smileyjess

nobody said it was easy
oh, it's such a shame for us to part
nobody said it was easy
no one ever said it would be so hard
oh, let's go back to the start.

Dont think too much about tomorrow
Otherwise you will not live today fully as you could.

Bashir

even though the sun has emerged these past few days, and i drove down to gansett yesterday, and i also bought two pairs of shoes on sale at berk's on thayer.... this depression is not waning.

ryan left yesterday and c-town is subsequently dismal. dan left today and i miss that gangster already, too.

today, other than mope, i finished the tipping point by malcolm gladwell, printed 47 powerpoint slides of chapter one notes for my bio 101 class, lunched at fresh city, and napped in the sun. additionally, i packed up a few weeks' worth of clothes, ate more than i should have, said au revoir to a bunch of relatives, and missed my best friends.

oh, p.s. i received my syllabi for gen chem and gen bio. it literally made me queasy. as in i wanted to puke until i spat blood. why do i have no idea what i want to do with my life other than i really doubt i want to end up with a career in medicine? my entire body temperature went through the roof and i felt like sticking my head in the freezer (or the oven, a la sylvia plath! haha, jon) my hands were clammy and i swear my heart picked up its pace.

ugh. face it. school blows. and it hasn't even technically started yet.

while "annhilating" my closet, i also cleaned my entire room, something that i havent done since i left for europe a few months ago. in the process, i developed a stuffy nose and runny eyes. benadryl = my hero. it knocked me out for a few good long hours and also made me tan (apparently you're not supposed to expose yourself to too much sun upon imbibing this nectar of the gods. do you think falling asleep in a beach chair for 3.5 hours qualifies as "too much sun"? ... nah, me either.)

on tap for tomorrow are last minute college shopping tasks (picking up basic school supplies like notebooks and batteries for the good ol' TI-83+) and one last trip to narragansett for an estimated 6 hour stretch in the sand. dinner at my restaurant of choice (cappricio's or cav, perchance?)

at any rate... i hope this gloom evaporates like last week's clouds.

That's right, shamelessly copying Jess Castigliego who was copying someone else...
"So, I know some gals who work for Oxygen. The company has started this meme-ish thing where, once you sign up, Oxygen donates $1 to NOLA Children's Hospital to help out patients who've been evacuated due to Hurricane Katrina. You won't get spam, the login isn't long -- you just enter your name, age, zip code, and email address -- and that's it. SO COOL! The really fun part is seeing who got into this because of you."

do it.

http://speakup.oxygen.com/campaigns/neworleans/register/ 0a1fd868ecd872dc2e7d7028b7419f1f/

nope, not at all. i mean, i barely used any hardcore voodoo.

dear school-that-which-must-not-be-named,
i worked my ass off for four fucking years. look at the fucked up situation it has gotten me into. thanks for nothing.
love,
jess

tomorrow's the big day. hopefully i will have finished packing my morning.

bring it, pc. show me what you've got.

after i ate a salad for dinner and picked at his uneaten pizza crust, he asked me if i was trying to get a head start on my freshman fifteen.

whatever, though, he kind of smells.

we packed my highlander to the gills. it was, quite literally, about to burst at the seams. i brought way more clothes than i think i've actually ever worn. stuff with the tags still on it. sweatshirts and sweaters galore, despite it only being the beginning of september. shoes. way too many shoes. why did i pack so many shoes? i live 12 miles away! if i ever ran into a shoe emergency, someone would definitely very much have the ability to run to my rescue!

(p.s. - i'm so not going home until columbus day at the very earliest!!!)

i was so worried about how i would look moving in.

turns out, i had nothing to fear. we arrived a solid two hours late on sunday, but as soon as i saw a van with boxes not only climbing out of the windows, but also sprawled out on the roof, i knew i was more than okay.

everything fits absolutely perfectly in my dorm, and i could not be happier. pictures to come once i actually spend more than 5 minutes here! olivia is superb, i could not possibly have requested a better roommate. not only do we have the exact same music tastes, but she also reminds me of songs that i've loved and forgotten about!!!!! who knew!!!!!

yeah, so. i'm all moved in and classes start tomorrow morning at 830. i'm trying to keep myself busy so as not to miss everyone.

there is just so much i want to write about (meeting sara kara's fricken awesome cousin and insulting a boy to his face during dinner so badly that he actually up and left the table...) and just have not yet found the time. this post was mainly to let you know that i'm alive and very much loving pc.

and no, for once, i'm not being sarcastic.

i can eat skittles for each of my meals and drink diet coke (with absolut vanilla, as is how we do things here at pc!) until my stomach eats itself or my liver gives out. whichever comes first.

the other night i found myself sitting complacently buzzed in an on campus apartment complex of who knows how many very republican (who knew i would ever party with republicans? i like to think of myself as an equal opportunity party-er...) senior rotc guys who were more than happy to introduce me to the wonderful world of jaegerbombs and kings. after a few too many drinks, i think i must have remembered how incredibly depressed alcohol makes me. it was suddenly all so... blurry with too many noises and runny mascara and beerstained carpet and hot and stuffy and too bright. some guy spit randomly - when we were all very much not outside - and another decided to extinguish his cigarette butt by kicking it haphazardly down the elevator shaft.

to get some air, i needed to sit by a huge corridor window on the sixth floor and just collect myself. i had not eaten dinner (peach rings? sour watermelons?) and made the bad move to imbibe on an empty stomach. clearly a little bit more than slightly dizzy, i called my other half, only to discover that things were not really going much better 200 miles away. never had i ever felt just so empty in my life. more than anything, i wanted to be there by his side. i wanted to go to him and wrap him in my arms and perpetually remind him of how incredibly amazing of a person he is. i wanted to magically teach myself a foreign alphabet and hop on a bus to maine for no other reason but to tutor him in russian. see his smile. toss the hackey around, or maybe a nerf football, go midnight grafitting in the woods of bates.

after i hung up, thinking the call would have made me feel better, i somehow felt worse. my heart literally ached, and i know that's not from the 'vanilla' cokes. i am missing my best friend. more than i could have ever imagined...

last night ryan des, ben, ted, and i went to the providence place mall. like the too-many times before that i have been there, we wandered aimlessly and laughed too loud in hot topic, ran into people from pc, brown, salve regina, la salle, johnson and wales, and uri, and feasted on del's lemonade. ryan even bought me peach rings for dinner!!!!! this time around, though, i didn't have to pay for parking.

and that, dear readers, is because i - i... i took RIPTA. public transportation. my hands grazed the same hand railings as some of rhode island's finest, i gazed out the windows as we drove through the projects and gaped when kids threw rocks at the big ol' bus, i waited patiently for the number 55 to roll around the corner while i tried not to think about the germs crawling ALL OVER THE PLACE on those plastic seats and grimy railings.

but we made it. call an adventure of sorts. all three of them have been in rhode island 6 days to my 18 years and had already taken it multiple times. i was, in a surprised way, ashamed!

afterwards, we ventured to waterfire - which, as lame as it can be sometimes - was a good time because they were all aguafuego virgins. we met up with a ton of people there - including kate, kate, kate, and sarah (man, do you think pc is irish or what?!) - but the boys and i headed back to campus around 11 and i went over to cunningham again for a little bit - watched the ohio state v texas game (and rooted for ohio because this wicked chill girl on my floor is from ohio, and we had bonded at lunch yesterday) before spending the night in aquinas because olivia was spending the night at umass with carl, and who wants to go home after parietals to an empty dorm room?

and what it all comes down to is
everything's gunna be quite alright
because i've got one hand in my pocket
and the other is giving a peace sign

studying on sunday blows, but alanis morrissette fucking rocks my socks off and makes it that awesome-r. normally i dont ever like to study with music at all, but i'm currently listening to jagged little pill while reading the odyssey.

okay, i'm kind of just looking at the pretty book cover, but i'm getting there....

why are you so petrified of silence?
here, can you handle this? -----
did you think about
your bills
your ex
your deadlines
or when you think you're gunna die?
or did you long for the next distraction?

so the whole reason i am at pc is to get to brown med school through this special program they have for rhode island students who are looking to complete pre-med courses as an undergrad. my goal is to work my ass off, get the grades i need, and know whether i am in or not by april of my sophomore year.

to make sure that i am on the right track for this Early Identification Program, i met with my school dean of undergrads this afternoon. in fact, this meeting ended twenty minutes ago. i would have blogged earlier, but i was too busy yelling at my mom on the phone (sorry to any girls living in mcvinney on rooms 2, 3, and 4 and anyone who happened to be reading on slavin lawn) for making me come to pc.

why? you ponder. i seem to be getting along so well, right?

i'll tell you why. because the dean mentioned - as casually as possible - that brown is contemplating eliminating the EIP with pc because they no longer are looking for just applicants who have taken the MCATs. the beauty of pc and brown's EIP program is that i can apply without having to take these torturous 9 hour long examineation and bypass the med school application process altogether (which costs well $2,000). as a result of brown accepting applications from a larger applicant pool - one more open to people who haven't taken MCAT's - they may likely abolish the EIP program. thus stripping me of any inside shot of getting in ever again.

why? i ponder.

why?

i just found out from my advisory that pc also has no record on my transcript of my ap spanish, ap u.s. history, ap english writing, or ap english lit credit.

what the hell.
i was just starting to warm up to the idea of liking this school.

And the trouble is
if you don't risk anything
you risk even more.

Erica Jong

Bush Takes Blame for Flaws in Katrina Response

it's about fucking time.

everything is going well. i am eating too much. freshman fifty, here comes jess.

in other news, i am exhausted.

i have a wind chime in my room and it sounds pretty when the breeze floats through the window of our third floor dorm.

i earned 12.00 credits from my ap courses. i hope that i am able to study abroad now.

i bought brand new amelia floral print flats from j.crew.

i heart ebay.

i really just don't know what to write about. at all.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Something we were withholding made us
weak," wrote poet Robert Frost. I hope you will consider the possibility
that this describes your current predicament. It's my astrological opinion
that your strength is being compromised by a feeling you're not exploring
or an experience you're denying yourself or a gift you're refusing to give.
You may think you're protecting yourself, but I believe it's just the
reverse. To reclaim the vitality that has been shriveling up, unclench
yourself in every way you can imagine.

i'm going away for a few days.

no cell phone
no homework
no school
no worries

something she really sang to me tonight while reading our required civ book "readings in western religion thought" to the tune of nursery rhyme frara jaca

"civ sucks civ sucks / eff all the prophets/ they can all smell my pits / i hate religion / i'd rather eat a pigeon.... jess, want me to keep going... are you typing all this??"

and, no, i swear we're not drinking.

the mornings are chilly, but the days are warm. at night i don't like to sleep under my comforter at first, but inevitably i'm snuggled up by the time the alarm buzzes and i sleepily hit the snooze.

i can feel it happening again, and i hate it. as the days grow shorter, so does my patience.

no one on this campus says hello when they walk by. for some inexplicable reason i find this way more depressing than i should. jack and i were talking about this on the car ride to north oxford, mass over the weekend. he is from maine - everyone there is uber friendly. we decided that pc has too many coldhearted new englanders sprinkled with far too sophisticated new yorkers.

i am missing the sun. i am missing the beach. i am missing the reading for pleasure.

i had a 3.5 hour lab today.

last night i was starving for some real food (the salad bar at ray just isnt cutting it anymore). my mom grilled peppers and onions and asparagus and corn on the cob for me. i read the economist and napped on the couch. i didn't realize how much i missed my family until my dad was driving away around 830 last night and i was standing in front of mcvinney with my 36 pack of skittles, fumbling around single-handedly in my purse searching with my fingertips for my id card. everything was blurry as tears welled up in my eyes and i sprinted up three flights to my room. luckily no one was in the hallway at the same time as me.

i'm not even homesick. i don't belong there anymore. i am 18, i am On My Own, i am Doing My Laundry, i am a Student, i will be Great.

please don't misunderstand me. i love my family, but i am able to recognize that i am in college now, and need to distance myself from the homefront. it's just... i didn't think i'd go from one place that i didnt want to be (mi casa) to another place i don't want to be (here).

i sat on a boulder tonight and talked to ryan, but it wasn't nearly long enough. afterwards i hung out in aquinas with chris for a bit while he just patiently sat and heard me out and reassured me that it's still only just over two weeks. i nodded and ate some oyster crackers and didn't stress over parietals. i wanted to stay longer but chem and calc quizzes beckoned to be studied for...

i think the main reason i feel like shit right now is because i haven't written in forever.

Sometimes it feels good
just to fall out in desires
And then the ocean rolls out
it's on fire.
-dMb-

oh man, this reminded me of mornings on the bus with kieran way back when freshman year.

My Anti-Drug is Alcohol

It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others.
If you succeed in judging yourself rightly,
then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.

Antoine de Saint Exupery

steve: well, we haven't figured out what we're doing exactly yet, but we've already decided it's going to be an Odyssey night.
jess: Odyssey night?
steve: you know, roam from party to party and get into crazy situations!

oh, college. you're the best.

p.s. - i wrote my first college paper in 3 hours on thursday night, driven on a pure sugar frenzy mixed in with a little extra caffeine, a la jon wall. it was 7 pages long. fuck yes. also, it was on the odyssey.

60 mg antidepressant plus alcohol from 7p-3a will yield...

one very happy person

If I could I would shrink myself and sink through your skin to your blood cells and remove whatever makes you hurt but I am too weak to be your cure.

You will beat this starting now and you will always be around. I'm there to monitor your breathing I will watch you while you're sleeping. I will keep you safe and sound.

ian: are you going to the mall today? i need to go shopping.
me: ooo for what?
ian: a new autumn wardrobe.

is he for real? a straight jon wall? am i dreaming?

this morning i woke up with a mountain of a zit smack dab in the middle of my eyebrows. that will teach me to never sleep two nights in a row with makeup on. this is a fair warning to anyone who may see me within the next three days.

after hitting up the lacrosse scrimmage on friday with alyssa and floro, i went over to will's quad and chillaxed at the lovely little soiree we had going on there. he was kind enough to provide coke zero with a special surprise.

i could get far too used to this whole drinking thing. i may fit in fine here at pc after all...

steve and i had made plans to go to the lacrosse party around 130, but when we met up around midnight after he returned from senior night at mcphails and he could barely walk up the campus stairs and i couldnt remember how to get to eaton street (it's like, literally a half a block away and i used to run it for chrissakes!), we opted to forego it and instead passed out in cunningham after filling one another in on the evening's shenanigans.

yesterday was the howie day concert. he is depressing, i do not want to think about it. it was so early - like, 5 in the afternoon. i was over will's while the crew was pregaming but didn't think i should since i was going over josh's last night. what a fucking mistake - in retrospect i should have, if only so maybe the concert would have been that much better! howie was pretty bad. way too mellow. he walked out on stage and said stupid things like "and now i'm going to play a short set of extremely depressing songs. enjoy." or "i wear bright colors because supposedly they exude self confidence." what the fuck, howie? just shut up and play the guitar and i'll love you forever.

before venturing to fennel last night i did go over to kev ben jeff and will's for a pick me upppp with liv carl alyssa and some other random people we picked up along the way. ran into tj, god i forgot how much i love trashed teej.

i saw someone crying in the hallway this morning around 230 am. i didn't know what to do, like always. i mean, i'm so used to me being the one crying that the role reversal just doesn't work for me. quite far gone, i remember offering him a slice of golden crust pizza that wasn't mine. i saw him at brunch this morning and we exchanged a smile.

i fell asleep around 330ish to the sounds of a whiffle ball game outside and a whirring fan and mentally tried to tell myself not to trip over the beer pong table (which was actually an unhinged closet door) if i had to puke.

oh college. you are improving immensely. two claps.

i cannot stop listening to death cab right now (nick, corey, sarah, anyone else - i'm going to the show with some fellow friars on the 22nd at lupos- are any of you coming home for it?)

soul meets body by dcfc

I want to live where soul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel, feel what its like to be new

Cause in my head there’s a greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place
where they’re far more suited than here

I cannot guess what we'll discover
We turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels
But I know our filthy hand can wash one another’s
And not one speck will remain

I do believe it’s true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
If the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you’re the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body

I do believe it’s true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
If the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you’re the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

today we delved into the mysterious world of golgi apparati in bio 103.

i started to hum phish. needless to say i was a little more than upset when not one other person shared my delight in being reminded of the second best jam band ever at 835am on a tuesday morning amidst a bunch of science geeks.

what? am i the only bio major who listens to good music?

Phish - Golgi Apparatus Lyrics
I look into the finance box
Just to check my status
I look into the microscope
See golgi apparatus

Golgi, oh, woe is me
You can't even see the sea
Golgi, olgi, oh ooo olgi
Golgi
Golgi

They call him lysosome
Cause he runs so fast
Runs like a junkyard dog
With a brain of brass

I saw you
With a ticket stub in your hand
Under the light
Middle of the night
Couldn't get it wrong
So I had to

---phone rings about 3am on sunday morning---
jess: hi! who's this?
ben: jess, it's me, ben
jess: hi, bretttttttttt!!!!
ben: bret? who the fuck is bret?
jess: you are, aren't you?
ben: no, i'm ben
jess: ben who?
ben: ben who!?! you were just drinking with us earlier tonight in my dorm! i'm will's roommate!
jess: oh! hi!
---josh eyes me quizzically----
jess (covering phone mic with palm of hand): it's just bret

i totally have 0 recollection of this.
should i be frightened? nahhhhh

right now i am talking to rye and i am the happiest i have been in over a week.

the days fly by, and less than a month into the academic year i have 4 'mid term' exams scheduled for the next 6 days.

things continue to go well enough. classes are just short of manageable, which is to say a million times better than they were in high school. this time last year i was literally tearing my hair out (in chunks, as i slept), panicking over the 1 october deadline for my early action application, editing essays like mad, filling out forms to the max.

right now i am trying to ignore my immensely intimidating civ books and bio powerpoint slides, and i am getting damn good at it.

last night after i studied a few hours for a calc two test, i treated myself by meandering my way to cunningham where s was kind enough to have me over. a bunch of us just sat around, and his drunk roommates were highly entertaining. they lobbed water balloons from the sixth floor at unsuspecting, innocent passersby. it was hilarious. (but now i will never be able to walk in their building without taking special note of who's home first.) i lamented over the red sox loss, drowning my sorrows with a few swigs of jack daniels (p.s. i am not an alcoholic). feeling very badly about drinking on a wednesday night, s walked me back to good ol' mcvin around 1ish. i showered at the speed of light and set my alarm bright and early, scrawling myself a note across the snooze button reminding me to study for calc more in order to make up for my time spent imbibing.

i was in the caf by 730 this morning, calc books open and chem in the on deck circle.

i really need to relax.
good thing i only have 4 exams next week.

i think i'm going to lsa's homecoming game tonight... hell yeah, pep band under the friday night lights--

last night sean and i went to see hotel rwanda. wow. just... wow. powerful. i highly recommend it (on an empty stomach, though... kind of... sickening). he brought cokes and popcorn, and i bought gummy candy. he and i have civ together, and have talked all of maybe twice. but we totally bonded. college is awesome like that.

afterwards he and his roommates were going into the city, but i didn't feel like leaving campus. besides... the red sox game was on! i went over to steve's just in time to see from the 7th inning on. (i looked for my dad on the screen but to no avail!) to celebrate the victory, we drove to 7/11 for no other purpose but to buy 8 bucks worth of caramellos, 100 grands, butterfingers, and sweet tarts. somehow i managed to eventually fall asleep. sugar makes me happier that alcohol, i think. we watched south park and called it a night.

this morning i was walking back and it was so fucking cold that tears sprung into my eyes. autumn is here and i am hating it.

i'm going to california over christmas break. let the countdown begin.

"So, a pint bottle of Captain Morgan and some Jack Daniels and maddd beer = I would like to shoot myself."
-M.C. Lux-