The apartments that I’m living in for the 2007/2008 school year provide roommate matching services. This year everyone joined a Facebook group, answered a general survey, and talked amongst ourselves. This was the general survey:

I describe myself as : very neat/ neat/ untidy
I describe myself as : very quiet/ average/ loud
I study: often/ occasionally/ never
I smoke: often/ occasionally/ never
I drink: often/ occasionally/ never
I describe myself as : an extrovert/ an introvert/ a good balance of the two
I like to watch TV: a lot/ only occasionally/ very little
My favorite types of music include: rock, classic jazz
For the first semester I will be a: freshman, sophomore, etc.
My major is: Journalism (minor is Environmental Science)
My hobbies and interests include: Photography, reading, art, design
Any additional information that is important to me in choosing a roommate: I see home as a quiet retreat.

After talking with a few other non-smoking girls, I submitted my top three roommate requests.

I was matched with my number one choice (who I wish had been my number two choice, looking back), and now we have to decide on if we want a balcony or not.  Having a balcony is $15 extra per month.  I want a balcony, she doesn’t.

This looks promising.

Classes at the University of Arizona start on August 20th. That’s less than a month away.

I’m feeling a little nervous because the realization of me living without my parents to take care of me just hit me. No one’s going to have dinner done when I get home; I’ll have to make it myself. It is things like that, things that I’m able to do, but I’ll have to take care of it myself, that I’m worried about.

On the other hand, I’m excited. I like going to school. My brain is asking a million questions about how the classes work there: How big are my classes? Are the classes going to be really hard? How much will I have to study? I wonder if I’ll fail the first test like I normally do? What if the professor puts the most weight on the first test? Will I even see the professor, or will I just see a TA? I wonder if my TAs will be nice or mean? What will my English class be like? Where is my English class?

I guess I could say that I feel like a Freshman. It’s a huge change, to go from a Senior, on top of the class, living at home, taking college classes with 5 other people in the whole class if everyone shows up, to being a Freshman, obviously looking like a newb because I’ll be carrying a map of campus everywhere, living in an apartment, taking college classes where the lecture halls can hold 200 people or more.

There are so many questions I have. And they’re not deep, meaningful, philosophical questions like college kids are supposed to ask. They’re Freshman questions.

I was homeschooled almost my whole entire life––ever since first grade. People ask me a lot of questions about it, mostly because I think I’m more approachable than the average jumper-wearing, loudly-conservative, homeschooling mother.

1. Do you have socialization issues?
   No. When I was younger I was part of a very active homeschool group. If I went to every activity that was offered, I would never have the time to do book work. Then there were church activities on top of that. When I was in high school I swam for the public high school’s swim team. I went to Friday night football games. I was editor of a newsletter. I volunteered. I worked summer jobs. Once I started taking college classes, I earned extra credit because I participated in discussions so much. I don’t think I had a problem.
2. How does your school work?
   My parents would pay a few hundred dollars every year to Christian Liberty Academy in Chicago. That school would send a box of workbooks, teacher manuals, and scantron tests. My mom would teach me things, I would do the workbooks, and when I was ready I would take the tests. Then my mom would send the tests back to the school to be graded. Sometimes the workbooks had to be sent back too. After grading, the school sent us report cards. I earned a real diploma, too.
3. Do you wear pajamas all day?
   No. My mom wouldn’t let me. Once I got older and could make my own decision about that, I found that I worked faster if I was not wearing pajamas.
4. Do you ever wish you went to public school?
   When I was in 9th grade, a lot of homeschooled kids that I knew started going to public school. They wanted a diploma, or a better chance at scholarships, or their parents were afraid they couldn’t teach them well enough for college. But after watching those kids for a year, I’m glad I didn’t go. It seemed like they wasted so much time, and I got to do all the extra-curricular activities that the high school provided anyways.
5. How did your mom teach you enough math to prepare you for college?
   I really can’t answer that question. I hate math. She hates math. We struggled through elementary algebra (my school provided an online tutor). When I was 14 I tested into College Algebra at a local college. I don’t know how I did that either. It turns out that College Algebra is the highest level math that I need for a Journalism major. Most community colleges make you take placement tests, and those colleges also offer math classes for people who failed 7th grade math. Also, most community colleges are homeschool friendly and they’ll let 13-year-olds take college level classes (as long as they have okay placement scores). Check into it.
6. Math is one thing, but science too?
   No, not science too. I wish I had a better science background. I took a couple biology classes at the college, and let me tell you, I failed that first test that involved a lot of chemistry. I ended up staying in the class (even though more than half the students dropped within the first week), keeping my 4.0 gpa, and learning what biology is really about.
7. What was a typical day like in highschool?
   8am: Wake up, do chores, eat breakfast, get dressed
   9am: Family devotions
   9:30am: Start school– Theology, Math, English, Literature, Government, History, and Science
   12pm: Lunch time, leave for college
   1pm: College class - usually Spanish or Biology
   3pm: Swim practice
   6pm: Dinner
   7pm: College homework
   10pm: Brain shut down time
   12am: Bed time
8. Did you like being homeschooled?
   Yeah. Overall, it was fun. I don’t think I will homeschool my kids, just because I don’t have the patience. But I’m glad I was homeschooled.

If you didn’t have a question answered, feel free to ask.

The city hall where I work is infested with mice.

Julie, the city prosecutor, is the third least tidiest person in the whole world. Seconded by my teenage brother Eric, and trumped by my little sister who only has to look at a room to make it messy. One day I was searching for a file on Julie’s desk. Among the random string of chips, gum, chocolate bars and paperwork, I found the file. I also found a little mouse turd. Right next to the package of cookies.

I went to hand Terri, my boss, the file I found. “Terri,” I said, “there is a mouse poop on Julie’s desk.” Terri grabbed my wrist for support, and drug me into the office to show her exactly where this mouse had pooped.

I think it’s funny when Terri is mad. I don’t try to make her mad, but I am an intern after all.

“That is so gross! There is a damn mouse pooping all over everything! We’re all going to get a disease like rabies or something!” Terri hugged herself tightly and stomped her feet. “That’s it. All of this shit has to go. I’m telling Brett.”

Brett is the city attorney. I think Brett likes it when Terri is mad, too.

“Alisa! Show Brett where that thing left a poop on Julie’s desk!” Brett looked at me. I looked at Brett. We looked at Terri. Terri was washing her hands frantically.

“Yes. That is definitely a mouse dropping. I’ll put in a work order to have mouse traps set,” Brett concluded. Brett was playing along, because really, we work for the government. Work orders are thrown in a box in a storage room somewhere never to see the light of day until 10 years go by. Then the work orders are terminated.

Terri huffed, “It’s because Julie leaves all this damn food just sitting around! What does she think is going to happen but have a mouse come and poop all over her stuff!”  Brett and I nodded in agreement.  I tried not to smile.

A couple weeks later Terri gave me a stack of files to go through.  I had just sat down at a computer when Terri called me.

“Alisa!”

Micromanager strikes again.  “Yes?”

“Come here and look at something.”

I plodded over to Terri’s desk.

“Is this a mouse turd?”

I leaned in to look closer.  “That is most definitely a dead cotton beetle.”

I lied.

Today at work I was looking through various companies’ presentation books–– they were trying to be the ones to help the city “brand” itself. Branding is a marketing technique to get people to recognize and remember what a product, or a city, is. For instance: Scottsdale, Arizona, is known for its high end living, rich horse owners, and expensive local shops. Florence, Arizona, is known for its multiple prisons. Florence is trying to brand itself as one of the most historic cities in Arizona; it claims that it has more historic buildings on the national registry than any other town in Arizona.

Anyways, one portfolio showed a catchy tagline for the White Mountains:

Going to a store to buy plums and coming back with a bag of prunes: not cool. The White Mountains: cool.

At first glance, it seemed okay. But the more I read it, the less sense it made. Plums? I’ve never seen a plum tree in Arizona. We don’t even have plum trees here! Plums don’t have any relevance to Arizona whatsoever. Furthermore, what do plums have to do with the White Mountains? I can’t relate to buying plums and coming back with prunes. I can’t even relate to buying plums or buying prunes. I’m not old and constipated!

I think they should have said:

Phoenix in the summer: not cool. The White Mountains: cool.

This makes sense on two levels because Phoenix is blistering hot in the summer and the White Mountains are up in Northern Arizona in the cool, pine-covered mountains. Also, for the social aspect of the word, it really isn’t cool to be hanging around Phoenix in the summer. That’s just plain stupid. Hanging around the White Mountains is socially acceptable any time of year because there is always something cool to do up there (skiing, snowboarding, hiking, fishing, camping, etc). Even old people with their prunes know that it’s stupid to be in Phoenix in the summer. They go up north.

A couple months ago when I was driving I realized that it was hard for me to see road signs until I almost missed my exit. And sitting in a classroom was annoying because I could read the board, it was just a little blurry. Then I started to get a little worried about being in a big lecture hall and missing out on some detail.

So I wear glasses now. I have an astigmatism. I’m near-sighted.

I’m not totally used to wearing my glasses yet, just because everything has so much more detail. Those trees in the distance? They have leaves! They aren’t green blobs! And all of the colors are so much more vivid! I really didn’t expect to be able to see more vivid colors because of glasses. I guess all the colors blurred together to make a greyish mass.

This is really like seeing a whole new world.

My little sister’s name is Leah.  Leah was adopted from India, and she was brought home to the United States at age 1 (exactly to the day).

Leah has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and Dyslexia.

During the first year of her life, Leah had many primary care givers.  First was her birth mother, then her nurse at an orphanage, than a foster mother in a foster home, then a different nurse at the orphanage, and finally her adoptive mom (my mom).  As a result, from age 1 to about age 3, Leah didn’t trust women.  She loved men though.  Thankfully she’s given up running to complete strangers who have a black beard and planting kisses all over them.  One thing that she will never be able to shake, however, is her primal wound.  Leah doesn’t understand this yet, she’s only 7, but she knows that when she was very little her heart was cut and lemon juice was poured in the cracks.

Leah is extremely physically and verbally abusive.  When she was one, she ripped the closet door off the wall.  For the most part she’s grown out of the physical abuse.  But she’s still very verbally abusive.  Even to her friends and family she is very hurtful and mean.  They tell me the logic behind this is, “If I hurt you first, you can’t hurt me.”

All the horror stories that you hear about ADHD, Dyslexia, the youngest child, and the adopted child are true.  In one package.

I know there is a breaking point before I snap.  Before we all snap.  It’s elementary physics.  I just don’t know what that point is yet.