In April 2012, while still trying to get a handle of how blogging worked, one of the posts was called "Being a Glad You Ate." I had tried on the graduation gown that Mom found off Craigslist from someone who graduated from ORU, if I remember right. The original tassel (from 1997) was yellow-gold, so if not ORU then probably Broken Arrow. (The tassel I used was black and orange, because when you're homeschooled, you can choose whatever school colors you want - and those are good Morris Eagle colors. Also, technically we live within Preston school limits, and they're the colors of the Pirates, too. And of the Dewar Dragons, whose softball and occasional basketball I covered for a couple seasons.)
Anyway, the experience reminded me of a passage from one of my favorite books of children's literature, Bill Wallace's Upchuck and the Rotten Willy. It's narrated by a cat named Chuck, and things are rough: His best friend Tom moves away, not long after their other best friend, Louie, got smushed on the highway. And there's a huge dog the size of a house that moves in next door, and then his Katie leaves for somewhere called "College." It's one of my favorite books in all the world.
Here's an excerpt -
"My Katie had left before. I had come to live with her when I was just a kitten. Almost every day she had left for a place called school. She told me she was a Senior and that "seniors are really cool." I didn't know what a senior was, but being one made my Katie happy - so I was happy, too.
Going to school had been okay. When my Katie had come home, she played with me. She dragged an old sock round and round on her bed while I chased it. She hugged me and petted me and rubbed behind my ears. At night I slept on her pillow next to her. Then, after a few months, my Katie told me she was a "Glad You Ate." Now, I had no idea what a Glad You Ate was. My Katie told me she was happy to be one - only us cats don't just listen with our ears. We watch and feel and smell. My Katie made mouth noises that said she was happy, only the feel she gave off was happy and sad and worried, all rolled together. She smelled confused and uncertain - like maybe being a senior had been more fun than being a glad you ate - only she didn't know for sure."
I quoted more paragraphs in the earlier post.
This soon-to-be Glad You Ate went to a career fair this morning, which wasn't very helpful. They just aren't designed for English majors. But I got some free pens, and talked to the people from Cox Media Group (K95, Mix 96, KRMG), Griffin Communications (KOTV Tulsa/KWTV OKC) and the general manager of the Tulsa Athletics minor-league soccer team, and handed out a couple resumes. Also took grad-school promotional material from NSU, Pitt State, and Arkansas, because it makes the people feel useful if their fliers disappear by the end of the day. (I've helped Dad do these before when he worked for the co-op.) I think I still have the grad-school promo material from Missouri State and a couple other places from last year's career fair.
Today's bookstore sale find was a photo essay book called A Letter to My Cat, which, though the letters themselves are a little gushy and awkward, wasn't bad for three dollars, because the pictures are amazing. The concept was terrific, which was why I bought it - there are so many nooks of nonfiction possibilities out there, if you just followed your nose and chased them...still working on that. Have to get through this semester first. And while at the bookstore I got my college cap and gown, since they had finally been stocked. They were arranged by height, so I found the right size on the second try. This tassel is red, since that's the main color of Hillcats.
Before today's Psychology of the Criminal Mind class today, I noticed a girl wearing a Youth Tour T-shirt, so I asked if she'd been part of the trip. She went to D.C. the year after I did, and so we talked for a bit about common sights and "Did y'all go here to this cool place?" Their group went to the Pentagon - on the wrong day. So that sounded like an interesting memory. I told about how our bus broke down, leaving us stranded on the side of the highway in the rain. (We spent most of the waiting time playing Ninja.) We both felt sorry for all the kids who don't get to have Spike Mama as their tour guide.
The other day I finished a book on philosophy (which I then realized wasn't a category on Tim Challies's reading challenge) called The Virtues of Captain America. It wasn't bad, though all the academic jargon was hard to follow at points.
Also reread S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders the other day, because I wanted to see if there were Gothic elements in it (there were a few, but not enough that it could be labeled Gothic). Also, the mid-60's are one of those chronological canyons that histories don't cover in much detail, so that is part of what makes it so interesting, especially since it's set in Tulsa. And Pony's narration is something else. You can tell that a girl wrote it, but still, she was in high school! You can also clearly tell that the publishers edited out most of the swear words, which I can understand in that it would be better for sales, but given the setting, that feels necessary to leave intact for authenticity purposes.
Edited a classmate's terribly-written adventure story for Pop Market; but hopefully it will help make the tale stronger. I might have been a little biased when it came to the genre, though - last night I was rereading mine and Ashland's Two For the Treasure, trying to find ways to unobtrusively throw in backstory details without disrupting the flow of the action. For my Pop Market story this week, it was a hybrid between Bill Wallace, Matt Christopher and Philip Gulley. Not expecting good feedback from the guy assigned to edit it, so I emailed it to the writing friends I know are good editors, hoping to get some information on what worked and what didn't.
Rags is a good cat. She'll be glad that spring break is next week, even if I do have a massive amount of homework to do.
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