second semester

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    okay

    so

    It's Thursday today and I've been back on campus since Monday and classes started on Tuesday

    and I have my second session of history class tomorrow and my first time in writing class tomorrow

    and there was no second Bible class today because Professor Mine Enemy is out of town and there will be no philosophy class next Tuesday because Dr Mac will be out of town

    So the thing is that I have almost no homework to do over the weekend

    like at all

    I just need to read some poetry stuff for Intro to Lit and read the first 28 chapters of the book of Job for Bible and read a couple historical documents for history if I want to, and I might have something to do for writing class but I won't know 'til tomorrow

    I am like freaking out right now, what do I do with myself all weekend

     (maybe I should....get ahead in my work?)


    (woah)

from chicken to cockatoo

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I would like a bow tie. A bow tie would not be unwelcome to me.

Also not unwelcome would be a Matt Smith in a bow tie.

    Also Krista and I were supposed to be writing papers or something but we dyed my hair again instead

    and it was kind of slimy and workable in the application process (before the stuff got washed out) so Krista got all like wheeee

this is my slimy platinum mohawk whee hair

    Also I found out that the new math professor with the same last name as PME who I mentioned before is actually PME's son.  
    (Oh.)
    theoretically that possibility should have occurred to me
    also looking at PME Junior's facebook page it's all like "degree in aerospace engineering" and "U.S. Air Force Academy" and "U.S. Air Force research engineer"
    That family

education (and hopefully edification)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    HUUKAY. Let's talk school. I just got my schedule for next semester worked out. This is what it looks like!

• HUM112. Civilization and Culture II: From the 16th Century to the Present. More history! Basically the second half of the history class I'm taking right now. Or rather the continuation. Or something. History. This is good because I already know I don't have to actually read for it to succeed.
•  BTS112. Old Testament Studies II: Psalms, Wisdom Literature and Prophets. (Christian college, we kind of have to study the Bible.) Same situation as history, only instead of doing "ancient civilizations to the 16th century" followed by "from the 16th century to the present," it goes first-half-of-the-Old-Testament (the Pentateuch and the historical books) to second-half-of-the-Old-Testament (psalms, wisdom literature and prophets, obviously). New Testament next year. I am so looking forward to the Prophets bit of next semester, I love me some prophets.
• ENG101. Composition, Writing and Research. Don't know much about this one. I'm going to be taught how to write things.
• ENG 201. Introductory Studies in Literature. Usually taken sophomore year, apparently, but all the other class options had prerequisites, conflicted with Old Testament, or sounded too boring/scary. Upperclassman Shelli says both English classes can be handled at once (she did it herself).
• PHL111. Introduction to Critical Thinking. I have only a foggy idea of what this class is about, but I've heard it's difficult and fun and makes one learn things.

    So that's three professors for five classes. History and Critical Thinkin' with Dr Mac, Old Testament II with Professor Mine Enemy, and  the English double-feature with the young, beautiful new English professor. I sat at lunch with her a couple weeks ago when Shelli took her to the cafeteria, she seems nice. We admired the reuben sandwiches together. She's tallish and dark and lean and well-dressed and I've heard that she owns a cat named Gatsby.

    WAIT WHAT IS THIS I AM NOT READY FOR ANOTHER SEMESTER I NEED CHRISTMAS BREAK TO BE LIKE AT LEAST TWO MONTHS AKGH

    (but! on the upside, no more math or public speaking.)

wooo calvinism

    Dear Harriet Walter,

"Despite fierce reprisals from the Spanish Inquisition, Calvinism eventually made sufficient inroads so that the equation of national unity with allegiance to the papacy was not credible to the Netherlanders." (from chapter 3 of Truth in All its Glory: Commending the Reformed Faith by William Edgar)

    I had to read that sentence six times before it made sense. No joke. That is how sleep-deprived I am today.

    Frigate I am so tiiiiired

midterm week

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Oh lands. I used to think I was clever. I admit that now. These past few years, I had good discussions with my parents and mentors about literature and history and theology and poetry and philosophy. I got good grades. I had close middle-aged friends who were charmed by me, I was used to talking about interesting, mature things with intelligent middle-aged people. I made people laugh with my wordplay. I thought I was on my way to becoming a Proper Intellectual.

    College has revealed to me that my intellect is not gazelle-like in its grace and speed. Academically speaking, I am in fact a grubby, dirty little three-legged kitten with many fleas and only one eye.

    The odd thing is, I care more about how this is perceived by some than others. I'm proud when I do well for Math Professor because I have been shedding my mathematical fleas and doing better and he's lately become quite happy with my progress - being a dirty three-legged kitten is fine because I started from rock-bottom and have been improving, and he is a kind handler of kittens. I can handle Dr Mac seeing me as not brighter than average; I can't think of a good simile for him, but maybe he's like an intellectual bear. I respect him very very much, but his intellect comes across as being built on a normal person who's quite smart. Being a dim kitten is fine with him because he's approachable and understands dim wits and hurried writing and the struggles of students. In a way, I suppose he requires his students to work hard without expecting brilliance matching his own.

    Professor Mine Enemy, on the other hand, is a saber-toothed tiger whose brain operates on a Higher Level. I'm not sure he understands how dumbness works. After his class yesterday, I paced furiously around campus, occasionally stomping, occasionally tearing at my hair, occasionally muttering, "I hate not being clever I hate not being clever I hate not being clever." This three-legged kitten wants to be able to totter up to the great, looming saber-toothed tiger and say, "Look at me! Look at me! I'm clever! I'm clever! I can brain, too! Just like you!"

    Except that that is only wishful thinking.

bullet lists are totally a substitute for coherence

     Dear Harriet Walter,

     THINGS:

• I have overcome my deathly fear of people I know in real life reading my writing enough to give the url of this blog to my Auntlet today. Hello, Auntlet L.!

• I am super super excited about this Saturday. I think I mentioned it before. Several of us students are getting taken on a hike up to the Hollywood sign, out to lunch at In-N-Out and then to Amoeba Records and possibly to a coffeeshop. Apparently it's annual, although my school only moved to its Pasadena location at the beginning of last year. Most of my favorite people are going, and because it's Professor Mine Enemy's thing I am going to get to meet Mrs Professor Mine Enemy, who is coming along and who is somebody I have wondered about.

•  Dr Mac has learned how to tie a bowtie recently. It looked quite nice on him, although he said he felt naked with no necktie and with his buttons exposed like that.

• I bought pink-and-white animal cookies at the shops today. I am content.

• I love Pasadena and Los Angeles. Why on earth did I ever consider going to college in Iowa? I mean I'm sure Dordt College is a perfectly excellent and unimpeachable college itself - both of Best Friend's parents graduated from there, and they turned out ok - but Iowa versus Los Angeles? The Midwest versus SoCal? Cows and cornfields versus one of the major cultural and economic centers of the world? Yeah, I think I made the right choice. (The third college-option was too expensive. And also not far enough from home.)

Pasadena City Hall, which I see regularly. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

• It rained all day yesterday. It was awesome.

• My grades are ok so far. They may plummet after my history midterm next week.

•  My parents have finally set up Skype, so we video-called each other on Monday night when I was supposed to be doing math homework. Skyping is a good thing.

• I can do the basic steps and turns for the two-step and the waltz now. Education!

• I need to start studying somewhere I don't have access to the toys and thingums my Auntlet has sent to me.

• My mother has started up another blog. Two more, actually, but right now I'm going to link to the first. (No she has not written more in the very first blog she started up. I am hoping that with the less-structured style she's taken up for her newest 'un she will feel more free to piffle and thus write more.) I asked her if I could link to it, because I love my mumsy's writing, and she said yes so here is the link: Patter From Lavender Flat. It's written for an audience of her close friends and family so certain names, locations and situations will not be explained. If she writes in it, it will be Quality Stuff!

• One of the least awesome things about college is the fact that I don't have time to hunt down and watch things with you in them. I always intended to make this blog at least vaguely Harriet Walter-relevant (Walterelevant?), but now everything is all about me all the time. Blah. (At least I got my fix while I could watch Law & Order UK.) So, for the sake of cheerings-up and bright green dresses, let's have a couple of screencaps from one of my favorite movies.

    Speaking of watching L&O:UK, I never saw the episode after the one which ended with a certain person getting shot (fatally?) in a drive-by. I wonder how that turned out.

    Now I am going to do a bit of math and watch Merlin because Merlin is back and I need me some campy goodness.

academic theology is so hipster

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    It's rather tiresome to write history and Bible papers when one's writing program is theologically illiterate. Microsoft Word is trying to tell me that "theogony" is not a word (and now so is Blogger! A red underline there before me as I write this! I am disappointed!), nor, it says, is "protevangelium", although, to be fair, the latter word isn't even in the regular dictionary. It's fine with "theophany" and "theosophy", though. (Blogger doesn't like "theophany". Well, that's ok, neither did the ancient Israelites.)

    In other news, I miss my dog. He is the best dog of all the dogs. Here are three pictures of him.

Zis mah baaayyyybehhh.

    Yeah, no one can ever be really sure what he's looking at. I love him anyway.

guess who's going to a liberal arts college

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    One thing I was not expecting from college was the whole thing about everybody - including the boys - randomly singing Phantom of the Opera together. Sometimes with Freshman Danielle on piano.

    Also, glancing over the last couple of posts, I feel like I should probably note that I do in fact have more than one professor. Shocking, I know. Let's briefly talk about my professors. I haven't come up with names for them yet, I'll do that later.

    I have four professors for my five classes. I like them all. In no particular order, they are:

• Dr Mac. I will call him that because it doesn't actually name (full) names and because that is just who he is. Dr Mac is the Humanities guy around here. I'm in one of his ancient history/civilizations classes - I forget its full title - and his philosophy/theology class. He's kind of the college's show-professor, as he's not only one of the major Characters in the community, but I'm pretty sure visiting prospective-students and parents-thereof are usually made to sit in on his classes. He's youngish and handsome and brilliant and funny. Very, very droll. Great hair. Homeschools his three small boy-children, some of whom we see fairly often on campus. I'm quite fond of him.

• Communications Professor. I'm in his public speaking class this semester. He's in his late thirties, heavyish, very nice, very energetic and approachable. Not especially organized sometimes. History of working in the film industry (hey there, Los Angeles!) but now married with small children.
• Professor Mine Enemy. Teacher of Biblical and Theological Studies. I'm in his first-half-of-the-Old Testament class. Also one of the major Characters in this college. Actually a "Dr", not a "Prof.", but Doctor Mine Enemy doesn't have the same ring to it. Older. Sandy hair, glasses, scruffiness, possesses Parisian neckties. Aside from the usual line-up of B.A., M.A., another M.A., Ph.D. etc, has also studied in Europe and lived/studied in Israel. Married, three grown offspring and one grandinfant. Does not fully understand how terrifying some of us find him and his mind.* Obviously having a good time whenever teaching, perhaps especially in the face of maudlin freshman suffering. His brain is like a supernova made of diamonds and fire.
• Math/Business Professor. Adjunct. I'm in his remedial algebra class. Older, paternal. Kind. Patient with mathematical obtuseness. Good at explaining things. Enthusiastic about his work. Don't know much about his personal life yet.

    I'm also in a once-a-week freshman-only class that's all about surviving and thriving at college, which is taught by the dean of student life, but I'm not very interested in it so I'm not going to write about it right now.

    Oh frogs. Bedtime. Immediately. Why am I blogging. Gah.

*Last Wednesday, Freshman Danielle and I were in his class, and Danielle was trying to give her thoughts/feedback on something P.M.E. was talking about, and though he listened very politely, she trailed off with a smattering of "um"s and something like an "erm, nevermind".
    "No, go on," said PME.
    "I can't talk while you're looking at me," blurted Danielle. "It's really scary, I feel like such an idiot." She laughed weakly. Danielle, it is worth noting, is beautiful and loud and 6'2" and probably the most popular girl on campus. Danielle can talk in any situation.
     "What? I'm not that scary!" protested PME with an exasperated laugh which implied volumes of similar past experiences with intimidated students. I badly wanted to snort loudly or give an obvious hoot at this, but I was too scared of drawing his attention.

this post is longer than six long things at a funeral

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    At last, this week is done! The first exam I had was a Bible exam on Wednesday (Professor Mine Enemy's class; he's the Associate Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at this college and I'm in his general first-half-of-the-Old Testament class), which was predictably difficult. And P.M.E. was obviously amused by our wailing and gnashing of teeth, damn him. I think I did pretty well, though.
    The second exam was for my remedial algebra class on Thursday morning. Did I ever mention that my math class normally starts at 7:55am? The test started at 7:30am, which is just straight-up vulgar. I didn't manage to finish all 90 questions. Still waiting to hear if I passed that.
    The third exam was for my public speaking class, and started ten minutes after I was done with my math exam. This was not a big deal, though, as we weren't giving actual speeches or anything, just doing a normal papery test. I did well.

    I AM GLAD TO BE DONE WITH THIS WEEK IS ALL

    Now this weekend I have to revise my tribute speech for public speaking class and start practicing it before delivering it on Tuesday or Thursday, start writing a paper for Old Testament class, catch up on reading for History class and start thinking about my next paper for that and do a frig-ton of math homework.

    On a completely different note, I think the clearest and simplest difference between a Christian and a non-Christian might be the way they react to being given a free Bible. I go to a Christian college, see, and during chapel this morning our guest speaker (who is a different person every week) was somebody who - if I remember correctly - had been involved in the original marketing of the ESV (English Standard Version) Bible, which is a pretty commonly used edition on this campus, and he brought a few boxes of lovely, supple, engraved-faux-leather-with-gold-edges ESV Value Thinline Editions to give to us students for free. We were all totally thrilled like "SWEEEET, FREE BIBLES!" I chose a brown one and I love mine and appreciate getting it very much. But if I was a nonbeliever, somebody trying to foist a Bible on me would be super annoying and I would be irritated at them trying to tell me how to live my life and so on.

    Professor Mine Enemy had to go and murder my joy, however. He was in chapel that morning too, and I have his class right after lunch which is right after chapel, and in that class he made clear to us that we were not allowed to take our new, super-light ESVs to his Bible class but had to keep bringing our ESV Study Bibles for reference as usual. Have you ever seen an ESV Study Bible? They're different from the ones we got today, those are just the straight-up Bible with nothing added. ESV Study Bibles are the ones with a million billion trillion notes and maps and things. Their pages are so thin you can read the other side easily but nevertheless they weigh a ton. They are actual factual bricks. I use mine as a bookend to prop up my very very heavy collection of textbooks. I was so hoping I wouldn't have to lug mine to his class anymore! But no. Damn him.

    To be fair, that was a really good class he taught today. Much too exciting for a Friday afternoon, but good nonetheless.

    TOO MUCH BLATHER, TIME FOR A LIST
   
    Things I am looking forward to in October:

• October 8th Professor Mine Enemy is taking any students who are interested on a hike up to/around the Hollywood Sign and then driving us to Amoeba Records. I am excited for various reasons.
• October 14th-15th is one of the campus visit weekends, and because Best Friend is a high school senior now and looking at colleges, she is visiting my college to look at it and therefore she is also staying with Roommate Courtney and me. I am going to see her again! It will be exceedingly excellent.
• I believe that on the night of the 15th the dance club (which I am in) is going out to a contra-dance studio to learn a spot of contra-dancing. Don't know if Best Friend will still be here or not, but if she is she will not object to going out dancing on a Saturday night. I am looking forward to this.
• Sometime the week after that, Best Friend's father is flying down to my campus and is taking me out for lunch. He's not coming down specifically to take me out to lunch, he's on the board of directors or trustees or something and has to go to meetings or whatever. He's actually the reason I'm here, as I would never have heard about this college if he hadn't suggested it when I was looking at colleges.

    This is me ignoring the papers, midterms, exams and book reviews due in October. Blaahh.

    STILL TOO MUCH BLATHER, HERE IS A PICTURE

Some of my classmates and me next to a piece of the Berlin Wall.

    AND ANOTHER PICTURE BECAUSE THAT WAS A LOT OF TEXT

L to R: me, roommate courtney, freshman sheilla, also my posture is not always that bad

    i think being forced to write clearly and concisely on essay questions and papers is making me take out my natural piffle-mindedness on my poor unprepared blog and my long-suffering mother, i'm going to stop writing now

I blame sugar cones and my professor for everything

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I will have been in college for exactly one full month next Monday!

    I also run a gamut of emotions regularly. I can go from utter despondence and sitting on the floor weeping over the phone to my mom to giddy spinning in chairs to exhaustion and emotional dead zones to being high on sugar and brain-buzzingness while listening to Elvis, all within less than 24 hours.

    It's still weird having a Fresh Start. None of these college people have known me very long; they all know my name, but it's still new to them when I'm being me or expressing myself in my own ways. My family will just ignore me or sometimes smile pityingly whenever I'm off doing something dumb, so I'm used to people being used to me, if that makes any sense, but here it's apparently an unusual thing to start spinning rapidly down the dorm hallway, get disoriented and smack into a wall, say "hi, wall!" and go beaming and skipping off. (I'd just gotten back from my first proper swing-dance lesson - the dance club meeting last week was just official non-dancey business - and I'd had chocolate ice cream on a sugar cone after dinner, what the frig else was I going to be doing?)

    In other news, I'm horribly behind on math, I have to write an outline for my first speech for public speaking class, Professor Mine Enemy continues to be both intimidating and to have the most exciting brain in the world, my Auntlet sent me another package and this one was full of shirts and shoes and jewelry and other odds and ends, Mother has been sending me small weekly packages full of tasty snacking-things, everything is awesome right now and in three or fours hours' time it will probably all be horrible.

    (Also, I bought the book of The Scarlet Pimpernel online. Immediately after seeing the shockingly late estimated arrival date, an idiotic little voice inside me said hey, this book is old and well loved, it is probably on Project Gutenberg, I could read the first couple of chapters online just to keep myself going. The book arrived last Tuesday, I think. I had finished reading it two weeks before.)

    (ALSO ROOMMATE COURTNEY AND R.A. AUGUST HAVE ACTUALLY BOTH READ IT WHICH MAKES ME HAPPY)

    *Edit: I forgot to add that there is absolutely no feeling in the world like being comfortably settled in one's bed and accomplishments at the end of a long day and on the far side of drifting off to sleep when it occurs to one that one did not thoroughly read one's history paper through before submitting it online and it might still have editorial comments which one might have forgotten to remove before submitting it. 
    Oh my lands it was like the floor under my bunk bed disappeared and I plunged down into a pit of ice water. That is how bad that moment was.
    Thankfully I checked the document the next day and my fears were unfounded! The paper wasn't especially good, but it had no parenthetical notes to self saying to rewrite the thesis statement, at least.

my life is basically a Greek tragedy

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Lately I have taken to mentally listing all of my problems (which are rapidly increasing in number and panic-inducement-potential) and adding the phrase "- and I feel fine!" at the end. Actually feeling less and less over the past few days. "Fine" is a positive word for it.

    Two general, non-homework-related problems have arisen since I've been here at college. One is a puzzling and bizarre little internal emotional kerfuffle which occupies my thoughts a good chunk of all of the time and which was not a problem I expected from college even to the point of being aware of it as a possibility, and the other is the state of my feet. My feet just keep getting more and more damaged the longer I'm shuffling around in flip-flops all the time. They're not only dirty but bruised, blistered, sunburned and now scraped and oozing yellow goo. What joy.

    Now, back to math.
    (Damn everything.)

I just like bullet lists ok

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Here is a list of things that are making me unhappy today:

• I got an hour less sleep than I intended to get.
• I have to write my first history paper by Wednesday and do not feel the least bit confident in my paper-writin' skills. I also have to pick a topic-person for my tribute speech for public speaking class and start working on that.
• I have to study math like crazy and it takes me too long to do.
• I need more time to do things in.
• I miss my mom.

    And here is a list of things that are making me happy today:

• I look nice. I've got on black shorts, a well-fitted red polo shirt and a skinny black necktie.
• I had the foresight to get two cookies at lunch. I'm always hungry after classes are done. I spent the whole of my last class thinking "there is a soft delicious chocolate chip cookie waiting for me in my messenger bag".
• Campus Beach Day is tomorrow. (Small school = we can get all of us onto a beach no problem.)
• Professor Mine Enemy was wearing a panda tie.
• Professor Mine Enemy had us do a quick quiz of five questions, but was six minutes late to class due to printer difficulties, leaving me just enough time to review the textbook chapter summaries. I got everything on the quiz right! (I'm homeschooled, okay, I've never had quizzes before, it's all new to me)
• I feel much less intimidated by Professor Mine Enemy today. Not only because of the endearing tie and the quiz success, but also this is because after class was done and I had got my books in order (one must always have one's bag ready to flee with whenever taking risks), I went up and asked him an intelligent question about a thing and he answered cheerfully and talked with me about it a bit and everything was ok. (He couldn't give me specific details on what I wanted to know about, but a general answer worked fine for me. The important bit was the encounter, not the knowledge.)
• I've signed up to join the ballroom dance club and our first meeting is this afternoon.
• This evening I'm going to go to see Laurie R King at a book signing for her latest Mary Russell mystery. (I have grown up on those books.) I am excited.

    Overall it could all be worse!

    (why am I blogging instead of studying why why why whyyy, because it helps me put things in order that's why, but I have so much to dooooo aaaagh)

Professor Mine Enemy

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    This is me today after managing to miss both breakfast and lunch. Also, I had two classes.

    I cannot handle an hour and a half of the alarming professor I mentioned before (that is, the one I've decided to be inwardly belligerent towards, the intimidating enemy-professor; Professor Mine Enemy) on a cup of coffee and a handful of fries (the latter generously donated from Upperclassman Kim's lunch). It is not to be borne. Just...no.

    Thankfully he was relatively laid-back today and talked about interesting things, so it could have been much worse.

    Whyyyyy does he remind me of Enemy/Sandy/Dr MacRae from Jean Webster's book Dear Enemy? He's not even Scottish. He's a doctor, yes, but not a doctor of medicine, just a doctor of smart things. Gah. My brain makes the weirdest connections sometimes.

    And I realized today that I really want to just adore the man, because he's so intelligent and passionate and weird and cool, but he's still intimidating and I honestly don't know if I'm going to be able to do well in his class but I really want him to think well of me but I don't know if I can make that happen through effort so really it's too emotionally dangerous to adore the man so I feel like I just need to say "arr hwar gar this is my enemy, damn that Dr S, damn him to bits! I'll show him who's a dimwit who can't keep up with what he requires of us as students!" Except that I'm the one thinking I'm a dimwit and he is probably only conscious of me as a girl who sits in the front row and looks like she's trying really hard to process everything he's saying and blah

    I'm just going to stand over here and build complicated one-sided relationships now ok

    my brain is like a foggy, sticky labyrinth made of dry twigs and unwashed wool

    blaaaahhh fear me

there is one grand thing

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, baked beans, damn, damn and damn.

    (Math 100. Remedial algebra class. Didn't study math enough in high school, scored badly on math bit of SAT.)

    Damn.

    Anyway, just for kicks, here is a picture of me at La Plaza in Los Angeles taken last Saturday as I was being taught the history of the city along with most of my freshman class and a few upperclassmen. I had a squinty face but I like the lighting. (Photo by Roommate Courtney, who is very good.)

L to R: Mr B the director of student activies, Freshman Luke, me.

    Cannot wait to get my own camera. Also, extra notes:

• Mother and I have begun abbreviating "The Scarlet Pimpernel" to "Spimper" for ease of texting. It amuses.
• My Auntlet sent me - wait, have I talked about my Auntlet? She's an older woman who is one of my very best friends for life, she's not an actual aunt but I've known her since I was nine years old and within the past year or two we've become very close friends, she's the most extraordinary woman and she absolutely adores me and I literally am not even sure why - anyway my Auntlet sent me a care package containing a stuffed carrot toy/pillow thing with a happy face and arms and legs and his green leafery is boxer shorts so he's kind of upside-down and so hard to describe so here's a webcam picture:

     ...and she also sent me:

• one fancy kaleidoscope with three color-stick-things which one sticks into the kaleidoscope, 
• one tiny toy bird thing which one can stick into things and 
• two wooden tops which look either like apples or acorns, I'm not sure, but probably just mutant apples because they're red and green. 
• (Mother sent me a care package full of snacks and junk food. Thanks, Mom, I love the gummy dinosaurs!)
• I believe my Auntlet is also sending me a memory-foam mattress pad, orange Christmas lights for my dorm room and new clothes, because she's just amazing like that. She's like my fairy godmother, personal Santa Claus, Daddy-Long-Legs, cheerleader, number 1 fan, antiqueing buddy and therapist rolled into a great big beautiful mess of love and support. And why does she love me so much, anyway?! She sees right through me and understands me and loves what she sees and I don't even feel like I've deliberately revealed much of my self to her but I don't need to because she gets me and it's very alarming and unsettling because I'm a very private person and thought I was more mysterious and obscure than that augh. BLESSINGS AND GREAT FORTUNE ARE WEIRD BASICALLY

    Time for class now. Between classes and interacting alllll the tiiiiiime with other students, every day I am more and more convinced that I'm a complete idiot and haven't the wits of a fish that was dropped as a baby. It's very Socratic.
 
(post-class PS: the title of this post is from my notes on the word "monists", which I learned today in my philosophy/theology class)

college/ugh i just love his hat so much

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    This is how long I have been at college.

    I would write more - there's certainly plenty to talk about - but right now I need to study like an angry badger.

the victor is usually the man in the tighter pants

    Dear Harriet Walter,


    Things I forgot to mention last post (and extras):

• I have a new roommate, her name's Courtney and she's tiny and dark and we get along quite well.
• The best thing about driving down the western U.S. was late on the night of the 18th, when we were on another long straight road, nearing Reno, and, well, basically....stars in the desert. It was mindblowing. Literally dozens more stars than I'd ever seen before. There was even a shooting star (probably left over from the Perseids or whatever), which was also new to me.
• My freshman class is around 24 people. The girls range in size from 4'11" to 6'2".
• Right-Hand Man has been awesome about supplying me with Harriet Walter-related photos and news stories and things, as well as other means of support and sanity-preservation.
• I've watched The Scarlet Pimpernel twice more since the first time (once with my mother) and it just keeps getting better. Like what is up with that movie. It's such a guilty pleasure that last night, when I was watching it again, someone asked me what I was watching (when I went from the lounge where I had my laptop to my room to fetch a small pillow) and I could not even bring myself to tell them because I was so embarrassed, but at the same time I'll be watching the final 20 minutes or so and be thinking like "this is the best movie ever".

Awesome vs guilty in this case has the same result as Sir Percy vs Chauvelin.

• After seeing this entry on Dame Harriet Walter Appreciation, I've decided to just rename my blog to Dame Harriet Walter Appreciation Appreciation. Straight up. DHWA is now my favorite website of all the websites.
• Upperclassman Krista cut my hair for me this afternoon YAY
• I've been to two classes and one of the professors is off his rocker. Like, just seriously intense and passionate and fast-paced and scary. Intellectual without being approachable. He's very interesting to watch, but I think the only way I'm not going to be intimidated past being able to perform is if I take a super belligerent attitude to his class.
• The way I talk and write is changing more every day I'm here. It's weird.
• Freshman Marissa and I had an intense squealing/shrieking moment this afternoon when we discovered that we both loved the miniseries of Little Dorrit.
• Everything is going to be ok.

updates and whateverings

     Dear Harriet Walter,

    More updatery!

•  My sister has gone home as of a couple days ago. I was an emotional wreck for a while but things are ok now.
• Today is pretty much the last day of freshman orientation at my college. Convocation was this morning and evening classes (which I have none of) start this evening, with day classes starting tomorrow. I wish I had all my textbooks already.
• All the upperclassmen came back to campus yesterday. I have been looking forward to this ever so much, as there were some I met when I visited the campus in March who I was really looking forward to seeing again. (They remember me and still like me and are apparently delighted that I ended up coming here.)
• Discovered yesterday that one of the upperclassmen, Libby, has apparently read Strong Poison and Gaudy Night, although she couldn't remember the name of the former and only read the latter for school. (Probably in high school.) Nevertheless, I was excited. Fellow freshman Dane, who Libby and I were eating dinner with when the subject came to books and so to mysteries and so to Sayers, remarked that that was the happiest he'd seen me since I arrived.
• The day before yesterday us freshmen were taken to the Getty Museum. It was super awesome. I never properly appreciated Degas before.
• Sister accidentally took the camera with her when she fled in the car. She says she'll mail it to me. I might be able to illustrate this blog more once I get it back. Things are looking kind of bare.
• I am very probably going to be freaking out and flailing in hysterical consternation more in the next few days starting tomorrow. The registrar and dean of student life have both spoken of something called "syllabus shock" in regretful tones when orienting us as regards classes starting, and I am really bad at handling the big picture. One tries to take one thing at a time, but it's not always possible. (don't you just love how optimistic and hopeful I am sometimes)

    Finally, I would just like to thank you, Harriet Walter, for being Harriet Vane in the eighties. I've been re-(rerere)watching the miniseries adaptations of Strong Poison and Have His Carcase in my free time for the sake of escapism and chilling-out, and they are just so relaxing and comforting. And you were so awesome.

also I want to own that dress.