8/21/22

Hello gorgeous people! I hope all your weeks went well, mines been pretty ok too thanks for asking!

Everything with the flight went pretty smoothly, no major hiccups at the airport which is good cause that's what I think I get most nervous for. The screening stuff is just so intimidating, especially because I do usually have one or two things they wouldn't recommend I fly with, so I'm always so worried that something, ANYTHING, could go wrong at like any point. But no, it was pretty ok, minus the fact that I had to be up so early. So basically what happened was I got up at around 2am-ish, got ready, all my stuff was already packed and, for the most part, ready for me to move to the car. I also made coffee and put it in the fridge for myself the previous morning which helped remove a possible hiccup with like not having enough time or something, so I fully planned ahead y'know. I said goodbye to my sister, she cried, I didn't, I was just excited to leave. I think in the long run I do and will miss my sister, but between you and I, and knowing she doesn't care enough about what I do to read this blog, I think us having space and time away from each other, at least for me, helps my getting along with her a lot. Anyways me, my mom, and my stepdad left right on time, got to the airport, and the hardest part for me was saying bye to my mom. I wouldn't say I'm a mamas boy, but objectively I am not closer to a single other person in my family then me and my mom. And what's worse is unlike my dad and stepmom, my mom doesn't have the option to fly into my state whenever she feels like it, so I go the longest without seeing her compared to everyone else. At the end of the day I think its genuinely just a comfort thing. When I talk to my friends, obviously some of the them know about the stuff I bring up, but a lot of my college friends don't know me as well as I think they think they do, which results in me having to give a lot of backstory or side stories to help them understand what I'm saying when I go on my little tangents. My mom, and my bestfriend, are probably the only people I don't have to do that with. I can bring up pretty much anyone, any topic, any previously conversed upon subject, and they already know, and I miss that so much when I'm away. What's more were at the airport, I have to catch my flight, its around 4am at this point, were all exhausted, so when I said bye I just kinda gave her a hug and said my goodbyes, and not that that's not enough, but she's my mom, and one of the only people I think truly knows me for me, and I'm a Capricorn so I suck ass at goodbyes, its all just kinda foreign and when I actually care its very difficult for me to do. 

So long story short, the plane departs and lands, I get to Arizona by about 9am I think, which is only weird because its an almost five hour flight, and we departed at around 7am, so I quite literally lived through 8am three different times as I traversed through different time zones. Just funny. To me. Anyways the real drama starts when we land. Ill summarize to the best of my ability. We land, get out bags, my stepmom had a shuttle from the hotel she got come pick us up cause I guess they do that, we get to the hotel, check in, and start thinking breakfast. We want to go to snooze. So after I have a bit of a breakdown over how god awful I looked after not sleeping for 24 hours (I didn't sleep the night before), we went to the car that we had parked at the hotel waiting for us. Low and behold, someone stole some shit off the car. I cant remember what it was, but it made the car loud as fuck, smell like ass.com, and effectively prevented us from going anywhere. Next step in the plan, we order Snooze, and my stepmom calls the insurance people, so my dads trying to get breakfast sorted, stepmoms filing an insurance claim, and I'm trying to figure out how I get all my stuff to my apartment without a car. I end up getting picked up by my friend who got to Arizona the morning prior, and she takes me and 3/4 of my stuff to the apartment, my parents followed shortly afterwards to drop my stuff off and then take me to get my AZ resident ID to help me file for in state tuition since I've been living here well longer than a year. So then I come back, my friend takes me to Target to get stuff that I needed, shower curtain, food, etc. and then go back to my apartment cause I forgot my FUCKING keys but whatever, and THEN. Sigh. So for anyone not in college, a lot of universities have welcome events in which artists are invited to preform, which is really cool for us cause its literally a free concert. Last year was Jack Harlow, yuck, and this year was WALLOWS, which I was SO excited for. The only thing is I had been up since 8am the morning before, gone through three time zones, two cups of coffee, moved into my apartment, gone shopping, dragged so many heavy ass suitcases my traps were sore, I was fucking exhausted. On top of that I looked horrendous, so, much to my chagrin, we decided not to go to the concert. I think it was the smart choice, I hadn't really sat down all day since the flight, my mouth was still killing me from getting my wisdom teeth removed, I was in pain, my body my brain my energy was in pain, I didn't need to stay up until 11 dancing and screaming to Wallows, unfortunately. 

That's just the first day. Wednesday was chill-er. Ran more errands, got more groceries and stuff for our kitchen, I got a really cute seashell bowl that I'm not sure if my roommates were chill with me keeping for myself since we all went to get stuff for the apartment, but, its cute. So Katie and Abby if you're mad at me for stealing the seashell, I can put it in the living room, but for now it stays with me >:). Then guess what?? CLASSES STARTED! My first class was a fashion design class, which based on the syllabus seems very very similar to the apparel construction class I took last year, but the professor is so sweet. She's this petite little southern bell and I already love her so much so I really hope I like that class. My other class that day was supposed to be from 4-7pm, but it got canceled cause my professor had Covid, so we shall see what happens with that. Friday I had one more class, fashion illustration, and I think I'm going to Love it. First class the professor brought out fucking cards from IRIS VAN HERPEN SHOW SHE WAS INVITED TO. GET THIS. BY IRIS VAN HERPEN! She met her at some event last year and asked if she could go and Ms. Herpen literally invited her in person. SO crazy. But the class seems really creative, the professor has like an eastern-ish European accent so I like her so far, but I'm worried she could be mean, but I think I'm also just intimidated by her like she's so cool. Then I started my JOB. I'm working at the front desk of the student center (I actually work later today too), and to be fucking real, I cant tell if I'm going to love it or hate it. Basically from what I've seen on my first day, we just sit there. That's fine, I'm gonna devote that time to doing homework, but there's also supposedly other responsibilities that come with the job, that I don't really know how to handle yet, so I'm really nervous about having to work by myself. Hopefully Ill have a couple days before that happens, but I'm just anxious about when it does. The real anxiety, however, is Mondays. My schedule for Monday, every Monday, for the rest of the semester, is going to be as follows; wake up at 7am, go to work at 8, get off at 12, get on the shuttle to main campus, have class until 2:45, come home, work on online classes, and then hopefully fit working out in there somewhere, and then have to go to bed early again cause I work at 8am on Tuesdays as well. I also work Wednesdays until 10pm, but I have Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off so its really only the beginnings of the week that'll be hard, its just going to take some getting used to. 

For today, I'm not really thinking I'm going to talk much about fashion, next week Ill have had all my classes at least once, so I'll have things I will be dying to discuss. Now though, lets get into media. For TV, I've really only been watching Family Guy, I cant stop its definitely my comfort-est of comfort shows.  I started She-Hulk, which is good other than the fact she gives major democrat vibes, like idolizes politicians who are war criminals vibes, but I think her character is really well written. I will say, I love Marvel, I love the movies, I think they are not very good at writing women to be those women. Nakia, Okoye, Kate Bishop, Monica Rambau, great characters. Also Florence Pugh, I cant remember what the characters name is. But way they write the strong female leads, Natasha Romanoff, Carol Danvers, She-Hulk, when they try to make them feminist, it always comes off the wrong way. It comes off like the feminists who have Michelle Obama bobble heads and post girlboss content on their Instagram feed, when I don't feel like that's what feminism looks like anymore. Its not about constantly talking about women's rights and issues revolving around women, its about total political awareness. Feminism, specifically in the way media often portrays it, is very white, cis, centered, when I feel like its so much more than that now. It isn't about women being women, its about WOMEN being WOMEN. And when we see characters like Natasha calling herself a monster for not being able to have kids, or the constant "I'm a woman and I'm treated differently" dialogue, to me, it doesn't come off as progressive, it comes off as the most shallow, mediocre attempt at discussing women's issues, when there are so many real-er ways to go about that would actually be cool to see on screen. To summarize, Marvel writes women from a mans perspective, and when men, with very little real world experience shared with women, try to discuss what women go through on a day-to-day basis, it comes off as gimmicky. So I hope She-Hulk doesn't fall into that pitfall and they actually give her depth beyond a few off hand lines about how men treat her that only skims the surface of the actual issues. That being said, its a fucking marvel show, so I cant expect them to be gold stars in political issues, I just don't want another lame attempt cause then I feel like that guy who hates female characters, when I just want them to feel like real women, and not characters of what a feminist sounds like. Anyways, I like She-Hulk. Music hasn't really changed, although I've been listening to more Deftones again, Smashing Pumpkins, a little Nirvana, only a very little bit though. 

Ok I have to go to work in like 20 minutes so I hope you all have amazing days, use protection if you want to, don't not use protection if you don't want to. Eat, drink water, moisturize, and I will talk to you all next weekend :)

Love you all,

~Christian Reid.