The View from Saturday (and All the Other Days)

When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite books was The View From Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg, who also wrote From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, another book I really liked. I’m not sure why I liked it so much, because it’s about a middle school quiz bowl team, sea turtles, and tea parties, and not mountain climbing or ukulele playing goats*. But I recently (last year?) found The View From Saturday at either a book sale or picked it up for free and reread it, and I still liked it.

Maybe it had something to do with the point in my life around middle school where I decided that I didn't like fantasy books (don’t ask me why) and preferred reading realistic fiction. I have since progressed on to reading anything, including the fantasy novels The Lord of the Rings, most of the Harry Potter series, and this summer, American Gods and the start of the Discworld series, as well as my lease and software agreements.**

On a tangentially related note, I also just realized that the bus scene in The View From Saturday is a lot like the opening of Park and Eleanor, which I just read for fun because young adult novels are marginally easier to read than my organic chemistry textbook. Both scenes are about the new kid trying to find a seat on a bus with already established seating. I rode the bus to and from school for nine years straight (fourth to twelfth grade) and kindergarten on occasion (back when there were still more students enrolled in half day than full day kindergarten). People sat in different seats every day and the only year my stop was at the end of my driveway was fourth grade. Then there was the late bus, which was only obligated to drop us off within a mile of my house and preferred to leave us to walk home from the end of the street. So I've done my time on the school bus.

Finally, the point of this post was not to discuss my weird reading habits or bus stories (I've got more for another time), as interesting as they may be. What I actually wanted to talk about was the view from my dorm room, which I get every day, not just Saturdays. (See the connection?) I moved to the fifth floor of the same dorm I lived in last year, to the suite that is as physically far away from the laundry room (in the basement) as possible. On Tuesday when I did laundry, I counted and it took over 300 steps to get to the laundry room. Multiply by six and that’s what it takes to get clean clothing.

To recap: what I wanted to do was show some pictures of the view from my room but I did so in the most complicated way possible. And here are the pictures taken through my window.

The Cloud that Ate Ithaca: Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

Pre-winter at its finest

Good morning, Cornell University.

*Note that I have not actually read a book about ukulele playing goats.
**Note that I do not recommend the last two for leisure reading.