Merry Duff-mas

This weekend, I took my sister to Radford to a science department open house/sales pitch (as if she'd not already decided)/Reed and Curie tour. Normally my parents would have gone, but my mom was working and my dad had...skating lessons. I'm unaware of any complaints my sister had about this game time substitution.

We had a nice drive down, aided by the Sirius radio in mom's car (which we borrowed) with the occasional cursing of the Broadway channel for not playing enough Disney/Les Mis. We screeched into the library parking lot at 1:05, just barely making the 1:00 presentation by distinguished alumni so-and-so.

At 1:30, we broke off into groups to tour the new Museum of Earth Sciences on campus and the planetarium. There was a moment, while in the museum, when Stephanie was explaining to me how hematite (or something) was formed, and the curator jumped in to tell us that he "was surprised you ladies weren't looking at the jewelery (that was on display) because that's where "the girls usually are." I bit my inner Peter Venkman/feminist tongue which wanted to reply with "Back off man: I'm a scientist." What an odd thing for the curator of the science museum to say to women there for a science weekend. But, overall: not important.

What was important was the two things I got from the weekend. First of all, I've never been a sciences person. I just--my brain doesn't go that way. But my sister's totally does. I had a panic moment in the planetarium when the professor was throwing out "hey who knows what THIS is?" questions. But she was on it. And that was pretty cool.

Second: while I don't want to go back to school, ever, ever, ever again...it was neat to go to a college freshman-type event. I didn't have that, and wish I did. I might have been less lame while I was there. As a transfer student you kind of don't know what's going on. I did tell her that I wished I'd joined one of the two hundred clubs and activities they present to you, rather than devote 100% of my time to my social life/having panic attacks.

After the event, we had dinner, watched CNN to make sure Hawaii made it thought the night, and relished an awesome Hallmark made-for-TV movie marathon of some of the worst movies ever made.

That, and Napoleon Dynamite, which, along with Love Takes Wing, and The Perfect Man, was a Hillary/Haleigh Duff triple feature. Score!

It was a wonderful time. And a bit of a game-changer. I'm forever sentimental about the things that take us from childhood to whatever happens next.