Tic-Toc

            The clock has been ticking. But I think that this might be the first time that it's ticking loud enough that I can actually kind of hear it. 19 days. I feel like I need to do something crazy and spontaneous before I go. (If you don't know me, crazy and spontaneous are for sure not on my profile description and when explaining my idiosyncrasies, no one would ever think to put those words to me. We don't complement each other, let's say.) I don't know what to do with myself. I leave in three weeks but I already want to start packing my bags. One of my closest friends, Chloe, (the dark haired one) left this morning at 6:15 am FOR GERMANY.

     Not last night but the night before, I slept over at her house after her going-away-bonfire-party. We had a really nice night! Lots of eating and taking pictures and playing dare games and watching people embarrass themselves and shit like that. After everyone left, we went downstairs to her room and well...    It looked like this:

   And her suitcase... (note that this is about 30 hours before her plane leaves) Looked like this:

               

(I'm kidding) It really looked like this:
             

(I'm not kidding) So point being, she wasn't packed. So I spent the night sorting, throwing away, folding, and packing her clothes while she cleared her room out. I will not have this happen to me. I expect to be completely packed and have everything I need sorted and ready one week in advance. Heck, I already have everything ready and you don't even know how tempted I am to start packing...
You see, the average teenage brain looks basically like this:
                                    
And I feel like mine normally looks more like this:
                          

***COUGH COUGH OCD***.... Ehem...  Anyways. This week I'm getting everything that I will need together. I have a medium sized list of things that I still need/would like to get. People who have already studied abroad keep telling me to pack verryyy light because not only will you shop until you quite literally drop upon your arrival to your host country, you will also come home with about 16X the amount of things(clothes, food, nick-knacks, orphans... etc.) that you brought with you. So I'm really really really trying not to add too many things to the pile but it's unbelievably hard to pack two suitcases for an entire year of your  life. Like, seriously.
     Well, this will not only be on here, my normal blog, but It will also be the... (drum roll please....) Very first post on my study abroad blog!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, that's right. I have officially started a study abroad blog. And seeing how infrequently I post here on this ol' normal blog, well I sure hope that I will find the time to post on that one when I am living in Italia. I will try my very best to keep up with it weekly but I don't think you'll be seeing much of me around THESE parts no more... (these parts meaning this blog) So, I'll miss you.

Talk to y'all soon, I guess. Over there at: http://tessameetsworld.blogspot.com/

Tessa

Lonely

   I hate the word lonely. When I say it, especially when referring to myself, I feel so pathetic.
"I'm lonely."   Gross.
Who wants to hang out with a lonely person? Nobody.
I feel like all of the people I love most are in the wrong places because they're too out-of-reach. And all the people who think that I love them most are in the wrong places because they're too on-hand and there. And the people that think that I love them the most think that I think they love me the most but don't. And I know that they don't. They don't love me at all. They just like me.
 The people who I love the most love me. I miss those people.
I'm lonely. There. I said it. You know why? Because I've surrounded myself with people that I don't love and when I do that I feel alone. I feel straight in a gay bar because even if people like me there, they couldn't actually love me if they tried and even if I loved them, it would be hopeless and embarrassing. So I don't try. So I leave. So I'm left alone. So I'm lonely. 
I used to think that if you didn't have friends or family you were lonely. That only if you were literally ALONE, then you were lonely. Now I'm experiencing a type of abandoned-only-by-my-own-species-lonely. Which in some ways is worse because being a puppy left alone in a room with only lions is less fun then just being an alone puppy.
My mother says "it will all work out". Luckily my mother is, without fail, always right, so...

I guess we'll see.

Life Is Good

It's been a good while since I've written last. Two months? Two and a half? A LOT has happened. It's summer vacation and I'm free at last from Asheville for hopefully forever.
  Everything for next year is set. My visa is ready to go, i have my calling cards and pins and blazer...shoo, I'm a foreign exchange student. This past weekend, I attending a Rotary Youth exchange orientation and I've learned everything that I could possibly be curious about for next year twice over. I feel so prepared that I could leave as soon as I could get packed and Ohhhhhh lord I'm ready.  

   

In the past five weeks of summer, I have done the following:

• Spent four weeks being a camp counselor at Camp Celo, a super cool outdoorsy kids camp (That you should definitely check out whether you're a kid, parent, teen, or young adult.) where I met some pretty dang amazing people and had more fun than I could have asked for. 

• Spent some quality time with my awesome friend Vinessa whom was a counselor with me at Celo and took some impromptu pictures in the river arts district...

• Spent another day with my friend Simon and his family to welcome him home from his trip to South Korea...

• And so much more that I don't have the patients to list.

Anyways, thus far....AWESOME SUMMER. Next stop... New York. I'm going to a lake called Big Wolf in the Adirondacks in Upstate. We stay in a lake house there every summer and It's so much fun. I keep getting flash backs of last year....

After that, California and then..........................

ITALYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^Cremona, IT

So happy right now. While I was at school, I was constantly in a place of unhappiness. There was some sort of conflict going on socially, or emotionally, or with school stuff... Now I'm finding myself to be at a peak of happiness even in the dullest of moments. 

Insomniac

 These past few nights I've gotten less than sleep despite my ongoing efforts to get more than sleep. I've gone to "bed" no later than 9:45 for the past three nights in order to catch up from the weekend and have managed to actually sleep about 4 hours. I don't know why, but I've been sleeping in really shallow waters. Usually when I can't sleep at night, (which happens rarely, but it does sometimes happen) it's because I'm thinking. I've had an eventful day or something really significant has happened to me and I just can't keep my brain shut off. Usually when this happens; when I can't fall asleep due to conversation after song after bad news playing on repeat in my brain, I try to visualize all of those things in one location. I put them all on a windshield and only focus on the back and forth motion of the windshield wiper washing each one of those things away. I used to always use this when I couldn't fall asleep as a child. Or when my mother attempted to get me to meditate with her and all I could thing about was the candy I was never given. The problem with this tactic: Candy smears. And I would imagine when placed on a windshield and wiped across glass it would smear undoubtedly. So that became the flaw in this strategy. I would get rid of the bulk but was left with the crumbs which is almost worse. 

That hasn't been what's been happening though. It's really been like I'm just walking ankle deep in warm water which always raises goosebumps along the rest of your surface. I'm tired and I'm trying and no matter how obsessively I change my bed sheets for comfort it's not working, gosh-darnit. 

Sometimes I wish I could go back to being a child. Where the most simple thing of a mobile would keep the Z's coming or in my case a white Gauss canopy. I couldn't sleep without it. It was like a princess' bug net for bad dreams. It kept out the monsters and the slimy things perched underneath my bed because it was too pleasant for them. Too soft. 

I'm just not tired at all now. Maybe it's from all those caffinated cups of tea this morning. I drink tea when it rains because it gives me an excuse to sit on the porch and watch it rain without worrying about what I should be doing. I should be sleeping.

Hairlines-- An Angsty Memoir

“She’s ten, ten going on twenty.”

My naïve father was still convinced that this corny and awkward conversation starter would make any listener elbow the person next to them and say “good one, huh?” with no sarcasm.

I would look way up; confused as to if I was supposed to say something then. I would stand there, watched by whoever my dad had managed to drag over and attempt to make me their favorite little girl. By default, I would lift the thin edges of my corduroy or velvet or cotton dress, and trip over my feet to make my way to the back of his or my mother’s legs, hidden in safety from all of those people who were so much taller than me.

I used to think of adults as trees; towering, huge poles, suspended by only their own will power, overlooking the world in a way that us kids just couldn’t. We were mere flowers, innocent and looking the other animals in the eye. The grown-ups were the out of place ones, only able to see and interact with each other unless they felt like getting down on one knee and finding an exasperating grass stain on their work pants. As a child I could never comprehend why we were smaller. We were clearly smarter, cooler, prettier, and obviously deserving. As my perspective changed, it was almost as if some of the wiring in my brain completely un-plugged itself and it seemed I was all out of electrical tape.

In literally no time all, I went through some significant physical changes: my blond hair grew darker, my skinny waist skinnier, and above all, I ROCKETED in height. I became one of those trees before any of my friends had become holly bushes. At first, I thought that height gave me power. Gave me…authority; and it actually did. As a child I was looked up to mentally AND physically. New friends thought I was older and therefore, more mature which was now something cool, not weird. But as the wires in my head began to unplug themselves, I began to think of things a little different.

The main issue was this: I didn’t want more authority than my other friends. It was fun for a while, but then I realized that just like Ariel in The Little Mermaid who wanted to be human, I wanted to be recognized as myself rather than, “a very tall young girl”. Just like how the average pregnant teenager is referred to as “that pregnant teenager”, I felt as though I was a stand-out object instead of a stand-out individual.

I spent long nights awake in bed, clutching my sheets, resorting to fetal position in result of excruciatingly painful growing pains. I couldn’t help but pity myself; a child prodigy of something I couldn’t control and just didn’t want.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“She’s fifteen, fifteen going on fifty” I bet you can guess whose hopeful voice conveys this dramatic overstatement to a random person.

My father is an antiquarian of memories. He collects things because he’s afraid that everyone else will forget that it’s important unless it’s kept in a storage warehouse. He fears being alone with his own memories and nostalgia. He winks instead of saying hello which started scaring my female friends when they became teenagers. My father starts twitching before he starts crying, and starts speaking and doing before he starts thinking. He has salt-and-pepper-hair and wore high wasted jeans and wife-beater tank tops when he was dashing and in his twenties. He tried and tries so hard to help me overcome my fear of being different. He used to take me to the beach.

When you go to the beach, there are barnacle covered binoculars on the docks. If you put a quarter in a pair, the binoculars turn on and you can look out along the savory liquid glass, collapsing onto itself, you can watch the bird’s smooth glide along the warm ocean winds. You can watch the world from the perspective of two marble sized circles and the lingering smell of seaweed. This was how my growing up became. Not the seaweed or the marble sized circles, but it was like watching a family of pelicans up high in the wind. So high you have to crane your neck forward to watch them, and then having to dramatically jerk your head down when the birds take their fast dive into the water to scoop up a mouthful of jumping fish. The change of perspective happened so fast and was such a new, strange sensation, that it was almost frightening. I’m not ready. I’m not ready at age fifteen to look down at my own mother.

At this point, I have become Waldo on a page of black. An obsolete comment in a silent hall full of people, a whale at the Nature center. People see me from miles away while I watch hairlines. Dark brown, black, red, light brown, blond, white with little specks of dark brown at the roots, blue, sometimes green, short, long, gone. You look me in stomach, I look you in the hair line, that’s just how it is.

As a little girl, I was basically the epitome of cliché. I dreamt of being a princess and driving a red coverable buggy. I liked kittens more than breathing and breathing more than mushrooms. A devastating fact for me growing up was realizing that high heels, (pink to match my dress, of course) weren’t really going to be an option. The obsession started with Cinderella and her glass slipper. (I never understood why it was called a “slipper” when clearly it was a stiletto.) I dreamed of dropping my own glass stiletto at a magical ball, only to be discovered by the most hansom prince in the whole town who comes to find me because we fell in love at first glance.

I remember when I was ten or eleven or so, watching all of those good cop-bad cop movies with the irresistibly sexy female lead who secretly carried a gun in her guarder. That scene that painstakingly replayed itself in my mind: Limo. Red carpet. Two men get out and squint at the paparazzi’s flash cameras. Pause. Anticipation. Red stiletto. Flawless. One foot out. Pause. Anticipation. Gorgeous. And then cue the loud music as she struts her way to the entry of the building, man at each hip. This scene would be nothing with out the shoes. Is the idea that I stood by.

Several years later, when I realized how far the pelicans had dove down into that water and how fast, I noticed that I would never, ever get away with shoes like that. So my corrupted and self conscious little self started dreaming a little different. Underground shoes, for women who are just too tall. I imaged bulldozing my way through life, making a path everywhere I go, walking below everyone so that I could look others in the eye. They would be fashionable, of course. Practical. Life savers. Killers. I wasn’t comfortable with whom I was, and so I lay in bed at night devising schemes to kill that person and become someone else.

Sanity at a standstill, my own mind has been degrading me more than anyone else for the majority of my “of the charts” life. The wires have been cut. The wires have been cut and I’m making amends with those pelicans that have caused my neck a little bit of pain. I’ve embraced my inner Waldo, sung my obsolete comment in the silent hall, and nobody can stop me from being Cinderella if I want to be. Because she’s walking into this one barefoot.  

CHANGE And The Lists That Come With It.

In a situation where one might leave their comfort zone, where one might step outside of that place that they have built their dam, step significantly far for the first step, one might grieve. Or one might pretend not to grieve but in reality, they're grieving more than they've ever grieved before. When I leave this place, this place that I have chosen put all of my trust and love into, of course I'll grieve.I'm enthralled. Avid even.I'm so excited to step out of my world and experience another for a change because well, I've got a case of xenophilia and I honestly don't see that going anywhere.I'll likely love it. Maybe even choose to stay for a second year, a third... But for now. I'll grieve; and I'm okay with that. Maybe grief is too intense of a word. Nobody's dying or leaving forever(I hope) and I am SO excited. But I am scared.

•  I'm scared of scary people following me around.
•  I'm scared of leaving my mother and step-dad for a year.(I''m sure they'll enjoy a break, but if not for their sake then for mine. My mother gets me through everything.)
• I'm scared that when I come back Asheville will have become either Los Angeles or Kansas and I really don't like either of those places.
• I'm scared that I'll get attached to people there and it will hurt so bad to leave them.
• I'm scared of leaving the people here that I'm already attached to and it will hurt so bad to leave them. (even for just a year or two.)
• I'm scared that they'll be too academically lenient on me and I'll have a hard time adjusting back into whatever school I'll be at in senior year.
• I'm scared that I'll sit around in my room all day blogging and anxiously making lists because well, that's what I do when I'm anxious.

Not only do I have commitment issues, I also have a problem with change which is one reason why I'm trying to completely submerge myself in it.CHANGE. A terrifying thing that takes a whole lot of practice. I know, I know. I'm starting pretty drastically. I mean. A different country drastically. But still. Something I am usually good at is taking a risk, and I love an adventure. So what the heck. Here I come. 

(I love old maps.)

Thoughts of Train A

I'm so confused. Sometimes the odds are truly in my favor and I just don't know what to do with them. I often feel overwhelmed with happiness towards certain situations/opportunities/people. I'll just be sitting there, watching and listening and becoming so sucked up in other people's happiness and curiosity that I'm overcome with excitement. Like when you realize how amazing and spectacular somebody in your life is even if you had never fully appreciated it before and then when the realization comes to you you're happier than ever when you realize they're in your life. Even excited. Does that make sense? It's like sitting at the edge of a giant vacuum , strapped to a thousand pound weight, secured, watching the wind suck in but failing to reach you, and just realizing the cool, calming breeze flowing through your hair. I like it. It's a serene standstill of a moment that fits like a glove for me.

A girl in my Theater class called me quiet today. Funny thing is, I'm not quiet. That's what I always think when people say that to me. "you're so quiet!" ~ "you don't know me!" I can get loud. In fact, most of the time, I am loud. You just gotta know how to make me feel comfortable and you'll regret it. I've had a lot of people say to me recently: "You know, when I first met you, I thought you were really quiet and shy. WOW WAS I WRONG" I open up to people. 

Love is a funny thing and although I've only experienced one form of it, I can feel it's force on the palm of my  subconscious 25-8.  I don't know where it came from but I haven't heard this song in forever and out of nowhere it comes inside my head. Sing me a song, you're the piano man... we're all in the mood for a melody... I called my step-dad in the room and sung the verses to him, asking what it could be. He picked up my guitar off the stand and played the first half of the song, It's lovely. Piano man, by Billy Joel. Click here to listen to it. 

Officially being my most random post, i'll close with that. I'm tired and have a headache from the non-stop thinking that had been overwhelming my head recently. 

Goodnight.

10 Things That I Just Can't Stand

Lately, a lot of things have been getting to me so I've decided to compile just ten of those things in hope of just a slight bit of relief for getting it out there. What can't you stand?
I can't stand:
1. The sound/feel/look of ripped paper. I just don't understand the point of it.

2. The unnecessary and may I add non-"neccessful" act of tapping your feet at a constant and fast pace. Unless it's to go along with music.

3. As you know, airports.

4. Mushrooms.

5. Naked mole rats. (Except for the one in Kim Possible)

GOOD

BAD

6. This word.

7. Horror movies.
                                    [I didn't type that into Google images because I'm too scared]

8. Being peer pressured into doing things that are probably good for me anyways but I just really don't want to do. (I ALWAYS give in)

9. Living an hour and a half away from my two best friends.

10. Being unsatisfied. Because I know that I have too many wonderful things and people and opportunities in my life.


 So shut up Tessa. And make a list of things you do like, right now!!

Maybe tomorrow... Goodnight.
-TRA

Easter

The definition of Easter,(which must be capitalized or else a little red squiggly line goes under it which bothers me more than it should) is: The most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The real definition of Easter is: Candy. Yum. Sick. Ew. Hunt. Find. Yum. Eat. Friends.(but don't eat friends) Spring. Bunnies. Sun. Wind. Run. Yum. Scream. Gross. Candy. Candy.

I've eaten so much candy today. As a matter of fact i'm popping a chocolate kiss into my mouth as i'm one hand-edly typing this. Mm. Good stuff. My grandmother used to always keep a bag of caramels in her pantry for me when I visited. I would finish the bag and then next thing I knew there'd be another to replace it, untouched and delicious. I love Easter. I've always loved it and it's hard to appreciate it as you get older, but I'm doing my best to preserve the fun of holidays the best I can before I'm old and crochety and ruin all the neighborhood kids' fun by knocking them out with my cane and eating all their candy with my cats. I remember when I would anticipate every holiday months in advance, planning what I would do, where, and who with. It's much different now. I usually forget it's there until the day before, get a burst of excitement and then have about half the amount of fun I used to. Because I guess the anticipation is the best part of it all. Anyways, it's the last day of spring break, I have a play report to write, more candy to eat, and I have to catch up on sleep. To bad my body feels like it's 5:45 pm right now instead of 8:45 because of my travels and it's likely I won't get to bed real soon. I had a good day with a couple of friends, filling and hiding, and searching for Easter eggs and feeling young again.(at least I did) Because we're too old now for our Easter eggs to be filled and hidden for us, unfortunately. It's like people think that because people get older, they don't want to have any G-rated fun! Which frankly, most of us don't but I sure do. 

Find love, find a store, buy some candy and grow down. What's the rush? 

An Extreme and Unrelenting Case of Airport fever

I seem to have an extreme and unrelenting case of Airport fever. Not only does it come in big whaps in the face, it literally effects me every time i'm traveling. Every time. I'm not able to simply successfully check in, find my gate, board the plane, and make my connecting flight; oh no, that would just be too easy.
A few years ago on a trip to Los Angles to visit my father during the summer, I had about a... half hour lay over in the Atlanta airport, (which is massive by the way) I got off the plane from Asheville and booked it because, well, everyone always told me to find your gate first and then dilly-dally. So, I ran around for about ten minutes trying to find the gate and after running up and down several escalators and taking a fast-train to the other section of the airport, I realized that was running faster than felt natural... I forgot my suitcase. With about fifteen minutes to spare I ran as fast as I could back to where I had come from, grabbed my suitcase, and ran. Honestly I didn't know where the hell I was going and ended up having to call my step-dad for help. I was then followed by a man shouting "HEY LADY" for the longest time. Frankly all it did was freak me out and cause me to run faster until I finally took a peek behind me only to find a poor man out of breath, hobbling at this point, behind me waving my jacket around in the air.
I had dropped it. Poor guy. What a nice person. (By the way this exact issue with the jacket happened today in the airport except for several large women who worked at the airport just screamed "Maim... Maim MAIM. MAIM. MAIM!!!!!!!" At me as if I was the only fucking maim in the building and I finally turned around to see what the commotion was. After picking it up and profusely thanking the obnoxious people, one of the women proceeded to furiously pat her head and stare at  me with her eyes quite wide.)
Well it's a mystery to me still what the heck she was doing there. I'm still wondering about it.

Also I wish the Hispanic women behind the counter right in front of me could realize that when she looks me up and down, leans to her co-worker and says the word: "GRANDE", I know that she's saying i'm tall. I'm not deficient.
With jet lag under my belt and Carolina air welcomed into my lungs, I think i'm ready for a hot cup of tea, a bubble bath and maybe some How I Met Your Mother. Spring break is coming to an end and I will savor every last piece of it until it's over. I will end here with a short series of improvisational haikus.
Ehem...

I do prefer cars.
I'd rather not fall from sky.
With tons of strangers. 


I can't find my way.
Candy is too expensive.
I want more candy. 


Asleep with water. 
Spilled it in someones sandals.**
She used a napkin. 


Woke up to early. 
I went to bed way too late. 
Refrigerator. 


-TRA


**Yeah also last week on the way to San Francisco I fell asleep with a cup of water in my hands. I jerked awake and I had spilled the entirety of the cup into the women next to me's sandal. HAH. (cough, cough,  *EUCAF* [extreme and unrelenting case of Airport fever])

Italia

Won't be long until I'm walking the streets of Italy for a year. I definitely have my doubts about studying abroad for an entire year but hot damn, am I excited.
Don't get me wrong, cute foreign men on mopeds are fantastic, but the sure aren't good for my mental heath!
Ciao!

Gobshiting The Night Away

Is it wrong that whilst I sip from the waxy paper lip of a Starbucks cup containing a "Grande Caramel Macchiato" all I'm able to think about is poor Chinese children slaving away in sweat shops? My sister, (who works in the local cupcake and cafe shop in down town Asheville, Sisters Mcmullen) gobshites a whole lot about the awful coffee, service, and ethics of every Starbucks ever. Spending the past four or five years working in a place that sells free trade organic coffee, I can't blame her but is Starbucks really that bad? Because of her, personal preference, and the abundance of fantastic local cafes in downtown Asheville, I've stuck to those as apposed to the chain but in some instances, for example NOW, when I'm traveling or in some provincial location where I can't simply hop in the car and find a little cafe, Starbucks really does the job. I thought about doing some research, maybe getting some information so I could see and gobshite myself about the dirty business. But I settled for the security of a Macchiato and a good piece of coffee cake no matter the time or place.
 Have a good weekend!

I Am Confined- Position Poetry

I am confined.

Confined by these sticky walls,

Etched by those like me, those who

Force themselves to look directly in

to the off-white toilet bowl of their reality.

I am irrelevant.

Irrelevant to no extent;

Not thinking to catch myself when I fall

Leaving myself behind in the darkness.

Watching only my own dreams.

I am aware.

Aware of bodies pushing by me,

Soft but hard thumps against my shoulders.

Like fist against carpet.

I can’t sleep.

The loose latch on my window rattles

Steadily as the wind pushes fast against it,

Whistling like a tea pot. My head hates me;

Wants to throw me to the streets and spit on

My thighs.

I cry.

Like rain thundering down my spotted cheeks;

Each drop colliding into the next like a chaotic

Shopping mall. I mourn myself.

Because to most people, I’m dead.

Because I’m not worth anything more.

Because I hate myself more when I remember

The cellophane wrappers tucked cleverly beneath

My pillow.

Because I don’t look like what is pretty. 

--TRA

The Middle Kingdom

We have just recently cleared out the room in the middle of the house that used to be my step-dad’s office, (thank god, it was a nightmare in there) and dubbed it: The Den. My family used to be so ghetto. We used to hide our small, boxy television set in the linen closet and when we wanted to watch a movie, one of us would have to drag it out of the closet, find the dvd player which always seemed to change location, and set it on a chair in front of our couch while the organic popcorn was popping in the distance. Pretty soon the old, boxy “T.V.” broke down as well as the dvd player and we started to watch movies on one of the family laptops. The screen being not all that much different in size as the old T.V.

This past year, my mother and step-dad decided that we would be slightly less “ghetto” while I was off at boarding school having the time of my life. (Not sarcastic) They bought something that surprised me so much that I just didn’t know what to say. 
A new television. A FLAT SCREEN TELEVISION. WHAT”S UP WITH THAT??!! When did we become modern? When did be become “normal”? When did we become the sort of family that owned a television that didn’t come from the caveman days?? I didn’t know how I felt about this. I didn’t know if this was a good thing that we were now so modern and tech-y. I was weirded out to the max. But then, when we started to watch movies again I realized this: We were still keeping our (FLAT SCREEN) television in our linen closet… Did this make us more weird, or less? It was quite hard to tell. 

This went on all summer and when friends came over I would drag the huge thing into my room and it was weird. We were those weird people that bought a fancy, nice, relatively expensive television and were ashamed of it.

 Now… Now that Peter, my step-dad is out of the middle room, my mom decided that a change was going to happen: We were going to be (RELATIVELY) normal. It was a shock when she transformed the room into a den with a nice futon, a desk, lamps, flowers, and of course, the television. Although, the television is hidden away in a huge wooden piece of furniture like they have in hotel rooms, it’s better. My friends were surprised by how normal our new situation is. So now it’s much easier to sit down with our bowl of ridiculously organic popcorn and watch a good movie. In our Middle Kingdom.

Like normal people?