Love Letters and Judgmental Senior Citizens

Growing up can be scary. Yes, its "turning a page in your life story" or "finding a deeper meaning or purpose with your destiny" but when you are fidgeting in the unforgiving wooden desk and preparing to take a test that could alter your future...its just scary. Like many other scary things though (mystery meat stew, the near-death experience between turning off the light and landing in bed, deleting important files accidentally) there is a bright side.

College, for example. Now thats a whole can of worms I'm not going to try and pry open in this blog post (perhaps in the future) but it is rather like training to be a ninja. Only a lot less awesome. From birth you are trained in by special teachers to know everything you must know to be a competent human being and student. You read, study, test, and then cram constantly in preparation for (DUH_DUH-DUUUUHHHH): The Test. Whether you call it the SAT, the ACT, or MY WORST NIGHTMARE, every teenager comes to it. Its time to put all of your experience to the test and you are suddenly wishing you hadn't spark noted that one lengthy tome in Lit. Class. (Not that I would do that. *cough,cough* >->). The sad part of my ninja analogy is that instead of gaining the honor of the silver dragon warrior (or whatever it is ninjas get), I get a piece of paper with my name in curly writing. And it doesn't even get you free food. But oh well.

So now that I've completed that ordeal, I was expecting rejection galore from colleges. For some reason when I think of a college board I imagine a scrubbed oaken chamber with two rows of grim old men who smell faintly of talcum powder. I see them sneering my grades, my essays, even that kindergarten drawing of a mentally unstable cat. I feel enraged just thinking about that imaginary room. HOW DARE THEY JUDGE ME!?!

But I was pleseantly surprised. Universities of this and that have been sending me emails constantly with titles such as "We Want You To Attend Our College, Hannah!" and "So Glad I Discovered You!" and "Very Impressed With You, Hannah!" and "Hannah, You're Extraordinary." I'm not even kidding, those last three are actual emails from universities. As flattered as I am, I must pull my self from this lovesick daze of flattery and be reminded that they only want to take all my money. (Hahaha...only I have no money...). Plus most of them are Catholic schools in the middle of the desert. Why?

So this is a message to all you young things out there who are similarly scared of the future and rooms of judgmental old men: One day you too will take a big test and receive loads of flattering fan mail from universities. Just wait.

Laughing Hedgehog,

-Hannah

How to Sleep on a Plane

Sleeping on a plane comes more naturally to some than others. Theres the kind of people who fall asleep on the ride to the airport in anticipation of sleeping on the plane (Mrs.Steen!), then theres the people who are shivering at every hint of turbulence that they can't blink for fear it will somehow disturb the cabin pressure and send the whole aircraft into a crash-landing. Then you have my kind of person. 

I've always, will always, and am a person who hates missing out on anything. That one person who will hold it throughout the entire movie after drinking one too many jumbo Coka-Cola's because I might miss an important plot twist while i'm gone. Despite my long history of sleeping in weird places at weird times in weird ways, how can you expect me to not stay up the entire flight watching movies on that little personal t.v./computer entertainment console thing?! It's torture, truly. 

So, coming from the girl who has slept comfortably on a mound of hangers, on a blanket of textbooks, and in the splits, I present my list of my top 10 ways to fall asleep on a plane:

1) Buy 2-4 seats all next to each other and make a bed with the tissue packet pillows, suitcases, and blankets stolen from other sleeping passengers. If you're broke, make a bed in the aisle. You will probably be stepped on and scolded by the attendants and/or stick to the ground. 

2) Spend a load a dough on noise-cancelling headphones, fall asleep in a pretzel shape, and wake up alone in an airplane hanger at midnight. You might be 5 time zones away from your destination because you didn't hear the announcements over the speakers, but at least you got that shut-eye!

3) Ask the kind passenger to hit you, quite hard, in the head with their concrete airplane dinner roll.

4) If the dinner roll only induced a headache, not unconsciousness, then curl into the fetal position and use the stranger's lap as your pillow. Note: Try to avoid this measure unless you are very good friends with and or related too the passenger.Also, the plumper the passenger, the more comfortable. 

5) Scare yourself to sleep. Be as paranoid as possible. Think about being a kite in the wind, millions of miles above the jagged earth's crust. Imagine what would happen if someone opened a door, or if that man across the aisle isn't a mascara salesman as he appears to be but is actually a terrorist! Soon you should faint from the terror of it all and safely sleep until a gentle landing. 

6) Warm is the key. wear your ridiculous Caterpillar fluff socks, wear your worn-in clothes, and don't be fancy with your hair. It's going to be screaming for a brush at the end of the flight anyway. Bring a coat that can double as a blanket and possibly invest in one of those little foamy neck brace/pillow things. If the air conditioning is really cranked up ask for a cup of hot coco and make a small fire on your pull-out tray with the empty sugar packets and complimentary peanuts. 

7) The lunch tray is your best friend when trying to sleep on a plane. I've found that the most comfortable way to sleep is to put my pillow on the tray, put my head on the pillow, and then cover myself entirely with a blanket (if I have one). Seriously, try it. 

8) If you are of age or can pull it off, ask for champagne. I've heard it works quite well for getting drowsy. Unfortunately, it also works quite well for getting drunk. Either way you'll get sleep, whether you fall asleep naturally or have to be tasered by a flight attendant. Not that I would know a thing about that. Of course. 0.0 Not a thing. Nope. Totally innocent. Uh-huh. Really.


Moving on...

9) If you are desperate, flexible, and conspicuous enough the suitcase storage container above your seat could be the bed for you. Plus you could snoop with a flashlight into your fellow passenger's suitcases. 

10) When all else fails, pack your math book into your carry-on. Recline your seat all the way (1/4 inch), contort for several minutes until you find the most comfortable position, kick off your shoes, and proceed to read the math book. I can guarantee that you will be asleep in no time. Seriously, who can stay awake when reading about how the mean of an polynomial is directly equivalent to the negative quadratic when raised to the second power and multiplied by....by...bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...z.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...........zzzzzzzzzzzzz...  

Disco Sheep,

-Hannah