Veteran Muser Reports From College
In the February 1999 “Muse Mail,” then-13-year-old Dana Mannino suggested that Bo should eat Kokopelli to give scientists an inside look at a cow’s digestive system. She’s been writing to the magazine ever since. Here’s her latest note, e-mailed to MuseBlog as she starts her sophomore year at Gonzaga University:
I’m loving/hating college. Right now mostly hating because it starts on Tuesday and I had a really great summer in which I did nothing but read books that I like, at my pace and without having to underline for quotes in a paper. OK, so I also played with my sisters, spent six weeks studying Spanish in Mexico, and went on my first backpacking trip with my Dad, but I still rate my summer in time spent reading for pleasure.
I figure that the love it part of college will kick back in within the next two weeks. I intend to double major in Spanish and Philosophy, but you’ll be happy to know that I’m pursuing journalistic interests on the side. I’m taking journalism classes and I’m a part of the editorial team for a student magazine. I edit the Faith section, because that’s what I know, but I have ambitions to someday contribute to the highly competitive and campus renown mirth section. I want to do a piece about living at home with my family while I go to college. My peers are tired in class because they pull all nighters. I’m tired because my four year old sister still wets the bed sometimes and I have to get up and change the sheets. I also have to be careful to check the back of my pages before I turn in papers, sometimes they’ve been used for coloring. It gets pretty laughable around here.
I checked out your blog. LOTR freaks, musicians, Muppet fans, other people who spend all summer reading, an administrator who can’t operate a cell phone — gee, sounds like I’d fit right in. We’ll see how often life allows me to check in on it. As for life after Muse, the main change has been that Muse has morphed from a much anticipated semi monthly delight, to a epic internal struggle between scholastic obligations and desire, usually terminating in a tragic metaphor for the relinquishing of childhood pleasure in order to make room for adult stress as I reluctantly hand the magazine to my sister and tearfully ask her to recap the articles for me when shes done. I still get a little reading in on break and before bed sometimes, when I don’t have to tell bedtime stories. Hmm, that sounded pretty good. OK, Â ( Dana turns on the fan and types into it so as to attain eerie effect.) Build the topic and she will come.
A fan forever,
Dana
Date: August 28, 2005
Categories: Random craziness
