entry the eleventh

recap since friday: after a humiliating visit to the student health office on campus in which i almost started crying because i just wanted my mom so much, i'm pretty much recovered from my debilitating disease. i can walk around again!
in other news, there are only two weeks of class left before finals, and i'm really not sad about it. since senior year of high school started i can't even count the times i've announced that "it's gone by so quickly," but it really has, and especially this semester. i've learned so much about myself and the kinds of things i want to do and about life. in no particular order.
1. i'm pretty sure that i love college in general and not specifically pepperdine. i've been wondering if this was the case since the first few weeks of class, and now that it's winding down i'm feeling like it is. pepperdine is a great place with great people and beautiful surroundings, but chances are i could have gone to berkeley or william and mary and have felt the same way about college life. and all this actually really satisfies me because i know that whatever happens with transferring or not and especially with going to switzerland i'll still feel grounded and content.
2. the depressive state that they tell you to expect within the first few months of college is completely not mandatory. i was totally expecting to feel it, and at the end of last august before i came to pepperdine i was starting to prepare myself for it and i even thought i knew what it was going to feel like, but it never came. that was such a blessing, in ways you can't even begin to imagine. everything ran so smoothly here from the beginning. it's wonderful.
3. i hate television. and by "i hate television," i mean that i hate watching tv instead of going and having exploration expeditions and going to the beach to play harmonica and splash around in the waves at nighttime. that's probably the one thing i would have changed about this semester: i would have chosen for my roommate to not have a tv. because, let's face it, when there's a tv on in a room, there's not much else going on. i'm not going to miss television at all next semester.
4. where you are is all in your state of mind. i live in malibu. my mailing address is pacific coast highway. sometimes when there isn't any fog at night you can see the ferris wheel at santa monica from our caf. it's beautiful! and to be perfectly honest, i can see myself having been just as happy anywhere else. i'm not trying to say malibu is lame or that i don't appreciate being here, because i think i really do, but it doesn't really matter. obviously location is important, and it can really set your state of mind (if it wasn't or didn't i wouldn't be so excited to study abroad), but at this point in my life i think i'm really depending on other things.
5. "other things" pretty much includes only people. i love the friends i've made since being here. they're wonderful! and they prove to me what a small world we live in and how much people need each other. i haven't felt the least bit lonely or outcast since being here, and that's 100% fact, which is a little hard to believe but true. also, i feel so blessed to still have contact (and good contact) with the people from high school that i said at the end of high school that i'd planned on keeping forever. i feel like the changes we're all experiencing, we're still experiencing together, even though we're so far apart.
6. i really want to do everything. i really want to teach english, study theater, do costume design, do graphic design, fix grammar mistakes, study american history, study sociology, learn more french, do non-profit, advertise and knit for a living. i have yet to find a career that will allow me to do all these things. the search continues!
7. my mom is the best. she does everything for me. all those things that i thought i hated about her when i was in middle school and high school, now i can honestly see why she did them. i'm not thankful for anything more than i'm thankful for her. i wish there was a way i could help take care of her like she takes care of me.
8. i can't handle always being around people. right now the suite is pretty much empty and it's so nice and quiet outside, and i love it. i'm not saying that i want to become a hermit, because i don't- i'm actually pretty sure that the reason i wasn't depressed or lonely at the start is that i never had the opportunity to. having a roommate that you get along well with is like having someone spend the night every night. which is nice! but at the same time, without quiet time i can't function.
9. most "stuff" is lame and usually entirely unnecessary.
10. stress is lame and usually entirely unnecessary.
11. whatever will happen, will happen.
12. i love american apparel. i do.
13. it bothers me when relationships turn into dependencies, if that makes any sense. not sure how else to esplain that one.
14. creativity is so important to me. ingenuity! life! newness! i think it might be something that's fostered more by being alone, though. i'd like more time to fool around with the sewing machine and paper and pencils without my friends walking in. i have a lot of good ideas stored up for the summer, though, i think.
15. learning is so good. it's just so, so good. education is life. i think that may actually be a famous quote or part of one.
16. it would be nice to have easier access to the rest of the world. to take mass transit from malibu to los angeles is just not practical to do by myself, and there are not many people here who'd volunteer to 'splore like that with me. at the same time, this just makes me even more excited and thankful to have a car for this summer at home and to be able to use europe's trains and tubes to get all over the place. i'm really ready to be in a world where that's normal.
17. i don't know why we eat ramen noodles. i don't know if we actually like them or if we just all think it's something college students do.