The beauties of the working life! I’m up at 6:15 this morning (blogging in the closet so that I don’t wake my roommates) for a Barnes and Noble store meeting at 7 am. Wonderful. I haven’t woken up his early in months. I’m tired, by the way. And this meeting is supposed to last for two hours! And it’s not like I can even go back to sleep when I come home (and I don’t know who’s bringing me home) because I have to go to work at the library. And when I get off work at the library, I have to go back to Barnes and Noble for work (on my very unsafe bike). In case you’re wondering, the sunrise isn’t so pretty this early in the morning–maybe it will be later?

I finally got a picture of me from Halloween!

That’s it: short blog!

Oh yeah, and there’s a basketball game tonight-I’m totally going. I might take pictures and blog about it later.

Someone I know told me today how her nine year old son recently realized Santa Claus wasn’t real. He wanted to see the movie Fred Claus and because he wanted to see it, he wanted to learn about it. So he read a newspaper article. The article was an interview with Vince Vaughn saying how he had learned that Santa didn’t exist. That went over well……

I learned Santa wasn’t real in an odd way, too. I was 8 years old and I was playing with a teddy bear that I distinctly remembered getting from Santa Claus at Christmas. I looked at the tag for some reason and it said “Made in China.” Now, I was a smart kid, so I knew that Santa made his toys in the North Pole, not in China. So I went to ask my mom why it said “Made in China.” The look on her face told me everything I needed to know. She tried to give me a reasonable explanation, but it wasn’t working; I knew and she knew I knew. I cried so hard! It was even more distressing because logical thought naturally led me to the realization that the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy didn’t exist either. Talk about disillusionment. So Mom had to change tactics; instead of telling me he existed, she told me the Spirit of Santa existed. I’ll never forget this because I think it eased my acceptance of Santa’s non-existence (is that a word?). She told me that as long as the spirit of giving existed, so would the spirit of Santa. I liked that idea, and it’s what I’ve believed ever since.

If anyone has any interesting stories about their own disillusionment, I would love to hear it.

I was walking blithely to my last class of the day, immersed in thoughts of homework, unsuspecting of the disgust looming in my near future. From nowhere, I feel something hit my finger. Thinking it was nothing more disastrous than an acorn or a leaf, I look down. My thumb is covered in a brown, wet substance. It hit me what it was and I froze mid-step: Bird poop. I was halfway between my building and EM Lynn, so I faced a dilemma: go back to my building or forge ahead? I decided to go ahead to EM Lynn and was trying to think if I knew where anyone lives in that building so that I could wash my hands. When I entered the building, I pulled a flyer off of a wall and used it to wipe my hand off, and I eventually was able to wash my hands in a friend’s room. What a lovely way to begin the end of my day…….

I learned a new word today: ghazal. I’m reading The Clerk’s Tale, a volume of poetry by Spencer Reese, who’s coming to campus I believe on December 4, and one of the poems is called “Ghazals for Spring.” I considered just reading it without knowledge of the word, but I eventually felt like I was missing something, so I looked it up. It sounded so foreign and I even wondered whether or not it was a real word. It is. It’s a kind of Oriental lyric, and usually erotic, poem written in recurring rhymes. That definition doesn’t seem to fit the poem, though. It doesn’t have recurring rhymes and it definitely isn’t erotic (either that or my mind is so innocent that I’m just not seeing it). So I don’t know. There are other definitions of it that say it’s a kind of song; I prefer that. It works better.

Oh, and I feel like such a bad vice-president of the poetry club. I didn’t say anything about the poetry coffeehouse in my blog, either before or after it. It was on Thursday night and I think it was a pretty big success. A lot of people showed up and there were a lot of people who read, including some performers from an album called JuSill Street Poetry. A lot of the poetry was really inspirational. One professor read a series of poems about lint; they were hilarious. She wrote about the frustrations of having lint all in your laundry and on mats despite the lint catcher in the dryer. I can completely identify with it; I hate lint. We have a yellow mat in front of our sink that always has some wierd blue lint stuck in it after we wash it. I literally sit there and pick it out; it drives me nuts. But anyway, poetry coffeehouse: for the first time, I actually stayed and put the chairs away and cleaned up. Christina had to leave early. It’s good though because I’m going to have to get into the habit of doing it anyway. Our next coffeehouse is December 6th, and I hope it’s successful, as well, despite  the fact that it’s in the middle of exam time.

 I finally got a chance to relax today. I decided to spend it at the pool. Naturally, the water was too cold to swim in and it was too cloudy for me to get much of a tan. I think I had 20 minutes of sun in the entire hour and a half I was there. On the bright side, I only work three days this week, so maybe I can go again. I haven’t been swimming in a long time. It kinda makes me sad.

Also, if anyone reading this could help me: My brakes on my bike have not been working lately. I’ve been using my sneakers to help me stop. Needless to say, it’s not really safe for me to ride my bike to work, but I don’t have much of a choice if I want to get there. So if you know how to fix brakes or know someone who can fix brakes or think you might be able to figure out how to fix them (I tried, it didn’t work), please let me know! I would be so grateful. And it would save me a trip to walmart on my day off.

So many things can happen when you live with people in college. I’ve been very lucky to have two of the best roommates…or rather, two roommates who I can live with comfortably (they might not be the best roommates in the world….but they’re the best for me). But wow, do crazy things happen in our room! Naturally, life with them is not always perfect. However, for the most part, we do get along really well. So many funny things happen that I should never forget, but I know I will. Lately, there has been a flood of hilarity, so I’m going to share some of it. Maybe it will brighten your day:

A few nights ago, we had a food fight with jelly filled marshmallows. We don’t know where all of them disappeared to. This morning (unfortunately I was in class), apparently Aly woke up to Kaileigh glaring at her from across the room. Kaileigh had slept on and smushed one of those marshmallows all over her pajamas and on her bed! She has a noticeable red stain on her sheets. Tonight when she was getting into bed, she said she was going to cuddle up with her marshmallows.

This morning, however, Kaileigh also woke up to something odd. Our room is set up so that between her bed and mine, there is my desk. This morning, I was sitting at my desk on my computer, and Kaileigh turns over and opens her eyes. The first things she sees is me…right in her face. She told us later that it was a weird image to wake up to.

But for some reason, I’m all in Kaileigh’s face today! The head of my bed is close to her desk, and later this afternoon, I was laying down with my feet at the head of my bed. All of a sudden I hear, “Jana, get your foot out of my face!”

Some minor comedic moments:

Aly and I frequently look up to watch Kaileigh dancing to the music in her head. We also often hear her singing in the bathroom – not the shower – the bathroom.

We heave unflattering names at each other all day -  those are private, though, and not to be shared!

I fell off my bed while I was trying to adjust my covers

Aly ran into the hallway in a towel to tell me something. She looked one way and called my name. I said, “Yeah?” from the other side and she turned around, jumped a foot in the air, screamed, and ran back into the room.

 I don’t know; it’s hard to convey just how funny all of these seemingly insignificant things are. We laugh until tears run down our faces, and after we stop, we find something new to laugh at. I am so grateful to have roommates that I can laugh with and be myself around. It makes my life much happier than it would be without the comedic element to it.

I am a very forgetful person. If I’m going to remember something, it’s necessary for me to write it down. That’s why I have the Lynn University planner. I have everything in it: my homework, when assignments are due, when I have to work, when I have events I need to go to, and various other little things that I need to remember. So when I got to my room today and went to pull it out to find which of my many homework assignments I should start on and couldn’t find it, I almost had a break down. I cannot live without that thing; it’s kind of pathetic: some people can’t live without their phones, their dogs, their other half; I can’t live without my planner. I was really really super duper uber worried. Then I realized that I must have left it in one of my classrooms, probably Poetry or Gender/Multiculturalism. I was going to check after dinner, but something more important came up. So, now I can only pray that it is there when I check tomorrow because if I’ve really really lost it, I’m in deep water.

Highlights of my week:

I went out to lunch with Brittany, Maria, and Holly.

I went on a man-hunt.

My Don Quixote reading assignment was reduced from reading the whole book to the first part by Monday.

I got to dress as a kid for Halloween.

I got in trouble for talking to Brittany about a poem in Studies in Poetry.

My Medieval Rennaissance class was canceled on Friday.

I met Aly’s Dmitri.

My cell phone changed for Daylight Savings Time all by itself.

I got to eat breakfast with Aly two days in a row.

The back brake on my bike broke (try saying that five times fast).

I got to carry a ten pound, $135 book about Ralph Lauren downstairs at Barnes and Noble.

I read a book called To Hell With Love. It was good. I wanted to buy it.  But I didn’t because I’m a responsible adult who only buys necessary things (my mantra). Therefore, I was forced to stay late at work and finish it…in a very comfy sofa.

And finally, I pummeled Aly with marshmallows.

Many, many people come into the library with a variety of questions which, some of the time, have nothing to do with the library. This morning, a family visiting for the weekend came in to ask when the student bookstore is open. Apparently, there is no sign on the door. I told them I could find out for them.

The Lynn website made me into a liar. I knew I had found the hours on the website before, but it took some diligent searching. It is so hidden that searching “bookstore” will not help you find it. Even now, two minutes after I found it, I can’t remember how I did it (unfortunately, I didn’t find it in time for the family; they left because it was taking me so long). It vanishes into obscurity very quickly!

Okay, I found it again: You have to go to “offices and services,” then there will be a link to the bookstore. I was terribly confused when I saw that there were no hours for the store on the bookstore page. However, I found on the left hand side, there is yet another link to bookstore hours.

I find it funny that the page hasn’t been updated in so long that it reads: The Bookstore will be closed for the 2004 Holiday Season.