it's two am

and some of the lights in the bank across the street are still on. i wonder if someone is still in there, number crunching or whatever trying to get their work done.

this is my last night in the dorms. my desk is sticky with amaretto (and the floor is too). my room still smells like bleach, it's a nice little contradiction.

i don't know how i feel about going home. i've obviously missed it, but i think i'm gonna miss isu.

it's a shame i didn't branch out earlier. the people here are very nice.

it sounds like waves up here

once i thought there was a skylounge in my dorm building. i took an adventure up to the eighteenth floor. i can say it was an adventure because we had to do some walking. it was just really a tiny little bit of walking. we had to take the elevator up to the seventeenth floor (the highest floor offered) and then take the stairs up to the eighteenth floor.

at the time, it didn't seem like much. it was just a U shaped hallway with a few doors. we were not impressed. we left shortly after arriving.

today i found out that there is an actual lounge on the eighteenth floor. i'm here now. all you have to do is open a door. and that is how it came to be that i am in the skylounge. although, i don't know that anyone else calls it the skylounge.

anyway, yeah, it's really high up and some of the windows are open. the sound of the wind going past reminds me of waves. it's really soothing, aside from the fact that it's quite cold up here.

in other news i have eight days left at school until i can go home. i'm really excited. i'm not feeling very motivated right now, which is just so unfortunate considering finals begin next week.

it's good, though, that today i was feeling very productive. i even decided to forgo seeing improv mafia tonight, although i really wanted to. i finished writing my synthesis paper and i finished my com portfolio.

i also spent like three hours today at the coffeehouse. i forgot how much i really liked that place.

when i'm at home i feel so cramped in, but here i have so many places i can go. i don't have a skylounge at home, or a study lounge or a coffeehouse. which stinks, but there's not much i can do. it's really too bad that it's too cold for me to tolerate outside. maybe in the spring it will be better.

eight days never seemed so long.

all this time, i've been banking on second semester. why? it's almost here and i don't know how to feel. did i waste my time with wanting? it was going to come eventually, why did i worry about it so much?

i wonder how much different it will be. i've resolved to be more open and make more friends, but why the hell didn't i do that when i first got here?

i'll tell you, i'm a mystery to even myself sometimes.

well now i'm back home. it's great, i think. it's weird, being around my family again. i feel like almost a different person, i guess. i saw so many of my jazz friends last night, and that was nice. i missed them. i missed their parents! i did not know that i would miss their parents! but i did!

i missed the paynes! and i missed mrs hasse! and i definitely missed the montagues, but they weren't there to begin with. that was quite an odd feeling.

i felt like i was entering a different world last night. i don't know. like i've been saying, i'm still the same person, but i guess being away has given me the opportunity to step back and take it all into perspective.

the first thing i did when i got home was to brew myself a pot of coffee. that was so nice for me. i really miss making my own coffee. i actually miss coffee in general, i guess. yesterday, friday, my sister took me and angelica out to kuma's korner for lunch. the wait was one and half hours, so we went to the burger king down the street for a liner.

i almost regret going to bk, although i was so hungry i could have barfed. but i didn't even get to enjoy my burger there. which, i mean, no big deal. i ate it for lunch today. i'd probably go back.

i missed angelica too.

it feels so weird to be home. when i start thinking that i get to be here for another week i get this weird feeling in my stomach. i think i'm antsy.

i also cannot wait for clara to come back. i'm literally pissing my pants with excitement (okay not literally... maybe)

ugh i wish i could get my iphone to sync right so i could put up some pictures. maybe some other time.

i am so emotional lately. i can't stop myself from welling up today. i honestly must have started crying like, five times today. i've only been awake for five hours.

what the heck is going on?

i am dead tired, but i thought i should write this down before i forgot it all completely.

tonight was a blast.

i went to the acafellaz concert with carrie. we both enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. afterward, we headed the the coffeehouse to get something to drink. apparently, there was some sort of rock show going on. anyways, we had the coffee outside on the porch. it was just beautiful out.

a little after that, we decided to have a cigar together. so we did. we came back to the coffeehouse to smoke, but they took the patio seating away. we just stood outside the window and watched the show outside. it was a little ridiculous.

we drove around for a while after that. i tell you, bloomington is so suburban. at times i felt like i was driving around evanston or kennilworth. it made me feel homesick for i place i've never even lived.

we drove for about an hour. it was really nice. we talked about a lot of nice things. how we're both ready start dating again.

it was just a really nice night. i know i'm missing out on a lot of things.

well, here's one thing, i guess. tonight was one of the first nights i felt like i could really be an adult. it made me feel like i'm on my way, or whatever. i don't know. i know i shouldn't rush it. but it's nice to know that i am capable of being a civilized human being once in a while.

how is it that every single musical i've ever listened to makes me want to cry? that's not right.

anyways, i guess this is more of a pick-up update than an actual update.

carrie, brittany and i walked past this handmade soap shop earlier today. oh, you should have smelled it. it was the most glorious thing my nose has ever smelt. thank god for hand made soaps, i say.

anyways. i think today is the first day i've worn contacts and makeup in about a month in a half. it feels kind of nice.

i had a master class. it's kind of like a mock-up recital. i got a lot of compliments on my outfit. today was a bit of a confidence boost.

i say anyways a lot. and i do believe the more accurate thing to say would be "anyway". it's probably best that i just not say it at all. but, you know, old habits die hard, yada yada yada.

i wrote letters to the majority of my good friends this week. it felt really good. it's just really satisfying to drop that letter in the mailbox. i don't know, i've never really written letters before.

i wonder if i'm any different than i was before i got here. i mean, of course some things have changed. but i wonder if people will hang out with me and think to themselves, "wow she has really matured" or "wow she's more funny/aware/awkward/bitchy now"

like i said before. i feel the same. i still don't know so many things. i'm still kind of ridiculous.

well, i mean. i'm totally ridiculous.

yesterday i met this girl who was basically the same as me. she drove me bats. but really, she was essentially my personality twin. i wonder if i piss people off as much as she pissed me off. it might have been that we were just to similar. i mean, for christ's sake, we were wearing the same color!

it's hard to compete, you know.

i have such an intense craving for a subway pizza right now. and yes, subway does make pizzas. i remember the first time i had one, it was actually a slice of carrie's. hers had banana peppers on them. at first i didn't like banana peppers at all, but right now, i want nothing more than a pizza covered in banana peppers. like, every single inch has to have a banana pepper on it, or i no longer want it.

what good is a pizza without banana peppers?

who fuckin knows.

anyways, i am so super stoked on going home this weekend. who even says stoked anymore? i guess that's how excited i am.

and i'm excited for allie to come down and see isu.

it just hit me that i'm in college. i don't really know what that means. i don't feel any different. i'm as immature and strange as i was a year ago. i don't really know.

one thing that's different: i spend time in coffee shops now. like, legit, i'm probably in one for a couple hours every other day. i spend more time in coffee shops than i do in physics class.

and by the way, i think i've decided that i'm never going to physics again. although, maybe that's not such a good idea. i mean, i don't think i've been there for over two weeks. that figure sounds right.

why is pressing the shift bar such an issue for me?

the world will never know

I absolutely love the ISU school of music. I've just had such a really good, challenging experience so far.

In other news, I'm wasting my life away. Not literally I guess. I mean, I just sleep so godam much. Out of the eight morning classes I've had this week, I've been to a total of one. I've been staying up way too late, and I can't find the motivation to get to class in the morning. It's a total fucking waste. I need to get my act together.

Okay, enough self loathing for now.

Last night was pretty amazing. It's kind of a long story, but since I've missed my only class today, I guess I have the time.

It all started when Carrie decided we should go grab ice cream. So we went to wait for the elevators down, and out of nowhere, Carrie screams "I'll race ya!" And disappears into the staircase. I freak out a little, and run toward the opposite staircase and attempt to race her down. Megan and Brittany are left waiting the elevators.

I get down there, and see Carrie waiting down there for the three of us. We decide to wait in the staircase until we think that Megan and Brittany have arrived in the elevator. We do this for like, ten seconds, and then Carrie gets bored, at which point she decides we have to go into the fitness room and get on the ellipticals until Megan and Brittany are out of the elevator.

And this is where it gets completely ridiculous.

So me and Carrie get to the workout room, and there are like, dedicated work out-ers on the ellipticals, in work out garb, etc etc. Me and Carrie jump on with them. Carrie's wearing a trenchcoat and scarf. I'm wearing a dress and ugg boots. Neither of us are wearing socks. People are already laughing at us. Carrie decides that it would be funny if I called Megan, pretending that I tripped on the way down from the fourth floor. So I do.

She doesn't believe me because I'm a pathological liar. Well they find us in the work out room, and then we go out for ice cream.

I'm really glad I've gotten really close to the three of them. Whenever we eat together, Carrie calls it "family dinner." It's real cute :)

Random blurb.

My roommate had to get a mole removed like, a week ago, or two weeks ago. Last night, I spent a good amount of time looking at her scar. Here's a picture.

Bad quality image, but it's from the other night, when Sam and Jeff decided to serenade me to some Backstreet Boys song. Best three minutes of my life!

the coffeehouse

So, right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop. I love wifi! I love coffee! I love uptown Normal!

Today, I woke up about fifteen minutes before my first (and only) class of the day. I rolled out of bed (although not literally, I would probably have broken a few bones), put on some clothes and left. I had a sight singing quiz today. It went well.

After that class, I just went back to my dorm and slept. I slept until noon, at which point I met up with my roomie, Megan, and Carrie for lunch. After lunch we went back to the dorm.

I've been playing a lot of checkers lately. I started playing with Carrie, and I beat her the few times we played. Then I invited Brittany to play with me. She said she wasn't good at strategizing. That was a fuckin lie. She beat me three times in a row. Every time, the game always started out in my favor, but she would always end up annihilating me. It was fuckin embarrassing.

Well today, after lunch, I played a couple of games with her. I beat her both times! It was awesome. I'm thinking of starting a floor tournament.

In other news, everyone is getting sick lately. I've had the good fortune of not contracting anything yet, but I wonder how long it will hold up. My goal is to not get sick until the semester's over. I'm a little more than half way there. Hopefully it turns in my favor.

I think the trick is to carry hand sanitizer and drink shit tons of water. It's been working pretty good so far.

Also, earlier this year there was a fuckin aphid infestation on campus. Like, literally, millions of them. You couldn't walk around without swallowing at least three of them. It was horrible. Well, now they're gone.

Except they've been replaced by ladybugs. I've had bad experiences with ladybugs in the past, and it just does not help that these ladybugs bite. I think there are so many because ladybugs eat aphids. Large aphid population = large ladybug population.

As much as I'm loving this beautiful weather, a part of me can't wait until it gets rainy and cold again, just so the ladybugs go the fuck away.

I think later tonight, Megan, Brittany and I are going to go to the improv show. Or maybe we'll come back to the coffeehouse and watch the poetry slam. I have a tiny crush on the host. There's just something about those literary type guys...

today i went to fuel with my friend carrie. it's a youth ministry group. it was completely overwhelming. it got me to thinking about religion (of course). i've been meaning to get more into it, but i realized tonight that religion is more than a casual hobby. people who call themselves christians really believe in it. and i don't know how much i believe in it.

i mean, i can't ever see myself not believing in evolution. and i've done some things in my past that could be considered sins, that i'm just not willing to repent for. i'm not ashamed of who i am. i'm not ashamed of the things i do. and i just feel like in order to join any religion that i really have to leave that shit behind.

it was amazing seeing the people tonight talk, and hearing how devoted they are. it feels like they just left their old lives, and totally started devoting everything about them to god. it just seems weird to me.

for me, even though i consider myself somewhat catholic, i still believe some parts of me are for me, and are kept separate from religion or god.

it got me to wondering whether it was a sign of strength or weakness to give everything up to something that might not exist.

i don't really know how i feel about this yet. i'm gonna go back next week, and probably for a few weeks until i figure it out. i mean, i think it would be really beautiful to believe in something as whole-heartedly as these people do. but i just don't know if i want to sacrifice who i am now for it.

anyways.

this weekend was great. it was beautiful out. i went around uptown normal with my friends. we went to this cafe, the garlic press. it was so... cozy. in uptown normal there are three coffee shops, the coffee hound, the coffeehouse and the garlic press. i've been to all three, and i'd like to say the garlic press is now my favorite. it's got that home-y feel to it, while still being kind of... modern, i guess. the coffee hound is too pretentious, and the coffeehouse is so indie, it almost sacrifices its quality.

we also went to a used book store, babbitt's books. i bought a neil simon play there, "chapter two". i don't know why, but i've been buying plays like crazy lately. i haven't even cracked most of them open.

today i woke up, went to a recital with the aforementioned carrie. afterwards, we stayed out on the quad for a couple of hours. it was freaking beautiful out.

then we went to fuel, like i said.

lately i have started to knit again. it's the weather, i think. although, i guess it doesn't help that i'm trying to knit lace scarves (they have holes in them). also, i've been playing a lot of checkers lately. i played against carrie and beat her several times. then i played with my friend brittany, and she annihilated me. that game took maybe forty five minutes. freakin intense.

OH. also i returned a couple of library books today. they were due september 19th. the library from which i borrowed is right across the street. like, literally i can see into it from its windows from my window.

why did i not capitalize anything in this post?

oh well, i guess it's too late now. HA.