Here it is. The entire month of October for the year 2001. Don't you just feel like a part of my life? Doesn't it make you all warm & fuzzy inside to know that I'm sharing a part of myself with you? I know it does. Read on, starting from the bottom.
October 26th, 2001: It snowed today. Just the tiniest bit but enough to put me in a great mood. I was rather upset with myself for actually feeling motivated enough to roll out of bed on a Friday morning, but then the snow came and let me know that I had done the right thing. I'm in love with OSU at this time of year. The trees are still turning, but there's enough of a chill to make me whip out the Orgasm Scarf and remember Christmas last year with my old roommates. I think that most of my happiness stems from the fact that I feel like I'm really taking control of certain parts of my life again. For instance, Chicago Mike e-mailed me for the first time in a month last week and asked for my new phone number so that he could call me. I was amazed, because Mike just doesn't talk on the phone. Ever. So I figured that something was up. He called on Sunday night when I got home from the meat market that is my church, and after asking how everything is going, he informed me that he's not coming home this weekend for his Fall Break, that he's not coming home for Spring Break, and that he plans to spend the entire Summer in Oregon. He was so unconcerned about seeing me. And I decided that for me to continue to pine for him is just ridiculous. I mean, Sweet Lord, I've loved him very obviously for seven years with only small bits of evidence of his love for me showing up from time to time, and I really just don't feel like I can do that to myself anymore. I mean, some things about Mike are just such sheer perfection that I'm amazed that he even wants to be friends with me. And then there are the times when I really think that he doesn't want to be friends with me. I don't think that I deserve to have to deal with those times. I still want to see him at Thanksgiving and all, but things have definitely changed for me. My sister, of course, was more than delighted to hear of my recent awakening and responded to the news with, "Well, it's about time."
And then there's the fact that I'm no longer a biology major. And I'm no longer pre-med. This was decided last week, and since then, I've experienced an array of emotions ranging from disappointment to anger to relief to joy. I'm disappointed in myself for not being willing to work hard enough to achieve what I've wanted to achieve for the past seven years. I'm angry at myself for allowing myself to believe the naysayers when they told me that I wouldn't be pre-med for long, tat I'm too art-y to center my life around science. But I'm relieved to not have to worry about studying aqueous solutions ever again, to know that I will never again experience chem lab and the horrible goggles associated with it. I'm relieved that I can take fun dissection classes that are reserved for non-bio majors and schedule myself into biology classes just because I like them. I'm joyful knowing that my new academic advisors enjoy poetry and drama and fiction more than test tubes and physical reactions and the gravitational pull. I'm joyful in talking students in my major about Tennyson and Sandburg and Orwell and knowing that they, too, despise analytical calculus. I love the fact that all of my professors are British! I love that they have bad teeth and wear tweed suits with bow ties and are always reading renaissance literature when I visit their offices! I love that they spell honours with that unnecessary u when they respond to my e-mails! I love that my homework now involves writing about topics that I care about! I love the humanities!
And Communications, my other new major, ain't bad, either.
October 22nd, 2001: If you don't know anything else about me, know that I have this totally unexplained anxiety about public restrooms. But sometimes, using them is just not something that can be avoided, especially when I have class from 11:30 until 5:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. The BIG K.N. and I always go to Javamaster on those days after our art education class, and we always use the restroom before we buy our shakes or smoothies or other faux coffee-flavoured whatnot. Today, we just bought our schlock, sat outside and mocked Adam, and talked about life without a thought about the urination. But then 3:15 rolled around, and I walked to the botany and zoology building for my sociolinguistics class. I've had class in there before and have always wondered about the location of the restrooms, so with a full bladder and a sense of adventure, I set out to find my throne today. At the end of a hallway, I found a sign that gave the room number for my restroom. T156. I trekked West and watched as the room numbers rose from 102 to 124 and then stopped dead at a set of double doors. I pushed through them and found myself in a silent gray hallway, T156 directly to my right. I held open the door, peeked inside, and was totally horrified by the red-brown tiled floor, the gray walls, and the single bulb hanging over the sink all of the way to the left. What bothered me most was the plumbing jutting from the wall, however. I laughed out of nervousness and allowed the door to slam in front of me as I considered whether or not I had time to walk back to the well-lit wonder of the Javamaster bathroom. I didn't, so I then began contemplating skipping class altogether so that I could run back to the safety of Lincoln Tower. I decided that that would be a poor choice, so I gathered all of my courage, plowed through the door, and found myself slowly pushing aside a stall door to see if I could imagine myself seating my snobby princess self on the toilet. I forced myself to place my coat over the door due to the missing hook and set my bag on the floor, knowing that they were both collecting various forms of AIDS as I sat expelling, so I instead started thinking about all of the small rabid creatures that could be lurking in the other stall. My main worry became that crazy wolf-like thing that attacks Atreyu in the movie The Neverending Story. That finished, I quickly headed to the sink, which I expected to spout murky water at me due to its not being used to thousands of years, but instead, I found it full of bubbles, a sure sign that someone else had actually had the guts to venture in before me. I grabbed some paper towels from the squeaky holder, ran out into the hallway, and quietly said hello to the limping man who caught my eye on the other side of the double doors. Ahh, sweet success.
October 9th, 2001: I turned 20 today. How many of you forgot? How many?! Okay, just one person. I feel great. And old.
October 8th, 2001: Today in Ethnic Arts, it was decided that I should be the new dictator of the United States. With my newfound power, I named The BIG K.N. as my co-dictator, re-segregated schools, and was shot in the head by my gun-toting African American teacher who was apparently tired of being held down by the harsh Caucasian world I had created. Ahh, the joys of being a beautiful, intelligent female.
October 3rd, 2001: I'm taking an ethnic arts class right now, which I find rather amusing in all of my inherited feelings of American supremacy, and my teacher is this self-serving graduate assistant who calls himself a professor and brags about his writing ability. (Lauren, a suitemate from last year who is taking the class with The BIG K.N. and me, refers to him as Pompous Ass and Captain Insano.) He's all about us finding ourselves through our roots, so we've been writing papers and having class discussions on heritage and culture, which has prompted from The BIG K.N. such statements as, "I am white. Hear me roar!" I called home yesterday to discuss Ett family history with my dad, and he informed me that the first U.S.-dwelling Etts came from Germany in 1840, meaning that we've been here for six generations. (Colour me proud white girl.) However, when I hung up with Dad, I realised that although I know a story about my mom's family being Pabsts until they came to the United States, when they changed their name to Pobst to avoid being associated with the Pabst Brewing Co., I don't know when or why or how they came. Further, I realised that the only remaining living, sane human being on Mom's side of the family whom I still have contact with is Bethany's mom. I'm saddened.