Our deluxe apartment in the sky

Since signing a lease with my roommate for an apartment next year, it's been increasingly difficult for the both of us to feel content in our box of a room on campus. Every time we sit cross-legged on the floor to eat lunch picnic-style or wash out our coffee mugs in the bathroom sink, all Katy and I can do is just remind each other about the glowing paradise of a two-bedroom place on Main Street just waiting to envelop us. The latest reminder of why being on campus can be lame arrived just before 1 AM this morning when the fire alarm went off. I had fallen asleep about an hour earlier after taking a shower so my hair was still wet and I was totally disoriented and quite angry . . . we waited outside and froze for fifteen minutes while University Police tried to reset the fire alarm that was triggered after some idiot (upon whose head I now have a bounty) used a fire extinguisher for kicks.

Did I mention that there was snow on the ground when I woke up yesterday morning?

Anyways, this isn't meant to be a total bash of on-campus living because there are some good things . . . namely, the magical robots in the basement otherwise known as washers and dryers. They are brand spankin' new and connect to this website, which you can check to see if machines are open or, if in use, how much longer each cycle will take. I used it this morning after class when I did two weeks' worth of laundry; domesticity has never been more fabulous.

So yeah, I get it, there are pros and cons to everything . . . but my daydreams of late always seem to end with a whistling tea kettle and a kitchen table. Patience, patience.

Hilarious yet hopefully not prophetic:

Darcy stood me up

So earlier tonight (well, technically yesterday) I attended an English country dance as part of the Jane Austen class I'm auditing this semester. My professor brought a professional caller in from Rochester along with a violinist and bassist to play little ditties for us to dance to in the college ballroom. With the exception of a few complicated steps resulting in minor collisions and major giggling fits, it really was just like the movies (minus Colin Firth, unfortunately). Some of the dances we learned were pretty sexy; a few steps required holding your gaze with your partner for quite a while and most involved flirtations with men or women other than the person you were paired with. It was far more intriguing than anything we young whippersnappers are shakin' to these days, I'll tell you that. Ninety percent of the class wore everyday clothes, but two of my friends borrowed dresses from Elizabeth Bennett's closet and looked completely fabulous. I didn't have time to get anything together beforehand so instead I took the route of an English country gent for the evening and went to the dance with a lovely lady on each arm. I don't recall Mr. Darcy ever arriving with two dates . . . hah!

Typical Saturday

Today we had a rehearsal for the Haunted Mansion; after walking around an old, unheated three-story house and giant barn for three hours, I came back to my room, put on a pair of extremely fuzzy socks, and curled up . . .

. . . I just woke up. Finding that the sky is dark when you open your eyes is always confusing, but my toes are so toasty right now I really couldn't care less what time it is. Whenever I find myself feeling guilty for not having been productive, I just remind myself: that's what Sundays are for.

I'm listening . . . er, reading

I'm becoming a terrible updater, but the good thing is that it is not due to lack of stories. To be honest, I was a little bit taken aback last time I logged in because an anonymous person had commented on a post I'd written after the anti-homosexual protest in a somewhat accusatory way. I didn't quite know what to say because a) my beliefs were challenged, which honestly hasn't ever happened to me before, and b) it was done in a pretty senseless manner. So when I saw it late Thursday night while curled up in my bed at home (I flew there for the long weekend), I just didn't know quite how to react. The conclusion I've come to, though, is that I'm glad my opinions can elicit some sort of reaction from a person I don't even know . . . because isn't that the whole point of putting my ideas out there in the first place?

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while it's uncomfortable to be told that I'm wrong or that my beliefs or ideas are not shared by everyone else, I like the challenge because it makes me think about the whys hiding behind everything. My hit counter just surpassed a thousand views so I know that someone is reading this--hey, you! Tell me if you disagree with me! Argue (nicely)! Let's question stuff together.

In unrelated news, I am finding it extremely difficult to not pick up every beautiful fiery-colored leaf I see on the ground, as they are in boundless supply. It is a test of my self-control.

The frost has arrived

This morning on my walk to class I noticed that winter had exhaled her frosty breath across the lawn sometime during the night. It's the first full week of October, for goodness' sake . . . the leaves have only just begun to change. This does not bode well for the future.

Please send gloves and/or an unseasonable heat wave to me, c/o SUNY Geneseo. Thanks.

Sirrah, a word with you

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.

STORY OF MY LIFE. I just handed in my Shakespeare midterm after madly running through Henry IV, Part I and skimming Romeo and Juliet this morning. We all know I love my Will, but Zounds, I am wanting a reprieve from mine Bard lest my humble speech begin to mirror his. I have two more midterms this week, both of which will require further expeditions into that twenty-six charactered jungle.

To move from reading words to writing them, last week presented two opportunities to write that were exciting in that they brought to light the fact that "hey, writing is a somewhat marketable skill!" It is a heartening realization.

Firstly, I am part of a scriptwriting team for a haunted house in Geneseo called the Ford Mansion; we are responsible for writing lines for the tour guides, storytellers and characters along the tour of this four-story mansion. The first writers' meeting was on Saturday, and it began with a tour of the house and the barn on the property . . . it's been said that the ghosts of two horses are still present, and that sometimes the hallways will inexplicably smell of male cologne. It was completely creepy and completely awesome. I went there with the intention of just helping to write, but left committing two full weekends to acting in it as well. I am so excited.

The second opportunity is one that I don't have a whole lot of information about, but a representative from the Department of Asian Studies came into our fiction class to recruit writers for a play to be performed sometime next year about Asian-American immigrants. She has a collection of interviews on DVD that need to be dramatized for the stage, and it sounds like a great project. Plus, how fantastic would it be to see something you wrote performed on a stage? Your name in a playbill? So cool.

Anyways, all I can say is that I'm glad I live for this stuff . . . life this week would otherwise seem quite dismal. Either way, though, I am seriously looking forward to a celebratory few hours of Guitar Hero once my midterms are finished. If you can hear Guns N' Roses from wherever you're reading this from come Thursday . . . it's me.

Our campus is hellbound, apparently

As I was walking to fiction yesterday, I passed the green and saw a big commotion that included several huge signs and rainbow flags. I wanted to stop to see what was going on but I was already late for class so I kept going towards Welles; on my way in, I ran into my classmates and professor, all of whom were going to see what the deal was.

It was an anti-homosexual rally consisting of this man in a leather jacket and mirrored sunglasses and his twentysomething daughter. They held up huge signs emblazoned with misconstrued Biblical passages while the man shouted about how gays and their supporters were all condemned to Hell. About twenty students with Pride Alliance flags were lined up in front of him, singing All You Need is Love while he kept shouting bullshit about how John Lennon was evil. I was seriously proud of us all as a collective because while some choice words were deservedly thrown at him, nobody got belligerent. We just started singing things like "Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so," while same-sex couples stood in front of the guy on his platform kissing and we cheered them on. During this, some kid started waving around a big sign that read I LOVE SCIENCE, so we hooted and hollered about that, too. After about forty minutes of rallying, this kid waving a pole with colored ribbons on it yelled, "Let's all leave! Don't give him anyone to preach to!" That seemed like a fairly good time to regroup for class, so we headed back to Welles and power-workshopped for the 50 minutes left of our class time.

According to that guy, I am hellbound on two counts: for supporting gay rights and for being a Catholic, because apparently the religion does not exist. Oh, darn. A girl interviewed me for our paper, and when she asked me what I thought I told her that he was making a mockery of faith in general. Because he was. Not to mention the fact that he was telling some of my friends and classmates that they are fundamentally flawed. Which is bullshit. Whoever he is, that man is a repulsive waste of a human being and I couldn't be prouder of my campus for responding to his mindless slander in such a positive way. The man and his daughter left around six, finally giving up after six hours of shouting nonsense to the wind. I couldn't help but think about the conversation they would have on the ride home--were they proud of their day's work?

All I can say is that we should all invest in SuperSoakers before he tries stepping foot on our campus again.

Post script: I realize that this was not the best-written entry. Sentence structure hath given way to strong sentiment . . . sorry.