Comings and goings, stayings and leavings.

I realize that I have been writing on this blog thing far more often than originally planned, but I find it therapeutic - so bite me. :) It will probably dwindle down as the weeks progress anyway knowing me.

My mother flew out yesterday after we took a walk through downtown Evanston, around NU and out to Lake Michigan. I'm somewhat relieved I managed not to have an entire emotional breakdown. I even thought for a minute that we'd be able to get through it without tears. But nooooooo. Thanks a lot mom - chiste! At the moment I'm doing quite well. But I did just talk to the family. So I cheated a little.

Yesterday was also the get-together for the 2009 Medill winter starts. Those of us that live around the grad student housing (and in it) met up at our local El stop and rode down together to the Belmont area to a bar called Matilda. I found it kind of hilarious how, true to form, I show up to the party with a posse. I can't escape it. People know me. Or now they do at least.

Matilda was a pretty nice little bar - very Portland-esque. (Just think a classier version of Shanghai complete with the hipster crowd and dank basement.) I proceeded to meet about a million (okay, maybe only 40) people all at once and attempt to remember their names/backstory. Thankfully, we have this lovely thing called the "Who's Who" that we all had to fill out and submit a picture for on the web site. Needless to say, we all scoped each other out pre-party and I was able to recognize quite a few people based on bios alone. Seeing as there are only about eight guys in the program, they were the easiest to spot.

Everyone was great for the most part and genuinely interested in making new friends/contacts. There were, of course, the few future TV anchors in the bunch that made me chuckle on occasion. There is only so much hair flipping and flashing of the pearly whites that I can stand without wanting to gag a little. Hence the reason why I don't particularly want to become a 'talking head' unless I can write/research some of my own stuff - even though I look like Barbie half of the time. Sheesh.

And, in typical Autum style, I left my debit card behind which means I'm making a second trip back tonight. Joy.

I came home to meet one of my new roommates, the second Jessica. As of this morning, after meeting Lia, I've officially met everyone and am quite pleased. I couldn't have picked a better group of girls to spend the next three months with. (We all went out to brunch today as well and it was quite comfortable. It's definitely a relief after my NoPo experience from hell. Some girls seriously need to lighten up *COUGH*.)

I'm currently beginning the nesting process in my new room. I have bare walls, which will be fixed here soon as I slowly begin to add photos and Autum-y posters/ads/whatever to the walls. I'm also counting down the days until Ian comes to visit. I'm missing him pretty badly right now to the point that I think I've already seen his ridiculous new facebook video like three times just because it makes me happy to see him in motion. Pathetic, I know. Or maybe good, it depends on your perspective I guess. The only thing is that I don't want to be THAT girl that stalks her boyfriend and doesn't let him live independently. Then again, of course, that doesn't mean I don't have the urge to be in constant contact during the day. I need a hobby. Like underwater basketweaving. Or stamp collecting. Or a 40 hour a week course load - that might do the trick.

I talked to Bryan, Alyssa and J today as well, which made me supremely happy. I'm truly lucky to have friends that support me through even my most crazy/irrational moments. Thanks to you especially, Bryan, for not freaking out about the news today and being my best friend as always. You are amazing in EVERY way and anyone who can't see that is a moron.

In any case, I'm trying to stay busy and anticipate the trend to continue post-orientation tomorrow. This is going to be one amazing quarter and meeting everyone last night makes me feel leagues better (and more confident) about the situation.

I hope you all are well and happy.

Peace, love, omelettes.