June 14, 1999
Can't Trust that Day

“Any other day of the week is fine, yeah” to quote a famous song. When my alarm went off this morning I was in the middle of an interesting dream (which I can’t remember anymore) and the radio got incorporated into it. It took me a few bars of the song to realize that it was time to get up. Yes my friends, it was Monday.

I saw Allen today while I was working on my paper for History of Science. Of course he and his mom had arrived late for the beginning of Preview, the pre-freshman orientation session, because they hadn’t gotten on the road early enough. Sounds like a typical Mathis problem. I knew that pizza was being served to the people who went to the engineering session so I took Allen and his mother over to the New Engineering Building for lunch. Allen looked surprised when I said I have to leave him there. I don’t know what he thought I was going to do at an engineering advising session, but I was starving for some food of my own and I had a paper to work on. He said that he would call me sometime tonight, but I haven’t heard from him yet and it is 9:30 PM. I’ll probably need to help him make a schedule tomorrow. My neighbor, Jamie Kacur, called me last night from Tallahassee for that reason. She is here for Preview now also and she is supposed to call me if she needs some help with her schedule. I wish I had had someone to help me out making a schedule when I was an incoming freshman!

One another note, today was an interesting day on my favorite soap opera, “Days of Our Lives.” I am an avid watcher of the show and I have been for several years now, but that doesn’t mean I am always a fan. Days goes through phases – sometimes there is so much going on that if you miss a day you will miss something important, and other times (like right now) nothing will happen for weeks. Today was a “wear a dress two sizes too small for you” day for the Salem ladies and a “let’s see how strange a tux I can wear” day for the gentlemen. My roommates Brandy and I both watched and we had a blast making fun of the clothes. We decided that only two of the women on the show haven’t had breast implants, but the only one I can remember right now is Vivian. Can anyone help me out with the other? During the regular school year I watch Days as often as I can, but I have found that now I don’t really care about watching it. You must consider that I watch with s few of my sorority sisters during the year, however, and that makes the scene more interesting. When you watch by yourself who can you crack jokes with? And there is always a lot of joke cracking due to bad acting, funny clothes, and messed up lines.

I found a penny on the ground today just as I was starting my walk. Nothing else in the world can reassure me more than a found penny. I know that some of you will be thinking, “This girl is nuts!” and you are probably right. However the psychological impact of finding a little token lying at my feet does wonders to comfort me when I am worrying. Lately I have been worrying about my History of Science paper and leaving Gainesville for the rest of the summer. As I started my walk I was wondering how I would deal with being away from Stuart for so long and that’s when I found the penny. As the shiny copper coin stared up at me a little voice in my head said, “everything is going to be all right.” I believed it too. Nothing is better for a worrying mind than to find some peace, no matter if it is in the form of a penny or anything else imaginable. Ask my friends from high school and they will tell you that I used to find multiple pennies everyday at school. I have no idea how they caught my eye, but somehow I found them in the strangest places or in plain sight. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing. I treasure the pennies that make me feel better just by being found. A break from worrying is a priceless gift.

The preparations for my History of Science paper are going smoothly so far. Today in class we finished discussing Descartes’ Vortex Theory of the universe so at least I feel more prepared to write about that now. Tomorrow we will finish up Newton and I will be ready to make a decent thesis, a good starting point for a paper. I really must go now and work on my notes some more. I need to start writing the body of the paper soon also. On Thursday I plan to email the finished product to my dad so he can proofread it. I will also post it on my webpage somewhere so that everyone can read it. Aren’t you excited?