Days FORTY and FORTY-ONE!

Coming into a new life is never easy.

And falling asleep to a beer pong game outside your window is even less easy.

C'est la vie that I have been experiencing over the past few days.

I moved into my apartment at UCSB with the quietest, most lovely roommates I could ask for. Unfortunately, our neighbors have all decided that the surrounding locations are optimal for drunken success. 

Because of this, I have found the only quiet times here are between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m., when the little ones sober up, just to continue their journeys in the evening. 

Parties even start before the sun leaves the horizon. They're full of hammock swinging, barbeque flaming, water drenching good times.

I suppose.

I guess I've always been such a recluse it's hard for me to understand the continuing festivities. 

I've made tons of friends during the day, but once these people down a 40, forget about it. I'm in bed by 10:30 while they run wild downstairs.

This is not to say I'm excited about the spirit and livelihood by which everyone glistens in alcohol beads, I'm simply going through a state of shock from not being able to hear anything, and from being in a radically different environment.

As my long time neighbor and friend Alicia put it, "We're in this new place living with new stuff and new people in a new climate with new rules."

...It's easy to feel as if you're the only outsider.

All this aside, I am having fun.

Yesterday, my new room mate Jessica and I enjoyed a nice 4.5+ mile walk into campus. Getting lost, we also enjoyed the local terrain of moist trees and dry brush. (What were the fire stats like here again?)

This morning, I ran from my apartment to the Pacific Ocean, about a mile in distance each way. I didn't run on the beach too long because of the high tide, but I did stop to take a break and really take in the experience as well.

I'm here, in a new but very amazing place, and though it may be tough to adjust at first I need to take advantage of every opportunity to gain new insight into this Earth that I live upon.  

I'm planning on kayaking with Alicia soon as well as attending a few campus events.

Running itself is going to be difficult as I figure out new paths and find the drive to wake up after a night of listening to the drunken thoughts of my neighbors. ("Man, you just gotta be cool man, no, I'm serious just relax and--- look man be cool.")

Since much of this is filled with humor, I'll soon adjust. :)

Gotta Run,

Brooke