Dear Grace,
Holy crap! I haven’t written in so long and I have SO much to write about! So to start, I turned into a cooking machine this summer! After remembering the two weeks every year I went on tour, where I realized you can’t live off of Poptarts or any kind of processed foods for that matter, and also realizing the fact that I wouldn’t have a meal plan down at school, I decided I’d better get my butt in gear and start learning how to cook. Fortunately, unlike my unpleasant experiences with cooking meals in the past, I discovered how much I love to cook! And may I just say that my specialty is my Pudding Cinnamon Rolls! They’re made with pudding mixed in with the batter, and I have to say, they are pretty darn tasty.
I guess I’ve made it my goal both to be a good cook so that I don’t get sick and eat nothing but crap while I’m down here at school, and to be everyone’s best friend because of my cooking, just like Mom, haha. So I put together different meal plans, made different recipes for all kinds of foods, and made dinner as much as I possibly could. I also made a list of things I can eat for every meal, in case I have one of those days where I look in the fridge and can’t think of anything to eat. Mom made me my own book of recipes as a graduation gift (which is really what sparked my cooking frenzy) and it has become one of my most prized and valuable possessions.
Second to the last week of the summer we were at Fish Lake with the family, and honestly, I’ve really come to realize just how bad of circulation I have. I brought a huge suitcase full of warm things to wear at night so I wouldn’t be cold, but when I went to bed that first night, I had on three shirts and a full-body sweater, super warm sweatpants, a pair of ankle socks and two pairs of wool socks. Plus, I was in the warmest sleeping bag. All of me was toasty warm all night except for…my feet! It took a lot of experimenting before I finally figured out that taking off all of the warm socks and keeping my bare feet together kept them warm.
I still can’t believe how fast this summer ended. The next week I was at Lake Powell with Andrea and her family. We had a great time, but I felt bad because Andrea was feeling pretty crappy the first couple of days because she had had her wisdom teeth removed the Saturday before. We had a grand old time, swimming, jet-skiing, trying to avoid the spiders on the houseboat, reading, and skinny-dipping at night, haha. Andrea and I had a special spot we would sneak off to, and we found a bush there with white flowers on it that only opened in the moonlight. We dubbed them moon-flowers and each pressed one in a book to take home with us.
Okay, moving on to the whole school-scene. Mom and I made it down here to Cedar half-baked alive because we had to keep turning off the AC so the car wouldn’t overheat, haha. Anyway, we got me all moved in and met my first roommate, Kolenya. She’s super nice, but very quiet, and she’s hardly been around at all since I’ve been here. Mom and Dad and I spent that night at the hotel, and then the next day we finished up some stuff with classes and the apartment and groceries, and then we went out to dinner and then we finally cut those apron strings! I had to try both not to laugh and not to cry while I watched Mom and Dad drive away because Mom had this pained expression on her face of trying not to cry, haha. Anyway, in all honesty, after they were gone, I went to my room feeling all sad and lay on my bed, thinking that I was going to start bawling, and after laying there for about twenty seconds I realized, “Hm. I guess I’m not gonna cry.” And I got up and started making dinner. Yup, that was the duration of the mourning period for me, haha. I guess I just deal well with change.
Well, school started this week, and oh my gosh! No one ever told me how awesome the classes are! I’m not talking about teachers or classmates or anything, I’m talking about the actual stuff you learn! I’ve felt like a sponge this week because I’ve just been eating it all up! Even my math class, if you can believe it! I was so worried that I was going to be killed with homework and study time, but everything I’ve been assigned to do at home has been awesome! I understand the math, and I’ve been learning Spanish, and actually remembering it. And of course I love my English class, best of all. I think the reason I love all of these classes so much is because they want you to think what you think, not what they tell you to. We read a couple of essays for my English class, and our assignment was to go home and write a reaction paper on it. Literally, an essay of our opinion, thoughts, and feelings about it. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like someone’s turned on a light inside me, and every day I go to class fills me with excitement and joy.
I’ll be honest, there is one exception, and that is the University 1000 class that I’m forced to take, being a freshman and all. What a worthless, pathetic, flushing-my-money-down-the-toilet excuse of a class that is! You’re literally learning how to learn. Haven’t I already done that after 12 years of school? I know they say it helps you decide what you really want to do, but I already know what I want to do! I have my major, I’ve experimented in other stuff, and I know what kind of career I want to go into. And the annoying thing is, I spend more time on the homework they give me in that class than in any of my other classes! And we don’t even have exams! So, to entertain myself while I do all of the reading out of the morbidly dull textbook they give us, I keep a pad of sticky notes next to me, and every time I read something I don’t like, don’t agree with, or feel has a weak argument, I write an argumentative note and stick it in the textbook. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had with a text book J. I think the only thing that would be more fun is to drown it in a tub of lighter fluid and then toss an M-80 onto it. And you know this textbook has to be crap when I keep finding typos all over in it.
Okay, off that tangent. So I’ve developed this obsession with listening to Alan Rickman’s voice lately, thanks to Alyssa, haha, but I just can’t help it! His voice is so soothing! Also, I’ve gone off on this random Jack Johnson kick as of late, and I listen to him almost every day. Some of my favorites are Banana Pancakes, Better Together, Angel, Go On, While We Wait, People Watching, and a bunch of others, but in any case, I just love that man J.
So I found out Kathryn Merkley lives down the road from me, haha, so that’s cool. I took her some cinnamon rolls to “warm her house” with, so she and her roommate retaliated by bringing me some unbelievably delicious ginger snaps (which disappeared in two days), and today I retaliated by baking a cherry chocolate cake and taking some of it over to them. So now I think I’m in for something in the next few days haha.
My other roommate’s name is Lindsay, and she and Kolenya are already friends, and they’re both seniors, so it’s kind of hard for us to be friends because I’m the outsider. I don’t mind though, I’ve really been enjoying the peace and quiet. I guess I was enjoying too much though, because God saw fit to send me a friend. Her name is Diantha, and she moved in with us the day before yesterday. She’s a twenty seven-year-old grad student, and she used to live in the apartment right next to ours. She went around knocking on the doors in our apartment complex, introducing herself and meeting everyone, so we invited her in and talked for a while. We all liked each other, and she mentioned something about how her roommates weren’t the best. We invited her to move in with us because we had the extra room, and as soon as we offered she lit up and eagerly accepted.
I was nervous when she first moved in because I was worried that she might be one of those crazy people who thinks the world is out to get them and stuff, but ever since she’s moved in she’s been nothing but a joy to me! She is so sweet and kind and thoughtful and considerate, and we talk whenever one of us gets home from school. She cooked dinner for me the second night she was here, so I told her she had to take some of my cake. This Sunday I’m going to make breakfast for the two of us, and she’s going to make dinner, so I guess you could say that we get along just swimmingly!
So here’s something I did that was extremely stupid and shall not be repeated. I live a quarter mile from campus, so I thought I’d walk there my first day, with my backpack full of books and stuff. Then, I had a three hour lapse until my next class, so I decided to walk to the dollar store, which was about a mile from campus. So I walked to the store, picked up some groceries, and decided to go straight home from there. And what a sad, sorry idiot I felt like when I finally stumbled through the door, wheezing and fearing that I might need to consult a chiropractor. So, I’ve been riding my bike everywhere ever since, haha.
I got my first ticket! Apparently I didn’t make a complete stop at a stop sign, even though I did. I’ve never been pulled over before, and driver’s ed doesn’t prepare you for it at all, so I had no clue what a citation was, and I thought it was a written warning when the cop showed it to me. But when I called Mom she said it was a ticket. So Dad said I should just contest it, so that’s what I’m doing now. What a mess!
Okay, two more things and then I quit this letter. So I met a guy named John back during orientation. He’s a history major, so we get along very well. Anyway, I ran into him again this week while I was doing my homework in the commons, and we talked for like an hour. He had to run to a class, but we exchanged phone numbers and he promised to keep me in the loop about activities going on at school. He told me about an outdoor movie that was going on the night before last, and wanted to know if I could come. I said that I would, but that I’d have to be late because of that freaking University homework again. But, I’m very proud of myself, because I studied and did my homework for five hours straight. Then I hurried over to the movie and found John, and sat and watched that with him. Afterward we hung around and talked for a while and then went home. I couldn’t decide if it was a date or not, haha, but I still had fun, all the same. I took him some of my cake today, too, and we decided to set up a movie night with our friends sometime next week to watch this new show called Sherlock, which we both love. So I’m super excited about that.
Last thing! Michelle came over yesterday, and we went to see this show called The Help, which made us both cry. Gosh that is such an awesome story, you’ll definitely have to watch it. It takes place in the fifties, and it’s about black women who worked as maids in white-people homes, and it’s the black’s side of the story on all that went on there. After the movie we decided to go eat at Sizzler, but as we were driving there we saw a restaurant called DeDe’s, and I noted, “Hey look, it’s Dad’s place! DeDeDe’s!” Michelle laughed and said, “Okay that’s where we’re eating.” And we flipped around and went to eat there. Turns out, they served breakfast all day, so that worked out perfectly J. The thing that topped it off was the fact that instead of dessert booklets behind the napkin holders, they had self-help books. Things like, How to make everyone think you’re normal, and How to be humble when you’re smarter than everyone else. We had and entertaining time reading through those, haha. Then we came back to my apartment and watched another movie, and then Michelle had to head home. It was so awesome to get to spend some time with her. It’s been a very long time, years now, actually, since I’ve had any just-me-and-my-sister time. And it was so generous and nice of her to pay for everything! I love Michelle so much, and I’m so glad I’ll get to spend more time with her from now on J.
Okay, my letter-writing attention span is burned out, but I love you so much, and I promise to keep up better in my writing from now on. I love you, keep on keeping on!
Love Always,
Katie Jo
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