{ INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GU I DE }
S E ME S TER AB R OAD BY SIMON RICH
September 23 rd , 3014 Okay, so this is, like, my diary or whatever. I wasn’t going to keep one, be- cause it’s sort of annoying to remember to do entries, but then I started think- ing, when Derek and I are old, we’re going to look back at this time in our lives and be, like, “wow,” so I decided, I’m going to speak into my transcriber every night before I go to sleep, unless I’m, like, you know, really wasted. I guess I should start with the rocket launch. Derek came with me to the spaceport to say goodbye, which was really sweet of him, because he was right in the middle of a video game. And I was, like, “Long distance is going to be so hard, but I know we can make it work, because we’re fully invested and we love each other,” and he was, like, “yeah.” The flight was awful. I had to put my phone away during lift-off, even though I was right in the middle of texting Derek. Eventually, the pilot said phones were okay, but by then we were in outer space, so when I took out my phone it kept floating around the cabin, which was, like, annoying. Eventually, I was able to finish texting Derek, but he didn’t text back, not even after I texted him again and also left him a voicemail and some holograms. And I started to freak out, because my semester abroad just started and things were already weird between me and Derek. So then the pilot was, like, “If you go to the observation deck, you can see a view of earth,” and I really wanted to go, because seeing earth from space is supposed to be this, like, transformative experience or whatever. But there’s no reception on the observation deck, and so I couldn’t go, because I was still waiting for Derek to text me back. He never did. September 27 th 3014 Okay, so, things with Derek have been really weird, but before I get into it, I guess I should talk about the program or whatever. I’m doing my
semester abroad on Saturn, which I know is, like, pretty random. I was going to do Mars, but everyone was doing Mars, and I didn’t want people to think, like, “Oh, she’s only doing Mars because everyone’s doing Mars.” So on the form I checked Saturn. Anyway, classes so far are pretty easy. It’s a lot of Saturn history, which is super boring, but there’s only two hours of lectures a day, and also the days here are two weeks long, so when you think about it, that’s really not so much class time. On the weekends there are optional tours you can do to see what life is like among the aliens (sorry, I mean, natives). I really want to do the tours, because I’m interested in other cultures and, like, one of the main reasons I’m doing semester abroad is to get perspective. But I haven’t had time because Derek has been so weird. Which brings me back to things with him. Okay, so, yesterday he finally sent me a hologram, but it was, like, only five seconds long and he did it at the dining hall so there were, like, bits of people’s arms and trays in it. And I was, like, if you can’t take the time to go inside an orb and send me a private hologram, how is this ever going to work? But I didn’t actually say that to him because I didn’t want him to think I was being clingy or whatever. Anyway, I’ve decided I’m not even going to think about Derek for a while, because this is my semester abroad and it’s supposed to be about me. September 29 th 3014 Tomorrow we have our first quiz. It’s on the culture of the Narvians, who are our host tribe. I’m sort of nervous, because at Williams I get time-and-a-half, and I’m worried that the teachers here won’t know that I get that. Also, the reading is really confusing. The Narvians don’t have any concept of “me” or “you” (they see their tribe as a “single, living be- ing”). It’s, like, really hard to keep track of all the names.
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