I sat in my big, overstuffed chair at the end of my bed inside my dorm room, staring at the white wall. It seemed to be staring back at me, concentrating and distracting me from my last paper of the semester. If I could just think of what to write, I’d be done. Then, I would finally be done with school for three months. Summer was almost here. There were only a few more days until I could spend the whole summer lying on the beach, not having to worry about homework, grades, and all the pressure of being a college sophomore. If only I could just write something somewhat intelligent, instead of this miniscule display of psychobabble I have on this mostly empty piece of notebook paper. How hard is it to explain to someone what I learned from an extremely effortless Creative Writing class? I flew through the year with flying colors, so why couldn’t I just fly through this?

I had already known the answer to that question. The reason I couldn’t write the stupid paper was because of all the pressure of it. I really don’t work well under pressure. It’s a good thing I grew up in a small town with a very small amount of peer pressure. If one of my friends had told me that it was a good idea to sell crack on the corner of the sleaziest street in town, I probably would have. It’s a good thing that I had honest and loyal friends back in the day. What was I talking about? That was only a few years ago.

I slapped myself in the head with the notebook. I shouldn’t be thinking about these things when I have a paper due tomorrow. I laid the notebook back down onto my lap and repeatedly tapped my pencil on it, as I asked myself over and over again, “What did I learn from this class?”

The truth is, I didn’t really learn anything. Wait, I take that back. The only think I learned is that I enjoy writing. I never really knew that until I had to take this class, since all the others I wanted were filled up. The only problem was: how would I stretch that answer out into three pages?

Three and a half hours later, it was 4:30 am and I was finally finished with the most challenging term paper of my college career so far. After that, I was so tired that as soon as I lay on my bed I was fast asleep. During my brief sleep, I dreamed that I was a flying cow, soaring over all of the open fields in my lovely home state of Wisconsin. I always have abnormal dreams after a long night of schoolwork.

The sound of the alarm woke me up at 8 am, but I wasn’t at all ready to wake up; the stress of the evening before left me drained. But, I knew I had to suck it up and go to class to hand in my clever opus of a paper. I got up and threw on a sweatshirt and jeans, grabbed my paper, and left. It was cold on this spring morning, but the sun still shone through the trees. I quickly sprinted up the stairs and into the building. When I walked into the classroom, there was not a soul in sight. I had forgotten that I set the alarm for 30 minutes early so I was never late. I decided that I would just sit and wait, so I sat down in a random desk in the back of the classroom. I felt my eyelids getting heavier, my head slowly nodding down, and the room turning black.

“Good morning, Ms. Harris”, I heard from the front of the room, along with the rustling of papers. I woke up and looked in front of me. The voice came from none other than Professor Loughlin.

I jumped immediately at the sound of her harsh voice. “Good morning”, I replied after a few seconds of calming myself from the heart attack I almost had. I glanced down and noticed a small spot of drool and quietly wiped it with my sleeve, looking around to see if anyone was around to notice. I was relieved to discover that no one was in the room besides Professor Loughlin and myself.

Soon after that, all my classmates had shown up and the professor started talking about the usual significance in stories. The class went by quickly, and then everyone rushed to the front of the room to hand in their papers. I went along with everyone and gave the professor my paper, and smiled.

Next, I headed off to another one of my many classes for one of my many final exams. I took too many credits this semester than I could handle, and the stress was definitely rearing its ugly head out from underneath the surface. I had really massive bags under my eyes.

Numerous hours later I had four exams done, and four more to go. Tomorrow would surely be another day like today. One more tiring, stress filled, terrible day. But at least it would be over after tomorrow. In the cafeteria, I met up with my roommate and my two other good friends I had come to know last year. I sat down at our table with a tray consisting of a cheeseburger, fries, an apple, and a bottle of water. That was my usual dinner when in a hurry.

My friends and I had the normal chitchat about cute guys, makeup, and parties. No one really discussed anything about exams, because no one was as stressed as I was. They had all taken a limited number of credits, just to get by, but I had to take as many as I could, not thinking about how hard it would be in the long run. After I finished my food, I bid adieu to my friends and headed off to my room to catch a little shut-eye.

My roommate walked with me, asking what I was planning to do for the summer. I told her I was probably going to just spend the summer relaxing in the sun, when she turned to me and persuaded me to come with her to Florida for the summer. At first I hesitated, telling her I really wanted to just relax, but after her usual “Come on, Chelsea” whine, I agreed. After all, I could afford it with the job I took earlier in the year, and all the money I had saved. Besides, I deserved it. I worked really hard this semester.

The next day flew by, although just as stressful as the last. On the way back to my dorm, I stopped by my Creative Writing professor’s office. I popped my head in the door and tiredly said, “So, how did I do?”

She looked up, smiled, and replied, “Ms. Harris, you know I have not gotten to looking at it yet. I’m a very busy old woman.” She looked back down; made one more marking on the paper she was grading, looked back up at me while pushing her tiny glasses up, and smiled.

“I know, just checking”, I said, with a cheeky tone in my voice. Then, I sat down in the chair in front of her desk and asked her if she could come down to my dorm when she had graded it. Her and I had a great relationship. Hours and hours were spent in her office with witty banter and serious discussions on everything. She was the best teacher on the whole campus.

She had agreed to let me know when my paper was graded, and I headed back to my dorm to pack for the trip to Florida. When I got there, Sarah, my roommate, was mostly packed except for what she needed for the last night in the dorm. I was too tired to pack at that exact moment, so I decided to take a little nap.

When I awoke at around noon the next day, Sarah was gone. I panicked and thought she had left without me, when I realized her bag was still in the room and that she had probably gone to get some food. I packed my bags and she was back before I was done. Before we left for the airport, we said goodbye to all our friends and took pictures with anyone and everyone we knew.

The flight to Florida was faster than I expected, probably because I slept most of the way. Soon after check in at the huge resort, we were sitting on lawn chairs on a beach in sunny Florida. We soaked up the rays like there was no tomorrow; good thing we brought extra sun block. We must have spent all day lying in the sun because before I knew it, it was getting darker and a bit colder. As we gathered up our things from the sand, we headed back to our room to get ready for a night on the town.

A bright light shown through the window of the ultra expensive hotel room. I rolled over to my right, and there I saw a strange man lying next to me in the bed. Before I knew it, I was jumping up and screaming. Sarah leapt up from her bed, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me into the bathroom hurriedly, covering my mouth.

“What are you doing?” she scolded.

“Who is that guy?” I screamed, wanting an explanation.

She laughed, “You don’t remember, do you?”

She described to me everything that had happened the night before. Supposedly we went to a bar and got a little tipsy, and I met a really cool (and cute) guy who helped me back to the room since I couldn’t by myself.

“We didn’t… you know… did we?” I asked, with a worried look on my face.

“Not that I know of!” she exclaimed, laughing.

I replied, relieved, “Okay, good.”

I asked Sarah if she would ask him to leave, but by the time my sentence was finished, she had already walked out of the bathroom. I was really nervous, so I splashed some water in my face, collected myself, and walked out of the bathroom. I turned to the guy on my bed, who was actually standing up and putting his shirt on. I caught a small glimpse of his tan, chiseled abs, which made me even more nervous than I already was.

“Hi”, I smiled timidly, “Umm, thank you for everything last night, but maybe you should be getting back to, umm, whatever, you know-“

“I think I can take a hint,” he said adorably, while smiling. He shook my hand like a complete gentleman, and Sarah gave me one of those ‘you’re making a huge mistake’ looks.

“Wait-“, I said just as he was about to walk into the hotel hallway. He turned to me and I said, “Umm, can I get your number or something, you know, just in case I can’t get back by myself again?” I was being delightfully sarcastic.

He looked at the nightstand, which had a piece of hotel stationery with small writing on it, and then looked at me again.

“Gotcha”, I laughed.

As soon as he left, I shut the door and literally ran to the nightstand. Sarah and I grabbed the paper at the same time and started jumping and screaming with laughter, paper in hands and all. Shortly after our girly freak out, Sarah went to take a shower. Once I heard the water running, I stared at the small piece of paper in my hands over and over. It read: Adam-- 555- 4760, Room 617. I smiled endlessly, held the paper to my chest, said the contents of the paper aloud in a dreamy fashion, and let out a long sigh.

“Are you talking to yourself?” Sarah asked, wiping her hair off with a towel. I snapped out of my dream-like state and replied nervously, “N- No, what are you talking about?” She shrugged it off and went back into the bathroom to get ready. I felt kind of embarrassed.

“Hurry up! I want to take a shower before I die!” I screamed at Sarah. She laughed and yelled back, “I’m almost done!” An hour later, I was able to make my way into the bathroom. I got ready in half the time than Sarah did, and still looked stunning.

After Sarah’s many touch ups, we were finally out of the hotel room and on our way to lunch. I thought about calling Adam, but we were in a hurry since Sarah took too long getting ready. Before we left the hotel, we asked the concierge if he knew a good place to eat lunch. He suggested a few places, but they all seemed too fancy for just a small lunch, so we just headed toward the first little café we spotted. The corner building was bright and colorful.

When we got in, we took a look at the enormous menu hung up high behind the counter. We both ordered exotic-sounding salads along with fruit smoothies, and took a seat at a small mosaic table next to the window.

Halfway through our meal, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked over, and, to my surprise, it was Adam. I had a big smile on my face, and said “Hey! What are you doing here?” He laughed and said, ”Nice way to greet a guy that helped you”.

My faced turned bright red and I said, “Sorry, I’m just a little surprised, I guess”.

“It’s alright”, he smiled, “I’m just eating lunch with my friends. The place looked okay, so I thought I’d give it a try. It isn’t too bad.”

“Yeah, these salads are great.” I said.

He wiped a drop of dressing from the side of my mouth with his finger and laughed. “I can tell.”

“Oh no!” I thought to myself, “I just blew it. He must think I’m a total idiot!”

I let out a small nervous laugh, but it didn’t last long. Sarah even laughed a bit, until I kicked her from underneath the table.

“So, what are you girls doing later?” he asked me coolly. I looked at Sarah wide-eyed, forcing her to tell him we weren’t doing much later. We were actually supposed to go out to a club, but I knew she’d do this for me.

“Umm… not really much of anything”, replied Sarah. I was so relieved she said that. I really wanted to get to know Adam. Those blue eyes of his were irresistible. I had to see him again.

He smiled at both of us, “Good, because I’d like to invite you to a bonfire on the beach tonight. My friend heard some locals talk about it. We were thinking about checking it out, but if you two come with us, we’ll do more than think about it.” He winked at me and my heart sank into my stomach.

I almost answered him before he finished the sentence. “Okay! We’ll go!” I stumbled, “I mean—you know, whatever, sure.” He laughed at said he’d meet us in front of our hotel at 8 pm. He kissed my hand and said goodbye. His two friends weren’t too bad looking, either. I caught Sarah eyeing up the dark-haired one.

Of course, after they left the café, we had to do the whole girly freak out thing again. After that, I looked back down at my half-eaten salad and lost my appetite from being way too excited. We ditched the food and started walking back to the hotel when we realized neither of us had anything to wear to the bonfire. We had to do some emergency shopping.

After three hours of looking through little boutiques, we both found perfect outfits. We both had to shower, again, and get ready. This time we shared the bathroom. I sat down on the bed to call Adam. I hesitated a little bit, but after a few minutes, I picked up the phone and dialed the number to his hotel room.

“Hello?” someone answered.

“Hi, Adam?”

“Uh, no, hold on”

I waited for what seemed to be forever, and heard the guy yelling, “Adam, phone!”

“Hello?” Adam said with that heavenly voice that he has.

“Hi, Adam, it’s Chelsea, you know, the girl from the café”

“Which one?” he asked sarcastically with a laugh, “Just kidding. What’s up? You still coming to the bonfire? You’re not canceling, are you?”

“No, I just wanted to talk to you about something. One of the guys you were with at the café, you know, the one with the dark hair and goatee?”

“Mark?” he asked, like I already knew his name.

“Yeah, sure, well I think Sarah’s kind of into him. Could you bring him to the party?”

“Oh, no problem. I got ya.”

“Cool! Thanks!”

“No prob. I’ll see ya later”

I hung up the phone, glad that Sarah now had someone to hang out with. It would give me a little time to be alone with Adam.

I managed to sneak off into town this morning for a few groceries, so I was able to take a few pictures for you. It's not much.. mostly because I had to take them while driving. I'm such a safe driver, huh? Well, one has to do what they can. Here they are!


Here is some of my kitchen, before my grandma got home and the table was bombarded with medications and unopened mail.


My house, and my mom's sweet ride.


This is a road, basically. There's a haunted house on this road, but I wasn't able to take a picture of it due to the billions of trees surrounding it.


The view of entering into Adams through the lovely view of my windshield.


Here is the house I used to live in with my ex. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it sure is wonderful on the inside. 117 North Elm Street. Funny, eh? I lived on Elm Street. I didn't have nightmares, though. Too bad.


This is on the way home from the grocery store. On the left is an abandoned church.. the one I used to go to when I was little. St. Joseph's. The parish left this particular building and built a new church in town about two or three years ago. I haven't seen the inside of the new church yet.


A blurry view of the best park in town. There's another one farther into town, but this one is better because it has a better playground with cool musical built-in toy thingies. Tanya and I have made many-a song on this playground.


Another view of town on the way home. One of the buildings on the right looks like a knight's helmet in the front. The kind that goes over your nose. I'll have to show you sometime.


Some of the flea market.. It's only open on weekends in the summer.


I hit a deer last summer on this part of Hwy 13 on the way home from work. I was stuck in this ditch for nearly two hours, waving down cars to let me use their phone to call for help at one in the morning. Scary times.


View of Hwy 13.


An old, abandoned silo on the side of the road. When I was little, I used to think it was a castle tower.


The road sign to my road. I may regret posting this later.


My grandma and I.


And lastly, Xena and myself.


Well, That's all. Not much, but hopefully I can get to the beach sometime this week to get some more photos. And then I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to Wisconsin Dells to take more.



Love,
Dr. Girlfriend.