Cliche

Things I am thankful for in no particular order:

silly people

anyone willing to be the big spoon

the cool spots hidden in the middle of the sheets

finding socks that match

enjoying socks that don't match

really good neck pops

backscratches

late night conversations

my laptop

Riana's little vacuum cleaner

old pictures

documentation of past events

the smell of laundry outside

proximity of good food

the fact that my dorm is close to a dryer vent and our cafeteria

affectionate nuzzles from my sister

comfortable sitting positions

finished to-do lists

mentors

mentees

mentos

momentos

moments

throw pillows

puppies

constellations

Jones soda

the fact that the Crusades are over

insect repellant

unexpected good grades

peace with unexpected bad grades

dermatological abnormalities

surprise packages in the mail

picture text messages

intranational travel

international travel

the way babies' stomachs poke out

q-tips

second chances

millionth chances

febreze

skype

flowers

second winds

the pain in the gut after a good laugh

all types of pie

good recipes

youtube

a'capella

cleanliness

dirtiness but only from dirt and mud

inchworms

music

silence

reminders

resolution

reunions

reciprocated hugs

well-fitting clothing

vocabulary

undershirts

Josiah, Julie, Jonathan, Angela, TJ, Mom, Dad, Pete, Anderson Cooper

grace

I am in college now.

Every now and then, it hits me as I walk down the sidewalk that runs next to the quad, with the leaves in full peak of color and a breeze blowing the weather vane that rests on top of one of the halls. I AM IN COLLEGE. ...what? Yes, college.

I passed a group of elementary students on a field trip to the Carlos Museum, eating lunch on this same quad about a month ago. They couldn't have been older than 8. One little girl pulled on her teacher's sleeve and, her pigtails swinging from the motion of craning her neck to look the woman in the eye, asked very matter-of-factly, "Will we get to go to school here soon?"

I thought back on times when I, too, was waiting what seemed like an eternity for this moment, and wonder how I managed to get this far without completely realizing it.

Self, I said to myself, remember this moment.

Do I?

Maybe...

I can't remember.

I am nearly 1/8 done with college. Then I have to go to the real world.

"Crap" I think to myself... "I'm still sleeping under Disney princess sheets."

There are 24 hours in a day. I spend 5-7 of them sleeping, on a good night. What do I do with the rest of my time? Where does it go? Homework, yes, class, yes, fun, yes, eating, yes- Okay, but in what proportion? I don't know, and I'm not even planning on taking a math class for my whole college career, so I couldn't tell you.

But then I realize, if I'm happy with my life but I can't remember exact moments that made me that way from a month ago...is that such a bad thing? (as a side note: Don't misunderstand me, please- it's not blackouts that are causing these memory lapses. The strongest thing you'll find in my solo cup is Sprite mixed with lemonade.) No, I think it's just that my life flows seamlessly, with the deep late-night conversations, the frisbee on the quad, the ridiculous chemistry tests, the hours of reading, the procrastination-induced cleaning, the brief trips home, the fleeting skype conversations, the silly dancing, the off-key singing, the rain boots, the racquetball, the impromptu jam sessions, the harried (and also the intentional) prayers, the piles of laundry, the cactus I need to be watering, the getting-used-to it takes with closing your blinds when you change, the midnight snacks, the love-hate relationship I have developed with my laptop, and the pages of notes hardly legible for the doodles running together in one harmonious blend.

Maybe this forgetfulness is a side effect of living in the moment. Who can say. But I don't care so much about pinpointing my life in monuments looking back on it. If I follow it as it goes, I don't miss a thing.

Back in the saddle, figuratively speaking.

I'm not sure if anyone kept up with this blog. If I had been a blog searcher, I probably wouldn't have picked this one to read consistently. Especially because the entries stopped after a couple of months (for various reasons, the most important of which being that once the news picked up at school, I had to spend my time writing those stories instead of my own thoughts.)
Anyways,
New Year.
New Schedule (ugh).
New Blog.

Hearing train whistles when I wake up in the middle of the night makes me feel sorrowful. I think this is related to my fourth grade experience with a Mary Downing Hahn book called "A Time for Andrew." I went through this weird morbid phase where I only wanted to read her books, which are scary. Very uncharacteristic of me. I don't actively remember what the train had to do with "A Time for Andrew," but apparently my subconscious does.

My Gosh.

Leonard Pitts Jr. has opened my eyes.
He says newspapers are going extinct.
Impossible, you say, for newspapers to go extinct. Only panda bears and do-do birds do that. How can something that isn't alive die out?
Newspapers ARE alive. They tell the stories that no one sees, the stories that people wouldn't just find out on their own. And they reveal. Newspapers are a way of publicity, but they also bring a sense of accountability. People think twice before they do something they wouldn't want the entire community to read about the next morning.
Newspapers are important, useful, and absolutely necessary. Support them. READ them. And for goodness' sake, appreciate them.

Along those same lines,
Be careful with freedom of the press. Don't abuse it. Don't degrade it to an excuse to be crude or disrespectful. Don't rely on publicity or anonymity, for that matter. Freedom of the press, like all other freedoms, is an undeniable right, but mostly, it's a privelege.

What's in a name?

The first year at a new school, it's never you. And you KNOW that- you don't know anyone, so why should they know you? Still, every time, you can't help but turn around.
"Jenni!"
Nope. Not you. The other one. Always. So you end up looking like an over-eager fool every day. The only place you're guaranteed that someone is calling YOU is in your own home. And even there, you get called by other things. Nicknames, sibling's names, names of beloved pets...But at least you know it's you, unlike the uncertain new stomping grounds that you are forced to attend from 8:15 to 3:10 every day. 5 days a week, almost 7 hours a day of this confusion.
And then one day, you make a friend at school. That's the way it works, isn't it? I've been to a few new schools in my lifetime, and this is how things usually play out:
You get there, you walk around awkwardly repeating 15,607,698,705 times a day who you are and where you came from (knowing, of course, that most people won't remember) for about the first week, give or take a few days.
Suddenly, one person singles you out. They're that heaven-sent kid who won't leave you alone and is bound and determined to help you fit in. God bless those kids. They're like the biblical "man of peace" who you're supposed to find to help you get integrated into a community whenever you're trying to evangelize. They introduce you to their friends, pull up that extra chair at the lunch table, save you a seat in assemblies. And suddenly, a few people know your name. Every once in a while, when you turn around, it really IS you that someone is calling. Eventually, the correct assumptions come closer and closer together, until you've learned to distinguish which voices call your name and mean YOU. You can turn around to answer with certainty, and it's a good feeling. In fact, it's a great feeling.
See, there's something so wonderful about being known and being called by your name. My brother was the first person to really bring this truth to light in my mind. He knows a lot of people, and I mean a lot. Whenever we go places together, I've just come to accept the fact that we will see at least 2 or 3 people that he knows. But no matter how many people we see, he always knows their name, and every time he calls them by it, their face lights up.
"People like to hear their own name, Jen. It shows them you really do remember them. It's endearing," he said to me. That was a few years ago, but it made a big impression on me.
He's right. I know from experience, and so do you. That person who calls you by your name, even if you've only met once- they know YOU, they remember YOU, and they think YOU'RE important enough to remember.
It's a good way to make friends and influence people, as my mom would say. It's really not that hard to do, and it makes people feel so good. The new kid at school or church, the woman who checks you out at the grocery store, your lunch lady, someone who helps you find what you're looking for at the mall, your neighbors...just take the time to invest a little bit in them.
The look on their faces will be worth it.

Lauren Sanders is Awesome

By request, as you can imagine.
But really, I was thinking about my life the other day, and I just realized how truly blessed I am to be where I am. I have a wonderful network of friends, family who cares about me, and God. This is really just a shout out to everyone I'm close to. To those who give me a hug when you notice something is wrong, to those who celebrate with me when things go well, to those who invest in my life by just taking the time to be a part of it, thank you. To the people who are not that to me but are that to someone else, thank you, too. And to those lucky people like me who have people like that in your life, thank them.
I love you guys, and I realize it more and more every day. I only hope that someday, I can mean as much to someone as you all mean to me.

...And then the reason to sing is gone.

Michael Buble's voice is intoxicating. Who needs drugs or alcohol when you could just put his songs on repeat and allow it to take you wherever it wants? Now, I'm not one to get into pop culture, and I'm certainly not into celebrity crushes- and I'm not making an exception for him. But those notes...and the poetry in the lyrics...and his personable intonation...well, it's a lethal combination to my pride.
In the early hours of the morning at Sonic, I heard a song that made me really happy, so I asked my boyfriend David what it was since he always knows everything about music. Excitedly, he told me it was "Everything" by Michael Buble. To be honest, all I'd ever known from Buble was "Home," which was really good, but unfortunately and quite irrationally overplayed to extinction, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this song was by him. David and I discussed the coolness of the key change and the brightness of the lyrics and melody, and how it just made us feel good. I made a mental note to go home and look it up on Youtube so I could listen to it over and over and over and over again.
I did just that. :o)
Then, I decided to research it. I'm one of those annoying people who enjoys memorizing little-known details about things that I'm interested in. (My brother is to be credited for this, I think, along with lots of other habits and quirks that I have...he's an influential guy, not just to me, but to a lot of people.) I really just like to be informed, because ignorance (not the kind that you can't help, but the kind that you CAN help) is one of my pet peeves. So I always check up on things. So I found out that Michael Buble has a sad history with love songs & girls.
He was engaged for a while to Debbie Timuss (stage actress), for whom he wrote "Home. Then they broke off the engagement. Afterwards, backstage somewhere, he met Emily Blunt (English actress) and dated her for a while, and he wrote "Everything" for her...but they recently broke up, too. Kind of ruins a love song for you, doesn't it?
I mentioned this misfortune to Ray Smith, who replied in an interesting way. He said,
"Well of course it happened that way."
I was confused. Guy+girl+really sweet romantic song=breakup? Hmm...that's not usually how my math adds up (Then again, I'm not much of a math wizard. ...but still.) He proceeded,
"When a guy writes an incredibly romantic song for a girl, it goes one of two ways: she either loves it and goes crazy over him, or she gets really creeped out and claustrophobic and leaves him."
Sad but true, isn't it? It's even sadder that I can see the logic behind both sides. Man, the human mind is messed up.
All I have to say is that most girls that I know feel like this:
If someone wants to write us a song saying,

"And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything,"

they have our permission. Especially if they can sing like Michael Buble.