Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Rest in Pieces

I have not always been the sweet, kind girl that y'all have come to know and love.

When I was in college, my roommate Nadira (in the center) was an exchange student from Turkey. English was her third, or possibly fourth language. She was completely fluent, but the nuances of American slang were lost on her.

Like many colleges ours had legends that passed from year to year. One of which being that if your roommate died, you automatically got straight A's for that semester. It was called the "Grief Rule".

Some one told Nadira this and she asked me if it was true. Of course I said that it was.

Then, I turned evil.

Every night before she went to sleep I'd tell her to "rest in peace". For months, she thought that this meant simply "sleep well" and so she began saying it to other people. Who looked at her oddly, but no one said anything, figuring, I suppose that it was some idiom that failed to translate correctly from Turkish to English.

We had one class together, Abnormal Psychology. On Halloween, the class loaded into a yellow school bus and took a two hour trip to Well Springs. The local asylum for the mentally ill. While there we toured the grave yard. As the professor lectured about how the insane are often abandoned by family members Nadira spotted a head stone. That said "rest in peace".

It took me three weeks to convince her that I wasn't ACTUALLY trying to kill her, I was just teasing her.

(semi-relatedly: Those hula hoops? OMG did we have fun with those. Looking back, it's a wonder we weren't repeatedly sent to the RA's office for screeching as we tossed bottle caps tiddlywinks style down the hallway and into the hoops as a drinking game. Or hula hooping in the elevator (harder than you'd think), or rolling them with chop sticks while someone pushed us in rolling office chairs in a race to the end of the hallway (also a drnking game). Mostly at about 2 in the morning.)

7 little kittens say Meow:

KAErk said...

You woulda been partner in crime in college, cause that was me in college, and my sorority sisters. 'cept we played caps where we bounced caps into glasses not hulu hoops (out of stone tablets?), I was not very good, so I got very drunk....all the time, and apparently I would talk a lot when I was drunk about doug and I, and they called me "park and ride" good times, good times. now I go bed at 9pm. sad days.

Robin said...

oh how funny....it's a wonder she didn't ask for a transfer.

Lorrie Veasey said...

Ummm...I had a kick ass comment all set to go but now all I can think of is High Yield Investment Programs and how that particular spammer came to think that YOUR blog was the place to post.

Boggels zeee mind....but I'm loving "burn a theme here."

Sheila said...

LV - you must have been reading my mind. Anonymous is sure getting around these days...burning a theme at here...from NY to TX to AZ.

so Thystle, does Nadira still talk to you or did you scar her for life?

ZDub said...

I'm playing the hula hoop/bottle cap game tonight. That sounds badass.

Also, I need to hula hoop in an elevator and I'm kinda sad that I haven't.

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