the highway sets the traveler's stage

Dear friends,

I write this to you from the (really!) beautiful campus of The Pennsylvania State University, where I am back in the classroom this week. I'm sitting in their version of Rand/Sarratt, which is, of course, about seven times larger and cleaner than ours, but you can't win every battle. It's nice to have some structure back in my life, even if it does mean being in class every day - including Saturday and Sunday - from about 7 a.m. to midnight.

I've missed you all this week. While my new classmates (I'm part of an editing fellowship program thing, and it involves a funish j-school boot camp where we do cool things like place our right hand on the stylebook and say, "I will never use a lame word like 'set' in a headline.") are wonderfully nerdy and care much more about news and grammar and style than anyone I know at Vandy, they have never learned how to talk to people or dress like it's 2010. Or even 2000, for that matter. It is frightening and horribly horrible, and it has made me end up as something of the most popular person in the group, which, you must know, makes me laugh out loud even as I type it. I am enjoying the one week of my 22 years that I have been socially attractive quite a bit since I know I will disappear again in about five days when I start interning. Our big plan for Saturday night (we get off at 10) is to watch "Star Wars" in the common room of our dorm and fall asleep early. You can't make this stuff up.

I'm off next week for a great adventure through New York and then I'm on to Cape Cod. If any of you will be up in the Northeast at all, especially over the next month, let me know. I'd super heart to see you.

xoxo,
me

P.S. Cruisers: I've met someone here who came from UCF and let me tell you, easily the most stupid person I have encountered in quite some time.