September 02, 2003 - 9:28 p.m.

First day of school, wow.
Mood:

Damn what a nuts day! I woke up at 6:07 or something close to that. The alarm went off at 6 but I just pressed the snooze button. I was going to wait for it to go off but by then I was groaning and thinking, "Oh no... today is the day", and my heart kept racing through the roof so the second I opened my eyes that was it. I had to get up.

Then my mom and I got ready and we drove to the SkyTrain. She went to work and I hopped onto the "UBC Special", I heard about that bus but I didn't realise it was a non-stop connection between Broadway and UBC. I thought that was insanely helpful, not to mention, they let the people who had UBC Cards on through all of the back doors so I got a great seat and of course the bus loaded up in less than 5 minutes and then we were off! (But not before I THINK I saw George Karatzas passing by. He looked straight at me but I doubt he recognized me. You know George right Tina? Damn that was weird... did he already grad from BCIT? Or wherever that was).

I brought a book but I was a little too excited to read so I just looked around half expecting to find people from my faculty. I could tell the first year sort of "JUST ex-highschool" kiddies but I couldn't really feel sorry for them because most of them seemed to be commuting with friends.

The bus took exactly 30 minutes so I noted that down for future reference and went off to find my meeting location. I just walked straight to the Buchanan tower and found the group, I was the first one there so we had to wait around for everyone else to show up. Then we did our little intros, sat inbetween the buildings facing a huge ass draft so I kept having to put my hood on. From there we proceeded to walk through the campus and into the Chan center for a faculty presentation. We got to meet our dean and a bunch of other people, she was so hilarious though. I sort of have this urge to go talk to her, she seemed very personable. She also gave us an extra 20 grand which was pretty nice of her (Supposedly she's the best Arts dean the school had ever had).

Then they taught us our little cheer, "Bigger is better. Arts kicks ass". I thought that was hilarious. We kept making fun of the other faculties, and the guy said, you know... the sciences just make NO sense (with their cheer), you can only make out the first line of the Engineering cheer and the Commerce people will probably say something about us pumping their gus one day but really, we're the best. Everyone laughed of course.

When the presentation was over we all filed out of the Chan center and onto this huge grassy knoll for pizza and drinks. I ate a slize of veggie pizza then took off for the bathroom (I pretty much had to go since morning!). I met up with these two girls and we walked around trying to figure out who the "red" faculty was. Then it was time to head back to our group for the peprally, we sort of outshouted everyone because Arts IS the largest faculty (the "red" peopel turned out to be Commerce).

Nursing had the cutest outfits. They were wearing these little hats with crosses (ie. nurses's hats), and of course were mostly women. Engineering were mostly men, go figure (how utterly sexist, lol). At this point one of our team leaders (this guy (James I think), 4th year who talked a little about his fraternity and living on campus beforehand) started talking to me so we chatted the entire way back to the gym. He's a pretty kool guy, except I didn't realise he was probably over 6 feet tall! Damn tall people make me feel weird, lol. I kept having to look up at him it was hilarious. At one point he asked how old I was and I said, 22, and then I asked, "How old are you?" And he said, "21, well, 21 and a half, but you know." I was laughing and said, "Are you intimmidated?" And he's like, "No." Hehehe, I thought that was so funny. Then we just talked about the Greek system and some other stuff to join.

Right around the time when we hit the gym these two girls started talking to us out of nowhere, but they seemed so nice we just chatted back and then James left and by then I had REALLY lost my group so I shrugged and tagged along. The girls turned out to be Lindsey and Ling and we stayed together through the pep rally. They were so nice. During the pep rally we yelled at the other faculties there was an admin presenation of each of the senior faculty members, we boo'ed and shouted and popped baloons and finally filed out into the smoldering heat (the auditorium was SO damn hot and the mikes were insanely loud so of course I ended up getting a headache).

When we left Lindsey asked us to her dorm but we filed out and followed everyone to the grassy field to look at the clubs. She went straight for the sorority table and then the cheerleading squad (or semi-squad, the true squad sort of broke up last year but they still want to keep going on a non-pro level). Anyway, Lindsey felt bad for dragging us along but of course I was like, are you kidding me, those are pretty much the only two clubs I wanted to look up. I'm still going to go through the other stuff in our little handbook to see what else is available. And I need to go look up the sorority website.

So we walked around for a bit and then decided to leave. We walked back to Lindsey's dorm about 15 minutes away and ended up talking about living on-campus. It seemed like a fun idea and again, I told Lindsey, it's just another experience. She has no choice though because she's from Ontario, and the only way I'd want to move there is probably 4th or 5th year and if I had a bachelor bad with a kitchen and my own bathroom, and possibly living with Red (although I'm sure he'd love the commute back home to his office, lol).

Overall it was an insanely full and amazing day. I couldn't stop thinking about Red. Every time I saw a couple walking along holding hands I wished he was with me. Then Lindsey ended up talking about her bf and so of course I was like, yeah *sigh* I have someone just as wonderful. And then I was bored on the bus home so I started reading the "healt" handbook (very interesting and quite psychological so it kept me going) and they were talking about relationships and describing what a "healthy" relationship is and of course I kept checking things off in my head and again I realised what a truthfully INCREDIBLE person I had found, and of course how "sacrilegous" it felt somehow. Again... it seems almost too fated, too perfect to have your own guardian angel here on earth.

I was thinking about the way Red treats me, the way we are together, everything he does, and just "us" in general and it's true, if he asked I would marry him in a second because I suppose I have known this from the moment we met, that he was the person I would want to spend the rest of my life with. I also thought about how much we have grown together and how difficult that road was, and how we and, I suppose ESPECIALLY I, shouldn't condemn myself or ourselves for all the pain we have caused eachother, because Red is right, we met at a very unsteady point in our lives. The point at which a teenager becomes an adult, and it's bound to be tumultuous any way you look at it.

There are perhaps so many aspects of my past I wish I could repeat, just for the fun of it. Who wouldn't want to be a carefree child again? But there are those I would never in a million years want to delete from existance, because I KNOW they have shaped the person I am today, the person I am learning to appreciate and love more and more, but they are also the things I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. And perhaps I saw a lot of that today. Young people, younger than me, who are going to go through the same thing I did during the most stressful years of their lives. No wonder they need these intense speaches and assurances... but NOTHING can prepare them for what is truly ahead. I do wish them all the luck I can give and all of my strength, but truly, I hope they can find their guardian angel, whoever it may be to help them through this very difficult journey of self-discovery and growth.

It's important to feel loved and understood, and to feel like you can let it all hang out in front of at least one person in your life. I know in my life that person is my angel, and I know I must do EVERYTHING in my power to become a better person for him because he DESERVES to be treated the same way he treats me. He deserves everything he has given me back 10-fold, because as I've mentioned before, I know he gave me a new life, a life I am looking forward to, a life I'm learning to love, but also a life that must be spent with him, together forever.