spookie

1.) All of your exams happen in the dark. You can’t remember the last time you got an exam done and saw the sun. It is for the better. The sun is your enemy.

2.) One of your friends has deep purple bags under their eyes, “I just need one more coffee” they say. It never helps.

3.) There’s one person in your classes who only shows up for exams. They have the high score.

4.) You know you aren’t the only girl in your classes. You’ve seen more, there have to be more. But no matter how hard you look you just can’t find them.

5.) You feel an inexplicable rage when you see the Liberal Arts majors. “They have it easier” you say in unison with the person next to you. You’ve never met them.

6.) Sleep is hard to manage. There is too much work to do. It never stops. Why doesn’t it stop?

7.) The campus coffee shop’s hours change every week. You’ve never seen the same person work there more than once.

8.) Someone else is always in the same study space as you. Who are they? Why are they always standing outside the library past midnight?

9.) Your computer glitches every time you walk by a room in the physics building. It’s locked, you can’t get in.

​you are in three classes that use bernoulli’s equation. none of the equations are the same. your teachers do not know who bernoulli is. did bernoulli even exist?

there is a problem set. it is not on the syllabus. the first question is a blank page. you look through the whole set. it is all blank, except for the last page. you think it says “run”. you do not know. it is not written in binary.

this is an ethics class. you are not sure why you are here. you do not need ethics. you have never needed ethics. “it’s a joke class,” whispers an upperclassman. you do not understand why it is funny.

abet. the name echoes through the halls of the mechanical engineering building. no one knows what it means.

you are studying the tacoma narrows bridge for the fifth time. your differential equations professor tells you it is not an example of resonance. your engineering professor tells you it is. you are not sure who to trust.

there are six bernoullis. only four of them are related. they all look the same.

the environmental science majors have to take a class to learn excel. you do not understand. you have always known excel, haven’t you? you do not remember learning it.

you solve a triple integral and stop, confused. it has become a ricotti equation. you have forgotten ohm’s law.

euler has done everything. there is a portrait of euler in the english building. when you look into its eyes, something disturbs you on a visceral level.

you know so many languages: java, javascript, doubt, python, c++, R, matlab, uncertainty, ruby, html, confusion, terror,

your professor cancels class. you suspect a trick. when you arrive to the classroom, your entire class is there, watching the empty space where the professor should be. no one speaks. no one leaves.

the problem set is optional. the problem set is not optional. the problem set is about schrodinger’s law.

three different people have explained mechatronics to you. nobody knows what it is.

your friend says they have essays to write. essays? you cannot remember what a word document looks like. you have not written a paragraph in two years. words are abstract concepts without meaning.

“you’re an engineer?” someone asks. “you must be smart.” you begin to laugh. you have them all fooled. you cannot stop laughing.

no one is sure what systems engineering is. the lights in the systems building are always on. you have never seen someone come out.

your professors all do research. there are bloodstains on their lecture notes. you do not ask what they research. the last person to ask vanished at the start of the semester. your computer science professor hasn’t stopped smiling since.

you learn how to multiply vectors. the next semester, you relearn how to multiply vectors in at least four* different classes.

the semester-long robot project will inevitably dissolve into chaos. even if the mechanics and code are perfect, come testing it will spontaneously not function for absolutely no reason (unless you built it the night before while blackout drunk**).

you get better grades when you make the flowchart after writing the script

the mechanical engineering building has children’s toys in display cases. you try to find your lecture hall but somehow end up in the basement. you wander for a while in search of a staircase. you find a ramp that leads to what looks like another building. it is, in fact, the same frankenbuilding.

the walls are whiteboard material. you are encouraged to write on the walls.

your physics ta takes several of you and your classmates to see the particle accelerator. he leads you into the basement of the physics building and through tunnels under the engineering mall to get there. there is a wall full of very tempting buttons and switches colored in a mint green, but the operator gives you a sidelong glance. when the tour is over the ta leads you back through the tunnels. you are now in the materials building.

it’s right-hand rule, they say, over and over again. right. you get to the exam. everyone else*** is using their left hands.

time does not exist in the computer lab in the civil engineering building. its windowless cinderbrick is where cellular data goes to die. You have never seen it empty, not even at 11pm on a friday night. 11? It’s 3am now. Or is it?

there is a male bathroom on every floor. there is a female bathroom on every other floor. the half-basement of the civil engineering building has a unisex bathroom with warnings on the doors and both urinals and stalls in what clearly used to be just a men’s bathroom and then they remembered women

the elevators never come when called. you begin to think they don’t actually exist, until your professor calls one and it comes right away.

you were under the impression that the building was all labs and offices. you run into your nursing major friend. turns out there’s a nursing wing to your engineering lab building.

as you leave the hydrology lab for the night, you realize you left a light on inside. the door is already locked behind you so you go to get the key. when you return, the light is off. the door is still locked.

there is a waterfall spanning three whole stories in the atrium. you are forbidden to touch it. you think, surely someone has touched it. no one you know has touched it****

the small cafe in the aero building is always closed when you try to go to it. your friends rave about how good the coffee there is.

Your professor has you go get water samples across campus during class. You come back to find that Scum Pond has better water quality than the water fountains on the fifth floor of the aero building. Good to know.

*this is not an exaggeration

**my buddy who did this is now a literal rocket scientist. if you are so inclined, pray.

***ok this one’s an exaggeration. but it was more than one person

Beneath a Cherry Sky

Lemons! Limes! Oranges! You can do this with pretty much all citrus! Candied Lemon Peel 2 cups water 2 cups white sugar The peels of 3 lemons

some year and a half ago when i was getting ready to move out i combed through all the family recipes that lay lost to time and one of the ones that i found was my grandmas brownie recipe. idk where she got it from (nor can i ask cause she has dementia) and its a printed out email she sent to my mom in june 2000. but by george these the best brownies i have ever tasted. would she be pleased that i am sharing this recipe with my vast following? absolutely.

YOU WILL NEED:

5 tablespoons butter (unsalted) 1 ounce unsweetened baking chocolate (or as much as your heart desires) 2/3 cup unsweetened good cocoa powder 1 cup sugar (white) (superfine preferred, normal works fine) 1 cup sifted white flour (can use gluten free) 1/2 teaspoon baking powder as much cinnamon as your heart desires (your heart needs to desire at least some cinnamon. its essential to the recipe) 3 egg whites 1 egg splash of vanilla extract (again, non negotiable step!)

preheat your oven to 325 degrees. grease a square baking pan (9x9 preferably).

in a small saucepan over medium heat melt the butter and baking chocolate. while that is melting, sift together the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a small bowl. once the butter and chocolate is done melting add the cocoa powder and cook it together for 1 minute. add in the sugar and stir. it will get very thick. this is correct.

set that aside to cool. while thats cooling take a large bowl and put in your egg whites, egg and vanilla. beat it up with preferably a whisk but you can use a fork if youre fresh out of whisks. once the chocolate is cool enough to not scramble your eggs dump it in the eggs and mix it together. add the flour in gradually and keep mixing until its smooth and happy.

spread into your greased baking pan. put it in the oven for EXACLTLY 18 MINUTES. very crucial step. they will come out slightly under done. that is what we want. as they cool they will continue to cook in the pan. we dont want them to get hard and sad. they are not good when they are hard and sad. do not overbake them. you will be sad.