Junior Year

This semester has been so good to me and it's only 2 and a half weeks in. I have class 2 days a week but I've been ridiculously busy still. I now have a job at a bakery 2/3 days a week and booking shows for the co-op is so much more time consuming than I thought... but in the most wonderful way ever. I've got people emailing me all over to come and playing as well as the bands I've contacted myself. Thank god I got an iphone the first week of school because I find myself needed to answer emails all over the place. In class, in bed, in the shower- just kidding about the last one. But it's fun work. It is beginning to get a bit overwhelming when I get people being rude to me, but it's part of the job. And I finally understand how people can be workaholics. So far I haven't had much schoolwork in classes except for blogging (not this blog, but another one I've made for my radio show). I'm sure I will begin to get more mostly in Junior Seminar. In that class I've decided on a topic for my senior project. I've also discovered what I really want to do, which I don't even think I realized last semester. I want to book shows for a venue. I want to scout out the talent, and contact them and book them. I don't want it to sound like all fun and games and that I'll get to book all bands that I love. My teacher who worked in the music industry for years says she had to work on a lot of projects she wasn't interested in, but in the end she definitely sounds like she's enjoyed it. Everything feels so right this semester. I've never been happier and I want to make this last. And to end this happy post I will add my new favorite musician and Purchase student whose music I cannot listen to without smiling.

Yes whatever else may be, may my friends remember me

I know I have said this so many times, but looking back on my life freshman year of college I have changed so much and become so much happier. I never really felt like I was getting the real college experience in Fredonia, but here... oh my god. I remember walking around pointless one Friday night in Fredonia trying to find something to do on campus but there was literally nothing and we all ended up just going back to our dorms. At Purchase, that never happens. There is ALWAYS something going on here or at least people outside hanging out at every hour of the day and into the late night. And as I type, I hear people yelling outside at 2am on a Sunday night. This weekend was the second to last weekend of the semester and I had a great one. Friday night I had a few people over and we drank Sex on the Beach and danced the choreography to American Idiot. We then proceeded to go to a Latinos Unidos party where the walls were sweating and there was melted, watery pina coladas. We left that and ended up at The New at what was a black light party but had fizzled down to more of a drunk social gathering outside. Made some new friends there as usual.

Saturday I had an ugly sweater party planned. I've always wanted to have a party but never had been able to since I live in a small, cramped apartment with my mom. Not a crazy wall sweating party, but a nice get together with a decent amount of people that it isn't just a bunch of people having beer and snacks on a Saturday night. I invited a good amount of people, because I figure if you have 20 people telling you that they will attend, it is really more like 10. Ashley and April came up/down for it first and we set up. Then another friend came with his friend. Then some toolface came. As much as I want to hate him, even my friends did enjoy his company and joked he was "the life of the party". Another one of my friends came with two of his friends, one of my roommate's friends brought three and at one point I think we had 15 people. Several people texted me the next day saying that they had fun and thanks for inviting them. There were even a few people who couldn't make it but did text me apologizing for not making it but hoped it was fun. The fact that people enjoyed my party really made me happy and motivated to do it again next semester. And somehow in between all this, I still managed to finish my five page grant proposal for class that is due Tuesday. Now I will end this post with some lovely pictures from this crazy weekend....

Realizations of tonight in bullet formation

•Running is actually additive
•Eating healthy is possible
...minus that one meal of stuffing myself with wings at d-hall
•Getting somebody to swipe me in for free is possible (but Wacky Wings Wednesdays ONLY)
•I CAN set goals for myself and achieve them.
•I CAN accept no for an answer.
•I CAN push myself to do what I want to do...and more.
•I can make around my portion of the Loop when it's 40 degrees and windy...
and just for a moment imagine that the sound of the Blind Brook is the sound of the the Gulf of Mexico and the softness of my boots are the soft sand and that the street lights are actually the light of the moon reflecting off the ocean and the lights of the Alumni apartments in the distance are the lights of Sanibel Arms apartments.

Oh yeah and....

•Parties do happen on a Wednesday night on G Street at Purchase
•Squeezed orange in seltzer would be great
•I can compile enough old blogs and diary entries to put together a memoir of my life
•I am not too young to achieve my childhood dreams (I feel like I should be older before I can do such a thing)
•There is no reason that I cannot start something that will be handed down to other people
•Within just a few hours being high can go from being giggly and happy, to having a conversation with my mom that puts me in a bad mood, to literally having the feeling like my head is going to unscrew/strange pangs in my head/wanting to just fall asleep, to having absolutely brilliant and innovative ideas and thoughts, to coming down from it but still having these extremely reflective thoughts

These are the best days of my life

When I got to Fredonia I thought I was so cool living in a college dorm, with my meal plan, not having 6 hour classes 5 days a week like I did in high school. I remember a girl who was a junior at the time saying how glad she was she didn't live on campus and have to have a meal plan anymore. "Do you know how long the food sits out there in Cranston?" I remember her saying, but I thought it was the coolest thing in the world being there and that I'd never want to move off campus (little did I know I'd leave that school for good). Now I look back on freshman year and see how bland and boring it was, I don't even mean it because of where Fredonia is, but freshman year, being a first year in college. It was new and exciting having a college ID, saying "I'm a college student!", but now, two years later and two semesters later I'm a lot more accustomed to it and I walk around saying "I'm in college" still feeling young. I always feel little for some reason, but the reality of it is that I only have two years left. And I feel like I'm JUST beginning to get the real college experience. The parties, the walking around and meeting people, the campus involvement. Mostly the people I've met though. Just so many people. I know I said the same freshman year but none of that lasted. I mean not everybody I've met here is going to be a lasting friend, but I see them around a lot and hang out and talk. I've been meeting new people every weekend. I mean who would've ever thought on a Friday night in October I'd start out at a little party at the commuter lounge at 8pm and end sleeping with my downstairs neighbor at 4am, only to find out he's a total druggie and listen to him and some others snorting coke in their bathroom a month later? Or that a Saturday night in November beginning with a drag show event would end in meeting somebody outside my friend's apartment on the way home at 2:30am, smoking hookah with him at his apartment, and hooking up with him only to find out he has a girlfriend the next day? You know, at this point I don't care. I mean not saying I want to ruin relationships and become a coke head, but I'm going fucking live up these last two years of being a kid (which I still feel like even though I'm 20 and will graduate when I'm nearly 23). I'm not going to give a fuck about morals if somebody wants to cheat on their girlfriend with me, because that's not my issue. I'm not going to care what my neighbors think of me, I'm going to go and hang out with them and smoke their weed while I listen to them snort coke (not that I plan on trying coke). If somebody offers me acid though, I'd try that. I'm not going to stress about taking the maximum amount of credits, because I want to take my time here. I love it here, and if I stay on a steady pace I can still graduate in 8 semesters without stressing myself out. What hurry do I have to be in? These are the best days of my life.

Stop pacing around and waiting for some moment that might never arrive

This year is going to be different, and I know I say that every year but this time I mean it. While I haven't really made any new friends, within the first week of school I've walked up to 50 strangers for signatures to put myself into the ballot for school senate, put an application in for the school radio to either have a radio show or intern, found out I am second on the wait list for housing (although two weeks later I still haven't moved up...), gotten two As and an 85 (on a pop quiz I was totally unprepared for), and I've even hung out with some old friends from high school who also go here. This year I am going to get involved and I'm going to get my grades up. I say I will never be an A student but maybe I can. Or at least a B+ student. In my honest opinion, a huge part of college and the most useful part about it isn't the information that you  learn in classes, but the people you meet. Connections. I think that is the key to success.

Yes, I am bummed that I have not yet met anybody new who I'd actually keep in close contact with, but I am not going to let that get me down. I am going to look on the bright side. I do have one or two friends on campus and their friends. That is a start. After all, that is how you meet people quite often- through mutual friends. That is how I met both of my ex boyfriends, through other friends/friend's friends. My goals this semester are to make new friends, get involved on campus, and bring up my GPA to at least a 3.0. I won't let the little things get to me. I won't let winter turn me into a hermit this year. I will go out, even if it is just my spot in the music building. I will sit alone if I have to in a public place. I will enjoy myself. I will be happy with where I am and who I am.