1st things 1st

Round 34: March 2039 (Autumn)

last update/Lauren's last update/next update

Jessica Royce-Nihill, Emma Gottlieb and Louisa Gentry are 19 and Lauren Carmody is 18.
(Eddie is 19 and Justin and Declan are 18)

Narrated by Jessica Royce-Nihill

Louisa was placed on academic probation last year after earning some pretty crappy grades and she’s been trying to get back on track ever since.

She has to have lots of meetings with her professors, to make sure she’s doing all the right things she needs to do to catch up.

Louisa talks to her professors once a week or so. They’ll probably relax that a bit soon, as they’ve all been really pleased with her efforts so far.

So they should be too! She’s been working so hard this semester.

Even most of the time she spends with Justin, she ends up studying. I’m sure she imagined their long-awaited reunion would be a bit more romantic than it has been so far.

She’s trying to stay focused though. If she keeps it up, there’ll be plenty of opportunity to have more fun next semester.

Last year at Suffolk was pretty awesome but it’s even better this year now that we have Lauren with us.

We all really missed having her around last year, so it's great to be together again. It's almost like we're back in high school again.

Emma, Louisa and I have been showing her the ropes around Moretti Hall and around campus in general.

Of course, she’s also got her boyfriend, Eddie to show her around.

We saw Eddie a little last year, seeing he’s Louisa’s brother, but he’s here much more often this year to see Lauren.

Lauren has decided she doesn’t like the house Eddie is sharing with two other guys on campus, so they’re usually out somewhere else these days.

This semester, they’re both finished with classes by 3pm, so they like to spend a couple of hours in the uni bar after that, before it gets crowded in the afternoon rush.

It doesn’t seem too romantic to me - the place is kind of dingy looking - but it seems to work for them.

When Emma and Lauren fought over the “penthouse” dorm at Moretti Hall when we all visited on Open Day a couple of years ago, Emma was pretty smug about her chances of snagging it.

As it turned out, the room was occupied when we moved in last year, only to be vacated shortly before Lauren arrived in January.

Emma was still a little sore about it, especially seeing she’s stuck with one of the smallest rooms here.

To her credit, Lauren hasn’t rubbed it in at all. Emma is mostly over it now, because Lauren just didn’t engage with it.

Emma often just gets in these moods where she’s looking for a fight and we’ve all learnt that it’s best to just keep calm until it passes.

I wonder how Makenzie deals with it sometimes. They've been dating for almost a year now.

From what Emma has said, they actually don’t seem to fight or argue all that much, which has to be different for her.

I’m really happy for her though. Makenzie seems like a good match for Emma.

Makenzie is a couple of years older than Emma, so at the end of this year, she’ll be graduating. When that happens, she wants to get a place in Exeter and have Emma move in with her.

Makenzie thinks it’ll be great. They’ll get to see each other even more often than they do now and they can have fun setting up house together.

She doesn’t really understand why Emma keeps balking at the idea.

Emma just doesn’t feel ready for anything like that. She’s not even close to thinking about moving in with anyone, even Makenzie.

Truthfully, Emma thinks the whole idea is completely insane. She doesn’t see why they can’t just keep dating like they are now and see how things go.

It’s causing some tension between them, which is sort of stressing Emma out. It's the first hurdle they've come across in their relationship and it's a big one.

It’s a shame, because otherwise, Makenzie is a really great girl. She’s been much friendlier to me and to Louisa and Lauren than Laurel ever was.

Emma likes Makenzie a lot but she’s starting to feel like Makenzie’s feelings might be a lot stronger.

It's just all moving too fast for her and she's not sure where she and Makenzie are really going any more.

It makes me extra appreciative that Declan and I both see eye to eye on things like that. No talk about moving in together when we’re both still in our teens!

We’re definitely going to finish our degrees before we even start to think about a step like that.

That’s about six years away for Declan. Once he finishes his undergrad, he’s going to start on his Master’s of Architecture.

People have told him he should wait until he finishes his bachelor’s before he decides whether he wants to do further study but I love that he knows what he wants already.

I’m the same way about my future career. I'm going to go into catering and then use that experience when I take over Dad's restaurant. So Declan and I understand each other there.

For an 18-year-old, Declan can definitely be very serious at times but he can loosen up when he gets in the right mood for it.

I do sometimes help him along in that capacity!

I was a little worried things wouldn’t be the same between me and Declan once he got to campus. Noah and I were separated when he went off to college and we didn’t even make it until my freshman year.

But things have gone so much better with Declan. We’re actually closer than we were before.

I think that might mean Declan is just the right person for me. I’m feeling really optimistic about our future together.

Notes:

• Title is from 1st Things 1st by Phantom Planet.
• Louisa is finally off academic probation, though she's still a semester behind the other girls. She now has a 3.3 GPA. Jessica has a 4.0, Emma has a 3.8 and Lauren has a 3.6.
• Things don't look good for Makenzie and Emma. Emma barely even rolls romantic wants for Makenzie until they're three quarters of the way through their dates and meanwhile Makenzie has rolled engagement and marriage wants for Emma. Which will not roll away! And while we're on the topic, I decided to make Makenzie a couple of years older because I only just realised that she's an adult, not a YA!
• On the other hand, Declan and Jessica are doing really well. Absence has made the heart grow fonder in their case, for sure. They're pretty damn adorable.