uscdancer04

...you carry a highlighter, pen and either a course packet or an exam guide in your purse at all times. 
...you turn your ankle on a metro crossing because the step down was the same color as the platform, and you wonder whether the railroad is more liable for a negligence suit because it is a "common carrier." 
...you get excited when highlighters are on sale at Staples because you need a new set every week.
...brand new textbooks with no highlighting and no writing are a treat (b/c you're not misled by the obviously idiotic former owner of the casebook).
...your bedtime read is "Getting to Maybe"...not a self-help book, but rather an exam strategy book.
...your entire carry-on for fall break will be filled with books and binders because you can't bear to lose them if the airline delays/loses your luggage.
...you have a strategic plan for your airplane time. It consists of reading and outlining 100 pages of Farnsworth's Treatise on Contracts.
...your neighbors can tell which school you're in just by watching how you economize the time spent coming in the door of the building, grabbing your mail and getting into your apartment (no, seriously, a government school neighbor told me that's how he knew I was a law student).
...your friends at school start telling you you're breaching an oral contract not exempted from the statute of frauds when you back out of going out in order to sleep.
...sleeping sounds more desirable than beer, about 75 percent of the time. In fact, it's how you "treat" yourself. 

OK, but seriously, I do love it, though. :-)

Today was a great day. It didn't start that way, but it ended so.

Today was the first day I let loneliness creep in. I didn't see it coming--I went out last night with an enormous group of people (all of whom know my name, though I still fumble for theirs), have had it easy in terms of finding interesting people--but all of sudden, while riding the bus to the grocery store, it hit me.

I am here, alone, and the people I love most in the world are far, far away...and I chose this for myself (again!). I can't stand my roommate. I feel that my enormous bed is comfortable, but simultaneously cold without R.J. next to me, without my partner, my best friend, my heart. I'm struggling to get into the work (as everyone is), but still, it makes me feel that I'm fighting a solitary battle.

It was like a punch to the gut, like running into a screen door--sudden, unexpected, leaving me winded and feeling foolish. It felt familiar, like San Francisco did to me when the wind blew me down the street toward the apartment I hated on the street I loathed in the city that didn't want me.

I took a deep breath and finished an enormous amount of shopping (storing for winter, literally!). I got home and made banana bread (sugar free, but still delicious!!!), because baking soothes me.

And then it lifted. A schoolmate I adore called to invite me to a movie, and all of a sudden I'm part of a pack again. A group went to the movie and walked home together, and I've forgotten what it's like to be part of a group--not just an outsider coming in, but part of the foundation of a neighborhood, a class, a budding circle of friends.

This will not be another San Francisco for me--it couldn't have been anyway, as it's something I've looked forward to my whole life--but today was just a reminder to me to take advantage of the rare opportunity I have to be part of something innately new. This will never happen again--this chance to make all new friends when everyone else is making all new friends. It is unique and precious and I am so thankful for it. 

There's this quote I love from a little-read play by Tennessee Williams that sums it up:

"When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone." --Don Quixote in "Camino Real"

Quite. :-)

Oh, CCE
I love you so much, I don't know where to start
I crave your sweetness
I want to lick you
Nibble you
Suck the very center out of you
I want to pound you into little pieces and make fudge with you

Your presence is fleeting
Soon you will be gone, not to return until next Spring
In other bad news, I wish you came in dark chocolate

Oh, Cadbury Cream Egg
I love you so

My last journal entry from San Francisco, begun at exactly midnight between Friday and Saturday.

Though I felt sadness saying goodbye to those who've mattered here--Carmen especially, who was so kind and helped me finish packing this evening--I can truly say that one word sums up my current feeling:

relief

It's over. I'm leaving. I get to go back to all that/whom I love. I'll miss certain people, and certain things. But all in all, I just can't wait. :-)