I AM MARTHA EFFING STUART.

Every time I come home I cook up a storm and piss my mother off by making a mess in the kitchen. I think she's full of crap, though, because in all honesty I usually leave the kitchen cleaner by the time I'm done than it was to begin with.

I made Christmas cookies for Alex's Christmas party on Wednesday. It was a good time.

I am less depressed this break than I was over Thanksgiving break, for a couple of reasons. First, this break is longer, so the prospect of going back to school is not looming over my head like a guillotine. Second, I am actually less depressed about going back to school, in large part because of the roommate change.

I feel like no time has passed since I went away to school. I wasn't ready to leave home, and at the risk of sounding melodramatic, it was very traumatic for me. So I just kind of shut down. I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't do much of anything. And I feel as if nothing has happened to me since I started college. It's kind of ironic that a time in my life which should be full of change and growth has been one of the most stagnant periods I've ever experienced.

But the way I'm looking at it now, I just needed a buffer semester. I needed a semester to adjust and deal with the shock of leaving home, without having to worry about making new friends and maintaining a social life and keeping my grades up all at the same time. Now, though, I feel ready to do those things. With my new roommate, I may actually have someone to talk to at school, and maybe that will warm me up to the idea of meeting people. I am hopeful!

Still, though, conversations with high school friends can be awkward. They all have stories about new friends and fun times and adventures. The socially appropriate thing to do would be to counter with my own stories about similar things, but I don't have any, so the choice is between making some flippant and self-deprecating joke about the fact that I don't have any friends at school, or just smiling and nodding and saying, "Wow, that sounds like fun." Neither is a very good choice, although the latter makes me sound slightly less pitiful.

I think the real issue is just that most people are less picky than I am. Most people CAN be placed with a random roommate and make friends with that person. I hate 90% of the people I meet, so I can't just go around meeting everyone on my floor and making friends with all of them. I hate meeting random people when the odds are so great that I'll dislike them, so I prefer to just not meet people. However, I essentially hand-picked my new roommate, so the odds are much better, and maybe I'll meet people through her who don't piss me off.

NOTE: This post was supposed to be full of pictures, but I CANNOT upload pictures with dial-up. It takes about an hour per photo, and it doesn't even work the majority of the time. I had a bunch of really fun pictures of cookies and people at Alex's party. And you can't even go to my buzznet to see them, because I have the same issue with that. DARN YOU, DIAL-UP!

posted at 12:31 PM by Alison

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