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Some of my most memorable and challenging school memories are from my freshman year of college. Take a peek at my diary to see just what happened...

August 16: This is the last night I'll sleep in the protection of my own bed. I leave for Iowa tomorrow. I hope I like my roommates -- two of them! Best friends from Dubuque. I feel like I'm going to die.

August 20: So here I am. My roommates are actually pretty cool. Trista is really muscular and has the cutest face. She's kind of granola, but Kari is much more preppy. I haven't really met anyone else yet, which is why I'm home alone, writing in my journal like a pathetic geek. I hope after my nail polish dries, I'll summon the courage to go down the hall to talk with the people I met at registration, though it seems unlikely.

August 27: So the thing is, Kari and Trista are really nice, but since they're best friends, they have all these inside jokes and common friends from high school that they dish about. I don't think it's their intention to exclude me, but that's how I feel. Another concern of mine is sleep -- I haven't had a good night's rest since I got here. My dorm-issued mattress is too cruel a punishment for even the worst school slacker. It sags so much in the middle, I need hiking equipment to get out of bed in the morning. As if my torture-chamber-style mattress weren't enough, my night-owl roommates keep me up until at least 2 a.m. I'm seriously deprived of the shut-eye I need to survive my early-morning classes. My biggest fantasy in life is eight straight hours of sleep.

September 16: I fear I'm never going to make friends. All I want is a good night's sleep and a boyfriend -- one who's cute and madly in love with me. If I had one, I'd have someone to go to the movies and hang out with, and oh yeah, to help me study. Making some friends would solve this dilemma, too, and there are a bunch of cool girls around here. But even when they take pity on me and invite me to the cafeteria for dinner, I almost never say a word. When I do, it's something ridiculously stupid. I want to wear a sign around my neck that says, "I'm really not boring and geeky. I'm secretly a sort of nice, occasionally interesting person who suffers from bouts of acute shyness. Do not be afraid."

October 1: I was studying until 3 a.m. with several other girls for my anthropology test tomorrow. I'm going to kick some serious butt. It was fun. Granted, we did about two hours of talking for every hour of hitting the books, but at last, I'm making friends!

Susan, from across the hall, is very cool, and talkative. She went on for about a decade about how she's dating a non-Jew and her parents will disown her if she marries him. It was kind of interesting -- I'd never think twice about what religion my boyfriend was. My parents wouldn't care either. Meeting all these people from diverse backgrounds is my favorite thing about college so far.

November 15: Our next-door neighbors may be the coolest human beings on the planet. Jennifer is a dance major with long red hair that cascades down her back, and Devin is the kind of cool I aspire to be. Teresa, though -- she's my favorite. She's my height and has my name (almost), but that's where our similarities end. She's incredibly outgoing. I'm not.

Despite my shyness, we all went to a party the other night on the opposite side of town. We took the local bus as far as it would go, then hoofed it the rest of the way. We all followed Teresa, playing "Follow the Leader" and singing, "The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah!" It was very juvenile, I admit, but it was nice to just relax and be silly.

December 4: I was sick this weekend. My throat is so swollen that I no longer have a neck to speak of. In fact, I look like a football player on steroids. Under Dad's advice, I went to the hospital Saturday night, where I was poked and prodded.

The medical staff wanted to give me an IV, but apparently my veins are hard to find. They jabbed me with a needle, tried to maneuver it around my body, and then the nurse said something to the effect of "Gee, I managed to spurt your precious blood all over your white sweatshirt, but I was unable to stick this needle into your vein." She proceeded to prick me four more times; my hands are still sore. I ended up getting two huge shots, one in each hip. So basically, all of my appendages were maimed. Only my belly button escaped unscathed. The verdict: I have tonsillitis. Totally uncool.

When I returned to the dorm, I took four Advil and got two hours of sleep before Trista, Kari, and some loud obnoxious male friend of theirs came home. Lucky for me (not!), they turned on all the lights, screamed and yelled, and did Indian rain dances - or at least it seemed that way in my hallucinatory state of agony. When I could finally muster up the energy to ask them to cease the festivities, "Sick... need... sleep... quiet," they did quiet down, but as soon as the mystery boy fell asleep on the futon, he began snoring in a jagged, thunderous manner reminiscent of a cave lion with the flu.

January 20: Susan's boyfriend, Jeff, came up for the weekend from St. Louis with a friend, also named Jeff. Friday night, she asked me if I wanted to go out with them. I was exhausted and had been looking forward to going to bed early, so I was about to say no, and then I glanced across the hallway into Susan's dorm room, and I saw Jeff, the friend.

My jaw dropped -- he was gorgeous, with dark hair and eyes, and a pierced ear. He was wearing the kind of dark, hip clothes preferred by musicians, poets, and artists. In other words, he was my dream guy. Suddenly, I forgot all about my fatigue. I felt energized and refreshed, ready for a night on the town. First, we went to a restaurant and listened to jazz for a while, then we hit a coffee shop and talked for hours and hours about world events, art, books, politics, and music. We had the best time. Susan's Jeff said he had to leave early the next day, but mine said he'd like to come up and visit again. I thought this was a splendid idea. I can't wait 'til next time!

February 7: Jeff and Jeff (remember... there are two of them!) were supposed to come visit this weekend, but then Susan had to go and break up with her Jeff. Now, I'll probably never see mine again. Argggh. All my plans foiled.

So, while the boyfriend scene is dreary as usual, at least I'm having a lot of fun with my friends. The other night I went with Teresa, Devin, and some others to see Jennifer's dance performance. I really enjoyed the show, but what I liked best was the walk home from the theater -- talking and laughing about our classes, the night, whatever.

March 13: Devin bought a journal. She said she got the idea from watching me write in mine. She thinks it's cool that I keep a journal and write fiction. Teresa chimed in and said she also wished she read as much as I did. I can't believe it; all this time I thought I was just a big book-reading geek, and it turns out the people I think are cool admire me, too!

April 27: There are just two weeks until the end of my freshman year. I haven't gotten sleep in weeks, but now it's because I'm up late every night talking to my girlfriends on the floor. We'll go to the cafe, pizza place, student union, or just outside, to talk about everything from politics and books to boys and music.

Everyone is going their separate ways next year. Teresa, Jennifer, and Becky are getting an apartment together; Cindy is going to live in the sorority house; and Devin is moving in with her friends from high school. The only people who'll still stay together are Susan, Heather, and myself. I know my friends are just going to be across campus, but it's never going to be the same. I miss them all already. But you know what? I'm looking forward to my second year of college anyway.

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