skool decisions etc.

First post of the year y'all!
So I just got to school on Saturday and classes start tomorrow. Fi helped me move in and comforted me whilst I cried like a lil baby (again thank you for coming with me, you are very great.) I really like my room and my roommate, we ate breakfast together this morning and I told her my anxieties about being back at school and how I don't have a lot of people here who I'm close to, etc etc., and we talked about movies/music and such. She is a big Woody Allen fan which pleasantly surprised me and she thinks critically about all sorts of music/is open to new artists and styles of music (she's a music major and plays the cello.) I decided I'm only going to take three classes this semester instead of four because I feel that it would reduce my stress and maybe help me to enjoy my classes more (but mainly because I was dropped off the waitlist for Geology lulz.) But even though things seem (and are) better than last year, I still feel that this isn't the right school for me. I don't know if it's because I have too many unsavory memories from last year or if it really is the people or the campus or Tacoma itself, but I'm pretty sure that I can't thrive here and can't live up to my full potential (ugh corny.) I called my dad yesterday and he was like, "well, if you're that sure then you might as well pack up your stuff and come home today so that you can apply to PSU in time for the fall quarter." And I was like "okay I will I just want to wait a couple days so I can talk to my advisor about details and legalities and such." But in my head I was like "well shit what a waste of time coming all the way out here and moving in and am I being too hasty about all of this?" SO I thought about it some more and spoke with my dad again today and we decided that it would be best if I stuck it out for this first semester and then applied somewhere else for spring semester. That way I can have more credits to transfer over, and hopefully will allow me to avoid core requirements at a new college. Also, if I get good grades this semester, which I'm going to try very hard to do, I could transfer somewhere like Lewis & Clark rather than PSU. Not that PSU isn't a perfectly good school, I just think I would maybe like it better at Lewis & Clark. So that's that. In a way I feel guilty because I know that I'm fortunate to be going here, so it's ungrateful of me not to enjoy it, but as my dad said to me on the phone, there's no point in spending so much money just to be unhappy for three more years. So I'm still not entirely sure what my plans are exactly, but I feel pretty good about my decision to transfer. I'm still gonna have a show so I'll let you guys know soon when my slot's gonna be. It's gonna be called Pony Club. Yeuh. I already miss all of you very much and I can't wait to hear how your semesters are going.
Love always & always,
Elaina

ShortCheckinExamRevisionAH

Hello Friendships.
This won't be long because I really should get back to revising... But Nay that sounds like so fun and that guy sounds like a cuteay. I am getting more and more homesick by the hour. Like actually I was taking a break to walk on the beach one morning and these horses galloped by and I legitimately felt like crying. I might have shed like a little tear. Becca and I have developed the habit of reading aloud to each other during our breaks and we've gotten through a whole book already and are on our second one. Me and Victor started writing our first song for our band The Fairy Gnomes. I made us a cover:

The weather is being kind of Scottish and swinging from lovely and sunny and warm and hot and cloudy and miserable within a nanosecond. But for now at least I'm holed up in my dorm trying to force myself into remembering dates and players in the 12th century. My first exam is on Tuesday. And then by Saturday I'm done with first year forever and forever. It feels really strange - this thing that we've been prepping for our whole lives just boom a quarter done before I even realized. Too fast too fast too fast. And yet at this point as I'm sitting at my desk drowning in papers and lecture notes and motivational sticky notes, not fast enough. Keep going soph. I'll see you guys very soon
yours forever
Sophia
(ps sorry)

VANTAGE / THE END

SO i will start this probably overly-detailed account with the KUPS award barbecue last Friday. I didn't even want to go in the first place because I thought I would feel uncomfortable and awkward, etc. But at the last listening party, which was two days before the barbecue, I told Daniel that I would go. It was supposed to start at 3:00 but radio events are always behind schedule so I showed up at like 4:30. And right when I walked in the house, Daniel was in the kitchen and he was already kind of drunk (he has the tolerance of a bumble bee it is adorable) and told me to go to the back of the house where the barbecuing was happening. And right when I went onto the deck, people were being so nice to me! Kirby was grilling and he gave me a hamburger patty and I took a beer from the cooler and sat on the grass (alone lol) to eat my hamburger. I was perfectly content quietly observing people but I only sat by myself for like five minutes because this girl Kim Clancy (who I recognized because she's the Business Director for the radio but I had never talked to before) came up to me and said she liked my skirt. She sat down next to me and was being so friendly and I ended up hanging out with her for most of the barbecue. Then as we were talking, Ben Block came up to us and asked Kim when the awards were going to start and she said she had no idea and then he just stayed and talked with us. Kim was drinking hard cider because she collects it (wut so cool) and she even has a cider blog! (Later that night Ben and I decided to one day become cider farmers because we were so inspired by Kim's blog...) We went inside to the living room so Ben could take pictures of her holding her cider by the fireplace. We stayed inside until the awards started, and it was so nice. We talked about music and school and different cities and I felt really comfortable with both of them. Then Daniel came in to tell us the awards were starting so we went outside but the two of them went up to a big group of their friends so I went and sat next to this girl Chloe, who had her show before mine last semester. And then I won my award and got a little too exited about it and managed to get extremely cross-faded by like 7:45...so yeah. I went back to my room and was planning on just calling it a night, but Kim texted me and was like "where did u go....there's an after party at nick's" So (after calling Hailey and Kelsey...lolol) I took a short nap and sobered up a little and decided to go to the after party. And when I got there, I just continued my conversation with Ben and he and I talked for basically the whole time! So that was nice, then I went home and went to sleep.
Then, I didn't talk to them for the rest of the week, but on Wednesday, Kim texted me asking if I needed a ride to Vantage which is the party I went to yesterday. I wasn't planning on going but I said yes because YOLO and also I didn't have any other plans. So we left yesterday at around 1 and got there around 3:30. The car ride was nice because people sort of kept to themselves/listened to their respective iPods. When we got there, though, the party had already started and people were already really drunk. I only had one drink (yay me!) because I didn't want to come back today with a hangover cause I have a meeting later with my humanities professor. So I was basically one of very few sober people there but that kind of made it more fun in a way. Ben, who rode up with us, hung out with me for most of the time!! He's so cute! I love him! I want him 2 b mine 4 ever!!! And he wasn't that drunk either which was so cool you guys because it was the first time I ever kissed someone without being under the influence of anything woooo! So all we did was kiss but it felt really natural and fun and we didn't even kiss for that long, mainly we just talked. At one point we were looking through our notes on our phones and I found one on mine that said "Eat Capt'n Crunch more often Mulan Rugrats" and he was like "hmmm maybe it was a band name that you were trying to remember." And I was like what no who would name their band that? So yup. Kim's friend brought a tent but they were too drunk to assemble it and I wasn't trynna put it together on my own so we slept on the ground which was fine because it was warm. We got back around quarter to 12 today which was good because I will still have time to do work today (we are on reading period). So yes! I'm happy I decided to go. Even though they're older than me and they won't be here when I'm a senior, I feel like I have a little group of friends (well basically just Kim and Ben) that I feel myself with. So I think the plan, for now, is to stay at UPS and see how things go. Ha of course these good things are happening when I only have a few days left in my Freshman year... lol @ my life. (wow I am so sorry) I am still very tired so ~and I know we always apologize for this at the ends of our posts, but...~ sorry if this is wordy and rambly. I can't believe I will be home in 5 days. I can't wait to see you all in the same place and hear your stories and watch movies together and behave in ways that are not considered socially acceptable.
Love love love Elaina

New

Lately--mainly after I've come back to school from spring break--things have been very different for me. I've realized that my problem with this school isn't the fact that I am socially inept or socially awkward or anything like that, but rather the fact that I simply don't enjoy being around the people here because they don't offer me anything new or refreshing. I was very bitter about it for a long time because I thought that there might be something wrong with me, because everyone who went here seemed to be in love with this school. But now I'm not so upset about it because I've realized that the problem isn't my fault. I made a mistake in coming to this school, but I'm glad that I did because it's helped me to figure out what I think would make me happier, which is to be surrounded by new culture and compassionate people. As I've been discovering this, things have been a little better in way, because I've stopped caring about what the people here think of me. I wear what I want, I don't feel self-conscious if my hair is greasy, I've stopped bothering to wear makeup and most importantly I've stopped being so polite to everyone here because some people just don't appreciate or deserve it. I'm not saying that every student who goes here is mean or a bad person or anything like that, but for the most part, the best way that I can describe the student body is a group of high schoolers who are trying to pretend like they're in college by being accepting and open, when really they're still too used to the segregated cliques and unwritten social customs of high school that they don't even realize how they haven't changed or evolved.
So basically I have no idea what I am going to do next fall...I might go here for the first semester and then transfer to a new school for the spring semester, or I might go to PSU in the fall and then transfer to a different school, or I might take a gap year or a gap semester...I just don't know right now, but I'm trying not to stress about it. And SPEAKING of stress, I don't know if you guys listened to my show today, but I talked about something called Transcendental Meditation which is this amazing thing that I've been researching a little bit over the past couple days. I learned about it when I was watching this movie called "Man on the Moon" about Andy Kaufman (who I'm developing a big ol' fan girl crush on) because he was supposedly really devoted to it. It's incredible. It was developed in the 70's by yogi Ravi Shankar and it's used by a bunch of famous people like David Lynch (there's actually a video of him talking about it on dat youtube that's really interesting), Oprah Winfrey, The Beatles and I'm sure a bunch of other people. I'm going to be really bad at explaining it because it's really complicated and I don't even fully understand how it works, but basically it's a way to experience a state of pure consciousness, which is awesome because what it does is let's your mind find it's own natural path to happiness rather than being controlled. (I know that probably makes no sense but I'm really bad at explaining). Also, it supposedly raises your IQ because--and I think this is the coolest part--it allows the left and right sides of your brain to communicate with each other, and what that does is allows you to utilize a larger percent of your brain power. Cause you know how you only use like 10 or 15% or something of your brain? This let's you just use more of it, and this raises your IQ which is cool, but what's more amazing is that it allows you relate better to other people, and makes you more compassionate because using different parts of your brain helps you to rationalize situations. I know it might sound kind of ~fishy~ and/or ~drug induced~ but another cool thing about it is that it's recommended that you don't use drugs of any kind if you practice TM because it clouds your brain and makes it more difficult to achieve pure consciousness. Also, fun fact that my dad told me today, yoga is based off of TM! Anyway I think I really want to try it, maybe this summer if anyone wants to join me...you take four consecutive classes (you're supposed to be able to master it in four days) and then after that you're supposed to meditate twice a day. I'll post some links at the end of this so you know I'm not making it all up...heh. I feel like I'm coercing you guys to join a cult. MEDITATE WITH ME OR DIE.
Another lil' thang I've been majorly into as of late is Gogol Bordello. I've always liked their music but I recently watched a documentary about them called "Non-Stop" and it fucking blew my mind. It was amazing and the lead singer, Eugene Hutz, is probably one of the most incredible people/musicians ever. So. If you wanna get down on some gypsy punk, listen to them. I think all of you have Start Wearing Purple but you should look up Through the Roof 'n Underground and Alcohol and Immigrant Punk. Those are my favorites. And that concludes this long-ass post.
Sophia, apologies for basically repeating everything from my letter on here! I am excited to get yours. As always, I miss you and love you all very very much. Here's a link of Yogi Maharishi Mahesh talkin' bout TM. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc-A49r2F0w Here's another video of a very peculiar man also talking about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjT831cjaUY and here's David Lynch talking about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvB-faw1WvY
Love Elaina

pissy

I don't know why I'm in such a fucking bad mood right now but I just feel like screaming and crying and ranting so that is what I am going to do. I guess the first reason isn't really even that big of a deal at all it was just super annoying. So we're figuring out and deciding where we are living next year and who we want to room with and where and such and like a month ago I thought of a great plan of getting the one quad for me angi claire and kels. It was a great plan and if that didn't work out we'd just get two singles and be next to each other. I was really happy. Then Angi said that she was maybe going to apply for and interest section because she thinks she'll have a better chance at becoming an SA blabity bla blabla you guys don't care BUT then claire was all really shy all of a sudden one day and told me that she applied to live in Tamarc which is an outdoor interest dorm thing and i really didn't care it was fine she doesn't even think she'll get in because its so popular so I said she was always welcome to stay. So kels and I are planning stuff, possibly living with the other freshman from my basketball team Alyssa and some guys in a health and fitness interest section in one of the dorms and are getting everything planned out and kelsey keeps like avoiding and postponing and not planning and then she randomly walks in my room is like-- well Bri and Rachel (girls from her soccer team) asked me to live with them too so I have to figure it out. And I was like okay whatever do it today because we have to turn our form in and she didn't say anything to me all day and finally that night I texted her cause alyssa was over and we were planning and she took awhile to respond and then just said - okay so I think I'm going to live with bri and rachel just because they're both soccer players and it would be easier and I don't really know the basketball guys. I'm sorry.-- so I just like okay. whatever. I'll just room with alyssa next year (and now it may turn out being her me and 6 guys in a suite in one of the dorms) and then I was kind of like ranting to James about it cause he walked in the room when I was like greeeaaaatttt and he was like -- oh weird kelsey's only ever talked about living with them I hadn't heard the other plan. and that made me so pissed. WHY THE FUCK WOULDN'T SHE JUST COME TALK TO ME LIKE A NORMAL PERSON. hey so Rachel and Bri just invited me to live with them just so you know. Thats what Claire and Angi did. why is she unable to talk about any sort of thing that could cause the tiniest bit of conflict unless its over text. If she would have warned me I would not be pissy right now. So I haven't really talked to her or seen her in the last two days. I'm not mad just really annoyed. She needs to grow up. I had a really good talk with boyfriend tonight and it helped me a lot with understanding and it was lovely which made my night a lot better in the end even though it was shitty to begin with. Hope you all are well. love ya

fucking big LIFE decisions, man

Man, what I really need right now is a night with my best friends running around the city like crazy people making strangers uncomfortable and then coming home and eating random food combinations while watching british period dramas and cracking stupid dirty jokes. I want a night of belly laughing and cuddling and long heart to heart talks. Things have been really busy and wierd lately. By weird I mean some days are great - I'll be feeling really productive and happy grateful for the people and things in my life, and have fantastic rehearsals full of hard work and laughter and goodness - and then some days are just really shitty and I'll be wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life and where I'm going and I'll be so stressed and feel like all my relationships are all messy and just feel in general BLECHness. So it's been a weird roller-coaster of emotions in the past few weeks. I recently (as in just last week pretty much) got a new agency, I don't know if I told ya'll. It was kind of a spontaneous thing which I was opposed to at first, but I decided to give it another shot. They're really nice, normal people who treat me like a real person (whoa, crazy, like models have brains, personalities and feelings?)and they've already been sending me to a bunch of castings - I went to Seattle on friday for a casting for Nordstroms online store woooo! That was really nice cuz I got to spend a day in Seattle with my mom and we somehow got to talking all about her twenties and all the roadtrips she spontaneously took and all the crazy things she did. I reaaally wanted to stop in Tacoma and visit nay but we had to get straight there, go to the casting, and then take like two hours to eat lunch and see the city from the car window and then drive home in time for a concert that Miles got us tickets for. Oh and yesterday I found out I got accepted into Southern Oregon University! yay. So that's good. And Ablaze is going great. It's actually really really great. I'm so so grateful that its a part of my life, because I'm having a lot of fun with the cast, and the play, I think, is going to be good. We're all working our asses off so it better DAYUM be. Sooo these are all great things, but one of the things thats been stressing me out lately is that at the beginning of this week the agency sent me an email saying that they talked to the agencies I was with in Paris and New York and that they were "thrilled that I'm back in the biz and possibly would want me to come work with them again". SO, shit. Again i'm back at the crossroads of which direction to go...school next fall or try out the modeling thing again....I know I've said tons of times that I didn't want to continue with it because it was too stressful and superficial and blah blah...and I mean that won't change. But I've been thinking about it a lot, and this is something that would give me the opportunity to travel and have these experiences that I'd never be able to have later in life - I mean, its now or never. with college, I can go later if I want to. And, maybe I could make some money with it to pay off college loans...and, my parents have been really stressed out about money lately and I know they have no idea what they're going to do when they get older because they have no money for retirement or anything, so I kind of fantasize about making a lot of money and being able to take care of them like they've taken care of me. They keep saying thats not my responsibility, but I feel like it is - I feel like it would be selfish to not do anything - and I mean, I would benefit from it too. Well, possibly. Maybe I wouldn't actually be successful, there's no way to know for sure. but my main hesitation is that it was very stressful and scary, and if I did it again I would have to do it alone...I mean, it wasn't completely bad, it was fun and exciting sometimes too. The circumstances would be different now, since I'm older and have more experience....I do worry that I'd be changed by it, because it is so completely superficial and not intellectually stimulating whatsoever. I worry that I'd become depressed, because of that - I didn't really like a lot of the people and didn't really know who to trust - but then again, I was pretty young so it was all very overwhelming. I think I'd be able to handle myself a lot better this time and not let these things get to me. ...And sometimes I actually miss it. Not all the bad things I was just talking about, but I miss the cities and the excitement of it. So. GAH. I am very very conflicted. My original plan was to study theatre at SOU, but there's always that voice in the back of my mind saying that that's so impractical - like, what can I do with a theatre major? I don't want to teach theatre, and I don't think I'm good enough to make it big in the business...and modeling is something I know I can do..... WHEW. wow, I just spewed a weeks worth of worries on you, sorry guys. I just really needed to get that out there. And I want you to know what going through my mind cuz I love you all and I would want to know all your shit too. So feel free to spew your shit all over me too!!!!! (GROSSSS) hahah don't ya miss me? Anyways, I miss you so much. And I love you dearly. Thank you for bearing with me and my long derpy indecisive rants <3 <3 <3

Story of Sophie's First Date Ever

Ok so this isn't a big deal but it actually completely is so yes. Please excuse any girly rambling and remember that I am a very level headed individual.

So that morning he calls me up and he's like are you free tonight do you want to go to drinks and so after my lecture I had a freak out that I don't own clothes and he is like the most immaculately dressed person ever and I was like Jeans and converse? and my friends were like NO SOPHIA NO so I went to h&m to find a new outfit. Then I had this huge debacle of how soon I should go out of the dorm where he was going to pick me up but then he just called me so it was okay and i just kind of bounded out of the door and down the stairs and sort of ran into him cause he was closer than I thought and I was like HI. Which I think made me come across as cool calm and collected which is good.

like i had a really good time. We got there and he was like what do you want to drink and I was like "I'll have a beer" (dainty soph) and then i was like, do you need money? and he just kind of laughs and was like no i'm good i got it. So then he just talked about his science and research and his 45 min interview he has to do in london next week for his PHD grant and this one interview were he walked in and they pushed a flower toward him and just gestured at it and was like 'so what do you think about this flower' and I talked about Virginia Woolf and stories and you guys and disney land and more zombies.
And like at one point one of his friends turned up and like ran over to our table and was like WHO'S YOUR LOVER and i was THANK GOD intoxicated enough not to blush and I just stuck out my hand Yeah, name's Sophia pleased to meet you. And he was like Oh my gosh is this that girl!? (yyeeeeahhh) and then when he left I was like, He seems nice and Patrick was like he's a model and I was like MY BEST FRIEND'S A MODEL. And he was like, I've always found models to be less beautiful in real life. And I'm like, she's the most beautiful person I know. Then he's like, I hope I'm like a close second and I'm all OH indubitably.  Lol. I never thought i'd use that word in a conversation i'm such a dork.
And we've decided that next time (more importantly that there is a next time) we're going to go see a show aaand then have a movie marathon of this show he introduced to me.
I mean, in the end since I hadn't had that much to eat I was SLIGHTLY more intoxicated than two beers should have gotten me but whatayagannado.
like...yeap. What else d'yall wanna know? it was just really funny and nice and easy. I really like Patrick.

and OUT.