Freshman Year Me

High School Me was full of an odd mix of angst and naivety. Freshman Year Me was full of curiosity.

Freshman Year Me wanted to know why the bus planner told her to go north, south, and west when I just wanted to go east to Mesa. I think Columbus planned my first bus trip, which ended up stranding me in Phoenix outside of a shiesty Circle K and a construction site.

Freshman Year Me wanted to know why the girl's bathroom was ten million miles away and full of urinals.

Freshman Year Me wanted to know why everything in the ASU cafeteria (Pitchforks) was secretly made of crap-nasty tofu variants.

Freshman Year Me wanted to know wtf was going on.

See, there was a lot to deal with.

Everywhere I went people were hanging me flyers, or yelling at me to buy things (from magazine subscriptions to crazy, gypsy wares), or telling me I was going to burn in hell for being a mouthy jezebel, or trying to run me down with beach cruiser bikes.

I had a real boyfriend for the first time ever, and I had to ride the scary, confusing bus full of drunk people who followed me to and from my dorm just to see him.

Ever tried spooning someone on a dorm bed? They’re not built big enough for one person, and my boyfriend is roughly the size of a wookie.

There were also some big personal problems Freshman Year Me had to deal with.

. My dad got off his medicine and had a bi-polar manic episode which meant I got lots of upsetting, raving phone calls at all hours of the day and night, and it ended up taking him to California where he crashed his car and ended up in a mental institution.

And then his dad died while he was out there, so I had to take my little brother and one of my sisters on an airplane to the funeral. Dad still wasn’t all the way better, and he actually didn’t remember us being there at all.

It was awkward and upsetting.
Balancing dorm life with classes with having a boyfriend with having a family and having friends got hectic sometimes. I used to see my best friend every weekend, but we saw each other fewer and fewer as I got more and more caught up in dealing with the new elements in my life.

But, on New Year’s Eve my best friend was raped, and I would’ve been there with her, but I was really stressed out and didn’t feel like going out to Apache Junction to hang out.
Around that time, I had a pregnancy scare, too.

which lead to my boyfriend singing me a weird song including the line, “you don’t have a baby inside of you.” This turned out to be true, but was more upsetting than not at the time.

Sure, school work wasn’t really challenging. But being an 18-year-old college student was lots of crazy shit all the time.

Instead of a delightful, easy first year of college, Freshman Year Me ended up getting all B's (and one A- in Italian) the first semester, which was sort of balanced out by all A's the second semester. But Freshman Year Me was sort of adjusting.

And it wasn’t all bad.

Freshman Roommate Lisa was pretty awesome. We decorated our dorm door with free flavored condoms we collected around campus and some cheap, brightly colored ones from the boy’s bathroom, and created a character called Trogwhore the Safe Sexinator.

Freshmen Year Me got to find out what chocolate flavored condoms taste like (as a result of blowing them up, not anything shiesty).

Freshmen Year Me also took some really interesting anthropology classes, an intro to psych class, and (with the exception of English 105) some very interesting English classes

Freshman Year Me also played dress up a lot and had Betsy in most of my classes, and got to meet Rachul. Plus, my best friend back home and family were there on the weekends. And, my boyfriend was really great about all the crying I did, and at cheering me up.

Then came Sophomore Year Me.