Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

The third installment of the short story, "I'll see you in the Fall" and the final installment.  At the bottom of this post, you'll find a link to the entire story in one post (in case you missed a part). ====== Continued ====== I'll see you in the Fall --    copyright 2002 (completion date), (2018) first publication. I moved to Davis that Fall, into a place with two friends from my junior college.   Classes continued to demand ever more of my energies.   Life improved now that I was a Davis local.   My circle of friends expanded, and, in an interesting twist, I found myself emerging as a leader among them–in classes,   in social settings, and in academic organizations.   I felt honored and happy that my friends sought me out as their confidant; their spokesperson; and often as their ‘prime mover.’   I’d been a leader many times in my life, but this was the most significant-feeling of any in my life as it felt mo...

Original work by Nicola Holmes, copyright 2002 (completion date), (2018) first publication. I’ll See You In the Fall By the time I arrived at UC Davis, I’d been a student again for about three years.   Returning to college at the age of 28 held both perqs and drawbacks.   At Davis, I worried about being viewed as ‘old’–I was 31 when I started my first full-time quarter there–and I wondered if I could keep up with the competitive population of each of my classes. I loved the feel of the campus, and this bolstered my resolution to keep fighting.   The UC Davis campus felt like an old friend to me.   I’d attended summer classes there during my Junior College years, hoping to get ahead on my coursework, and to prepare myself for the pace of university classes.   Summer was hot and quiet at UCD, but the Fall–the Fall season at UCD was amazing.   While the many trees were busy turning their cloaks to gold and red, the bustling pace of stu...

Lake Kesar This is part 2 of my short story, "I'll see you in the Fall."  If you read the first installment, you learned about my struggles in my first year at UC Davis, and about how I came to meet my friends, Bailey and Phyllis.  Here is the next installment; Part 2. ======  Continued from Part 1 ====== I'll see you in the Fall -- -  by Nikki Holmes, ©️ 2002, 2018 The next time we had class, I waited for Bailey, and it was apparent that she knew I would.   She said, “I asked my friend Liz to meet us at the corner of the quad so she can take the pack from there.   We have that class together.” “Cool,” I answered.   As we walked and talked, I heard about her life before Davis.   She was not a Freshman, but was actually a sophomore who’d come to Davis directly from high school; no stops at junior college in between.   So, I figured her age at about 19 or 20, and in my head, I dreaded the day that she might ask me my age. ...