It's kind of crazy to realize I am 21 years old now. I've been on this planet for over two decades. Now I'm a legal adult in this country. It's a surreal sort of feeling. I dressed sharp today, especially since I was giving a presentation in Consumer Behavior class this afternoon. I wore my favorite red and black plaid "lumberjack" shirt, and even pulled back my hair into a ponytail. But I didn't put on any more make-up than a few dots of green concealer to neutralize the redness of my acne. I refused to walk around with my face feeling slimy and gross on my birthday.
Stockton was super nice and agreed to go to The Waffle Iron with me for breakfast this morning. There was no one else there, and personally, I think our waffles today turned out better than the ones I had when I came here with Mom and Dad in September and the place was packed. The waffles were absolutely delicious, and we both enjoyed them immensely.
I dropped Stockton off, then went back to my apartment to gather my things for Literary Analysis. We engaged in a group discussion about the short story "Recitatif." It wasn't one of my favorites, but I could see why it was in a Literary Analysis class. The story is about two girls who lived in an orphanage as children. You see them grow up and take different paths in life. The story plays with the ideas of race and social class by making various characters seem like they're a certain race, but then hinting that they could be another, without ever confirming anything. Basically, there were plenty of subtleties to analyze.
I had an hour between Literary Analysis and my next class, Sensation and Perception, so I found a comfy place to sit and worked on some writing. Sensation and Perception isn't a fun class. Participation isn't required, so many people don't come. I don't blame them. Our teacher is rather scattered, and always teaches four chapters ahead of what our homework assignments are, so it's easy to become lost or overwhelmed. Most of what he says doesn't make much sense or relate to what's on his slides. When he assigns online quizzes, the information we're quizzed on doesn't remotely match the chapter he claims the quiz is for. Thank goodness for smart TAs who are easy to communicate with and who wrote up chapter outlines that actually do match the information on the quizzes. And thank goodness there isn't a final for this course.
I quickly learned that I get more out of the class if I use my laptop to work on assignments, or my writing. My Wednesdays used to make me feel panicky and overwhelmed, but having something to pick at throughout class, even if I only end up writing two or three lines during the lecture, helps the day not seem so long, and lets me feel productive instead of miserable. I'm pretty sure this was the teacher my friend Melissa once warned me about when she said, "Write down what's on the slides and just plug your ears. You'll learn way more and be less confused." Sounds about right.
I was still full from Waffle Iron by lunch, so I decided to skip it. But after my computer lab class, I ended up stopping by the TSC bakery, since the student center was between me and the business building. To my delight, they actually had giant chocolate chip muffins to sell that WEREN'T pumpkin chocolate chip! I treated myself to one and ate it on the way to Consumer Behavior. Needless to say, I enjoyed it more than the pumpkin chocolate chip muffin I unintentionally bought on my birthday last year.
Today was my final "real" day of my 7-week Consumer Behavior course. We gave our group presentations today. There were some really good ones, including groups who brought Gummi Bears and Oreos. One group even asked three volunteers to participate in an activity where we tried to fit a long list of tasks into our schedule for the day, by using magnets to pin slips of paper to a week-long schedule on the board that was already full of items like "Class" and "Job." I volunteered, naturally. The other two volunteers were boys who were less interested in adding "Laundry" and "Chores" to our schedule than I was. The class started cracking up when one of the boys pointed out that we didn't have to schedule in "meal prep" time if we just ate during "Date night." The moral of the story was, consumers are busy and even if they know about our brand and have the ability to travel to a store, we can't assume they will. Marketers should either sell products online or make it worth a consumer's time to visit the store in person.
My group was assigned to present last, but I think we did well. We weren't as fun and engaging as the scheduling group, but we should still receive a good score. Our grade will be determined by both the professor's opinion and peer reviews from all our classmates, so here's to hoping. Next Monday, we take the final for this class. It's worth a lot of points, so I certainly hope I do well. After that, I'll finally be done. Except for my marketing class on Thursday, my afternoons will be free.
I met up with Stockton so we could get ice cream at Cold Stone. The original plan had been to use the "Buy one Love-It size, get one free" coupons we picked up during the Taste of Logan event, but on the way there, Stockton told me we had to prove we had Liked Cold Stone on Facebook and were Following them on Instagram. I decided not to play into their hands, especially since I'd been thinking I wasn't hungry enough for a Love-It size anyway. Instead, we picked up the Like-It size, and I ordered cake batter with rainbow sprinkles, as usual.
After our ice cream adventure, Stockton and I drove back up to campus and found the performance hall where the jazz band would be playing. We had bought tickets over a month ago in order to fulfill a requirement for the online Arts class we're in together. The band was cool to listen to, even though music isn't my thing. All the songs blended together after awhile, and I can already tell this write-up we have to do is going to be painful, but the performers sounded great. And now, it's done! It was much more enjoyable to attend the performance with Stockton than it would have been to go alone. And, I was able to drive home instead of walk back in the cold and the dark. That was pretty nice.
It may not have been the most exciting birthday, but it wasn't a bad one, either. Although I did joke with Mom about how I ended up driving Stockton around on my birthday, and how this was probably what my birthdays would be like from here on out as an adult: Driving kids where they need to go. She pointed out that since my driver's license expires tomorrow, Stockton will be driving me for a little bit. Maybe we can coordinate our grocery shopping so I don't have to carve out 2-hour chunks of time to take the bus again like in the olden days of last spring.
I still have essays to print and peer-review for Creative Nonfiction tomorrow, but for tonight, I think I'll just take some time for myself, eat some sweets, and write.
