Lifelong Friendships

"Lifelong friendships are created here at MJW."-A line I was skeptical to believe before I got here.
When my mom dropped me off at Paty Hall on Friday, July 11,2008 I must admit my pessimistic attitude completely overshadowed any false hopes of meeting anyone who I considered even slightly cool. I had already made up in my mind that I was coming here sheerly for the experience and journalism knowledge available. People that I could relate to in anyway outside of writing?Definitley not.

After a tearful goodbye between me and my mom, I slumped back upstairs to my "new" room in hopes that my room mate wouldn't aggravate me too much,oh, and that she wouldn't end up being a snobby conceited writer who considered everything she produced as god's gift to MJW.
I was greeted as soon as I rounded the corner by a smiling and bubbly young woman with a head full of curly brown hair.

"Hey, are you my room mate?"-her
"Well, is this your room?"- me

Not such an epic beginning to what I now know will be a lifelong friendship between Taylor Barrett and I, but that's how it started. Still feeling a little bit jaded and "whoa is me for having to sleep in this musty dorm room for 10 days" I didn't interact with her too much and decided instead to take a nap.[my usual retreat when I'm feeling stressed]

It wasn't until the next day, when I awoke freshly optimistic, that I really started attempting to establish actual friendships with my peers. Once I allowed myself to open up to everyone, one by one the strangers around me were turning into my friends. They were dealing with the same stressful things that I was [i.e. not enough food, weird musty smelling dorm rooms, stories that refused to write themselves] and we were all able to laugh together. Humor is a huge deciding factor in whether or not I befriend someone and EVERYONE here has made me laugh at least one hearty time. Although I'll be torn to pieces when I have to leave the distinct odor of Paty Hall far in the distance, I'll burst into random laughter when memories of all the funny things that happened at MJW 2008 cross my mind. [then I'll probably leave a few nostalgic Facebook messages to my new lifelong friends :-]