Schmitty cat is just one of the many characters who will be getting in my way as I write for you all - though usually I won't be playing hooky, as I am today, and thus will be writing from work, where the Schmitt is thankfully not allowed. It's hard to type with a cat on your lap who is by turns gnawing on your fingers and ever so smoothly sneaking closer and closer to your milky cereal bowl. I know what you're doing, Schmitt. You are not being particularly stealth at this point. Ahh, point - that reminds me, I should get to it.
Each weekday one of your four lovely hostesses (and we are all h-o-t-t hot, just take my word for it) will be writing a post about the same question. I suppose, though we're still ironing out the rules, that Friday will be a free-for-all day, sans theme. In any case, seeing as we're all college educated women with at least half a brain between us, and sometimes this is a crazy old nonsensical world, we find that there is lots for us to wonder about. We are Women who Wonder, and we are also superhero Wonder Women, two facts that each week's title will reflect.
This week, we're wondering about HC and what our lives would be without it. HC, our alma mater, is a little wee college on the banks of a substantial river sited near a less-than-substantial town. It's a totally gorgeous campus in the heart of the midwest, and it's where each of us studied for four years, where each of us met the others. We did the things people do in college - meet friends, meet boys, drink a little, study a lot; all four of us pledged the same sorority. HC marked us all for life, but in different ways.
G Love did not want to go to HC. I suppose I should lay that out up front. I wanted a mid- to large-sized college in the heart of an exciting city - UCSD was my top choice. My parents disagreed. They won. So to the midwest I went, and arrived at HC for my first day of freshman orientation, which was also the first time I'd seen the campus, the first time I'd seen even the state the campus was in. All very exciting and scary. It took a couple of years for me to like it. I even tried to transfer. When finally I learned that I would not be going anywhere but there, I sat myself down and told myself to just like the place and be done with it. After that, HC started to grow on me. There is something to be said for small; small means 15 people in your class, dinners with your professors, close friends who you have to learn to get along with because if you have a falling out there ain't nowhere to go. Small means (to this theatre major) big parts in the plays, or at least some role in every play. Small means you are subject to the opposite of anonymity, which can sometimes be called overexposure (i.e. when you walk out of a coffee date with your classmate and suddenly everyone is asking how long you've been going out), but usually feels more like intimacy (i.e. when everyone hears that you're going through something wretched and suddenly little notes of encouragement appear at your dorm door and your professors cut you some slack in the classroom).
I could wax poetical-like for hours, but this post is already a bit long and aimlessly wandering, so instead I'm going to give a list of things I would not have right now if I hadn't gone to HC:
- This blog. I wouldn't know any of the other Wonder Women, and thus would not be blogging with them.
- My husband, Darlin'. He didn't go to HC but his parents did, and they were active alumni during my college years. I met him through them.
- My cat. I would have a dog instead because that's what I wanted til Darlin' talked me into a cat. They're supposed to be less responsibility, snort. Anyway, without HC there'd be no Darlin', and without Darlin' there'd be no Schmitty cat.
- My year in England. I went to grad school in England, to a place in which I had spent a May-mester abroad during undergrad (with another Wonder Woman, MSO Rin). If I hadn't done the May-mester, I'd never have done the year, and that would have made 2002 a lot less interesting.
- My whole life.
This reminds me of an exercise I used to do when I was an outdoor ed teacher, whereby I can link any thing you can think of back to the soil in 6 degrees of separation or less. I sit here and try to untangle a few meaningful bullet points, but realize that I can't name anything in my life right now that didn't grow out of my HC experience one way or another. My job, my little house, my little life - it's all due in no small way to that small college on the banks of a meandering river in the heart of America.
So thanks, HC. Thanks for, literally, everything. And thanks to you, for reading this through. See you Friday.
Peace and Love - G
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