Friday night was my last night living in International Village. A lot of summer goodbyes were said, each of which was highly emotional. Shannon, Lauren, Sean, Iris, Chris, Alaric, Meredith, Sarah, Andy, and Tasha all left before Saturday.
It's more sad than I'd have ever conceived. Tasha's part of the room had been packed for a few days, but there were cardboard boxes and suitcases and food splayed across the desk. Once she really moved out, there was this pervading sense of emptiness in the room. I had to face my own wall when I was on the computer to avoid looking at the blankness.
Saturday morning was an early start to pack up the entire room. Lauren was up too and sat with me while it happened. I'm glad I didn't have to pack alone. She and Ryan left over the course of the day, and I helped Laura move into Smith for Prism. After these thirteen farewells, it got really lonely. My family packed me up and moved me out, and then I just had to empty the recycles and trash one more time. When I was standing in 933 IV for the last time, I got kind of overwhelmed. That room was my home for eight months. I had a really beautiful view of Roxbury everyday. I slept, studied, laughed, cried, lived, and grew in that room. To see it return to looking exactly as it did on Day One two semesters ago was beyond sad. I had one last view out the window, shut the lights, and left the room dark and empty.
What bothers me is that it looks EXACTLY as it did when we first moved in. This is exactly as it will look when the new freshies move in. My opinion when we first moved in was that the undecorated room looked a bit like a jail cell: it was a blank diary, waiting for Tasha and I to fill its pages. Now, I KNOW we've written all over every page of it, but the unforgiving white walls don't reflect that. It's like all our memories are erased. WE know those adventures live on, but not a single soul to live there next will. It's disconcerting.
What will I remember most about this year? Decorating the room that first night till 2 am, The Good, the Bad, the Weird in Andy's room, the time we watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in Scott and Sean's room, Harry Potter Movie-thons, the time Tasha and I went Christmas shopping at Marshall's, the Doctor Who marathon, girl talks, girl talks accompanied by beverages, Christmas decorations for all of second semester, that time we all agreed that if I was a phone company I'd be Virgin Mobile, piecing together the previous night over a noon breakfast, Russell Brand tickets, Halloweekend, bringing home ABP goodies, The Vow for Valentine's Day, HUSKY HUNT, jamming in Ryder at 11 at night, lik-ing dis if u cry evertim, doing homework in the room of whoever's door was bolted, watching Thomas the Tank Engine, playing Kings, shooting A True Gentleman, Relay for Life, impromptu adventure in the North End, two ships passing in the night, cleansing my palate, stealing dining hall cookies, the midnight Hunger Games premiere, the Rageous War, family dinners, Snow Ball, ALL the That's What She Said and Sounds Like My First Time jokes, Grease-Sing Along, eating sushi in class, agreeing that Indian food is always a good idea, questioning each other's taste in fruit, maneuvering sailing/musical debris every night, surviving the Poltergeist, LOTS of tickling, that time we wrote a musical about dancing zombies, an eighteen page paper on Wicked, getting through Saint Patrick's Day, reading the Manual, CALL ME MAYBE?, suggestively reading Cosmo to each other, the Christmas Rager, fermenting yeast, the Hot Guy Wall, The Art Exhibit, long walks by the Charles, NUSO concerts, erratic sleep schedules, those times we shared all the details of all the stories, and most vividly, seeing each other off one by one.
Next fall as the Sexy Six of Six-Sixteen can't get here quickly enough Those I haven't hugged in person recently took some photo spamming to the wall, and I'm just more anxious to see your smiling faces. Come back, please?
THANK YOU. Everyone who played any small part in making my freshman year at Northeastern so fantastic deserves the most sincere thank you, from my parents, for letting me go, to the dining hall workers who didn't speak English. All the Tremont Street Raiders, all the music majors, the RAs, the Pep Band people, the professors, and every student I met helped make this the most epic year I could have dreamed up. There are things I'd do differently, and things I wouldn't change for the world. I'm just glad it all happened. I'm proud of who this year has helped me become, and I owe it to beautiful Boston, Northeastern, and every single Husky I've met for helping me grow so much.
I truly can't wait to see you all again soon.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."
Not the most uplifting of blogs, but hey, I needed to rant.
Everything is fleeting. It never seemed so before, but since getting to school it’s all I can say about the way time flies. Being in a big university in a big city, where people come and go from school, their homes, co-ops, and jobs-- any of which can be as close as Boylston, Massachusetts or Stony Brook on Long Island, or as difficult to visit as Fort Mitchell, Kentucky or Sarasota, Florida, OR as far off as Egypt or China or Australia. People are here one semester and then just gone before you have the chance to really connect. Life moves so quickly. You can't keep EVERYONE you meet in your life, but there's practically no time to develop anything before you have to choose whether to move on or not. It's so difficult.
The word "hiatus" is a really effective word. Something about it implies its meaning while sounding sophisticated.
Al and Shannon are hanging out in La Venue of Sabrina while we all do work. It's rather lovely, especially since I was away from my sweet angelface friends all weekend.
Speaking of La Venue de Tasha and Sabrina, I have a crystal-clear memory of moving into 933 IV on August 31, 2011. Tasha was walking out of IV and I was walking in when we first met. We clicked right from the beginning, and then went up to arrange the room. I just have this Nikon picture in my head of the white, white walls and bare beds and empty closets. And I was trying to figure out how to make that room feel like home. I can’t imagine anything else now. There are pictures all over and cards and tickets and playbills and posters hanging everywhere, there’s leftover Christmas decorations, there’s random secret message crap hanging all over from the Rageous War, and there are messes and clothes and food and homework all over. The room is so lived-in. In less than two weeks, it’s all gotta go. It’s terrifying. It was one thing packing up all my clothes and things at home and bringing them to school-- it wasn’t actually everything I own. Whenever I go home there’s still pajamas and shoes and hair ties and books waiting for me. That room has never been entirely purged. 933 IV will be though. There’s got to be nothing left.
One other thing is bothering me. Since getting to school I’ve learned a lot about music and my future and myself and I’ve met FANTASTIC people and we’ve had the most wonderful adventures and jokes and bonding experiences in the course of a year. Of course it’s going to go on next year, but that’s also what’s going to happen this summer (after I’m done being bedridden from surgery). And that’s what happens whenever I go home and reconnect with my friends and family there. I gained so, so much at school. More than I have room for in my life. I’m now in this awkward position where I will never have all of those people and classes and music in my life at one time. All these things that make up my life and who I am, I won’t ever be able to fit into my life. There will always be someone or something missing, right down to where I am; I love New York and I love Boston but I can’t have both things I love at once. This understanding doesn’t fit into my schema of how life works. I’m confused by knowing that my life will never be complete all at once. I don’t quite know how to handle it. That was what I loved a lot about my Sweet Sixteen--everyone and everything that mattered made it into one night. Granted, my life has grown and gained so many more dimensions since then that I couldn’t even recreate that feeling at my Graduation Party (I had to have two to accomodate everyone!). I’d never choose to go back to only knowing that small corner of the world, but it was a perfect night for that time of my life. I don’t foresee a day when I’ll ever be so whole again. I don’t mean to complain about being lucky enough to have such a full life; it’s just a paradox I’m living with. A lot of kids my age are going to have to live with it.
On a happier note, Doctor Who and Chinese food go together excellently, as I learned last night after a 7 hour journey from Smithtown to Boston. It made me feel much better about my crappy Monday.
Quotes of the Day:
"Oh by the way, how's your Yiddish?" Feinstein
"ME WOVE WOU!!" Note left by my darling brother and sister and discovered by me today.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Storybook endings, fairy tales coming true.
The most important happening of the last few weeks would undoubtedly be Delia's Sweet Sixteen. The whole occasion was beautiful, both aesthetically and in nature. The whole affair was actually about twelve hours long and they were the most perfect twelve hours.
I generally make it a point to be a happy person. I like to bask in the happiness of all my family and friends and music and books and just be happy. Do you ever get filled with negative energy? There are times when I'm just filled unnecessarily with anxious or angry energy and it's all I can do to get rid of it healthily. It's the most aggravating thing ever. You know the feeling; that one Facebook post on someone else's wall that implies you're being left out, that assignment that you're entirely restructuring the night before it's due, that friendship you tried so hard to keep alive but is just useless now, that bracket that fell off your tooth when you weren't even eating something chewy, (and the fact that you have to go through the braces crap for a second time anyway)--things that just make you go a little crazy. My advice for coping when you just want to yell and punch your pillow is to invest some time and money in a spoon, a jar of Nutella, and some old Seinfeld re-runs.
I guess things got started around 1:30 pm when Deels had her hair appointment. I was curling my hair in the bathroom downstairs already because I had to have enough time afterwards to get dressed and do my own makeup as well as Delia's. Eric was with me, watching the Doctor Who Season 2 Finale. It was really sweet because the whole weekend was so focused on Deels that spending two hours with Eric pestering me ("What'd he do that for?" "Are they going to explain that?" "WHAT?!" "Pleeeaaase tell me!") was really nice.
She got back around 3:30, at which point I did her makeup. This took like an hour. But was entirely worth it! It then took her 45 minutes to get into her own dress and shoes, over the course of which I finished my hair, did my own makeup, and got dressed.
We left the house at 5:30 and got to the hotel with plenty of time to set up candles and centerpieces and take lots of pictures with the help of our beautiful and professionally dressed photographer, Cristina! She did a fantastic job and I'm DYING to see all the pictures!
It was wonderful to have all the family together again. All the Raggis, Brengels, Gasperis, Scagliolas, Stracquadanios, Finellis, Miliones, Ginger, and the Schizzanos (because what's the difference really, when we've been so involved in each other's lives for thirteen years) were all together with all of Delia's close friends, dance friends, Lifeteen friends, theater friends, and family friends. Lots of dancing and merriment. Except for like the 14 cousins that refused to dance with me. Let me tell you, you missed out.
Then, of course, there was the whole spiel of Sweet Sixteen traditions over the course of the evening. We had her photo montage of every adorable picture ever taken of Deels from birth to like the week before the party. Seeing as every picture taken of my photogenic sister is adorable, there were lots of pictures. I'm flattered by the number of pictures I was in with her. :)
Her friends that love her so much put together a sweet video in which they re-wrote the lyrics to "I Will Survive" to be about surviving our parents' bad dancing at the party, with verses about how each of them met her and her importance in their lives. Since I don't exactly remember meeting her for the first time, my verse was just fluff like "Our inside jokes range from pretzel dance to wedge of lime." It makes sense, I swear. ("Manic waitress at Ninety-Nine: "WOULD YOU LIKE A WEDGE OF LIME WITH THAT?!") She was entirely shocked and thrilled. The whole thing went over nicely.
THE FOOD WAS GODLY.
Then of course there was her candle lighting ceremony. Guys, remember all the crying we did at mine? We did just as much, if not more at Delia's. She's always been a fantastic writer and she really shined with these seventeen candles. I am more than honored to receive her second out of seventeen candles. I talk a lot about how close we are, but hearing her talk about it, and how difficult it gets when I'm in Boston and she's home, made it sound all different. I started crying at the second candle and never really stopped. "Sisters by blood, but more importantly, sisters by choice." :') <3
She then had her father-daughter dance and her grandfather-daughter dance and we had ice cream. There was also a Grease Sing Along and a Hand jive competition. It was rather excellent.
The party ended at 11, but it was midnight before we got home, considering all the decorations, centerpieces, favors, gifts, leftover food and cake, and goodbyes. Once we were all changed into the most comfortable slippers (heels are hard on your feet!) and pajamas we own, we ate our way through a lot of the leftover food and cake and opened all her gifts. "We" includes Ginger, who we are always thrilled to have stay with us. We started missing her the hour she left. :( But Delia got some truly precious things! I had a playlist running of all the songs that had been involved in the party-her entrance, her candles, the favorites played by the DJ- and it was a great hour and a half to close up the festivities. I remember how hard it was after my party to just go home and go to bed when you were still all abuzz. This tradition is almost as precious as the party.
As everyone else went to sleep, Deels and I then continued our long-standing tradition of hanging out in my bed and talking before going to sleep. At this point we were both exhausted and only lasted about a half hour before falling asleep together. It was kind of cute except we felt gross waking up with our faces still caked in makeup.
The moral of the story is that it was a beautiful day. The only tiny glitch was that it was awful hair weather out. Let's be honest; if that's the biggest problem we had, then we're truly lucky.
I was trying to explain all of this to Andy, who looked at me a combination of confusion and disbelief at all the components of the party. He said, "It sounds like some bizarre coming-of-age ritual from another culture." It kind of is. It's a really fun thing, but it's also a deeply emotional thing. My Sweet Sixteen was the night of my life and this was the night of Delia's. I could not be more blessed to have the sister I do and I'm grateful we got to share these nights with each other.
:) <3
On another note,
She got back around 3:30, at which point I did her makeup. This took like an hour. But was entirely worth it! It then took her 45 minutes to get into her own dress and shoes, over the course of which I finished my hair, did my own makeup, and got dressed.
We left the house at 5:30 and got to the hotel with plenty of time to set up candles and centerpieces and take lots of pictures with the help of our beautiful and professionally dressed photographer, Cristina! She did a fantastic job and I'm DYING to see all the pictures!
It was wonderful to have all the family together again. All the Raggis, Brengels, Gasperis, Scagliolas, Stracquadanios, Finellis, Miliones, Ginger, and the Schizzanos (because what's the difference really, when we've been so involved in each other's lives for thirteen years) were all together with all of Delia's close friends, dance friends, Lifeteen friends, theater friends, and family friends. Lots of dancing and merriment. Except for like the 14 cousins that refused to dance with me. Let me tell you, you missed out.
Then, of course, there was the whole spiel of Sweet Sixteen traditions over the course of the evening. We had her photo montage of every adorable picture ever taken of Deels from birth to like the week before the party. Seeing as every picture taken of my photogenic sister is adorable, there were lots of pictures. I'm flattered by the number of pictures I was in with her. :)
Her friends that love her so much put together a sweet video in which they re-wrote the lyrics to "I Will Survive" to be about surviving our parents' bad dancing at the party, with verses about how each of them met her and her importance in their lives. Since I don't exactly remember meeting her for the first time, my verse was just fluff like "Our inside jokes range from pretzel dance to wedge of lime." It makes sense, I swear. ("Manic waitress at Ninety-Nine: "WOULD YOU LIKE A WEDGE OF LIME WITH THAT?!") She was entirely shocked and thrilled. The whole thing went over nicely.
THE FOOD WAS GODLY.
Then of course there was her candle lighting ceremony. Guys, remember all the crying we did at mine? We did just as much, if not more at Delia's. She's always been a fantastic writer and she really shined with these seventeen candles. I am more than honored to receive her second out of seventeen candles. I talk a lot about how close we are, but hearing her talk about it, and how difficult it gets when I'm in Boston and she's home, made it sound all different. I started crying at the second candle and never really stopped. "Sisters by blood, but more importantly, sisters by choice." :') <3
She then had her father-daughter dance and her grandfather-daughter dance and we had ice cream. There was also a Grease Sing Along and a Hand jive competition. It was rather excellent.
The party ended at 11, but it was midnight before we got home, considering all the decorations, centerpieces, favors, gifts, leftover food and cake, and goodbyes. Once we were all changed into the most comfortable slippers (heels are hard on your feet!) and pajamas we own, we ate our way through a lot of the leftover food and cake and opened all her gifts. "We" includes Ginger, who we are always thrilled to have stay with us. We started missing her the hour she left. :( But Delia got some truly precious things! I had a playlist running of all the songs that had been involved in the party-her entrance, her candles, the favorites played by the DJ- and it was a great hour and a half to close up the festivities. I remember how hard it was after my party to just go home and go to bed when you were still all abuzz. This tradition is almost as precious as the party.
As everyone else went to sleep, Deels and I then continued our long-standing tradition of hanging out in my bed and talking before going to sleep. At this point we were both exhausted and only lasted about a half hour before falling asleep together. It was kind of cute except we felt gross waking up with our faces still caked in makeup.
The moral of the story is that it was a beautiful day. The only tiny glitch was that it was awful hair weather out. Let's be honest; if that's the biggest problem we had, then we're truly lucky.
I was trying to explain all of this to Andy, who looked at me a combination of confusion and disbelief at all the components of the party. He said, "It sounds like some bizarre coming-of-age ritual from another culture." It kind of is. It's a really fun thing, but it's also a deeply emotional thing. My Sweet Sixteen was the night of my life and this was the night of Delia's. I could not be more blessed to have the sister I do and I'm grateful we got to share these nights with each other.
:) <3
On another note,
I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces.
I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces.
I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces.
I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces.
I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces.
I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces.
I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces. I hate braces.
I actually physically wrote out that sentence forty-two times without copying or pasting to make it clear just how much I hate braces. I actually do not plan to ever have kids, partly so I never have to put them through anything related to the Orthodontist.
I generally make it a point to be a happy person. I like to bask in the happiness of all my family and friends and music and books and just be happy. Do you ever get filled with negative energy? There are times when I'm just filled unnecessarily with anxious or angry energy and it's all I can do to get rid of it healthily. It's the most aggravating thing ever. You know the feeling; that one Facebook post on someone else's wall that implies you're being left out, that assignment that you're entirely restructuring the night before it's due, that friendship you tried so hard to keep alive but is just useless now, that bracket that fell off your tooth when you weren't even eating something chewy, (and the fact that you have to go through the braces crap for a second time anyway)--things that just make you go a little crazy. My advice for coping when you just want to yell and punch your pillow is to invest some time and money in a spoon, a jar of Nutella, and some old Seinfeld re-runs.
Watching Grease:
"I feel like a defective typewriter." Rizzo
"I hope you don't plan to need that line..." Sean
It was much, much funnier in the moment.
"ME WOVE WOO." Deels
"HOW COME ANY TIME I DO SOMETHING NICE FOR SOMEONE THEY MAKE A WEIRD FACE AT ME?" Also Deels
"You don't have any reason to sing a sad song like that." Me
"ME WOVE WOO." Deels
"HOW COME ANY TIME I DO SOMETHING NICE FOR SOMEONE THEY MAKE A WEIRD FACE AT ME?" Also Deels
"You don't have any reason to sing a sad song like that." Me
"I'm sad because I'M ALONE." Deels
"BUT YOU HAVE ME!" Eric
(It's rather less funny without the screaming and accents and pushing each other around.)
I love my family like a lot, a lot, a lot. I'm so grateful that they came all the way to Boston for a two hour orchestra concert, and even managed to all be excited about it.
Side note, my brother is starting to know more about the history of Doctor Who than I know, in addition to teaching himself the main theme on cello. As far as brothers go, it really doesn't get any better.
God, I am blessed to live the life I do. When I get whiny, don't let me forget that.
"BUT YOU HAVE ME!" Eric
(It's rather less funny without the screaming and accents and pushing each other around.)
I love my family like a lot, a lot, a lot. I'm so grateful that they came all the way to Boston for a two hour orchestra concert, and even managed to all be excited about it.
Side note, my brother is starting to know more about the history of Doctor Who than I know, in addition to teaching himself the main theme on cello. As far as brothers go, it really doesn't get any better.
God, I am blessed to live the life I do. When I get whiny, don't let me forget that.
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