This is just weird. I'm at my aunt and uncle's house, watching tv and feeling a huge pit of fear in my stomache. Do you remember that feeling you had when your parents dropped you off in your college dorm room and took off? Today I had the same desperate need for them to leave, but when they did I felt forlorn and vaguely betrayed. Except this time, I couldn't just take a deep breath and knock on Jackie and Vanni's door and begin my first awkward college conversation. 

I remember feeling totally sheepish when I explained how glad I was that my parents had left -- I had just basically kicked them out, and I knew they'd feel lonelier than ever on the drive home. Vanni must have thought I was weird, since she seemed to be getting along just fine with her family. She still wore her hair in a ponytail back then, with a lime-green scrunchie. She had a Curious George box and a pair of black Adidas shoes. She also did a lot of black and white ink drawings in her journal, which I remember thinking were very "alternative" (having just arrived from Greenwich). Jackie had moved in a little earlier than all of us. I know this because the first thing I ever saw when I moved in was a lime-green/pink bikini hanging incriminatingly in the Carman bathroom. 

Then I needed to be around people. Here all I can do is take deep breaths, but it always comes back to me, sitting in this empty house, waiting for tomorrow. It doesn't help that I hated orientation, that the first year was my least favourite during all of college. I made so many mistakes. But I ended up loving college despite all that.

What if my bosses hate me and realize they made a terrible mistake in hiring me? What if I get laid off in a month? -- all this moving stuff would have been for nothing and then I'd be back in CT, starting my search all over again. I have a headache. I feel like a character in a Charlotte Bronte novel -- all tortured and feverish, full of angles. Except the romance is lacking, because I'm in New Jersey, I'm going to be an indentured servant, and I'm only one rather unexceptional human being and no one is interested (save for me, hence the blog) in documenting my exploits.

Ok, I'm done with the moaning. My family went to the temple today as a gesture of thanks for my new job. When I heard the priest sing, I thought it was so beautiful. I watched them pour milk over the gods, and bowed my head when they brought the silver crown to all the worshipers. It's amazing how you can occupy these totally different spaces in one day - one moment you're packing up your old life, the next moment you're watching a holy fire lick the walls of a deity's sanctum, and finally you're in limbo, watching bad movies and tucking your legs under your body so that you can at least keep yourself together physically, urging all your limbs into something consolidated, something whole. 

Sorry if this seems like a load of waffle. I don't, as you might have discerned, take change in stride.