Roadtrippin'

     Often, I feel like I hardly change at all from year to year but when I look back on who I was last year compared to who I am now, I realize that a lot has changed. For example, last year I wouldn't be caught dead roaming around in public wearing an orange turtle neck over a red dress with a bright pink-ish red wig, looking like Velma from Scoobie Doo. You couldn't have paid me to do that. Tonight I did it willingly. I'll admit that it was SUPER awkward standing outside by myself waiting for a friend from GCC to show up so we could walk to the Halloween party together. Once she was there though (dressed as a zombie) I felt totally fine about being Velma. It's amazing how looking ridiculous isn't such a big deal when you have someone with you. I got randomly called to by a group of girls screaming "VELMAAAA!" and then two little kids said "Happy Halloween!" to us. It was so cute. The party itself was a lot of fun and everyone's costumes were adorable, dorky, and creative. I ate too much candy and junk food and we played the game Fish Bowl which was fun. While I'm by no means an extrovert, I think I've gotten slightly better at having conversations since coming to college. Yesterday I rode in the car for an hour with a friend from the Newman Center and it wasn't awkward! She had invited me to come with her to teach a bible study to sixth grade girls after our bible study (the one that she leads) and I had nothing better to do so I agreed. Seeing the sixth grade girls brought back so many memories of being that age and feeling like the whole world revolved around how I looked, what I wore, what my grades were, and what my friends were doing. Sigh. I do not miss that phase at all. After the bible study, Haley, Melissa, and I Ubered to Haley's parents' hotel (it's parents weekend at Temple) and we got to meet them and hang out and play games. We played Uno, Egyptian Ratscrew, and Spoons while The Office played in the background. It was a nice evening and it made me realize that what probably would've been super awkward for me this time last year felt completely natural. I guess to sum up college it's pretty much the normalizing of "riding with strangers in a car to an unknown destination". We're all essentially strangers, having only known each other for two months of over 18 years of our lives and we're all headed down roads we've never traveled before, and yet all of it feels pretty much hunky-dory.

Day 1069 Song Recommendation: "Save Yourself" by Kaleo.
Day 1070 Song Recommendation: "Heathens" by Twenty-One Pilots. Thanks to DL for the song rec.
Day 1071 Song Recommendation: "Guardian Angel" by Allen Stone. Thanks to Haley for the song rec.

-SE Wagner