Hi you!

I was thinking about how I hadn’t seen the blog in a while, so I was catching up on it instead of writing my paper about the cultural genocide of Native Americans and saw that people were posting stories! So I thought I’d send a funny story about life here. In the heart of America. Mmmm. Yum. It’s for you and Diane or the blog, whichever you choose. But do tell Diane and Susan (is she there yet?!!!) I say hi if you don’t feel like posting this! (Don’t feel obligated to do so!)

So, this past week I was really fairly sick. It was a cough and throat sickness for the most part, so when I coughed it sounded like a lung was coming up. It was super attractive, let me tell you. So Saturday night I worked on my art project for a while and then my friends and I went to the “Dance through the Decades”, where you were supposed to dress up as different periods (1920s through 2000s) and they played different types of music at different times. (I was the 1950s, Joannah was the 1960s, and Sara-Alicia was the 1980s). After we came back we stayed up a little bit more, and then went to our respective rooms to sleep. My roommate, Cate, rarely sleeps in the room (she’s dating a football player boy thing who lives on the other side of campus) so I got ready for bed and crawled in around 2:30 or 3am, super excited about sleeping for a while until I had to do my art project all day Sunday.

Around 4am, someone else waltzes into the doorway. It is DEFINITELY not my skinny, tall, beautiful roommate. It’s Farah, our “vertical roommate”, as we call him, since he and his roommate Nile live directly below us. Cate and I are on the third, and top, floor, so him and Nile are on the second floor. Farah’s looking around the (dark) room and is still standing in the doorway.

“Hey Farah. What’s up? Do you need something?” He looks down at me all curled up in my bed, steps back a little and goes “O MY GOD HILARY! I AM SO SORRY.” “Mmm. What happened?”

“I TOTALLY thought this was my room. This isn’t my room? Wait, am I on the third floor then? I definitely thought I was on the second floor. O my goodness.”

“No no, that’s totally fine. That’s hilarious.”

I’m obviously laughing my ass off.

How can you not when someone mistakes your room on the third floor for his room on the second floor?! As I’m laughing, I start coughing. And then the “lung-coming-out-of-chest” noise occurs. Which just starts Farah apologizing more.

“Hilary, oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. You’re sick! I woke you up and you’re sick! Go back to sleep.”

“Goodnight Farah! Hope you make it to your room!” Needless to say I was SO EXCITED about seeing him the next day. I started imagining the endless tormenting I would unleash upon him. Mwa haha.

So, the next day around dinnertime I’m in the Oberlin cafe (DeCafe) and I see Farah and his roommate Nile. And just start laughing. And he comes over and laughs a little bit, and then apologizes some more. “Hilary, oh man, that was crazy. I opened the door, and I was taking out my wallet from my pocket, ready to take off my pants and go to sleep, and I look around the room and I’m thinking ‘Hmm, Nile rearranged the room…’ and then I look a little more and I thought ‘And there’s a lot of pink on his side…’ and then you said something and… I’m just so sorry.”

Life is hilarious. My friend Sara-Alicia and I are preparing for sometime when we go downstairs and surprise him and Nile. It’ll be fabulous.

Miss you guys! Take care and I’ll see you SOOOOO SOOOOOOON!!!!! I get back around Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on several factors.

Other than my Farah story, life is good, in case you were wondering. Schooly school is nice. I have a bunch of essays to write as finals, but no exams, which is a real relief. I’d rather have a 10-15 page paper about Native Americans (I have two papers on Native Americans, one for my Native American Identity class and one for Human Rights) than have a test. No doubt. And I just had this HUGE art project due on Monday. I only had a week a half to do it, and I made a full body cast of my friend Joannah. Using plaster impregnated gauze. We did pieces of her at a time – top of leg, bottom of leg, back, chest, top of arms, bottom of arms, etc, etc. It took forever. And then my other best friend Sara-Alicia helped me put together all the pieces and cover the life-size creation in newspaper clippings and flyers from the School of the Americas protest. We set her up with her ankles (no feet) attached to cinderblocks, and she was pulling on cinderblocks with a rope as well. It was an endeavor for me and all my friends. I was at the art studio 10 hours Sunday, and Sara-Alicia was there for 8. I couldn’t have done it without her and Joannah and some friends who came over for a plastering party where we just plastered for about 3 hours. It was intense. But I love how it turned out, and my class seemed to like it a lot too, so that’s good.

I have to go now, since Sara-Alicia and I are going to the viewing of 5 minute movies made my a cinema class. Much much much love! I’ll take pictures of my art project FOR SURE and send them to you, since it was quite a task.

Love you! Take care of yourselves! See you soon!

HilB