LIFE WAS RAPIDLY CHANGING in my family.
For one thing, my mom had recently gone back to teaching preschool. In my senior year of college, she had gotten a job as the director of my own preschool, was was super exciting. Meanwhile, Kelly was starting college herself in Delaware. And Emily was in high school now---a thought that frightened us all!
And then there was me, with college life in full swing. I had to keep busy, too.
Alas, I have very few impressive stories from college aside from general anecdotes sprinkled into other chapters and the rest of my writing in this section. My experience can be described as more general moments, like the ones below. Here is a general picture of what college looked like.
#1: STARTED A BLOG, USING SEO-BASED WORST PRACTICES
Danielle had a Xanga blog in high school, so I joined her with my own personal blog. I followed some pretty great blogs too, like Danielle's and the blog of a grandmother who had a nice, formal writing style. It was lots of fun to talk about my personal life, but soon after I started college, Xanga became defunct. So I moved over to Blogger. The question was...what to write about?
College, obviously. Seventeen magazine had a crew of girls at the time called the Freshman 15. Their job was to blog about their college experiences, and they contributed to magazine articles as well. I loved looking through them in high school, and they made me excited for my own new experiences. So I talked about celebrating the holidays in college, going to football games, roommates...anything. Of course, the blog ended after only two years. I only started it in my junior year.
I couldn't really decide on one topic, though. So I also got a book blog called Elle's Bookshelf. It was my first experience book blogging, with some movie reviews thrown in. Blogging became a great way to spend weekends, which I did alongside rejoining the Bikini Bottom forums that year (see The SquarePants Socialization).
Eventually, this led to me getting a WordPress book blog after college. Called Fictionistas Unite, it was a great way to share the thoughts about books that I had but wasn't sure how to get out there. It went on for quite a while until I lost traffic and couldn't figure out how to get it back. But without those days, I might no be sharing books on Instagram today, which is a wonderful community in itself.
#2: PARTICIPATED IN AGE-APPROPRIATE COMMUNITY SERVICE ACTIVITIES (AKA "TRICK OR TREAT")
I love Halloween. Particularly the candy and costumes. So I was highly disappointed to see that nobody did very much for it on campus.
Some people did go to costume parties, or actually went trick-or-treating in the nearby neighborhood. But I wasn't one of them. I did wear my Minnie outfit to a night class (yes, I spent Halloween in night class one year), but I felt awkward about it the whole time.
One thing we did do, though, was hand out candy to little kids who came to the campus and went around the halls. We dressed up in costumes and opened our doors, handing out candy to all the little kids. There were so many of them that I ran out of candy in the first half hour in my first year. The following year, I bought six bags and still ran out in 75 minutes of the two-hour event. I loved seeing all the costumes, and this tradition was what introduced me to the popularity of the gumball machine outfit. Frozen costumes were also popular, as the movie was a recent release. I'd go see it with a friend just a few weeks later.
Some of them liked our costumes, too. On one particularly eventful Halloween (see The Ben Reconnection), I dressed up as a colorful "pop neon" witch, and one little boy took his picture with me. Alas, when I lived in a house my senior year, we didn't take part in this tradition. No Halloween for me that year. I guess everyone outgrows it eventually.
#3: COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT THROUGH CAMPUS WALKS (OKAY, MOSTLY JUST SELF-IMPROVEMENT)
The old college tour adage is true: "I've never felt unsafe walking on this campus." In fact, I liked it at night even more. For one thing, it gave me something to do. For another, it was quiet and peaceful. I liked to have my thoughts go in freefall. I also liked peeking into people's dorm rooms and catching a glimpse of others' lives. I knew that night walks would be one of the things I'd miss most about college life. Years later, I don't think about them as much, but if I tried them again, maybe I'd remember how nice they were. Sometimes I saw some interesting things, like "GRILLED CHEEZ" written on the back of a car, a stubby pizza guy statue in the back of another, or a guy dressed in a body suit heading to the science building to scare studying students.
#4: ATTENDED SPORTS GAMES TO BOLSTER A SENSE OF SCHOOL SPIRIT
Sure, football is fun. In fact, my freshman year was also the first year our football team played. We didn't do well. At all. With a score of 67-0 during our first game, it was barely uphill from there, though they started scoring points eventually. I went with my roommate Stephanie and some of her friends, and it was fun.
But I liked going to other games, too. One day I walked around campus thinking about how nice it would be to go to a field hockey game and relive my own memories. I walked into the student center and picked up a sports schedule. The next field hockey game was taking place at that moment. I walked down to the field.
As I watched the game, it brought me back to my own hockey days. The coaching. The water breaks. The whistles. The parents (who weren't always supportive---one grandmother in particular was always a horror), camaraderie, and gameplay itself all made me miss those days of my own. For example, you didn't cheer for the Cougars or the Ducks or whatever. No, you shouted "Go Blue" or "Let's Go White!" or whatever color uniform your team wore that day. Like a peewee sports game on a Saturday morning.
They were a pretty good team and were fun to watch. It also made me happy when one of the goalies, who lived on my floor, wished me a happy birthday one day. Quite possibly, I also enjoyed it because Tim's sister was on the team one year.
Basketball was also fun. I went to a girls' game randomly one day, after returning from Thanksgiving break. Just for fun. Usually I went to the boys' games, because the women were awful at the time. What a place for school spirit!
Although I felt like our students had the tendency to whine about things constantly in the school paper (we only get turkey burgers offered four days a week, waaahhh!), I would go to these games and the school spirit was always turned around. The cheerleaders were great, the games were fast-paced, and the crowds were into it in a major way. You might see cardboard cutouts of people's heads, signs, and various cheers and jeers. My favorite fans were the guys dressed as Teletubbies---Tinky Winky to be precise. We had a decent rivalry going with a college that was across the street from my house, and it was always an exciting game. Twice we lost a game to them by a mere point. We were a good team when I was there, too, making it a good time every time.
I liked a guy on the team, too. Kind of. Star player Anthony was only a freshman when I was a senior, but as Tim was dating Little Red-Haired Girl at the time, he made a good distraction. I think he noticed me around, too. In the winter of 2020, while seeing them play at the college near my house, I turned around to see him staring straight at me from the sidelines. Whoa, worlds colliding!
#5: HOSTED FREE FOOD BANKS IN THE DORMS
College students love food. Nowhere was that more true than at my friend Jake's birthday party. We were going to have it in the dorm lounge, with a cake that his mom had brought up. A chocolate sheet cake sounded delicious.
Then word spread about the event as people started showing up. Somewhere along the line, someone brought pizza to offset the cake. Someone else arrived with leftover Halloween candy, and a while later, one of the RAs from another building brought a pumpkin pie. It was pure foody goodness. As college events usually are. I typically found that the events where people offered free food were the most well-attended. This includes all the hall holiday parties I went to.
In my opinion? Decorating gingerbread houses with your roommate, listening to Christmas music, and decorating ornaments are way more fun than clubbing and having regrets when you wake up in some other guy's room the next morning.
#6: FOUND THE DUCKS
Every spring, our school hosted a contest to find rubber ducks. These things were ridiculously hard to find. Combined with my bad luck, you know how many I found? Zero. Yet, I continued to try, and the anticipation gave me something else to look forward to about each day. If there's a pretentiously deep message to be taken here, it's "look for the small things and the possibilities." I wasn't likely to find a duck. When they had a similar contest via Instagram in the spring of 2020, I still couldn't find any ducks. But you hope and dream about it. It gives you something to do. I mean, I'm probably not going to go to the space station as a space flight participant anytime soon, but I can dream. And buy the occasional Powerball ticket.
#7: WATCHED TV (COME ON, DOESN'T EVERYONE?)
TV watching in college is a sport. I was totally into watching America's Got Talent over the summer during my college years and even went to see a live taping at one point. But getting TV time in the lounge could be a struggle, especially with boys always signing up for Family Guy at the same time. And I had no idea what I had liked about it in freshman year of high school---what was I thinking?
I solved the problem by streaming AGT online the following day. But then I'd make the mistake of logging onto Facebook first only to see a post from their Facebook page announcing, "CONGRATULATIONS, KENICHI!" (Kenichi being a dancer.) Sigh. So much for enjoying the final episode.
Sometimes, you can watch TV with your roommates--but I highly recommend against getting one if you do have a roommate. In the case of my roommate Alana, this would be with Doc McStuffins. This show was on every single morning for a while and I couldn't figure out why she intentionally turned the television on and left it there. I thought the Judy Moody movie, which she played the first night, was bad! I just...didn't get it. I told my mom about this via phone call at one point.
Soon after that, Alana stopped talking to me entirely, and even acted passive-aggressively at one point, especially when she insisted on leaving the window open in the dead of winter. As soon as I closed it, she'd slam it open. How do you slam a window open? From then on, I was terrified that she had heard me. Was she walking by when I was on that particular phone call? I didn't want to think about it.
Lesson learned: don't gossip about each other's TV preferences. Better yet, ignore this idea entirely and do something on campus instead. Watch TV when you graduate. Unless you get a single room like I did---in which case you can leave The Big Bang Theory on for company.
#8: ATTAINED A CRASH COURSE EDUCATION IN MY POSTERS
I could never decide on one scheme for my room. When I was a freshman, I covered the walls in Seventeen magazine pages for seriously colorful wallpaper. I finished off with a Marilyn Monroe poster, and to top that off, actually rented some of her movies on iTunes so I wasn't THAT student who put up a poster of vintage celebrities without knowing much about who they were. That wasn't so true for my Audrey Hepburn poster in senior year. But man, did it look good on my walls. Especially with the pink lights around it. (I did see Breakfast at Tiffany's and Funny Face. That counts, right?)
But my roommate Stephanie did one better. She simply pasted a monkey wall decal on her wall and named it Fred. The only trouble she encountered was getting it off the wall. With Marilyn, though, I had problems of my own. She loved to fall down in the middle of the night, producing a terrifying sound at 3 AM. But it's true: you'll never get away with Elvis posters in the bathroom when you're an adult. So be a poster hypocrite while you can.
#9: ATTEMPTED PARTICIPATING IN SCHOOL-SPONSORED ENGLISH FUNCTIONS
I liked being an English major, except for one thing. The people.
Literally almost every nice person in college wasn't an English major. Anna, the nice girl I always ran into in the laundry room: speech pathology. Tim: nursing. Jake: computer science. Bill, a study buddy from religion...something else. Roommates who liked me...health sciences.
Except for like, two of them, I never really felt accepted by most of the English crowd. One girl who I was friendly with only friended me to tag me in a status about our senior projects, then deleted me soon after. More frequently, I would walk into class to see the class having conversations. Nobody seemed interested as to what I had to say. Talia was a theater geek who always had interesting stories about her stage life. Being a former theater fan myself, I thought maybe we could have some good chats, but they didn't go anywhere outside of partner work. Then there was Matt, one of the cool kids. By that I mean he was loud, talkative, and always had interesting stories to share. Things were always lively when Matt was around. I enjoyed his stories too. But he barely acknowledged my existence.
It's like the old adage: people will forget what you said, but they'll remember how you made them feel. I knew that I wasn't supposed to get upset at writing criticism and that it was something to assist me. But some comments I'd get back on my writing seemed particularly off-base, especially one from Matt. One workshop session had people mostly complimenting my grammar. That's basically the number one rule of revising: don't focus on grammar. Was my story really so bad they couldn't find anything else to love? I mean, half the assignments this class turned out were highly pornographic. That's what my story ranked below, apparently. Porn. Sigh.
(That class was my first attempt at writing a story with a plot twist. Basically, a girl is hanging out with her friend and dealing with some kind of tragedy. In the end, though, it's revealed that the friend is dead. So maybe it didn't make too much sense. But still. Nobody wants rude comments on their writing. Of course, there were happier days, like other professors saying that I had the best paper in class. Not so in higher-level classes, however. My writing stood out in gen ed classes, but in English specialties, it didn't. Such is life.)
Meanwhile, there was also the time I was inducted into the English honor society. It took place in the campus chapel, and my whole family showed up to surprise me. It was fun, and a good chance to visit. Until we actually got to the ceremony.
Sometimes it's the little things that let you know where you stand. The student chapter president would tell everyone "Congratulations" as they stepped forward to get their certificate. When I got called up, she said nothing to me.
Then I never got emails about the meetings. At first I thought they were only for the leaders since I never heard about them. When I heard otherwise, I asked Amy, the secretary. She denied everything and insisted she'd try putting me back on the email list...after first insisting I was. Because if you're on an email list, you're actually supposed to get emails sometimes. That's how it worked.
I didn't get put on the list.
Before I really had those problems, though, I worked to seek out English-related activities. One of the things that disappointed me most about college clubs was that the focus was too much on doing random service projects and hosting events for the community. One literature club looked promising, except the faculty leader wasn't especially organized. We did host a Dead Artist Society before it broke up. Community members dressed up as dead artists and read from their works. It was mildly entertaining. Mostly I attended to say that I did something. I also joined the lit mag, but after seeing the process used to score submissions, I was hesitant about submitting later on (I did anyway, but I didn't join that year. I didn't want to know what my "scores" were. Why should writing be a contest?)
So I did other activities instead. I joined a Bible study group at one point. That was fun, except sometimes it clashed with evening classes. But if you can't find any classmates to hang with...
#10 CREATED AND PARTICIPATED IN EVENTS FOR LOCAL SENIOR CITIZENS TO HELP THEM ACHIEVE WELL-BEING (HEY, A REAL EXTRACURRICULAR!)
I loved helping local senior citizens in middle school for our community service block. We had always done many great things with the residents, like wrapping presents and building Lincoln Logs. Now, I had the same opportunity at college.
Many schools have a similar Adopt-a-Grandparent program. Here, we'd go over to the apartments across the street for an hour or two and play games with the residents, whether by walking or just all cramming into a car. Scattergories was a popular option, as was Bingo. Sometimes we made crafts or play word scrambling games, which I was shockingly bad at. And we all talked about life, whether it was first dates or life experiences. A pair of best friends had met years ago working at a restaurant and we all loved their witty banter. One lady and I joked about the fact how we loved Bingo but could never win a game. Another woman, Marilyn, and I became good friends. She even gave me peanut butter cookies one day for no reason. I mean, the place was full of grandmas. What did you expect?
And who said college was just for helping you find jobs in your chosen field? Although I have yet to put my English degree to solid use, I did find a full-time job doing activities with older people some years after graduation.
#11: TOOK FANFICTION 101
In my Harry Potter superfan days, I often spent time browsing fanfiction. You could do so much with Harry Potter. What I found, largely, were stories of the authors inserting themselves and their friends into Hogwarts, student-teacher relationships, and other stories meant to satisfy fetishes that shall not be mentioned.
Somehow in college I'd found myself discovering fanfiction again.
There were surprisingly well-done stories based off of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There were also many good stories based on The Office, but I never dared to try and write a character like Michael Scott. Still, fanfiction was good because the characters and even plots were already there for you to play with.
That's also how I discovered Calvin and Hobbes stories.
The beloved strip told of a kid and his stuffed tiger as they had adventures and even philosophized on life. It, too, left lots of room for stories. Whether it was a story about Calvin's alter ego, Spaceman Spiff; a story about Calvin passing on Hobbes to his own kids; or a comic-style story about dealing with school or the babysitter; Calvin and Hobbes tales were always fun. Even poorly written stories by kids had their own charm to them; they had a Calvin-like innocence. I often read them at lunch hour and found myself diving headfirst into an old, familiar world.
That's how I became brave enough to sign up for an account. The possibility of bad reviews was always scary, but hey, nobody said you had to read them.
It was also less time-consuming. In college, I didn't always want to spend time on a long novel. Fanfiction stories were great for that. That's how I started Twelve Septembers. Told in diary entries, it tells of Susie Derkins' experience dealing with Calvin as they hate each other, fall into love, and ultimately realize they are too different. I did eventually read some positive reviews. One reader said it made them cry.
I also started Frankie and Hobbes, my take on the "Calvin passes his tiger on to his kids"Â trope. It was a series of one-shots I could write and publish on a whim whenever I felt inspired, during down time. That, too, did pretty well.
I soon wrote other stories, too. I wrote some about Mario and some about The Office, which I can't say are very good. Still, fanfiction let me branch out and take new chances. I originally submitted a goofy Mario fanfiction where Mario gets a computer to a very big fan site. That, alas, was my first rejection. But on this site, you could just publish. Also, plug alert: you can read my Calvin and Hobbes tales here on Wattpad.
Finally, I should mention that it gave a lot of other writers the chance to grow. Even today, there is some great stuff on there; some of it novel-length and professional-sounding. There's also stuff that's just for fun, written on a whim, and that's perfectly good as well. A great way to spend lunch in my opinion.
#13: BEING SANTA'S LITTLE HELPER
I was into Pinterest in high school. For that matter, I still am. It was a great way to kill some time finding a bazillion interesting things at once. I made two accounts: my typical account and an account for party planning. I designed printables in Microsoft Word and placed them on a blog so viewers can download them, then saved them to the corresponding Pinterest account. Ellen DeGeneres parties, Blue's Clues parties, tea parties...I invented all sorts of themed parties. Adding these ideas to Pinterest drove lots of traffic to the blog. I still delight in people flocking to download my goodies.
I was also into Christmas. Put those two things together, and you'll see how I learned about the Elf on the Shelf tradition.
How it works is this: you send a "scout elf" to your home to watch your kids and make sure they behave for Santa. They fly to the North Pole each night and come back in the morning in a new location. Hopefully, kids behave for you in the days leading to Christmas with the elf watching. By the time the elf leaves on December 24, hopefully he has a good report for the boss.
I loved seeing the escapades of kids and their elves. The elf would often get into mischief at the kids' house. Other times, he taught them to perform good deeds. Sometimes the elves were more like "wise men" depending on the religious beliefs of the participants; I incorporated Jesus into many of my own elf letters. Some parents went all out. Others did the bare minimum. It looked like the kind of Christmas tradition I would have loved. And what many people did to help out others was to create calendars or lists of things the elf could do each day, be it bathing in marshmallows to decorating the kitchen in bows. Tons of them made it to Pinterest.
So one day I sat down, opened Word, and make a crude-looking activity calendar of my own. I had a blast coming up with ideas. Some of them I borrowed (arriving with cookies that Mrs. Claus made) and others I made up (reading the Bible with stuffed animals). I didn't know how to save and upload PDFs for download yet, so I took a screenshot of the document which I had to cut in half for viewers to read, and uploaded them to the Pinterest account. I did the same thing every year. I made a new calendar, new "arrival" and "goodbye" letters, and possibly new activities as well.
I wasn't just doing elf calendars. I wrote letters from the elf for the kids. I made up board games and even official "warning letters" from Santa Claus. My graphic design skills weren't perfect, but they definitely improved over time. I still do it today. My complete elf portfolio includes letters, calendars, Bible-themed notes, scavenger hunts, and more. I've even evolved to let users submit personalization requests for letters from the elf so they don't have to fill names in the blanks or use their handwriting on the Santa warning notes. It's a blast. And it's oddly satisfying personalizing warning notes!
And that was college, summed up. Some activities were generic, others not so much. I found some new interests which would shape my later life. But I enjoyed the experience, regardless of classmates, roommates, or who your crush is dating. I recommend you do the same if you can. It's fun.