Can we talk about the fact that it is 24 degrees outside in Baton fucking Rouge Louisiana? As much as I love December weather, it is late January. It should be 65. At least.
I wouldn't mind so much if I didn't have to walk a million and a half miles to my first class of the morning - I didn't pack nearly enough long-sleeved shirts for this semester. It had best start feeling like we are actually in Louisiana very soon.
How is it that before today, I had never gotten a single hit from a search engine, and today I've gotten 6 from google, one from yahoo, one from aol, and one from amazon?? I would ordinarily find it kind of cool that this many people care to click on my ridiculous little weblog's link, but here's the problem - 2 hits came from Tulane, and 1 from LSU. Hey, if you 3 people come back? I would love it if you'd reassure me that you don't know me personally. Because I'm having a minor nervous breakdown at the moment.
Oh, and one more thing: the person who accessed this page from lsu's network was searching yahoo for "redheads are trouble." what's with that?
31. my political science professor, who is oh-so-smart and surprisingly liberal
32. the (very few) liberals in my political science class
33. snide comments made by aformentioned liberals during all-too-conservative discussions
34. the new york times
35. the lsu reveille
36. the lsu tiger weekly
37. the tiger weekly's crossword puzzle during biology class
38. the boys who sit next to me in biology
39. my calculus teacher's jokes
40. the guy on the first floor who gets drunk every night and has carried on countless rambling conversations with me as i'm walking up the stairs
41. the fact that every time he thinks it's the first time he's met me
Elise has been broke and busy lately, so while she was in political science class Wednesday night, I went to the bookstore and bought her math book for her - she had been complaining about how she needed to do the homework but didn't have the time or money to buy it while the bookstore was still open. I left it on her bed and went to calculus class, and when I got back to the room she was all smiles. "You're fantastic," she told me. "So I bought you food." Sitting on my desk were a bag of my favorite candy (BriteCrawlers) and a bottle of my favorite drink (Snapple Elements Atomic). I love that we get along this well these days.
I still haven't looked for a job here. I keep saying I'll do it Tuesday, but on Tuesday I will probably be saying that I'll do it on Thursday. This is a very bad thing.
Our fridge seems to have turned itself into a freezer overnight - today I opened a bottle of water only to find that it had turned entirely into ice. Last semester things barely stayed cold enough - we tried to keep ice cream in the compartment that is actually supposed to be a freezer, and it melted in a matter of hours. How is this possible?
Last night I went to a few parties with Natalia and Leslie and Crystal, and it wasn't long before I got bored - the parties they're interested in are always the same, and so monotonous - no one I know, no one I have any desire to meet. Loud music, unlimited beer - these are things that I would love if I were in the right company. But I ended up leaving to spend time with Brad. He made fun of me because I wouldn't admit that I was a little drunk, and we talked about our classes and our friends and our sex lives, and it's nights like those that make me appreciate being low-key every once and a while, as opposed to being incredibly drunk and wild like I tend to be on Monday nights at Reggie's.
Lately it seems like I have no clothes. Tomorrow I'll go to the mall and spend a lot of money that I should probably be saving, and for a week or two I will feel well-dressed again, before falling right back into this habit of hating everything in my closet. I almost miss my high school days of plaid skirts and Doc Martens - I only had to pick out attractive outfits on the weekends.
Sometime during Christmas break, our RAs decorated our hall. There are posters of all of the LSU sports teams, and banners about the national championship, and there are two flags on our door made out of purple and gold construction paper. Our names are written on them in the kind of print kindergarten teachers use to display the names of their students on bulletin boards or cubbies or artwork. I feel like I'm five again. Or ten, at cheerleading camp for the first time, with paper cutouts of footballs and megaphones decorating the new fifth graders' dorms that week. I wouldn't go back to middle school if I had the chance. I want to feel like I'm in college again.
I have a class in 4 hours, but I can't sleep. Anxiety? That may be it. But it has felt rather natural to settle back into Baton Rouge life. Elise and I barely saw each other over the break, and all day today we have been gossipping and sharing stories and laughing and having fun. She's asleep now, and won't wake up until her 12:30 German class. I'm jealous - I have 6 classes tomorrow, one of them being a 3-hour chemistry lab. I start at 8:30 and don't finish until 12 hours later, with very little free time in between.
On the bright side, this semester I have no Tuesday classes and only one night class on Thursdays. I need to go look for a job to fill this time. Maybe the PJs on Essen will take me; that would be all too convenient.
One of the positive aspects of being back at LSU is that I'm close to Chris again. After he and I met that night at the Caterie, we only saw each other a handful of times before I headed back to New Orleans. We called each other a lot over the break - he's good at talking on the phone, unlike many of the boys I've known. And now I can see if anything is actually going to come of this.
It has been too long since I've dated someone in the traditional sense of the word - I think the last time was Marc, in November of 2002, and even that didn't last long. Not that the opportunity hasn't presented itself since then, but I don't believe in dating someone simply for the sake of dating someone. I want to do it for the right reasons. So I've gone through a lot of odd phases with regard to the opposite gender - that period where I gave them up completely, that odd month or maybe more where Nick and I thought that something might be happening between us, sleeping around with close friends and not-so-close friends, all the while wondering in the back of my mind if there would ever come a time when a guy really meant something to me again. I watched a boy kiss his girlfriend goodbye in the quad once, and I saw the look on her face and wondered why kisses meant something to her and were just one of those inconsequential things to me.
I think I have a lot of issues with boys, and a lot of them are related to Aaron. But I've (mostly) come to terms with what happened with him, and I'm hoping for the best with Chris. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please.
I started college with every intention of losing five pounds. Instead, I gained 7.
I'd been figuring that with free access to a beautiful gym and the absence of unlimited amounts of free bagels and muffins and chocolate crossaints, it wouldn't be all that difficult to lose that weight. I even would have settled for remaining the same. But Elise would come with me to the rec, and I couldn't handle the fact that I was completely incapable of keeping up with her - she played soccer for something like 8 years and can run for miles on end without getting the slightest bit out of breath. I was frustrated with being second-best to her, and I didn't like going to the weight room alone - Elise refuses to work out in any manner other than running, and it became easier and easier to blow off working out in favor of drinking too much Bud Light for my own good.
So my goal for second semester has become losing 12 pounds. I realize that it's probably an entirely irrational goal to begin with, regardless of my tendency to opt out of working out. Maybe once a girl is taller than 5'6", she just isn't supposed to be 110 pounds anymore. But 122 is a terrifying number for me, and my determination to reduce that number by at least 6 pounds grows stronger and stronger every day. And that scares me a little.
These days, I can't bring myself to be the confident person that I used to be. From certain angles, I can tell that I am in no way an overweight girl, or a chubby girl, or a girl whose loss of 12 pounds is an absolute necessity. But when I get dressed to go out and look in the mirror, I find myself pinching my hips and my stomach, scowling at my reflection, wondering how it's possible to hate a piece of glass as much as I do at that moment. When people compliment my figure, it's even worse because I become overly aware of the fact that people are scrutinizing my body.
I need to learn how to eat healthy food, because lately it has been all too easy to skip breakfast in favor of a vitamin and a glass of orange juice, throw away half of my lunch, lie to my mom about eating dinner at work. I hate that I'm capable of doing these things when I know better, I hate that I'm nauseated when I see the calorie content on a label, and I hate knowing that I'm on my way to becoming what I thought I was never capable of becomng.
On four separate occasions in high school, I had to cope with friends having eating disorders. All-girls Catholic schools in New Orleans have that effect on a lot of girls, and it's especially common at schools like Sacred Heart - the debutante scene is such a big deal, and the richest, most priveleged girls in the city (or state?) are capable of making some pretty harsh judgements about their classmates.
I never understood how Julia could be the slightest bit dissatisfied with her gorgeous figure, or how Shannon didn't realize that she was so thin that her doctor worried that she would collapse walking up a flight of stairs. I was in shock when Lucy, of all people, was hospitalized for anorexia, and I still shudder when I think about Lizzy's reccurring bouts with bulimia.
I could never fathom how these beautiful girls could look in the mirror and see something entirely different than what I (and everyone else) saw when looking at them.
Christian is getting married in May.Christian. Getting married. This could potentially be a fucking huge mistake for him - he and Jillien haven't even been together for a year. I... I don't really know what to think about it yet. So I'm just not going to think about it for a while.
The problem with working night shifts at a coffee shop is this: I consume a ridiculous amount of coffee in the nine hours that I spend at PJs every evening. So when I come home at 11, ready to crawl into bed and get some rest for the next day, I'm wide awake. The majority of my friends stayed in Baton Rouge for the holidays, and the ones who are home actually sleep on Wednesday nights, seeing as how their workplaces don't tempt them with an unlimited supply of iced mochas and almond lattes.
So I got a new laptop for Christmas; it's a Dell Inspiron 1100. Not quite top of the line, but lightyears ahead of the last pice of crap I was working with. I'm being very careful not to bring any liquids into the same room as the new computer - god forbid it should meet the same untimely demise as the last one.
Winter break has been a lot of driving back and forth between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, a lot of time spent with Brad, a lot of working late, and a whole hell of a lot of sleep.
Oh, can I mention that the Tigers won the SugarBowl? LSU fans have been wanting another national championship since 1958, and I couldn't be happier that it happened my freshman year. I never thought that I would become such a die-hard football fan, but I honestly believe that the sport is what has eased my fears about staying in Louisiana for college. It sounds odd, I know. But spending Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium, I can really learned what LSU can do for people - the student body really comes together in a way that I've never seen before. Maybe it's because I went to all-girls high schools, which didn't allow many opportunities to engage in typical sportsmanship and school spirit, or maybe its something else. Any out-of-state visitor will tell you that there's something different about the comradery at LSU. Everybody loves each other during Tiger football season, and thats what we as students thrive on. There's a real emotional attachment between the university and its alumnae, and its visible when the alma mater is played before every kickoff.
It's incredible what that game did for New Orleans - the night before and the night of the game, Bourbon Street was as packed as it is during the peak of Mardi Gras season. It was wild.
I'm very ready to get back to school, despite the fact that this semester I'm going to have to find a job. Five weeks of paychecks and tips from PJs will not last me until May.
nicole: 19-year-old LSU sophomore. biochemistry, pre-med. native new orleanian. starbucks barista. borderline alcoholic. addicted to facebook, red bull and vodka, and college football. a little neurotic, extremely indecisive, and often irresponsible.
Oh, can I mention that the Tigers won the SugarBowl? LSU fans have been wanting another national championship since 1958, and I couldn't be happier that it happened my freshman year. I never thought that I would become such a die-hard football fan, but I honestly believe that the sport is what has eased my fears about staying in Louisiana for college. It sounds odd, I know. But spending Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium, I can really learned what LSU can do for people - the student body really comes together in a way that I've never seen before. Maybe it's because I went to all-girls high schools, which didn't allow many opportunities to engage in typical sportsmanship and school spirit, or maybe its something else. Any out-of-state visitor will tell you that there's something different about the comradery at LSU. Everybody loves each other during Tiger football season, and thats what we as students thrive on. There's a real emotional attachment between the university and its alumnae, and its visible when the alma mater is played before every kickoff.
