Almost Home!

SO...

I have one more week of classes, a week of exams, then there's no place like home! Before I go, I'd like to take some time to make a final comparison between home and school -- this is for you, Kaia!

At school, I have the mentality that I have to take care of myself, so I'm good at it.
At home, I become rather dependent on my mom ... it's almost embarrasing.

At school, I have to call home if I want to talk to my family.
At home, they're there!

At school, I miss Kaia.
At home, I miss Kaia.

At school, I feel the need to set aside time to clean my room.
At home, I just don't.

At school, I recognize that I am learning and absorbing at every moment.
At home, I hope to remember that.

At school, I have no car.
At home, I have to wait for someone to get home with a car or for it to be finished at the shop.

At school, I have no place that will deliver pizza at one in the morning! What?!
At home, I have my toppers.

At school, I have a tiny fridge with hardly enough space to fit a half-gallon of milk.
At home, I can sneak down in the middle of the night for a glass of chocolate milk which is in a gallon jug which is next to a gallon of skim and two-percent.

At school, I miss home.
At home, I miss school.

At school, I eat easy mac late at night.
At home, I do not miss easly mac.

At school, I learned a lot of things that I pray I remember to incorporate
at home.

I learned that family is more important than friends. I learned I didn't believe that before I went to school. I learned that it's ok to take some time to make your living space look nice. I learned that I HATE dorms. I learned that I CAN knit a hat. I learned that I CAN be self-sufficient. I learned that my brothers are not conversational on the phone. Maybe I already knew that.

Bird watching

One really stupid thing about my school is the library windows. I don't know why we don't fix them. There is nothing wrong with them, per se, except that birds always run into them. It's a rather distracting phenomenon. We have this nice little cove with couches and chairs and tables surrounding a very realistic looking tree. Some other fake greenery finishes off the circle. The cove is surrounded on two sides by periodicles and our music selection -- including albums, which resound with the memories of my childhood. Then the other two sides are these windows. It's very aesthetically pleasing, until you heark chclunk!


chclunk!

chclunk!

And you look up from your book or your blog and realize that a bird has been ramming its little beak into the reflective window.

This is not a seasonal phenomenon. This does not depend on the time of day -- some of our windows on campus change tint from day to night (you can see out during the day and in during the night). But not our library windows.

I've gotten used to the blackbirds and the robins attacking the windows while I'm studying, but recently something disturbing has happened --

With the event of spring sortof coming (One day it is 60 degrees, the next it snows -- literally), cardinals have begun to show up. Growing up, my mom always told me that seeing cardinals meant it was spring. This enigma they presented gave me the feeling that cardinals are important. They have this elegance that other birds don't. Their unique color sets them apart from other birds. They always look alert and beautiful.

But cardinals will also smash into the library windows.

I get annoyed and a little sad at seeing a robin or a blackbird run into a window, but there is something truly despairing about seeing a cardinal run into a window continuously. These beautiful beacons of spring just prove their hidden stupidity and it kindof discredits them as beautiful creatures. I used to that that because they were so much more lovely than the other birds, they had some elevated state of mind -- I guess this disproves gnosticism!