and as we approached the vehicle, my father threw a snowball at my sister and I. He missed, and saw my mother in the driver\u2019s seat. He slid into the car and said, \u201cYou can\u2019t drive.\u201d<\/p>\n My mother didn\u2019t care, and neither did I, but my sister gave him some vanilla cookies and my mother praised my efforts during my first college semester, and everything felt better. We talked about high school and middle school and elementary school and indulged in nostalgia, and everyone was kind of happy and things were good.<\/p>\n Some of you probably wonder why I didn\u2019t offer taking the wheel. Well, to put it simply, driving freaks me out. It\u2019s the most dangerous activity I do on a daily basis, and even scarier than high-speed driving with a restless father is high-speed driving with a teenager girl who doesn\u2019t even like to light the Bunsen burner in chemistry. I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m terrified of every semi-dangerous activity\u2014just most of them. I prefer a life of education and beautiful surroundings, like sitting in a library or playing Brain Age by Niagara Falls. Driving about a mile-per-minute on a stretch of tar doesn\u2019t fit the standards of this existence, and I also don\u2019t want to crash, burn and die.<\/p>\n Anyway, that\u2019s about it. I can\u2019t wait to start next semester (as a sophomore!) and I think we\u2019re approaching the city soon, so I should probably save and close. Have an awesome next semester, friends, students and teachers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I really hope my father doesn\u2019t kill us. Now that I have your attention, you\u2019d be interested to know I\u2019m heading to Iowa City to commence second-semester fun. This semester features a playwriting, creative writing, non-fiction writing and classical mythology class, and two of them actually take place outside of the dorm, which means I … Continue reading Iowa City Part II (Spring Semester)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campuslife","category-events","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}