BEDA Day 17: Please silence all cellphones, pagers, or other noisy devices

Hello my dearest blog readers!

Today was my first full day on campus as a FRESHMAN. It was quite exciting. My roommate moved in, and I met her family, who is LOVELY. I think we are going to get on quite nicely.

I decided to get out of the way for a bit, so I grabbed my schedule of classes and went off on campus. I had a BARREL OF FUN trying to find the buildings that my classes were in without using a map. I located three of them on the first round, which felt successful, though I was starting to get hot and sweaty, and if you have been with me enough, dear blog readers, you will know that I get a wee bit cranky when I get hot and sweaty.

I had just found the building that my Calculus class will be in, and to my delight I discovered that the library is directly across from it. So, being the lured fish that I am, I allowed myself to be ensnared by the mystique of the books.* So I wandered inside and explored the many rooms and crevices. There are so VERY many places to study quietly, I nearly died on the spot. I mean, look at this room. LOOK AT IT.

And in addition to large silent study rooms such as the one depicted above, there are tiny little secret places to almost literally HIDE yourself. As I wandered around I kept thinking to myself, "Man, this would be a great place to hide from someone. Like your roommate, if she were bugging you. Or an assassin." Why I think these thoughts, I do not know.

And for now, my dear readers, I will leave it at that! What an excellent note to end it on.

With sore feet,
Maggie


*That was truly horrible imagery, and I apologize. Although I shan't delete it. You cannot make me, no you cannot.

BEDA Day 16: Let's go for a walk

Hello my dearest blog readers! Today I come to you from my shiny new DORM ROOM! It is much bigger than I had thought, which is excellent. More room to make dastardly plans, hmmm, yesss...

After my family got me all moved in and left, I was walking on campus. I felt like a big important college type person, and I fancied that nobody around me would know if I were a freshman or not. But then I remembered that freshmen were the only ones moved in so far, so EVERYONE was a freshman. 

As I walked along, that awkward thing happened. You know, the one where you realise that you are taking the same route as someone else, and then it looks like one of you is just following the other. Well, I happened to be behind this girl, so it looked like I was the one who was creepily following her around campus. 

I was not terribly concerned, however; I pride myself on my unassuming demeanor and non-threatening strut.* However, this girl turned several times to look nervously behind her, glancing my way. A bit confused, I slowed my step so that she could get farther ahead of me.

And then! My dear blog readers, do you know what she did? She pulled out her cell phone and pretended to call someone! As if I were threatening! I will admit, at the time I was affronted. I wanted to say to her, "Dear girl, I am a freshman here, as are you. We are both new, and it is not so very strange that both of us happen to be walking toward the STUDENT UNION. You've heard of it, I am sure, it is that place where STUDENTS go places. And as I have already pointed out, we are both of us students. So kindly stop acting like a prat."

But I did not say that. Instead of thought of writing my blog post today, and how I would mention that. Which I have just done. What an accomplishment. 

Later this evening my house is going to play Apples to Apples, so I had better go prepare myself for that. Good day!

With a threatening demeanor,

Maggie

*That is an absolute lie. I would love to strike fear into the hearts of those who see me, causing all to bow to my will. But such is not my luck. Continue reading.

BEDA Day 15: An engineer, a soccer player, and a pyromaniac all walk into a bookstore

I am once again in a hotel room. This time I know exactly where I am, and it is not in a state with three sets of double letters.* I am in a town just outside of Des Moines, Iowa, and my family of five is en route to my next great adventure.

I am going to miss my family a lot, but we are having fun these last few hours together. We went to a Barnes and Noble to get a bit of light reading. 

When we got back to the hotel we divvied up the books we'd gotten from its bag. We all had to laugh at how predictable each of our purchases was.

My dad got a Science Fiction book, which is ALL he reads.
My mom got a knitting magazine. Have I shown you the socks, hats, and sweater in my suitcase? She made them for me.
I got a book about math.
Emily got a teen romance.**
Katie got a book titled "Warrior Women: 3000 years of Courage and Heroism."

Completely typical.

Until the 'morrow, my dear blog readers!


With literateness,
Maggie


*The last ones were Mississippi and Tennessee.

**When we were pointing out each other's choices, I said, "And Emily of course got a teen romance." She told me that it was not, in fact a teen romance. "Oh, well what is it then?" She looked at the book and said after a moment, "Well... it's a teen romance."

BEDA Day 14: All revved up with no place to go

Well THAT title is an obscure reference to a song that most people probably won't know.

I spent almost all of my time and energy today on packing all of my stuff. This consisted of three parts:

Part One: Transferring everything I am taking from my room to my living room. This took roughly 10 trips up and down two flights of stairs, since my room is on the third floor of my house.

Part Two: Organizing all my my things once they were down here; folding my laundry, putting my old math notes in my backpack, and loading up my new pencil bag were just a few examples of this.

Part Three: Moving my newly organized things from my living room floor to the trunk of my car. Kristen came to visit me, since this is my last full day at home, and she helped greatly with this process. As she said, "I am very good at tetris." I am very proud of how well we did.

When Kristen and I had loaded about 90% of my things into my car, my friend Anna came over. We had tea that my mom made for us, and then we ate Indian food.

I do not feel like I am leaving. Even after saying goodbye to three of my friends on Friday, and even now after saying goodbye to Kristen and Anna a few hours ago. In my head, this isn't happening. It's not real. It won't be nearly 4 months before I see some of them again.

What IS real is this movie that I am about to watch. Since I saw Sherlock the television series last week, it is appropriate that I watch Sherlock the movie tonight.


With a trunk full of junk,
Maggie

BEDA Day 13: The Lost Blog

I forgot to blog yesterday.

Actually, that is a bit of a misstatement. I remembered at about 9:30 that I hadn't written a blog yet, but I chose not to. I was tired because I'd just gotten home from running errands with my mom, and I just wanted to be on skype and go to bed early. I would apologize, but I probably spared you all from a very half-hearted blog about the inane things I bought that day in preparation for university.

About two months ago, I was at Barnes and Noble, presumably to buy books.* While there, I was browsing the section on math (because that is a thing I do), and I saw a book MOSTE WONDERFUL. I was enticed by its description, and drawn in by the short excerpt I read. But I chose not to buy it that day, because it was an expensive hardback and my funds were limited.

As with most books, I figured that I would eventually forget about it and move on. However, two months later, I found myself thinking wistfully back on that day when I did not purchase the book. And then thinking even MORE wistfully on that day when I did not make note of the title or the author. All I remember about the book is that it was in the math section, it had to do with the way that people think, and I WANT IT VERY MUCH, YES I DO.

This evening, in a foolish attempt to find the book, I went with my sisters back to the Barnes and Noble. They abandoned me for the Young Adult section as I meticulously looked at each title in the math section, to no avail.

My plan thwarted, my heart breaking, I decided that I would feel even worse if I left the store with no book in hand. So I again went through the books, this time not searching for my potential literary soul mate, but for another book that could fill the void in my heart.

I settled on one titled "Iconoclast: a neuroscientist reveals how to think differently." To all appearances it is very appealing and engaging, and I will try my best when reading it not to think of my mystery book. After all, it is devastating to one's ego to know that another person in a relationship is comparing you to someone else. Or, as it were, something else. Ahem.


With literariness,
Maggie


*I feel this is a good guess as to my purpose being there, wouldn't you say?

BEDA Day 11: Oh Baby!

Hello my dearest blog readers! Today I come to you from my dining room table, rather than my room (because of course you all knew that I always blog from my room, why wouldn't you know this?). This is because I was playing Lord of the Rings: ONLINE with Rachel, and I needed a better surface to play on. I have a sad lack of desk in my room. 

It's a pretty quality game, and if you are into the series and like MMORPGs, I recommend it so far. On a related note, my sister made fun of me for saying "MMORPG." I guess it let some of my nerd show? Psh, please. I can't be tamed.*

Today three of my best friends came over on a whim. It is entirely possible that it was the last time I will see them until Christmas break. Hopefully we can arrange some way to hang out this weekend, though. It is sad to say goodbye to people who made such a profound difference in my life the past four years, but it would be so much worse to go without seeing them at all. I'm going to miss them terribly. 

For now, I leave you with this cute baby.**

With raging nerdiness,

Maggie

*On a whim I did a google search for "can't be tamed nerd parody," hoping that some awesome video would come up that I could link. I only found this.

**GIF found by googling "happy gif of cuteness"

BEDA Day 10: Have a crocodile

Good day, my dearest blog readers!

Today was one of those "wake up after 11" days and not do too much. I played Magic the Gathering again with Kristen and was trounced quite soundly almost every time. We took a short break to make butterbeer, which was quite successful. The whipped topping was much too strong, however, and I made a note on the recipe to fix that for next time.


After Kristen left, I spent some quality time with tumblr, where Adam was responding to a lot of asks. At one point they started to get out of hand, so he asked for pictures of crocodiles. I sent him one, but he never responded to it. And I grew sad. Here is a sad crocodile:

I think tomorrow I will make cookies. This seems like a good idea. Until the 'morrow, my dear blog readers!


With butteriness,
Maggie