As promised, I am continuing the photos and story about college. I wish I had some really great stories to tell. You know…the typical college stories. I don’t. I was focused on school. I had to focus my attention on classes while in engineering. I had a few tough classes. I had joined a sorority as a freshman, which took up a lot of time. Friday afternoons were often pledge meet and greets. Our sorority and another fraternity would meet in the late afternoon, sometimes early evening. These meetings were a source of endless frustration for me. The favorite conversation starter was “What’s your major?” Once I told any guy that my major was mechanical engineering, I see a stunned look across his face. Sometimes the guys might try to make other conversation, but usually they disappeared within 30 seconds.

Not far from the tennis courts, there are four tall buildings. Those were dorms. There are some small houses just to the right. My sorority house was the one closest to the field. We were far away from Greek row. The sorority didn’t work out well either. It was fun as a freshman. Everything was new, everyone was nice. I had things to do on the weekends if I wanted to. Rush (the time when prospective members and members meet) made me think that this particular house was focused on academics. They pay lip service to it. Everything went sour when I lived in the house as a sophomore. My roommate was weird. The girls weren’t that nice. I was tired of the parties by then. And I was sick of being asked if I had a boyfriend and if he was in a house. I realized that all that mattered to most of the girls was getting married. I had bigger aspirations. I remember an occasion when I got dirty looks from the girls in the lunch line because I dared speak to a guy on the other side who happened to be in one of my classes. I left the house the same semester that I changed majors. Actually I left the house first thinking that all those activities were hurting my grades. There was some truth to that. But after a semester of the sexist professor and even more sexist interviews for internships, I marched into the engineering dean’s office and told them what I thought of their school. Writing appealed to me, so I changed over to journalism. It was fun for awhile, but then I began to miss science classes.

After leaving the sorority, I moved back into the dorms I lived in as a freshman. I stayed there for a semester before finding an apartment off campus.

The tallest, narrow white building was the dorm I stayed in. It was co-ed by floor–half women, half men. Many of the dorms were co-ed, but men and women lived on different floors. I remember being asked a lot what I thought of having guys down the hall. It never much bothered me. My best friends have always been men since grade school.

I was often asked how I could be in a sorority because I was too nice. Not a snob. My answer is that I felt so out of place in high school that I thought this would be a nice way to meet other people like myself. I was so wrong.

I wish I could show you a photo of the apartment I lived in, but I don’t remember the address. It was much of a building anyway. I did live just a few blocks from the Capitol building. I could have walked there. This building is pretty unique. You can’t see the statue on the top, but it’s a man sowing seeds out of a pouch–”The Sower”. The craziest thing that happened at my apartment building was being awakened at 2 am by some guy screaming. Apparently he came into the building to escape being beaten by several guys for being gay. The words “fag” and “queer” were yelled by the others. Someone in the building called the police before I did because they were there in five minutes. We once had a homeless man living in the basement where we had storage too. I went down there one winter morning and rammed the door into a mattress with the guy on it.