Utah, Alabama

Today I was at the visitor center at Melrose, and a couple from Alabama was in there talking with me. They were asking all kinds of questions, and then the wife asked where I was from. I said, "Utah," and the husband said, "Oh, do you know so-and-so (I can't remember the name he said)?" I said, "Ummm, no." Then his wife said, "No honey, she's from the state of Utah." I thought to myself, "There is another Utah?" As if she could read my mind, the wife answered my question: she said that there is a Utah, Alabama. It must be one small speck of a town because it doesn't even show up on Google.com maps! If something doesn't show up on Google maps, I have a hard time believing it really exists. I just think it's funny that the husband assumed I was from Nowhereville, Alabama (aka Utah, Alabama) instead of the state of Utah. Now I can understand getting Washington, as in Washington D. C., and Washington state mixed up, but Utah, Alabama? It was kind of funny.

I had to work today instead of going to church, but at least it was a good day at work. Angie, Jessica, and I held down the fort at Melrose. Although, at one point this afternoon, there was this big black Chrysler parked out underneath one of the trees. It was totally black--it didn't even have hubcaps on the tires. I told Angie and Jessica that it looked like a mafia car, so we decided that maybe someone was out trying to dispose of some people in the bayou (just kidding--nothing that exciting would happen at the park, but it makes us feel better to pretend that it could).

I got a funny/random e-mail today from Alyson, my future roommate this fall at Eastern Illinois University. She lives in New York, and she forwarded me a news article from one of the NY newspapers. It was entitled, "College Application Really Bombs." The first sentence read: "Tip for aspiring college students: make sure your applications don't warrant a visit from the bomb squad." It's a funny enough article anyway, but what makes it quite hilarious is that it is about a suspicious college application received at EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY in CHARLESTON, ILLINOIS! Someone sent in a college application, but they didn't have a return address, and the label was reportedly really messy and had a lot of misspellings. It was all taped-up, and I think that after all of that Virginia Tech stuff from not too long ago, schools don't want to take any chances. So they called in the bomb squad to close down a two-block radius around campus and check the package out, but they found that the envelope only contained an application to the school. The article was sure to note that the student's chances to get into EIU would not be adversely affected by the incident. I know what you are all thinking--"I bet that was Tiffany's application!" But, sorry to disappoint--I submitted mine quite a few months ago. :-)

I've been feeling kind of sad lately as I think about leaving Natchez and starting a whole new phase of life in Illinois--especially since I won't be able to visit home before school starts. But today I was reading the McMurran family letters at work (they're the family who lived at Melrose), and I was reading about when their son, John Jr., went off to college at Princeton back in the 1850s. He was extremely homesick, and when his parents went to visit him for a few days, they worried that he would be too sad when they left. This was comforting to read because I realized that homesickness is a natural thing that pretty much everyone experiences--even back in the 1850s! So, I'll try to remember that John Jr. stuck it out, so I can too.