good things

1. cowboy boots
2. this weather
3. a God who doesn't play favorites
4. clean sheets
5. fresh paint
6. HGTV
7. my Canon
8. spanish
9. good books
10. daisy mae
11. going home
12. holga cameras
13. jazz
14. scarves
15. waking up early
16. getting off work
17. texts from my brother
18. daydreaming about Argentina
19. twitter
20. following people's blogs
21. jimmy johns'
22. presents
23. the Pink Panther
24. hy-vee chinese
25. good conversation
26. school supplies
27. Christmas
28. cherry pepsi
29. my bed at school
30. joel stein's columns
31. breakfast
32. the feeling after a good run
33. making crepes
34. gerbera daisies
35. cherry bon-bon mochas
36. e-mails
37. improv
38. iowa
39. learning new songs on the guitar
40. taking pictures
41. making people laugh
42. swingsets
43. perfume
44. thinking about the things that were
45. thinking about the things that will be
46. napping on the floor
47. being quiet
48. finding beauty
49. art
50. ideas

La Vida Es Asi

This is one of the lonely days they told me I wouldn't notice. But after the third meal alone, I'm beginning to. A boy was exiting the cafeteria just as I was entering. Before I got to the door though, he said, "Just because you're pretty, I'll hold the door for you" and held it open as I walked in. I wanted to cry, partly because I couldn't believe was serious, and partly because I haven't been told that since, well, almost six months ago. Of course, someone's being pretty is a miserable reason to hold the door or do anything else for them, but it ticked me off how long I thought about what he'd said. Did he mean it? Why did it matter?

Physical attractiveness is the most arbitrary thing in the world. I know that. And as I've said before, there is beauty in everyone that comes from the life within them. And I believe that when you love someone, you find them more and more attractive, the more you know them. The concept of loving someone for their body is incomprehensible to me. I've fallen for numerous minds, one heart--and physical attraction just followed. It was never a starting point. So there is beauty that comes from existence, from being human, and beauty from loving and being loved. And the rest is just fluff. So why do I crave compliments on it?

Maybe I just crave compliments, generally. Or conversation. Is this not my whiniest post yet? I guess I thought friends would just kind of happen in college like they just kind of happened in high school. Then they didn't, and I told myself they would happen when classes started. That was two weeks ago, and nothing. I'm not sure what to tell myself, now. A piece of me wants to absolutely panic, but at the same time I want to reassure myself, tell myself it will come in time. It's not that there aren't any friendly people here--practically everyone is friendly. But when I meet someone I'd like to be friends with, it's usually by chance, and I have no idea how to find them again. My mom says a lot of this is that I'm not taking many typical "freshman" classes. Any gen eds I didn't clep or get AP credit for (like theology, for which there isn't a clep test) are combined into one class for me, since I'm in the honors program. So honors and the 8-week joke called freshman seminar are the only strictly freshman classes I have.

I am of course trying to make it sound like none of this is my fault. It definitely is. That's one thing we're learning in freshman seminar: take responsibility. And when something good happens, you can bet I will.

the room!