The Adventure Returns North...

            It is September 7^th, the night before I leave SO CAL, and I am sitting in my Grandmother’s living room talking with her about life. I am waiting for a text from my co-workers to see if they want to hang out one last time before I make the voyage to Napa in the morning. I’m not getting any texts right away, but I’m not worried, this moment sitting with my Grandmother and sharing stories is a moment I won’t get to have for a while. Napa is about eight hours north from Grams’ house so I wouldn’t be seeing her for at least another six months.

Let me just say, that my Grandma let me stay in her house for two months with no rent, she has been such a blessing to me that I can’t even describe how thankful I am. She is a great woman with so much to offer and I wish I could have stayed longer. Grandma, I love you so much and look forward to our next meeting.

            My co-worker friends eventually texted me and we had a great night out on the town. I stopped by the Pizza Press one last time to give my farewells and wish them all the best of luck. I made some awesome friends during my two months and it was way too short, I plan on making my way back south eventually to see my favorite faces. I return around 2 o’clock in the morning to finish packing my truck. My body has had a crazy sleep schedule this summer because the Pizza Press didn’t close until 1 am, so sleep wasn’t happening until at least 2:30 or 3. I finally get into the small cot I slept on all summer for the last time and somehow fall asleep.

            I wake up around 6am and give Grandma my final hug and wave goodbye as I leave the driveway for the last time. My first stop is Starbucks, because it’s way to early in the morning, and I am about to be in my fully loaded truck for the next 8 hours. Coffee in hand, I head to another Starbucks just south of LA to meet up with my good friend Zach and his fully loaded truck, to “caravan” back to school. We grab some form of a “starbucksy” breakfast and hit the road, leaving the wonderful beach behind us.

            Now, I had to figure out a way to keep myself occupied while sitting down for so long, but not too occupied, because I still had to drive. SO I burned all of Dylan Moran’s stand up specials onto disks and laughed my way to Napa. He is my favorite stand up comedian and it’s hard not to enjoy any movie he plays in. My good friend Rose can attest to that. The nice thing about leaving so early in the morning is that by the time noon rolled around, we were just about halfway to our destination. We only had to put gas in once really, and decided to stop for some Subway as well. It was during our lunch break that I introduced Dylan Moran to Zach. I gave him two of the specials I had already listened to and I basically converted him to enjoy Dylan Moran almost as much as I do…almost.

            The rest of our journey begins to go by quickly and before we know it, we begin to recognize the geography of Napa California. The wineries here are insane and gorgeous. It’s much dryer here than it was down south, where every now and then you get the “sea-breeze.” But not here, here it’s just hot in the dry times. We even saw a few smoke clouds from fires nearby, I still don’t know who or what was on fire, but I hope they are okay.

            The arrival into Angwin is a bittersweet one. Yes, I am excited the drive is over, but I literally live on a hill now and I can’t go to the beach anymore. But as we get out of our vehicles and approach our beloved dorm, familiar faces begin to come into view. It is in this moment of hugging, hi-fiving and smiling that I forget about how much I hate school, because between you and me, I freaking loathe it. I’m sure I’ll write about that later so…back to the arrival.

            We check in and unload all of our belongings into our rooms and have our first meeting. Now I say meeting because I am a desk worker for the dorm and I have arrived to campus two weeks before school starts to train and prepare the dorm for all the fresh meat. I can’t explain how excited I am to be working here. I applied for the position because seeing a smiling face every time I entered or exited my dorm gave me a sense of peace that not everyone here is out to get you.

            It's only been a week since I left and I am sitting at the desk now writing this monstrosity of a blog and all I can say is that this week has been awesome. I have been working my butt off moving heavy dressers up and down flights of stairs, I am starting to legitimately get into parkour, AND I am making more and more friends as the days go on. OH and I switched from Communications to TV and Film, so this guy right here is going to be a filmmaker. I am really excited for my black and white photography class as well as a short scriptwriting class. I don’t think I have figured out “short” and “writing” to go together just yet, but we will see what happens.

            We just had our dorm revamped and it looks incredible. The walls are painted a sky-blue and the bathrooms look brand new, its really nice and soothing.

There is still a lot of work that needs to be done so this week is going to be crazy, but the nice thing is that I have been so busy that its impossible for me to get depressed about the upcoming homework assignments. Which is most likely going to be taking photos and writing scripts, “oh no.” OH and I’m taking the lowest math classes for college (finally), and for that I crap my pants.

            Lets see what else…oh right! My dad is coming to visit me on Tuesday! I can’t wait to see him. Its nice that he travels this way sometimes so I’m sure this won’t be the last time I get to see him. It’s my 21^st birthday this Friday and I think everyone here in the dorm is going to be gone for the freshman getaway thing. So I’m pretty sure I’m going to see a good friend of mine. I can’t wait. This year is going to be incredible and it’s just another chapter in my story.

More to come….. so hold onto your butts.

@JS