My First Time

I have no drive to study. None whatsoever. I just want to spend time with the beloved friends of mine who are leaving California.

Sara Schlegal. Katie Dash. Jazz Charlton. Jaume Campistol. Michael Sweetman. Cormac Mangan. Matteo Bassi. Victor Sirinopakul. Jess Schwartz. Ayano Ikeda. Karen Nielsen. Oleg Gilberstein. Anna Murray. Emily Phelps. Jeevi Mathers. Benedicte Ameslant. Thomas Liedecke. Mathilde Reynaudi. Chloe Lewis. Elliot McDonald. Amal Kakaiya. Beenna Keum. Carsten Young. Christine Juang. David Kovo. Guillaume Cossio. Kirk Flash. Marina Tota. Stephen Nashef. MJ Lee.

All people I've fallen in love with this year. All people whose homes are overseas. The plus side is that whether I go to England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, Australia, Korea, Japan, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Peru, or Taiwan, I'll have a couch to crash on. The down side is the massive heartbreak I know I'll be suffering in just a few short days. But I'm trapped indoors studying instead of savoring what little time we have left to create our last memories of iHouse together.

And then there's Pascal Pillokeit.

I owe so much to him. We weren't close until very very recently. But oh how close we have become! "Ich liebe dich," he said to me. I didn't understand, so I asked him. And he told me. I responded with "oh." We sat in a comfortable silence. I suppose it's a little nerdy that my next thought was "Search your feelings, Jennifer." I did. For quite a while at that. I had never told a boy those three little words. Not in a romantic context at any rate.

After prolonged soul-searching, I finally said it. I turned to him, looked straight into his eyes, and said, "I love you too." And I meant it. I don't know how our relationship is supposed to work out. I really don't. But I've leapt a huge hurdle. With his help.

It seems stupid. It is stupid. I fell for someone. A very inconvenient someone. Oops.