Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

I never thought that I would make so many friends during my college experience. I am not even done with first semester and I already have the most amazing friends. I hate to say it, but I feel as if I am losing my old friends to my new ones. My new friends are the most loyal people I have ever met and we are incredibly close. It could be because we live together, but I know that I will have these people around for a while.

Every year, I have Halloween and Christmas parties for my friends at my house. It is tradition and I absolutely love it. This year has been a little different. Now I'm having the get together in my dorm room primarily with my college friends. Some of my old friends are considering coming. It is amazing how things can change within a matter of months.

I am not trying to make it seem as if any of these people are bad people; I have just lost touch with most of my high school friends. People I never thought I would lose are now gone. It is a sore subject with me. During this holiday break, I was going through my Youtube videos and found a video I made for all of my friends within the past year. It was hard to watch considering I have lost a few of those friends to drugs and alcohol. I am straight edge, meaning I do not drink, smoke, or do drugs. It is something I strongly believe in and I do not like to surround myself with people that drink or do drugs. These people were like family to me for so long, and as soon as I left they turned to drugs. It kills me, but there is not much more I can do. I offered my helping hand, but it was not accepted. (Here is the video of my old friends, unfortunately the audio was taken out).

My college friends aren't like my high school friends. These people will do anything for me, and I could not love them any more.

Beauty and the Beast- The Real World Edition

Since Beauty and the Beast is being re released in the theaters as a 3D movie on January 13, 2012, I figured this would bring the perfect opportunity to explain the truth... Beauty and the Beast is based on my life. Well, not exactly, but there are numerous similarities between my life and this movie (and its characters). Everyone jokes that the movie really is my life, but to me it is a serious matter.

The main character is Belle. Belle is a French bookworm that was known for her incredible beauty. Everyone thought it was such a shame that Belle was such a bookworm since she could just live off of her looks. Belle was a strong girl that was not afraid to show it. She had idiotic boys that fell all over her, but she told them off. Her father, Maurice, was a hardworking inventor that everyone thought was insane. She defended him and encouraged him no matter what. When Maurice went to bring his invention somewhere, he got lost and ended up being held captive by the Beast. Belle went searching and sacrificed herself for her father. Belle hated the Beast at first and was afraid, but once she got to know him and understand him, she fell in love with him.

Oddly enough, I happen to be a lot like Belle. I have always been an extreme bookworm. I bring a book every where I go, just in case I get a moment of free time. Some people used to think I read too much and should be more social, but that was not me. I have always been very opinionated and I could always see right through people. My grandfather definitely represents Maurice (we will get to that later), but he is inventive and a little out there. I also happened to fall in love with someone that could be considered a "Beast."

The Beast is almost exactly like my boyfriend. Almost five years ago, when I began dating my boyfriend, he was intimidating and scary to everyone (even to me). He had a blue mohawk, dressed gothic, and overall had a different personality than most people. He has many of the same personality traits as the Beast. However, the more I got to know him, the more I understood him and the more I fell in love with him.

As for Maurice, he is my Papa. Not only are they both inventive and a little out there, but they look very similar. I love my Papa as much as Belle loved hers. It is always so funny to watch Beauty and the Beast because everyone says that the movie is my life. I love it!



Thanksgiving in the Land of the Pilgrims

Living in Plymouth, Massachusetts my entire life, I know much more than I need to know about Thanksgiving. From kindergarten until eighth grade, a major part of the curriculum is Plymouth history, also known as history of the Pilgrims.

The Pilgrims came from England to the United States in 1620. It is said that they landed in Plymouth and built their settlements here. The Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower, a ship that held too many people considering the amount of room on the ship. Most of the people died en route to the new land. Once the Pilgrims got here, they were faced with many challenges. The befriended a Native American name Squanto who helped them through. After a year of being in Plymouth, the Pilgrims had a huge feast to show how thankful they were for surviving a year in the new land. This feast is now celebrated as Thanksgiving.

Plymouth is still focused on celebrating this feast. We have the 2nd highest rated Thanksgiving parade in the nation (right after the Macy's parade). The parade features marching bands, floats, balloons, and a lot of history. It is a tradition to go to the parade and then go to the waterfront for food and to continue the fun.

I love the culture of Plymouth. I am an off the boat Pilgrim. I am an Eaton and a Howland, which are some of the best known Pilgrims. I could not ask for a better hometown. You can never truly appreciate Thanksgiving without knowing the background.

Getting Sick In College

Being sick in college is MUCH different than being sick in grade school. In grade school, your mom stays home to take care of you and get you whatever you need. You can go to your pediatrician to get checked out and then your mom goes to the pharmacy to get your medicine to make you feel better. Before you know it, you are all better and can go back to school.

College is a completely different story. You still go to class, dragging of course. Health services does not fit into your schedule, so you just do not go to get checked out. There is no medicine other than Tylenol and Emergen-C. Then your roommate gets sick and the cycle just keeps repeating itself.

I have been sick for three weeks and it just keeps getting worse. My asthma is starting to get affected. My roommate and I both have fevers and all of the same symptoms. It is not fun. I cannot get to health services because I have class and do not want to miss any more class. I continue to suffer. Now my mother wants to take me home and bring me to the doctor. I want to do that, but what about my "independence?" I need to learn to take care of myself, but sometimes you just need mother's help. Maybe I will go home. But until then, I will keep on trucking!

The Haunting in Room 328

You hear rumors all the time about ghosts and hauntings in rooms. Generally it is just the upperclassmen trying to scare the poor little freshmen. I would have expected that to be the case for my room, if anyone had warned me. However, no one knew that my room was haunted. I was the lucky one to discover it.

The hauntings started back at the beginning of the semester when I had my first roommate. Our ceiling tiles in the bathroom kept lifting and moving and our medicine cabinet doors kept slamming shut randomly. Things kept going missing and being moved and it was abnormally confusing.

When my new roommate moved in, things got worse. We both had the same image of what this spirit looked like. We pictured a young male, kind of tall, with coke bottle glasses. Then we heard humming noises coming from the shower, our closet doors kept opening and closing and our clothes kept moving, there were scratch marks on the bathroom door, the list goes on.

We went and saw the ghost hunter the night we lost power and talked to him. He said we were definitely dealing with a negative entity and had to deal with it. He told us to talk to it nicely and try to lure it out. He said it might make it worse, and it did. We could not even sleep in our own room it was so scary, and we had other witnesses. During the power outage, we stocked up on rosemary and sage, got things to make shrines, got holy water, and everything else to get this ghost out.

About a week later and we are having much less occurrences. We are both still petrified, but we can now sleep a little more peacefully.

Freak Snow Storms (and the Aftermath)

Only in New England can you get a snow storm during October. A little snow is understandable. The light fluffy snow flakes that do not stick are to be expected.

However, when you have a snow storm that comes with terrible wind that knocks out your power for a week in October, it is a problem. Towns had to cancel Halloween (my favorite holiday) and the school was evacuated. It was either go home/to someone else's house, or sleep on the dining hall floor.

Me and a group of friends decided to house hop. We started in Medway and ended up to my house in Plymouth, where we stayed a majority of the time. I always forget that not everyone knows as much about the Pilgrims as I do. Up until seventh grade that is all we learned in history class. So, I got to give a little history lesson of my own. I love it, I am an off the boat Pilgrim. My mom's side includes the Eatons and the Howlands, which are some of the original Mayflower new-comers.

Other than that, we had our own little Halloween party and played video games. It was an overall good time. We all got to bond much closer. The only bad thing now is that we have a messed up final schedule that none of us like. Just call us the class of random disasters.

Me and my roommate (from Virginia) getting ready for the snow!

Being a Disabled College Student

When people look at me, they see what appears to be a normal college student just trying to get by. I struggle with my books after I stumble and people laugh. No one knows that the stumble was caused by my disability.

In eighth grade, my life changed drastically. As an avid dancer, my hopes and dreams were set on majoring in dance in college. One day, in ballet, we were doing strenuous exercises across the floor when I felt a pop in my foot. I am pretty accident prone. To me it was just a random  pain. I continued to dance through the night, another five hours.

I ended up having to go to the doctor because the pain was terrible, but no doctor could figure out what was wrong with me. Five doctors later, I was diagnosed with a condition called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. The doctor told me I would never walk again. I would definitely never dance again. I was devastated, but somehow I was blessed enough to be able to walk a majority of the time.

Now, I am in and out of a wheelchair, as the condition has spread from my ankle to all the way up my back on the left side of the body. I am considered disabled/handicapped. People do not understand what they do not know. I constantly have to explain my condition to people, and they just do not understand.

My fear going into college was that I was going to still be the "freak" that I was in high school because of my condition. I was afraid that the professors would not care that I was disabled. I was proved wrong. I have my issues and my flare ups of my conditions, but everyone is so understanding and helpful. It makes me extremely happy. For once, I feel as if I belong. I know that I am different than other people, but it is what makes me unique. I cannot let it define me.

I have trained all of my new friends on what to do if I cannot move. They know all the procedures and have even had to put them into action. But no one gets afraid of me. To the disabled people out there, you have to realize that people are not all bad. Someone will understand you!

This video explains the every day life of an RSD sufferer. Even though people do not see me suffering daily, I do.