The Little Girl Who Thought She Understood the Universe

Mind Blown

The Grayland Manor

Five months ago, I needed to find a place in the city—and quick. After calling every ad within walking distance of the campus on craigslist, I finally stumbled on a house, deceptively known as "The Grayland Manor," that even offered the first month free of rent. Only catch: I’d be living with three guys I had never met.

My friend and blogger, East Coat Goes West, thought this was the best twist in my life so far.

The reality of living with three bachelors was much less glorious.

The guys I found myself living with were just as disorganized and unpredictable as the house.

Billiards plays pool at nights, challenging vain frat boys to shoot against him and leaving the bar a few hours later with a self-satisfied smile and more money than he started with. His pool habit and delivering pizza has left Billiards effectively nocturnal. Between his schedule and me hiding in my room, I knew him only by the creak of his door late at night for the first month I lived here.

Metalhead and Fireman spend their free time scrapping copper and donate their proceeds to our centerpiece: a jar with a label that reads: “Keg fund: Keep your f*ing hands off.” Once a week they celebrate a special day known only as “scrap day.” They announce this day with a series of quick chirps back and forth the night before, usually when they are feeling drunk and ambitious:

The day comes into fruition when the first of them wakes up, howling “SCRAP DAY” through the house until they find one another.

Metalhead and Fireman rename everyone that lives in the house. They know me as “SAAAAAAAAAAM” and recorded me in their phones as such, in spite of my quiet protests that I prefer “Samantha.” Further, their farewell is “F*ck off, blow it out your ass” or some variation thereof, which didn’t do much to make me feel welcome.

But in spite of how determinedly abrasive they are, they slowly coaxed me out of my hiding place in my room.

And, slowly but surely, I found I was being absorbed into the household just as the mystery mold in the shower absorbed the shower curtain.

Many scrap days have passed, each bringing me closer to the Grayland Manor and those who frequent it. I started to write down the ridiculous exchanges that transpired in front of me—from the time Fireman apprehended smelling salts from an emergency vehicle and tested them on Metalhead, to the first time I won drinks at pool under Billiards’ tutelage. Unfortunately, two chapters in to what I was sure would become my break-out novel, I realized I was writing the plot to New Girl.

So I wrote a blog post about it instead.

It's Finals Week and I Just Discovered Portal

Whoops.

Highs and Lows of Hogwarts and Fame

So I wrote about the time I tried to be a scholar, but I've gotten a request to write about some of the happier points of my trip to the conference in Florida (Jessica, you're pretty).

After my panel, my favorite professor/mentor invited me and another student to join his family in Harry Potter World. I'm lucky his kids were as excited about Harry Potter as I was--otherwise I would have looked pretty ridiculous hopping through the theme park in a day-long adrenaline rush. As it was, I found that  middle school and high school companions are perfect for me when I'm high on Harry Potter.

I went through an identity crisis or two during my stay there, but eventually I decided against hiding in the theme park and staying in Hogsmeade forever.

After reluctantly returning to the Muggle world, I listened to one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, read from his new novel. If you've never heard that man read, go buy/rent the audiobook for Neverwhere--he narrates it with all the lilting tones of Jeremy Irons, Anthony Hopkins, and Morgan Freeman. Yeah, it's awesome.

Next day, I hopped in line to have him sign a book for me and my dad. While in line, I pulled out my cheap sketch paper and doodled some of my favorite pieces of Gaiman novels/screenplays.

Then, in a fit of confidence, I gave it to him when he signed my book.

I meekly accepted my signed books and left, too terrified to do more than hand him the slip of paper and stutter while trying, somehow, desperately, to make an impact on someone who has thousands of people tell him every week how much he has impacted them.

And then, glory of all glories, complimentary wine! The hotel provided some wine for the conference goers to enjoy for an hour-long wine social. I surprised myself and approached an author I had met before and admire (Andy Duncan, sci-fi short story writer), introduced myself to fellow scholars, and had a hoot.

But the free alcohol didn't stop there! After the social I went out to the pool and found myself in a mingled group of professors, authors, theorists, and fans. Wine, Kahlua, and beer passed liberally between us, a Finnish man shared his Gandalf-esque pipe, I made friends and got myself fairly drunk.

And at some point this happened:

I drank until 6AM, when I went back to the hotel room and packed my bags (poorly, I left some important items, like an external harddrive), caught the shuttle to the airport, and began the long slow slump back into sobriety.

It sucked.

I cradled my barf bag and gazed out the window, remembering friends made, adventures had, and magic left behind.

But then I sucked it up and remembered something very important about myself.

What Hell Is Like (Spoiler Alert)

I'm taking a hard science fiction course--which is amazing. Hard sci-fi's kinda my thing. And it is perfect--we've got an excellent line-up of top-notch books, stimulating discussion, and an engaging atmosphere. I've been giddy every class. There's only one problem.

Twenty-five students share my class (it's my only shared-with-undergrads course), and each of them is expected to read a book and present for ten minutes on it. The principle behind this makes perfect sense: get students to practice public speaking, and expose us to more literature than we could possibly read in a semester.

However, the result is a dark series of spoilers--twenty-five of them to be exact. Twenty-five novels in my favorite genre laid bare by nervous students who rush through the author's carefully structured lingual finesse to summarize a plot and tell me the who-dun-it at the end.

For the duration of each presentation, my heart retreats to a dark place where it weeps softly.

 I tried shutting out the information, thinking about things that normally distract me against my will. But to no avail.

Some of the spoilers were downright cruel.

After three months of the torment, I finally had to prepare a presentation of my own. I'd read this novel, and loved it, and had to face ruining the end for a class full of devoted readers of science fiction. Though I was fairly sure none of them particularly minded, I was not at peace with myself. 

The day of my dark deed, an undergrad presenting on Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead went before me. He described the characters, the different races, the world, and gave a very brief summary of events. But then, he did something completely unexpected.

He broke the system. He broke outside of the established pattern and stood for what he believed in. Was I so cynical, so bent on pleasing the class, that I had let go of my values? I watched the brave young undergrad accept polite applause as he resumed his seat, stomach in self-loathing knots. I couldn't revise as I went--when I created my prezi, I had laid the seeds and committed my crime.

As I waited for prezi to load, I thought about my life. What circumstances had suspended my morals to the point that I would give away the ending to a perfectly good book? What changed me? Who was I, anymore? I wasn't even sure we were expected to spoil the end for our grade. In fact, I wasn't even sure I knew myself.

Finally, the equipment warmed up and projected my transformation into something less than a human. I'd betrayed my class and myself:

_____________

(for the record, not everyone dies. The worst spoilers are in very tiny letters so I won't hurt the internet like I did my class and my self-respect)

The Time I Tried to Be a Scholar

This past week I had the opportunity to present a paper I wrote to the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts. This conference is a magical place. People discuss Doctor Who, fembots, Firefly, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, zombies, and anything else fantasy, sci-fi, or horror at great length. This is a place where being a girl nerd doesn't raise an eyebrow. I wanted to make a good impression.

Of course, I'm also lazy. Before I left for the trip, I entertained the prospect of changing my wallpaper from this:

to something more professional. But that took about twenty seconds of initiative, and I was still working up the initiative to brush my teeth. Plus, I liked looking at it. It's an attractive naked man on a Royal Enfield, can you blame me?

Final edits done at long last, I sat on my panel next to a roguishly attractive Albertan PhD student, who happened to be writing his dissertation on the same subject I was about to speak on.

He asked all Canadian-like and composed.

I cleared my throat. This was my moment. "The environmental apocalypse and human transformations as a result of estrangement from the natural world in Paulo Bacigalupi's 'The People of Sand and Slag.' " I did not stumble, I did not mispronounce a word, I spat that mess of academic language out and god dammit, I sounded smart.

Then I opened my laptop.

And that's the story of what happened when I tried to be a scholar.