Jessica Lynn

The past two weeks have been pretty eventful and things won’t slow down until the second weekend of October. This weekend was Michelle’s birthday and the party at Ricky’s was really fun. Joe is absolutely insane. I’ve never had a lap dance but even if I had I’m pretty sure he would have beaten them in a second hahaha. Today I went to a fair with Michelle, her dad, and Ricky which was pretty cool, too. It was out in Ridge and it was Civil War themed with reenactments and such. The Holtzville farm was there too and I got to pet a donkey! This week I have a lot of school work to do and then next weekend I am going out to Kaylynne’s house to see my wifey :). The only downfall is that I’m going to have to see Andrew :-/ oye. I’m really excited for the week after that though because it’s my aunt’s wedding! The 23rd I have to go to two of my classes and then take a train out to Patchogue so my one aunt can do my nails and then I have to run over to my other aunt’s salon to get my hair done because there are about a million colors coming through from all the dye jobs I’ve done. Then on Thursday I have the rehearsal dinner in Jersey which should be interesting. I bought this really nice dress for it which is probably why I’m most excited for it hah. Friday is the wedding. My face is probably going to be killing me by the time we get there though from all the pictures we’re going to be taking. My grandpa bought me a hotel room for the weekend so I don’t have to go back and forth which was nice. And then finally Saturday there’s going to be a BBQ at my grandpa’s after which I’ll probably be going home.

Aaaaaaand then after that weekend is the PKD fundraiser in Connecticut. I’ll be spending the weekend at Jaime’s house. I’ve missed her a lot so I’m really excited for that as well.

Aside from all the social events going on, I’ve been trying to form good study habits so I don’t fall behind this semester. I really need to keep my GPA up if I want a shot at that study abroad program at Oxford. Also the internship I want to apply for my senior year is pretty strict on its guidelines as well. I also have plans to tutor at the writing center and I need to make sure I can handle my own workload on top of tutoring schedules. Basically, this semester is shaping up to be fun/productive and I hope it keeps up!

It’s September 5th…meaning I have 20 days to lose the 5-8 pounds I put on since I bought my bridesmaid dress. This is going to suck majorly. :( I walk as much as I can inbetween classes and after school on Friday but that’s not going to be enough. :-/ oye.

When I’m going some place for the first time the one thing that makes me most nervous is getting lost. It’s annoying that I over prepare myself to go somewhere but my paranoia is probably the reason I’ve never seriously gotten lost. Anyways… the point is that I got to school really early this morning and I had about 45 minutes to kill before class. Seeing as there’s a Starbucks literally on every corner surrounding North Hall (where my class today was) I stopped in one and got a coffee. One of the things I love about the city is that no one thinks you’re a lunatic if you’re sitting anywhere by yourself. I sat down, wrote down some events in my planner, and read a little of my book. At this point I was reminded of an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie talks about how single people in New York are looked at as lepers and blah blah blah. But throughout the episode she claims that it’s extremely awkward to sit down somewhere by yourself because people look at you strangely which I found completely untrue. Not only was this untrue but it was kind of the opposite. It was more rare to see people traveling together this morning. It’s quite possible that this was only the case because it was 9:00 AM on a Friday and people were going to work. But even still. But again, this is not the point I’m trying to make…

At around 9:25 I decided to go look for my class (at this point I’m panicking because not only am I afraid to get lost but I hate being late as well and getting lost would assuredly make me late!) and as I was putting my books away a woman who was standing up waiting for a seat saw me getting ready to leave and mouthed “are you leaving?” I said yes and she came over and put her things on the table. As I was leaving she, in the most sincere tone, said “thank you so much, have a great day.” And for some reason it made me feel really good. And even though the weather was miserable and I was wet and freezing, I was smiling. And the rest of my day really was great. Not that it wasn’t before I ran into that woman, but something about how genuine she was to a complete stranger made me feel really nice. Because I was in such a great mood after that, I was extremely friendly with the people I talked to after that (a rare occurence for me when I’ve been up since 6 AM). It was kind of like a pay-it-forward situation. Moral of the story: be nice to strangers, it makes them feel good :).

After Starbucks I went into North Hall and found my class right away (I had mapped it out while I was having my coffee hahaha). My professor walked in speaking Arabic and I was horrified. For a second I thought he was speaking English with an extremely heavy accent and I almost had a heart attack. I hate math as it is, and if I was going to be taught by someone I couldn’t understand it would have been all over for me. His name is E.T … not really but that’s what he wants us to call him. He was cracking jokes and I think his class might actually be enjoyable.

We did some basic algebra and he let us leave around 11 AM. I didn’t feel like jumping right back on the subway so I went into Border’s and bought the coolest Wizard of Oz calendar! I hung out there for a while and then decided to head back. Grabbed some Subway in Penn and then I left. So day one was completed effortlessly. Monday should be a little bit more complicated seeing as I have four classes but that’s okay. Bring it on.

Also, I was too lazy to re-read this and check for spelling/grammatical errors so if there are any just ignore them :).

I’m not the type of person who makes new friends very easily. I don’t really feel comfortable starting up conversations and most of the time I don’t even want to. Mostly this is because of one of two reasons: either I’m being judgemental and I’ve decided I don’t want to be friends with the person or people in question, or I’m honestly just too shy to make the effort. This mostly leads to people leaving with the impression that I’m the biggest bitch in the world. While this may be true, ususally this bitchiness doesn’t truly reveal itself unless you know me very well or you’ve just pissed me off/offended me. Recently I’ve been working on this, though, and I owe a lot of it to one person in particular- Michelle. I’ve known Michelle for probably close to a year now and we’ve only recently become friends. When I first met her I pretty much wrote her off as just another typical ditzy girl who I would never be able to deal with for an extended period of time, let alone be friends with. But just by being the tiniest bit open minded about her, I’ve come to see that we’re a lot alike. Yes, she can be a ditz, but I’ve found that I can be too. We’ve become pretty close now and she’s a really good friend to have. It’s helped me realize that I’ve been doing to people what I’ve resented having done to me- I’d been judging them based on first impressions which are almost always wrong.

No one is 100% themselves 100% of the time. Bad things happen. You wake up in a shitty mood. Something depressed you. You’re dog just died. Basically, you’re not always going to meet people when they’re feeling their best and it’s not fair to hold that against them after just one interaction. Tonight I hung out with a group of people who I’ve met a few times and thought they were the biggest douche bags, and I still somewhat hold that opinion of them because of a lot of their views on things, but I saw a completely different side of them tonight. They were friendly and could actually carry out normal conversations throughout the night. Now I’m not saying that I think they’re great people now, but it made me realize that I’d been so focused on my own judgements that I never gave them a chance to show me anything other than what other people said about them and my few meetings with them. And also that no matter how many times you meet someone, you can never know everything about them. It just made me reconsider the way I handle social situations.

I don’t know how many possible friendships I’ve missed out on because I decided to write someone off for a single flaw I labled “unforgiveable”, but I do know that I’m working on being better. This also means that I’m going to have to open up a bit more. I give off this hard, bitchy impression because I really don’t like revealing anything else. It’s uncomfortable and awkward. But again, it’s something to work on.

My day ended just as it started- miserable. I woke up to the one thing that can ruin an entire day: my mother on the phone talking as loud as humanly possible all  while I’m out sleeping in the living room. And then when I finally did wake up she responded with “you know I’m always on the phone in the morning.” Fine. But do you really need to scream your conversations in the same room people are sleeping in?! I’ve given up on trying to talk or reason with her because she just doesn’t fucking get it. It’s like I speak a different language or something. Honestly, she just doesn’t care at all about anyone other than herself. It’s times like today that make me so glad I can just leave and go home to my dad’s. But I’m still not completely happy there either. My dad is never home really and it kind of bothers me that I have to go out and get myself dinner every night across the street because him and his girlfriend go out to dinner by themselves. But I guess it’s better than him being irresponsible and drunk every day.

I still can’t figure out what’s wrong with me though. I feel depressed majority of the time and I don’t know why. I’m easily irritated and I’ve been having some really bad mood swings. I’ve been distant, too, from pretty much everyone. I need something to change. I need a break from this routine. That’s why I’ve been wanting school to start so badly. Yes, school is technically going to be a routine but I’ll be meeting new people and I’ll be able to be a part of different things. I’m also going to be working my butt off to save up money to maybe next year rent an apartment closer to school. It’s something I’m aiming towards being able to do, at least.

Basically, I need a change of pace, and fast. Before I completely lose it.