Scream and they Come Running

My highest level of productivity usually comes when avoiding something else. For some reason, any time a large assignment is coming up, I have a burning desire to deep-clean my dorm room.

Tonight was one of those nights. I put in a load of laundry, cleared off my desk, and made my bed. I was so inspired by this burst of productivity in procrastination, that I turned to the giant suitcase of winter items in storage. It was finally time. 

Unpacking a suitcase with clothes you haven't seen in a while is like reuniting with a old friends. 

Hello, scarves! I hung up some extra command hooks, and draped the scarves on the wall. Hello, sweaters! I made room for a new pile of sweaters into my drawers. And then, my dear, old black trench coat. Hello trench coat! It's been so long! 

On the collar was a curious white circle. when I looked closer, it was a spider. wrapped in his own smooshed web. 

 It must have suffocated under the pile of clothes in my suitcase all summer. 

I took a picture, for my brother, who has a mild obsession with the disgusting little creatures. I went to zoom in, so he could examine every creepy little fuzzy leg, then ...

It started moving. 

IT STARTED MOVING. 

It was alive.  Like some demon creature emerging from the depths of hell it was crawling out of its web cocoon to eat me.

So I did what any rational and calm person would do:

 I threw the coat in the hallway and shrieked. 

I'm comforted to report many of my dorm mates poked their heads out to come to the rescue of a screaming fellow student. Should there ever be a real emergency, apparently, I have great neighbors. 

To Joe--the man at the end of the hallway--you're truly a hero among men for retrieving the loose and speedy arachnid, and putting him outside. For the rescue. Thank you for saving both the spider's life and my sanity. 

There's no chance, no chance in the underworld that spider came from, I'll be able to sleep tonight. 

It's happened to us all...

It's raining. 

I have no umbrella. which I do not mind. It's just a little wet. 

I'm in a maxi skirt and my giant raincoat, and trying to go to the bathroom. Somewhere in the shuffle on putting my backpack and water bottle down, and trying to lift my giant skirt, I hear a terrible, gut-wrenching...

 "PLOP"

"Oh no oh no oh no!" 

I fished the phone out of the toilet bowl in horror, while a girl washing her hands called through the stall, "...is everything alright?"

Rice. I need uncooked rice to absorb the water in the circuitry. this is not my first phone-in-water rodeo. 

To be clear, this is not a fact I'm proud of. 

The following sequence of events are all real, and happened with exponentially-growing panic:

• I rush to the small and overpriced corner store.The nearest grocery store is a 30 minute walk, and it's raining. it's as good as we're gonna get
•  ask the lady at the front desk, "Do you sell rice?"
• she looks at me like I'm speaking a different language, and responds with a blank stare. "Great. I'll check the back" I say
• scan the shelves: noodles, coconut flakes, rice flour. Useless. 
• finally see rice--but it's Garlic and Spanish Rice boxes. Gah! ...no other options here...
• quickly purchase a box--the garlic one. 
• rip top of box open, realize the flavoring is in a separate pouch. hooray!
•  shove phone in. 
• clearly there's not enough rice to submerge the stupid, toilet-drenched device. 
• run back to the shelf 
• purchase box #2 (this time, Spanish Rice)
• rip open top, pour box #2 into box #1
• spill rice all over the counter

At this point--everyone in the store is looking over, watching this crazy lady throwing rice around the check-out counter. But I'm too passionate about my purpose to be distracted or shamed by strangers who don't know my plight. But the box thing isn't working. I ask the front desk lady if she has a plastic bag of some sort. "trash bag...? anything?"

• she says, bored, "banana bag?" 
• excellent idea. 
• I rip a fruit bag off the stand 
• go to pour the rice in
• there's a hole. you've got to be kidding me
• Because it's raining, there's plastic bags out front to hold wet umbrellas
• I grab one of those. pour all the box's contents down the skinny plastic tube
• It's long and narrow, and I am having trouble moving my phone around in order to completely cover it with rice. 

The woman at the check-out counter watches me struggle, and finally says, "what are you trying to do...?" 

"My phone...is wet..." I say, looking up at her, deflated. 

• She holds up a finger: one second. 
• Comes back with an empty protein bar box. 
• Takes the contents of my umbrella bag and expertly places a layer of rice, the the phone, then sprinkles the rest of the rice on top. she must be my fairy godmother. 
• then she turned away, bored again, to help the next customer in line to check out. 

So now I have an open-faced box of Spanish rice-covered phone, and need to transport it without getting it wet. I cover it with the fruit bag--putting the hole on the bottom of the box. then stack the two rice boxes on top--hoping they'll catch most of the rain. I make it home phone in hand--

Time will tell if my efforts were for naught. 

Now I'm eating a cookie. 

Down the Harvard Rabbit Hole

Welcome to September.

Welcome to the beginning of the school year. Do you remember as a youth that feeling of elation shopping for new pens and composition notebooks with your mother? The palpable, electric undercurrent of a brand new year. Here it is again.

As if somehow a stack of brand-new highlighters, new sticky notes, a new planner holds the key to your happiness. As a reflection of your entire future capabilities: "This year, I'm going to be organized... This year, I'm going to read all the things..."

The stack of beautiful, new, blank pages holds a million possibilities.  A recharge of a feeling that
you can do or be whatever you want to be. (Don't worry, the feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness won't come until later) For now, just enjoy the September feeling of infinite potential.

Now please join me, as we start into a new school year at Harvard. The first thing the Dean says is, "Don't worry. This is not a joke. This is not a dream...." audience exhales "...You are supposed to be here. We did not make a mistake. Welcome to Cambridge."
In other words, Wonderland.

You've now stepped down the rabbit hole into an autumnal, scholastic, magical world. Where, "depending on where you want to get to, if you don't know where you want to go, it doesn't matter which road you take" because down any one of them is enchantment.

Not only are many professors at the top of their field, but many of the concepts they're teaching are ones they discovered or invented. This is not an ivory tower--it's an ivory planning zone. The intellect here is only useful as far as it can contribute to the universe. Professors research intellectually but moreover, practically. "How do we use this knowledge to help..."

If there's magic in the world, it's here:
It's in communities like this; conversations and discourse and learning to help better humanity.

I feel so unbelievably lucky to have stumbled down into this particular magical rabbit hole.

School actually looks like this 

But school Feels like THIS