(This is the card I received from my Grandma, Mary, in the mail today)
Dear Anna,
Your mom said you were going on a "walk-a-thon" or something to raise money for whatever? Anyhow, I hope this helps a bit.
Love,
Grandma & Grandpa
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
My Top 13 Reasons Why I Love Being an Undergraduate College Student
13. I am still under my parent's insurance.
12. There is always a fall-back conversation starter when meeting new people (What year are you? What's your major? Where do you live?).
11. Getting to the point of being homesick for school.
10. College is a fairly legitimate excuse for doing all sorts of stupid crap.
9. Talking with alumni.
8. Somehow the entire world fits into my campus.
7. I feel decades younger than people two years older than me and decades older than people two years younger than me.
4. There is a strange fascination for being a kid again.
3. The sisterhood known as the Moonlight Dancers.
2. I never have to do this all again.
1. I never get to do this all again.
12. There is always a fall-back conversation starter when meeting new people (What year are you? What's your major? Where do you live?).
11. Getting to the point of being homesick for school.
10. College is a fairly legitimate excuse for doing all sorts of stupid crap.
9. Talking with alumni.
8. Somehow the entire world fits into my campus.
7. I feel decades younger than people two years older than me and decades older than people two years younger than me.
6. It is socially acceptable to wear sweats to class, dinner, meetings, and church.
5. The anticipation of turning 21.4. There is a strange fascination for being a kid again.
3. The sisterhood known as the Moonlight Dancers.
2. I never have to do this all again.
1. I never get to do this all again.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
A Tale of Two Bathrooms
I was walking home through the woods behind my house up a VERY steep hill while a bunch of friendly talking cardinals followed me. I suddenly realized how beautiful this scenery was so I decided to turn around and soak it all in. Bad idea. I went sliding down the hill until and old fence post stopped me. That didn’t hold me long. I slid down the hill some more and an old tree stopped me momentarily until finally I slid over a jump and landed feet first in five feet of snow. I looked down at my feet and was standing on the roof of an old building. There was a hole in the roof that I had just missed falling into. It was just big enough that I climbed down into the hole. I explored this old building and found it to be a public bathroom. It was very dirty, like a bathroom at a park. There were three rooms, a lady’s room, men’s room, and a waiting room in between.
It was at this point when I met up with three of my friends who happened to have similar circumstances bring them to where I was. We explored some more and found a bathroom just like the one we were in connected to it. This bathroom quite frightened us as there was a toilet that was flushing. We looked in and saw that it was a faulty toilet and nobody was in it. That was a relief. At this point I realized that I myself had to pee. It was too disgusting to use one of the actual stalls so I squatted on the floor next to a drain. My friends were in the other room waiting for me when I heard voices that didn’t belong to them. I quick pulled up my pants and ran out of the room. I got a glance of the people, without them seeing me, before I left. There were four of them also, one woman and three men, all dressed in suits and ties. I met up with my group and we were trying to find a way out. As we passed through another hallway I noticed four doors with one word written on each of them. The looked extremely old with steel bars covering them and each had a large key hole that made it distinct. As we went into the adjacent room we were spied by the group of adults who started after us. I grabbed one of my friends and ran into the hallway with the rooms.
My group didn’t know it, but when we walked by earlier I spotted under the dust on the floor the four skeleton keys that belonged to the doors. We found the key that matched the closest door and ran in. The room was full of strange treasures which made it look like an antique shop and it was very dusty. We started exploring the strange new space when all of the sudden the dressed up woman entered the room. She had a suspecting demeanor but seemed nice to us at first. For the next few minutes she began to explain to us what this strange place was that we had found. She and the three men that she was with were professors. They had been searching for this "lost world" for decades. She explained to us that the buildings were ancient and all of the original artifacts were still in place. My friend and I looked at each other and sort of chuckled. We were standing next to an old, but definitely NOT ancient, foosball table and there was a picture hanging on the wall that looked like it was from the 1950's. The women then took the picture off the wall to reveal an even older artifact. It turned out all of the original treasures were in fact in the room hidden under unassuming junk.
It was here the next turn of events started. The woman reached to reveal what was hidden underneath the foosball table and quickly her demeanor changed. I was standing in front of her and my friend behind her. She had us cornered and began ranting about how we would never be responsible for finding this place. She had an evil look on her face as she raised the bars over her head to kill me. My friend thought fast and swiped the flat part of the table from behind her. She wacked it over the women’s head just in time. The bars that she had in her hand got lodged in her skull and she fell to the floor. We watched as the magic of the room changed this woman from a middle aged good looking professor to an old woman, so old that she wasted away soon into nothing and was gone. We had killed one but we knew that three more were still after us.
While we were in the room one of the men had also snuck in but we managed to escape him. The room stared aging anyone who was in the room who, at this point, was me, my friend, and one of the professors. We ran out of the room and shut the door behind us. As soon as we stepped into the hallway our faces went back to normal but the man who was trapped now looked like some sort of white-haired demon. He was locked in by the steel bars but reached out through them and grabbed me around my neck. While this was happening my friend grabbed the keys from me and opened another room. When another one of the professors followed her in she shut the steel door on him to lock him in but the same fate that had just befell me happened to her. The man behind that door also began to age and he reached out and grabbed a hold of my friend.
As we were struggling to get away the other two from our group spotted us. They were standing on the ruins of a wall directly in front of me. When they looked behind them they could see the last man approaching the hallway of doors and warned us that one was still on the loose. They looked up and saw that there might be an escape above them. They pointed and yelled to us, "THE ROOF!" As they climbed their way to the spot where a board covered up a hold in the roof, my friend and I wriggled our way free from the men who were holding on to us. All four of us then climbed up and with all of our strength lifted the board. We caught a glimpse of the last man entering the hallway just as we had finally escaped. We lifted the plywood that was laid over a hole in the roof and covered with snow. As the four of us pulled ourselves up we looked across the field that we were in to see a number of beautiful, well kept buildings. I said out loud, "just as I suspected, Yale University." And then, I woke up.
No, the end of the story is not the old, "it was all a dream." I don’t actually know the end of the story was but I do know that it was the end of my dream last night.
It was at this point when I met up with three of my friends who happened to have similar circumstances bring them to where I was. We explored some more and found a bathroom just like the one we were in connected to it. This bathroom quite frightened us as there was a toilet that was flushing. We looked in and saw that it was a faulty toilet and nobody was in it. That was a relief. At this point I realized that I myself had to pee. It was too disgusting to use one of the actual stalls so I squatted on the floor next to a drain. My friends were in the other room waiting for me when I heard voices that didn’t belong to them. I quick pulled up my pants and ran out of the room. I got a glance of the people, without them seeing me, before I left. There were four of them also, one woman and three men, all dressed in suits and ties. I met up with my group and we were trying to find a way out. As we passed through another hallway I noticed four doors with one word written on each of them. The looked extremely old with steel bars covering them and each had a large key hole that made it distinct. As we went into the adjacent room we were spied by the group of adults who started after us. I grabbed one of my friends and ran into the hallway with the rooms.
My group didn’t know it, but when we walked by earlier I spotted under the dust on the floor the four skeleton keys that belonged to the doors. We found the key that matched the closest door and ran in. The room was full of strange treasures which made it look like an antique shop and it was very dusty. We started exploring the strange new space when all of the sudden the dressed up woman entered the room. She had a suspecting demeanor but seemed nice to us at first. For the next few minutes she began to explain to us what this strange place was that we had found. She and the three men that she was with were professors. They had been searching for this "lost world" for decades. She explained to us that the buildings were ancient and all of the original artifacts were still in place. My friend and I looked at each other and sort of chuckled. We were standing next to an old, but definitely NOT ancient, foosball table and there was a picture hanging on the wall that looked like it was from the 1950's. The women then took the picture off the wall to reveal an even older artifact. It turned out all of the original treasures were in fact in the room hidden under unassuming junk.
It was here the next turn of events started. The woman reached to reveal what was hidden underneath the foosball table and quickly her demeanor changed. I was standing in front of her and my friend behind her. She had us cornered and began ranting about how we would never be responsible for finding this place. She had an evil look on her face as she raised the bars over her head to kill me. My friend thought fast and swiped the flat part of the table from behind her. She wacked it over the women’s head just in time. The bars that she had in her hand got lodged in her skull and she fell to the floor. We watched as the magic of the room changed this woman from a middle aged good looking professor to an old woman, so old that she wasted away soon into nothing and was gone. We had killed one but we knew that three more were still after us.
While we were in the room one of the men had also snuck in but we managed to escape him. The room stared aging anyone who was in the room who, at this point, was me, my friend, and one of the professors. We ran out of the room and shut the door behind us. As soon as we stepped into the hallway our faces went back to normal but the man who was trapped now looked like some sort of white-haired demon. He was locked in by the steel bars but reached out through them and grabbed me around my neck. While this was happening my friend grabbed the keys from me and opened another room. When another one of the professors followed her in she shut the steel door on him to lock him in but the same fate that had just befell me happened to her. The man behind that door also began to age and he reached out and grabbed a hold of my friend.
As we were struggling to get away the other two from our group spotted us. They were standing on the ruins of a wall directly in front of me. When they looked behind them they could see the last man approaching the hallway of doors and warned us that one was still on the loose. They looked up and saw that there might be an escape above them. They pointed and yelled to us, "THE ROOF!" As they climbed their way to the spot where a board covered up a hold in the roof, my friend and I wriggled our way free from the men who were holding on to us. All four of us then climbed up and with all of our strength lifted the board. We caught a glimpse of the last man entering the hallway just as we had finally escaped. We lifted the plywood that was laid over a hole in the roof and covered with snow. As the four of us pulled ourselves up we looked across the field that we were in to see a number of beautiful, well kept buildings. I said out loud, "just as I suspected, Yale University." And then, I woke up.
No, the end of the story is not the old, "it was all a dream." I don’t actually know the end of the story was but I do know that it was the end of my dream last night.
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