Today was interesting, from a musical point of view. I had choir right before lunch (I have GOT to learn to eat before choir! I was famished!). Our chorus teacher in high school always told us that when we were done singing, our sides should ache because of the way we were using our muscles. Mine never ached. But they definitely did today! Bernie (our choir director) doesn't let us take a breath for at least, like, four measures. It takes a lot more control. Then, in poetry class today, we were discussing Emily Dickinson's meter, and the teacher said that many of her poems could be sung to the old hymn tune of, "God Our Help in Ages Past". She said, "Nobody's ever taken me up on this before, but I'll give extra credit to anybody who wants to volunteer to sing one of her poems to that tune." And shy, retiring little me jumped at it and sang "I heard a fly buzz when I died" to the old tune. It was fun! But I bet the pink glow of my cheeks was visible like a lighthouse beacon to the entire campus!

I've got work in twenty minutes. This is the first real job I've ever had. Yeah, I know, it's only work-study. But still. Somehow, even though the peole are unfailingly nice and cheerful to me, I have been so nervous that I've found myself crossing myself whenever there's nobody looking. And I'm not even Catholic. So yeah, it's interesting. I wish they had deportment classes here, like they do in Greenlaw College in that book I read. It too, was a women's college, except that it was in Normandy, not PA, and it taught magic. But one of the classes they had to take was in deportment, which taught them how to stand and sit and dance gracefully, which I would enjoy. One line from the book is when the instructor tells the girls to be a "string of pearls". I try and think of that when I have nervous-standing-around-waiting-for- the-boss-to-notice-me-and-hope-she-doesn't-think-I'm-listening-to-her-phone-conversation time. I hold my head up, don't slouch, set one foot slightly before the other, clasp my hands loosely before me, relax, and try not to look either nervous or like a complete idiot. It's a difficult balance to maintain...

So yeah, this is college life.

I got dinked last night. The older sisters (juniors) took their younger sisters (freshmen) out onto the green and put their dinks (those funny-looking little hats) on them. You are dinked by your older sister in the same way you were dinked--for some, this means inside-out and backward. I was dinked backwards. Juniors and freshmen are evens (we graduate on even years) so our colors are green and blue. Junior class is green and freshman class is blue. That will make it veeeeeery easy on color day--I have three tons of blue clothes! I like the crazy old traditions around here. I mean, this college has been around for 135 years. It's got all this awesome stuff like the honor principle and things that just make me feel like I really am attending Greenlaw or Cambridge or some other old-world institute of knowledge where the ancient concepts, such as honor, are upheld through the centuries form the time of the knights until now. It's great.

And my dorm room is full of Lord of the Rings posters, which I can look at while writing this. I don't know which I like better, imagining I attend Greenlaw or gazing at Orlando Bloom with his pointy ears. Hee hee.

So, yeah. I'll survive. I'm even kind of enjoying this. (Not psych class at 8 AM, but the rest of it.)