I should totally be working on my grant right now, but I have a draft, I've been up til 1:30 or 2 every night the last week working on it, and I am waiting on my advisor for a few things - so it's time for a mental break.
In that vein, here's a roundabout story, leading to a contest, woo!
When I was a freshman at Penn, me and a guy that lived across the hall (Russ) and either his roommate (Josh) or the guy that lived next to him (Rico) - I forget which - all had Intro Chemistry together. It was in one of those huge amphitheater lecture halls, and the prof was not a native english speaker. It was hard to understand him, and he started off the second week of class going right into the differential equations chemical waveforms and shit right off the bat like we were all on the same page or something. I got lost in that class fast, and never really caught up.
But, this isn't about my dismal academic performance freshman year. This, like any story worth a damn, is about a girl.
The three of us all sat together near the front of the lecture hall, and in the midst of this class of nearly 200 people, there was one totally hot girl that was always sitting pretty much right next to the three of us, completely independently. Eventually, we wound up trying to spark conversations with her (more to goad each other into making a move over any real expectation that she would return in kind), and it turned out that she was really cool and nice to boot. After a while, it got to the point where she and I were constantly trying to stump each other with those puzzles where 1 person poses a statement about some guy lying dead in a pile of sawdust, and the other person has to figure out whodunnit and why only by asking Yes or No questions. Cause, you know, why bother paying attention when you're gonna fail it anyway, right? (That said, I think she really did follow the class and all that. I even think she did well, though I don't remember.)
Turns out, Susane (that was is her name) was an astrophysics major, which two of my buddies were also (Hi Patrick and John!) (Let's not get into Penn dropping the major a semester later and leaving my friends adrift to find other paths in life). She was also totally funky cool, and a graduating senior. I spent much of my time unsure whether she pronounced her name Suzanne, or Suzannah, and often tried to couch my pronunciation somewhere in the middle for fear of looking like an idiot to this total hottie that seemed to enjoy chatting with me periodically, even outside of class at that.
(And for those of you sitting there wondering - but wait, Matt - didn't you get together with Dianella your freshman year? Where was she during all this? Have no fear and be not scandalized. This was first semester, and thought we had met, I didn't really connect with Dianella until second semester. Now, high school girlfriend Jen on the other hand, well, let's just not go there.)
Years later, I stumbled across her (Susane) on the interwebs, and she is now a published author of Young Adult novels, also known as teen romance books. Not the stuff that I read for pleasure, but kudos and hat's off to her for being successful! (She also blogs regularly about her love of cupcakes, Mondays, and living next to Kiefer Sutherland in downtown NYC). Susane Colasanti is the author of Something Like Fate, Waiting for You, When It Happens, and Take Me There
Anyway, her latest novel, Waiting for You was just released in paperback, and she is having a contest on her LiveJournal blog over at
http://windowlight.livejournal.com/ to win free copies. Feel free to enter!
Otherwise, buy her books. She's an awesome person, and deserves tons of success!
No worries,
Matt