My second year was vastly different from my first. I was in a safe apartment environment, I had only one roommate, and I lost one boyfriend and gained quite a few friends. I was working on my "advanced" pilot certificates/ratings, I was better equipped to handle the situation there, and I had something I'd not had before: just a little bit of confidence. I'd made it through one very rough year, nobody had run me off, I hadn't failed, and nothing was going to stop me now. :)
I got to take aerobatics, which I just got the biggest kick out of. My instructor even said "I can see your smile stretching out past your head from back here." (He was in the back seat of a Super Decathlon.) I found out that I loved it, that I never felt ill with it but that in fact I'd end up bouncing off the walls the rest of the day afterwards. It woke up something in me I didn't even know was asleep in there. :)
Every day a group of us would get together in a friends' apartment just one door down from mine. We'd sit and talk, watch movies from Disney on up (it was terrible seeing Bambi for the first time in a room full of guys and trying not to let my eyes water!), eat junk food, play practical jokes, whatever a group of college kids get together to do when they hang out. We had a great time even when we were bored. There was a HUGE fish tank in there, and sometimes we'd just sit and stare at fish and nap on cushions. I worked on my homework in there, I remember making up flight instructor lesson plans in there while watching a movie. Once we held a birthday party at McDonalds for a 25 year old, with party favors and all. For quite awhile we even played midnight sand volleyball. There was an area that held about 4 sand v-ball courts, and we'd go out late at night and play for hours, then stop at White Castle or Taco Bell at o-dark-thirty before going home and crashing. In the winter we tied large inner tubes by a rope to the bumper of Dewayne's Ford pick-up, and he'd drive down the snowy back roads, slinging the tube into the fields. He got going *really* fast. By the way, I'm not recommending this practice. But boy it was fun. I never did fall off--I was blessed with a grip of iron. ;) In the summer we'd go out to this hidden local rock quarry. It was DEEP in the middle, and we tied a huge rope off a tree on top of a "cliff" nearby. The first time I went off that rope, my iron grip was a bad thing--I could not let go, so I ended up swinging out, and back. I had to drop too close to shore, but luckily I didn't get hurt. There was also no way to reach the rope without swimming across the entire quarry. You could FEEL when you hit the deep area because the water turned sapphire blue and got very cold. It used to creep me out, imagining what was down there. Luckily for us, nobody that I know of ever drowned there, but looking back, I'm kind of surprised. Also luckily for me, I used to be a good swimmer!
The group of us were almost all guys, except for me, and a girl named Jenny. I still wonder where she is today; we stayed friends up until I got married, and then she vanished on me. It was the first time I'd ever had guy friends, and I found out I had a lot more in common with guys than I did with girls. (So did Jenny).
You know the interesting thing about one girl having a group of guy friends? She becomes the best protected female on campus. Never lacking for someone to take to a function, and if there was a problem, there was a wall of gentlemen ready to take care of the problem. They were also hard on my dates. I brought one guy around named Jim. The guys dubbed him "Lump", saying he was just a lump on a log, and not "worthy". I mentioned that it might be fear being surrounded by 10 guys all staring at him malevolently. Unfortunately, they were right, "lump" rather fit, and they were relieved when Jim was no longer invited over. When fiance #1 decided a curly-headed blond was a better prospect than me, I spent a day (or four) in bed with the covers up over my head. My roommate wisely avoided speaking to me. But one person wouldn't leave me alone. A Guy Friend. He kept calling, he kept coming over, I wouldn't answer the phone or door. Finally one day he got my roommate to let him in, and he sat on the edge of my bed, and he said "Get up and take a shower. You're going out." I told him to go away, and he said "No, get up. Now. I'll wait out here. Don't make me drag you out." So after he did start to haul me out, I shooed him out, got up, took a shower, and he took me to see a movie. A chick flick of all things. "A League of Their Own". Not a very manly thing for him to sit though, but he did it for me. ;) He-and the others-were very protective of me; I was like the group little sister, which at the time I found to be both highly annoying, and rather sweet. At the same time, I had a nickname I'm keeping to myself and the reputation that I took care of myself too, and they respected that and usually let me.
Last story. One Christmas I was feeling all blue and depressed. I didn't even go home for Christmas, I was just going to sit in my apartment by myself while everybody else left, and be depressed. Nobody had any money, but these guys pooled their money, went out and bought a real tiny tree, and they decorated it with little jingle bells, bows, and bits of colored paper on which they each wrote a personal note to me. They surprised me with the tree before they left for the holiday, and for some reason, that pathetic little tree (Did anyone ever see the little tree on the Charlie Brown Christmas Special on TV? That was my tree!) made my holiday, and I've never forgotten it.
I would guess that some people would have been worried about a girl amongst all those guys, but really, I couldn't have been in a safer place, I stayed friends with many of them for years and years, and they made my second year there memorable for a GOOD reason.
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