Catch hell blues

Round 37: March 2045 (Autumn)

Sylvia Draper and Alice Jacobson are 19 and Ruby Lane and Ramona Nihill are 18.

(Simon and Matthew are 20)

Narrated by Ramona Nihill

As soon as I found out there was a newspaper here, I decided I had to write for it. So perfect for a journalism major like me! I’ve spent most of my spare time since then putting together some writing samples to submit to them.

I think it’ll look good on my resume when I graduate if I’ve done some writing and had it published, even if it is just in a campus newspaper. And I just really want to exercise my writing muscles outside of class too.

Hopefully, they’re good enough. I’ve been sending them to Dad to get his feedback. He loved them but I’m hoping he’s being honest and not just telling me what I want to hear because I’m his daughter.

I’ve asked Sylvia to look over them for me as well. She’s not a journalist but she is a writer and a fellow lit major. She might be able to give me something useful.

Ruby lives here at Moretti Hall with me and she is underwhelmed by the place.

It’s not girls-only by design but it’s ended up that way anyway, so there are no guys living with us.

I tried to sell her on it, telling her that here we have our own rooms, while a lot of the rooms in the co-ed dorm are shares but she’s still bummed.

Ruby was hoping to start dating as soon as she arrived on campus, so this development has been very unimpressive to her.

We’ve been hanging out at the uni bar in our free time, scoping out the guy situation there.

Well, Ruby has been, anyway. Nothing serious but she’s met a couple of guys she likes since we got here.

She's been out with one of them a couple of times now but I'm still not sure it'll go anywhere.

I haven’t really had the urge to start dating lately. Jonathan and I drifted apart towards the end of high school and I haven’t spoken to him since. I know he’s off at uni somewhere and that’s it. But I’ve been thinking about him a lot. I sort of miss him.

I’ve contemplated texting him, just to say hi, but I haven’t worked up the nerve so far.

Ruby wants to find me a new guy to “get over” Jonathan but I’m good, honestly.

I have no intentions of pining away after Jonathan the entire time I’m here but I also don’t feel like finding someone to hook up with just for the sake of it either.

Ruby and I have very different views on dating though, so I’m not really surprised she’s pushing this the way she is.

Being on campus now, I’ve been hanging out with Aurora a bit again. We were friends in high school but haven’t really kept in contact too closely for the past year.

Visiting her in her dorm, I almost regretted choosing Morett Hall over Novaki. Aurora shares her room with Bianca but it’s enormous!

Bianca even has space for her sewing machine in there. I cannot imagine fitting any extras at all into my tiny little room.

But I’ve made it as homey as I can and I’m content there, so I won’t complain too much.

I’m even lucky enough to have a balcony off my room, which is nice if you want some fresh air and still have a bit of privacy.

Ruby and I never hung out much with Sylvia or Alice in high school but living together now, it’s hard to avoid.

We don’t have a ton in common but we all get along relatively well despite that.

Alice recently broke up with her boyfriend Matthew, so she’s not having such a great time at the moment.

She caught him cheating on her and from what people have told her since, it wasn’t the first time or the only other girl.

Apparently, it’s been going on for most of the time he’s been on campus, so she’s feeling kind of stupid at the moment.

She shouldn’t feel stupid. Matthew is the one who should feel horrible.

I don’t think he does though. Alice said he hasn’t even tried to call her or contact her in any way since she dumped him.

Maybe he thinks it’s a lost cause…but you would think he’d want to at least apologise or something.

I hope his brother Simon is a nicer guy, at least for Sylvia’s sake. To my surprise, she is all of a sudden really into him!

I never would have thought either of them would be interested in the other but there has been some mutual flirtation going on lately.

He’s Ruby’s cousin, so she knows him fairly well. She says he’d been dating around a bit recently but he did have a steady girlfriend in high school. So he’s not totally avoidant of commitment.

Honestly, I don’t know where he’d find the time to date anyone else at the moment. He’s an almost constant presence around here and he’s spending all that time with Sylvia.

Notes:

• Title is from Catch Hell Blues by White Stripes.
• So as you may have guessed, Sylvia and Simon were my surprise romantic pairing I mentioned in the last uni update. I just heard the "first kiss" music, scanned the lot and spotted Sylvia and Simon out front! Their chemistry is pretty high. It's currently 2 bolts but that's with no matching turn-ons, so I suspect I could get it higher if I adjusted. I'm just going to see how they go. :)
• I didn't think they made any sense at all at first but upon thinking about it, I can see it. Facially, Sylvia bears some resemblance to Simon's ex, Annabel. And they're both creative types - Simon with his music and Sylvia with her writing. So I think I can work with that!
• Perhaps Simon has inspired Sylvia to work a bit harder, for some reason, because she actually rolled a want to write a term paper this session, bringing her GPA from 3.3 to 3.4. Ramona and Alice both have a 4.0, while Ruby has a 3.3 GPA. 
• Ruby is really hard to find someone for! I may have to add some guys to my townie pool. The one with her here is actually the school mascot and it'll be a big fat no to marrying any mascots or cheerleaders into my hood! For those in the dark, mascots and cheerleaders keep their college behaviours after graduation. So they still do the stupid cheers, they still do pranks and they default back into their mascot/cheerleader outfits each time you load. I did it once and will never do it again! 
• Ramona had lost interest in Jonathan and it seems to be rekindled now? I don't know. I'm going to see if I can match her up with someone else but so far, she's not too interested. 
• Often when I have sims break up, the dumpee will stay in love with the dumper but that didn't happen with Alice and Matthew. So I think it was definitely time these two split. I think Alice is better off for sure.