College is a place for learning, right? Some of what I’ve learned here is a result more of my experiences than of my courses. Last week, I learned how to defrost a mini freezer and how to longboard, and this week I learned where to go to improve my mood and that I’m more of a germaphobe than I thought.

Last Friday, my roommate pointed out that I had let frost build up in my freezer and that the directions say to defrost it when it was much less icy than it was. I had no idea how to get the frost out—it was a layer of ice half an inch thick in some places, I wouldn’t scrape off, and I didn’t want to use anything sharp in my mini-fridge (this just seemed like a good-sense precaution to me, but my mom told me later that piercing part of a fridge can release a toxic chemical).  Most of the Google results said to turn off the freezer and put towels around the base to absorb the melted ice for the next 24 hours. Now, maybe if our room wasn’t carpeted, and maybe if it was a house instead of a dorm room, that might have worked. What we ended up doing was unplugging the fridge and using my hairdryer to melt just enough of the ice for us to pull it off in thick chunks. We did use towels, but the floor stayed dry. We collected the ice chunks in a bowl and then randomly got the idea to go throw them at a tree. And that is how we went from an appliance conundrum to a snowball fight in September.

That night, one of my best friends in the hall was walking back from dinner with me. We had talked earlier in the week about wanting to learn how to longboard. If you’ve never seen a longboard, they’re like skateboards, except for having thicker wheels and —no duh—being longer. They’re really popular here, and there are usually guys practicing skating with them and hanging out with each other in a parking lot near our dorm. As my friend and I walked past the lot, she decided to go over to two guys that were there that night and ask them if she could try. We spent the next half an hour longboarding with them and practicing the basics. They were friendly guys, really chill and laid back, and they seemed to think we weren’t too bad for beginners. (We didn’t tell them that we’d been observing how people longboard for over a week.) Now I’m considering buying my own board.

This week, my other roommate got sick. She was feeling ill yesterday, and this evening she threw up several times. I really did try to be caring and sympathetic, and I hope she recovers quickly, but my gut reaction to hearing people throw up is… well, a gut reaction. I didn’t want to be in the same room with her, and I didn’t want to touch anything of hers, or even anything of mine that had been even close to her, and I wanted to get as far away from the hall bathroom as possible. I realized later that I’ve always had this disgust of sickness. When someone in my family throws up, I feel this phobia where getting within 10 feet of them is risky, where anything they’ve touched for the past week is a toxic contamination, and where even the air in their room is filled with microbes carrying deadly plague. Irrational? That’s a phobia works! At home, though, there’s always another bathroom to use and another room to go into and sleep in, and I never noticed how irrational my fear is until now where I don’t have another room. And now I feel terrible for being illogical instead of compassionate. Fortunately, the roommate who threw ice chunks with me is away for the weekend, and some friends down the hall might let me sleep in their room. I’ve been outside pretty much all night, and when I came out of the woods because it was getting dark, I wandered around and found three guys who were playing guitar with each other. They were sitting in a perfect place to be heard from quite a distance, and they sounded amazing. I listened for a while until they left, and they said that people often play music near that spot on Friday nights. Somehow, hearing music that expresses strong emotions has a more positive effect on me when it is being played live than when it is recorded. I’m not sure why, but I felt surprisingly happy after listening to them.

I have actually learned some incredible, new-to-me information in my classes and studies, but I might have to start charging for tuition if I post about that. Please pray that my roommate gets better and that I don’t get sick.