I brushed my hair and hated my face and fell asleep on TRAX, because tonight was the University of Utah Scholarship Reception! As with all social excursions, my nerves were bouncing around inside me like caffeinated rabbits. But (mostly) for naught!
My parents and I talked to the financial aid...er, president? He told me that there aren't as many students enrolled for summer, so I have even better chances to get an on-campus job.
The student ambassadors were all amazingly nice and charismatic. As soon as I walked in I met one named Bryan and we talked about Kearns and Copper Hills and marching band and The Fault in Our Stars. The fact that someone could make me talk so much after two minutes is an accomplishment, dude! I talked to Brittany, communications major, and I learned that I can do three internships for credit over the next four years, and that there really are a lot of on-campus jobs available! I need to talk to the Career Center to find out more about internships and jobs, so they'll come to me! I should definitely join some clubs, too. The have a Harry Potter club, and I think a Nerdfighter club. They have Quidditch! Booyah!
I also met a total of one other student! His name was Caius, and he was going to go into computer programming. Our dads seemed hilariously swapped, with my dad the computer guy and his dad the "starving artist" English major. So... humans.
I feel really good about it all right now. It's going to be a lot of work -- so much work! But I know that I can do it. I'll get a job and get involved and hopefully make some of the best friends of my life, while staying in touch with my non-Utes too. ;)
Also today was Lake Effect! We had readings from Peggy Shumaker and Katharine Coles and Matthew ...hermergah... that were really cool. Matthew's talks on prose really shocked me out of myself, shooting down "show, don't tell". However, as young writers, it is so much easier to teach someone to show well than to teach them to tell well. Even though exposition when done right can make a piece a hundred times better, it more often will break it. Writing is a hard thing to teach anyone.
The student readers were amazing! One girl read these wonderful, long poems... the circus, her grandmother, ambrosia.... One girl read her college entrance essay on why she says "you" in all of her work, and nothing I can ever say can do it justice. It makes me wonder how I ever got accepted into college. It was completely, violently embracing. One girl, with the second-best voice for reading I've ever heard, read a poem that lingers with me only with Paris and days dripping raspberries down their chins, and Wendy, that wonderful, ignorant girl.... It was, to say the least, completely awesome. And the weather was great and we got vertigo staring down the stairwells at the library and laughed and were awkward.
I'm really grateful to Mr. Erickson for all that he has done to help us out and for all of the opportunities he opens up to us. He's the best teacher I have ever had.
Of course, the supreme court hearings on same-sex marriage opened up the last few days, and it's been a bit of a mad house. I am completely in favor of it—because we're humans and we're in love and no matter who "we" is, we deserve to have our devotion recognized by the law, with all of the benefits that come along with it. The lack of rights is as bad as taking away rights.
I get disappointed when I see some of my friends again proclaiming that it is only for "a man and a woman". I had one friend face opposition with deleting anyone who supported gay marriage. But for a lot of people, it's progress. I know a lot more people than I thought who oppose homosexuality, but who still believe it's a human rights issue and has nothing to do with their beliefs about their lifestyle. I am grateful for that much. It is a human issue.
Another friend reminded the blogosphere that these things change with time. I've told some others the same thing. "It's horrible, but we just have to wait for a few generations to die out for equality." Forever and ever, though, I keep the hope that it will be my generation that sees equality. That it will be my generation that is equal.
Finally, I think this is the best thing I've seen.
I love you ALL! Happy SPRING BREAK, baby! Do something fun, eh?
Always always DFTBA.
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