Yale Diaries Part One

July 1, 2009
1:03 AM- Yale: G-31: My Desk, The Cupboard Under the Stairs

Hi everyone!!! So, this is the first official entry to the Yale Diaries, even though it’s from Saturday night and it is now early, early Wednesday morning as I post this. I originally wrote these down in my notepad, thinking I’d have a chance to type them out/send them all later, however, the JSA program has different plans. Though I have made many new friends (most of them my amazing roommates) and am loving (more or less) my classes- the actual schedule of the program has something against its students remaining healthy, functional people. There is no water, except at the cafeteria and it is SO HOT HERE!!! Haha. Then there’s the actual schedule which has you up by seven and the very earliest you can get to sleep is at eleven thirty-ish (Because out RA, she’s like a camp counselor, Laura, is nice, but she makes it a point to never stop talking at bed checks. She is the only person in the whole world that subtle hints followed by glaring doesn’t work on (I’m seriously kidding about the glaring).
My point is that I’m having a lot of fun, I’m really tired (It’s one AM here), and I miss EVERYONE so very, very much. I love you all, and I wish you were here with me or I could magically transport myself to California every night like Dorothy with her magic red slippers. :D
I’ll type out/send the next blog as soon as I can, I’ll try really hard to make time tomorrow, and to actually write about life here at Yale (It’s like its own town! Seriously! Oh my goodness….). I miss you and love you and can’t wait to see you. Honestly.
Love,
-Bianca


June 27, 2009
9:30 PM- Los Angeles Airport

Never having actually been in an airport of any kind before, you can imagine my surprise when I found them not to be magical places filled with wonder, but rather huge, frightening masses of building materials; generic gray carpet with red flecks, and acres of gleaming white tiled walls. The place, as I somehow managed not to notice in my intensive ignorance- is absolutely huge- ad filled with people. Thousands of people, scurrying this way and that, consuming, sipping at coffees while reading science fiction novels three inches thick while juggling small children to keep them from screaming at their unfortunate situations. People lay across the big, black chairs formed in rows like a movie theater. They munch on snacks and sniffle to themselves a little.
You have to understand that every one of these people is in the same position you are: everyone’s leaving, everyone’s going somewhere, whether it’s back to the homeland or someplace totally new and different. Everyone here is susceptible to some kind of anxiety- and the epic, sorrowful instrumental music certainly isn’t helping anything. Though I expected the various, upbeat forms of Frank Sinatra’s Come Fly With Me the airline seemed to be going for a tear-shedding rather than smiling experience.
All in all, I think that this went fairly smoothly, incredibly so for me. I got through security (which, despite the name of the airport, is far from lax) without being asked to leave or giggling nervously. I managed not to hold up any lines for more than five seconds and make it to the general area of my terminal without assistance (A nice woman who worked for the airport had to lead me to gate 74 after that, but I really did have the general idea) and I even got through everything without talking to strangers (As both Tia’s Bertha, Nana, Minnie, Gina, as well as my mother, warned me about). At first, I was surrounded by parents bearing more or less excited children, but now they’ve been replaced with the sullen teens and average Joe types. Despite the fact that my phone has enough battery for maybe two calls before it looses it’s life completely, I’ve not been able to resist the urge to text and call nearly everyone who I know is still awake and just when I finally put my foot down and bade everyone a good night, more began to call me back. I suppose there’s always payphones…

PS. The ground beneath me is shaking, at first I thought it was my knees trembling from holding up my laptop, set upon my smallish backpack, but then I remembered that I am at an airport and planes are huge…