I’m starting to speak up too much in my classes. This only means:

1. I usually have more than one comment in each 50-minute span

2. Each comment lasts more than two seconds.

Never mind once I open my mouth my mind goes blank, or I might have a formulated thought, but as the words run across the bottom of my mind’s eye like a news ticker, key words disappear and somehow I have to replace them, like Mad Libs, and I end up saying something like, “Short stories are sledding, and in my reading, I saw chickens frolic amidst the blah blah, and while they are condensed, they heighten cookies and enchiladas.” And then the whole class averts their eyes. It’s awkward.

I’m getting ready to take a midterm. From the study sheet:

Orature/repertoire/oblivion
Etiological function
Windward Passage
American Exceptionalism
Puritan
King Philip’s War
Metacom
Metaphysical Conceit
Salem Witch Trials
Enlightenment
Imagined Communities
Auto-American-Biography

I need these terms not to disappear from my mind.

In other news, I have purchased my first international plane ticket. For August. To Australia.