From the desk of Sisyphus
Boulder, viewed from my current sample of four days, has not existed as any orderly progression, but rather as a series of very disjointed moments. Therefore, they will be discussed as such.
...I have no roommate. The mysterious "Chelsea" apparently decided before even showing up that I must smell, and thus relocated herself to Unknown Destination X without a word. This might mean I get a room all to myself this year, which I am more than okay with. It means that when I decide to fashion a rappel system into the trees that climb right outside my balcony, there won't be any nay-sayer to complain that the rope money could have been spent on a new bathroom rug.
...I am continually disillusioned with the people on my floor. A few days ago I put up the Every-College-Student-Must dry erase board on my door, and a little dissatisfied with its blankness, drew a grinning, be-fanged sea serpent for it. (I figured it'd be a good way to simultaneously greet my neighbors and make them slightly wary of bothering me.) Coming back late last night, however, I discovered that some genius of a pothead had scribbled a large bong in for my creature. And now, who says most social interactions in life can't be compared to a game of Go? I knew that to erase the bong or the entire creature would signal that the ill-mannered graffiti had gotten to me, yet to leave it up gives the victory to the pothead, and I couldn't allow that on my territory! So I rearranged the board's pieces: I redrew my serpent the next morning as one might look after such a long, hazy night -- bleary eyes, wasted expression, green stink lines. I'll leave my creature-friend like that for another day or so, to ensure that he's learned his lesson ("Pot binges are bad, Mr. Serpent, and I bet you wish you knew that last night!") Score one for the home team.
...I did have a quickly-crushed hopeful moment today, when while sitting in my room a faint strain of a Murder by Death song met my ears. I ran outside and located the source in my neighbor's room -- then quite literally hopped over the division between our balconies and let myself into his room to be introduced. He was polite, but seemed much less enthused about the music than I was. I left just quickly, and twenty minutes later got to hear instead through the paper-mache-thin walls him entering into a belching contest with his roommate. O College.
...There's something about the norm rich-white-trophy-daughter mentality here that makes most every girl I've met be absolutely convinced that if she walks anywhere alone, anywhere, even just to the hall vending machines, she'll be raped. I've never in my life heard so many discussions of mace and rape whistles as I've heard in the past weekend, nor have I ever been chastised so often for -ohmygracious- traveling alone after dark. Over lunch yesterday a girl gave me a haughty look and asked, well then, what do you plan on doing exactly if someone tries to harass you? To which I calmly replied, "I'd probably rip his eyes out and eat them," and took a very voracious bite of my pizza. I don't think I'll have many friends up here.
...Not since fourth grade have I ever had this few fish in my life, and it's beginning to make me twitch: my solitary betta, the handsome Lorenzo, can only be doted upon so much. Therefore, as soon as possible, I am buying a 10 gallon and some bala sharks or something equivalently awesome.
...This last one is to me the symbolic first-impression of Boulder, though no one I've described it to has yet believed me when I assured them that it actually did happen. My first night here, while wandering late around a normally quiet far-north corner of campus, out of nowhere in the darkness I was nearly run over by a brigade of several hundred bicyclists speeding toward University. The only way to picture this is to think of shot frames of Apocalypse Now: standing next to the river (or road, what have you) enveloped entirely by thick black air, and suddenly finding the whole maddening squalor of humanity in a camp erupting dank light and chaos. The bicyclists were covered in flashing red lights, shrieking as they flew past me, accompanied by the occasional erratic unicyclist or dressed up in varying degrees of Santa Claus, a whole swarm of insanity flooding downhill to Devil-Knows-Where. The ones who were going slow enough to notice my dumbfounded presence would turn toward me with extended tongues, beat their chests, and throw their jaws open to the sky to let out some sort of self-empowering scream they could only have learned from their Neanderthal ancestors.
That scream was the cosmos telling me the truth about the next four years: that I am going way, waaaaaaay down river.
...I have no roommate. The mysterious "Chelsea" apparently decided before even showing up that I must smell, and thus relocated herself to Unknown Destination X without a word. This might mean I get a room all to myself this year, which I am more than okay with. It means that when I decide to fashion a rappel system into the trees that climb right outside my balcony, there won't be any nay-sayer to complain that the rope money could have been spent on a new bathroom rug.
...I am continually disillusioned with the people on my floor. A few days ago I put up the Every-College-Student-Must dry erase board on my door, and a little dissatisfied with its blankness, drew a grinning, be-fanged sea serpent for it. (I figured it'd be a good way to simultaneously greet my neighbors and make them slightly wary of bothering me.) Coming back late last night, however, I discovered that some genius of a pothead had scribbled a large bong in for my creature. And now, who says most social interactions in life can't be compared to a game of Go? I knew that to erase the bong or the entire creature would signal that the ill-mannered graffiti had gotten to me, yet to leave it up gives the victory to the pothead, and I couldn't allow that on my territory! So I rearranged the board's pieces: I redrew my serpent the next morning as one might look after such a long, hazy night -- bleary eyes, wasted expression, green stink lines. I'll leave my creature-friend like that for another day or so, to ensure that he's learned his lesson ("Pot binges are bad, Mr. Serpent, and I bet you wish you knew that last night!") Score one for the home team.
...I did have a quickly-crushed hopeful moment today, when while sitting in my room a faint strain of a Murder by Death song met my ears. I ran outside and located the source in my neighbor's room -- then quite literally hopped over the division between our balconies and let myself into his room to be introduced. He was polite, but seemed much less enthused about the music than I was. I left just quickly, and twenty minutes later got to hear instead through the paper-mache-thin walls him entering into a belching contest with his roommate. O College.
...There's something about the norm rich-white-trophy-daughter mentality here that makes most every girl I've met be absolutely convinced that if she walks anywhere alone, anywhere, even just to the hall vending machines, she'll be raped. I've never in my life heard so many discussions of mace and rape whistles as I've heard in the past weekend, nor have I ever been chastised so often for -ohmygracious- traveling alone after dark. Over lunch yesterday a girl gave me a haughty look and asked, well then, what do you plan on doing exactly if someone tries to harass you? To which I calmly replied, "I'd probably rip his eyes out and eat them," and took a very voracious bite of my pizza. I don't think I'll have many friends up here.
...Not since fourth grade have I ever had this few fish in my life, and it's beginning to make me twitch: my solitary betta, the handsome Lorenzo, can only be doted upon so much. Therefore, as soon as possible, I am buying a 10 gallon and some bala sharks or something equivalently awesome.
...This last one is to me the symbolic first-impression of Boulder, though no one I've described it to has yet believed me when I assured them that it actually did happen. My first night here, while wandering late around a normally quiet far-north corner of campus, out of nowhere in the darkness I was nearly run over by a brigade of several hundred bicyclists speeding toward University. The only way to picture this is to think of shot frames of Apocalypse Now: standing next to the river (or road, what have you) enveloped entirely by thick black air, and suddenly finding the whole maddening squalor of humanity in a camp erupting dank light and chaos. The bicyclists were covered in flashing red lights, shrieking as they flew past me, accompanied by the occasional erratic unicyclist or dressed up in varying degrees of Santa Claus, a whole swarm of insanity flooding downhill to Devil-Knows-Where. The ones who were going slow enough to notice my dumbfounded presence would turn toward me with extended tongues, beat their chests, and throw their jaws open to the sky to let out some sort of self-empowering scream they could only have learned from their Neanderthal ancestors.
That scream was the cosmos telling me the truth about the next four years: that I am going way, waaaaaaay down river.