Orient This!

We had Orientation and our very first class today.

Everyone's first impression of me is a crazy, old hag.

I wanted to buy eyeliner and pens today, and took a little stroll before Orientation this morning. I walked into Boots (a pharmacy), found a cheap eyeliner, and went to the cashier. She was Korean and had on bright purple eye shadow. She asked me if I wanted to try their new mascara; I told her I didn't want to buy anything, but she offered to put it on me anyways.

Just for fun, she said.

She seduced me with her innocent British accent, and before I knew it I was sitting on a high swively chair, and she was smearing lumps of mascara onto my lashes.

"Can you see the difference?" I looked in the mirror, and jumped back slightly. I didn't want to disappoint her, so I pretended I liked the tarantula effect on my eyes. She smiled and said, "It's because you have such nice eyes!" I looked again, and blinked, hoping tears would smudge the hyperbole that was my eyelashes.

Of course, it was waterproof.

I walked out of the store, my head leaning towards the floor, weighed down by my lashes.

I would have been a perfect fit at Lucky Cheng's or Lips. Or maybe even Barnum and Bailey's Circus.

And yet, instead of being on a stage, or dancing on a table in a purple leopard skin leotard and red shoes, I walked into Heythrop College, into a room full of my classmates and professors.

As long as it made the Korean woman with the British accent happy.