Life is good...

It's Christmas break,
I'm at my parents new cabin in the woods, sitting in the great room overlooking their pond and the woods covered with fresh white snow,
there's a fire going in the wood burning stove,
my dog is curled up next to me,
life is good.

finals week kills me twice a year

I'm done will all of my finals, my tests and such. But I still have some things I need to finish up. I need to catch up on my lab reflections for conducting. I've been really bad about that. I also have to finish my paper for Music History. I really should force myself to work on these things tonight, but I just don't have the energy. Last night, I went to bed at 2am and woke up at 7am. I'm not loving this 5 hrs of sleep thing very much. So I'm going to go to bed pretty soon so I can be rested for tomorrow. I'm working a crapload of hours tomorrow. (that reminds me, I forgot to do my timesheet for last week. that might be bad.) And I have to do all that stuff I just mentioned.

Oh! Today I had my voice jury. I leveled up! (to explain, when you take lessons for credit, there are different skill levels. for voice, there's 2000, 3000, and 4000. I leveled up from 3000 to 4000) I was very excited. Also, I had my final conducting lab today. I conducted Set Me as a Seal by Rene Clausen. It was so cool. We got to conduct Kapelle. I've never conducted that well (I know my experience is limited, but still). The song really resonated with me when I did it with Kapelle for Fall Tour. It really meant something to me. That song was inside me, in my heart. And since it was in my heart, everything else came. I didn't even really have to think about it. I don't know if it was mainly because the song really resonated with me or because I knew it so well, but my hands just...did it. It was like they were on autopilot, but I still had control. And because of that, I was free to listen. I could hear everything. And I was paying attention to the right parts at the right times. It was so amazing. It wasn't perfect, but it was still pretty good. I loved it so much.

I'll be glad when finals week is over, when everything is finally done.

Come soon, Lord Jesus

I love Lessons and Carols. It's one of my favorite Kapelle performances. My dad said to me after this afternoon's service, "I don't know that it's Christmas until I come up here for Lessons and Carols." I would have to agree. It's not Christmas until Lessons and Carols. For me it's everything that I love about Christmas. It's incredibly reflective and meditative. It sort of puts everything into perspective. I don't like Christmas songs unless they're fairly meditative. I hate the cutesy, commercial songs (ex: John Rutter.). They seem insincere and most of the time they're just for flash and show. But most of the songs that we do at Lessons and Carols are the kind of Christmas songs that I love. This year we sang a song that is about Herod killing all the baby boys under age 2. I never really put much thought into that, but this song just makes my heart break. It's lamenting for the "little tiny child[ren]" that Herod killed.

Furthermore, Lessons and Carols affected me more deeply than usual this year, for some reason. I'm not really sure why. It could be that for a lot of my friends from Kapelle, this is their last Lessons and Carols. That's possible. But I think another explanation was that I kept thinking about all of the suffering going on in our world today. Saturday night, it made me cry. Advent is all about the anticipation of waiting for the Savior to come, waiting for Jesus. He came, but we're still waiting. We're still waiting for him to come back and end all of this worldly suffering. My heart breaks for all of those who suffer much more than I do.

Come soon, Lord Jesus.

I miss blogging....

I've been wanting to write a blog for SO long, but I've been so busy. I have a huge paper due tomorrow (well, just the rough draft-I only technically have to turn in half of it) and I haven't even started yet. I have my sources, and I have an outline, I just have to write it all. My paper is for 20th Century Music History and Techniques. We have to write a term paper about a 20th century composer who is still alive. All the good ones got taken early, and so I've been struggling to find a composer, and I've finally settled on John Corigliano. I've heard of him, I think, but I'm not familiar with any of his music. Oh! Except that he wrote the score for the movie, The Red Violin, which I've seen. So I'm thinking it'll be a long night. I'm definitely not going to pull an all-nighter, but I will stay in the Kretzmann Computer Lab until late. They lock up at around 11pm, but normally let you stay in the building until about 1:30pm (which doesn't ever happen in any other building). They sure like us musicians around here.

Ugh. I have a headache. It's because it got super cold all of a sudden. I hate it. It was so cold today.

We've been searching frantically for a roommate this week, seeing as the end of the semester is fast approaching. Sam and I were freaking out a little bit, but we posted our apartment on a few different sites, and got some replies that look really promising. One girl is coming on Monday to see the apartment. She seems like a good fit, and she's really interested.

Thanksgiving was awesome. I went to Springfield, MO to spend the holiday with my boyfriend Shannon. We hadn't seen each other in a really long time and that was really starting to take a toll on us. Thanksgiving was really good for us. I also needed it to sort of de-stress, to take some time and not do any schoolwork at all. I can't wait for New Year's. I'm going back down there after Christmas, which is in less than a month. I'm so excited!

Sigh. This blog made me happy. I want to try and blog more, but with the end of the semester, I just don't have as much free time to blog and check facebook and such. It makes me sad. I can't wait for Christmas break. I need it so badly.

Sick Days

I've been sick at home the last couple of days. I've been fighting a cold the past week or so, and it got a lot worse in the past couple days. I'm kind of proud of myself for forcing myself to stay home to get well. I don't like to just not go to school. But I need to get well, especially since I'm driving 9 hours to Springfield, MO tomorrow. I must say, the days off have paid off. If I had gone to school yesterday, I would not have gotten better at all. I'm feeling better from yesterday, but still not great. Some of my professors may be disappointed that I'm missing class, but I need to take some time to get well. I need to better recognize when I need to take some personal time. And I feel like I'm getting better at it.

Snow

This morning I was sitting on our couch in the living room, thinking about Lessons and Carols my freshman year. We were lining up to process in for the Saturday night service when it started snowing outside. It was snowing these great, big, fat flakes, the first big snow of the season. By the time the service was done, there were several inches on the ground. It was Christmas. It felt like Christmas, everything new and white and fresh and exciting. When I woke up from this pleasant memory and looked out our front window, it was snowing.

It's a goldenrod kind of day

So, I think I'm going to start describing my mood in terms of color. Such as, "I feel goldenrod today." Which I do. I do feel goldenrod. The thing that prompted this is that yesterday I bought a new journal and lots of different colored markers to write in it with. So I'm feeling very...colorful. I wonder what color I'll be tomorrow.

Story Time!

Once upon a time,
there lived a cat named Bruce.
Bruce liked very much to annoy his caretakers,
but unbeknownst to them, behind the couch,
he had a motorcycle,
which he liked to ride when the girls were gone.
But he also secretly worked in cooperation
with the Forest Park Police Department!
One day, when Bruce was sitting in the front window,
checking the streets for potential crime,
an armored truck crashed through the Forest Park PD building,
which was right across the street from where he was sitting!
"Crap, the girls are still here," He thought to himself as pondered what to do next.
He would have to wait until the girls left the apartment,
and he would be safe to leave and aid the Police Department.

"Ouch, my foot!"
cried the Police Chief as the armored truck ran over his foot.

Finally, the last girl left the apartment,
and Bruce was finally able to
go out the door to the porch, climb down the tree, and run across the street to the Police Dept.

The other night when Laura and I went to Molly Malone's, we played the game where you go back and forth and tell a story, one line at time. This was the product of exhaustion, stress, and alcohol. Some of it (a lot of it) I made up because I didn't remember exactly what we said. The part about "Ouch my foot!" was when Laura actually hit her foot on the table. It was her turn to say a line of the story, so I thought that was her line. So I continued it with "cried the Police Chief as the armored truck ran over his foot." We laughed loudly and obnoxiously for a long time. It made my heart happy.

Grey's Anatomy

Grey's Anatomy is like crack. Laura and I haven't watched our shows (Grey's Anatomy and Heroes) in weeks because we haven't had TV. We just got it back today, and we're having a marathon. We can't stop watching Grey's Anatomy. It's so addicting. Like crack.

P.S. Don't judge us. So what if we like Grey's Anatomy?

Come, Thou Fount of Ev'ry Blessing

Come, Thou Fount of ev'ry blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of Mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
While the hope of endless glory
fills my heart with joy and love,
Teach me ever to adore Thee;
May I still thy goodness prove.

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be;
Let that grace now like a fetter
Bind my wand'ring heart to Thee;
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love,
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Oh, that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see thy lovely face;
Clothed then in the blood-washed linen,
How I'll sing Thy wondrous grace!
Come my Lord, no longer tarry;
Take my ransom'd soul away;
Send Thine angels soon to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

New Scab

Well, more like wound. And on someone else, not me. And I'm sorry for it. I've done some terrible things in my life, but this one takes the cake. I never wanted to hurt you and make you cry. But it has to be this way for awhile, until I figure myself out some more. Because right now, I'm absolutely clueless. I'm sorry.

And I'm sorry for being cryptic, guys. But right now, I need to be just a little cryptic.

Definitely, Maybe

I love this movie. It has a beautifully crafted storyline and the acting is wonderful. But it makes me feel like someone ripped a scab off my arm, a scab that was almost healed and is now bleeding again. It's supposed to be a happy ending. Will (Ryan Reynolds) ends up with the girl he's in love with. But the bottom line is, Maya's (Abigail Breslin) parents are still getting divorced. That fact negates the happy ending for me, and at the end I feel like there's an open wound in the middle of my chest. Note to self: never watch this movie again.

But I know that that scab won't ever fully heal. That sometimes something will rip it off and remind me of my parents, forcing me to start all over again. It gets a little better when I think of all the good God worked in our lives after it-both of my parents remarrying and being happy again, gaining an even bigger family, and even meeting my boyfriend. But sometimes I still wish that it had never happened, that my parents were still together, that my childhood had been some semblance of normal. I know that we have to make the most of our circumstances, and that God will get us through anything. So here I am, still hanging on, hoping that things will turn out okay, that the pain will lessen, that I'll never have to put my (future hypothetical) children through that.

My heart feels heavy.

Mood boosters

I had the most amazing voice lesson today. I was going into it absolutely dreading, praying to God that it didn't end with me in tears yet again. But I sounded wonderful. My voice was in that sweet spot without any effort at all. Everything was so easy, and my voice sounded so relaxed. My soft palate was raised and my diaphragm was engaged without me even having to force them to be so. I warmed up to a SUSTAINED high D-flat without any effort. It was so easy to sing, and my voice didn't even feel strained or tired after singing it. It gave me the biggest confidence booster, way bigger than singing in the recital on Monday did, and it put me in the greatest mood. I can't even begin to explain why this happened, why I was so calm and relaxed during a voice lesson which I was dreading during a day that certainly could have been better.

I also got to play with Brittan's new puppy, Tango this afternoon during her clarinet lesson. She just got the puppy, and she's so cute! I miss dogs, and this really put me in a great mood. I love puppies. I want a puppy....

Relax!

I don't understand why people stress out so much over the outcomes of elections. In the end, everything is going to be okay. God is going to take care of us. At the end of the day, no matter who is running the country, God is always in control. We're going to be okay. Just relax.

For the record...

No, I did not vote. I do have a semi-legitimate excuse. My parents just moved two weeks ago, and I could not register at our new address because the deadline had lapsed. And I also was not aware that I could register in Forest Park, since I don't claim my apartment address as my permanent residence, and since I'm technically a student in River Forest, not Forest Park, where I live.

Also, I like neither Obama nor McCain. However, I do realize that voting is important, especially since the outcome of this election will have a great effect on this country.

Don't you worry, I'll follow my rule of, "If you don't vote, you can't complain." It'll be really difficult, but I'll complain to myself, and not aloud. So don't yell at me for not voting. And don't judge me.

kthanksbye.

Warning: this will probably be a bit depressing.

Lately, I haven't been feeling like myself, whoever (whomever?) that happens to be. I kind of feel like I'm going through my days in a daze. (haha. I enjoyed that.) But seriously, yesterday was a complete blurr. My performance at tonight's NASM recital was also a blurr. I don't remember a single moment of it. Wait, that's not true. I remember thinking at this one part, "whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, half step, half step." But that's about it. I don't even remember if it was good or not. (Side note: NASM is National Association for Schools of Music, and the music department here is trying to get accredited and the recital is for the music department to show off people of different talents and levels. I performed Quando men vo from La Boheme.) And afterwards, I just felt...nothing. I wasn't proud of myself for performing the piece, because I didn't remember if it was good or not. I didn't want to hear people tell me how well I did, because I didn't really care, to be completely honest. And I don't really know why.

Not only that, but I've also...been starting to care less about my classes. Wait...I do care about my final scene for A&D, but that's the thing I probably care the most about.

And I'm no closer to figuring out my life's calling or whatever than I was at my last entry, which is extremely discouraging.

I just want to crawl into bed and sleep forever.

Life after college?

I feel...lost. I have no idea what I want to do after I graduate, and it scares me. I really think I could grow into choral conducting, but I'm also really starting to enjoy directing. I feel like I have to pick one, and I don't know which one to choose. I don't want to choose either of them, really. I want to be really great at both of them, and study both of them after I graduate. But...that's the way college is. In undergrad, you're pretty good at a lot of things, and then in grad school, you become excellent in just one thing. That's the way the process works. But you know me. The way things have always been normally isn't good enough for me. And another thing is, I'm just too preoccupied just getting through the week to think about what I'm going to do in a year...a year...I graduate in a year from this coming December. That's really scary. I'm more scared than excited. I'm scared to be thrust into the real world with no real clue about what I'm doing. At least education majors have a goal: get a job, be a teacher. The only thing left to decide is where. But for me, I'm still trying to figure out the what. And I hate that. I've never really been certain about what I want to do with my life, my ultimate career goal. It's changed so much over the years, and I've never been like, "oh my gosh, I HAVE to do this!" It's always been just a neat idea that I might be able to do. I don't think that means I have no goals, or no ambition. I'm just really torn. I'm good at more than one thing, and so obviously that makes it harder to choose. My parents have always assured me of that, all the way from when I was in high school, agonizing over what to study in college, which of course affected where I wanted to go to school. They told me that it's okay to not know. It just means you like and are good at more than one thing, which is good.

But none of this helps me figure out my life. And that's the depressing part.

Decompressing

I haven't really had sufficient time to decompress after Fall Tour. It was a real growing experience for me. I feel like my voice grew and changed just over the course of the weekend. Of course, 8 performances in three days will do that to you. I wish that I hadn't been so tired the whole time. I would have like to have gotten to know the new Kapelle members better. But I was just so exhausted the whole time, and putting all my effort into just making it through the next concert or church service to really care that much about socializing. I think I'll be able to get to know everyone better on Spring Tour in March. That's really far away, I know, but spring tour is a lot more relaxed than fall tour is.

I think that this tour I was so exhausted that I had a really hard time connecting emotionally to the music. I felt like I was pretending to understand the character of the pieces.

The dominating feeling of the weekend was exhaustion. The whole weekend was kind of a blurr. I feel like it went by really quickly, but also that last Friday feels like two weeks ago. I really dislike fall tour because your whole sense of time is thrown off. You sing so much and the days are so long that you lose track of exactly how many days have passed. I'm kind of glad that I only have one fall tour left.

sigh

Okay, so I may have been overreacting a LITTLE. (I bet you didn't see THAT one coming. ;) ) Everything worked out okay, and I should have known that it would, because it always does. I really need to stop worrying. It's bad for my health.

People will always let you down, but God will never disappoint you.

I just wish people would do the things they said they would do, keep the commitments they said they would, come to the places they said they would be when they said they would be there. Some circumstances are unavoidable, I understand that. There are just somethings that you just have to cancel other things for. But this... can't you go and buy a car tomorrow? "I'm supposed to do this thing tonight, but I'll just tell her we have to do it later, because I don't feel like it, and I'd much rather buy a car." NEWS FLASH: sometimes we have to do things we don't feel like doing. Today, I didn't feel like singing in chapel with Resonanz, or going to work, but I did both of those because I said I would. This thing is really important to me. But I guess you're just too caught up in whatever the hell it is YOU want to give a damn about things that are important to other people.

I know that I'm a control freak, and that sometimes I wish I could control what other people do, make them do the things they said they would, keep their commitments. And I know that I can't make people keep their promises. Only God really keeps his promises. He's the only one that can truly do EVERYTHING he says he will. And I have to learn to be okay with just God keeping his promises. I have to learn to let that be a comfort to me. But it's not really a comfort at this point. It's still a disappointment that the people who say they'll do something won't really do it.

Little kids are amazing

Yesterday a girl in one of the preschool classrooms I work in asked me, "Why is your hair orange?"
"Why is my hair orange?" I repeated. "Because God made it that way."
"No!" she exclaimed.
"No? Then why is my hair red?"
"Because Jesus died on the cross. See?" And she pointed to the sculpture of Jesus on the cross on the outside of the Chapel.

At first I brushed this off as a cute little kid-ism, and it could certainly be said that she saw the sculpture and saw my hair and then drew a completely unrelated comparison. But I'm starting to see more in this explanation of why my hair is "orange." My hair is certainly this color due to my family heritage (red hair is a recessive trait, both of your parents have to have it, etc.) and also because God made it that way. I could have just as easily have had brown hair, like my mother. But I didn't. He decided to make me look different than a lot of people. This is one of the ways he made me unique. We all have different traits and gifts that God gives us, and this is one of the ways he sets us apart from each other. But we are also set apart in a different way.

He has set us apart through Jesus' death on the cross. We are his own. We are separate and different from everyone else. Holy-"set apart."

I could have taken this way too far, in a direction that doesn't even make sense. But her statement just seemed too profound to be just a little kid's nonsense statement.

Fear

I feel like shit. What else is new? I know I said I wasn't really looking forward to Kapelle Tour this weekend, but I've changed my mind. I'm kind of looking forward to doing nothing but sitting on a bus and singing all weekend. It'll be a nice escape from everything. Things haven't been so good. I won't go into detail, though. I just wish things were better. I feel really overwhelmed right now. And afraid.

Messiaen

Tonight I went to this concert at school with music all by Olivier Messiaen. It was amazing. The first half the the song cycle, Poemes pour Mi sung by Julia Bentley, who is an absolutely fantastic mezzo-soprano. Messiaen wrote the piece for his wife. "Mi" was his nickname for her. Sometimes on music he'd written he'd write a small staff at the top of the first page and write an "E" in it (the note, E) because essentially the third scale degree is "mi" in solfege. Sorry, I'm a music nerd. I'll try and put it more simply. In The Sound of Music when Maria is explaining music to the kids. "Do, a deer, a female deer. Re, a drop of golden sun. Mi, a name I call myself..." Okay, so "Do, Re, Mi." Mi was Messiaen's wife's nickname. Goodness! That took WAY too long.

Anyway, the first half was that song set, and the second half was Quartet for the End of Time. It's so amazing. It's based on the book of Revelation. What Messiaen tries to achieve is the sense of timelessness of heaven. I'm not going to even try to describe how amazing it is. You'll just have to listen to it yourself. It made my soul happy. I left with my soul filled to the brim with Messiaen's visions in color of the book of Revelation.

He had this disease where his senses got all mixed up. So he would hear a chord and see a color. Most of his pieces have color discriptions written in them, like "deep violet with gold flakes crossed with orange streaks," or something to that effect.

I could go on and on and on about all the things I learned at a Lectures in Church Music session this afternoon about Messiaen. But I won't bore you.

Long story short, Messiaen is wonderful. I feel peaceful tonight.

Cleaning the Apologies off of the Floor of my Depressed Heart

I cleaned my room today. I can actually see the floor. That's really exciting for me. It rarely ever happens. There's still stuff piled on shelves, but everything is off the floor, which I really enjoy. I hope to keep it approximately this clean for a long while. It'll be a big challenge for me. I'm not so good at keeping things clean

Although I did run the dishwasher, and empty the recycling, and sweep and swiffer the kitchen floor, and clean the stove yesterday. I've appeased my guilt for feeling like I haven't contributed to the apartment enough, although I did buy groceries on Thursday.

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I'm starting to think that it doesn't matter at all when I apologize, because I say I'm sorry so much. I'm the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Maybe I should just quit apologizing altogether and come off as a heartless, selfish bitch who thinks she's right no matter what she does. I could try being a bitch for a while.
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I'm really lonely. I'm not looking forward to fall tour next weekend. I love being in Kapelle, and I love performing at churches and stuff, but the bus rides are really lonely. I like everyone in Kapelle, but I don't have a real connection with anyone. Most everyone has a best friend that they sit with the whole time and talk and listen to music together and play travel games. And there I am sitting all by myself listening to my ridiculously depressing music and writing in my journal while trying not to cry.

It's not just Kapelle that's making me lonely. It's school in general. There's so many things to do, and I feel so behind on all of them. It's the weather, too. I hate it when it gets colder. I think I have seasonal depression. I get sad when it rains, and when it gets cold. Snow makes me happy, though. That's the only redeeming thing about winter. I love having a white blanket all over everything. It all feels new and refreshed. It's sunny outside today, but the slight chill overpowers it for me. I want to crawl into bed and cry myself to sleep and never wake up.
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EDIT: I feel very small.

"Drowning in God's love..."

I think that's how Pastor James put it. I like that phrase. I want to drown in God's love. I want to be so completely immersed in it that there's nothing else.

Sanctuary was wonderful this morning. There were two baptisms this morning, and one of them was an adult baptisms. I love baptisms in general, but I especially love adult baptisms. I understand infant baptism, but I sometimes wish that I remembered my baptism.

Communion made me dizzy this morning, and not because of the wine. I was dizzy with God's presence, His love. It was such an amazing feeling.

20 things to do before I die

1. Graduate college
2. Go to graduate school and get a Master of Music in Choral Conducting, and eventually a Doctoral degree
   
3. Be in an opera
4. Become a choir conductor at a college.
   
5. Conduct Gabriel Faure's Requiem
6. Travel Europe
7. Go to Africa/India/Asia to do mission work
8. Adopt a child
9. Marry the love of my life and be with him until I die.
10. Have approximately 3 children
11. Visit all 50 states
12. Learn to play the violin
13. Write a play and direct it
14. Pay off my student loans
15. Live in New York City for a year
16. Proclaim the word of God as much as I can
17. Drive Route 66
18. Visit New England in the fall (I hear it's beautiful that time of year)
19. Compose....something. lol.
    

Beware of Rant

So on Thursdays (yesterday) I work at the Early Childhood Center from 9-10, and from 11-1. During my break from 10-11 I was listening to my iPod and attempting to take artsy pictures by the Pillars. Except my tranquility was interrupted by two guys hanging out of their Lindemann Hall dorm room window shouting at people--their friends, strangers, just about anyone.

Don't they have things to do?! Don't they have, oh maybe, CLASS to go to?! Homework to do?! Books to read?! Things that are more constructive than SHOUTING AT PEOPLE FROM WINDOWS?!

Sigh...

Ok, I think I'm done ranting now. Thanks for listening.

button-pushers

I have these two friends who like to push my buttons. One of them is a really talented button-pusher, knowing just which things rile me up (but still make me laugh about it), but more importantly, where the line is, where to stop pushing buttons. The other friend is...not so talented at button pushing. The buttons he pushes rile me up but don't make me laugh, and he also doesn't really know when to stop. I know he's not malicious about it, but it's still pretty frustrating. Something happened the other day, and I snapped at him once, and then miraculously backed off. I kept my cool, and didn't say anything else about it. I was kind of proud of myself. Someone else even mentioned that instance to me, and they were proud of me too. Hey, I can actually keep my cool and stop myself from snapping! Yay! :)

moving on and other things

I used to blog on MySpace. But it's really become...boring. It serves no purpose anymore. So I deleted it. I used to blog quite a bit actually, and I want to try to get back into it. I just ran out of things to say, I guess.

That's not true. I think I'll probably always have something to say. I just need to start saying it, whatever it may be.

Beware. This particular entry will be very random and will encompass a variety of topics.

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I'm currently writing a play. We did an improv skit in Acting and Directing where we had to pick a character and then all of us were stuck in an elevator together and we had to get out. I'm basing it off of our characters. It's going to be amazing. I'm really excited for it.

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Lately I've been feeling really disconnected from everyone at Concordia. I think it's partly because I've been busy with school, and partly because I'm living off campus now. But also I just don't feel as close to people there as I used to. I think I'm ready to graduate, move on with my life, chose a graduate school and finally live in the same city as my boyfriend. I'm starting to get really impatient, and I'm losing interest in my "friends" at Concordia. I say "friends" because I don't know if I would consider them all my friends anymore. I don't really talk to them, I don't really see them, and I don't really have any interest in hanging out with them (with the exception of a few people). Now they seem more like colleagues than friends, people I go to class with. And the thing is, I don't feel bad about any of this. I don't feel guilty for not wanting to hang out with the people I used to. It's not that I dislike them now. People just move on. It happens all the time.