E-Mail to Jon

Jon I'm seriously about to have a breakdown right now. I just found out I got a 56 on one of my exams and I know I probably did about the same on my other exam too. I have 2 papers due by 12PM tomorrow, a paper due the next day and one more for the day after that. I have no money and the money I'll get in this paycheck on Friday has to go to GreekBill and plus I owe you money. I hate not having funds in my bank account anymore; I'm so mad at PiPhi because I couldn't work those three/four weeks and it really hurt me financially, plus this stupid Big/Little shit is expensive as fuck and I could not care less about it. I hate that I'm being forced especially by peer pressure to spend so much money on these girls. I hate living at PiPhi because Morgan goes to bed so God-damned early and Courtney demands that the light is too bright and has to be turned off during the day. I get so pissed because I'll tell them that I have shit I have to read and they'll continue to talk and have a conversation even though it makes me lose my focus, but I'm so respectfully quiet when they're trying to focus. Not having legit headphones is killing me and my attention span and all I keep thinking about is how my advisor told me I should go to disability services because I might be dyslexic or have ADD.

I'm just so mad right now, plus there's drama at work that I'm trying to deal with. I have 50 things on my to-do list and I have the time for maybe a fourth of what needs to be done. I need to just quit my job until break but then I won't have any money. Dad told me he'd pay me to not have a job but I have too much pride to ever accept that from him, plus then if I don't get good grades then he'll see I'm stupid and he's wasting his money on my education. Having a job is my excuse for not having all As and Bs.

So yeah money, time, grades, work, PiPhi shit, my future... All of it is piling up and I don't know how to deal with it.

Time is a huge issue right now too because I don't have enough of it and I don't know how I keep managing to get schoolwork done on time. I have an insane amount of schoolwork that's always due, almost every day, and it's driving me crazy. I have a minimum of 2 papers a week, plus enough reading to where it would take me an entire week just to get it done for class. Thus I can never catch up to where I'm supposed to be. It's impossible. I'm always up late the night before something is due and I hate that. Working under pressure isn't hard for me but it's taking a toll on my body and mind. I'm barely halfway through the semester as it is. I seriously need a separate Jorden to work for me while I study, and another one to go out and be social when the other two of me are being responsible. It's impossible to be a full-time student, part-time worker and socialize. It's fucking impossible. I need to just quit my job, but I can't do that. And you don't have the money to support me like that, so please don't offer.

My grades are pathetic. I thought I was so smart, and I feel like I understand the concepts, and I've ALWAYS been an awesome test-taker, but for some reason the way the tests are here makes me look like a fucking retard. I have a 2.77 GPA. I had a God-damned 3.7 at ACC. I understand the classes were way easier but seriously, what the fuck? Somehow I managed to avoid academic probation from UNC (minimum 2.0) and social probation from PiPhi (minimum 2.7). But just barely. I know I don't have the lowest GPA of PiPhi but I still feel like shit about it. And I feel like it's impossible to improve my GPA because of all of these factors.

Work is obnoxious right now because Stephanie is causing unnecessary drama with Jon, Frogg dumped Ashley and Michelle is with some new girl, who her ex hates. So all I hear are relationship problems, which I don't give a fuck about. It's a negative environment, it's awkward and I have to pretend to give a shit because if I don't then I look like an apathetic bitch. I want to quit and come back later like over break so bad. I know it would be good for me but those people are also my friends and I don't get to see Liz and Kailie and Marena enough, plus I don't have super-super close friends within PiPhi, so I'd get depressed and lonely. And that wouldn't help anything.

I hate PiPhi right now because the girls come off as so annoying. They think they're so like ghetto-fab or something. I like that they're laid back but at the same time I don't want to hear them sing rap lyrics and talk about who they fucked last night, all the time. That's nasty. Even Liz went home with some rando. And Kailie's no better right now because she's single. I don't feel like anyone would be able to understand my maturity and where I'm at in your and my relationship because they're all so concerned with typical stupid college life. So thus I don't feel like I can get close with anyone. Elizabeth (one of my twins) is really cool and I like her a lot but she's also 17. I feel helpless, and I feel like I have no friends. Even though I'm in a sorority with 120+ members.

And finally I don't know what exactly I'm going to be doing in my future and that stresses me out beyond belief because dad has such high expectations of me. I was really crushed when he didn't approve of the A&F manager position. And yet he encourages me to take a gap year and go traveling, which I have ZERO aspirations to do because I'd rather become financially stable than fuck around in another country, not doing shit for myself. So at one moment he says I should go travel, and the next he's asking when I'm going to have a career and what internships I'm going to apply for. So I don't know what to do to make him happy. And that stresses me out because I'm the first to graduate and I have to set the standards for what everyone else is going to do.

Kk that's everything. We should probably just discuss this later this weekend when I come to see you because I need to get back to my paper now. I think I just spent an hour writing this. So read this over a few times, maybe make some notes about what you're going to say back, and we can focus on it later.

Oh AND my fucking phone screen is cracked because I'm a retard and let it get knocked out of my hand. Way to go, Jorden.

Dear Jon

Dear Jon,

I'm at a loss as to how to start this. All the words I had in my head last night have evaporated, leaving only clouds of thought in my mind. I think we clash... We're opposite in materialism, the way we were raised, expectations, conscientiousness, forethought, hobbies... even our outlooks on partying. And I don't feel like I can ignore how this is making me feel any longer. I feel like you're too childish and random for me and I'm too stubborn and argumentative for you. I love you dearly honey, but something needs to change. I don't know if that something is going to be within us or US, but it needs to happen or I can't do this anymore. I feel like we don't make enough time for each other. Your definition of quality time is being in the same vicinity; mine is talking for hours. That means you're satisfied and I'm not. There's no 'magic' between us unless I'm drunk or high. What kind of passion is that? Not something that's going to last. I've found that I can't appreciate your constantly wondrous outlook on life, and instead it just pisses me off and makes me feel like you're too easy distracted and engaged in things other than myself. I feel like you're oblivious to how your actions affect me. Sometimes all I want to be happy is to hold your hand, even one finger, but you don't see this and pull away to pay attention to whatever has just caught your eye. I know you love me Jon but it's hard to feel loved with you sometimes. And that's not the kind of relationship I ever intended to be in.

I want to be someone's 'girl'... Someone's baby, someone's girlfriend, someone's sweetheart. And right now, I only feel like I'm your friend. Maybe I expect too much, or maybe I don't appreciate what you do enough. If you think that this is the case then tell me. I can try and change, too. But point blank, I can't do what we've been doing. It is not going to work. We're too different and too incompatible.

I'm unhappy Jon. The trip to DC highlighted a lot of things that are wrong in our relationship, like you thinking I was personally attacking you by correcting you and then you jumping down my throat. Why wouldn't you walk next to me? I felt like you ignored me for the majority of the trip. I don't know what that mess was, but I absolutely will not tolerate that. Maybe you were overwhelmed by everything we were seeing, but if you'd taken a moment you would have noticed that I wanted to be with you.

I'm not really sure where this leaves us. I guess we're going to have a talk. I want to be optimistic but there are a lot of dysfunctions between us. You don't seem to notice them, but it's a problem for me. So here you go.

Hooligan Spirit

I'm writing again! =) I should be using this time to work on school but I'm more entertained by the idea of getting down all that I need to say to myself and my journalistic desire to record everything I go through so I can appreciate where I am at one day. Or maybe I'll just think this is stupid, and I was being childish. Who knows?

Outline for you:
1. Jon's drinking and our relationship
2. UNC and work

Let's begin.

So our relationship - going well, but we have a lot of things to work out. I always had issues with being left out or not being invited to social things when I was in high school. Even though I was wildly popular, whenever there was a single tiny get-together and I didn't know about it, I would fixate and become extremely depressed because I felt like people didn't like me or want to be around me. Now fast-forward to college. I'm 18, and I don't have a fake ID. I live with a 22 year old and a 23 year old, both guys. Both of them drink, although Jon drinks because he likes the taste and whatever, while Trey drinks because Jon drinks. I don't like the taste of beer, and I was raised in a household where drinking alcohol was a taboo topic because of salient alcoholism on both sides of the family. Now that I'm living with Jon, his drinking is starting to get to me. At first I just disliked when he went out with his friends to bars, and I couldn't go because I was too young and most of the bars here don't allow 18 and up, even if you are the intended DD. So I would huff and sulk and pout and then get angry that he would be out having fun and I couldn't come with him, and the same insecurities from high school came back. From there, I started to hate how he acted when he was ranging from slightly tipsy to pretty damn intoxicated. When he started to bring the alcohol home, constantly stocking the fridge with either Bud Light or Blue Moon, I came to dread whenever he would open one and drink it, regardless of the circumstance or time.

Then our neighbors started inviting themselves over. Mikayla is a heavy drinker, and Robert (they're both early to mid-twenties) would always come over with a beer in hand. Robert has a 4 year old son, named Peyton, who is honestly the cutest child you can imagine; huge blue eyes, shaggy blonde hair, innocent and loving to show off. I would steal that child in a heartbeat. And that's where my dislike of them began. They would smoke and drink even when Peyton was in the room with them, and this made me so angry that I stopped hanging out with them when they came over. Once they started inviting themselves over to drink and smoke, my disdain for them was mixed with Jon's drinking, and I would stop coming downstairs and being any sort of affectionate to Jon at all. I started telling him that if he drank even one sip of alcohol, I wouldn't kiss him for the rest of the night.

And I didn't. He cried one night when I refused to even come into contact with him. But I was so mad at him for excluding me (because I don't like beer) and our neighbors for ignoring and leaving their child alone that I didn't care. I was sick of it, and so the arguments started. I didn't want to tell Jon that my disdain of alcohol stemmed from being left out, and not necessarily the taste, because I thought he would just say I was being dumb and wouldn't understand that being left out hits deep for me.

(A similar thing was happening with smoking, too. I hated how he acted when he was high unless I was high, too. But he would smoke when I wasn't home, and so I would get back from working to find him either stoned off his ass and giddy or tipsy and annoying, neither of which I wanted to deal with after having to go to school and then go straight to work.)

We still have this issue. We went to Tennessee for our 6-month (his parents have a house up there) and talked all the way up, while we were there, and all the way back down. I think we resolved a lot of issues but I still hate the thought of him smoking or drinking. I already don't like going to parties with him because he doesn't understand how to act when you bring your serious girlfriend to a party, and I feel even more left out than if I'd stayed at home. That's not how a relationship should be, you know? I want to feel like I'm both important to him and that he wants me to enjoy what he's enjoying, but neither of those wishes are happening.

I don't know what to do. I try to talk to guy friends about it but they don't really get where I'm coming from. Marena is being crazy and a whore so I have separated myself from that hot mess. I guess I need to take a moment out to talk with Kailie... Maybe next weekend when Jon is gone for a few days. That might be good. I just need to come up with a solution soon. I hate that I hate what he's doing... But he's also not trying to change. He told me directly that his drinking habits were never going to change, and I told him neither was my attitude. Where do we go from here? It's killing me.

2. UNC is nice, I guess. Classes are insanely hard... Way harder than I thought they would be. My highest grade (besides papers, which are nothing) is an 84. Ouch. This is coming from the girl who has a 3.8 at her last college. I really feel like I've been slapped in the face by reality... And how I'm not actually as smart as I thought I was. I finally quit my job at Champps so that I'll have more time for school. My last day is Halloween morning! That's only 3 shifts away, because I'm working tonight, a double tomorrow, and then my final shift on Sunday morning. I'm going to try to make as much money as possible, and the scheduling manager, Dan, said I could call him 2 weeks before I decide that I want to work for them again (so I'll be going back over Christmas break). Dad has offered to give me several hundred dollars a month so that I can still pay for rent and have some spending money left over.

Oh! I forgot one more update. I went to a tanning bed on Thursday. =P It was a little awkward and kind of scary because I wasn't sure what to expect but I think I like it! I did a hydration massage and red light therapy on the same day, too. I plan to go again (tanning) on Sunday and then do the three spa service sets again on Monday (I'm going to try to start tanning every few days, because I've been looking really pale in comparison to the other girls here at UNC.

That's all for now. It's time for class. See ya! Nice chat.