Nice People

     Today has been my favorite day of college so far. It was one of those "everything will be okay" days. I'm still terrified that it will come crashing down, of course. Even just thinking about it falling apart makes me feel kind of sick. But I'm going to go ahead and hope. 

     (Side note: I'm just going to assume that no one I know at college is ever going to find this blog and I'm going to use people's real first names because the initial thing is just way too confusing). 

     So this afternoon the three girls I met yesterday and I went to the student center together and got free SEPTA day passes to travel into the city and then we hung out for a little while in my favorite spot before heading over to the Newman Center where we met up to go on the "cheesesteak run". We took the subway to South Philly where the famous Pat's and Gino's are and we decided to eat at Pat's. I had my first Philly cheesesteak there. It was pretty good, considering I'm not a meat fan. 

     When we were walking back to the subway after lunch, one of the youth ministers came up to me and started talking to me and I wound up telling her about the blog and the song recommendations and she was like "Oh what are some of your favorite bands?" and I was like "Vance Joy..." and she was like "Oh my gosh "Fire and Flood" is one of my favorite songs!!" And then I listed off more and more of my favorite bands and she liked all the same music and then she was like "Have you heard of Stromae?" And I was like "I have!! A friend recommended him to me!" And so we talked about him for a while. It was cool. 

     After we got back from the cheesesteak run I went up to my dorm and a few minutes later Rebecca and her friend Andie came in and they told me all about the Fox Honors retreat and then they did some laundry and went to Andie's room to hang out. There was a carnival going on from 7-10 and I had wanted to go and the Newman Center girls had talked about wanting to go too but I was too shy to text them and ask them if they wanted to meet up. A minute after thinking this, I got a text from one of the girls, Haley, asking if we were going to the carnival. I responded immediately that I was and asked if they wanted to meet up. It wound up just being me and Haley going together but it wasn't that awkward (surprisingly) and we just kind of milled around for a bit and got some water ice before running into a girl from Haley's orientation group, Rebecca P. Rebecca joined us and she was really nice and talkative and funny and we went around and played different games and stuff and then I ran into the girl I met at orientation who's from Waynesboro so we talked for a few minutes and she said she thought she'd seen me getting the SEPTA pass in the morning but wasn't sure it was me and didn't want to say anything. Haha. She was with her roommate so we didn't really end up hanging out but about halfway through Melissa (another one of the Newman Center girls) joined us which was nice. While we were waiting in line to get a caricature drawn, Rebecca mentioned that her identical twin sister goes to Messiah and I was like "No way!! My friend goes there! What's your sister's name??" So she told me her sister's name and I asked where her sister lived and she wasn't sure but she said it was the "nicer dorms" so I texted DL and asked if she'd met Christina and DL hadn't met her but it turns out that Christina is minoring in journalism so there's a chance they could have classes together!! It's a crazy, small world. 

     Anyway, so we finally got our caricature drawn (it looked nothing like any of us) and we took a picture with it:

     I'm of course looking the wrong way because there were two cameras. It makes it look like I'm not actually part of the group haha. 

     After that we did a giant slide thing and of course I started slipping down the slide too soon before Melissa had a chance to go so it was just me sliding super fast down this huge slide and then Melissa coming down several seconds later. I'm a mess. 

     We got some more food and then sat on a bench and talked for a while and then Melissa had to go meet her mom at the dorms to pick up a mattress topper so then it was just me, Haley, and Rebecca and we were showing each other pictures of our pets and then this guy came up to us and asked in very broken English where he could exchange his €20 and I was like "You might be able to exchange it at the student center" but he didn't understand and we couldn't explain to him where it was so I was like "We can walk you there" so we walked with him to the student center and asked the lady at the front desk where we could exchange currency at and she's like "That's actually the first time I've ever been asked that question. And I'm not sure so I'll have to look it up." She suggested we try a post office so we told this to the kid (who had explained that he's from France) using google translate but we told him that it was probably closed at this time of night (by then it was 10 o'clock) and I asked him (using Google translate) if he needed the money now or if he could wait and he said he could wait and then Rebecca asked if he spoke Spanish (her family is from Puerto Rico so she knows a bit of Spanish) and he did so she explained to him in broken Spanish that he could use his card to get food with the meal plan. He thanked us (in Spanish haha) and I think we all felt good for trying to do our good deed of the day. I can't imagine being in a foreign country, going to college for the first time, AND not knowing the language. Wow. 

     After that we headed back to the dorms and played cards in my dorm for a while with Melissa (who rejoined us), Jed (a guy who lives on our floor), Rebecca, and Haley before Rebecca G. came in and was ready to go to bed so we moved the party to Rebecca P.'s room. Jed left after a bit so it was just us girls and we wound up talking about how amazing Target is, bras, food, and even our anxieties about college and making friends and all four of us were like "Yeah we were really lonely and not that happy until we met each other." It was really nice, knowing that I'm not alone in this little boat of mine. 

     AB sent me this Buzzfeed video that totally cheered me up about the whole making friends thing and set the tone for the rest of the day so my quotes are from it. 

Quotes of the Day: "I guess the hardest part about making new friends is admitting that you want to make new friends because you feel like you should already have friends and you should've already found your place in the world but really you don't know what's going on at all and that's okay."-Making New Friends as a Grown Up

"The only thing that really gets in the way of making new friends is ego. I mean nobody really has this shit figured out."-Making New Friends as a Grown Up

Day 1010 Song Recommendation: "Just for a While" by The Hunts. 

-SE Wagner