It's Coming Up

As you (most likely don't) know, I am to graduate in May. As I keep telling people, that's if I pass my classes. Not that I'm in danger of that. I just like to keep a hint of caution. I will have a creative writing degree. It's, like, my dream degree. I didn't even realize how perfect it was until I had been in it for a while. But it all adds up.

• At night, I was the best bedtime story teller. 
• I ate up books; children's and young adult. Still primarily read those.
• I actually wrote a few 'books,' including a book that I bound in cardboard about a unicorn who went on a journey to find other unicorns. She meets a giant spider in the forest. (I had no idea about that movie, The Last Unicorn)
• I also wrote a little four page poetry book. I wrote on the front who illustrated it (me) and who wrote it (me). It was a thrill to see my name on a cover.
• My senior year of high school I got to take a lot of elective courses. From a catalog, I selected creative writing, and it was the #1 class for me. I spent hours on my portfolio, literally binding ten little books with a work each in them to all fit into one of those decorative books that open.
• In English classes, my essays always had a sense of self. I loved writing days.
• I worked in the library for a class period my junior year. Dear god, the smell of new YA books as they roll in and the satisfying crack as they are opened for the first time... 
• I would get more passionate about the creative essays than the research papers.
• I stay up on all the young adult book trends and authors and titles and such. Always have.

So you see, it was something in front of me all along, but I never really put it together. I wasn't even aware such a degree existed. I heard someone say it in passing and I just reached out and grabbed it. My major used to be vocal performance, because it was something I loved doing, but I didn't enjoy the technical side of it. I minored in it instead and took on the writing degree!

Over the years I have written dozens - if not hundreds - of stories and poems. I have written scripts and written critiques for my peers and worked on my own little novels. I edited other people's work and helped them out with plot and characters. That rush from seeing my name on the cover of something? Still totally there. Now I convert my Word documents into epubs so I can read them on my ereader. Flipping through and seeing my book, even if only I see it, is exhilarating. 

So after graduation, I don't know where I'll go. But I'll always have writing. And I will always know that I majored in something I really love. 

Yep, I go to school with my grandpa

As my grandfather, heretofore referred to as 'Gramps,' will tell anyone, he started taking courses five years ago after watching a special on television. This special said that older people should turn off their televisions and go back to school, because if you're super old, you can go for free. So Gramps got off the couch and asked his school, Hendrix, about it. They weren't interested. However, UCA was. So he signed up for courses, to audit them.

I started attending UCA the next year. Gramps takes classes every semester; he's taking two courses this time, and they always fall at the same time. Lunchtime, afterward, so he can pig out in the cafeteria. He likes taking the history courses. He excels in them, even sometimes adding information the professor didn't know. He spends hours a day in the library reading and researching about what he's learning in class. Being unable to even turn on a computer, he reads books, and a lot of them.

Gramps lives across the street from the campus, so he walks here every day. He goes to the cafeteria and reads newspapers as he eats, then goes to class, then researches. When I can, I join him in the cafeteria, and tell all my friends about him to say hi. He's quite an open book. Friendly and talks to everyone. His peers in class call him 'Jim' and when they call him 'sir', he tells them if they're to call him sir, that they should instead refer to him as 'Your Excellency." And they call him that.

When the professor assigns partners, they all fight to be with him. He knows his stuff, and he's funny. Pretty absurd, too. I sat in on a class that he was in once for a non-fiction assignment, and he was so proud to introduce his granddaughter to the class. He brags to everyone that he attends university with me. The cafeteria ladies all know him. Students say hi to him on the sidewalk.

I'm so amazed at him, at his commitment to school. He never misses a day, not ever. I mean, who all can say they're going to the same college their gramps is going to?  I do what he does and we brag on each other often. As my last semester here, I'm trying to take every second in and enjoy it, knowing this is something to tell my kids and their kids one day. And who knows? Maybe I'll even go to school with my grandkids.

Why I Pay $4 for a Cup of Coffee

Before college, I was never really into the whole coffee thing. My dad drank it in the morning as a ritual, but I never got into it. When I got to college, I realized that there was a Starbucks in the library. Of course, I couldn't believe anyone would pay $4 for a coffee, and that's for the smallest size (dubbed 'tall' inexplicably). But something changed in me at college. 

1.     It’s fucking delicious, that’s why

The first time I ever went here to have myself a coffee I had no idea what I was doing. Really. I went up and said “I like sweet things, but I don’t like coffee…” and the poor baristas whipped up a mocha. A mocha, for clueless people, is a hot chocolate with espresso in it. Jesus, it’s delicious. It’s warm and chocolaty and perfect. And those bastards at Starbucks know that once you’ve had a taste you want more and more. So of course every time I passed the little coffee shop I spent FOUR dollars on a little cup of hot chocolate with espresso in it.

It gets better. Christmas rolls around, right? And they have all this seasonal flavored syrup people go gaga for, like peppermint and Christmas tree and sugar cookie and ornament. But there’s also gingerbread. Oh god, the gingerbread flavor. I went to Starbucks and a guy I had a class with was working. He crafted me a drink that Jesus would worship. It was simply hot chocolate with gingerbread. I know, I sound ridiculous. But it was incredible. And from then on I didn’t care that it cost $4 a cup of heaven droplets.

2.    I do not have the time to craft my own deliciousness

In the morning, I’m lucky to get cereal down my throat. I don’t own a coffee machine, and the idea of making hot chocolate with water makes me queasy. I was never in the habit of having coffee before the morning starts and I’m still not. I just like it when I’m studying or want to look sophisticated. First of all I have no clue how to make anything they have. Go ahead and send me all the recipes you want, I can’t make it like they do. I don’t have that fancy steamer that boils milk in mere seconds, nor do I have the whipped cream dispensary that you hold upside down. So I cannot replicate their creations. And furthermore, I will not. That is sacrilege.

3.     What else am I doing with my money?

That sounds bad. I know. As a college student money is tight. I try not to blow money all willy nilly, but sometimes you want a mocha with whipped cream and gingerbread syrup. At my school there are meal plans. I have a student ID card that has the money for meals on it. Preloaded. You can spend that money only on things on campus, food-wise. So I have at least $625 to spend a semester on food, and if I don’t, I lose it. So why the hell not buy coffee when I want to sip something hot?