Jenny from the block

**disclaimer: Concrete facts about this case have not yet been released. I do not pretend to know 100% what happened and I do not intend to spread rumors about what may have happened. This entry is purely based on my understanding of the situation at different points in time and my reactions to the news that I heard.**

This girl at my school died over the weekend. I found out the morning it happened, at the bright and not-so-terribly early hour of 10:30 AM, when a girl in my sorority sent out an email about it. She lived in the same complex as Jenny and awoke to the sound of a boy screaming hysterically for his now dead sister as police rushed to the scene.

The story sounded innocent enough at first: her brother was in town and they had been drinking and celebrating, but she drank too much so they put her to bed and miraculously the next morning all the life had been sucked out of her. I felt bad when I heard this story-- people get excited when a relative or friend they haven't seen in a while comes into town, and drink too much and then some freak thing happens and they get alcohol poisoning or choke on their puke and now they're gone forever.

Then, a close friend of hers added to the story: she had actually been doing drugs lately, so she was probably doing them on the night she died. You figure it's safe to rule out pot, but did she overdose on drugs? Take a leathal combination? Or was it not the drugs at all, and just the alc that killed her? And for crying out loud, she's a freshman. A young and innocent freshman, vibrant, full of life and probably just experimenting with drugs as people seem to do. And celebrating with her brother and now this happened. I still felt pretty bad about it.

But! More information comes out: she had actually been drinking the entire day, and doing coke that morning! She did some blow, went to (name omitted) fraternity's day party on cinco de mayo and started drinking, then hung out with her brother and continued to drink and she's a goner. I started to feel slightly less bad than I had at this point. She had been somewhat careless to not monitor her intake more, and what was her brother doing letting her drink after she had already been drinking half the day?

And then finally, the most recent story: coke in the morning, followed by an afternoon of partying and alchol, followed by a post-party pre-party undoubtedly with tons of alcohol for her sorority formal and likely drinks at the formal as well...with some e thrown in there somewhere. At this point, I can't really say I felt that sorry anymore-- cocaine, e and an entire day of drinking? I mean really, I don't understand how she felt the need to keep pushing and doing all these drugs. Peer pressure? Her own pressure to be popular and fun? When substance abuse reaches that extent, it is time for something-- someone-- to change it or really bad things happen, like death.

The event itself is still tragic-- the loss of a girl, the concequential fucking over of the greek community that shall soon insue, all the people who did coke or drank or did e with her that day who are probably feeling like shit right now because they just helped kill someone. I'm just not sure how sorry I can feel for a person's lack of responsibility.