Feeling philosophical because its o'dark thirty in the morning.

identity in progress

Originally uploaded by Фототека им. Зепа

That’s exactly what this is. I’m feel poignant and fantastic and it’s nearly one in the morning, so obviously the best option for me right now is to write. I don’t exactly know what I’m going to write about exactly, but I think that’s the best thing right now. I haven’t exactly known anything for a very long time now. When I first started not knowing exactly anything I thought it was frustrating. Now I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me because I’m thinking about exactly nothing in particular and I’m able to wander and wander and wander around in my head for something even a little significant.

I obviously haven’t yielded (“i” before “e” except after “c”) anything significant yet, but I think I will eventually. I think everyone has to yield something significant eventually, whether it be a recipe, a child, a thought, a book, a new way to raise teacup pigs or something else a little extraordinary. I think one day I’ll yield something significant, but I need to work on making me significant enough to get to that point. Does any of that make sense? Probably not.

I don’t really care that it doesn’t make any sense because this is me wandering and wandering and wandering around in my head. I’m trying to come to some sort of a conclusion because I absolutely can’t stand dead ends or cold trails, but it’s been 18 years in the making and I still haven’t come to any sort of a conclusion about anything. Maybe that’s a good thing though, because maybe an 18 year old shouldn’t be coming to any conclusions—that should be reserved for the Geriatric crowd—and I’m supposed to be wandering and wandering and wandering, but that still doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

I don’t know, I just don’t know anything any more. My name is Jaclyn, but people who’ve known me since forever call me Jaci (Jack-ie, not Jace-ey, not Jace, Jack-ie; like Jackie-O, but less glamorous), so I’m not even exactly sure of what I’m called. My grandfather even called me Mandy once or twice because my middle name is Amanda, but that doesn’t make much sense because I’ve never been called that by anyone else. So, I don’t know what I’m called.

I’m 18 and I’m in college, but really really really, should I be? I’m only 18 after all. A whole year younger than most of the people starting out this year, but why should that matter? I’m smarter/tougher/more fantastic than them, right? Wrong, probably. Maybe. Who knows? Not me, obviously. I don’t exactly know anything.

Now I’m just making up excuses because of course I should be in college. I shouldn’t be over there in Africa volunteering in a village to help small kids learn math or scrape a living. I shouldn’t even be thinking about enlisting in the Peace Corps because that would just be stupid and a waste of time, right? Wrong, probably. Maybe. I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up (right, when’s that exactly?), but at the same time I know exactly what I want to do right herenowforeverandever. It’s the only thing I exactly know, and I’ve been holding onto it for dear dear dear life since I was maybe ten years old, so please be gentle with it and don’t break it. Goals are sometimes the only things that are really ours and really original, because everything else has been done before. Not doing things, but wanting them is totally original to the individual, because no one else has wanted exactly what I want, when I want it.

I want to help people and I want people to love me and need me because I’m me and I’m doing something necessary for them. I want someone to love me so much they can’t keep it a secret, and I want to love someone so much that I literally would not be able to function without knowing they were in my life somehow. I’ve never felt that, and obviously that’s not going to happen any time soon, right? Maybe not, maybe yes, I don’t know because I don’t know anything exactly for sure except for exactly what I want.

One day, I’m going to know exactly everything about me. More about me than my mother thinks she knows, and more about me than my father says he knows, but probably not more about me than is possible to know because I can’t know what I’m going to want tomorrow. Wants and needs are the only things that drive people, and people drive the world. What if people wanted only good things for the person sitting to their left? Would the world spin the other way and would people start pulling their pockets for someone else?

Probably, maybe. I don’t know because I don’t know anything exactly for sure.

Say Nice Things

You know what would be super great? I mean, something seriously fantastic that I would appreciate truly and sincerely?

I'd like people to say nice things to each other. Say nice things that you mean and that you want them to know, but are too afraid to actually say. I read this article in some Readers Digest somewhere about love letters. Now, I think love letters are wonderful, timeless things, but I'm talking about anything nice to say. Not necessarily in-love sorts of things to say, but a text from an old friend saying, "I'm thinking of you" or "I miss you" or "You are the most interesting person on my News Feed," or really anything kind and sweet and unprecedented is fantastic. Unexpected kindness has the same effect on most people--or just me if you're all ogres out there--as receiving an unexpected college-fund donation. You didn't ask for it, didn't even know it was a possibility but there it is, and it's left you with this warm, glowy tingle in your stomach that stays there for a few days (or, if you get the college fund donation probably a few years/forever).

I got bored the other day in the car and I wrote down every single memorably nice thing that anyone has ever sent/said to me or someone I know, and everything that I'd want to say or have already said to someone. Here are a few examples.

I am so excited to see you, my pants are practically falling off.
You're hilarious.
~picture of a heart with the words "I Love You" on it~ A big hug for you!
And when I saw you again, you were actually prettier than I remembered. I didn't think that was possible.
I really like you. As everything.
I love you for all of the above.
I love you too.
You were the one for me when it was then. I wish I had known it.
You're stronger than you think, because you've lived through everything in your life. No one else has done that.
You really do have a fabulous ass, you know that?
You're too beautiful for it to be safe. I'm the James Bond type, so I'm going to have to "take you out."
I don't know if this is appropriate since we've just met, but you're going to marry me.
I miss you. -I'm standing right next to you! -I know, I'm just pre-guilting you so you don't leave.


Some of those are cheesy, yeah, but didn't you smile when you read that stuff? You want someone to say that to you, because you want to be wanted, to be loved and cherished and beautiful in someone's eyes. You want to say those things because you know it'll make someone else feel fantastic and on air for the rest of the day.

So say it! Say what you want because you only really have one chance to say everything. There's only one chance for every single decision that we make, and if you decide to err on the side of caution then you haven't made the right decision! What if she said she liked you too?!

Well, there's always the possibility that she's going to say she doesn't feel that way, but then you know. You know that you tried as hard as you could to tell her that you felt that way. And you lost a little and your heart is a little bit broken, but she is always going to remember you as the person who tried. The guy who gave it his best shot because he cared, and he wanted you to know. He took that risk because he thought it would make you both happy, and maybe it would have, or maybe you both would have ended up in pieces and confused about where to go after, but you would know.

I have regrets too. The above scenario happened to me, and I didn't take the risk, and it's something I have to live with every day. I think I made the right decision for me then and now, but I'm always going to wonder if I maybe made the right one.
Everyone has been on both sides of that conversation, and everyone has walked away. You've all been able to pick up and move on and breathe and breathe and breathe again. You might have felt like the whole world was going to come out of the sky, but you picked up and you cried and wished for things to be different and you made yourself feel better. You did all that and you moved on.

I have loved and cherished every single one of those people who said those fantastic things in the quotes up there. I have held them in the closest confines of my heart for as long as I possibly could and I can say that--for all except one--I have made sure that they all know clearly and concisely how I feel. Obviously some of those are friend-love, and some are more-than-friends-love. Some are tragic-love-that-turned-out-awfully, and some are well-we-gave-it-our-best-shot-love, and then there's still one that we haven't really put aside. There are so many types of love, and it's a waste not to embrace every single kind.

Anyways, that's all I wanted to write.
Love with your whole heart as wide open as you can. Get hurt, cry a little and make sure your heart bleeds just a bit.
Go out and break someone's heart, but then come back and try to fix it.
Make mistakes, go back and try to redo, redo, redo.
Learn if you can't, feel blessed if you can.
Talk in your sleep, and hope someone hears their name and sees you smile.
Tell Grandma you're thinking of her. Tell Mom you're thinking of her. Tell Dad. Tell your brother, your sister, your dogs.
Send a text because you want to say hello.

Never let anything fester in the middle, in your head, you'll only end up tossing it out with the rest of the trash you pick up during the day.

Love a lot, love hard, love everyone you can stand to talk to.

And because of this rant, I say that maybe unrequited love is still love. It's miserable love, but it's love.

So.

Love,
Miss Guided

Video Production Club and WTF, Don't Text if you Don't Care, Asshole.

This will be a complaining post. I'm warning you now, it may be hilarious, it may be the funniest fucking thing you've ever read in your entire life, but it will be stuffed thanksgiving-style full of self-pity and angry ranting. It probably won't even be funny, but it will complain a lot.
So.

That's my disclaimer. May or may not tag that onto every post from now until forever slash whenever I decide that I want to be an astronaut and just stop blogging.
Which probably won't happen, the astronaut thing I mean. I may stop blogging, but I probably won't ever be an astronaut. I don't like heights and the whole idea of an infinite Space freaks the fuck out of me.
Can "fuck" be freaked out of you? That sounds weird. Philosophical question of the day.

Note to Self:

Dear Miss Guided,

No one actually reads this besides the people you know in real life who you bully into reading this. You should probably just drop off the face of the planet because you're so not-special. You could always join a circus and try to be successful that way. And/or act like a general idiot, so I guess maybe psychologists could try to figure out the inner workings of your brain.
Probably not though, because you're not special enough to even be considered brain-study material.
HA.

Love,
World.

Anyways, back to your regularly scheduled bitch-fest.

I hate people who can't keep up a conversation.
Really and truly, these people are the scum in between Larry the Jailbird's toes after he lost his shower privileges for a month. Actually...they're that scum's scum. Yeah. They're that scummy.

Would you like to know why I hate these dick-munchers? Of course you do, you've read this far, haven't you!?

HAVEN'T YOU?

Please.

Ok, I hate them because they make me feel like I've done something wrong. If you text me, call me or start a conversation, I feel special because someone is seeking me out to communicate. For a second, I was on someone's mind and they've decided to roll with it and give me a shout.
Which is awesome.

Then it gets ugly.

Because I'll respond all happy-eager-stupid like, and then get a half-assed response in return. If you initiate a conversation, and I respond in kind, you had better have a good goddamn fucking reason for basically BAILING OUT mid-sentence and leaving me feeling like a pathetic loser.

Honestly, its just simple manners; you ask someone how they've been if--and really only IF--you are genuinely interested in how they've really been. If you don't care, don't send the fucking text. Most phones have the "do you really want to send this text?" option for those nights where you probably shouldn't be mass-texting your entire phone book because you're awake, it's 5 in the morning, and you were woken up by Fuzzy-the-Bear (aka, Mistake from Last Night) snoring like it's going out of style.

USE THAT OPTION ALL THE TIME.

Seriously, if you don't care, don't text. Simple as that.

Next step is the response; if it's a little delayed and it's maybe--for a completely and absolutely HYPOTHETICAL and NOT TRUE AT ALL NO SIR example--sometime around midnight on a Wednesday/Thursday night (crazy, what a coincidence that tonight is Wednesday/Thursday), maybe assume that the person you're texting is possibly in the SHOWER because she has a TEN O'CLOCK CLASS tomorrow while you're on spring break. Really. Easy assumption to make. Totally hypothetical though, obviously.

Don't get offended. If the response is eventually enthusiastic, you're good to go pick up the conversation like a functional human being. Unless you're a douche-bucket, and you decide that all of a sudden there are better things to do, and you decide to give one word responses.

Totally understandable, by the way, that there are better things to do than--oh, I don't know--talk to someone you haven't spoken to for real in about...4 months? And are trying to work a functional friendship out with? Maybe? Probably not to you, not to me either obviously.
Really, if you didn't want to work out this thing, you really shouldn't have said you did. Honesty is always the best policy, and you should probably be less of a tool; if you don't want to be friends with someone, either say so or just get out of his/her life. It's not fair to the person who's head you're fucking with.

Really.

But, if there's something better to do and you can't talk right then and that's really it, JUST SAY SO, YOU FUCKTARD.

Anyways, if this totally hypothetical situation has ever fallen- on your head, tell me about it. Really, tell me because I don't want to know that I'm the only idiot out there with a life like this.

Anyways, nothing really super special going on in life, but I'm doing an update anyways.

Did I really just do that?!

-Accidentally brushed this guy's hand, and he totally flipped out and was like, "why did you do that?!"
Cue funny looks from me and the rest of the group we were working in.
"Uhh...it was an accident."
"Oh."
Awkward. I have never felt more strange in my life and my hand-talking has come to an abrupt halt.
-Got a blister the size of a quarter on my heel. It's gross and you probably don't give a flying-squirrels balls about it, but it's a pretty impressive size.
- Got a care package. Yummmmm real coffee from Papa Nicholas!!!! I'm contemplating burning the Satan's Piss/Archer Farms stuff, just because it sort of smells like how it should taste (but doesn't since it tastes like...you guessed it. satan's piss.), just so it'll smell kinda nice.
-My mother also sent me two sleep masks. I asked for one, and I really don't know why she thinks I need two. It's not like I ever get any, so I really don't have people spending the night. And besides, even if I did, the last thing I would do would pull out the purple Panda-face sleep mask and the "Leave Me Alone" jewel encrusted sleep masks and be all, "LYKE, Which one do you want?!"
Really, mom? Really?!
She's still not reading this, by the way. I don't think she'd enjoy my language. I'm a little salty.
-Going to see my friends in like...15 hours? Something like that, I don't know. All I know is that I'm going out tomorrow night and I'm probably going to be making mistakes that I'll be proud to tell my kids about (after they turn a certain age where I'm like, "fuck it, they're screwed up enough already, this won't hurt.").
-I talked about video production club with someone today. Now, I don't know about any of you people, but I fucking loved VP club. It was sweet, you got to fuck around with cameras and "high tech" (not really) electronics and learn how to make the morning announcements. My friends and I would do "birthday shout outs," pretty much every time our team had the day, and we got called down to the office every single time to be yelled at by the vice principal. Nothing ever happened, but he was always threatening expulsion or suspension if we "ever did something like that again" since apparently it singled out kids who didn't get shout outs on their birthdays.
Boo-fucking-hoo, baby. Make friends in VP club, and you'll get the shout-out.
Anyways, we kept doing it regardless. Now they don't have VP club, and the vice principal runs around with a night-stick, beating junior high kids because they're wearing prostitution-ring-esque clothing and/or pants-on-da-floor.
Honestly, kids these days!
-SPRING BREAKKKKK
-----Not actually doing anything spectacular, I'm just going home. But that's why I'm so EXCITED.
Also, I get to see Zach on Sunday! How fucking awesome is that? Especially since he has a brohawk.

Anywhatsits, I'm going to bed now. I have nothing better to do, and Zach is well on his way to winning the Tour de France, so I gotta get this up before he's won the race.

Goodnight (nonexistent) Readers!!

Love (maybe, possibly misery or at least pseudo-misery depending on if this HYPOTHETICAL person get's off his HYPOTHETICAL ass and attempts friendship again),
Miss Guided

Pseudo-Hippies and How to be Nice to Your College Town

Alright, so I lied. I'm not really all that pathetic of a human being. I'm actually fairly alright on the grand scale of people.
I am not a serial killer, I don't litter, I don't like Hitler or North Korea, and yeah, I'm part of this pseudo-hippie generation that's too afraid to drop acid, but we're totally cool with rallying in large groups organized by completely random strangers on the internet.

Compared to people who are serial killers, do like Hitler and don't know how they feel about North Korea (because they haven't seen this; trust me, once you watch it you'll know how absolutely not-confused you should be about North Korea. Spoiler, there are NO people who aren't in on this whole let's-play-tea-party WITH A MILLION RANDOM PROGRAMMED ROBOTS POSING AS PEOPLE. Yeah.), and those who may be dropping acid or who don't admit to the fact that they're afraid to...I'm basically a saint compared to those folks.
I pay taxes, I usually have a job (except I quit my low-paying, awful conformist Plato's Bucket-O'Misery Job), and I love animals and don't drop acid or deny the fact that I'm terrified to. I also try not to meet random people from the internet, in real life. That's just a bad idea in general.
Honestly, I'm like a kitten when you compare how much impact I have on the universe right now. A kitten who enjoys coffee way too much and has a penchant for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but still. Kitten.
I fucking hate cats.
Oh, and I'm single-handedly going to be supporting the loan industry in about three years when they start beating me over the head with payment notices. More on that in the next post, thank you Eryca.

So, this whole sustainable-earth movement that's starting to get way crazy is interesting to me. I want to learn how to be a less-useless human (as in, leave a fairly shallow carbon footprint, cut my costs to society, etc.), but I don't know how to do it. Now, I could go the whole Freegan route, but I think that's a little to extreme for me. Dumpster diving is not, repeat not something I ever want to have to experience, but some of their ideas are kind of cool. They're trying to be as recycle-savvy as they possibly can, which is cool, but they're overestimating the human ability to not create waste. We--as in mankind, of which they are a part of--created Styrofoam; we're all basically going to hell for that.
We can, however, make hell less hot and gross by cutting our waste or attempting to plug what we think is garbage (actually completely usable stuff) back into our human-waste cycle and make ourselves less dangerous to...ourselves.

That whole little rant was totally confusing, but I'm going to try and clear it up. I'm running on six hours of sleep here, give me a break.

Ok, so we're wasteful, horrible monstrosities that kill baby bunnies and puppies with our nasty garbage-that-could-potentially-not-be-garbage; lets talk about how to kill less of them, especially since we're in college. (Finally, I'm getting to the point.)

Being in college, as I've been bitching about since...August, is hard, but it's also hard on the places where we're actually in college.
City schools I think have it the easiest because they've got a lot of different resources around, and there's probably a pretty big hipster-eco movement that's being born every few minutes, but rural schools and those that don't really have adjoining college-towns are pretty much in the shits for the next forty years or so. Red cups stick around, and since there's usually nothing else to do besides drink to excess in smaller towns, people are going to be littering more and just generally turning the town into a gigantic condom-dump.
Bloomington is actually a fairly eco-friendly town; it's inhabited mostly by frat boys, sorority girls, hipsters who weren't mainstream enough to rush/pledge, the rest of us losers, townies, and professors. Guess which ones have the least amount of impact on the environment?
At least in my opinion, it's probably the "Rest of us Losers." I'm not included in that because I drink too much non-fair-trade coffee, but still.
ROULs probably don't have cars, so there go carbon emissions from motor vehicles. We rely mostly on public transport, bikes, and loading rides off friends when absolutely necessary, so that's a good thing. We're also not rich enough to be eating out every day, so we eat on our meal plans or we grocery shop at the cheapest place in town where we can get the right amount of food. Hipsters are good about this too, so yay for dorky-ironic glasses-wearing folks.
For IU students, the grocery store with the best bang for the buck is BloomingFoods. It's a fairly organic place to get fresh fruits, veggies, meats and cheeses (we're in the middle of fucking nowhere, people; farms are like Starbucks here) that are grown locally or at least very nearby-ish. Compared to Kroger prices for bulky processed foods that aren't all that interesting, healthy or even good, it's a fantastic deal.
Also, keeping healthy and eating naturally is pretty easy on a meal plan since there's a dining hall in every neighborhood on campus, and veggie/potato/salad bars and vegetarian/vegan options everywhere. My in-residence convenience store (on meal-points, yesssss) has a whole section just for organic foods. I have organic strawberry spread for my PB&J sandwiches, and while it normally would have cost me a bit to introduce that to my diet, I had already paid for it through my meal plan. Fucking awesome, that's what that is.

But anyways, besides food (which I talk about way too much on this blog I think, and it's going to have an impact on me eating all the fucking time), there are other ways to keep your footprint shallow. Buy second hand.
Ok, so I have a ton of awful experience into why this is a bad idea, but there are some good ways to do this. Plato's is a good place to go if you want trendy clothes, but you have to be really careful to double check your clothing in the dressing room for stains, holes, rips and tears. The buyers are (usually) doing their best to make sure the clothes they buy from customers are in good conditions, but we are NOT nasty-finding scan-bots. We are teenagers who hate our jobs and want to move far far away. You do the math.
There are tons and tons of thrift shops in most college towns and cities though, so try those places too. Vintage shops are sweet, especially since most of the stuff is in good condition, won't break the bank (step away from the vintage Gucci, my friend) and--bonus--a lot of the stuff in them are one of a kind since people didn't believe in recycling their sweet clothes from the 70s and 80s. Hi Mommy, I'm looking at you; plaid prom dress, or sweet blazers (with removable shoulder-pads, please g-d). Which one did you choose? Gee, I wonder.
Fun fact, my own mother doesn't even read my blog. Fabbbbbuloussss. I'm going to make her read this later.
Anyways, Ebay and etsy are also great for this. Etsy is really cool since you're basically ONLY getting one of a kind stuff, since it's all either vintage or handmade, and eBay is just fucking eBay, so it's awesome. I loveeeee eBay.
Bloomington residents have places like the Cactus Flower to rely on, which is in this really really cool victorian-style house on Kirkwood (main drag) and...Dunn? I think. Probably. But it's got Cactus Flower which is this really cool vintage shop with two floors of stuff, and then in the same building is also this tiny little astro-hipster-awesome jewelry store with sterling silver studs by the dozen in awesome designs and shapes. Fun fact, I have six piercings (on my ears, you perverts); 4 in my left ear, 2 on my right, and I am proud to say that I never have matching earrings, so this place was amazing for me. I got to buy single studs and mix and match. I'm currently rocking a moon and sun combo, with a few cinch-hoops and a diamond that I got for my bat mitzvah thrown in. To not match is kind of interesting, since I know very few others who actually do it. Makes me feel special despite the fact that I am very much not.

Here's another way to be less wasteful, and I think this is the biggest way.
BE CREATIVE.

Honestly, when people get bored, the Earth is the biggest loser. College kids eat when they get bored, they also drink alcohol and generally engage in debaucherous and dangerous behavior, but for the most part, they waste a ton of stuff. Candy wrappers, red cups, alcohol bottles, ping pong balls, pizza-money, etc. You know you've done it and you know it's bad, but how to stop?

Make an effort to find a recycling bin, or a the least a garbage can. They're everywhere and I swear you can hold onto your cup long enough to get it to one. I absolutely despise it when people make an effort to toss their trash and miss the bin, and then leave whatever they were trying to throw out on the ground. I yelled at a guy once when I saw him do this, and made a big production of going to pick it up and place it in the garbage can. Needless to say, he was beet red in embarrassment and I guarantee that he'll think twice before leaving his crap lying a foot away from the bin.
Life Lesson? It pays to go against the grain. I know you hear this all the time, but I'll bet you've also seen the effects of this possibly going badly. It can go well, I swear. Just speak steadily, try not to yell, and you know what? Embarrassment goes a long way. People act like they're all high and mighty when someone calls them out on something offensive (for example, racial or religious epithets that are offensive), but in reality, they're covering up for serious embarrassment and shame from being caught in something they know is wrong. Believe me, please?
K, thanks, serious rant-ish part is almost over. I swear the next post will be less somber and more hilarious.

I'm a realist, I know that drinking on college campuses isn't going anywhere--not even saying that I want it to--but I'm optimistic that people are creative enough to create their own fun and ways to keep garbage off the streets and out of our air and water. Carpool to a beach or go to a movie at the campus theater (ie; free), go work out with your friends, do some ART (hugely-major art dork with absolutely no life beyond senseless but awesome doodles in class that turn into not-shitty-but-not-amazing semi-art), read a book...seriously there are so many things to do that don't involve getting drunk or high that people never even think of. And when they happen, people say, "oh, hey we should do this more often."
But they don't.
Why?
Because they're idiots. It's that whole being-human thing.

Advice Dump

Anyways, moral of the story is to waste less.
Use your re-usable water bottles and coffee mugs.
Ask for a paper cup instead of Styrofoam.
Don't call people mean names. They don't like it and they're gonna call you out on Facebook.
Try to respect the place that you live, and fall in love with where you are again.
We have no idea how lucky we actually are to have clean parks and trees all around us, so try and make sure your children have that opportunity as well.
It's not fair to them to deprive them of what we've fucked up royally.
Don't hurt puppies, they're cute and they grow up to be useful.

Love (because I think it's not unrequited since people are ACTUALLY READING THIS!),
Miss Guided

Why Life is Awesome; Why I'm an Embarrassing Human Being

You want to know something special? Something really surprising (especially since it's coming from my twisted little head)?
Something so strange to even fathom in today's society, that you're never ever never going to guess what it is until I tell you?

Of course you do. You're reading this trash, aren't you?

Ok, well here's a secret; life is pretty fucking amazing for most people in college right now.
I know.
Considering the fact that I spend most of my time on the internet complaining about my life on this blog, its weird that I should come out with this kind of puke. Its true though, about life being amazing for all us college brats.

Here are some of the reasons that life is awesome for college kids:

1. Where else are you allowed to basically bend the rules of society so much that getting inebriated before going to class and taking a test gets you high-fives instead of snotty comments? Try that in a professional setting and you are most certainly going to get either A)fired or B)ratted on and then fired. So basically fired.
Also, people are fucking weird here, and it's definitely celebrated. And I mean weird-weird, not quirky-weird or cute-weird, but your-parents-unleashed-you-on-the-world-WHY?-weird.
Take a look at websites like MLIA (my life is average); they would not have all of those epically hilarious (and probably fake) stories about random people dressing up as the Christmas Turd from South Park and running through campus chased by Hanukkah Harry.
That's not actually a real story on there, but it's the general idea. Random weird shit happens and people get excited about it. Try that in the "Real World" (notice the capitals and quotes; that means its a separate entity from what we're all living in right now and not the stupid reality show that my roommate seems to be obsessed with) and see what happens. Bad shit, let me tell you. The police will probably chase you and you're going to jail, and depending on what country you did it in, they may or may not fuck with your sentencing length to milk as much free labor out of your very-not-free self as they possibly can before you collapse in a heap of law-and-norm-breaking bones. Just sayin'.
But really, how often do people "use" Harry Potter spells in public, and then not get funny looks? Not often. Try it in college, and not only will you get laughs, you will probably also get a date, at least according to MLIA. I don't think any of the people who say "and we have a date tonight" to end their MLIA entry, actually ever have dates. Like ever.

Not to say that I ever have dates. Like ever. Things need to change with that. I need to get out of the oh-hey-lets-make-out-cool-I'm-done-see-ya-facebook-me-later phase. It's fun and all, but it's starting to make campus feel very small, if you get my drift.

Anyways, back to NOT complaining about my life.

2. Sleep schedules are so messy, but so delicious, here. Just like the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I've been having for EVERY MEAL for the past week (more on that in Number 5).
If you plan right (ie, not like me) you can sleep until two in the afternoon, have all your classes start at 3 or 4, be done around 7 or 8, go out and "have fun" until 2 in the morning, and then do it all over again. Seriously this is awesome. It's totally normal to roll out of bed and go to class in the afternoon, then stay up until all hours doing absolutely nothing or doing absolutely nothing legal (note the difference, one includes Facebook, guess which one). Love it.
In Real Life, you have to get up at 6 and be at work by 7. That means you're going to turn into my grandma, who gets up at 7:30am NATURALLY (not fucking natural). That sucks.
Weirdly enough though, people are consistently sleep deprived in college. Probably because of Facebook.
Be prepared though, when you go back home your parents will expect you to function like the rest of the "day-trippers." Things can get weird when you're on a caffeine-withdrawl, three-hours-of-sleep binge.

3. At IU, we get free gym access. That's awesome, mostly because everyone here is fucking obsessed with either being emaciated garden-rakes or overly-buff macho-super-men, and it's awesome. I have never seen so many physically fit people in one place, and I gotta say, it's a good way to peer pressure the rest of us normal folk into staying normal-size instead of super-sized.
We have 3 gyms I think. Probably more.
No, actually I know there are more, but there are three of which I know where they are, so that's what I'll say.
Anyways, people in college are generally in their prime (unless you're counting the awkward forty-something going back to college who has three kids and a loaf of bread/husband that she once thought sort of resembled something that could have been her "soul mate."), and for the most part that means that there will be hot people all over the place for you to "have fun with." Not that I'm advocating promiscuous fun, but fun. Fun, as in dates.
You know, those things I never get.

4. This is hard. I need to be more positive about life. This is also not an actual "reason life is awesome" number.

4 (four real). We have some seriously cool opportunities that people basically stuff down our pants.
Seriously, I get handed free stuff on every corner of campus, and then there's also the inevitable "lets-go-party-in-another-country-and-call-it-studying-abroad" thing. Ok, so it's not just one big party; actually in my nerdy little brain the whole "studying" part of the studying abroad bit is probably the coolest thing. I want to go to Australia to study aboriginal tribes, and you know what? I CAN!
Yes, folks, there's an app for that.
I mean, there's a program for that.
Because that's what being at a big college feels like; you're browsing through your iPhone and lo-and-behold, you see that there's an app that reminds your to clip your toenails. Now, you've never thought you needed a reminder, or even a recorder that tells you how long your toenail clippings are this week as compared to last week and what you need to do in order for them to grow longer, but now that it's here...well, why not?!
That's what college is like. No, I don't particularly NEED a USB drive/lanyard/trip to study Urdu in Pakistan, but hey, if you're offering, sign me up.

5. We're all actually five years old at heart. This is where my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches come in. I've been craving them like crazy for the past week, so what have I done? I've eaten PB&J sandwiches for dinner every night, because I wanted to. Also, if I had a penis/no life, I'd probably be glued to a T.V. playing Modern Warcraft Eleven or whatever has the biggest, loudest guns. And zombies.
As it is, I'm obsessed with the movie Zombieland, so I've got that part covered. And I'm sure if I had a T.V. I'd be glued to it watching Criminal Minds or trashy MTV shows all the time. But I don't, so I'm not. Life is grand.
Anyways, point is that we can do whatever we want, be as immature and as irresponsible as we want, and mom and dad can't be all debbie-downer-like.
Honestly, who needs to eat a "balanced diet?" PB&J has fruit in it. J=Jelly=fruit jelly=fruit.
Peanuts=protein.
Butter=carbs/cals
There. Balanced. Bread=grain, done. Ha.
College kids are more immature than most elementary school kids I know, and I think if it were socially appropriate, we'd all be very happy to be running around in tutus and Superman capes for weeks on end (because laundry is a bitch).

Also, new feature. I'm going to do what I'm pretty sure I shouldn't do. I'm going to update you all on the goings-on in my life. I know you don't give a flying fuck, but bitch please Ima tell you anyways.

Here goes.

Did I Really Just Do That?

-Coffee from archer farms=satan's piss. Honestly it's like the sewer water you see draining into the "mighty" Jordan River around here (aka, Piss Creek of IU). Not that I've ever tasted the PCofIU water, but still. Monkey see, monkey do. Or in this case, coffee-looks-like-feces, probably-tastes-like-feces.
I totally fucked that analogy up, but whatever.
-Got an 89 on a paper I originally got an 87 on just by arguing for a minute. Easiest two percentage points ever. Also, girl next to me got a 64. Instant gratification over someone else's misery because she was all smarmy about finishing her experiment before me. Bitch, please.
-Fell standing up still. Actually, this was two weeks ago, but it was stupid/embarrassing enough that the aftershocks are still hitting me. It was snowy and gross and I (as the stupid fashion-obsessed ninny that I am) wore the wrong shoes; super cute knee-high brown leather boots WITH NO TRACTION ON THE SOLES. Now, I didn't fall ONCE walking around campus (even after a close call when Beth literally had to drag me up a hill that I couldn't get my footing on), but when we got to the bus-stop I was standing next to her, and I was kicking the snow for some reason (probably because I hate snow past New Years; it deserved to be kicked). Brought my foot back to land a nice stomp on Lucifer's Cotton, and I totally loose my balance and land on my ass. I think I wrote about this already.
Or maybe I dreamed about writing about it.
Whatever, I'm telling it again. Anyways, I fell, and I had to laugh really hard to make sure that no one later that day was like, "I saw this stupid idiot fall standing straight up, and she totally had a meltdown and cried. What an Asshat."
So I laughed like an idiot so they could be all "I saw this really quirky/funny/gorgeous/awesome girl fall today and she totally made fun of herself and cracked all these really clever/hilarious jokes about it." Or something like that.
-Wanted to smile at the fat guy at the gym today, because the Vaginas-With-Muscles-and-Micro-Tiny-Penises (penii?) (also known as Wanna-be Guidos) were snickering loudly at him as he fumbled on the rowing machines. Didn't. Felt like an evil person.
Got over it. Ate a baked potato.

That's my life right now, actually.

See, college kids are awesome, as made clear by my life.

Loving and Fantastic and Wonderful (because I got a subscriber AND a comment thankyouthankyouthankyou),
Miss Guided

P.S. Am I still witty? Please say yes and validate my internet-existence.