Murphy and Me: Sophomore Fall

October: Quiet Changes, Sweatshirt Swap, and Unexpected Dinner Company

As usual, I had papers sprawled from over almost the entire surface of the round table in the common space outside my corner single. The only difference was that it wasn't physics homework. It was my major declaration form.

For a bachelor of science degree in chemistry.

It's not unusual for college kids to switch majors. My cousin at Potsdam switched at least four times while he was there. It was odd, though, for science majors to switch, as they normally know they're going to be science majors by the end of high school at the earliest, middle of their first year at the latest. My saving grace was that bio and chem majors shared so many courses. Intro chem, both organics, and two semesters of physics.

Really wish the physics was debatable. Not a big fan.

I'd already switched advisers, Yeng to Montrose. Even gone so far as to tell my parents that I was no longer a bio major but that underwater basket weaving had yet to be approved as an acceptable course of study. Since my sister and I like to joke about having degrees in underwater basket weaving - utterly useless in the so-called real world - I chuckled.

And started filling in classes on the little lines.

And tried to ignore the fact that this may or may not be a life-changing process. In a quiet kind of way.

Ten minutes and some slightly complicated choices later I had, more or less, planned out the rest of my collegiate career. Minus my minors. With teaching as a back-up plan, it provided me an automatic education minor. This happy fact meant that I technically didn't need an interdisciplinary minor to go with my disciplinary major. So while I might not need my creative writing minor, I wanted it. Just to go with my three-year work-in-progress I happen to call a novel.

Which I hadn't touched in about four months.

The shower kicked on down the hall; music flared as a door opened while another thumped shut. There was some shuffling; I looked up to see Jo come 'round the corner.

"That time already?" I unearthed my phone and verified that it was nearly five-thirty. It didn't seem like that long ago - almost six hours now - that Murph had crawled out of my bed to head downstairs to get some work done. After about five minutes of last kisses, of course.

"Yeah," Jo said, flopping into the beat-to-shit armchair with a thump and a cloud of particles only visible in the shaft of sunlight. She pointed to the papers. "You leavin' us?"

"Yup." I gathered everything and stuffed it back in its manila folder. "I've gone to the dark side. The pull of the cookies was too strong."

"Drat," she deadpanned.

I went back into my room, dumped the folder onto my laptop, pulled on my sneakers, and started to hunt for my WS soccer hoodie, the one I'd bought when Izzy had taken me to the Open House that cold day September before last. The same hoodie I'd had to cut the neck of to get my head through comfortably, despite it being an XL. Funny, I'd thrown it over the back of the moon chair, last time it was taken off. And there it was, predictably where it should be.

Second thought, what I'd found wasn't mine. It was too big, and -

Oh. Hold the phone. I looked at the front. That sneaky, sneaky....sneak.

Jo knocked on the partially open door. "Ol?"

"Be right there." I tugged the sweatshirt over my head and shoved my arms through the sleeves. It was a bit big, but I wasn't swimming in it. I pulled the neck up to my nose and breathed in while I grabbed my Vera.

The scent was pure, unadulterated Murph. I could drown in that.

And run the risk of whacking into walls in the process. Which was an acceptable risk.