Uhh, yea. That's what it'll be called. Because not a lot of things surprise me, so the fact that yesterday I almost fell over about six times and knocked myself unconscious because my knees gave way, should be indication of just how weirded out I was.
Let's start at the beginning: Friday Night.
Nothing was ever supposed to happen because I was supposed to be staying in for yet another weekend, writing my final CAS100 paper which was due the next day at noon. I'm almost done with my final argument at around 10 PM when Carrie texts me and asks if I want to come out with them. So I know I should be staying in, but I haven't been out in about 3 weeks and I'm DYING to have a life again, so I write HELLAS fast, thank god I'm already dressed from going to Funk'N Waffles for the Kappa Phi Lambda pre-rush earlier, and I get ready in 5 minutes and meet Carrie and Karen upstairs at 10:30.We, Mary, Jenna, Ilka, a new girl Abby (who I <33!!!), and a few of Jenna's guy friends who I never bothered to get to know go to 736 Livingston (how do I still remember this...?) for a house party. The majority of the people there turn out to be architecture majors, as are my friends, and I'm the token Newhousie baby, but I don't care - I have a good time meeting people. They're serving this thing called Santa's Brew, which is lemonade/vodka/beer and sounds totally gross but tastes AMAZING, and of course I can't tell how drunk I'm getting, so I have a ton of those and like always I get sloppy and my inhibitions sort of flush themselves down the toilet.
At the beginning of the night I notice this really tall guy in a striped shirt, and Carrie tells me his name is Zach and he's newly broken up with his girlfriend (score!) and then I tell her "I want to hook up with someone before Christmas and he's really attractive!!" >_<. But I don't really think too much of it until I'm sitting on the couch with Ilka and Carrie a while later and he comes over and introduces himself to me. And then, you know how you can feel someone's eyes on you? Yup, that's what I MAJORLY get from him - but I've gotten that feeling wrong plenty times before, when they're actually not staring at me at all, and for serious I thought he was a bit out of my league so I don't get my hopes up this time and shrug it off.
A while later, my happy juice, also known as Santa's Brew, is really kicking in now, and after dancing on a tabletop with my friends, I really need to sit down. So I don't really remember, but I think I was sitting on the couch... or maybe I was just standing somewhere zoning out. Either way, Zach comes over and asks me why I'm not dancing. So then somehow I end up dancing with him for a couple of songs (ha, and I'm so gone I don't even care that he's a classic white boy in that he can't dance - but he tries anyway, which sometimes makes it worse) but then I have to sit down again because the room is now bouncing with me @_@. So I'm sitting there on the couch again concentrating on breathing when the girl next to me gets up, leaves, and then is replaced by Zach!
And I swear to Chanel that we talked, I promise we did for at least 5 minutes... I just don't really remember what it was about. I remember saying something to him about dancing, and he sort of grins at me, and the next thing I know, we're totally making out. And everybody was cheering for both of us? Ick, that sounds so stupid to say out loud. I hate making out in front of people. Thank you Santa for taking that away with your lovely little concoction.
He's really feely-uppy, for sure; I have to push his hands away from places we shall not name more than once. We're also on the couch for a long time; then he says he needs to go to the bathroom (think about it. I wonder what he was doing in there? O_O). But then I must've forgotten where he went because I'm socializing with Abby and looping around the house looking for boys for her and Karen, and then I think a while later I'm sitting on the couch, again, and Zach comes over to sit by me again and we just talk this time. I don't remember what it was about again. Yea, shut up. I think at one point we talk about MTV and his dad being the CEO (he was lying, dumbass) and him building my future house? And uh, we also witness Ilka and Zach's (HOT may I add) friend Scott hooking up. But then Mary pulls me up and says we're going to TKE, so I go to go get my coat--but it takes me awhile to find it because I spend about 10 minutes in the wrong room (guh) and when I finally come back downstairs she and Jenna and Karen and Abby have left already, so I just go back into the couch room. Zach is sitting on the table, and he pulls me over, kisses me a few more times, we sit on the couch again, and then Carrie and Zach's other friend Dan hook up and basically tumble over onto my LAP (awkwardddd!!!!).
Wait. there's another point in time somewhere where we kind of are holding hands when I'm talking to Abby, but I don't remember where it fits in. And some of those times on the couch might be fictional, because we might've been sitting on the table or standing up or something. Everything's kind of fuzzy...
Anyway, so then the six of us go down to TKE (how weird is that... three of us, three of them, all of us have hooked up. Great.) Zach gives me a piggyback part of the way cuz it's icy and I don't want to fall down (which I would have had I walked) and once at TKE, we dance some more, hook up a lot more, and drink water until they kick us out. Then we're at the sidewalk in front of Shaw talking, and Zach is being really flirty but I'm really tired so we finally part ways and I hit the hay.
Phew. That was Friday. Now for the weird part.
So yesterday, I become friends with Zach on facebook, so naturally I'm at his profile browsing around (I'm not a stalker, seriously. -__-.) when I see on his mini-feed that he's just become friends with Allie, one of my friends who lives two doors down from me. I'm sort of confused, but I don't think too much about it later until I'm talking to her roommate, Michaela, and she tells me that Allie hooked up with 'some tall kid' on Saturday night at a Christmas-themed party.
All of the sudden, I put two and two together and FREAK out. I don't even know why; and it's definitely not because I'm jealous or whatever. I'm just so stunned that some random guy hooked up with me and and my hallmate in one weekend. What are the chances of that even HAPPENING!? How are we recycling men already - we're freshmen! There's at least 300 freshmen guys - how did we end up with the same one? Allie's not in her room so I can't confirm it, but I'm so weirded out that I can't concentrate on COM107 anymore and when Lauren posts pictures from Saturday night and I see them, uhh yep, Allie and I hooked up with the same guy. When Allie gets back to the dorm, I talk to her, and turns out she already knows because Mary was there (along with Jenna) Saturday night, she saw her and Zach hooking up, and Mary told Allie about Zach and me yesterday morning at breakfast. We end up talking about it, and Zach was really touchy-feely with Allie too - in fact, he gave her a great big hickey on her neck. She didn't like him so much. All of the sudden, the 'Zach breaking up with girlfriend recently' isn't looking so attractive so much as he is all of the sudden trying to console his newly single status with having crazy sex (okay, not sex) as much as he can.When I text Carrie, she says she already knows too - which basically means everybody knows, except the rumor going around is that Zach hooked up with me and my roommate, which is virtually worse. So I ask Carrie if I should text Zach to see if he knows, and she says I should, so I do.
This is our conversation. To be documented for my future reference, so I can look back on it and get weirded out (I really need a synonym for this phrase) all over again:
Me: Hey it's summer (I have his #, he doesn't have mine). So umm I was wondering if you knew that allie and i live 2 doors down from each other yet.. ahaha
Him: Oy vey
Me: Haha yea. whatevs its cool
Him: lol this is pathetic im telling you this but i have hooked up with a total of three girls all year (but he had a girlfriend so I don't know why he thinks that makes him a loser - unless he thinks all guys are expected to fulfill some sort of hookup status quo, no matter if that entails cheating?) (1)
Me: **o,O o,O Heh.. heh.. okay, make a joke because I have no idea wtf to say still** Haha and two of us are in the same hall! Oh no =PHim: HahaHaha
Me: **>_> <_<>** Haha i dont know what to say..** I'm sure you'll find.. a lot more? Hahaha
Him: Haha na im really not like that just had soo much work all year and finally had a chance to go out a lil
Me: **...I'm going to bed.** Ha i'm sure ;) well no worries, just check yourself next time haha and we'll probably hang out again soo see you soon
Him: yep yep if i dont see you before break have a good break n stuff ttyl :)
Me: **.............'Yep yep'?** (no answer)
(1) = In the middle of wondering when this turned into a confessional with me as the priest, Michaela comes rushing into my room asking if Amanda has Ace bandages because Allie might've broken her wrist sledding. Also, around the same time, Ivo calls because I had called him after I found out about Zach and Allie, so I have to tell Ivo I'll call him back, fly around my room looking for Amanda's bandage and tape, and run over to Allie's room where everyone's telling her what a trooper she is (and she is). After the medic comes and gets her, I answer Zach, call Ivo, have to call him back three times so Zach doesn't think I'm ignoring him after he just basically gave his secret out to a stranger - even though Ivo keeps telling me not to answer him - and the night ends with me trying to study for Japanese all the while thinking that maybe I might've hooked up with a three year old (albeit a very attractive one) on Friday night.I'm going to contradict what I told Ivo about having no emotions and say that I feel sort of bad for Zach; I kind of want to see him again before I leave so he can forget this nightmare and we can be, err... friends? But with finals happening throughout the week I doubt it will happen.
Why do things like this happen the week before I leave for somewhere else for a very long time? I guess all written out it doesn't seem like that big a deal, but shit was hitting the fan for a full three hours last night at full force, excuse my language.
After all this, you finally get to see what he looks like.
And ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Mister Zachary Goldstein:
And that was very long. I need to stop thinking about it.
...or maybe my life is just weird,
chen | summer
When I got to Syracuse, I expected everything to be the same -- maybe a little grungier, but essentially, for me to be the same outgoing, outspoken, opinionated sarcastic eccentrically funny girl I was even though I was yanked out of my comfort zone. So when I didn't immediately find 'my homies', I freaked out. I wish I could be like those girls you see who is friends with everyone, and really chill, but doesn't have a best friend or a particular group she hangs out with, but doesn't care or need friends, either. But I need friends. I need my group of girlfriends, so when I couldn't find one within the second day, I was ready to pack my bags and go home. I don't know why; all I knew was that I was suddenly unhappy and I couldn't figure out why I seemed to be so different from everyone here. Perhaps if you took all the same people and plonked them right in central Centennial, I'd've been the life of the party all the time, but all of the sudden I found myself being impossibly awkward and alone.
I know everyone thinks this but I wish somebody had given me a crash course on "how NOT to act around new people in Syracuse". I mean, I would seriously hang out with people and feel virtually boring because I had nothing to say - I felt like I had to fill up all the silence with my nonchalant chatter that every other girl seemed to be able to produce and all I was coming up with was BRAIN FARTS. That NEVER would've happened to me in Denver. I mean, I talk wayyy too much in the homeland. So I would be going to lunch or going out with a bunch of girls from wherever and I'd just be thinking to myself the whole time, "think of something to say, think of something to say, oh em gee you're so retarded, retarded... GAH." And I'd soo want to tell everybody that "I swear this isn't who I really am, I'm so much fun in real life, I don't know why I'm like this here" and then I'd be exhausted from being mentally masochistic.
But the other thing was, this group of girls in my hallway, self-dubbed ACLS, adopted me after the first week into their group of five (well, actually, four [notice there are 4 letters in their group name, not five], because one, the other four didn't actually like [but who I like - ha]) and I was so grateful that I molded myself to be like them. And then after a while, they just got to be so condescending, and manipulative, that I was obsessively counting down the days when I could just go home and cried in my room a few times and dreaded the weekends because they were such a haters clique. It was like I had been assigned to the wrong hallway. I wanted to move out anywhere else. ACLS weren't mean to me; on the contrary, they appeared nice. But they would exclude people, they only liked each other best, and the four would just constantly pick up and then drop girls and talk about them behind their backs. It made me 
But God has a funny way of working. It was only by hanging out with them that I got to know a girl, Mary, from another dorm down the street. When, the weekend before halloween, ACLS ditched me, I texted Mary to whine a bit and she instantly invited me to join her group instead. And the Saturday of October 29th when I went over to her dorm and met her group of friends was probably the happiest day of college I've had. Mary, Carrie (who is the only one who doesn't live in that dorm -- she lives in MINE!!!), Ilka (fellow Chinese *pumps fist*), Karen, and Jenna remind me so much of my group at home that I almost want to look to the sky to see God saying 'I told you I'd come through in the end'. I mean, it's much too early to tell if this will last, but something in my bones says it will. I feel so much more like myself around them. October 29th was like taking a breath of fresh air after being underwater for so long, not being able to see or hear or move properly, slowly drowning all the while (how's that for you metaphor nazis, HA!). We've hung out for a few weekends now and every weekend is so much fun. The only difficult thing is that I don't have any classes with them whatsoever and can't really see them during the week. But I always have hope, as crazy as that sounds because of how cynical I am. College has made me gain hope. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.
On October 23rd, I wrote a text message to nobody when I was in my room with the lamp on doing homework listening to the wind outside. It's still in my drafts, and it says this:
