Let me sum up. Since last time, I’ve traveled to Pa., Delaware, Chicago and back again. I’ve turned 21. I’ve rekindled a dying flame. I’ve experienced my last first day of school. I’ve quit my job. I’ve cut my hair. That might be it.

Really, the time I have had for writing has been devoted to the blog of my dear friend Nathan, In Pursuit of the Trivial. So check that out if you missed me that much.

Today I’m going to think/write about long-term relationships. Not necessarily my own, but that of other people I’ve observed.

We’re at an age where a lot of people are starting to think about long-term relationships. Sure, people still enjoy the random flirting and random hookups, but it seems that when entering into an actual relationship, many of my peers are seriously considering the longrun. They don’t want to waste their time dating someone who they can’t see themselves with in 5, 10, 40 years. Mostly, I think, it’s because they are afraid that if they date a person who it won’t last with, they might miss an opportunity with someone who it will.

So once the relationship starts, people try extra hard to keep it going. Even when things start to go sour, they strain to see the good over the bad in an effort to feel that time was not wasted. They turn a blind eye to squabbles and spats thinking, ‘I’ve put 3 years into this relationship, I’ve gotta make it work.’ They’ve come to identify so much as the partner of their significant other, that they can’t picture themselves alone.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of people my age that are in healthy, happy, long-term relationships, and I applaud them. But to me it seems that more often than when we were young, people are staying in relationships for the wrong reasons. My advice is this: We’re still young. No one our age should be ‘settling down’ in the very near future. So be a little selfish. If your relationship sucks, get out of it. If you’re worried about time wasted, think about the time you’re wasting staying with this person who you’ll inevitably divorce anyway. Enjoy your youth and have fun finding a positive relationship in which you don’t question wasted time.

Alright, enough of that. Guess I just needed to articulate the thoughts that have been running through my head.

In other news, this is a clip from a movie I watched tonight called Me and You and Everyone We Know. It was a decent movie, nothing spectacular. But I really enjoyed this scene, so I recommend you watch it and believe in love.

I’m sitting here in my office at Carolina Parent wondering where the summer went. I started this job on May 10 and I’ve been here every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday since then (with the exception of Memorial Day and the 4th of July, of course). I’ve done a lot in my time here, and I’m pretty proud of it. But it just doesn’t seem like it’s time for it to end. How surreal.

On my way to work today I drove by the apartment I lived at with Kelsey and her sister from May 8-June 1. Seems like so long ago, but really, it wasn’t at all.

The first half of this summer was kind of rough. I was seriously homesick, struggling to balance everything in my life, and pretty much wishing my time away. But now I’m finding myself hanging onto these last few days with a deathgrip that the world’s strongest man couldn’t break. The last few weeks have been nothing short of spectacular. I love my jobs, I love my class, and I love the people I’ve been spending my time with. It’s funny how I didn’t even know some of these people 2 months ago, and now I feel like they’re my oldest friends. I’ve had some really happy moments in the last couple of weeks. Simple things, like sitting around the living room playing trivial pursuit or watching Freaks and Geeks. Or laying on my bed laughing with Michele. Or just walking around campus sucking in the beauty of summer. It’s really been quite beautiful, and I’m sad to see it end.

Summer is a special time here in Chapel Hill. The dynamic is totally different. Although (they say) there are still 6,000 students around, it seems that peers are much harder to come by. You spend your time with the few friends you have in town because, well, because everyone else is off doing their own thing. And you bond with those friends in a very different way than you would during a regular semester. It’s hard to explain, but I like it.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very much looking forward to all the things that August has in store. I’ll be leaving this Friday (after a 3-day birthday celebration with Michele) and driving to New Jersey to visit family and perhaps get a day at the beach. Then I’ll head to NEPA, where all I want to do is drive to Jitty Joe’s with the girls singing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ and then head over to Brian’s for some hottubbing or up the lake for a boat ride or two.  On the 7th I’ll make my way to Delaware to reminisce with my dear friends who I left over a year ago (hard to believe it’s been so long). And then it’s off to Chicago for an AIESEC conference, which is, surprisingly, the part I’m not all that excited about. I mean, I know once I get there I will be loving it, but right now, I just want to relax and not have to worry about anything.

Anyway, back from that tangent. I’m becoming very nostalgic about summer, and it’s only July 23. Does this mean I’m growing up?

I apologize for the horrible writing style of this entry. Just felt like I needed to say some things and they didn’t need to be spectacularly articulated.

Went to the show at Local 506 with Bryan tonight. I was expecting a decent show, Bryan knows a lot about music so I trust him to know what I will like. Little did I know he would be DEAD ON. I know I linked them in my last post, butThe Future Kings really hit me tonight. Nothing too extreme, nothing to “out of the box” just solid songwriting about things any emo kid feels on a regular basis. I didn’t even notice the intense amount of cigarette smoke that usually bothers me at shows. I enjoyed it so much I bought their CD, and it was probably the best $10 I’ve spent in the last month or so. Besides perhaps these shorts which I have three pairs of.

Anyway, on a somewhat superficial level, the song “What you don’t know might kill me” is probably going to be my away message for a while. Ahem,

“It’s kind of amazing the things that can change
From alone to in love in the course of a day
This makes me shake I hope I don’t break apart

I’m happy like this just watching your lips
They don’t say a thing but it’s so obvious
You’re just nervous that I’m gonna break your heart

But you don’t even know that I’ve been running
Completely unaware that I’m coming after you
And you can tell your friends that you feel nothing
Tell them that I feel it too

Communicating in tounges of mixtape
I hope you get what I’m trying to say
My words in the shape of somebody else’s rhyme
The messages sent aren’t always received
The code is too hard or the signal gets weak
Mine is easy, just says I love you 20 times

But you don’t even know that I’ve been running
Completely unaware that I’m coming after you
And you can tell your friends that you feel nothing
Tell them that I do too

You don’t even know that I’ve been running
Completely unaware that I’m coming after you
And you can tell yourself that you feel nothing
But I know you…

Don’t even know that I’ve been running
Completely unaware I’m coming after you
And you can tell yourself that you don’t feel a thing
But I know you do, cause I see you whenever I’m near you.”

That’s just a taste of the songwriting skills of Mr. Shayne O’Neill and Mr. Chris Wimberley.

I have lots of things on my mind. My dad called me today to tell me the Mr. Kovall, the greatest high school physics teacher of all time, lost the battle to cancer. I’ll reflect on this soon. As soon as I’m able to get my thoughts into words because right now it’s just a flustered mess of sadness, anger, depression, compassion and nostalgia. Hmph. It’s late.

1. I am actually really sad that SSII ends next week. Yes, it will be nice to go home, NJ, Delaware, etc., but I absolutely LOVE the class I’m taking. Seriously. I guess that’s a good thing considering this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t have asked for a better class. Granted, it would have been nice to take in it the fall when it would last longer and we’d have more time to work on stuff, but my teacher is awesome, my classmates are awesome (well, most of them, but the others are at least entertaining), my writing is improving and I just simply enjoy it. Weird, right?

2. I have recently rediscovered the joy that The Juliana Theory brings me. Holler at old bands I used to listen to in high school that kind of faded away.

3. It has been pointed out to me that I am not taking advantage of the local music scene in this booming cultural mecca that I live in. Therefore, I am going to start. Tonight I will officially become a member of Local 506 and attend a show featuring these guys. And a magician! Bring it, Chapel Hill music scene.

4. Further proving how much J.J. Redick sucks, I present the Albuquerque Tribune Intern Blog featuring my dear friend Nathan Zachary Mattise. Although I don’t typically agree with Nate’s taste in college basketball ( McNamara can suck it and don’t even get me started on these guys) I appreciate the fact that he can see how utterly ridiculous Redick is and how much space/time/oxygen he is wasting. Plus, I figured I’d give my favorite peer-editor his due for helping me get all those A’s in Feature Writing.

Until we meet again…

However, despite my miserable mood through the majority of the day, a few little good things came along to counteract the bad, and made me think about the simple pleasures of my life.

I got a chance to talk to my brother for about a half hour. I miss my brother. A lot. We’re both leading very busy lives and operating on very different schedules (I work days, he works nights, neither of us sleep often). But by some stroke of luck, we both managed to be online at the same time last night, and were able to gush to each other about the current state of our family like only a brother and sister can. Sometimes I pity my only child friends, because they don’t have that outlet. My brother is the only person in the world that I share certain things with. He is the only other person in the world who knows exactly what it’s like to be raised by my parents, in our household, under the same rules and restrictions. He gets it, because he lived it. Not to say that my brother is merely a “little thing” in my life, but last night’s conversation, like many of the others ones we have every once in a while, night definitely served as one of those small pick-me-ups that I often need.

Secondly, I’ve realized that people around here actually do care about me. Not in the sense that I never had friends before and suddenly they appeared, but for some reason I’ve started noticing that people are genuinely interested in what’s going on in my life and what I have to say. The past few nights I’ve held conversations with a number of local friends, old and new, that have been happy to share their stories, passions and thoughts and listen to mine. Even when people IM me just to say “hi,” I’ve begun to appreciate the little gesture.

Finally, in the midst of my stress and fatigue, I was forced to stop and laugh at a video that was posted on my facebook wall. This might be one of the most ridiculous little home videos ever, but it lifted my spirits to the point of hysterical laughter last night.

Anyway, I went to bed last night thinking about the little things in life, both good and bad, and how I’m working to allow myself to just roll with them, because eventually they will balance each other out, and there’s really no need to get too worked up over them.

So the following is the description attached to the Eugene L. Roberts Jr. Prize that they give away at my school, but I like to think it could be a toast. A toast to the people who continue to inspire me day in and day out. People like Roberts himself. Like Philip Meyer who I met in class the other day and wrote a story about. Like McKay Jenkins, one of the best teachers I’ve ever known. Like my peers, the ones who struggle through J-school classes with me, the ones who edit my stories for me late at night, and the ones whose bylines I know I’ll be seeing in The Times or The Journal in the very near future. Here goes…

“To the story of the untold event that oozes instead of breaks; to the story that reveals, not repeats; to the reporter who zigs instead of zags; to the truth as opposed to the facts; to the forest, not just the trees; to the story they’ll be talking about in the coffee shop on Main Street; to the story that answers not just who, what, where, when and why, but also ‘So what?’; to efforts at portraying real life itself; to journalism that ‘wakes me up and makes me see’; to the revival of the disappearing storyteller. “

In the last few weeks I’ve really felt like I can call myself a writer and be able to back it up. Maybe it’s because I’ve been writing so much for this class and doing well with it. Maybe it’s because they’re trusting me to do more writing at the magazine. Or perhaps it’s because I’m currently on my 3rd can of Coke in this 5-hour shift because I was up unnaturally late writing a story last night. I don’t know. However, for the first time in my young life, I feel like I’ve made the right career choice and that I am meant to do this.

Also, other media have been picking up my work lately. I know there’s no byline on here, but this is pieces of my work from the July issue of Carolina Parent, thrown together in an ill-edited fashion, but hey, it’s there. And I also recently googled myself to find that my writing is linked to some famous people’s sites…such as Def Leppard, Haley Joel Osment, Poison, however indirectly, and the not-so-famous Parker Artists Co.

Anyway, onto other subjects…

I’m really a little bit too excited about seeing this tonight. I have been waiting wayyyyy too long. The funny thing is, my excitement for the movie does not even compare to my excitement for the book release. I ordered my copy yesterday (Border’s guarantees release-date delivery) and I am so ready to read it. I’m not even going to call myself a nerd for this, because reading is definitely going to be the coolest thing to do on July 21.

Although there’s more on my mind, I’ll save it for later, seeing as I’ve got 42 minutes left of work today and a few more calendar items to input. Until next time.

I used to have a blog on livejournal. For about 5 years. It was a good outlet for my teenage angst. I enjoyed writing in it. In all of my lowercase glory. I wrote about boys and high school life and going to college and all the other fun aspects of adolescence.

But I like to think I’ve grown up a bit since the days of livejournal.com/piratejunky22. I’ve since moved to North Carolina, transferred schools, and undergone a number of what I see as life-changing experiences. I honestly feel like a totally different person than I was last summer, so here’s to fresh beginnings.

Anyway, I just wanted to get set up, I’ll add somthing more significant sometime soon.