Gems Vs M&M's

I laid them in a neat row. Sometimes they were organized by color and sometimes in a pattern. I would eat them by color or by pattern depending on my mood. And when they were all done, I would wait for the break to go pick some more up from the vending machine. That is how my relationship with M&M started.

I had to sit through 3-4 hour long classes late in the evening during my masters. Tummy would start growling around 7 pm just as I entered the class. My lunch would have been hours before consisting of fries or chicken nuggets. Never enough. I would save a side seat in the class just to organize my M&M’s. The class was essentially talking and understanding architecture through interaction and debate. At the half time break I would head out to pick up one more packet and a coke and finish up the class before heading back home in the cold.

I can only remember classes at Kansas State in the cold, I never took classes through summer. Before winter really ended our Spring session would come to an end and I never walked to a class in warmth. This was my life for two years, go to school in the morning for doing TA work, spend the noon finishing up reading and assignments and end the day in class discussing and arguing over different topics that always started in architecture but ended everywhere else.

Today, as I sat working late through deadline I stole a pack of M&M’s from a colleague and intuitively organized them on a clean piece of paper. Suddenly, the memories came pouring back from thirteen plus years ago. The funniest train of thought started with me feeling sad that the packet I was ripping was not gems. It was a weird thought, surely, I have not eaten Gems since I was a little girl and yet tonight, I would have been happier eating Gems than M&M’s.  And that is how, my brain train took me to my class room in Kansas State. As the evening turned into night outside, I melted out of my office and was sitting at my chair in Seaton Hall, and snapped out of it as an email came screaming by announcing more work.

An M&M’d ART.