Ashley's 18th First Day of School

Hello friends, here are some pictures I took this week:

So anyways, I liked your last blog post Steph, I miss yo ass too. I already miss home and it’s only been a couple weeks. But with school starting yesterday I don’t think I’ll be having very much time to sit around thinking about how badly I want to go to Apple Hill during Halloween-time and shove my face into a trough of apple pie.  There is nothing sexual about that statement — I just really like Apple Hill. For those of you who do not know of the vacuum of holiday greatness that is Apple Hill I will briefly explain. IT’S SO GREAT BECAUSE THERE ARE GREAT PUMPKIN FARMS AND APPLE FARMS AND CRAFT FAIR FARMS AND EVERYTHING IS APPLE OR PUMPKIN AND IT’S GREAT.

Now allow me to tell you about my first day of school. It was ALMOST as great as Apple Hill. Before my first class I spent approximately one hour trying to figure out how to print in the library. But now I know how to print in the library like no one’s fucking business so it worked out.

The first class I had was a workshop where basically we all read and critique each other’s work. It also happens to be my earliest class — it starts at 2 p.m. …

And it was pretty great. We had already been sent two of our classmates’ stories to read for the first week and they simultaneously made me feel better and worse about my writing. And I won’t say who’s made me feel which way because that would just be rude and, as you know, I always put other people’s feelings above my own …

Afterwards I went to the cafeteria with my course-friend Helen (who has a very posh British accent which may or may not make me feel inferior) and my other course friend Alex (who has an American accent which may or may not once again make me feel superior) and we talked about our upcoming Craft and Experimentation class. It was then that I realized I was completely unprepared for said class, as I had not seen that I was to read an entire novel before attending said first day of said class. They both reassured me that he would probably not condemn me just yet seeing as it was the first day — but I was not convinced. I mean, I knew he was Jamaican so I was prejudicially hoping that he would be laid back and um … “influenced” by certain outside chemicals … but I couldn’t be sure.

Turns out he wasn’t pissed or baked so it all worked out for everybody. He explained to us upon our arrival that since he did not tell us directly that we had to read the book, we would put it off until the next week (Ashley 1, University of Glasgow 0). As he took the rest of the class to explain to us what we would be doing (experimenting with language), I fell more and more in love with the degree I had chosen. 

Example of experimentation: we learned about a writing movement called OUPIO that basically ties one hand behind the writer’s back while they write. Some examples of the example: writer is not allowed to use the letter “i” in any part of the story, writer has to replace all nouns with the seventh word after it in the dictionary, writer has to translate a foreign language poem into their native language using words that rhyme with the foreign words (supposing they do not know the foreign language), etc.

ANYWAYS, that was my day. This may easily be the best two years of my life. I will leave you with the experiment I had to do in class. I’ll let you guess which one of the OUPIO variations I chose … Just a warning though, OUPIO often sounds like nonsense. SO ENJOY.

The embrios trembled in a large bed,

While the festival of the roses went slow,

They tortured their mother during the day,

In the cinema they solidified the friendships they’ll know.

Their palace and mother were divorced,

As they cruised in the angry odor of destruction,

And travelled through the dirty embrio,

At the cinema, they came to a truce of obstruction.

But oy, during their passage a mountain with a director,

It was large, hot and completely cold,

It was dormant and huge and as fore mentioned,

It’s land was white and its cadavers were sold.

They trembled at night in the humid bed,

Located in the electrical components,

But their method of heroism was divided in their dreams,

As they embarked on the festival of roses.

They argued in the middle on the external,

They paralleled over the body and the brawl,

While they were sick over her soul,

They went fast and they went slow,

Whoever had the energy to see what they saw.

Oh and I got stung by a bee today. Right in the hand. It hurt. Much like you would expect.

Love,

Ashley