You wouldn't understand

         People love it when people understand them. If somebody tells you, "Yeah I understand. I totally know what you mean," you feel a sense of security, like you're not alone. We've all been perpetrators and victims of it. I bring this up because our realtor here in Texas, a 60+ year old woman who is super nice and very grandmotherly, nods and tells us every time we bring up a point that she understands and agrees. Well obviously this is the job of a realtor, but it made me think how many different situations that line is used. Sometimes it's false, sometimes it's true. Sometimes you tell a guy you understand why he's upset about which colleges he got into because you like him and want him to realize that you have things in common and that you're a thoughtful, understanding person. You might tell a best friend that you understand her sorrow about a family member passing away just to console her, while you've never had any similar experience to draw understanding from. You could understand the excitement of the rest of your college class to be moving in in one week. (8/21/12!!!) But the point is, it's hard to judge whether someone's understanding is sincere, flattering, or selfish. Such is the collection of human emotions and thoughts from an extraordinarily complex and developed human mind. Next time someone tells you that they understand, follow your thought process to decipher the way in which they actually mean it. Food for thought.

           I have my script written for my video that should be up by Saturday (hopefully) at the latest. I plan to film tomorrow with my sister. Unfortunately, I just got a new laptop and I lost the cord for my camera to connect to a laptop because my last one had a memory stick slot in it, so I'm probably going to have to use my phone camera or webcam. Prepare for shitty quality. 

          I've been thinking a LOT about Duke and what orientation week is going to be like. While I definitely have become a more talkative and social person than I once was (it used to be pretty bad), I'm still concerned about how I'm going to make friends and start conversations with people during O-week. Of course it'd be easiest if everyone else approached me, but really I need to learn these things too. Talking to people. Maybe I should learn some ice breaker jokes... But those never work anyway, they just make things more awkward. People at Duke seem awesome though and since we're all in the same boat, I don't think awkwardness will play too huge a role in ruining potential friendships. One of my roommates just told me that  it's super easy to make friends at Duke because there are so many different personalities. Both of them say I'm totally social on Facebook but I mean, it's Facebook. I can be social on the internet, anyone can, it's easy as pi. Hopefully the three of us can get comfortable with each other quickly and make friends with our hall and then I won't be scared to death and thinking about it every second like I am now. It's really pointless. I do this a lot, you know, overthink. It's something I need to work on. T minus 9 days for Duke. So very excited, it's hard to explain. You wouldn't understand.