willowisp | Special Birthday Edition

When I came back to school in late January, I was figuring my birthday would be lonely, especially since no one at Oswego knew when it was. I figured since it was a Wednesday my mom and sister would not be able to visit and, indeed, we met for my unofficial birthday last Saturday. It was then that Pamela proposed to come today anyway after she got out of work. Andy put together a care package which he said probably would not arrive today since he didn't mail it until Monday.

Meanwhile, on another note completely, I was fairly miserable in my junior seminar. The professor was great, but for some reason I was really out of touch with my classmates, more so than even in the sophomore seminar. Plus, we were to spend a semester studying Jack Kerouac, whom I determined I can't stand after reading his first book. Then it dawned on me that junior seminar is all about an intense study of one author, and another course I'm taking, the one on Tolkien, is also an intense study of one author. After several comedies of errors missing my adviser, I caught up with him yesterday after my last class, by which point the English office was closed. He couldn't get my file and he needed to check up on some things before saying either way, so he made an appointment with me for after class today.

Mom sent email on Monday asking if I'd like to do lunch today, provided the weather behaved. I said yes, so she took the first part of work off and came to Oswego. We had a nice lunch at Friendly's (I'm going to miss it so much when I go back to ABQ for good), and then she dropped me off with plenty of time to spare before class.

I heard the local college TV station interviewing a teacher, and after they were done I asked her if she knew a theatre professor from my first time here. She confirmed that she knew her, but wasn't friends with her because the professor intimidated her. I assured her that the professor intimidated everyone. She looked really familiar, so I asked her name. It turns out she taught my creative writing course back in 1993. Once I told her my name she hugged me, and we had a little mini-reunion. She even remembered that I wrote fantasy in the class.

After class I went to see my adviser. He had forgotten that I had signed up for feminist theory last year on the theory that I could drop it if I didn't do well last semester (I ended up with two "A"s, an A-, and a B), but that adding it might not be possible since it's a popular course. Anyway, once we ironed that out and were clear that I'd still be a full-time student even if I dropped a course, he told me that he'd talked to the department chair and the chair gave permission for me to substitute Tolkien for junior seminar. What a birthday present from the department!

When I got home from class and got my mail I had a package slip which I traded in for Andy's care package, which arrived today. It was full of neat stuff, including a beautiful pair of blue earrings, two funny t-shirts, a continuation of a story he's been writing for me, and the digital picture frame he gave me for Christmas, now loaded with pictures from our gallery.

Pamela showed up and we went to a Chinese place which I usually have deliver to me when I order out. It turned out to follow my rule of Chinese restaurants -- the better the food, the more likely it is to be a hole-in-the-wall. It started snowing fairly heavily while we were eating, so I cut out early and we came back to the dorm room for the cake which she had brought on Saturday and which I had frozen until today. The snow kept up and I had homework, so she left. It's a good thing she did; it took her two hours to get back to Syracuse when it usually takes her a little over an hour. Still, she got home safely, so all is well.