We were talking about Mushrooms.

Today was my first day of my senior year of college. I am sitting on the stone steps of an old looking building, eating a donut hole and drinking an orange vitamin water (both of which were handed out in red square for free), surrounded by people who are already studying (what could they possibly be studying already?) or texting or eating muffins. The sun is shining down deceivingly as a breeze wafts by and warns me that it's probably time to start wearing warmer jackets.

I had History of Japanese Americans, in which my short, animated professor encouraged us to smell a handful of button mushrooms without explanation. Eventually it became relevant as he segued into a lecture about the Matsutake mushroom and how elusive it is to find and harvest and how secretive the Japanese and Japanese Americans tend to be about their location. He then passed around a Matsutake mushroom, which smelled significantly weirder and stronger. Apparently he paid $49.99 a pound for this mushroom, as well, and told us his wife demanded he bring it home after class to make soup.

So that was my morning.
So far I have learned that Matsutake smell weird.

I also made friends with an international student named Brandon who came in to class late and probably wondered for a good thirty minutes why there was a pile of mushrooms on his desk because he missed the smelling exercise. I leaned over after awhile and said "we were talking about mushrooms." He just kind of looked at me for a minute and then he laughed and said "oh", as if my explanation made it any less weird.

I had Consumerism in America next.
I walked into the class with my fingers crossed that it wouldn't just be another horrible econ class, because those bore me to tears, but the professor walked in looking like a hippie and started asking us if we could think of anything that wasn't a commodity. We spent a good half an hour listing things ("Love?" "A gift made of entirely raw materials?" "Experiences?" "Tickets to a sporting event when you go for social reasons and not for the sport itself?") and I was geeking out the whole time. I love this stuff. We're going to be talking about consumer society and the evolution of advertising and all sorts of great stuff, and I am actually really excited about it.

I am a person who is passionate about many things, but rarely do I find those topics within school. So the fact that I was on the edge of my seat for the entire 90 minute lecture was very promising for me.

Tomorrow I have my focus group for my major thesis, which should be interesting.

After class today, Justin came and picked up Eia and I so we could drive downtown and renew our parking passes. There isn't much significant to say about this experience aside from the fact that there was a globe hand sanitizer dispenser inside that auto-dispenses the sanitizer right into your cupped hands, and while Eia assures me that these things are everywhere all of a sudden, this was the first I have seen and it was exciting. Also, Justin's horoscope said he's going to meet a new girl today who is going to change his life so all afternoon we kept nudging each other and saying "maybe it's her," or "do you think it might be her?" No luck yet though.

Um. Then I had a chili dog. Why is my life not more interesting?
I need to go back to traveling around the globe. xD

Okay, no, I remember what else I was going to write about. In the last week, I have received FIVE phone calls of varying stupidity, including "Hello Miss Horner, we are calling to inform you that your auto loan has been approved and we just need your signature to put it through," or "Miss Horner, yes, we just wanted to let you know that the credit card sweepstakes you entered into online has been processed and we just wanted to verify your information," or "Greetings Miss Horner, we're calling on behalf of the information you requested online for our internet courses in the business degree here at so and so college," and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHO PUT MY PHONE NUMBER OUT IN THE WORLD because I have no idea what any of these people are talking about and I am getting increasingly sick of it.

I don't want to change my phone number but if I keep getting these stupid calls at the rate they're coming in, I'm going to throw my phone out the window or bury it deep, deep underground.

Okay. I am going to go film a video and then I'm going to watch Glee. Oh, and the verdict on Glee is that I find it to be enjoyable, I like the chemistry between the main teacher and the red-headed teacher, but overall I don't think it's quite as amazing as everyone is saying on twitter.