Winter Quarter- Bri

"For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and
We'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe
We'd ever die for these sins
We were merely freshmen"


These particular lyrics, from the song "The Freshmen" by The Verve Pipe, come to mind when I think about winter quarter.


I faintly remember fall quarter being cautioned of the woes of winter quarter. Somehow, during fall I felt infallible and that big bad winter quarter could not tackle the amazing college experience I was having. Boy was I wrong.


Winter quarter began with the "Mysterious Incident of the Piss in the Nighttime". A traumatic event no doubt, but yet it continued to get worse. Em and I began getting on each other's last nerves. A particular incident with our bean bag nearly cost me my shin as well as my sanity. Lets just say I was through with winter quarter before it even began.


I also began to realize the classes I was taking winter quarter SUCKED ASS! excuse my french. They all involved math (which I cannot do to save my life) and none of my teachers took attendance. This meant winter quarter began with a lot of skipping classes to sleep. It reminded me of my junior year of high school, except that was much better because I would go have sex in my car instead of sleep so I could stop crying.


I realize this is all sounding quite "emotional (aka emo)" and depressing, and so I wish I could turn around and talk about meeting some amazing person, or having the most funny party...but I can't. In fact things only got worse...MUCH worse.


It started out as a stomach ache, which lead to an unexpected but seemingly routine hospital visit, then January 26, 2011 my dear friend Kyle was diagnosed with cancer. 

Nineteen years old...the tears came before I realized what was happening. Nineteen years old...I thought about his girlfriend and one of my best friends Leah. Nineteen years old...and caught up in the fight of his life.


For days straight I listened to a list of songs that I listen to in order to tell myself people have been through things like this before. 


1. Heard the World- OAR
2. Last Kiss- Pearl Jam
3. Jumper- Third Eye Blind
4. Someday- Brett Dennen
5. Traveling Soldier- Dixie Chicks

This unraveled all of our friends in the WTF group. Each of us twisting and turning in our own different and sometimes strange ways.  We wanted to be mad at something...there was no way to comprehend how something like this could happen. We ended up mad at each other. I was away from home, stressed with school, a sick friend, and no support. This was probably the hardest time in my life, I'm honestly not sure how I made it through and I think I'm still not completely through it.


There was a few weeks that went by numbly. We cried, we got wasted, and we tried to forget.


Now the quarter is almost over, three weeks left to be exact. Kyle is back home still fighting, but fighting hard and strong! I've been trying to find the happiness that has left me winter quarter, and it's slowly coming back.


I've come to a point in my life that I realize life is short, and yes you should do what you love, but you should also do what is going to make the most sense. I've felt like I've just been dilly dallying my time in journalism, and I don't feel like working very hard at it to make it above all the rest. How is that for honesty?


My solution? Education. I love children, LOVE THEM! I used to pretend teach my younger brothers all the time. I'm stressed and I hope this quarter will just be over.


I'm sorry this wasn't a funny one, I'm hoping there will be some good funny times to come!