swaziland, my new home.

man. so this housing thing is really a problem. like, really.
i mean, gibson, really? because i'm pretty sure gibson is the armpit of south campus, the new jersey of pomona college. andrea intellectually noted that it is like the swaziland of africa; and even though that puts all my other insults to shame, i decided to add it onto the list. whatever, i'm pissed.

originally, i was supposed to defer, such that when i would request which housing i wanted (in order of preference), all i would have to write is "smoking dorm, please." why, you may ask? the concept of students who are smokers is a loophole that is really worth looking into. even though it's kinda unclear which dorms on north campus are specifically smoking dorms (although clarified by deanna bos "...The only residence halls that allow smoking are Clark I, Clark V, Clark III portion of Norton Clark, and Lawry A and C towers. All traditional hallway type residence halls are smoke free and smoking inside will result in a policy violation..."), it is important to note that ALL dorms on south campus are SMOKE-FREE. meaning that where i was deferred, it would HAVE to be on north campus. worst case scenario: a double on NC with someone i didn't know, however this, too, is unlikely since all of the dorms she mentioned are single-heavy (most doubles are in walker, which is a hallway type residence). My chances of getting a single on NC seemed to be increasing by the second. Meaning I had either come up with the most brilliant plan known to students screwed over in room draw, or i had seriously forgotten something important and was about to be seriously screwed over.

well, the latter occurred, as seeing as there were more students applying for rooms than rooms available, no one was allowed to voluntarily defer (only those students who were so low that they literally had no rooms left by the time it was their turn to choose). my plan failed. miserably. because when i opened up my email this morning, prepared for an email from alissa telling me that my plan to defer had worked, instead i got an email from sammy telling me i was in gibson. gibson you say? the dorm that is actually so unimportant that the pomona website doesn't even list its room dimensions? awesome. this'll be fun. because there is nothing i love more than eerie, seemingly deserted fluorescent-light bulbed housing, colder than i don't know, colder than deanna bos' heart, perhaps? i am thinking of committing suicide, but only if i can do it on her doorstep.

i only wish i had more time to sit here and complain, but alas my battery is about to die (just like my social life next semester), and i think punching doug (who is living in a suite on north campus) would actually just make me feel much better. i would much rather hurl poisonous insults at him anyways, it's way more satisfying.

the gypsie that tried to steal my borsa

dude. so some bitch finally tried to mug me. i mean, i was kinda waiting for it to happen, considering i run around all the time by myself at night, it was really only a matter of time before the statistics caught up with me. anyways, i guess i kinda asked for it, since after dinner mamma gianna had made lasagna so obvi i had fasted all day and then eaten my weight in meaty deliciousness, so then i was laying on the bed afterwards feeling very pleased but ill, and i knew that i would never complete all the italian homework that i had for the next day (because it was all the way across the room, and fuck that shit if i was going to get up and do it in my condition--plus i had actually lost the story i had to read and do a report on...), so i prayed really hard that i could have some sort of excuse not to go to italian the next day....and then of course God answered my prayers by having someone mug me!!!
anyways, so basically i was walking to elly's to watch the new episode of grey's anatomy and this guy comes up behind me and tries to grab my borsa. and i'm just like, fuck no, not only is my computer in my bag, but it has the new episode of grey's on it that cost $1.99 (that's 20 minutes of work at whole foods, fyi) and took like 50 hours to download since the network is so shitty at SUF. so basically i would rather risk getting shanked than for you to take my fucking hot-shit bag and computer/only connection to the rest of the world. so basically after i don't let go, he pushes me against the wall and i risk physical damage to my face (i am going to ireland this weekend and i need to be looking hot as shit for those gorgeous irish boys), i'm pretty much pissed as shit so i elbow him in the nose/break his nose and groin the bitch, so hopefully he will no longer be able to have children. baby-muggers, obvi, i was doing the world a favor. and then he comes back to get my purse YET AGAIN, except i was yelling at that point (i couldn't remember the italian word for help, so i basically just downed like a dying creature of some sort) and someone came around the corner with his dog and then the guy ran off. fairly lucky, i would think, because i wasn't shanked when in all reality, i probably should've been. plus i owned the bitch. i hope i broke his nose so badly, shards of it pierce his brain and he dies. slightly graphic, i apologize, but really, what a little bitch. the best part, however, was after telling mamma medi (elly's mamma) what had happened:

mamma medi: was he black?
me: no, he was white
mamma: not white, he was romanian.
me: what?
mamma: gypsies. gypsies are from romania.

now i do realize that all of italy's problems lay on the shoulders of the gypsies (and communists), since every time anything wrong happens in the world, mamma gianna always blames it on the communists or gyspies (she even called the monks in burma gypsies that were causing problems....). yet i actually laughed out loud when i saw how absolutely serious mamma medi was when she assuredly told me that it was the gypsies that had tried to steal my bag. elly's pappa, however, cheers every time i walk into the room, since i'm such a fucking champion, and all. obvi.

MORAL OF THE STORY:
1) when in doubt, just break someone's nose. that shit hurts, AND leaves dna (blood) and makes them look like babies when their eyes water up and they cry
2) if someone tries to steal your stuff, it was probably a gypsie.

mike's birthday party freshman year, part duex

okay so glad we started this out appropriately. that's my ass. that nice, white, bruised, ass. but there is a good story behind it (ha ha ha, behind, get it?? hahahhaha).

so i went to prague this past weekend and it was pretty much had the time of my life, dancing with sketch foreigners in five-story clubs, seeing the incredible charles bridge, prague castle, the jewish cemetery, blah blah blah blah blah. because let's be honest, the highlight of my weekend (and everyone else that was a witness) had nothing to do with prague, rather my own stupidity that could've graced everyone in any part of the world. so saturday was the anniversary of 'kristalnacht'--you know, the 'night of broken glass', the first real violence against the jews in which nazi supporters destroyed a bunch of homes, synagogues, and jewish businesses. anyways, seeing as it has one of the largest jewish quarters in all of europe (and the oldest synagogue in all of europe, and largest jewish cemetery--so basically the jews are kinda a big deal here), prague celebrated this night of hatred with...wait for it...you guessed it--hella neo-nazi marches and anti-jewish protesters. now i realize that joking about such hatred is in incredibly poor taste (let's leave it to the social justice studies major to preface any story with a comment like this), but in light of the delight that is about to follow, any seriousness at this time would probably be really worthless and kill the story. so just wait for it, and then later i'll rant about how much intolerance sucks, etc. okay so. basically this night is important because as neo-nazis are marching around the city, it's kinda advised that tourists don't really go out, such that they won't be caught up in any of the bashing-in-of-heads and stuff like that. and as important as this is, it was still our last night in prague, and we wanted to party hella, obvi, even though we did not want to end the night in the hospital or morgue. so instead of making the decision at the hostel, we decided to go out to a really nice dinner and discuss it over wine. i mean, it was basically classy pre-gaming, and we all know classy is how i roll. so 4+ glasses in (good joke since i get wasted after 2 glasses), i decide that i'm really 'not that drunk, guys!!!' and am really upset over the fact that my tolerance has increased what seems to be exponentially. although again, since i was 4+ in, i had basically gotten so raging drunk that i was pissed that i wasn't drunk enough. so then i had to pee but the bathroom was upstairs so obvi i went upstairs to go and then as i was coming back down....okay so wait so the stairs were a spiral staircase and i was walking on the very inside narrow part in order to accommodate the other bitches i was with, and then well basically as i was coming down it was actually a flashback to mike's birthday party freshman year. minus the nosebleed and short skirt. but okay so i basically bounced down three stairs and when i fell it fucking HURT and i tried to grab the banister to break the fall except i ended up just hitting it really hard with my elbow, making for double noise (and a double bruise). so then i look around the corner after yelping only to realize that EVERYONE and their mother in the restaurant is STARING at me with open mouthes because it sounded like someone had just dropped a bomb on beruit...or for the sake of the evening/place, israel. and then after someone sitting at a table ACTUALLY POINTS at me while staring, lally turns to me and is all, "i'm so embarassed for you." oh, thanks lally, because i couldn't figure it out...except it probably seemed like i couldn't because i'm laughing so hard because it was so funny and my ass hurt SO FUCKING BAD and i was really drunk so obvi i didn't know what to do and then i was like fuck it, let's just go out, so we did. and we went out to this horrendousLY AWESOME club and got a private car home because we made friends with the bouncers and they said that if they couldn't sleep with us, at least they wanted to make sure no one else did, including the taxi-drivers (and neo-nazis).

okay so this is where it gets good. a little graphic, but it's kinda worth it. okay so i get my period the same night, as i'm fucking wasted, so naturally i didn't think it was my period, and that i was actually bleeding internally. like, seriously. i thought i was dying and that my tailbone had pierced some important internal organ (i'm not sure which one, i was too drunk to remember their names) and that i would bleed out somewhere on the street in the czech republic and not be able to go to the hospital because the czech republic isn't in the EU so obvi they are barbarians and don't even HAVE hospitals much less the means to fix a bleeding ass, and even if they DID have them, i wouldn't want to end up with them doing something else with my ass instead of stitching it up, you see. naturally, i was terrified, and such were the only logical consequences of falling down the stairs. NO ONE could talk me out of the fact that i thought i was dying, because the thing is, since being on birth control, my period has been fucking CLOCKWORK and i wasn't supposed to get it for like 3 more weeks. thus i was TRULY CONVINCED that i was going to die, since i was bleeding everywhere and the non-legit-EU-wannabies didn't have the means (or the conscience, since they're heathens) to take care of me. but then when i woke up the next morning, i realized that since i hadn't taken by birth control for 4 days (i left it in florence) it had fucked up my hormones and that's why i had my PERIOD rather than internal bleeding. okay so that's that.

so i guess the moral(s) of the story are as follows:
1) if you have a giant bruise on your ass, dont assume the worst; you may have fallen down a very public spiral staircase
2) if you fall down the stairs and subsequently start bleeding out your vag, you may actually NOT be dying. but still check that shit, because those tailbones are pointy and can puncture shit

ow.

i think i broke my foot at oktoberfest.

owwww.

at least i don't have hemophilia, though. i was bleeding a while ago, and now it's stopped, so i guess that's good.

i went to oktoberfest and i brought an albino, bootylicious babooska, and a chilean boy with catskillzzzzz......

so a weekend in munich. aka: oktoberfest.

the trip can best be summed up and divided into three main experiences: [not-so-]sleeper trains, "couchsurfing", and the stereotypical joy of oktoberfest (and the realization of its unfortunate reality of puke and actual disease). main characters: my two traveling companions sarah and elly, manuel and his frat-house-mates, and random puking bavarians.

the discovery of a night-train to munich at first came as a blessing--after all, pop a few ambien and down a glass of wine, and that rocky train ride complete with obnoxious whistles and hacking compartment-mates turns into a lovely...well...nothing. you wake up in munich, ready to celebrate bavaria one liter at a time.
this, unfortunately, was not exactly how it worked out--the lack of couchettes (beds) left only actual seats, and no amount of ambien and codine cough syrup could save us from waking up--rather drifting in and out of consciousness to crumpled necks and smelly coach-mates (the windows didn't open...how convenient). people sweat a lot. and that's awkward.

the excitement of a weekend in germany, though, left us with a false sense of refreshment, and we headed to oktoberfest at 8am, like EVERY OTHER PERSON UNDER 30 IN THE COUNTRY OF GERMANY. stellar. or it seemed that way, at least, since we were black-out-drunk by 10am. i suppose not sleeping helped to induce this intoxicated state even further, and at least everyone else was too drunk to notice the bags under our eyes, so we were pretty set. even when it came time to meet our couchsurfing host, we were absolutely hammered, stumbling and all. man, don't you want us to stay with you now? it's nice to meet you, tall, blond blob lacking any distinct features! 11am-5pm remains fairly unclear...something to do with brown jackets, beer pong (it is possible?), and talking/slurring politics. then we headed back to oktoberfest where two security-guard house-mates led us to a nice tent where we subsequently imbibed more, setting up for a night of poor/great choices.

let me intervene for a moment, to explain the magical, magical world of couchsurfing. magical, i feel, is an appropriate choice of adjective, since couchsurfing, my friends, is free. in sort, people from all over the world post their couches online, and if you're traveling, and are poor and cheap like me, you can find someone's couch where you are staying, and sleep on it for free. it's genius, really.
the official mission statement is as follows: "CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding."
And with a mission statement like that, well, if the experiences are waiting, i best not let them escape me! sign me the fuck up. so i am searching in munich for couches, and i send out my emails to everyone who has good references (from previous couchsurfers, who confirm that this potential host is neither a rapist nor any other kind of convict), alas everyone is booked due to the fact that it is oktoberfest. morgan has just about resigned to the harsh reality of staying in florence for yet another weekend when a beautiful, blond german boy accepts her request on the basis that she is cuter than the three canadians that he has previously agreed to host. sketch? yes. important? no! we're going to fucking germanyyy!!!! train booked? check. place to stay? check. WE'RE LEAVING IN 5 HOURS hells YEAH.
so how did this experience quite turn out? what was couchsurfing like? apart from the fact that morgan, elly, and sarah's host was GORGEOUS on every scale of human-attractiveness in existence (like really, REALLY freaking attractive, i'm not even kidding), it turns out he lives in a house with a tall bald man, a chilean guy, a greek guy (named vegono?), and like 5,6,7,8+ other guys (it's actually really unclear as to who actually lives there--at one point, we witnessed a small child running around, and while we originally thought it was simply a drunken mistaken blur, it was later confirmed that one of them--god knows who--has a child), in what is basically a frat-house. like, a frat-house in every sense of the term, both literally and conceptually. as in rented out to students from this particular college for over 75 years, such that the entire second floor of the apartment was filled with just really old antiques such as old fencing masks (creepy) and stuffed foxes (doubly creepy) in memoriam to their older brothers; and in the other sense, the fridge contains no food or water, rather shelves and shelves (and shelves) of beer, next to which are crates stacked one upon the other, of more beer. hmmmm. most importantly, the apartment is decorated entirely in a frat-house fashion, with wooden board as tables and posters of naked women pinned up on most available surfaces. there was also an attic where a bunch of oktoberfest security-guards lived, and fencing matches took place.
(side note: morgan thought the fact that this was a frat house was incredibly interesting, considering that half of its inhabitants seemed to have passed their twenties some while ago, suggesting that they may not have been, in fact, students, but COUCH SURFERS FOR LIFE?!?!?--THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE CONCEPT FOR MORGAN, ONE THAT WILL BE ANALYZED LATER)

apart from the fact that morgan hooked her couch surfing host (morgan thinks that this not a typical experience for couchsurfers, but the tall, blond one was GORGEOUS so...and the details of which will be left for the closest of morgan's friends), this seemed to be a typical couchsurfing experience...it was fucking ridiculous, crashing for three days with someone nobody knew, but the adventure proved incredible (not just the hook)--having to operate by someone else's clock (a drunk frat-boy's clock, to be more accurate) and schedule. in fact, morgan, elly and sarah came to the conclusion that this is probably what these guys do all the fucking time--drink all day/all night, pass out in random places around the house, and the go out and do it again the next day/night. and look at a lot of porn. germans look at a lot of porn. no violence, as it was explained to us (i suppose they are still trying to recover from nazi flashbacks?), but porn is pretty much on every channel, the equivalence of basic cable. niiiiiice!!! man, it made me feel right at home. (...)

saturday was spent shopping (beautiful munich has three beautiful H&Ms) and sunday was spent visiting Dachau, one of the most terrifying concentration camps from WWII. it was an incredibly sobering experience, especially walking through the gas chambers and crematoriums. there were also a lot of photos posted around the site showing what that spot looked like back during its time of operation--meaning that you could look at what looked to be some random brick wall, and then see that almost 70 years ago it was used to support piles and piles of hundreds (if not thousands) of dead bodies awaiting disposal. you also learn that no matter where you stand in the camp, chances are someone died in that exact same spot at some point, whether from starvation, disease, or by another human. while a number of memorials spotted the camp with phrases like 'never again' and 'remember the suffering', i would actually like to take a moment to be very serious (difficult, i know), and to point out that we ARE forgetting, because such suffering and crimes against humanity happen everyday in this world, and continue to happen as others stand by and just watch. does a concentration camp necessarily have to be built in order to qualify these actions as unacceptable? because regardless of the setting or methods of killing, the origins are the same: intolerance and hate. it is never acceptable, it is never okay, and to accept the status-quo or the "nature" of the on-goings in other countries is doing a disservice to humanity.

okay i'm done. that's all. with the serious part, that is. but really, think about it, because often we are caught up in our own exciting lives our couchsurfing and beautiful german boys and it takes such a sobering experience to place the world in perspective. okay so, a few overall notes about germany:

1) munich is very, VERY clean. this may be due to the fact that most of the buildings are new, since WWII destroyed much of the city thus it needed to be rebuilt...but actually the streets are incredibly clean; rarely there is any garbage or dog shit everywhere (thanks, italy). thus morgan is lead to think that germans are prone to cleanlinesses, which makes sense; first their race, and then their streets--the second being a much healthier channel, yes? (morgan realizes what incredibly poor taste this last comment was in--and would like to retract it (but not delete it because she felt it was very clever)).
2) drinking beer at every hour of the day should be acceptable in all parts of the world. even when morgan, sarah, and elly took saturday and sunday off of oktoberfest, they still drank at every meal, since it was cheaper than water and juice (seriously). what a great concept. the USA should note this.
3) traditional german meals taste great when going into your mouth, but are not equally as great when settled in your stomach. very heavy, indeed, it was, and such piles of sausage, sauerkraut, this really delicious pasta-cheese thing, and then a lot of beer, really actually make you feel ill as shit. ILL AS SHIT. my digestive system is still recovering.
4) never, NEVER go to oktoberfest at night, sober. you will regret this decision inexplicably. i can't even being to delve into the disgusting ACTUAL mounds of trash and puke that is everywhere. you don't notice it so much when you're drunk--in fact all of the pretty lights from all the rides and shops are quite nice and happy, and the stumbling people seem friendly and harmless. but sober, you realize that everything around you is harboring obscene amounts of puke. the rides become instruments for inducing dizzying, upset stomachs filled with puke, while the people themselves aren't friendly, they're just vehicles of puking-machines, that can spontaneously spew what can only be described as satan-in-chunk-form, totally unprovoked. so just don't do it. go wasted, sure, and then get even more wasted. but never. go. sober.
5) when you take sleeper-trains, make sure that you wake up at your stop. while this has nothing to do with munich itself, the ticket was bought there, so here it is probably most appropriate to mention this. traveling from munich to home, florence was actually just one of the stops from munich-->rome. so while at 5:30am, morgan, elly and sarah were in theory supposed to get up and stumble home and then crawl to school, in reality, they woke up in rome, at 8am, at the approximate time morning classes start. nicely done. bought tickets BACK to florence, 3 more hours on the train, arriving in the afternoon, after classes were done for the day. sweet unexcused absences! oh, and PS--wind phones charge hella roaming, it basically costs money to breath around your phone. yet texting is cheaper than calling, so opt for that?

THUS in the end, we felt as if we had been hit by a train, after traveling by train for fifty million hours (more like 22, but that's actually almost a day).

BOOTS! (but not the good kind)

this morning on the way to school, morgan passed not eleven, but TWELVE cars in a row that all had these giant yellow spider-looking things consuming their driver-side tire. morgan thought this interesting, because while italians are prone to setting fashionable trends (even concerning their cars), it did not appear that these cars could move (much less dodge poorly dressed american pedestrians such as morgan)while harboring such decorative ornaments. elly confirmed that this was the case. it turns out, that italian parking enforcement does not just give a ticket, but also gives your car a freaking boot, such that they won't take it off until you pay the ticket. which sucks hardcore. reflecting on this, and the multiple parking tickets morgan has on her car (big red has YET to even be registered at pomona...) morgan only felt a twinge of sympathy for these poor cars before relief that her glorious country does no such thing, set in. and that she walked everywhere, for if she drove, she surly would've had the boot at least twice by now, considering she is not yet able to read italian street signs, and even if she did, would probably not be in the habit of following them. note to self: boots are pretty on my feet (very pretty, in fact), but not on my car.

this i miss part one.

things that i miss:
1) my comforter (slash having my bed against a wall)--this is important because now that i actually sleep, it would be nice to have a bed that was long enough slash i could comfortably pass out/curl up and read in.
2) guacamole --i am ALWAYS craving guacamole, but i don't think it actually exists here. it doesn't matter how delicious mama gianna's dinners are (which, can surly attest to, they are incredible--such that i often feel like i have eaten entire babies for dinner, and then subsequently must lay on my bed for a while to stretch out and hate my existence a little because i ACTUALLY HURT from eating so much...) i STILL ALWAYS CRAVE GUACAMOLE. no matter how ill i feel from eating unhealthy amounts of pesto lasagna (omg incredible) or pointedly menta gelato hits the spot...i would always, ALWAYS like some guacamole. i just want a few freaking avocados, okay? oh my godddddddd i miss mexican food sooooo much. note to self: next time you must fend for yourself (i.e. weekend) make a mexican dinner. tortilla chips and guacamole included.
3) normal fucking gum--no one everyone smokes here....there is no decent gum to replace this unhealthy form of oral fixation. besides, none of the gum is wrapped in foil, meaning it is IMPOSSIBLE to make grillz.
4) sadie-kins--i miss the love of my life more than any other kind spirit in animal or human form.
5) sleepovers omg i love sleepovers, except the rules of the program state that you are not allowed to bring guests back to your host family's house (even though it is designed to prevent a certain type of guest, it encompasses all), so even crashing at elly's or sarah b's is pretty much out of the question, so i just have to walk home at 6am, which is fine, except i'm not always up for a gang bang (which is evidently what happens to girls who walk around alone that early in the morning).


i wish i would've brought a huge-ass comfy sweatshirt (like the seahawks one i stole from my dad) and FREAKING SKITTLES OH MY GOD I MISS SKITTLES SOOOOO MUCH (as well as oreos. double stuffed oreos....) i realize that the fact that i am complaining about all the food that i miss and wish i had when i am in ITALY (which unlike jess pool's meals, which are comprised of unicolored blobs of unidentifiable nuclear debirs, i have some of the best food in all of europe) is quite ironic. however, i truly look forward to the day that i am able to gorge myself on skittles, guacamole, and double-stuffed oreos.