Really?

In my dorm there is a wall across from the elevator that is for the RA's or anyone really to post fliers for their organization or event. Today, while I was waiting for the elevator, I was reading some of the new fliers on this wall, to pass the time. The two girls next to me apparently had the same idea, because I heard one of them ask, "Would you call 911?" to her friend.

Confused, I looked to see which flier they were reading. It was a picture of two cartoon ducks, one of which was slumped down on the ground, eyes closed, obviously unwell. The other duck was standing with his arm (wing?) around his friend and a phone pressed to his ear (?). In bold letters above the ducks, the flier read, "Would you call 911 for a friend?" Below the ducks the message continued: "Be a friend; make the call." And there was more, tinier print below that which went into detail about the consequences of not making a 911 call if you suspect someone to suffering from alcohol poisoning.

"Would you call 911?" the girl asked her friend.

He friend gave a disdainful snort. "No, I would take care of them myself." She tossed her hair over her shoulder (no, I'm not making that up. She did.).

The first girl nodded and agreed. "Duh." (People still say that?)

Then I had to step into the elevator with these girls and try not to look at them like they were the stupidest humans I had ever encountered. Really? You're not going to call 911 because you are going to take care of your possibly fatally inebriated friend. Because you know better than a medical professional what the signs of alcohol poisoning are and how to treat it. Really? You're so worried about getting in trouble for being an underage drinker that you would risk your friend's life to save your own ass. To save their ass. Because you "got their back". Really?

This has been "Really?" with Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler. Now, back to Weekend Update.

No, but seriously though. That was her thought process. That's terrifying. You know what the best part is? FSU has a policy that goes a little something like this: "In the case of alcohol related medical emergencies, no disciplinary action will be taken against the student requiring medical assistance or the student calling 911." That's what the tiny print at the bottom of the flier was talking about, but no one bothers to read the tiny print.

I tried to be angry about it, but I was mostly just sad. Even if FSU didn't have that policy, first time offenders often aren't disciplined very strictly at all. Isn't a slap on the wrist and a mandatory alcohol abuse class better than a dead friend?

Ziploc Baggies, Hippies and Night Trolls

So, I've been in Tallahassee for almost two weeks now, and things are normal: the weather's hotter than hell, my teacher's are assigning moderate to heavy amounts of homework and I'm learning the ropes of shopping for one person. I'm not very good at it yet (Number of sandwiches I have stored in Ziploc bags this semester: zero; number of half used produce items I have stored in Ziploc bags this semester: innumerable).

Let's see, what else... well, I'm pretty sure that my room mates think I'm a hippie, because I take yoga classes at seven in the morning, I buy my produce from the farmer's market, I filter my water (now that's just smart living), I use solar powered lights in my bedroom and I occasionally wear ankle-length, floral print wrap skirts. I am not, in fact, a hippie. You should see the amount of paper recyclables that are just sitting in my bedroom trashcan. It's terrible. 

Another thing that's terrible this time of year is the heat. It is unbearably warm for September. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth even going to class at all. Maybe I should just drop out and actually be a hippie. I'm sure there's a commune somewhere in Tallahassee. Hopefully a commune with air conditioning, or at least some shade. What makes walking to class in the heat so much worse is that three of my five classes are at the top of the tallest hill on campus. These three classes all fall on the same day. I make that trip three times. I believe a little illustration is necessary so that you truly understand how this impacts my day. 

How everyone else looks arriving in class on a hot day: 

How I look arriving in class on a hot day:

It doesn't help that I'm the fair skinned descendant of what must have been every single Irish, Scottish and Welsh immigrant to seek the shores of America. I overheat easily, then my face turns bright pink and I feel like my head is going to explode. Meanwhile, everyone else on campus is a plastic Barbie she-devil that doesn't sweat or even flush under the blistering pressure of 95 degrees worth of UV rays. The comparison is just pathetic. 

Also note how everyone who isn't me is inherently bustier than I. How you can carry around that much weight on your chest alone and not break a sweat is beyond me. So, since I can never join the Barbies, I just grimace accommodatingly, like the night troll they mistake me for, as they ogle and titter behind their manicured, plastic fingers. 

Unfortunate Truths about Flying

There are a few things that I like less than flying, for example shutting my head in a heavy car door, sitting through a middle school choir concert, or finally cleaning out the other refrigerator, you know, the one that sits in the garage and accumulates a diverse array of leftovers in various stages decay. Of course, if people ask how I feel about flying, I stoically tell them that I am actually quite a fan, I just drop off to sleep and it's the easiest thing in the world. I am lying when I say this.

Now that we have some perspective, let me explain why I do not care for flying. While it is often bone-numbingly boring to sit in a crowded tin box, hurtling through the air for five to six hours while crossing the Continental U.S., there is also the fact that so much about how the flight progresses is beyond your control.

You cannot control., for instance, how full the flight is going to be. In fact, sometimes the crew will tell you, "This is going to be a full flight, if you're one of our pecuniarily challenged passengers and will be boarding last, we will perform a courtesy bag-check for you now, so that we can proceed to packing you all into this sardine tin as quickly as possible." While they say this, it might not be entirely true, and you will enter the plane to find more than enough overhead space. I usually don't mind this, in fact I secretly hope for a full flight on the first leg of my journey so that I don't have to drag a huge duffel around the airport with me. Unfortunately sometimes this is not the situation that you find yourself in. The crew says nothing about how full the flight is until you get onto the plane and realize there isn't enough room to blow your nose let alone store a bag. I always conduct myself with the utmost grace in these situations, relying on my sweet face to persuade people to let me stick my bag over their seat. Not everyone is as naturally graceful as I, and that is why you will sometimes find yourself watching the following drama play out:

A very sunburnt woman with about five children sidles down the narrow aisle until she reaches her seat (right across the aisle from you, so you have the best seat for viewing the approaching calamity). Her shoulders are so sunburnt that you can see pieces of peeling skin fluttering in the unnatural breeze produced by the plane's A.C. unit. Realizing there is no room immediately over her seat (partly because your pink, black and white duffel is taking up the valuable overhead real estate), she turns upon  the nearest flight attendant, not so much asking for help as snarling why there isn't any room. The flight attendant, a 50-something Midwestern type with a bronzy complexion, politely asks how many bags she needs space for. "Four of these rolling suitcases" says Leprosy Shoulders. The flight attendant, let's call her Bronzy, says in a weary way, "You should have checked them at the gate, we really don't have a lot of room or time to play Tetris. We need to get off the ground before it starts raining." Leprosy Shoulders goes red in the face and nearly screams, "Like, we tried but they said there would be room and wouldn't check them for us!" Bronzy gives her a stern look and says, "Don't talk to me like that, please." in the way that your grandmother might say it, that sort of no-nonsense tone that brooks no dispute. Leprosy Shoulders clearly never talked to your grandmother, because she then said, "Like, really? Ugh. What are we supposed to do with these bags, there's no room!" She gestures wildly at the clearly full compartment over her seats. Suddenly Leprosy Shoulders' husband, a beleaguered man with a baby on one hip and two backpacks on the other shoulder, cuts in, saying very mildly, "Danny" (I suppose that's Leprosy Shoulders' real name), "Danny, just stop. Sit down." Leprosy Shoulders continues to mutter, occasionally raising her voice loud enough to make the rest of you passengers uncomfortable, but now Bronzy is ignoring her in a practiced and professional manner, directing the put-upon husband to a few empty spaces for his remaining bags. Unsurprisingly, their children were horribly behaved the whole flight.

The above story is an example of another thing you have no control over during a flight, and that is the conduct of other passengers. Cranky fellow sardines is at the very least a minor headache and at the worst infuriating. Then of course there are the sardines whose bodies recognize that they were never meant to fly, resulting in air sickness. I have the unusual luck of almost always sitting beside or behind whoever gets airsick on any given flight. Call it a gift.

You cannot control how long it will take the plane to get into the air or, once in the air, that it will stay in the air. If you weren't already worried about that, at the beginning of every flight, the flight attendants say "Please power down and store all electronic devices, return your tray tables and seats to their full upright positions. We will let you know when you can use your electronic devices again." They never explain why you cannot use your devices, but it is all very important and mysterious. I shan't pretend to understand how an airplane even stays aloft, much less navigates through miles of empty sky, however it has been drilled into my brain that any electronic devices on during take off or landing will cause the plane to drop out of the sky. This being said, I have a particularly unique situation and that is this: my phone, unbidden by me, will often turn on and off of it's own accord. I cannot control this when it happens and often do not even know it is happening. Because of my phone's rather independent manner of conduct, I live in constant fear that my phone will turn on during take of  or touch down and doom us all. I know for a fact that I have pulled it out of my pocket midflight to find it on when I turned it off at the beginning of the flight. It is all very stressful. I am actually writing this from somewhere above the Midwest, so if you are reading it, that means that I am paranoid without cause and that my defective phone did not cause a huge plane crash.

On a less dramatic scale, you also cannot control the flight attendant. When are they coming around with drinks? When will they return with a garbage bag or those little bags of roasted peanuts? Who knows. They keep to a secret schedule that they have sworn to share with no one. I was asleep during the first round of drinks and I have no idea when another one will happen, so I sit here with my dry mouth in the ridiculously dry air, wondering how long it will take me to shrivel into a human raisin. To her credit, a kind brunette flight attendant did stop by earlier and ask if I wanted anything since I was asleep during their first round. I croaked that I would appreciate a water and she nodded, smiling. That was thirty minutes ago. I have not had any water.

These are the things I am talking about. Some of them are petty, some of them are pretty big, but all together they accumulate into a long trip in which everything depends on other people. I don't know why that wouldn't make me uncomfortable.

Narrow Road

Look, kid. I recognize those shoes.

I've walked in them before.

Actually, those shoes were mine once.

They're hand-me-downs, gently used.

I'm walking this road, too,

But I'm a little further down.

If you squint, you can probably see me

Next to the yield sign on the left.

What I'm trying to say is

That you're not doing this alone.

I promise to always be within reach.

You know my cell phone

Number.

I can't stand right there with you,

Underneath the busted light post

That's swinging precariously

Like something recently dead,

But I've left some footprints

In the dusty road

And hope that you use them

To guide you on ahead.
Just know that I'm always here
If there's ever a great wind that
Blows the dust up into your eyes
So that you can't see my footprints.
 

I've made mistakes all along this road.

Try to see them and give them a wide berth,

But if you can't,

Know that I won't say anything.

I'll keep your confidences.
There are also tear stains
That have left tracks in the dirt.
I know they're not pretty.
They're not supposed to be.
Sometimes this road hurts.
Don't be afraid to add to them;
This road wouldn't be ours
Without them.

There's no right way or wrong way

To navigate this road we share,

But see each foot print like an open hand,

Extending across the space between us.

This road ties us together,

Even though we seem far apart.

So we'll travel this road through this strange land;

I'll scout on ahead

While we walk, hand in hand.

Dorm Room Apple Cobbler

As a student living on campus, there isn't much room for creativity when it comes to cooking, unless you live in the apartment style dorms and have your own kitchen. I do not have my own kitchen, a means for getting to and from the grocery store, or even much storage room. This is fine, because I have a meal plan and can eat all the mediocre food I want with a swipe of my ID card. Unfortunately, even those of us with meal plans still occasionally have a need for cooking/baking. My need happens to come in the form of my boyfriend and his imminent birthday. How will I overcome the undesirable circumstances of dorm life in order to make him the most delicious birthday treat of his young life? By creating the recipe for Dorm Room Apple Cobbler, of course!

Note: This recipe is based off of what I personally have in my dorm room. Some of these ingredients will need to be bought if you, unlike me, do not own them already.

Dorm Room Apple Cobbler  
Equipment-

•  one deep baking dish, preferably 9 in.
•  a sharp knife 
•  one medium bowl for mixing; ask the nice people at the front desk
•  one wooden spoon, for mixing, ladling and licking when you are finished. Again, see front desk.
• measuring cups, teaspoons and tablespoons. As a college student living in a dorm, I'm sure you don't have these. Either eyeball it (let's be honest, it's cobbler. You're basically just throwing a bunch of delicious ingredients together and calling it baking) or ask the people at the front desk and pray you get lucky.
• one oven mitt or heavy towel for taking the pan out of the oven.
• friends to share the finished product with. If you don't have friends, you can substitute with the gym after you have eaten the whole cobbler by yourself.

Ingredients-    

    Apple Filling:

• about 5-7 apples, which you can steal from Suwannee/Fresh. Try to get the green ones.
• 3/4 cup sugar. If you don't have enough sugar to accommodate both the filling and the topping, try substituting with brown sugar. It pears nicely with the apples. (See what I did there?)
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• dash of nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup water (Use bottled if you can, but if you use tap, filter it first. Tallahassee water is some nasty sh*t)
• 1 tablespoon butter. Don't have room in your fridge or your wallet to buy four whole sticks of butter at Publix? Use Suwannee/Fresh for that, too.

        Topping:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar (real sugar for this one)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. Do NOT use baking soda. For both our sakes.
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 egg

            OR (if you don't have eggs and don't feel like buying a whole carton for one recipe)

• 1 1/2 tablespoon water
• 1 1/2 tablespoon oil
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Apparently this mixture mimics the texture that the egg was going to give the batter. Plus, you don't have 11 unused eggs in your tiny little dorm fridge now.

Directions-

      Prep:

• Walk down to the kitchen on your floor of the dorm. If it is in use, proceed to closest floor and try to use their kitchen. If the people occupying the kitchen are using it as a study room, use the oven and counter space anyways while giving them pointed, dirty looks. 
• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 
• While the oven is preheating, wash, peel and slice the apples. Don't worry about getting all the peel off, nobody cares about that. 
• Lightly butter your 9in. dish. If your hands are clean, which they are since you just washed those apples, your fingers will work fine for the buttering process. 
• In medium bowl, combine the thinly sliced apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, vanilla, and water in the quantities given. Put this mixture into your buttered dish.
• Dot the apples with the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and set aside for the moment.
• Using the medium bowl once again, combine all of the ingredients for the topping and beat until smooth using that wooden spoon. 
• Drop the batter over the filling, evenly spacing it. The batter will spread as it bakes, so don't worry if it doesn't seem like there's enough. 

      Baking:

• The oven should be heated by now, so open it, making sure to blast those studiers with searingly hot air (seriously, there are plenty of study rooms that aren't kitchens, get out!), and put your little dish of appley goodness inside. 
• Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the apples are tender and the crust is golden brown. 
• Using the heavy towel or oven mitt, remove the cobbler from the oven, let cool for a moment and then serve.

Serves 6-8 (or one very lonely, hungry college student)

I have a feeling that I am going to be adapting many recipes like this for next semester. Anyways, have fun and enjoy!

Don't Blink

Sometimes, I feel like Lucy from Fifty First Dates. Not because I have short-term memory loss or because I relive the same day over and over, but because like Lucy at the end of the movie, sometimes I wake up and have no idea where I am.

Don't worry. This isn't an entry about how I drink too much and then black out and wake up in some stranger's house. I just feel like the story of my life unfolds so quickly that I forget where I left my bookmark the night before when I went to sleep.

Of course, when I open my eyes in the morning, I am happy with where I am. This place that I find myself in, this momentary blip on my lifeline, is a good place. But still, it is unsettling to know that life passes by so quickly.

I feel like the last time I blinked, I was a little girl playing outside with my sister, and the next time I blink, I will be in my thirties watching two of my own children play outside.

The only protection against the raging current of life, which seeks to sweep us off our feet and carry us away at breakneck speed is to find an anchor. That anchor is living in the moment. This moment that we have right now, we can never have it again. We can visit it, in memory, but we cannot swim back upstream to that exact spot once we have left it behind. Cherish the moment and the people who inhabit it with you.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

So, let me preface this with a little anecdote about my morning. Yesterday, my laptop decided that it basically hated me and every time I turned it on, it sounded like a low-powered lawnmower. Unfortunately, it didn't cut grass, so this new feature was useless and pretty annoying. After listening to it for a while, I surmised that the sound was coming from the fan, so even though the computer itself was still functioning, if the fan wasn't working properly, it would quickly overheat and that leads to even more exciting problems.

When I discovered all of this, it was already 4:45 and the IT Service people were about to close up shop for the day, so I had to wait until this morning to bring my little baby down to their building. When I brought it in, they gave me a bunch of papers with a lot of words on them that basically say "We maintain the right to charge you lots of money for this repair and to take our own sweet time doing it." What was I supposed to do? I handed over the laptop and said a tearful goodbye, knowing that we would not be reunited for "at least five business days". As today is Friday, that meant an entire week of regular days.

After leaving my laptop in the capable hands of those more computer-savvy than I, I walked back to my dorm and decided I needed a nap. About thirty minutes after I had fallen asleep, the IT guy called me and said that the laptop was ready for me to pickup, it turns out there was just a little bit of dust in the fan so they cleaned it up for me free of charge. I never knew that a few specks of dust could sound like a handful of sizable pebbles. Anyways, I was thrilled, because I didn't have to pay any money and now my computer runs smoothly and quietly. If I close my eyes, it's as if I am sitting at a Mac.

So that story had a happy ending, but what I really want to talk about though, is the dream I had after I got of the phone with IT (because yes, I wanted to finish my nap).

In the dream, my mom and my stepdad were sending my little brother to college. Now, my baby brother is bright, but mind you, he's only thirteen. Besides, he already gets into enough trouble just in middle school, so why would they send him off to college where they can't keep an eye on him? Ah, that's where I come in. Instead of sending Jakob to UC Davis so that he could still live at home, under their noses for the majority of his day, they decided to send him to FSU. It's logical, because they could just set him up in the same dorm as his big sister and bam! built in babysitter.

Of course, none of this makes any sense, but it was a dream, so bear with me. Jakob is pretty upset by the whole situation. He's just a kid and he doesn't want to live so far away from his family and friends. In an effort to cheer him up, I tell him that I will help him unpack and settle in. While I am helping him carry his bags up the stairs, I tell him that whenever he feels lonely or homesick, he can always come see me, because I will be right down the hall. He said, "But Meghan, boys aren't allowed in the girls rooms, are they?" I thought for a moment. "That's not really true. There are some foggy, 'cohabitation' rules that no one really follows, but don't worry. You're my brother, so it won't even be a problem. If you're feeling sad or just want to hang out with someone other than your room mate, just come over and we'll lay out some sleeping bags and pillows and blankets on the floor and have a sleepover."

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word cohabitation in front of my little brother, but this was just a dream. Anyways, we finally get to his room and there's a little white board hung on the door that has his name and his room mate's name on it, but Jakob's name is spelled wrong, so I let him rewrite it before opening the door. This is the best part of the dream: the room was all the way at the end of the hall, kind of in a corner, and it was huge! It looked like someone had converted a three or four person suite into a double. Not only was there a bunch of space, but there was also two bathroom sinks and a long counter in front of a wall of mirrors, there was a kitchen sink, complete with garbage disposal, a bunch of cupboards and storage space, a stove, an oven, a private bathroom with a tub and this weird machine set into the wall that peeled, diced, or shaped  fruit into fancy shapes (I want that machine to be real).

Clearly this room was being wasted on boys. Why didn't this magical room exist for girls? It looked like a studio apartment, except nicer. I ran out into the hallway and looked at the room number. "Okay, I told myself. I am going to remember this room number so that I can change my room assignment for next semester."

Of course, on waking up I realized that no such room exists at FSU, or anywhere. A dream is a wish your heart makes, a horrible, unresolvable wish that will only lead to heartbreak.

That fruit machine was the sh*t. Seriously. I want one.