Keyed Up

Well, my blog seems to be having some issues lately, so hopefully someone will be able to read this. To those of you who can't read this, you might want to try re-saving it to your favorites. (This advice is completely worthless, since if you can read this, you don't need to.)
Despite feeling all alone, my faithful bloggers separated by the huge and unforgiving realm of internet errors, I am actually quite happy. Hmm, let me rephrase that. Despite lack of sleep, a predominance of journalism classes and Bio readings, and a tendency to forget myself playing FreeCell, I am enjoying a fairly satisfactory time at college. Don't despair, however, readers (or non-readers, as the case may be). I am still having quite the usual numbers of misadventures, misdirections, and general mix-ups.*
After a first week of school that dragged on and on and on and on and on, I was looking forward with great anticipation to the weekend. Most of it was filled with the inevitable school assignments, but I did have a chance to watch two movies with my roommate and brother. The first was The Skeleton Key (hence the first “key” event of the weekend). It was creepy (okay, so I don’t do even slightly scary movies well), and even though Luke D. and I saw most the plot lines coming, we still were surprised by the ending. It’s rare that a movie can catch you off guard, but this one did. Even though almost all our guesses were correct. And the atmosphere still managed to be chilling, even with Lukas and Luke making fun of it. Their sarcasm was only slightly dampened by the glares Ginny and I threw their way, but then again it was too dark for them to really see them.
The other movie that we watched was Tristan + Isolde, which I am not going to discuss here, except to say that the best part was when King Mark is arguing with Melot in the background and says “I’m SICK of your moaning!” LOL, some things never change.
Now, some of you may know of my history with trying to lock/unlock doors. For specific instances, I will only bring to mind three.
1) In Spain, none of us could ever unlock the hotel doors in Madrid (they would have confounded Houdini himself). We actually had to ask for help from the man at the front desk and get him to unlock it for us. (Except for Lukas and Jim. They had to get help because they had actually looked their keys in the room.)
2) This summer, Lukas and I (and Julia and Max and Clara) came back earlier than my parents from something, only to realize that we couldn’t get into the house. After an hour of waiting, leaving, coming back, and still waiting for them, it turns out we had a key all along. The lock just sticks.
3) The locks in Scotland are worse than the locks in Madrid. Nuff said.

So it must come as no surprise that my college dorm room has a temperamental lock. For starters, unlocking/locking the door is always the reverse of what one would expect. This confusion would eventually go away, were it not confounded with other problems. The lock hates us, and sticks all the time. Apparently the keys hate us too, for Ginny managed to lose hers. After going down to dinner one day, we returned to find that we could not open the door with my key. Several minutes of trying everything (including hitting the door and begging) produced no result. Finally it opened, and we realized that with it sticking AND being reversed, we were confusing locked and unlocked.

Hopefully these tales of woe will teach you a lesson. It is too late for me, but perhaps I can still save someone else. Never, ever get on the bad side of locks (seriously, I must have horribly offended them by chewing on plastic keys as a baby), and make sure you have your AAA card with you at all times. And a cell phone.



*If you notice some differences in my style, I must excuse it on the basis of time spent with a new friend, Amelia Peabody. I have been happily enthralled listening to her adventures, and some of her tone seems to have rubbed off on me. (If you have never had the opportunity to be acquainted with Ms. Peabody, I strongly recommend the friendship. You can find her memoirs at your local library or bookstore under the aegis of Elizabeth Peters.)

A Teenager No Longer

Well, I meant for my next post to be more about Scotland, but since I am a horrible procrastinator, I figured I should just jump back to the present and catch up when I have time (haha). Today is my 20th birthday! Weird. I'd be . . .like. . .on the shelf (in a regency novel). Or maybe that's 21. I just cannot think of a better way to spend my birthday than running back and forth to class in the heat, dripping sweat (and sarcasm). Oh well; at least I stopped at the poster sale and got a new LOST poster for my room. :)

So far my classes seem pretty normal; I have the intensive class (Spanish every day), the boring class (Bio 1010), the very boring class (News 2100), the fun class (19th Century British Women Writers), and the so-easy-it's-an-insult-to-my-intelligence class (Am History). I just had American history today, and got a chance to look at the syllabus. The only assignment for the entire semester is one four to five page (double spaced) paper. I feel like I'm back in kindergarten (except I never actually went to kindergarten). I think I almost laughed out loud when I saw that. I suppose I could/should switch to the Honors section. . .or I could use the free time to get a job. Or just read more fiction books.

Overall my new roommate and I are getting along well. She talks (if possible) more than I do. It's somewhat exhausting. Still, we're having a pretty good time together. I could use prayer, though. She's a Deist, and something of a skeptic, but she did go with me to the RUF picnic last night. Also last night we spent over two hours taking "which character would you be" personality tests (not my fault--she started it (even if I was an active participant)). Apparently I'm most like the monkey from Pirates of the Caribbean. :P She says I'll never live that one down. Makes you wonder what depths I’m really hiding. . .heehee