Here are some of the things I've learned in the last two weeks of graduate school and living alone:
1. DO NOT keep a candy dish full of Life Savers Wint-O-Greens in your office, no matter how cute, pink, and heart-shaped said dish is, or you will find yourself with a ragingly wicked addiction to said Wint-O-Greens and will constantly walk around with minty fresh breath, deadened taste buds, and crinkly plastic wrappers falling out of your pockets at odd moments.
2. Within two weeks you will stop caring what you look like for your classes, especially when you have to dress up for teaching/shadowing other classes, and will resort to t-shirts from your undergrad alma mater, rubber bands in your hair (the coated kind from Scrunchie, though, because real rubberbands totally get stuck in your messy bun and then you have to cut huge chunks of your hair out and you cry), and no makeup. If you should happen to feel like looking a little "nice" for class, you will use a claw clip instead of rubber bands.
3. You will bond with fellow grad assistants (aka GAs) over dorky jokes such as someone saying, while an extremely vocal crow is practicing his opera outside your window, "Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'" Yes, one of my fellow GAs actually said this, and yes, I actually burst out laughing and immediately decided I wanted to be her best friend.
4. You will come to love and appreciate the orchestral sound of fifteen students clicking closed their clicky-top pens in tandem when the professor ends class.
5. You will find that people you thought were going to be incredibly annoying at first are, in fact, some of the funniest people you have ever met, and the people you thought could be potential friends are the REAL annoying people (this particular rule has burned me several times over the last couple of weeks; my instincts were only right about Quoth the Raven Girl--henceforth dubbed Raven, because it's funny--and the professors. Apparently, my professor-reading skills are bulls eye, while my peer-reading skills are sadly lacking).
6. If the people who live above you have bizarre tendencies, you will become intimately acquainted with them. Hypothetically speaking, say the person above you likes to move her furniture around her apartment at two'o'clock in the morning. You will hear every single moment of furniture feet scraping across the floor. Or, also hypothetically speaking, say her shower pipes run parallel to your bathroom/bedroom wall. When she turns on her shower every morning at six'o'clock in the morning, the sound of gushing water akin to Niagara Falls right by the headboard of your bed, or near your toilet so that you race into the bathroom thinking the toilet is overflowing, will also wake you up.
These hypothetical situations would earn such a person the nickname of the Clomper, and cause you to mock her to all your GA cohorts while guzzling coffee in order to make up for being woken up twice in the middle of the night.
If, of course, such a person really existed.
7. Homesickness can cause actual physical distress, such as an inability to swallow food or have your body process it in a normal way. For two solid weeks, I haven't eaten more than two meals a day (and the two-a-day estimate is generous). For someone who is generally a stress-eater, this has been quite a reversal. And I'm not going to lie; just the thought of food often makes me sick. This must be what morning sickness is like, and let me tell you: NOT FUN. It's a wonder so many women have second children.
I have had a box of really yummy, premade chocolate chip cookie dough in my freezer at H2 since Labor Day. Said cookies are usually consumed within 12 hours of their purchase.
It's been FIFTEEN DAYS. I finally just made them tonight because my stomach feels up to it and my stress level is up.
On the other hand, I could make a fortune selling the Homesickness Diet to millions, because I've lost ten pounds.
8. You will realize that after spending fifteen days doing nothing but going to class, talking to professors, doing homework, sleeping fitfully, and occasionally eating, you will be exhausted. Today is actually the first free day I've had (last Wednesday was also technically a free day, but I cleaned H2 from top to bottom because I was bouncing-off-the-walls anxious and homesick), and I've got to tell you, I feel so lethargic. And really, it's only half a free day, because I worked this morning and then went grocery shopping with Raven.
I was planning to spend today giving H2 a mild cleaning (just because some of the floors are scuzzy and I want to keep on top of the bathtub so that I don't get any nasty mildew issues) and then do some serious getting ahead on my homework, but when I got back from grocery shopping I was too tired to even think about anything. So I thought back to how difficult the last two weeks have been (not just with the workload, but with the hardly sleeping/eating and emotional stress on top of it all), and I thought, "Honey, you need a break."
So I put on some sweatpants and a pajama shirt and have been reading "Bitter is the New Black" by the fantabulous Jen Lancaster for the last two hours.
It would have been longer, but I kind of dozed off for a while.
Then I made myself those frozen cookies, and here we are.
I will, of course, being the industrious woman that I am, do some homework after I eat my cookies.
After. Because you can't eat cookies while reading "The Obedience of a Christian Man." It just doesn't work.
9. Despite said vicious homesickness, emotional upheaval, unplanned for weight-loss (none of my new clothes fit! Why did I spend $300 on a new wardrobe if I was going to lose weight and none of it would fit me right anymore???), the Clomper, and exhaustion, you will find yourself feeling inexpressibly content. Even though your body is in an uproar, your schedule is so full that it doesn't all fit in your date book, and one of your professors is completely sadistic, you will feel, without a doubt, that you are in the right place, doing the right thing, and that you couldn't possibly love it more or be happier that you're doing it.
And that, my friends? That makes it all good.
Now, I believe that some weeks ago I promised you a rockin'-Devil's Food Cake recipe, so here it is. Make it, and you will enjoy it. (just don't forget the xanthum gum, like I did. It'll still taste rockin', but it will be a little dense). It's really easy to make, and an interesting point the cookbook mentions is that Devil's Food cakes get their name because of the "slight red hue cast by the cocoa powder." And, of course, it's "sinfully delicious taste."
Devil's Food Layer Cake, adapted from "The Ultimate Chocolate Cookbook"
2 1/4 C cake flour (make your own by adding 1 teaspoon of corn starch to every 1/4 C GF flour)
1 C cocoa powder
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t xanthum gum
1 C butter, softened
2 C light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 t pure vanilla extract (the imitation kind isn't GF, so please use pure!)
3 eggs, warmed to room temperature
1/2 C milk, warmed to room temperature
1 C water, boiling
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of two 9-inch layer cake pans with parchment paper. Lightly coat the sides of the pans with butter and flour.
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and xanthum gum. Set aside.
Cream together the butter and brown sugar, using an electric mixer on a medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. add the vanilla. Adjust your mixer to a medium speed and add the eggs, one at a time, beating until thoroughly blended.
Adjust your mixer to a low speed and alternate blending in the flour mixture and milk until lightly blended. Mix in the hot water just until smooth. The batter will be thin.
Pour into the prepared pans and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the cake. Cool on wire racks.
Makes 10-12 servings.
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