I am so tired,

I am tired of being submissive. I am tired of not arguing because it is easier than bracing myself for an attack. I am tired of not fighting. I am tired of letting the world build up inside of me and not letting anything out. I am tired of giving my things to anyone who asks. I am tired of hopping back and forth between dual bad situations. I am tired of using escape plans.

I am tired of the slightly burnt potato. I am tired of letting pictures be hung up in my place.

I am tired of sitting home at night so I won't disrupt anyone's perfect time.

I am tired of having to type this just a little quicker so that when she comes home she'll be able to hop right back on the computer and be able to pretend I'm not here. That I don't exist. That I am merely an entity which she use as she pleases.

I am so tired of being a sister. I am so tired of taking crap.

The Lessons of Houghton College,

We here at our humble institution tend to keep our hands off of other people's things. It's true.

When I was still in high school, an older cousin who had already graduated Houghton described it in this way- "If you left your bag open on a table, someone would probably put twenty dollars in it."

Now I don't think that’s necessarily true, but we are extraordinarily trustworthy with, well, not stealing things. Earlier this year I left my Ipod on the steps of the dorm and it was handed into the welcome desk. People are getting mugged in central park for their Ipods. Houghton is a funny place.

However, I have learned that our honesty and uprightness extends only so far. There are two things we are very likely to steal here in Houghton College, and I would like to address them now.

1. FOOD
Last year I returned from break with three of my favorite foods in the entire world. A loaf of Italian bread. A delicious marinated eggplant salad from the Italian deli by my house. The last thing? One ripe delicious mango. Because I was walking through the supermarket by my house, I had just read something about mangos on another blog. I wanted that mango, so I bought that mango.
I was, tragically, lured into a false sense of security in my freshman year. Freshman year is a strange time where you don't even realize you’re wandering around in a haze of confusion. I had gotten back to school kind of late, and left a bunch of my things lying about, some in the kitchen, anticipating that I would put them away in the morning.
This was where it all starts to go downhill. Yes, that’s right. The next morning, I found my eggplant salad and my Italian bread. The mango? Gone.
To the person who stole my mango- I have spent all year trying to understand you. Did you think you wanted my mango more than me? Did you think you deserved it more than me? Did you even know it was my mango?

2. LAUNDRY
Yes, laundry.
Let me take you back to another day in my freshmen year. It’s late. I spent a bit too much time last year awake in the wee hours of the morning. I put my laundry in the dryer, and as my eyelids began to droop I thought, "What kind of self-respecting person would actually steal someone's laundry? It's surely safe for another few hours!"
I went to bed.
The next day, after I was showered? I went down to the laundry room to empty the dryer. I didn't notice that anything was wrong at the time. Why not? Because like any other college student I only realize I need to do laundry when one thing happens. When I run out of underwear. It's not even worth denying.
What happened four days later? I ran out of underwear.
Yes. Someone had stolen out of a dryer TEN pairs of underwear. TEN. Someone dug through my laundry in the middle of the night and specifically decided to steal my underwear. Someone is walking around my school wearing my underwear.
So many questions could be asked, but the most important is WHY. Why are you so disgusting you filthy rotten thief!

One thousand days

Three years

No, thirty-six months

No, one hundred and fifty six weeks

No... more than one thousand days

Still, thats about twenty six thousand hours

There the numbers become something tired

almost something too large,

There the numbers are blurred

almost like the sound of chewing

Twenty-six thousand, thats too large for the mind to bend to

But one thousand days

A human mind can easily see one thousand days

We all expect to live a thousand days

In fact, we all expect to live more than a thousand days

A thousand is enough though

For it all to start

In a thousand days you can forget all memory of you

and who you were before

In a thousand days it's true

an egg could fall and break,

or a worn pair of jeans could finally rip

BLAH-HAH BLAH

So many things hide,
In dark sooty fireplaces,
To hear the little babies cry
at the clown paint on their faces.

My clothes all smell like smoke,

But not the sour tobacco smoke your mind in conjuring. Oh no. Because I go to Houghton College, I mean ashy woodland smoke.

Because at midnight my room mate and I shut off the light and decided to go to sleep. We did. We were safely in dream land when all of a sudden a loud BANG awoke us.

I thought nothing of it until several more loud bangs soon followed.

"What, exactly, huh?" my room mate bumbled, and I managed to sneak a hand out of my blankets to push the blinds aside.

There were two of our friends throwing snow balls at our window. They conned us into making a fire in the woods with promises of free coffee.

On top of this being the first time I have made a fire, it was the first time I had been caught in the act of doing something against the rules here at Houghton.

Plus, we didn't even really get in trouble.

Now, I might actually go to bed, but not before I think about how satisfied I am that we went. Because I probably won't remember how tired I'm going to be tomorrow in Bio, but I will remember the smell of smoke on my T-shirt when I wake up in the morning.