There's this kind of girl at school

I don't know why I'm throwing people into groups here, but I am.

But there's these girls at school, and I've noticed they all dress... the same. Like not exactly the same, but they all have the same style of coat and the same style of leggings and the same pattern on their knit sweaters... the same overloaded backpack, and the same lululemon shopping bag repurposed as a lunch bag.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being this way, I've just noticed that a lot of girls tend to do this. And their hair is always fashionably messy, and their makeup is always done but they never use a lot, and they're always really smiley and just... everywhere. Why. Why are there so many.

And they're always in sciences, too. I see them in my science classes, I see them in my building complaining about the difficulty of the ochem course that I'm also taking. (To be fair, ochem is actually really hard). They're just so.. perfect. Put together. Like their life is busy, but they still find time to look artfully busy.

Those are actually the girls that scare me, because if they have the same course load as me and they still have time to put themselves together and do SOME kind of physical activity (I've noticed that people who have those lululemon bags tend to shop there (der), and thus tend to be physically active in some way), then they're the ones I have to be worried about. They're ambitious, their parents are probably also helping them out a little, and when they study, they go hard. They're the ones I'll be competing against someday, and for them, "taking it easy for like 5 minutes" doesn't seem to be an option.

In my mind, these are the girls who get really really good grades on all of their midterms and make it look like it's easy to study as much as they do. They show up on test day or on the day of the final still looking artfully messy and stressed. Oh, and they always smell really good, or at the very least, they never smell bad. And they all have the same kinds of lunches- water and lots of fruit or a salad packed into a tiny little container. and then like, some health granola bar. And they eat it all neatly with their perfectly painted fingernails and I'm over here scraping spaghetti out of a kid's thermos (not that i stole one, just that the one my mom bought me was designed for kids) with a metal fork, trying not to cringe at the noise with my stress-acne and my slightly-too-small pink ski jacket.

I'm just so confused. How do they do it? How do they all have the same messy topknot and the same black backpack with all the zippers and the same green jacket that everyone has and the same fucking lululemon shopping bag repurposed as a lunch bag???? Is this a thing? Is it popular to dress this way and have your eyeliner always looking fucking awesome even though you're not wearing a lot of it? Just... how? HOW?? HOW??

And their writing. they all use colourful pens and have the same big round letters, and they take SCADS of notes, way more than i do with my one black pen and crappy 5% cursive. and their stuff is always neatly organized in those half-binder-half-notebook things from 5 star. one per subject. and there's no mess anywhere. I just shove things in a clipboard.

I just... I don't know if this is a common thing, or if I'm just seeing the same 10 girls around campus all the time b/c they have a lot of the same classes as me, and then i'm also seeing them in my building again later.

I'm probably just making this all up in my head, but I mean, what else would you expect from someone described as "the girl scraping spaghetti out of a children's thermos with a metal fork in her slightly-too-small pink ski jacket"?

yer pal,
swegan