college, the golden years

I finally arrived back at school...thank God. Now, don't get me wrong, it's been an awesome summer- but two NYC trips, 3 jobs, a little west coast visit, a lot of family, and some buses to Boston later, I was definitely ready to get back. I'm in an apartment with five other girls this year- three of which I lived with freshman year of college and now we're reuniting for our junior year- it only seemed right! The six of us make up a diverse group; from a journalism major, to my roommate who's pre-med, to Candice who can "speak" sign language, to another who has Celiac's disease...but we share a common love of shopping (both in stores and using the very dangerous and highly addictive on-line sites) which we made clear the day after we moved in. Shopping addictions aside- we DEFINITELY needed the matching bath mats in front of the two bathroom sinks right?!? (Oh well, at least they look cute) We really lucked out with our place. The apartment is huge, but the strange part is that this was the apartment that my best friend's boyfriend lived in last year, where the six wild boys had parties every Thursday-Saturday night while also inviting people over every other night. We celebrated new years here and poured champagne all over the carpets, we celebrated numerous birthdays, had dance parties as much as possible, turned up a speaker so loud that it caught on fire, dropped ashes on the floor from one of the boy's hookahs, someone almost fell through a screen in the window while dancing on a table, someone punched a hole in the wall one night, we overflowed the toilet and it leaked down to the apartment below, we made chicken alfredo and everyone got sick from the sauce, honored Cinco de Mayo with margaritas, a few people funneled rum and coke, we watched basketball most of the time, music was always playing, black lights were always on, and to hold up a torn piece of line paper for each night's ruit list was a steak knife stabbed into the wall. Knowing all this, you would think that this place was dirty hovel, a piece of crap, a place where you couldn't take your shoes off for fear of catching disease.  But the boys somehow managed to clean up (or so they made us believe when we came over on a weeknight); they kept their cabinets labeled (my favorite being "glassware" which contained all the champagne flutes, wine and margarita glasses that were specifically for the "ladies") and they made "family" dinners all the time- the chicken parmigiana was delicious if I do say so myself. Those boys are some of the funniest people I've ever met - technically six lived in this apartment but another six lived across the hall and most of the time it seemed like they were all part of one huge, friendly, hilarious fraternity- always in and out of each other's places, doors always open, we had the best time. So to come in a week ago to an apartment where a picture of michael jordan's wingspan did not sit atop a pyramid of well placed basketball jerseys, or see a small bar rescued from a garage sale set up in the corner had disappeared and the the six-foot-tall T.V. set was not up against the wall, I had a very strange sense of uncomfortable-ness about moving into this apartment...this was not my apartment...this was where we danced on top of tables to Rihanna and Lil' Wayne, where we watched the Superbowl, where the boys were always up until at least 2am every night. I'm still trying to think of it as my own, and believe me, the girly additions such as table lamps, flowers, bamboo place mats, and posters of lovers kissing by the Eiffel Tower in black and white definitely make it more our own, but it will always be the original club C302...I mean hey, we can't get rid of that highlighter paint on our wall that says their names, someday they'll find strong enough paint to cover it up.