Oh. This is a new format...

When I was in middle school, I would often read my own textbooks for fun. Now that I am in college, I read other peoples' textbooks for fun.

Anyway, yesterday was a fricking fabulous day, although it started off on a crappy note. You see, the day before yesterday, I finally had the time and the energy to make the trek to go swimming in the SAC (Student Activity Center to you non-Chips). The water was cold and it felt great and I did about 20 laps, and then I woke up the next morning at 3 AM with an arm that felt like it was going to fall off. I wobbled around the darkened dorm for a while, trying to find a position that would soothe my arm, and then realized that I had Tylenol.
I re-awoke to find that I had exactly an hour before class. This was just enough time to shower quickly, get dressed, and scarf down a bowl of Count Chocula (chocolate cereal with marshmallows is the BEST THING EVER) at the dining hall. I rarely have this good timing; I usually wake up two hours early and have nothing to do but lay around for a while, or I wake up five minutes before class and just make it into the lecture hall with my shirt on backwards.
English class came, and it was workshop time. I had brought three of my poems, including the squirrel one. As veterans of poetry workshops know, the author is not allowed to talk during discussion of her work. Luckily, everyone thought my work was great, and so I sat there, nodding and grinning like a fool while everyone talked about how awesome my poems were. I am entirely serious; almost nobody had anything critical to say. That's going to be saved for the Poetry Circle next Wednesday.
Journalism class came next, and a young man named Brian White sat next to me. Brian is a photojournalist and he has a very interesting tattoo: a yin-yang circled by an Ourobouros dragon (eating its own tail). He said that he was obsessed with balance and eternity. I told him that I was too. He's a nice kid.
After class, I discovered that the dining hall had a new pleasure in store for me. It was theme night, and the theme was the Roaring 20s. They had real food, which impressed me: artichoke dip and shrimp cocktail. Plus, there were little goldfish in bowls on the tables. Sadly, the goldfish at my table was alrady spoken for, otherwise I would have brought him home and named him Phil.
Then there was a poetry reading starring Mark Yakich and one of his writer friends. She read one of her short stories, which was about a woman named Kel who had Some Bad Things happen to her, and then Mr. Yakich read some of his poems, which were fairly mystifying.
During the reading, I noticed that there were a great deal of sorority girls gathered out in the hall. (I could tell they were sorority girls by the big bags they had with the Greek letters stitched on them, lest anyone accuse me of stereotyping.) They would disappear for a few seconds, then trickle back in. I'm not sure why. It was interesting; the beige and maroon room was quiet except for Mark's calm voice reading his poetry, and on the other side of the glass doors were giggling girls in pink. There's probably a poem in there somewhere but I can't be arsed to write it right now.
And I've finally got a ride home for the weekend, but I haven't got one back. So I'm going to have to ask Dad about that.

Sidewalk chalk on the campus

While walking through the commons today, I noticed some fairly cool chalkings.

"Preacher Rick SEZ:
Go to the GSA!
Meetings 8 PM
at (wherever the meetings are"

Preacher Rick is this guy who habitually stands out on the commons with a plywood stand that says "John 3:16" and yells at people about Jesus and how Jesus doesn't like gay people or abortions. Apparently, he's a real preacher with a congregation somewhere. He's kind of a fixture here. You can catch his act on Tuesdays at around 12.

Another chalking:
"If you can read this you're about to walk into someone."

And a long screed about how to define a gentleman, taken from an essay by a Victorian writer. It was an advertisement for a fraternity, and it took up half the sidewalk. I can only imagine how long it took twenty pledges to scribble it down.