Hell Is Bearable With Company

Tuesday 9 April

Well it's officially been a year since I decided to come to CU Boulder to pursue my college career, and I could not be happier with that decision. :)

My friend Claire said it best to describe the weather: "Welcome to Colorado, where the weather's made up and the seasons don't matter." Yup.

Anyway. This morning I dragged myself out of bed, got ready for class, dug out my winter clothes, and trudged across campus in the steadily falling snow. I managed, because of the cold, to make it across campus in fifteen minutes (from Smith to Norlin, which is basically like a new goddamn world record).

Then I had my Norlin class, where we talked about identity versus the self, and we had to decide on what identity categories we fit into, and we made a long list of them. Mine included scientist, politician, thinker, writer, transcendentalist, bro, girl, introvert, dog person, adventurer, dreamer, wallflower, procrastinator, suburbanite, nerd, peacekeeper, pragmatist, terrible dancer, perfectionist, and lost soul, and I still don't think I covered them all, even with all the multitudes I used. Everyone else felt the same way as well. Sometimes I think that's the whole point—neither you nor anyone else ever knows all of the facets of anyone else, even yourself, and that's what makes us so very fascinating to each other. We're continually searching for "who the hell AM I," answers, and, indeed, "what the hell is going on?"

Anyway. Then I sprinted back across campus in 18 minutes (goddamn Kitt hill) to arrive in the Ethics of Ambition, where I heard peer presentations on Paul McCartney (if you don't know who that is I'm going to slap you in the face. Seriously), Lance Armstrong (interesting take on the doping), and Ishmael Beah (a child soldier who fought in the Sierra Leone Civil War and now does activist work within the UN). They were all quite thought-provoking and it was grand :)

I grabbed a pizza from Farrand and came back to my room, did laundry, and watched the Melisssa McCarthy SNL and almost peed my pants laughing. She was delightful and I greatly enjoyed it.

Anyway. THEN I met my dear friend Kyle from my days as a mediocre All-Country bass player for coffee and it was lovely to catch up with an old friend and share moments and caffeine and memories together. Amongst all the turbulence of life, it's nice to know you have some moments like that to hold onto.

After that, I helped Sam with her lab. We're the queens of freaking separation schemes. What's up.

Then I grabbed dinner with Crissie, and we saw the Brackett basement clan and stopped for a bit with them, and then I ended up in Hallett puzzling over CAPA while we watched Griffin send Snapchats to Morgan's friend. The the rest of the Hallett gang came back and I had to leave, and they were PROFOUNDLY EXCITED to hear I was going to do physics homework with Binder.

So then that happened, and we were joined by Graham and Sierra and Christine, and then we ended up with the night in discourse over torque, friction, angular acceleration, limits of the real world, skiing, the shortcomings of Epic Mix, high school, and echoes in the Engineering Center. It was grand.

Aaaaand then I ended up back in Kitt and sitting on my ass doing some (but not all) of my Norlin homework and contemplating just passing the f*ck out.

Anyway. The moral of today's story is that life, especially when you're a science/engineering major, is hell. It is an absolute sh*tstorm of crap and you put up with so much to even have survival be even a vague supposition. But you know? It's better when you have friends and companionship. They make the bad days more bearable and the happy ones infinitely better and the mediocre ones matter. This is what it means to be a college student—hating some things and loving others and all the time being in a community of people that know and care about you.

I'm going to read/fall asleep on my book now if you need me. F*ck you Jeffco for getting a snow day, f*ck whoever thought qualitative analysis was a good idea, and f*ck you physics. Angst out.

Thanks for reading :)