i remember the smell and sound of leaves falling all around me on Prospect St.

i remember shower drawings.

i remember work rooms and spray booths.

i remember that hot guy in furniture holding the door open for me as i ran up the stairs to 2-d class. what was his name again?

i remember bridges and the perverts under them.

i remember that giant bug on the highway.

i remember the providence city scape changing very quickly during the year i was away.

i remember a stack of watermelons in front of the museum.

i remember public safety.

i remember art sales.

i remember coffee exchange chai teas.

i remember those flashing lights from those giant towers on the river.

i remember finding malcolm grear's studio on a run.

I remember the blizzard of 05 and being snowed in during wintersession at 44 Hidden street. Sandy and I painted on a big sheet of some of Shara's extra MDF board.

I remember Chris being asleep for pretty much half of his life at 44 Hidden.

I remember listening to Mirah's "La Familia" and trying to understand how sex played into relationships, love and friends.

I remember when facebook first came out. I made an account to make fun of John. Then people started friending me and I got annoyed but didn't have the heart to "reject" them.

I remember spam fried rice.

I remember the squirrels scurrying in the ceiling at 44 Hidden. One day one of them came in through the hole in the ceiling in the kitchen. Vanessa was flipping out and shrieking hysterically, afraid it would bite her and maybe it had rabies.

I remember Gary our landlord. He talked so fast, no one could understand what he said.

I remember Will Reeves.

I remember seeing pretty girls in the street and not knowing how to talk to them.

I remember every time before opening the door to step out into the cold, holding my breath just a little.

I remember parties at the carriage house.

I remember the fries at the Red Fez.

I remember many late nights of playing FIFA with Nate and eating disgusting Domino's delivery.

I remember going over to Miyoung's at the end of a night of heavy drinking. We'd get McDonald's and fall asleep to Arrested Development. I'd wake up and stumble down Wickenden towards home like a mole out of his hole.

I remember the gigantic stick-shift U-Haul I drove at the end of freshman year. It was huge and scary to drive down hills. I thought I would destroy something. I remember stepping out of the truck at 55 Angell, my whole body shaking.

I remember getting used to the walk back to my room by myself from freshman studio classes, and the feeling settling in, "This is it. This is really it."

i remember the first winter in providence and going out with john, LA and elaine...maybe someone else...and slipping down the street on the ice - first falling on my knees and then on all fours, still sliding down towards a car crash...

i remember almost peeing myself after repeating "hey kid - i'm a computer".

i remember the terrible food court dinner for my 18th birthday.

i picked up smoking.

i remember John and I used to hop on a random bus in Kennedy Square during wintersession and get dropped off in a different town just to explore something farther than our bubble.

i remember Omelette giving birth to Fisher (aka Sock) on Mother's day...and how unprepared i was and how stupid it felt to be so ignorant.

i remember building my loft. sitting in the window frame smoking cigarettes, listening to Mirah...with and without Vanessa. i remember those obnoxious cheerleader sorority bitches across the street and throwing things at them one night.

i remember taking a walk with all the hidden housemates (aka super asian mafia) around Hope High School and swinging in the park. LA went into the trees and made elephant sounds by shaking the boughs.

i remember never wanting to call providence or RISD home, even if it was by accident.

i remember walking up the angell street hill at 2 AM and laying down right in the middle of it and thinking.

i remember section 9: adam and i begging debbie coolidge to let us make sleds, having to hear that our drawings looked like shit every time we were in al decredico's drawing class, not talking to miyoung at all for a while because she was a korean girl, steve's drawings, mat's drawings, and choi.

i remember sitting in the pit with adam, joe ng, and heidi. every time black eyed peas "where is the love" came on, joe would do the cutest dance.

i remember the first day of drawing class vividly. al decredico telling us we weren't doing any figure drawing; our collective disbelief; then feeling awkward because we weren't sure if we could leave; then nick mahshie trying to strike up a conversation with al as though they were buddies.

i remember turning around in british literature class and saying hi to nick for the first time.

i remember me and miyoung thinking sean dianni was so cute. i liked his sculptures for 3-d class.

i remember there was a time when i ate only yogurt and pita with hummus. i didn't know what hummus was before risd. jackie chi said it was mashed chick peas.

i remember struggling a lot and thinking too much.

i remember feeling like i would never be enough.

i remember being naive.

I remember being in Susan's basement apartment. She thought of something poetic, and found it very peculiar because she did not identify herself as poetic. It had something to do with thinking in a bathtub with wet hair sticking to her back.

I remember when Susan, Chris Kim, John Lee and I stayed up one night our freshman year. At sunrise, we climbed to the top of Prov Wash into the glass lookout. While eating ramen noodles, we watched the morning light soak all of Providence into day.

I remember watching the sunsets from the lower quad.

I remember spring, and how the trees would bloom with white flowers that smelled like fish.

I remember Gerry Immonen's strange and demanding endearments, and the white spittle that would collect at the corners of his old mouth when he would talk animatedly.

I remember Immonen not saying much at my final critique and instead just playing with my piece as if it were fluffy cloth. He handed it back to me with an approving nod.

I remember Cyrus Highsmith not saying much at my degree project final critique. He nodded with a hand on his chin.

I remember when Todd Moore's daughter died. She was our age.

I remember exhausting Friday drawing classes in Lazarek's class, and then after it ended, wanting to draw some more.

I remember when Bianca came back really tan from winter break... like REALLY tan.

I remember Johil's hilarious monotone voice.

I remember Cara's sarcasm.

I remember Alison Kleiman talking really fast.

I remember people staying in the Met for several hours straight and calling it MetOlympics.

I remember working late, coming to my room in Larned, heating up a hot pocket, and drinking Heinekens until I got woozy and fell asleep.

I remember accidentally locking myself out of my room in Larned and having to climb the fire escape up to my window. A few minutes later, I was in the shower when Public Safety knocked on the bathroom door asking if it was me who had climbed in through the window because neighbors had seen someone climbing in through a window in Larned. They said not to do it again.

I remember when Elliot Earls came to our 7th floor studio "party." I was wearing my tigger costume, completely plastered, and couldn't stop jumping around.

i remember spending taking apart the lockers in the ID building with jessica kam, some scheme to hide from public safety. 1 hour later, we had 1 hours less work done, but determined that both of us could in fact comfortably sit inside an ID locker. we laughed our heads off.

i remember always sleeping on the nasty sofa on the 5th floor. i got woken up every time at 6am by the cleaning ladies, and they always felt bad and apologized for waking me up.

i remember going home from freshman studios at 5pm, and it being completely dark outside. i'd go back to my room, curl up and fall asleep until the next morning.

i remember sleeping a lot sometimes and not at all other times.

i remember looking outside my window of east4 and seeing snow fall for the first time. i was awe-struck.

i remember a few days later, walking through the nasty slushy car tire dirt snow in the streets and hating it with a passion.

i remember walking down college street in a torrential rainstorm with my flip flops. i'm surprised i hydroplane in the river that was the sidewalk.

i remember a lot of weather.

i remember Seekonk and Stop n Shop.

I remember going to that liquor store in Seekonk a lot, especially before parties.

I remember driving in the cold cloudy gray so many times.

I remember bad sleep cycles and waking up at 6:45 and not being able to tell if it was morning or evening. It was just gray.

I remember the girls in my studio falling asleep on top of the covered radiators, and waking up to burns.

I remember during freshman orientation there was some stupid icebreaker that involved people jumping and stomping around. I was wearing flip flops, and a huge guy stepped on my foot and ripped off half of my big toenail. I didn't cry until I got back to the dorms realized how alone I was. I showered with a plastic bag over my toe the next couple of days.

I remember there was a girl who picked her pimples in the common bathroom. I thought she was mean. She thought I was a churchie. A couple years later, we were as close as sisters.

I remember hiding from public safety with my friends in studio. We wanted to keep working but it was after hours. We hit the lights and dove. We must have looked stupid crouching on the ground and holding our breaths as the officer opened the doors to our room.

I remember daydreaming of life after RISD.