I just got of the phone with my best friend Lauren from home (Potomac, Md) and it was weird because she hasn't left for school yet - she is going to the University of Pennsylvania - so When I talk to her we are coming from such different perspectives right now and it is really strange since we have always been so similar in everything before. We were talking about our other good friend Meryl who is going to Cornell and has been there for about the same amount of time that I have been here and she was saying how she has been talking to her everyday but that Meryl is so happy and has so many friends and even a new boyfriend and I was saying how that is really weird and annoying because I honestly am pretty happy and having what I think is a fairly normal adjustment to college but I don't have like a real group of friends yet or anything and it isn't everything that I had hoped college would be yet, but I figure that I have only been here for two weeks. Lauren was saying that what she thinks is so weird about it though is that Meryl says that she goes out everynight and loves school and everything but she calls her everyday and I say that I am still adjusting etc and I don't even have time to talk to her everyday. I don't know, I just think that it is really annoying and try not to talk to Meryl too much because it makes me feel like there is something wrong with me since things aren't going quite as well for me and it makes me feel sort of bitter towards her. Tonight I went out to dinner with my friend Katie who I met when I went on Camp Texas and I love. We went to the Hula Hut and it was really good because I had really been away from Campus and the whole UT thing since I got here and I was sort of starting to feel like  I was stuck in a bubble and out of touch with reality so it was good to get away for a little bit. Plus, the food was really good and I hadn't had a real good meal since I got here either. It also made me more sure that I had made the right decision about going home for a the weekend of Sept. 17-20 (for the jewish holiday) because I saw that it was good to be in car and get away and realized that it would definately be good for me to get away for a longer period of time. Before I went to dinner tonight I was worried that I wouldn't want to go because I would feel like I was missing things here but now I see that I definately did make the right decision. Also when I go home I am going to drive up to Penn for the night to see Lauren and when I was talking to her it sounded like she was really excited to see me so that is good too. I feel like I should be really stressed right now about schoolwork and everything with this being my first semester of college and my first time at a big, public school since I attended a small private high school but I honestly feel like I have less work then I did in high school and that it is easier - plus I am really staying on top of it. The only concern that I am having at all is the size of my classes (all of them have over 200 people in them) because I am used to being in classes with about 15 people in them and recieving a lot of focused attention from my teachers and although I am not concerned about this affecting my performance as I feel that I am completely capable on my own, I am worried I will be overlooked and just be a number in crowd - which I'm sure that I will be in a lot of my classes, at least for a while. So far though I like my classes at least and find them interesting and all of my professors do seem to be pretty interesting and approachable. I also rushed and am pledging a sorority which, even though I really like it and am happy that I did it is becoming more and more time consuming and I getting worried that I am going to have trouble completing everything that I need to do for that but I am sure that it will not be as tough as I am expecting. Right now I am listening to a really good CD that Lauren sent me that our friend Dave made for me and it is so good because it is a mix that he made of all of these really good old songs plus a couple of good new ones. I have three minutes left to write now and I am really running out of things to say except that earlier I found a cricket or grasshopper or something in my room and it is really gross and I don't know how it got up here because I like on the 11th floor of dobie and there are no windows but it is totally gross and I am definately going to file a complaint and tell the front desk that I need an exterminator or something. Well I think that my time is up now so bye. 

Big Five personality labels — Extraversion: n, Neuroticism: y, Agreeableness: n, Conscientiousness: y, Openness: n