finals finals finals

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I could write about so many things right now and I don't have the time to write about any of it

    finals start on tuesday

    and I am really struggling to get my work done

    for example, I'm writing a final paper on poverty and world hunger for my philosophy class and I've just noticed that the lack of sleep is making me a little miss bitterpants mcsnarkosaurus:

            "One of Hardin’s points is what he calls the 'tragedy of the commons,' a theory that any lands or resources that are owned communally rather than privately will inevitably be ruined or exhausted by selfish members of the community using the resources (337-338). He writes of this as an anarchical system, using the world’s air and water as examples because they have been polluted by being used as 'commons' for the world, although he does not explain just how something like air could potentially be privatized."

    oh man what is wrong with me

things were very ok

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Goodness gracious. Is it the end of the semester already? The end of the (academic) year?

    Here I am, it's a Saturday, it's April 21st, next week will be the last week of classes, I have a plane ticket to take me back north, the buzz of graduation is in the air. The week after next is finals week. Two weeks from this moment I'll be sitting in an airport, drained of all energy from writing papers and taking exams.* How did that happen?

    My second semester was about a million times better than my first. The first was wonderful in some ways, and I thought I was pretty happy about it at the time, but it was interesting to see how after I came back for the second my perception of the first changed, because for the second things were different and better, and I only had one morning class, and the days got longer and sunnier, and I had two enjoyable English classes instead of math and public speaking (if you knew me, you would say to yourself this here is a girl who is not cut out for math or public speakery), and a particular bit of Emotional Drama that got worse and worse over the fall got easier and better over the spring, and I know who my friends are and basically what I'm doing and everything is just good now.

    Also my grades have been much better overall this semester. And history class was more fun this semester because we were less all over the globe and not covering, like, the beginning of time down to the 16th century. This semester was much more focused, and Dr. Mac got to teach us about the Enlightenment and Romanticism and the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution and the World Wars and nationalism and colonial imperialism and all kinds of neat things. Dude loves the French Revolution more than anyone I'll ever know. And oh gosh, the things I learned in my other classes.

    Do you ever think about the phrase "a whole 'nother"? Like "I've got a whole 'nother paper to do before Tuesday," or "there's a whole 'nother carton of that ice cream in the freezer." It's like people are saying "another" but halfway through they need more emphasis so they stick a "whole" in there. But no one ever thinks to say "another whole," or even "a whole extra," or any other variation. I don't know, maybe they don't use that phrase in England.
  
*This was written in the early afternoon. Now remembering to post this shortly after midnight. Oh lands, I've just written four pages analyzing in depth a short story by Faulkner and have three or four more pages to write tomorrow, I need bed like I need air

the golden city of knowledge

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    So my friend one of the Danielles found out today that she's been accepted by some academic study-abroad program and will be spending a semester studying in Oxford in the fall.

     "I'm so jealous I could vomit," I said to her as we sat at dinner. "I could barf my chicken salad up all over your orange slices." I gestured at the fruit in her styrofoam to-go box.

    She giggled even as her eyes flicked down to my mostly empty salad plate, estimating how much food I had consumed. "That'd be pretty gross," she said.

    "It would be an illustration of the chaos and acid and anguish within my soul."

    "'How poetic."

    I don't even like barfing.

i want an evening sky soaked with lavender and indigo

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I was sitting at lunch today on the outdoor covered balcony that we always eat lunch on, surrounded by snorting and tittering boys, watching the drizzly rain come in fits and starts over the campus, dipping my French fries in my warm split-pea soup and ignoring my grapes and half-eaten hamburger (punctuated by ruffly pickle slices like delicious lily pads suspended between water and the sky as they reflect each other, except that hamburger patties with the cheese scraped off do not reflect very much at all), when it occurred to me that everything is going to be ok.

    I've been getting a steady stream of wrong-number calls for a girl named Danielle Nelson lately. My name is not Danielle Nelson, I have never met a Danielle Nelson. I think she's a college student at some other college. I always feel bad when I miss important calls for her from business offices and things that she needs to call back and they leave a message and I'm like "oops."
    I received one of these calls for her last Wednesday, just as friend Shelli and I were heading off on a walk. I took it and informed the woman on the other end that she had the wrong number but not to worry because I get wrong number calls for Danielle Nelson all the time. She asked me if this was not number-number-number number-number-number-number number-number-number-number. I said that yes, that sounded right, but I am still not Danielle Nelson. We said goodbye and hung up, and I apologized to Shelli and explained about all the calls lately.
    "What if," said Shelli as we descended the curving stairs, "you really are Danielle Nelson, but it's been blocked from your mind somehow?"
    That would, I expect, explain a lot.

Here is a ladybug on friend Jim's neck. From a beach on spring break.

she did bring grapes though

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Here are four things I have heard with my ears recently. I feel like referring to myself in the third person so I'm going to do that.

    1. Candace (my RA and one of the college event coordinators): "Yeah, when Sarah asked me if we were going to bring any fruit on the camping trip, I was like 'oh yes! we're bringing Oreos!'"


    2. Professor Mine Enemy, reviewing our quiz answers with us in Bible class: "The Book of Ezekiel most closely parallels which book of the New Testament?"
    Class: "Revelations!"
    Professor Mine Enemy: "what"
    Class: "...Revelation!"


    3. Friend Jim, before our Philosophy class in which different groups are doing presentations on contemporary moral issues: "Pie is the best, man."
    RJ: "Oh dude, I used to make the most killer blueberry-blackberry pie, it was my favorite."
    Friend Jim: "Used to?"
    RJ: "Back when I had a kitchen."
    Lorissa: "You should make one and bring it to your presentation next week! So we can eat it!"
    RJ: "Yeah, I should bring a pie to a presentation on poverty and world hunger, that'd be really tasteful and appropriate."
    Friend Jim: "Yeah pie!"


    4. Dr. Mac, in passing, the day after I was in his office bothering him to show me how to tie bow ties: "Did you figure it out?"
    RJ, having done homework instead of practicing: "Didn't try."
    Dr. Mac: "That's the spirit."