college is exhausting.

its more difficult to make friends then one would imagine. its exhausting.

(sorry i know the switching from first to second person is annoying)

physically exhausting, to track down candidates that you think would appreciate your quirks and be able to if not match then at least deal with your energy levels and love of rodents.

mentally exhausting, to try to find something in common with the person you're trying to hold a conversation with.

ethically exhausting, to try to decide if extremely christian people are worth the engaged conversations because you aren't sure if they are going to appreciate your views on religion or are they really just talking to you because they think you went to a private religious institution when in reality you just bullshited the religious aspects of your education so that the rest would get you a measly 28 on your act.

spiritually exhausting, to go up and talk to the millionth person and start off your conversation with "hey, my names carolyn. i'm from st. louis, yea thats right missouri. no its nothing like here. yes i'm a far away from home. yes it was hard to move half way across the county. yes i miss my friends. and your name is? yea i'm really sorry but chances are i'm not going to remember that. where are you from? oh, 10 min away? what are you studying? oh your in the honors program? no i'm not. oh you went to a public school? so you were in the top of your class? thats very cool. validvictorian huh? thats awesome. congratulations. so you are in the honors program for that? 4.5 gpa? thats cool too. oh so you got a 25 on your act? thats very good. no, i didn't do so great on that one. so what dorm are you in? corbit? thats cool. i'm in newsom. yea thats the one with not air conditioning. or wireless access in the dorms. yea its nice. no we don't have suites. do you like your room mate? they are your best friend? thats cool. no, i'm not fond of mine. we're complete opposites. do i wanna go to a party? sure i'd love to. its 10 miles off campus cause thats the nearest your willing to get alcohol to campus? well, thats kinda far away. i should bring all my friends? damn, i'd love to. but i can't." how is it possible to start up the five millionth conversation with someone when they seem to go all the same way. although there have been a few exceptions.

visually exhausting to be in such a gorgeous place and not be able to share it with any one i really really care about.

audibly exhausting to hear some the ignorant shit thats muttered here only to know that now spread out all over the country you have people that really understand you and know what you are about and if not totally agree with you then at least understand where you are coming from but know that you really don't want to call them cause that'll make you only more homesick to hear their voices.

there are ups and downs of course.

you win a fish. congratulations, you have something to be friends with. its stupid you know but its something. if nothing else its an excuse, oh sorry i gotta leave this extremely dull conversation to go feed my goldfish. yes thats right its still alive. you wake up one morning and he's floating on his side in the $5.95 dog dish you purchased just for him. now you're only thoughts are: i hope i don't spill him in the hallway as i walk down the hall to flush him, and what am i going to do with the extra fish food.

you meet a guy named nate. hes really nice very pretty. seems to be midly interested in talking to you. although it could be just to get out of doing the "csu team building for the future" activities. he invites you to a party. you're psyched. he says he'll give you a call after the late night trip to walmart tonight. you give him your number and think, are you really even going to remember my name?

the time for walmart approaches. your room mate backs out on you but you find a group of people, of whos names you aren't sure of, to accompany you. you miss the bus. so you decide to drive. it feels good to drive again. you haven't done any of that since you got here. after 30 min of being lost in a foreign town you find the super walmart. going against your basic principals of walmart is inheritantly evil and you shouldn't buy from them you buy a few crates for your room, rug to hide the stains on the floor, a water bottle to steal lemonade from the cafeteria, a box of pop tarts for those times you are late for class, some fish food, some 10 cent notebooks and a box of cheezits. you leave, go back to your dorm, unpack your stuff, talk to a few people online, and go to bed knowing nate forgot to call.

your phone isn't plugged into the right jack for 3 days but you assume thats not necessarily a terrible thing because no one knows the number, therefore who cares if its plugged in or not.

you are running low on clean clothes cause you havne't done laundry since you were at home 2 weeks ago. the henna tattoo you got at the frosh week carnival stained your pillow yellow cause the genius that your mom was got you beige sheets that are too big for your bed. so your bed is just a mass of baggy wrinkled yellow stained cotton. and you find out that the laundry room is on the exact opposite side of your dorm room. you happen to be on the 3rd floor southwest wing up 4 flights of steps at the end of the hall farthest from the steps but its good cause you are right by the fire escape you hope you never have to use. and the laundrey room is in the north east corner of the dorm in the basement down 3 hallways. one load of laundry, you learn, costs one dollar to wash and one dollar to load. which you have to load on to your student id. its great when all your money happens to be in the bank. a bank where you can find an atm on every other street corner in st. louis. in fort collins its a different story and not willing to pay the millions of dollars in foreign atm transactions you are forced to find the nearest shamrock gas station that happens to have an atm in it cause thats your only source of getting money. and until then you will be forced to sleep on the undesired naturally yellow colored sheets and fabreez your shirts so that don't reek as you meander down the hallway.

showers are a similar story, they make it so difficult to do something so simple. walk half way down the hall with your towell and your shower caddy. remember the code. is it 2411? 4211? 1214? 1412? 2141? 4121? something to that effect. or maybe it has an 8 in it. who knows. wait for someone to open the door for you. which can be a difficult task when its quarter to 2. thats when i seem to take my showers, whether it be am or pm. walk in. to the left you have 3 toilets and 2 potted flowers filled urinals. i don't know what thats about. in the middle you have 6 sinks lined up back to back. to the right you have 2 outcoves each containing 2 "shower spaces". each outcove has about 3 ft by 6ft of space in which are hundreds of yards of curtain, tile floor, and 2 shower heads. i perfer to shower at a time when there is no one else showering because if you spend 15 min arranging the curtains you can utilize the entire 3ft by 6ft space and have it all to your self. otherwise you are un naturally close to another naked human being and separated by a few yards of curtain which like to not only cling to your body as you wash but also like to for no reason at all step out of the way revealing you to everything else in the bathroom at that time. i'm thinkin of fashioning clamps or snaps or something to keep the curtains in their places. away from me but shielding me. so then comes the classic decision. do you take off your clothes inside the shower or outside the shower. do you get your clothes wet? you might have to wear them to your class tomarrow cause all your other clothes reek. another problem presents itself. how do you get back to your room. do you reclothe yourself in the dirty clothes you just took off thus defeating the purpose of taking a shower. or do you walk back to your dorm in a towell. naked is out of the question so i just trust a good strong tucking job and walk back in my nerinx provided towell.

today you figure you'll just recooperate from the hecticness of the past few weeks by sleeping in late. you might go down to the dining hall to eat but that would require finding someone to sit with. so you might just stay up in your room and eat ramen and cheezits and drink some lemonade you stole from the dining hall yesterday. for dinner you can have a pop tart and pringles. your room mate has left early to meet up with some friends so theres no hope there. but you can actually play whatever music you want and whatever level you feel like because the people across the hall are at church. it seems right now people are either at church or hung over. an interesting concept.

so i believe this is long enough. time to go shower or something. flush justin. all pipes lead to the ocean or some such thing. something i find hard to believe living in such a land locked state. get dressed in something. draw some pictures for my very blank wall. yesterday i did one of johnny depp that is pretty freakin fantastic. looks (please excuse the following choice of vocabulary) hella like him. let me know if anyone is thinkin anything like this cause i'm thinkin that would make me feel a little better.