Chapter Text
September 1st, 2016
Hello all, and welcome to my blog! I am going to be attending my first day of college tomorrow, which is a very big thing in our family, so I will most likely be posting frequently over the next few days. I am sixteen and attending a prestigious vété school that my parents attended and my sister is attending. We meet up with my sister at the vété school tomorrow, and she might even show me around the school! Can't wait to see her again!
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September 2nd, 2016
Today, I went with my parents to lunch at a place in Paris I've never been to before. I am a strict vegetarian, as are the rest of the members of my family. I don't know why it is like this, but ever since I was young I was taught to be revolted by any form of meat, so I guess I've just kind of learned to be grossed out by it at this point. I'm not sure if Alexia (my sister) is still vegetarian, but I assume that she is. My parents go insane at any sign of meat in my food, particularly my mother. Which leads me to what happened today. I asked for potatoes when I was getting lunch, and when they asked me if I wanted meat, I naturally refused. When I was eating, however, I felt something in my mouth that did not feel like a mashed potato. My mother told me to spit it out, and when I did, we found some sort of meat lying there. I recoiled in horror. My mother went crazy on me, asking me over and over if I had bitten into it. I kept saying, "no, no," as she picked up the plate to go complain to the people who had served me. My dad asked me if I wanted his, but I declined. I had lost my apetite.
So now, here I am in the car on the 30 minute drive to school, and I have never been more nervous in my life. My hands are shaking, and I am angrily pushing aside my annoying dog who keeps getting in my face. I don't know why my parents had us bring him. I'm excited to see my sister's dog. His name is Quicky. I haven't seen him since last year.
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UPDATE: 11:00 PM
Long day. My sister never showed up, and I was super disappointed. She won't answer my texts or calls. I'm not worried about her; she can take care of herself. But I am mad. She was supposed to pick me up! So, my parents left me there with my suitcase and my mattress, alone. I walked off and wandered around hallways aimlessly until I finally found my dorm room. When I went in, I found that my roommate had not yet arrived, and I would have the whole place to myself for a while. I walked forward to what looked like a room off of the regular room with a bedroom and a kitchen, pushed the door open and walked inside. The room contained a desk and a bed frame, and that was it. I got set up quickly, putting my bed in place, putting my posters up, putting my mirror up, and getting my stuff organized. Hopefully I will do better with organization this year (my stuff is always a mess, but at least my sister's is worse). I spent the rest of the day doing virtually nothing. I surfed the web. I futilely texted my sister. I folded my clothes. I listened to ORTIES music on full volume (still, there was only me in the dorm). And eventually, feeling hungry, went off to find myself some food. I successfully got some vegetables including, you guessed it, mashed potatoes, and took the food up to my dorm to eat in peace.
Life is good, but exasperating, even if I didn't really do anything. Although it is a little lonely. Once today, I looked out the window and thought I saw Alexia walking across the campus proudly. I must've seen someone else though, because I looked back a second later and she was gone. Every once in a while, I feel like I might be missing home, and I have to remind myself that I've barely been gone at all.
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UPDATE: 4:00 AM
God help me.
Today (or I guess yesterday, now) I had my first real experience as a college student.
Let me start from the beginning.
I am awoken at around 12:00 by loud music. I wonder what is happening, when seconds later a door bursts open (the door to my room). My first thought: My roommate! My second thought: Oh no, they aren't a girl!.... Confused, I sit up. What?! I asked for a girl! But maybe they aren't my roommate...He asks what the music is, and I tell him I have no idea. Then, I question him about being my roommate, to which he replies that he is gay. Annoyed, I stand up as he rushes me out of my room. Confusion hits me about what is going on when he hands me a ski pole and the music gets louder. Suddenly, the door to our room bursts open and people wearing lab coats with writing and ski masks run in. My confusion is now mixed with fear as they take our stuff and throw it out the window, including our mattresses. More people rush in, now people who look like me (just got rushed out of bed, still in nightclothes, confused like crazy, etc., etc.,). The people with the ski masks shoved me into a group with the others. I watched as the ski masked people dragged my roommate over to where we were and threw him into the group. One guy tried to leave. They pressured him into staying. I finally realized why they had thrown the mattresses out the window. They didn't want us to get sleep! Those idiots! They pushed us down hallways, down staircases, and into elevators. We ended up outside, crawling out from under the building at the ski-masked ones' command. While we were crawling, the masked ones ahead of us in the darkness, my roommate reassured me that it was all probably just to scare us and introduced himself as Adrien. I responded by telling him that I was Justine. Just then, huge doors ahead of us opened. We were rushed in, and that's when I realized where they had taken us.
The drunken, all night party that we were supposed to stay at was wild, and not in a good way. I was shoved through the crowd through people taking pictures, making out, smoking, drinking (of course) and squirting people with water guns. At some point (maybe when I saw a student with a water gun lifted up by the crowd) I tried to make the best out of the nightmare. I smiled, thinking I might be enjoying myself.
After a few minutes of being at the party, I noticed someone dancing on a stage who was wearing leggings, jean shorts, and a t-shirt. They had messy dark brown hair.
My sister.
I scrambled through the crowd as fast as I could manage. I could't believe that my sister was here! I forgot all grudges that I had held against her from this morning.
"Alex? Alex!"
I batted at her leg from off of the stage. She noticed me and stepped off. We held each other in a joyful embrace. She explained to my slight dismay that she was totally wasted. She also expressed to me that it was really cool that I was here. I expressed my own personal excitement of her being here, and then she said something confusing about how mom had "gotten to me". I was confused and asked what she meant, to which she did not reply. She instead said she needed some fresh air, and got her dog off of the stage (who I did not know was there). I greeted the dog excitedly, and my sister hugged me again as she guided me through the crowd. Suddenly, I liked the party. It felt like I finally had some sort of place, and I didn't have to worry about what other people thought of me 'cause I was part of a pair. I smiled for real now, and my sister put her her hands in the air, and we walked around all the people who originally had seemed so terrible.
My sister took me to a dark room. She said we couldn't turn on the light 'cause we weren't aloud in here. She flashed her light around the room off and on, trying to scare me by me seeing little glimpses of the weird specimen jars that were all over the room. Then, she jump scared me. She finally stopped and proceeded to show me several photos pasted on the wall. Turns out, they depicted students covered in blood in group photos! Gross! And supposedly, if you didn't submit to this 'initiation', your head was cut out of the photo! Alex showed me one of our parents, covered in blood with a bunch of other students, which made me laugh. Then, she told me I would have to do it; it was tradition. I didn't feel very good about this. As Alexia was leaving, she told me that I couldn't go to bed yet because the older vétés (the people in the ski masks, I guessed) always went to bed before the rookies (the freshmen).
When I got to bed, I was beat, and I couldn't sleep. On top of that, my roommate brought someone back with him. Not sure I can get any shut-eye with all the noise coming from the contiguous room. Does no one in this whole fucking school give a shit about studying? I don't know how I'll be able to focus tomorrow...
Oh wait, it is tomorrow.
At some point, I had the revelation that I would probably never sleep again.
So far, vété school kind of sucks.