Well... its been quite the past few months. you wanna talk about a dramatic life change. its funny that my last post was about how badly i wanted to get in here. and dont get me wrong, i wouldnt change a thing. but life has just sucked. incredibly. And i feel the only way i can get all this frusturation off my chest is to write it down.

Everything has just been building and building until today i realized that freshman year just never lets up one bit around here. i think i kinda fooled myself in to thinking that it would start out really rough and slowly get a little more lax. And this wouldnt have been an issue if the environment around me didnt slowly start to advocate this. Cuz thats exactly what was starting to happen. we were all stuck in the squad this weekend due to the failing average on last weeks knowledge test and it was becoming quite evident that people had a lot of excess energy they werent being allowed to expend, so when the power went out and all hell broke loose, so did the trust of our squad comm with us. and the thing that makes me mad is that the upperclassmen were rooting us on as all of the "shenanigans" continued, later pretending as if this didnt happen. thats a bunch a bull. Dont ever encourage us to do something and then later stand behind the one scolding us and shake your heads at us like you werent there. that shows very poor leadership in my opinion. and you cant argue with that.

Courtney told me the other day that its important to follow the rules but at the same time be able to look back at the dumb stuff you did that wasnt exactly the "right" thing to do and go "man that was awesome" and to a degree i agree with her. but i think my fellow four degree classmates are missing the point of that statement. if youre going to do something "against" the rules, dont do it right in front of the upperclassmen. it just goes with the saying theres a time and place for everything. and they havent quite figured that out yet. im trying to have somewhat of a fun freshman year, but at the same time, i dont want to be restricted in my room every weekend because we had "fun" for a moment during the week. its not worth it to me, and essentially disrespectful to those of us who'd like to actually use our passes. I think all of us need to get away from here for a little while, and thats never gonna happen if this keeps up.

But one thing i have been getting good at is finding the small pleasures in life, however miniscule they are. like right now im sitting in this section of the library thats secluded from just about everything, but at the same time it looks out over the area where the bus dropped us off for in processing. I have a feeling im going to be spending a lot of time here. its completely quiet to the point where all you can hear is the sound of the overhead lights humming. i like being in my room with my roommates and all, but ive forgotten how comforting and nice complete silence is, most likely because i havent been around it in a looooong time. it brings back memories though looking down on the footsteps where we received our first "briefing." i cant believe its already been like 3 months here. but at the same time i can. a lot has happened. even ive changed. but its days like these that really make me miss home. id give just about anything to have 20 minutes at home with my family right now for a good sit down dinner. its hard to accept the fact that that will never be the same. because "home" is a loose term. i havent quite accepted the fact that my home is here now. i doubt i ever completely will. the countdown to thanksgiving continues though, and hopefully things get a little better.