Aleksandra the Great’s Exploits

¡Adios, Nueva York!
I checked out of my dorm late Wednesday evening, meaning I can no longer call myself a New Yorker. I have two finals on the 9th of May, and then my first year of college is finished, and I hopefully won’t have to go back to New York (except to use my two free passes to MoMA—is anyone interested in going with me?). But there are still 32 days until I’ll have heard from all of my transfer colleges (meaning I’m anxiously awaiting the mail every day).

Finals
On Thursday morning I had my World Cultures: Chinese and Japanese Traditions final with Ricky and my Lit Interp final. They decided to make the WC final on the last day of class rather than on Reading Day, something about which I was very pleased, since I don’t have enough train tickets to travel to and from New York one more day than I thought I had to and because you’re not allowed to have finals on Reading Day; they let us arrive at 7:30 rather than at 8 so we could have extra time. Anyway, the amazing thing is that I filled a Blue Book! During the midterm in my AmFic class last semester, for which we only had an hour and fifteen minutes, some of the students requested second Blue Books. I think I filled half of my first book during that exam. After about an hour and a half of writing in WC, though, I went up and got my second book. I’m pretty pleased. [Edit: I know that’s the same thing I said about those boys and their grammatical correction. Sorry.

One more thing: The final did not prove to be very difficult. We read five works and had to answer one of two essay questions for each one. They were all pretty reasonable—comparing some of the plays of one collection, examining characters’ actions, ect. One of the books we had to read was Soseki’s And then, a novel that deals with this guy Daisuke and his friend Hiraoka and Hiraoka’s wife, Michiyo. One of the essay topics for that book was “Write the main narrative as seen from Michiyo’s perspective.” What kind of essay is that?! It didn’t even require that we think about the book, only that we know the plot. And telling it from her point of view made it even easier than simply summarizing since she didn’t know all of the side stories with Daisuke’s family. Needless to say, I chose that one.]

Where’s Tabby?
This morning around 6:30 my mother came in my room to say that we left the back door open last night and the cat (Tabby) was missing. My mother said she’d looked around outside and couldn’t find her and didn’t hear her meowing, so she really believed my cat was dead. My step-father heard, and he and I got ready quickly and went to help look for the cat. By the time I got to the basement, however, they had found Tabby. She had hidden under my neighbor’s car and very luckily was neither run-over nor stolen. Tabby enjoyed a very early breakfast and lots of attention this morning.

My father ordered some wine from Australia, but since the company is not allowed to ship in to Pennsylvania, he had to send the bottles to my dorm. I’m fairly certain he didn’t have to put his date of birth on the order form or promise to send them a copy of his driver’s license, so theoretically anyone could order wine from this company. I had worried about getting it from the front desk of my dorm, thinking that it would require that someone over 21 pick it up, but I tried anyway. The guy at the front desk signed it right over to me, completely disregarding the “ADULT SIGNATURE REQUIRED—MIN 21″ notice on the packing label. So much for the drinking age.

Dave and I went to the Sakura festival at Fairmount Park last Sunday. Though the event was free, the things there were quite expensive ($7 for one crab cake sandwich, etc.). And despite what the sign said about a tea ceremony from 3-4pm, some woman came out and shooed all of the tea-drinkers away at about ten of three, saying there would be no more tea ceremony. It was enjoyable, though, and I’d like to go for more of it next year.

That’s not really the subject of this post, though (I didn’t do enough cool stuff or take any pictures to make it a worthwhile entry). I went for a walk by myself for a while and came upon these two metal horse sculptures, upon one of which sat two children. I am of the opinion that you don’t sit on objects of art, so I was already worried about these two kids and their upbrinings. When a man walked by with his bike, the first boy asked if they could ride it, which of course they couldn’t. Then they asked where he got it, and he told them in West Philadelphia. Then the boy asked “Ain’t we in West Philly?” The man with the bike, probably refusing to answer a question so grammatically incorrect, asked the boy if he could repeat his question. So the boy said, “Isn’t we in West Philly?” And that’s when I stopped paying attention to contemplate the boy’s transition from slang to actual, if improperly-used, English. I was pleased.

Since I’ve decided that I want to transfer, and that I’d rather commute (if I don’t get in to any of the three transfer colleges) than have to live here, I did not really feel like walking all the way over to Carlyle (my assigned dorm for next year, either my second or third pick, and all of five minutes from my dorm) to spend the approximated 45 minutes signing up for a dorm that doesn’t really matter. My dorm selection time happened to be 8:18, which would probably make me miss the Colbert Report. This was all just unpleasant, and I considered not even going.

But I don’t usually skip required university events, so I went. By the time I made my way through Carlyle, which is, admittedly, a rather nice-looking dorm with a central mostly-cement courtyard, the people in charge of housing had already talked to everyone else supposed to select a dorm at my time. Oh, well. I went back alone to a room where maybe five or six housing people were standing and sitting around talking. One girl said, as if annoyed that I had been late although I arrived probably 15 minutes early like the website recommended, that she had already talked to the others and would explain to me what she had just told them. Apparently, there were no more spots left in Carlyle. Heh. By the time they get so far down on the housing selection list as I am (and this is only the second night?), they sometimes run out of rooms. But since I’m guaranteed housing, they’ll definitely fit me in somewhere. She even said they would try to find an opening in my first choice dorm. Well, that’s nice.

I, not really concerned with housing and just rather amused by my fortune, didn’t get upset or demand a room or anything of the sort. When I left, one of the housing boys said he wished all of the people they had to tell that to were like me. I didn’t quite have the heart to tell them that I probably wouldn’t be living at NYU next year, anyway.

The transition from daylight saving time to standard time is pleasant because for weeks after (if you, like me, are too lazy to reset your clock and would not dream of waking up in the middle of the night to set it at the correct hour) you can look at the clock and know that you actually have one more hour before bed than the clock says you have. It just gives you the sense that there is somehow more time available in the fall than there was in the late summer.

Daylight saving time, on the other hand, forces you to adjust the clocks almost immediately, or else suffer every time you mistakenly believe there are six hours left before bed when really there are only five. Besides for rushing me in resetting the clocks, daylight saving time confuses my daily cycle. I keep glancing at my computer clock and thinking that it is an hour ahead—surely it can’t be this bright outside at 5:30 when it’s supposed to be dark by 6! In the summer it’s acceptable for the sun to set after 8, but during the spring, when I should spend evenings doing school work and getting to bed, the extended daylight only makes me procrastinate, wishing I had time to be outside enjoying it.

I am aware that it saves energy as well as daylight, and that as an environmentalist I should be thrilled that we don’t have to use electric lighting as much now as we did a week ago. It just happens to be a very unpleasant initial change. And, since I haven’t been feeling well the past two or three days, I blame daylight saving time for messing up my health.

In other news, I have submitted all of my college applications. Hopefully there will be more than a post or two before the one revealing the admissions decisions (provided the response is agreeable).