hike hike

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Exhaustion!

    Hike was had last week. Best Friend arrived Thursday night and stayed 'til this afternoon (Sunday). Contra-dance studio was last night (Saturday). Gruesome papers and midterm exam last week are in the past. Up past my bedtime but I feel like bloggin'. Here are a couple pictures from the Hollywood Sign hike! There might be a couple pictures from the dance studio and/or of Best Friend and me appearing on the internet soon but not yet because I didn't take them.

PME was so excited to get going that he started the hike by running, so Upperclassman Galen started running after him so I started running after Galen and him

and we all like lines and views.

and I like big views.

and we are all tourists.

and yes I deeply regretted not wearing sunglasses or a hat with a visor.

L to R: PME deliberately ignoring camerawoman Shelli's request to smile at the camera, Galen being normal and handsome as always, me standing like an awkward person and laughing at PME

and almost all these pictures were taken by Upperclassman Shelli

and you will just have to figure out which one was not

and JP, Amoeba was allllllllmost as awesome as you said it was

    Bedtime now. There is apparently another hike (on a different mountain) coming up on the 29th but I have not yet decided whether or not I am going.


     Oh and also I did get to meet Mrs PME and though I didn't get to talk to her much she seemed like an extremely nice, matronly sort of woman and we are now facebook/skype friends. It was even weirder than I expected to see PME dressed in normal-person clothes and talking about relatively normal things, though. And he and I talked a little bit about the Northwest and then about hiking...I think he'd asked me if I hiked much and I was like "oh, no, I haven't done much hiking before. I mean, not in California. And not much back home, just at this daycamp thing for a few years. Mostly just the kind of hiking where you're in a forest climbing up a nearly vertical hill and you're twelve and your ankle is sprained and you're crying and way too ready for lunch. I'm really good at that kind of hiking!"
    "....That's terrible."
    "In the rain. Can't forget the rain."
    "Well, seeing as you were in Oregon, yeah."
    "Yeah. So hiking in California is pretty different so far."
    And it was.

because I can't afford to send her anything

    (This is not a letter to Harriet Walter, but a poem for my mumsy because it's her birthday today. Don't all college-kid blogs need extremely bad poetry once in a while?)

I am gone

and you are gone

and gone are the days.

I've ripped open many small boxes

at the ends of their long journeys

(how cruel!)

in order to feast on their guts,

only to discover chocolate evidences of the fact that

you are still out there somewhere,

buying me sweets,

same as ever.

Will I not come back to you once more?

Will I not journey to the frozen north

to find my wandering home?

I will seek you out 

and burst through your door

skin burnt, eyes wild, mind victorious

and promptly fall asleep 

wherever there is room to lay down my bones.

A few short weeks later,

after the carols and the many lights,

we will both be gone away again.

This is the plan.
(But.)

I will carry you always 

in my blood

and in my cell phone.

You, madam, are adored.

The ocean sends its best regards

and the sun its warmest wishes.

I am sending kisses by way of the winds

(though they are notoriously bad postmen.)

Oh, getting too precious.

Throw salt in the air

and have your nasty, inebriated barbarians

bake you a nice cake.

PARTY HARD, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM

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.

he would.

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I had the theme from Lawrence of Arabia stuck in my head last night and all of today. What did I do about it?

    The scene: one of my classrooms, early this afternoon. It is time for my philosophy/theology class with Dr Mac. Professor Mine Enemy is clearing out his things after teaching the Tuesday/Thursday section of his BTS111 class (I'm in Wednesday/Friday). Dr Mac has not yet arrived. The BTS students are gathering their things to leave and chattering, the philosophy students are finding seats and chattering. Loudly. Jim is eating a late lunch from a to-go box. I go and sit near the front, and raise my hand and wave it about at Professor Mine Enemy.

    "Hey, I have a question," I call out.

    "What? You weren't in my class today, you don't get to ask me questions," he says, grinning.

    "Fine, I won't. No, seriously, one quick question."

    "Okay, but I do need to get out of here."

    "Have you ever ridden a camel?"

    "Yes. It's awkward and uncomfortable."

    "That's...that really makes me happy."

    "Why? Why do you ask?"

    "I don't know, it's just cool. And sometimes when I look at you, the theme from Lawrence of Arabia starts playing in my head."

    "...You're kidding me.That's weird!"

    "I know!"

    It's probably just because he's always teaching us about the Middle East.

What riding a camel looks like.

    (Note that the above transcription is incomplete.)

    I'm not sure why it's so much more fun to draw stick-camels than it is to write history papers, but it is.

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.