The Germans are reportedly invading the Netherlands tonight, while we wonder if it will be cold enough to put on an extra blanket.
16 November 1939
Coke and joke time in room 58. Martha is looking poised in the green chair, Ann the lady of leisure in the other and Sul feeling hunch-backed at the desk. However, everybody seems to be packing up at this point...
Tonight commemorating the hardest [field] hockey game we've had so far (during which my blood pressure rose at least 3 degrees or points). Hart, Steffy and I ate the slaughtered, roasted, wild duck - very good with raisin stuffing and potato chips and beverage. Otherwise, had morning of Spanish and Miss Logan's design [class] with no Miss Logan because her mother died…
21 November 1939
Today has been most remarkable. A special delivery letter announced to me this morning that I had won a cash prize for the entry for the Wisconsin Salon. How this happened, God and the Judges alone know. It wasn't a remarkable watercolor at all, but something happened and it was extremely thrilling. Miss Briggs, oozing a smirk & publicity for the college, announced the remarkable event in chapel. Miss Philbrick plans to take us up to Madison for the reception, although I have no desire to go, and have all sorts of awful visions of long haired artists with dirty finger nails. ... It would be much more wonderful to me to get a prize for short story writing or a cartoon. So this event seems to have a rather ironic twist to it, for I never set myself up to be the true-blue artist. Maybe it's a mistake.
28 November 1939
... Chris and I ate dinner with Mary Lamb, and saw Garbo's latest, a heavy comedy on Russia, followed by beers at Keller's. Sunday was again devoted to study, broken by supper with the Watterson's and an evening around the fire with Chan, Chris and Mary. We had a very pleasant time, all heightened by a madcap dash back to school via Lake Drive and speed laws.
This morning in 401, Kahl and I flung open all the windows, and turned off the radiator as a subtle hint that since BooBoo Hadley is an icebox, we might as well have the true polar atmosphere. But the woman, who must be made of asbestos, merely sat stolidly during the entire frigid hour, while I by turns shuddered, sneezed, and croaked. The moral: You are past the age for practical jokes.
21 December 1939
In Spanish, Senorita Calbick gave us a whopper of a verb quiz during the course of which I got panicky and forgot every verb I ever did know. Then Sul and I to drowned our sorrow over something obviously flunked, took the bus and bought our train tickets, and last minute shopping. It's really winter now with that lake wind tearing holes up Downer Avenue. Interval while I fix other hand with nail polish…
25 January 1940
The seventh exam period since 1936-37, has begun - with conference day yesterday which was devoted to Spanish alone. By 10:00 I was thoroughly covered with verbs, and feeling completely jittery and unsure. Then came the dawn - darn cold too, and eggs for breakfast - and then that horrible last minute cramming by somebody's radiator. Finally, with my head feeling like an empty goldfish bowl. I sailed into exam room with blue book in one hand and clock in the other. Two hours later emerges the freed woman - minus so much cumbersome knowledge.
