January 16, 2025

Prefacing this by explaining who I am, because why would you read something about someone you know nothing about!? I'll give some background; I'm Justin, a 19 years old black American and I attend a college near Atlanta. Despite a lot of people not being from the US, I assume Atlanta is one of the most influential and popular cities in America in general, but incase you don't know where Atlanta is or its influence, it's a major city in Georgia for both artistic and ethnic purposes. 

Yesterday was actually a pretty interactive day! So the day before yesterday, considering this day needs context to explain what I was doing, at around 8pm, I was thinking about driving back to my parent's place, which is 30 minutes from my school, because last weekend I had brought a lot of my belongings there. Every time there's a weather crisis, or in general every weekend, I visit home since its not that far from me. The issue in this context is that the last time I had stayed there (Which was during a snow/ice storm), I had left a lot of my blankets and such there, and so I had been sleeping at my dorm with literally a single blanket and pillow; and trust me the dorm beds are NOT comfortable by themselves. In any case, as I got in my car and was driving toward home, also with the intent of getting food while out, I noticed a little slip of paper flapping in the wind as my car left the college parking lot. Bewildered by this random slip, I immediately found another parking lot to park and inspect this phenomenon, and to my horror, there was a parking ticket on it. Now this is more than ridiculous, considering I live on campus in a dorm, so I have to park in the parking lot there. I had previous put on a parking decal on my car in the first semester of school to avoid receiving tickets, but it had expired as the new year had come. Since its my first semester at this school, I hadn't thought to renew it, something I'm going to be deeply cautious of now. Upon driving to the department that issues these tickets, they were closed, and had a ridiculous open time that obviously conflicted with most of my class schedules; that meaning the only time I could go would be as early in the morning as possible. yayy.

That brings us to today! soooo I began my morning driving back to this place, with a sense of deja vu considering I literally was there the previous night, and the only thing that had changed was the lighting. I was greeted by this slightly chubby police officer inhabiting the office, and dude was not exactly jazzed about there. I mean I had no idea what his shift was, but I could tell he was already having a shitting morning, regardless of me being the literal first person entering. As I approach the guy and start talking in my monotone "I don't want to be here either" ass voice, he tells me to speak up, and then promptly directs me to a qr code that was more helpful than he was the entire time I was there. I figure out how to work the qr code link, and the cop takes care of my ticket by voiding it to circumstance, because obviously how the fuck am I supposed to avoid a ticket in the parking lot of which I live??? He hands me a sticker, and I'm ready to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

Keep in mind, this is at like 9 in the morning, and I have class at 9:30 and haven't even eating breakfast yet. I had anticipated this time crunch, so I had already gotten dressed for class and brought my belongings with me, only thing needed was to actually consume breakfast food. Now heres a few things about me that make this more difficult than it may seem;

1. I like fashion as a hobby so getting dressed in a hurry is like an angel without wings. I literally have taken longer to get dressed than girls I've dated in highschool, and I don't know if thats a good or bad thing. It could be due to like the idea that I have so many cool clothes I'm indecisive, or I'm just insanely extra. At any rate, I basically wore my favorite hoodie from this month that I got for my birthday, which was January 1st (yes im a new years baby) and it's the most comfortable thing to touch my skin besides my bed sheets.

2. I hate breakfast. I can already hear people shouting at me how this is tangibly possible. The thing is, It's not like I hate all breakfast, and the dining hall doesn't make it much better. So lets consider this for a second; I like eggs, and pancakes, and waffles, the basics. But other shit like sausage and french toast has to be cooked right for me to actually enjoy it. Take it with a grain of salt, but if anything I just listed cooked shitty I will not eat it. Ihop makes pretty good breakfast, but all my life I've still contionously hated breakfast. I either enjoyed something and then overplayed it to the point where its bleh, or it just tastes like shit and has literally no protien in it. And I don't even mean just like protien as in meat, I mean literally it does not fill you up. What is the point of eating a meal, if it literally does not make you less hungry. I understand this if its taste makes up for it, but if it tastes terrible AND doesn't fill you up, im beginning to lose my sanity. Over breakfast at that. Another small side-tangent about breakfast is that other meals of the day are massive improvements in comparison. If breakfast food was the ONLY food in existence, then I'd complain less bcause I have nothing to compare it to. But the amazingness of lunch and dinner food absolutely blow breakfast out of the fucking water

BUT regardless of how i feel about breakfast and how well my outfit is measuring up to the rest of the week, I still need to eat something to not feel shitty in class. And there are two options; The dining hall (that makes relatively good lunch food, side tangent recognized), and Chick fa lay! No for those of you who don't have a chick fa lay were you live, its about the most common chicken place in America, or maybe just Georgia, I dunno I don't travel much. Its not great, but compared to everything else, it had decent chicken and its a change of pace from the dining hall; add to that it's literally inside one of the campus buildings on my way to class, so I could eat it and not have to worry about being late. The downside is that it costs money. (I know, total SHOCKER??) It's not expensive, but it adds up, and I swear they do this intentionally knowing students, even commuters, would rather have chick fa lay then a fucking undercooked shitty ass breakfast. 

So I pick the lesser of the two evils that makes my bank account smile for a little while; The dining hall. It's not all bad, and I previously failed to mention my outfit which gives Segway into the next major event in my day. So not only am I into fashion, I also design my own clothes from time to time, and in this case, today I'm wearing the hat I was working on for a friend. He gave me idea for it several months ago (making clothes takes time), and its basically finished, aside from some parts I just didn't do lol. It had been in my possession so long I had almost thought about keeping it, but that would be fucked considering he bought me food one day as payment. He also works at the dining hall;

So as I swipe in to the dining hall, I'm met with TOBA! who is literally walking directly towards me in my path as I enter. We dap up, and I explain how the hat is basically finished, besides the smallest decals you wouldn't even notice unless you looked up close, and he switches out his cap for this trapper hat I've designed.

So a little bit of context for this next part, but not too much I promise. I don't want to get super into detail about my own personal thoughts and opinions I don't directly share with others because obviously if they read it it could change their opinion of me besides the one I choose to show them (but literally everybody does this without admitting it, and blogging is just admitting that publicly at the risk of being socially exposed) but who gives a fuck, because if you're not 100% genuine or able to represent that in your daily sociality, then you're already fake enough. Just understand I choose not to share all these details because it's easier unnecessary or I prefer the dynamic in which you don't know the innerworkings of my mind. All that meta-bullshit for people who know me in real life out the way, lets continue the story.

Damn I use 'So' as a paragraph introductory a lot. Oh well. A few days ago in my last class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a girl came up to me and told me she had seen me skateboarding under E building and asked about the club there (E is the main dining area building, and my friend group of skaters skate there whenever we aren't in class or doing other stuff). This girl, standing about maybe 5'1, medium brown skin complexion and decked out in a, possibly dare I say it, even swaggier outfit than I, stated wanted to join, and told me she had a skateboard she rarely used. This girl had on a camo trapper hat, slightly outshadowing my custom patched hat that of which was not on my person at the time, and a sick sleek leather jacket overshadowing a blue collared shirt and brown tie. She completely threw me off guard, considering the entire class I was drawing a person sitting behind me through the transparent reflection of my black laptop screen. While frantically collection my belongings, entrapping total strangers sitting in the same row as me while trying to traverse such a tight space, I explained to her that we skated when we didn't have class. Making our way out into the hallway, we slightly conversed about her small history of skating, but desire to learn more. Later that night, she had met up with my group and I skating below E building, as previously mentioned, introducing herself as Avery. Avery had also messaged me last night randomly and rather impulsively to my perspective, letting me know she thought Toba was attractive. what the fuck do i say to that lmao

Finally circling our way back into the present, I let Toba know, and he says exactly what I expect, he doesn't know how old she is and barely knows her, so we should probably work on that first. I sit down and eat my shitty breakfast food, while an equally tired toba talks to me about creating the menu for the dining hall. Toba works part time while active as a student by creating menus for the dining hall, and doing other events like handing out cupcakes to people with birthdays in January (me ofc). Tuesday to and from my second class of the day, I spotted him working outside on a counter near the hallway my class was on, to which he offered me a cupcake in exchange for a picture on a college bulletin somewhere in cyberspace. After some small talk, I leave him to go pursue my educational prowess.

My first period is this extremely nerdy and funny tall lanky white guy. He wears glasses and a typical male English professor sweater vest. I'm not going to go into detail about the entire class, but it was mostly assessing this ready of a book titled "The machine Stops" which is, from what I gathered reading it; A post-apocalyptical version of earth taking place thousands of years in the future were mankind survives off this worm-like machine that housing humans deep underground due to the earths surface being devoid of oxygen. I didn't finish the book, but last night spent all my time up until bed trying to finish it and take notes so he could check me off. I'm a bit of a procrastinator. He explains how the story tells a beginning middle and end, and elaborates on central functions of stories that show transitions between the different parts. This guy is also fucking hilarious, throwing in pop culture jokes and references even a smug nonchalant college student couldn't resist cracking a grin or chuckle at.

Leaving that class, I figure I have about an hour and a half until my next class, and literally that is the most annoying amount of time between anything ever. Considering my next class is in the same building as the one I'm currently in, If it were 30 minutes I'd just wait here and study or something until it was time for the next class. If it were two hours, or anything longer than that, I'd embark on one of my hobbies, or assort my group together to do something time consuming until it was time, but an hour and a half is just under that timeframe, leaving you with too much time to sit around and wait for class to straight, and too little time to actually do anything hobby related. Regardless, I head back to my dorm and scroll tiktok for the better part of this time. I finally text someone I care about for the first time today, me being too busy earlier with all the classwork and car ticket issues. I text mel to let her know I'm awake although busy, and my Mom, who I'm supposed to be sending fitchecks everyday, but do you see how messy and shit my day gets even at the beginning? But of course I love her so I send her a picture of my face. She reminds me that she's coming by today to drop off my bedsheets I had left at home while visiting over the snowstorm. Also, I've run out of outfits to make into something new and worthy of a fit check. I'm not in highschool, spending my entire paycheck on underground clothing sites that upcharge every transaction, my money goes to basically only taco bell and chillies now.

My next class is acting for the screen. Given that I now have the change to change my clothes into something I actually deem fashionable and not the same damn hoodie I love so much yet have worn pretty much everyday this week, I change into this hoodie that's much thinner, and has some custom patchwork on it. The flaps on the upper right side haven't been sewn on, and they're hanging in the balance using close pins, although my OCD (i dont actually have ocd) kicks in and I add an extra pin from my drawer to make sure it doesn't look ridiculous infront of my classmates who are totally scanning my outfit for chopped-ness. I take with me my sewing kit, which is encapsulated in this jean pocket bag I thrifted a few months back, and absolute beauty. These details is important in a few seconds. 

I skate my way from my dorm to the building I had just left an hour and a half ago, and upon entering the class we recite various breathing exercises. This issue here is that it's kind of hot in the room, and on top of that I've just been skating all the way here. Upon trying to take off my jacket though, the close pin I had put on my jacket to fix such a miniscule part of my look is clipping to my undershirt, making it impossible to take off without taking off that aswell. On top of all this, I had the stupid idea of doing this right when everyone in the class is standing in a circle doing these exercises, while im fumbling around my jacket like a fucking idiot trying to find where the close-pin starts and ends to take this shit off. I finally find it, and throw that shit into my chair. We have done some crazy stuff in this class so far, and its far from typical 'laptop take notes.' My professor divides the classroom into half and half, and has each group take turns going into the center of the room, and continuously making a motion and noise at the same time, while others follow simultaneously creating "a machine." This is the funniest, yet trippiest shit I have seen in my entire life. If I had a dream about this scene without context, or if I entered this class high as fuck, I'd be absolutely tripping the fuck out. Luckily our group didn't go first. I glance across the classroom at my two friends Zoe and Adam who've been ostracized from me during the grouping process. They work seamlessly together, having an advantage over awkwardness considering they already know each other. I have some friends on my side though as well, that being Aaron and Omar. Aaron I've known since I was like 7 years old, and Omar I had just met in this class but seemed pretty cool and had similar interests. After doing this charade between groups and at the end all together, our teacher ends class with going around in a circle and asking us to create a list of our favorite actors, then attempts to narrow it down. Obviously, theres a huge battle between everyone about these actors, although Aaron and I have no stake in the battle (I'm severely uneducated in actors despite being a cinema media arts production major). We all three agree to meet up at the E building to skate after class, and on my way out I greet Toba, who today offered me a sample of... Rice? I forget the actual name, but it was like rice with sweetener in it, and it was pretty good.

We meet at E building and skate for a while, and eventually more people drop into to skate, that being Avery and Saint among them. Today was the first day of me skating in Etnies, a shoe similar to DCs, which I had skated in the past. I had stopped skating DCs for various reasons, that being the thick ones gave me a completely different feel when skating and I disliked them (Court graffiks), and the DCs I had made the most skating improvements with were collectables that I couldn't get a second pair of, making me lose alot of skill when the shoe finally gave in. I had resisted the urge to skate these new shoes I had gotten for christmas because they were literally brand new, and I knew they'd get severely fucked up and I wanted to wait a little bit before sending them to that fate. Despite that, I had relapsed when my friend Silas had learned to skate over the cone for the first time, and I taught him using my brand new adidas. The Etnies skating really well, almost better than my adidas. Omar was practicing ollieing over cones and rails, I was practicing my consistency at ollieing over multiple objects in a row, and the others were all doing their own thing. Time went by and eventually it was time for my last class of the day; History

Since me and Avery were in the same class, it was natural to go there together. Upon showing her the hat I had failed to show her the day we met, when she out shadowed mine severely with hers, I realized I had left my beautiful sewing kit in my acting classroom, but had no choice to wait until after class to retrieve it. Avery and I made small talk about the concept of knowing exactly were you wanted to sit upon entering a classroom. It went something like this; Imagine you're the first few people to enter a class, you can spend as much time as you want deciding where to sit because there's nobody else in the class to judge you. (Not that it matters in real life because who gives a fuck seriously.) But once the class has been decently filled, hesitating to decide where to sit can be rather awkward as everyone who already has a seat watching you analyze the room. Imagine being seating already, and watching someone who just entered deliberately look directly at you trying to decide where to sit, only to sit elsewhere. It could come off as standoffish or as disgust, and even worse for the person deciding. Most people would 10/10 choose to sit with someone they knew, or by themselves if possible, but the later you are into class, the smaller that chance will get. I made the point that if you walked into class with someone else you knew, like how we were, you could hesitate for a moment because obviously you'd need to figure out a place with two spots instead of one, giving it a more logistic excuse to hesitate and backed by having someone with you.

We get into class, and I spend it like I always do regardless of Avery sitting next to me; Waiting for my drawing idea to take over. I don't hate history, but its the kind of thing I feel like I could be learning while doing something else productive. Drawing isn't that distracting, and isn't like a phone or something that could disturb the lesson or others for that matter. Since nothing comes to my head, I just start drawing the classroom, using dynamic angles and the whiteboard as a reference, something I've yet to practice. While its certainty going somewhere, it's not the coolest drawing in the world. I turn to Avery and write down on the page "You should give me something on Pinterest to draw," and she immediately starts browsing. I can tell she's listening, but its not alot to process really. She pulls up this picture of a girl sitting in a fetal position, balancing about 5 skulls on top of her head, and I get to work. Usually, this teacher only stands in the front of the room, or sits even. He's the kind of professor that knows nobody wants to be listening to history so late in the day after taking other classes, or in his case giving that lesson to multiple classes. But today is different. He starts making his way, walking around the classroom, and I assume its to try and work out who's on their phones. When he approaches my column, I literally just turn my drawing to him, not even trying to hide it. What's the point of hiding it anyway? I'd rather get punished for doing something deliberate (how punk of me, i know lmao) than play weasel. He literally just chuckles at it and continues with his lesson. We are all adults here, you know.

I don't finish my drawing, but I get the basic framework done. It's a pretty good drawing, and I even elaborated from the reference picture, making it a lot bigger to apply a lot more details. I contemplated drawing Avery as the girl in reference instead of the girl in the picture, but it was too much work and I hadn't gotten that far in the drawing yet to be making these creative choices. I let her know that I need to retrieve my bag from my acting class, and we both head that way. On the way, I'm trying to get her to skate because I can obviously tell she wants to get better. Her board isn't the best setup to learn a lot on. It's a penny board but with a crusier deck and griptape, but the size makes it very difficult to balance on. I can't exactly just give her a new board, understanding how expensive they are, so I try my best to teach her using mine while I ride hers. In doing so on our way there, a lady walks by us and explains that she's also trying to learn how to skate, and I inform her about skate club at E just as I did to Avery a few days earlier. It's funny how many new people are getting introduced to skating this semester. We make our way into A building (the one with my class and chick fa lay), and stop to get chicken sandwiches since we're both hungry. We even run into another girl who went to school with both of us when we were young, and she immediately remembers my name, too. Middle school I was not conscious yet, like the fact there's people who remember my exitance before I do is literally insane. After collecting my bag and making our way back to the dorm, I split off with Avery near the entrance to meet with my mom and collect the bedsheets. I'm already carrying hella shit, but I stuff fit all into my bag and grab a bin from my car that's parked across from her to carry them up to my dorm with. I kiss her goodbye, and she tells me she looks forward to seeing me this weekend.

After hauling all my shit up to the room, I sit down to get a bite of my sandwich. I text and ask where mel is, quickly to find she's already in a call with a bunch of other people I know. upon joining, I immediately realize this call has already establish a mood I was not in. I was tired, especially from everything happening, and most of the people in there were working on their own thing. It's not that I didn't want to hang with them, but more so the conversations they were involved in had already been established and I had no other business to occupy myself to slowly immerse into conversation, that being working on an edit, or website, or anything. My digital motivation was dry. I received a call from Toba, and he explained that he was skating outside E, and wanted to know if I wanted to skate today. Earlier when I had parted with Avery, she had asked me to let her know when the group was going back out to skate, so she could come join, so I let her know directly after getting off the phone with Toba. After finishing my food, I headed out of my dorm once again to skate.

We pretty much skated until it got cold and dark, something that's unavoidable in the cold of January. I Skate terrible when I'm cold, and it started to affect everyone else too. We were having a lot of fun though, talking about all kinds of random shit, one especially was Toba asserting that random students come up to him and complain about the menu (which he literally doesn't decide, he's just designing and posting it for the students, lol), and how Kenan and Toba managed to jump from their board onto each others, considering that it was physically impossible to do because you'd run into another upon jumping. Following that, we all went together into the dining hall to get some dinner, and I left back to my dorm. When I got back, I spent that next 3 hours helping mel designer her spacehey page, since I have a decent understanding of how to work html and css code, and she fell asleep on call while I finished it at around 11 in the morning. I got off the phone with her and felt hungry, and it had immediately contributed to this theory I had about eating at night.

So I'm a pretty skinny person, although physically fit, and I recently though about the idea of eating more at night to gain more calories and sort of 'bulk' in a way. Regardless, this was actually my first time getting food at like midnight, considering I've only owned a car from august of last year to January of this year. I drove to Mcdonalds, although that shit was most certainly closed. I spun around and went to taco bell next door to pick up three quesadillas, two for tonight, one for tomorrow morning. After getting back to my dorm and taking a shower, I ended the night eating my food and reading this new romance novel (yeah I know, crazy ass ending, what are you doing reading a romance novel?), Its kind of interesting, I've read lots of other literature before but never got into romance because the obvious stigma around it, but it's lowkey been mad interesting and fuck it I'm not gonna go my whole life not reading a genre because other people think its weird, that's some lame shit I'll never be governed by.

AND YEAH THAT WAS MY DAY! and this morning I woke up to type it all out. I wanted to finish this blog before the info became irrelevant or otherdays overshadowed my need to type it all out. Maybe ill do shorter blogs in the future, or even more interactive ones, but this was fun to make! and I hope you enjoyed reading it if you made it this far.