College Days pt 1

Originally written November 2007

Dark, menacing clouds glared at me through my window as I awoke this morning. Normally, I'd appreciate and welcome the rainy weather, because it meant I could sit inside, sip hot cocoa and listen to the raindrops on my window. But today I had to go to the JC, and one of my classes is outside. Rain would not make things fun.

To top things off, I had my midterm oral presentation due today, and a math quiz I was sure I wasn't going to do very well on....
I figured I was probably going to have a pretty lousy day.
I was dropped off in front of the language department. I walked into my class dripping. I sat and watched a few presentations. I wasn't nervous, considering I had practiced it several times the night before. All I have to do is give an oral presentation in a foreign language, no sweat! I got up. I began speaking.
"Bonjour, étudiants! Aujourd'hui je vais parler d'Yolanda. Yolanda est un ami de mes parents. Elle est du Mexique. Elle est venue ici en 1962. Elle parle l'espagnol."
I tell ya, it was a fantastic presentation. So great it would have earned an A+ had I been taking French instead of Spanish...

...Oui...

After Spanish I ran to change into gym clothes and then headed all the way across campus to the track. This made me more wet and cold. Believe it or not, running around the track in the rain made me even more wet and cold!
I've never looked forward to P.E. class. Don't get me wrong, I believe exercise is good for you. And my P.E. teacher is the most encouraging I've ever had. (Maybe that's because I lost my cookies on the first day of class...)
But we run in circles. Then we stretch. Then we spend the next half hour setting muscles we never knew we had on fire.

My least favorite part is the running. I'm usually fine with running. It's wonderful along the beach or through a meadow or on a college campus after 3 days in debate shoes. But there's something so terribly boring about running around the same track again...and again...and again...for half an hour. Stopping every 10 minutes to check your pulse and make sure you still, in fact, have one.
One of my classmates passes me...
"Haw haw, I've lapped you 6 times already."

"Indeed you have. And looky here. We're both in the exact same place, going to the exact same destination, but the only difference here is that I've spared enough energy to make sure my brain still functions properly."
I guess it took him a while to understand I had just insulted him...because he didn't punch my lights out until he lapped me a 7th time.
After P.E. was my brief 30 minute lunch break. My usual eating locations are under a tree in between the administration building and my math building.

(Note: My math building is called "Shuhaw". I'm telling you this because I wanted to give you a chance to say it out loud. "Shuhaw...Shuhaw..." teeheehee. Great huh?)

Unfortunately, due to the rain, sitting under a tree was not a great idea. In fact, it was a terrible one. I didn't know of any nearby indoor facility I would be allowed to eat in, so I took shelter under an awning of a neighboring building with Jerry, the shirtless campus propagandist who talks to the stuffed tiger wallet attached to my backpack. (The tiger's name is "Tigre: el encargado de las tarjetas de Starbucks", but I didn't tell Jerry this.)
"Would you like to sign this petition?" Jerry asked.
"No, I'm still not interested in signing your petition."
Jerry looked at me.
"I wasn't talking to you."
I sighed and ate the rest of my sandwich, dropping crumbs on the math notes I was studying for the quiz. When I finished I slouched over to Shuhaw, Tigre: el encargado de las tarjetas de Starbucks was getting as wet as I was, but he had it worse considering he absorbs water much better than I do.

I reached the building. I slinked into the room. I slumped into my seat.
Before class began we received our quizzes from last week back. I don't let the letter grade dishearten me anymore. In fact, I've convinced myself that it stand for "delightful" or...or...
There really aren't many nice things that start with "D".
"Good afternoon class." my profesor began, garbed in bright blue, "Today's quiz is going to cover what I went over with the honors advanced trigonometry class. You should be able to apply your basic Algebra skills to it. After the quiz, we will go outside and each launch our own rocket to space. If yours crashes, you will fail the semester. Any questions?"
I raised my hand.
"Yes?"
"Can you shoot me? Please?"
Math was my last class of the day. Thank heavens. After getting another "Delightful" on a quiz and crashing a rocket in a magnificent explosion, I fled Shuhaw. The rain had cleared up, and I could feel the warmth of the sun against my face. Tigre: el encargado de las tarjetas de Starbucks bounced along on my backpack happily with every step I took.


I survived.

Of Myopia, Music, and Contact Lenses

I think I shall go back to Saturday. Saturday was my older brother’s birthday party. It was here that my glasses broke. Now, it wasn’t irresponsibility or carelessness that broke them, they were doomed to break eventually anyway, judging by that bent arm (though perhaps I shouldn’t have put them in my pocket and then attempted to lift heavy objects, but I digress…)
No, they were quite bent anyway, and rather unfixable I might add. At the debate tournament prior, a few of my fellow debate friends attempted to fix the crooked arm by bending it upwards. It was to no avail. There was a point where a long line of debaters zig zagged throughout the campus in an attempt to straighten the arm and thus be crowned Knight of the Prep Table.

But nobody succeeded, and the arm broke off a week later.

It made it rather hard to see things…without glasses and all that. That Monday was my first day of this semester at the JC. (college days to be posted soon!) I managed my first class orientation (fencing) fine without them…voice was a disaster. Rather than just orientation, our teacher actually made us pull out our books and sing along to a song. Not only did I not have my book (or a writing utensil…or anything really except my backpack and Tigre: el encargado de las tarjetas de Starbucks) but I had to share with the person next to me. Since I no longer had my glasses, I had to lean over her knee to see the page…and lean…and squint…and lean…

Let’s just say it was an appropriate time to pull out the awkward turtle.

Oh well, I’m dropping voice class anyway.

That very afternoon was my eye appointment. I went to see the optometrist. Optometrists are very friendly. They aren’t twisted like dentists can be sometimes. I really don’t know why that is. I always feel a little stupid when I go in to see the optometrist, however. They often ask you to read series of letters, and make you keep going until you read one incorrectly. Then they say “ok, that’s good” in a sort of sorry and sympathetic way and scribble something cynical on your prescription notes. Even though the point is how well you can see, not read, I have a theory that they silently laugh at your stupidity.

I refused this optometrist that pleasure.

“Can you read that line?”

“Yes, I can. I can read other lines too. I’ve read lines upon lines of Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Ray Bradbury and --”

“Could you please read that line?”

“I just did.”

“Out loud?”

“Do you not trust me?”

“Come on, what does it say?”

“Uh. It’s hard to tell. Your handwriting is fuzzy, blurry and awful. But if I were to guess--”

Then comes the slides.

“Ok, which is clearer, slide 4 or slide 5?”

“Neither are clear at all.”

“All right, but which one is clearer?”

“They’re both the same.”

“What?”

“They’re both equally unclear. What does F L C O stand for anyway? The Fuzzy Llama Company? Funny Looking Children Organization?”

“ But…do they look different?”

“Well yeah, slide 4 is blurrier than 5.”

Then comes counting.

“Ok, look at my face. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Seven”

“No. Look at my face when I hold up my hands.”

“Ok”

“How many?”

“Uh, this may take a while.”

“What?”

(pause)

“I’d wager about 75.”

“What?”

“You have 75 freckles.”

“No! Fingers! Your supposed to count the fingers!”

“You said to look at your face!”

“Your supposed to count my fingers while looking at my face.”

“I’m nearsighted for pete’s sake, how the heck am I supposed to do that?!”

Then he used some utensils to look inside my eye.

“Next time you have an appointment, you should get your eyes dilated so that it’s easier to see inside of them.”

“But you charged extra for it. If it’s so necessary, why do you charge extra for it?”

“Uuh”

“Isn’t that like charging extra for a scalpel during a brain surgery?”

After taking note of my prescription, he pulled a couple of small packets out of a drawer and opened them.

“Hold still…look up”

Before I knew it, I could see clearly. And I wasn’t even wearing glasses! I had been installed with little high tech rubbery lenses in each eye.

So after taking a little How to Take Care of Your Contacts 101, we went home and I showed my new contacts to the rest of my family. They couldn’t see anything though. No, you can’t really see them unless you look very very carefully.

But they can see you.

Dental *AND* Mental.

Yesterday I went to the dentists office

This would be the first time I’d see Dr. Danford ever since he saw my Open interpretation, “Dental or Mental”. I’d given him about 2 years to prepare some form of torture on me.

Dr. Danford loves to torture me. And since hearing my speech, he’s been looking forward to it immensely.

I sat in the waiting room, reading a current events magazine.

“Holly?”

I looked up. A pleasant young lady with glasses was standing there with a clipboard in her hand. She seemed nice. Not evil. No, not evil at all.

‘Yes?”

“Hi” she smiled

“Hi” Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. I followed her into the back and took a seat in the dental chair. She gently clipped a little paper ‘bib’, if you will, around my neck. See? Dentists aren’t so bad! She said something else to me. I can’t remember what it was, but that’s the point when I realized she had some kind of foreign accent. Now I think accents are awesome, but last time I dealt with someone with a similar accent, I got viciously shanghaied into blowing 25 dollars for a small jar of goo. I’m not sure I want the same kind of disaster especially when she has many sharp objects and I’m strapped helplessly into a chair.

And that’s when things went downhill. She grabbed a large plastic apron-type thing and dropped it on me. It was quite heavy. I wondered if this was what wearing a straight jacket would feel like. She then opened a cabinet and pulled out an electronic device with a camera lense on it. It looked frightening. She stuck a little card into my mouth.

“Bite down” she said.

She had all the weapons, I was sitting in the chair; therefore, I didn’t dare disobey. She walked away and pressed a button. I guess the card thing was film and the electronic thing was a high tech camera. She came back, pulled the card out and got another one. This time, she placed it even further back in my mouth. She was only centimeters away from activating my gag reflex. She did the same thing on the other side of my mouth. Not fun.

She then leaned my chair back and pulled down a bright blinding light from the ceiling. At that moment, Dr. Danford called from the cubicle next to us

“Make sure to use all the pointy sharp things on her!”
My orthodontist looked puzzled.
“Why?” she asked.
“Just because.”
“You’re da boss”

Dr. Danford loved to joke like that, but the young lady’s innocent and naïve response made me worried that she took him seriously.
“Well, it looks like you haven’t had cleaning for very long time” she said, pulling out a file. “Four years!”
“Well actually, we did have a cleaning recently, just not here.”
“Oh? Where was dat?”
“A dentists office….in… the mall”
‘Oh…da mall.” she didn't sound like she believed me at all.
She proceeded to pull out a double-edged hook thing and start picking away at my teeth.

This is when things really went downhill.

Each time she scraped a tooth, it sounded like she was chiseling granite off my teeth, and then the hook would go somewhere into my gum. I started getting a little nervous when I saw some blood on her gloved hands. She seemed to be scratching my gums more than my teeth. I was hoping either my winces or my blood curdling screams would give her a clue that I didn’t like getting scratched with the hook. At one point, her hand jerked suddenly and poked my gum. Ironically, this accident didn’t hurt me half as much as the actual procedure.

“Sorry, I hurt you?”

I didn’t really know how to answer this question. At that moment, no, she didn’t hurt me. But every other moment she did. Fortunately, she was still sticking things in my mouth, so a mere “ungha” satisfied her. One thing I love about going to the dentists, you can just answer “ungha” to all their questions. You can’t do that anywhere else.

“Like Dr. Danford say, I use sharp pokes” she laughed
UUNNNGGHHAAAA!! my mind screamed.

She then took this buzzing thing and began running it over my teeth with some strange Martian toothpaste. It tasted weird. Then she squirted water into my mouth and vacuumed it up with a little tube.
Then she pulled the hook out again and continued her architecture. I wondered what the Venus de Milo would look like in my mouth.

“When was this visit to…da mall?”
“Uh, about a year ago”
“Ya, you got lot of stuff in here”

A classic and literal example of adding insult to injury.

“You floss?”

Darn, I was hoping to avoid this question. To be honest, I’m not a huge believer in flossing. You run string through sewing machines, not people.

“Ungha.”

I looked at my teeth in the reflection of her glasses as she continued with her hook. Every tooth was covered in blood. I looked at my blood dripping off of the hook as she lifted it from my mouth.

This was probably the point at which I mercifully went into a coma.

“Dr. Danford examine you in few minutes, m’K?”

Great. Terrific. Fantastic.

I’m Gonna Die.

He actually wasn’t so bad. No death threats this time. He asked me if I was excited about Nationals, and we talked a little about debate (or he did, and I’d agree with an “uunngh”). He used the hook on me too, but he aimed for my teeth, not my gums.

He then took at look at my X-rays

“Oh my gosh!” he exclaimed.

I closed my eyes. Not good.

“Just kidding.”

Very funny, Dr. Danford.

So my teeth are looking ok now that they’ve been chipped, squirted, grinded and thoroughly tortured, but apparently my wisdom teeth are coming in and will need to be removed within a year. And yes, I know that "getting your wisdom teeth pulled is easy, it's the recovery that's excruciating!!" is what all my friends are going to tell me. So please, just let me bear it silently and don't remind me.

Ok?

~*Hol

The Car Ride

Franklin D. Roosevelt once stated; “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”

Clearly, FDR has never ridden in a car driven by my brother.

Yes, my brother has finally gotten his hands on a permit, allowing him behind the wheel of our family minivan…or as my mom and I call it now…Deathtrap on Wheels (with a 10 year warranty and 6-CD player.) I will never forget the first trip I took in Deathtrap. It was Valentines Day. I remember that, because the words “Valentine’s Day Massacre” kept running through my mind. We were going to visit my grandmother. Matt decided he wanted to drive. After filling out my will, and calling dear friends and family to tell them that I loved them, I boarded the car and buckled my seatbelt. We backed out of the driveway. Another car was coming. I closed my eyes. This is it…

I opened my eyes. We were a little further out of the driveway, and there was that car— apparently it had swerved just in time and was imbedded in a tree across the street. A split second later, it burst into flames.

Phew! That was close!

Our car backed out of the driveway and began its journey. Over the highway and through the road construction to grandmother’s house we went.

I’d have to say having the entire family in the car during the trip didn’t help much. Dad was in the front seat, guiding Matt through the driving process. Mom was being the backseat driver and backseat passenger (and also backseat backseater). I was praying I’d go quickly and painlessly.
“Turn left here”
Enter Mom:
“No! Slow down! You’re going too fast around these turns!”
Enter me:
“We’re all going to diiie!!!”

Matt does alright on straight passageways, but turns are still a doozy for him.
Dad: “Ok Matt, you’re doing good. Now turn on your blinker”
Mom: “Stop turning the wheel! You’re going too far into the curb!”
Me: “We’re all going to diiie!!!”

Then there were stoplights. Matt did pretty ok on these…
Dad: Ok, you can get a little closer to the car in front of us.
Mom: No! That’s too close! Don’t barrel down on people like that!”
Me: “We’re all going to diiie!!!”

After about 10 minutes, I stopped saying ‘We’re all going to diiie!’ especially since each time I said it I’d jump up and reach around the drivers seat to grab onto his face, and that seemed to irk him a bit. Instead I’d sit there and stare sadly at my youthful visage in the reflection of the window while recalling old memories, or quietly whimper for the life not yet lived. It honestly didn’t help that Matt would laugh maniacally whenever he hit the accelerator.

But what’s this? We’re pulling into Grandmothers driveway? We’re all alive! I leap out of the car and kiss the ground. Oh how sweet the asphalt tastes in my mouth! Actually, it tastes rather disgusting, but the good kind of disgusting.
Still shaking, we knock on Grandmother’s door. She opens it. She gives us all a welcome smile, and hugs and kisses. She then says:
“Ah! Just in time! I made my leftover loaf for dinner!”

“We’re all going to diiie!”