her rudeness surprised me because old women are supposed to be really grandmotherly and nice , so i lost my cool and cursed her out really badly , calling her some pretty nasty things , which made her smile , which was weird , but led to my having a kick-ass idea : turn the common room into a word-battle arena where hope dukes it out with despair once a week , which sounded crazy loopy at first , but i 've always trusted my visions , so i pitched my idea to some of the older men-who were always putting their arms around me and squeezing my shoulders-and they ate the plan up and made it happen .