Finally Moved In

I finally got my laptop connected to the campus wifi so I thought this would be as good of time as any to make my move-in blog post.

I have been on campus for five days and band camp is now drawing to a close. It's been a lot of long, exhausting days so the fact that I'm not going back to Minnesota at the end of the week hasn't quite hit me yet. It has felt like just another week-long camp away from home that I'll be leaving after, but that's not the case. Club U-Dub-Dub (our orientation program) is on Sunday and Monday before classes start on Tuesday so my stay here is far from ending. I'm not sure yet when it'll hit me that this is my new home, but I'm sure it'll happen very soon.

I went to the book store to get my books for classes yesterday and what was going to be an excursion of about $60 turned into $111. I couldn't resist the comic books that greeted me as I walked into the building and reminded me that I left all of mine at home. I left with the books I needed plus Harley Quinn and Deadpool so I have some extra reading material now for fun.

My roommate moved in today while I was at marching band so I haven't had a whole lot of time to really talk with her, but I can already tell we're gonna get along great.

It's getting late so I will bid you adieu for now
Jenna

T-Minus 8 Hours

My last night in Minnesota is nearly over and I've been very emotional all day.

A few minutes ago, one of my best friends continued her count down to her own move-in day by posting something about me. About halfway through the first sentence I was already crying. By the end, my face was red and covered in tears. I realised that the things she wrote about, among many others, are what I'm going to miss the most while I'm away-- the simple things that didn't really seem to matter at all in the moment but matter so much in the long run. Those are the things I'm going to remember the most while I'm homesick and missing my friends from high school.

With love,
Jenna

---

The town was paper, but the memories were not.

Two Days Left

As the day I leave for college draws nearer, I have actually begun to pack. My room is a mess of clothes that need to be cleaned before they get packed and I have a few boxes already sealed up and ready to go.

My second-to-last day in Minnesota is drawing to an end and I'm starting to wish I had worked less and seen friends more. Half of my friends have already moved into their respective dorms and the other half I can't see because I'm busy getting ready to do the same.

There are two days until I leave, four days until I move in, and fourteen days until classes start; I can't believe the time has almost come for me to leave Minnesota and start my college journey. The last week or so has been such a rollercoaster of emotions-- between crying about my brother not giving me a hug and getting angry over my parents' constant reminders of things-- but I'm very excited to be on my own and really delve into what I truly want to learn about-- forensic science. My 6 credits of chemistry and 5 credits of biology just first semester will be a challenge, but I'm confident I can do this.

There will definitely be pictures of the dorm room being put up once I'm settled, but until then...

Goodbye,
Jenna

College Bound

As the day I move into college approaches-- and the amount of things I have to do before that date pile up-- I'm starting to think about all the things that I'm not going to have time to do in the next six days. As I write this, there are a million other things I should be doing, not to mention the million things I want to be doing. How am I possibly going to fit all of this stuff into my week?

Despite how much I'm looking forward to going to college and being on my own, I can't help but think about the things I'm leaving behind, both people and possessions. It's going to be a mix of refreshing, weird, and distressing to not be going back to the same school and seeing the same people every day like I have the last four years. It's going to be especially hard to be hours away from all of my friends.

I'll try my best to keep you posted on my new life as a college student, and you'll have to thank Ally for that.

Farewell for now,
Jenna

End-of-High-School Crisis

Looking back on the last twelve years of my life, I'm realising just how much I've grown as a person. I was reminded of this blog yesterday with an email telling me a hacker had posted and, while deleting that post, I came across one of my very early ones. My fifth post, back in 2009, was titled Blonde Jokes. The content, if you don't care enough to actually follow the link, is exactly what you'd expect: a couple jokes highlighting the stereotypical ditzy persona of a blonde woman. Obviously twelve-year-old me thought they were funny enough to share with the internet, but eighteen-year-old me finds them degrading and offensive, not to mention one of the many reasons blonde women, or even women in general, continue to be berated for their gender and the colour of their hair.

So what happened in the last six years? First of all, I'm beginning to notice all the misogyny that is so prevalent in our society. It's everywhere: the internet, the grocery store, school, literally everywhere. There is no escaping the offhand jokes and the blunt insults that are the cornerstones of the anti-feminist movement. Secondly, I had my hair dyed blonde for about a year and a half. Within that time, I would get comments about my "blonde stupidity" almost daily from coworkers, other students, and strangers despite not being a natural blonde. One particular encounter still sticks with me: I was at work and one of the bar servers came up to the front desk to put a sweatshirt in the lost and found. He began looking at the other items in the box and pulled out other jackets and sweatshirts that were in there, which were all women's clothing. He made a comment about drunk women always leaving their jackets behind and I told him I do that quite a bit as well. He amended his statement to say drunk and blonde women always leave their jackets behind, I reminded him that I am not a natural blonde, and he once again amended his statement to say women.
This kind of thing is not a rare occurrence; casual misogyny is constantly in all of our lives. One of the biggest things that has changed about me in the past years is my tolerance for inequality of any kind. We should all be doing more to change the way society views gender, race, sexuality, etc, because deep down we are all human.

THREE MONTHS LATER...

Well, it's been a while. I'm officially a senior, which inevitably leads me to constantly think of the lack of permanence in the world. Also about how everything we do is for the future. We go to school so we can go to college. We go to college so we can get a good job. We get a good job so we can have a nice house and pay for our kids' college so they can get a good job and pay for their kids' college and so on.
But back to lack of permanence... Nothing we do will last forever, or even near, and I can't help but think... What's the point? A similar idea is brought up in John Green's beautifully written novel The Fault in Our Stars and its subsequent movie adaptation: oblivion. As the book says, "There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after." I think about this quote while I'm lying awake at night, thinking of... permanence. So, what is the point of it all?
Right now is the point.  We can't be constantly be thinking of the future because then we'll just skip over the right now. Right now is when we enjoy life. Right now is when we have to be a person instead of fit right into the statistics.
So will you live, or will you be consumed by the inevitable oblivion?

a new beginning (con't)

Since I can never remember everything that must be updated, here is another list:
Thomas has turned four which is just crazy, but I also have another half-brother now named Matthew who turned one on November 6th. They are both growing up so fast I just cannot believe it.
My dad now has a job at Hennepin County Medical Center in the burn unit and he loves it. He is also almost completely done with school. I couldn't be more proud.
I have a job as a hostess where my dad used to work and I love it.
I am in my school's top band this year and it just makes me incredibly happy to say that. Carolyn also works there with me as a server's assistant.
I am going to Hawaii next week with the band.

Well, hopefully that is it and I will talk at you very soon!
JRB