I have found the transition from my cave-like basement dorm to my cinder block house an easy one. They share enough qualities--claustrophobic rooms, musty smell, spiders--that I don't feel completely out of my element.
The house is pretty sweet though, I have to say. We have a KITCHEN. I am cooking! Kind of. Campus is right across the street but I still feel like this year I'm going to be more isolated--I only have to go on campus for classes and occasionally to use the library, so instead of campus being home, the house is home. This seems weird on the face but when you consider that pre-college, school was school and house was house, you realize this is just a regression to that.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Driving
I'll be the first to admit that I can be a defensive driver. By which I mean, try to pass me and I'll skin you with a hunting knife. I cannot allow people to act like idiots on the road. It grates me. I have to punish them.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately since I scared the hell out of my friend Katie by going twenty miles per hour on a highway in an effort to piss off the lady behind me, who had honked when I stopped at a red light instead of blazing through it to take my free right like any other free American. Actually when I say I've been thinking about it a lot lately, I mean that I realized my poor car isn't up to road rage anymore.
It's a 1997 Mercury Sable ("Oh, so you know me!"). Its name is Stella. And while Stella and I once tore up Lundeen Parkway, me red-faced and white-knuckled, gnashing my teeth at some idiot on a phone, Stella darting in and out of traffic, barely clearing the space between two semis like a champ, I'm sorry to say that my reign of terror over our public roads is going to have to end. Or at least be seriously cut back on. Today, I was driving back from the gym, full of endorphins, when a van driving behind me pulled into the lane next to me. Sure, she could have been getting ready to make a right turn. But I had a creeping suspicion that wasn't what was going to happen. She was going to try and pass me.
Let me make one thing clear: I was driving the speed limit. I was in fact driving a few miles over, as a courtesy to faster drivers, to stay with the flow of traffic. And if there's one thing I can't abide, it's people who try to pass me when I'm driving the speed limit. As she pulled into my blind spot, I knew, with the practiced eye of a defensive driver, that she was going to try and pass me.
NOT IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT, I thought to myself and kind of mumbled out loud, and with the practiced foot of a defensive driver, I began to accelerate. I didn't want to completely leave her in the dust. I just wanted to hold our relative positions so that she would realize that there is so reason to pass me, since I am going the speed limit, and drop back into the lane, behind me. That's all. I generally like people. I'm not a mean driver. Just a defensive one.
But what was this? Stella was NOT speeding up. I could feel the car struggling to accelerate and yet the can was rapidly overtaking us. The van crept up to my passenger side window while I struggled furiously to time my road rage so that I succeeded in my mission without shooting through the upcoming three-way intersection and into yonder farmland. Still, the car couldn't do it. In a final burst of acceleration (unnecessary, I thought. A kind of final slap in the face from Miss I-Drive-A-Golden-Van-with-bedazzled-seats), the van overtook my car, and got in front of me, just before the light.
As I seethed, I couldn't figure out why my car had let me down. I checked the gas gauge and made sure the parking break wasn't on. That's about all I know how to do. My conclusion? My car is too old to rule the roads anymore. This blog announces my retirement from being infuriated while driving. At least until I get another car.
Also, if you happen to drive a golden van with bedazzled seats, you're at the top of my list.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately since I scared the hell out of my friend Katie by going twenty miles per hour on a highway in an effort to piss off the lady behind me, who had honked when I stopped at a red light instead of blazing through it to take my free right like any other free American. Actually when I say I've been thinking about it a lot lately, I mean that I realized my poor car isn't up to road rage anymore.
It's a 1997 Mercury Sable ("Oh, so you know me!"). Its name is Stella. And while Stella and I once tore up Lundeen Parkway, me red-faced and white-knuckled, gnashing my teeth at some idiot on a phone, Stella darting in and out of traffic, barely clearing the space between two semis like a champ, I'm sorry to say that my reign of terror over our public roads is going to have to end. Or at least be seriously cut back on. Today, I was driving back from the gym, full of endorphins, when a van driving behind me pulled into the lane next to me. Sure, she could have been getting ready to make a right turn. But I had a creeping suspicion that wasn't what was going to happen. She was going to try and pass me.
Let me make one thing clear: I was driving the speed limit. I was in fact driving a few miles over, as a courtesy to faster drivers, to stay with the flow of traffic. And if there's one thing I can't abide, it's people who try to pass me when I'm driving the speed limit. As she pulled into my blind spot, I knew, with the practiced eye of a defensive driver, that she was going to try and pass me.
NOT IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT, I thought to myself and kind of mumbled out loud, and with the practiced foot of a defensive driver, I began to accelerate. I didn't want to completely leave her in the dust. I just wanted to hold our relative positions so that she would realize that there is so reason to pass me, since I am going the speed limit, and drop back into the lane, behind me. That's all. I generally like people. I'm not a mean driver. Just a defensive one.
But what was this? Stella was NOT speeding up. I could feel the car struggling to accelerate and yet the can was rapidly overtaking us. The van crept up to my passenger side window while I struggled furiously to time my road rage so that I succeeded in my mission without shooting through the upcoming three-way intersection and into yonder farmland. Still, the car couldn't do it. In a final burst of acceleration (unnecessary, I thought. A kind of final slap in the face from Miss I-Drive-A-Golden-Van-with-bedazzled-seats), the van overtook my car, and got in front of me, just before the light.
As I seethed, I couldn't figure out why my car had let me down. I checked the gas gauge and made sure the parking break wasn't on. That's about all I know how to do. My conclusion? My car is too old to rule the roads anymore. This blog announces my retirement from being infuriated while driving. At least until I get another car.
Also, if you happen to drive a golden van with bedazzled seats, you're at the top of my list.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
1 August 2010--countdown to Emily Does Sophomore Year
So now I can start blogging again, what with the school year getting revved up again. Will I ever, I wonder, get on board with a standard year, one that starts in January? I'm making plans to go to grad school so probably not.
Anyway, I'm moving into a house next year. I can't advise for or against it because a) I haven't done it yet--I haven't even seen the inside and b) it's not really a real house with a rent and a key and all that. It's technically a house but it's owned by the University so to live in it, I just pay the housing cost I would have paid to live on campus. So I can't be like OH YEAH GO GET A HOUSE GUYS only to have someone email me and say they tried to get a house but due to some sort of real-world issue (student loans don't go towards rent) were unable to.
It turns out there is a whole lot of crap you need for houses--things like dishes (I have dishes!) and cleaning supplies, obviously, but also things like a bike so you don't look like you're doing a Walk of Shame (we are right behind the frat houses so the misconception is easy to come by), and possibly a toilet brush. You may say, "But Emily, the toilet brush counts as cleaning supplies." Not when you and your roommate are using two of them as lightsabers, it doesn't. So anyway, this summer has been spent cruising garage sales for cookware and getting house things for my birthday.
To be honest though, and I think pretty much everyone will agree with me, I'm ready to be back at college. Seriously. I love my family and all that but I have nothing to do here (see previous blog post for what I could have been doing--sweet yacht party...sigh). Not to mention my brain is dying from lack of use. I talked on the phone with someone the other day and he said after reading a book he felt like he had gone jogging for the first time in months. No kidding, I said. Aside from the lack of intellectual simulation, I also bought a planner, which I should have left off doing until the last minute--because it's now filled out for the entire fall semester. I can't leave a planner un-filled out. It's a sick compulsion to schedule things. As a consequence I am anxious to start school and get back on a schedule so I don't have too many blank spaces in my calendar.
Anyway, I'm moving into a house next year. I can't advise for or against it because a) I haven't done it yet--I haven't even seen the inside and b) it's not really a real house with a rent and a key and all that. It's technically a house but it's owned by the University so to live in it, I just pay the housing cost I would have paid to live on campus. So I can't be like OH YEAH GO GET A HOUSE GUYS only to have someone email me and say they tried to get a house but due to some sort of real-world issue (student loans don't go towards rent) were unable to.
It turns out there is a whole lot of crap you need for houses--things like dishes (I have dishes!) and cleaning supplies, obviously, but also things like a bike so you don't look like you're doing a Walk of Shame (we are right behind the frat houses so the misconception is easy to come by), and possibly a toilet brush. You may say, "But Emily, the toilet brush counts as cleaning supplies." Not when you and your roommate are using two of them as lightsabers, it doesn't. So anyway, this summer has been spent cruising garage sales for cookware and getting house things for my birthday.
To be honest though, and I think pretty much everyone will agree with me, I'm ready to be back at college. Seriously. I love my family and all that but I have nothing to do here (see previous blog post for what I could have been doing--sweet yacht party...sigh). Not to mention my brain is dying from lack of use. I talked on the phone with someone the other day and he said after reading a book he felt like he had gone jogging for the first time in months. No kidding, I said. Aside from the lack of intellectual simulation, I also bought a planner, which I should have left off doing until the last minute--because it's now filled out for the entire fall semester. I can't leave a planner un-filled out. It's a sick compulsion to schedule things. As a consequence I am anxious to start school and get back on a schedule so I don't have too many blank spaces in my calendar.
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