Hopefully not a Sophomoric Year

Today was officially the first day of classes for Bates College. My day has been quite the hectic one, and it isn't even done yet. I still have to shower (I know, struggle city over here at Hayes House. Having to shower? How will I ever get over the stress of such a task?) and study for my Chinese quiz tomorrow (20 new characters to learn in one busy day, hoorah!). But I suppose for you all I will sacrifice some time to tell the story about my life and pursuits of knowledge and happiness. Onwards? ONWARDS!

My little alcove of serenity. Or something. Before my mom left for
the airport, she stole a "book of Mormon" from the hotel and
hid it under my pillows so when I got ready for bed, I found it.
It was hilarious...but now I have a religious text. What--
What should I do with it? Any ideas, folks?

I'm sorry, I've seemed to have lost my train of thought again. Let's just skip to an interesting part of my week, shall we?
Monday was an exceptionally fun day, but I'll skip to the part worth writing about. My favorite part of the night was the BAG (Bates Author’s Guild) meeting. We threw around some excellent (let me repeat) excellent ideas about being “Poem Warriors”, trips to Portland, fun writing and reading activities, Brown BAG lunches (my clever pun, of course), BAGuette week (french literature week. Or what we call our potlucks. Once again, my pun.) editing workshops and revising things for each other, creating A FREAKING RADIO SHOW where we read off short stories, scripts and poems, and more. I contributed with a few other things, including a slogan “It’s in the BAG” for posters to get people to join. Needless to say, if we stick with these plans, it’s going to be a fantastic year for us authors (and English Majors! By the way, I’m and Environmental Studies and English double major who is learning Chinese). 
My parents are the most selfless and wonderful people in the world, so they decided to fly up to Maine with me to help me unpack and get all my ducks in a row (This, alas, is an idiom. We are not allowed to have pets in college. Also, I doubt my pet ducks would be obedient enough to allow themselves to be herded into a row. I would have intelligent, independent, free thinking ducks. Although one would be a bad egg and pretend to be smart or specialize in a specific study. What would he be called, guys? Anyone? Anyone? He'd be a quack). 

Where was I? 

Do you guys ever notice how liberally I use parentheticals (and does it bother you?)? 

Okay, right. So my parents helped me with all the setting-up work. I could not have done it on my own, so I am so pleased that they came to help me. Once again, I'm living on the third floor of a building (Hayes House this year. It's the music-themed house), so bringing up heavy boxes of my belongings is a tough task. My room has a giant roof window (see below) which lets in a lot of air and light. When I lay in bed at night, I can look up through the window to see the moon. It's beam actually falls down onto 
my pillow sometimes. But I don't mind it at all. I see it as optimal moon-bathing territory, and bask in the milky white light. In my fantastical-world-of-obvious-untruths, I assume that moon-bathing makes one pale instead of tan, but it can be rectified if you wear moon-screen or moon-block. Yes, yes, I know it's actually light from the sun hitting the moon. Let a girl dream up impossible stories, though.

After that, some of the BAG kids visited Ashleen’s room, and then Mike, Ben and I talked about studying abroad, the English Premiere League, and other interesting things. I snagged a butterbeer from Ben and hope to chill it so I can drink it at just the right moment. I'm sure it will be a magical experience (Eh? Eh?  "Pathetic. Pathetic! With the whole wide world of beer-related humor before you, you go for magical?")

And guess what? Tonight I ENJOYED myself at a party. No drinking required. I just finally stopped caring if people thought I looked like a fool/ thought I was drunk/ didn't think I was interesting. I just decided to stop being uncomfortable. Why? I suppose because I was already in a good mood to begin with, and I was surrounded by friends and new, interesting people to talk to. I hit it off with this girl Taylor Stone (not Taylor Blackburn, although they're both debaters who went to Menlo high school in San Francisco) by talking all about Doctor Who, made friends with some prospective debaters, played a drinking game (Amit drank for me) called “Get the f*** out” or “F*** your shit”, danced like a complete loon, played darts, caught up with some friends, learned some new things about a friend (including that he got arrested and put in jail for a crime he didn’t commit [stealing an ipad], got a Chinese tattoo that says “Shut the f*** up and dance”, and was secretly a bit of a youtube sensation/viral video participant). So, needless to say...

Tuesday was a glorious day as well, although it drizzled most of the day. I always call it "old man sneeze" weather, because the rain is more of a light mist that might have been produced if a large, old man sneezed on the world. After an excellent lunch filled with witty banter and puns with Jack, I went to Walmart with Jordan, Owen, Ben, and some other kid whose name currently escapes me. I tagged along with Jordan while he shopped, throwing duct tape, maxi pads (“They’re ‘carefree’ brand, Jordan! Don’t you want to be care-free?!”), post-its and giant bags of candy in his cart while he wasn’t looking. It was quite the fun little adventure. I didn’t actually buy anything because I try to vote with my dollar and stick to my moral beliefs whether or not it makes an impact, and I don’t approve of how they treat their workers at Walmart. Also, they don't sell walls, so I feel like from the bat they're lying to their customers.

After that, I came home and spent some time playing my ukulele and preparing for classes. At 6 I moseyed over to Commons where I ate with some debaters and some non-debaters (surprising turn of event there! Non-debater dinner?) and joked about people’s auras and spirit animals. Mike, Nick and I went to the library afterwards to print some things, write some emails, and get some technology fixed up. 

At this point, Jillian (fondly referred to as Jilly Bean) invites me over to John’s room to watch Star Wars. AND MY LORD, LUKE IS SUCH A PAIN.  He’s so whiny. "But I was going into Toschi Station to pick up some power converters". Shut UP, Luke. Just go with your uncle to get a droid so a series of events can lead you to have the hots for your sister and I can make fun of you more. 

Ahem. Anyways.

I've got all my classes sorted out. I'll be taking:

Environment, Human Rights & Indigenous Peoples

Chinese 201

Anthropology 101

Reading and Writing Poetry

and "Intermediate to Advanced Yoga" (I'm really *in over my head* with that class. Even saying I was "moderately adept" at yoga would be *a stretch*. TWO YOGA JOKES. Bam.) They say all levels are welcome, so I assume I'll be fine. It'll just be tough, but I like challenges. 

Now I'll talk about today. I woke up at 8:38 (because of reasons), applied for jobs online, and then went to classes from 11:00 to 2:30 (Lunch is for the weak!). After that, I did some boring task things and then realized I got an email from one of the jobs I applied to early that day. I'm meeting with them tomorrow for a "talk" as they stated in the email. Is that an interview? Or am I in? I wait in anticipation to find out!

After that was the first debate practice of the school year, dinner time, and then I helped decorate posters for the Bates Authors Guild ("Like Literature? WRITE ON." "Want resources to become a better writer? It's IN THE BAG!" "The cat's out of the BAG, BAG is awesome!" "BAG: we write things!<--- evidence" and more.) I then went back to my room with Pernilla to study Chinese. Then at 9 we went to the activities fair, and I signed up for the radio club, Crosstones sign-ups, Outfront, and the newspaper. I want to write some kind of human-rights/feminist column for the newspaper, but we'll see what happens. 

Today was jam packed full of activities. I have had no time to just rest and lay on my bed. But I've been the good type of busy, doing tasks, thinking about life, my future and how complicated this world is. "Busy, Busy, Busy", as a Bokanist might say (I read Vonnegut in my spare time). Alright, I still have stuff to do, so toodle-loo! 

Your friend (you have no say in the matter),

Nicole