As of late, I have been filled with the joy of fall.

Even though I'm struggling beneath a crushing course load, I'm having a wonderful time.

Rick arrived last Friday and left yesterday morning, after a long weekend of movies and long conversations and wanderings and really scary propositions for Chinese food. Rick is like a breath of fresh air here at AU, and although I'm sad that he's gone he left me that much happier.

Last night, Ash and Adam and I prowled DC. The high point of the night was Adam scratching my head on the metro platform at Gallery Place while I kicked my feet in glee and clung to his legs happily. Bottom line: Dignity? What's that? Headscratch!

We also went to Ben's Chili Bowl, where, when I got up to get a bottle of water, a fortyish man came over to me with a slightly leering smile.

Man: Do you like poetry?
Kat: *fumbling, really not wanting to get stuck listening to poetry for a half hour* I'm not really a fan of poetry. More into literature. [To be fair, I was trying to remember the word for "prose" and couldn't, and ended up sounding more pretentious than I intended.]
Man: Poetry is literature.
Kat: True.
Man: I have some really hardcore poetry here. You know, radical stuff. It's a little like punk rock.
Kat: Punk rock isn't really my thing... thank you very much, though.
Man: You know what? You're really stuck-up. You need to come down.

Although Adam and Ash maintain that he was "just trying to get into my pants," I felt horrible. At the same time, I was out with my friends having a good time and he was the one who came up to me in a diner and demanded my attention -- which is incredibly rude. So why did I feel so crappy?

Then Adam scratched my head and everything was better. Afterwards, Hillary came over to the room, and we all hung out for about two hours. It would have been hard to feel bad after that.

I really do love my friends. Despite all my craziness this last month and a half, when I'm moderately sane I can see how lucky I am to know these people. I would do pretty much anything for any of them. They've all helped me enormously -- even Sara, whom I'm on the outs with now; meeting her last semester helped me adjust to AU twice as fast as I would have otherwise.

That's a big reason why I love this time of year. In late October/early November, things were finally starting to come together. I still had a bad room situation, but I was starting to make lasting friendships, as opposed to those "Oh, well, you live on my floor" acquaintanceships. And, despite the horror that was Forensic Chem, I was actually adjusting to college, as opposed to surviving it. That kind of thing sticks with you; now cool weather and fading leaves bring me joy.

But that's enough sap for now.

I cannot wait for Halloween. Actually, I can't even wait for next Tuesday -- then my US Foreign Policy midterm will be turned in and my life will be that much happier.

KitaKatze: I have to do a 6-7 page essay for [the USFP midterm] beforehand and then do some short answers during class, and I don't feel like I have a good enough grasp of the material to do either
LS4077: ugh
LS4077: that sucks! but i know you'll pull it off
LS4077: you always do, and you know enough generally to fake what you don't specifically
LS4077: besides, you could argue Stalin into introducing democracy
LS4077: :-)

And that, my friends, is why I love my Carey.