Before I was a Mom: the college years

Did you read my first Before I was a Mom post? Well I never promised it would be a frequent series.

V.
My college roommate (ahem, are you reading this?) and I used to like to sit outside to study. We said sunlight gave us energy. I don't remember which of us realized that that made us plants.

VI.
At the one and only party I ever threw in college, one of my loveable nerdy friends was walking around my apartment insisting to everyone that he couldn't be drunk because he knew that Paul Wolfowitz was the deputy secretary of defense and because he could still do calculus. I asked my drunk apartment mate if she could still do calculus.

"No way!" she said. "But I never could!"

VII.
I stopped by the post office on my way to class my Sophomore year and picked up a package my best friend had sent me. When I went to open it in class, someone asked me what it was.

I looked at it and realized for the first time, "Oh. Today's my birthday."

VIII.
My roommate talked to my future husband online several times. When she finally met him in person, she said that she was glad to realize he was normal. We all agreed that that was the opposite of the reaction people usually have.

IX.
At the end of my junior year, I was literally running down the street in a dress and heels because I was going to be late to my Phi Beta Kappa induction (okay, seriously, everyone gets that I'm a nerd, right?), and a guy with a guitar slung over his back stopped in the street looked at me and said, "you're lovely." I paused for a second, said thank you, and went back to running.

X.
One year, my friends and I decided to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. Only we didn't defrost the turkey long enough. And then an hour in, the power in our apartment went out. So we put the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and biscuits in the car and drove across campus to finish cooking them in our friends' shared dorm kitchen. We spent the next several hours going up and down the stairs to their third floor suite. We had to borrow tableware from friends and steal a table from their floor lounge, but we had ourselves a lovely dinner. At midnight.