Passenger Seat

I roll the window down
and then begin to breathe in
the darkest country road
and the strong scent of evergreen
from the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

Then looking upwards
I strain my eyes and try
to tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
from the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

"Do they collide?"
I ask and you smile.
With my feet on the dash,
the world doesn't matter.

When you feel embarrassed, then I'll be your pride.
When you need directions, then I'll be the guide.
For all time,
for all time.

-Death Cab for Cutie
Their lyrics have always been poetry to me.

Constant

You are literally the only thing on my mind, morning, noon, and night.

Initiation

I had fun last night. :)

120 Gold Star Boulevard

Yesterday I had lunch with Alex, Leanne, Chris, Laura, Katie, and Tyler. We went to the Panera Bread in Worcester and just sat and talked for hours. It was so nice to all be back together again and to reaffirm that regardless of how much has changed, nothing has changed.

That is the best sort of constancy there is.

Boxes

I am le terrified to start unpacking. I definitely overpacked this year, although a lot of freshmen do so I am using that as my excuse to not feel too guilty about my own decision to bring way too much with me to school last September.

Too many bags and boxes!

I am finally about to start writing this paper.

Rachael and Olivia both left within the past hour, and I think the reality that the year really is coming to a close has finally hit me full force. I spent the morning helping Marilyn, Olivia's mum, bring the last elevator-load of Olivia's things down to their car. It was a nice excuse to procrastinate and in any case I was happy to help. I love Mamma Cucco!

I went down to lunch hoping to make myself a sandwich, but I forgot that it was Sunday and when I got to the dining hall it was all breakfast/brunch food, so I ended up taking a sleeve of rice cakes back to my room. I think I will eat them with peanut buttah, yum yum. While I was downstairs, I stopped in the kitchen to give the Ham-MacGregor dining staff a "thank-you" note. As boring as work in the dining halls might be, I absolutely loved getting to know the staff. At the beginning of the semester I made it my goal to learn all of their names (thirteen in all!), because I am a firm believer in appreciating everyone, especially those people who sometimes are forgotten or "melt into the background." The chefs in my dorm are so funny and cheerful and sweet! I honestly think I will miss them a bit next year. :)

Speaking of appreciation, today is Mother's Day and obviously I would like to make a shout-out to my own lovely mum! 

I love you so much!

Oh My Stars

'Cause I know a lot about closing doors,
but not a lot about what opens up yours.
Andrew Belle

Louis

I sat my last two exams today, French in the morning and Scottish Lit this afternoon. I have spent the evening packing up the things in my desk drawers and on my bookcase shelves, and all I have left to do for work is write a six-page paper for which I have already done all of the research. Why, then, when I am so close to finishing everything, when home is literally less than forty-eight hours away, can I not motivate myself to just start typing?

Rachael and Olivia both leave tomorrow. It will be weird saying goodbye, and even weirder being here when they are not.

More Pangy!

Here is a video my friend Stodd found from Pangy Day. It is a compilation of footage taken throughout the afternoon, and the first forty seconds or so are composed mostly of Project: Theatre playing around on Skinner Green. It is worth watching, too, though, for the clips from the maypole, and also to see our newly-inaugurated president, Lynn Pasquerella, throw the first pitch of the wiffle ball game and then give the most adorable "Happy Pangy Day" greeting right at the end. =)

I love my school!

My brain is slush.

After nine hours of meticulous reading and note-taking, all I want to do is scream. And sleep.

Bare

Yesterday night I came home to find most of my roommates' posters and pictures stripped from the walls of our room. It saddened me in a way I was not expecting. I decided I would leave up my own wall hangings until later in the week, but somewhere around eleven o'clock I caved in and began pulling everything down: the pictures from the left door of my wardrobe; my huge collage of photos from home; the "star" labeled "MISS MOON" that hung on the door that was a set piece for "Play Dead" (I played Miss Moon, and had someone not run after me the closing night of the show, I would have forgotten to take it!); the framed drawing of giraffes that I created when I was really little, maybe three or four, with a note on the back from my grandmother saying, "some people know what they like from a really young age"; the newspaper clipping of Kenda, the EcoTarium's polar bear, that Mum included in a care package once; the drawings of flowers that Olivia made me for my "Shape of Things" congratulatory bouquet; and even my name tag and the photos I posted on the bulletin board on the front of our door. (My huge whiteboard calendar would have come down, as well, had it not decided to fall off of its mounting and crash to the floor at approximately four o'clock in the morning about a week ago. All four of us woke up terrified that someone was breaking into our room; when I noticed the faint, square outline of white lying near my bed, I mumbled something along the lines of "Just my whiteboard" before we all went back to bed, our heartbeats slightly quickened. The next morning I thought to myself, I suppose this is a sign that it is time to start packing, but only now have I actually started.)

The only thing I have left standing is my beautiful print of Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night," which is poster-puttied (I may have made up that verb, "may" meaning "probably") to the back of Briana's wardrobe, and faces the head of my bed. I would have taken it down, but I have nowhere to place it where it would not stand the chance of creasing or wrinkling, and I love it far too much to risk that. So up it stays until the day I leave here, which is probably this Sunday.

The walls are so barren now and it is oddly melancholy. All of the white space surrounding us reminds me of how it feels when you first move in to a new house, and you have not yet had the time to hang anything up. My family has moved a fair amount, and the feeling of falling asleep to emptiness is one I still remember. Last night, I experienced it once more. I did not sleep particularly well last night, and I wonder if the walls - if this entire process of destructing what we ourselves created and built - had anything to do with it.

I find it funny to think that in a few months' time, four new first-year women will be moving in to this room, Ham 311, fitting their comforters onto the twin beds, filling the dresser drawers with clothes and belts and scarves, hanging pretty frocks or sweaters or jackets on the wardrobe rack and placing their shoes on its wooden floor, and taping or nailing or puttying or hanging their own photographs and posters and collages onto these white walls. It is hard to believe that nine months ago, Briana, Bridgette, Rachael, and I were the "new firsties," that other girls have lived here before. However plain this room might be - however unfortunate it is with its cold, grey linoleum flooring and the ugly cement pillars that interrupt the span of windows every fifteen feet and the north-facing windows themselves - however dull we sometimes found this room, it was still ours. This was a place where I went through so many of my highs and lows during my first year at Mount Holyoke. Next year, I will be living in a more beautiful building, creating another nine months of memories with a new roommate and perhaps, even, creating a new perspective. 

It is comforting to know, however, that these walls that surround us now, right at this moment, have lived before us, and even more so to realize that they will live again. 

Checklist

Today I am:
-attending my last day of classes! (Theatre, French, history, then DONE.)
-meeting Olivia for lunch in Blanchard.
-editing the script for The Importance of Being Earnest, sending the updated copy to Leanne, and continuing to plan for our meeting with UPSTAGE. (Fingers crossed!)
-watching "Trainspotting" with my Scottish Lit class while we devour delicious Hawaiian pizza.
-actually reading Louis XIV's Memoires pour le Dauphin so I can finally get started on this history paper.
-catching "Glee" at 8 pm? Maybe? I never watch television anymore.

Things standing between me and going home:
-two more classes (let's gooooo French and history).
-one history paper [yet again] on Louis XIV, at least six pages in length.
-three final exams, two of which I can self-schedule and self-proctor.
-taking down everything from the walls in my room and finding somewhere to store them where they won't wrinkle, crease, or otherwise self-destruct.
-packing up all of the things I brought with me here.....which is a lot.

I can do this!

Hogwarts

Finishing my night by re-reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for the bajillionth time, all for an actual academic class? I love college.