Blogging the Gotham University Crisis

Tatiana Flores

That day started off like any normal day. I woke up a few minutes before my alarm, enjoying those few blissful minutes. You know, that precious time where you sit back, reflect on all the dreams you had had, and then cursed like a sailor when your alarm went off. After the requisite curses, I groggily got out of bed, stumbling towards the bathroom. My blonde hair was mussed, a truly golden bed head. Well, not perfect German girl blonde. More like dark gold, almost brown in a few places. I tugged a brush through it, pulled it up into a ponytail, and splashed my face. My roommate was still asleep in her room.

Gloria's lucky. No wait, she's not. She just doesn't want to go to yoga. I patted the water off of my face, then quickly changed into a sports bra, tank top, and yoga pants. With my keys tucked into a pocket, I closed the door to our room. We had one of the nicer dorms on campus, two bedrooms with a bathroom between and a common room with a little kitchen. Privileges of being an upper class member. Our first dorm had been one of the nastier ones at Gotham University, a dinky bedroom with a tiny bathroom. But after fighting off hordes of cockroaches, we became friends.

It's hard not to be when you run around with sneakers on your hands, smacking at anything that moves.

Ah, but now we were juniors. Now we got the nice dorms in Arkham Tower, collectively known as the Asylum. Home to the majority of the psych majors and the honors college. We just avoided talking about how many people from the Asylum had ended up in the actual Arkham Asylum. The Fitness Center wasn't too far, merely a jog across the quads. The only other people who were willing to wake up before 7:30 were there, some of the IT kids, a pre-med student, and a girl studying to be a lawyer.

All valid occupations for someone in Gotham, unlike a History major.

In case you didn't get it, that's what I am.

I didn't want to make a ton of money, I just wanted to do something that I loved. And I loved finding out the past, digging through flowery language to find some nugget about what life was like in the past. I smiled though, nodding to our instructor as she walked in. She worked us hard, twisting our bodies into positions I didn't even know I could twist to. And after that came meditation, which was really us just laying down on our yoga mats as our instructor put on some calming music.

After fifteen minutes we started to gather up our things and leave, and I caught up with the legal student, Megan. I walked by her as we made our way to the dining hall. "I'm gonna feel that tomorrow." I laughed, feeling the burn in my arms.

"At least you get to do something tomorrow, I'm gonna be stuck downtown." She griped. "Interning for the DA? Nothing but paperwork and reviewing old case files."

"Sweetie, don't talk to me about old files." I laughed, "Digging through old texts for some obscure reference is nothing to me, plus your's at least were written in English."

"Tati?" She replied, using my nickname. "Shut up." I laughed, and we scanned our cards to get our food. After breakfast, we split to go back to our dorms. Gloria was up, curling her hair. I waved to her as I walked into my room, changing into what I would wear to classes. A pair of jeans, and a button down purple shirt with a little rhinestone design. Most native Gothamites eschewed purple, and I could understand why. But it wasn't like I wasn't going to wear a shirt when: A; I'd either have to send back to California and get my parents to FedEx me one, or B; go buy one from the overpriced stores here in Gotham.

So, I wore purple.

Gloria, who was from Gotham, hated when I wore the shirt but her vocal rejection had smoothed over the years into just a glare when I stepped out. I shrugged, unwilling to provide an answer. I pulled on my laptop bag, stashed my keys in a pocket, and put my headphones in. Arkham Tower was like an apartment building, rows of room on either side of a hall, with an elevator at the end.

So I sat through the elevator ride, surrounded by the burnouts from the twentieth floor who had decided that they would take their, ah, 'medicine', outside today. I went the opposite direction when the elevator reached the ground, grabbing a coffee from the store the had set itself up on the ground floor. They had a pretty good business going, after all who needed caffeine more than college kids?

I wish I could write about my classes, but truthfully what more is there? I sat, I listened, I took notes about the Roman Empire. Sure, I may have nodded off a couple times, but Professor Smith could do that to you. Around lunch, I headed back up to the dorm, fixed myself a bowl of artery clogging Mac'n'Cheese, and sat down to watch some good, wel actually it was horrible, daytime television.

Hey, I told Gloria I watched it more to feel good about my own life than for entertainment purposes. A sudden siren made me jump off of the couch, sputtering.

"Fucking fire alarm!" I growled, sweeping my keys into my bag. After the first one, everyone knew the drill. Grab your technology, chargers, a couple books and your keys. I threw a deck of cards into my bag and proceeded down the hallway with everyone else. It was a long trek down the twelve flights of stairs, the elevator forbidden to 'simulate what an actual drill would be like'. Everyone spilled out into the quads, but the general rush of moving students stopped as gunfire rent the air.