Sunday, October 14, 2012

hfwrshglblutface

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    1. A group of us school kiddos and our director of student life and Dr. Mac went to the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens today on what you can think of as a sort of college-level field trip (although it's actually quite a bit more complicated than that). It was amazing. I'm not even going to try and summarize the kinds of cool stuff that they had in the museums except to say that the European history building was devastating and the American exhibits were super awesome and also relevant to my life because I'm studying American history this year and such. I nearly cried when I got to the room with the Gutenberg Bible and the early printed works from the Renaissance and Reformation. Had barely enough time to pass through there before somebody from my group was like "Ruby you need to hurry on over to the European exhibit or you'll miss Dr. Mac talking to the group about some rad tapestries," though.

    Also oh my goodness the gardens. The gardeeeeennnnnns. The Japanese Garden. Harriet Walter. The Japanese Garden. I can't. And I barely saw the Chinese Garden and I didn't have time to see the cactus garden thing at all. Oh man I need to go back.

    2. It is my momma's birthday tomorrow! Actually today since it is after 1:00am as I write this. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMA I LOVE YOU BUCKETS

    also since I wrote her a bad poem for her birthday last year I feel like I should write another one this year since I'm too cheap to buy her a present and ship it to her
    (although it's not going to be a poem really just a weird piece of writing, some words and all that)
    here we go

Saturday, October 6, 2012

pumpkin pacific

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Thought as of right now:

    It is so delightful being a sophomore. Seeing these freshmen babies dealing with classes and trying to figure out how to write papers for our professors and how to study for exams and how much sleep they need and who their friends are just shows me, by contrast, how much I've gotten figured out by now.

    Thought as of earlier this afternoon, sitting in a nice independent coffeeshop with Friend Shelli and Friend Laura, dressed nicely, sipping my first-ever pumpkin latte and reading a book about the influence of slavery on the creation and ratification of the American Constitution:

    I feel so grown up sometimes.

    Thought as of the other night, on our girls-only camping trip (someplace north of Malibu), standing on the beach at night-time with Friend Krista and taking in the thundery ocean and all those many many stars above, everything filling my whole vision:

    All those artistic, whirling, dizzying, enormous, beautiful, seemingly-chaotic-yet-carefully-controlled-in-set-patterns-of-conflict natural bodies and forces would actually be really painful for me if I didn't believe that there was any sort of higher power that dreamt it all up and made it happen and that keeps it going.

     Thought as of earlier that same day, standing thigh-deep in the ocean with Roommate Marissa at sunset and being smashed against by the tossy frothy waves, with the water warming our hands and rocks scraping against our feet as they were pulled into the deep:

     Wait...does the sun never set over the ocean on the East Coast? Do they only get sunrises over the ocean? That is terrible. That is the worst thing. Their beach days don't even end with sunsets over the ocean. That is awful. Oh my goodness.

    Thought as of now now:

    I love my Tiny College. The regional accreditation agency we're working with is coming to formally visit us for the last time later this month, and in February I think is going to make its final decision on whether or not to give us initial accreditation and make us a Proper Fancy Accredited College. (Becoming Proper and Fancy and Accredited would do wonderful things in the way of bringing in new students and helping our current students get into grad school after college, among other benefits.) This is really the nerve-wracking thing about going to a school that's so new. I just wish I could somehow magically show the visiting evaluation-people with my brain what an incredibly wonderful place Tiny College is and how the education they give us is so valuable, so carefully and thoughtfully constructed, so character-building and worldview-refining, so...I'm trying to think of another word for educational that would include some of how hard they work us at learning. I mean everything I just said is true, but I don't want to sound like I'm talking all about feelings and such floofy things to the point of neglecting the fact that come midterms, you have to seriously know your stuff about these here liberal arts. Blar. What am I even saying.

This is basically me today.