College Day 1

Hi. *sheepish wave*

So last week was welcome week, and rather than go into the nitty gritty of the awesome, the odd, and the average I'll just bullet point the highlights.

-Move in went swimmingly [even if my mom did cry like a cliche] and my room layout works much better than expected [which is, you know, cool]

-Met the Roomies, and so far no axes have been found peaking out from behind bedspreads so I think we'll get along fine.

-I'm in an all girls building, which makes community meetings fun and means I have found a group of gals to watch Glee with! :D

-The Band. It's epic. Nuf'said

-My foot/pinkie toe fought a bush. and lost.

- Free stuff. [and fliers! oh so many fliers!]

-Schedule meltdown crazy panic and angryness....

-Massive relief when the magic pixie schedule faeries worked miracles

- ICE CREAM... so. much. ice cream.

- and Oddly enough biking is, like, hard.

And then there was today, the first day of classes and official start of fall quarter. As it is only 8:43 I've only been to one class so far. That being said, it's freaking 8:43 and I've already been to my first class! how cruel is that??? But I will admit it does seem like it will be interesting. Though on my way to said class I realized a very startling truth. One I believe all should be privileged to learn. So here you are my dear ones, learn from my pain. I beg you! Someone should.

So, let's say that you've been at your new campus for a few days and seeing as, technically, they are your last days of "summer" you act accordingly and sleep in. And let's also say that once you do roll yourself out of that wonderful cocoon of slumber you find that outside? Freakin Hot. So you dress in weather appropriate attire, shorts flip flops [note while riding a bike near bushes... maybe not so smart] etc. Then lets say it's your first day of classes and your first class starts at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am. Seeing as it is your first day of class, and you spent the night before loving on [read: sending sharks to] your friends over facebook chat the night before rather than showering, you shower that morning. But really, since we all know you're not exactly a morning person you didn't get the start you needed to shower in time to eat breakfast too. So after showering you heat yourself up some ez mac in your handy microwave. And here my dear gremlin like mind spasms, is where you get tip # 1. Eat Carefully. Because if you don't, you might just spill some delicious ez mac cheese on your clean first day of school t-shirt. Not so smooth. [Now pay close attention:] Then the time, that time right there, where you grab a new, ez mac cheese free shirt rather than a sweater. That time is time you will wish, in approximately 2-3 minutes, that you could do-over. Because what you do not realize in that moment when your [albeit very small] inner neat freak berates you for spilling on a perfectly clean shirt you've only worn for 5 minutes, is that outside, it's cold. Not only is the outside cold, you will be venturing out into said cold with nothing more than a t-shirt and shorts. Not only that but you will be biking [and quickly because your nervous you might be late to your very first class on your very first day of your very first year of college] and remember that bit where I showered in the morning? yeah that didn't help. So picture this [infer approaching of tip #2] A] T-shirt and shorts [though thankfully in sneakers rather than flip flops] B] Wet hair C] Speeding bike D] Freaking cold morning.

Not. Fun.

So I spent most of my pre-class mental prep time glaring in envy at those strange creatures who seemed comfortable and even at home at such a grotesque hour around me smart enough to wear pants and jackets, while swerving my bike close to bus exhaust fumes in a pathetic attempt to absorb any sort of heat available. In summary, Tip #2: Check the weather BEFORE leaving dressed in clothing that provide no hope of warmth.

So that's basically how my morning has gone. The class went well, we just went over the syllabus, and it seems like it will be interesting.

I hope you all are making smarter decisions than me today!

<3

The Shadow People

Okay, so today I moved in to college. Car full of crap, embarrassing parent goodbyes, awkward roommate introductions and all :]

So far so good really. It wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. The roommates aren't too bad and the room is bigger than I expected. So overall pretty good.

BUT the one crazy thing is that in our building [and I would guess all the buildings] there are random paintings on the walls. Hey! Random paintings don't sound too bad! I hear you utter. No. They're not all bad... just- creepy. Well they're not all creepy either... just- different. We've got paintings for all levels of creepiness. First there are the "shadow girls." Which are, as you would imagine, black shadow silhouettes of girls in random poses. Holding lights. Catching [totally non-shadow, full color] butterflies. Doing handstands.... I told you CREEPY. Then there is the, slightly less creepy angel lady on the first floor. She's just, you know, an angel lady surrounded by, angelness, blue angelness to be exact. The only other full color "person" is the Statue of Liberty up on the third floor, who really isn't too terribly creepy but does get some random points. Then there are the animals, we already mentioned the butterflies, but in addition to the butterflies there's a frog, a duck some ladybugs and the AWESOME second floor ostrich peaking it's little ostrich head/body around a full length mirror. Then The only really non creepy artwork title goes to the sunflowers found on each floor. To be honest, the shadow people really creep me out. But we named the one by our dorm Norma... or Noreen... I'm not exactly sure, but giving her such a silly name makes her seem much less likely to sneak into our room and steal our souls in the dark of night.

The only other oddity I've found so far is that our bedroom light likes to wait a good 2-3 minutes before turning on, which is uber fun. :]

Well I'm off to attempt to socialize? or maybe just sneak some of my chocolate stash. Hope you all are having fun, non shadow people haunted lives!

<3

Days until classes Start: 4

Freaking Out [aka the over use of brackets]

Okay so I'm starting to freak out. Not to say that I haven't been freaking out before now. It's just that up until, well, now it was much easier to brush off and put to the back of my mind... but now with my walls looking like the crime scene of a hokey museum robbery and my beloved Harry crushed beneath my pre-loved history text[s] it's getting a little difficult.

I mean, really, I have nothing to being freaking out over. All of my friends who've gone off seem to be doing fine. [and by fine you can infer that, to my knowledge, they have yet to become brain craving zombies.]

But this is me we're talking about. The girl who made her mom wait in the car with her in the fourth grade to make sure the other kids we're dressed up for dress up day too. The girl who has [already] double and triple checked her schedule/class locations/professor ratings. And yes, the very girl who's OCD becomes jittery when she can't think of a clever third "the girl who" to add the perfect finish to her pathetic attempt at parallelism. [and who realizes the second she hits "publish post" she will think of a thousand examples of her ridiculous and unnecessary freak out moments.]

So, as I said. I'm freaking out. My limbs course with nervous energy while my racing thoughts jumble and confuse any attempt at organizing the piles of crap I call my "college necessities."

*sigh

I need a cookie.

Okay, enough whining. Alex man up.

So. Today, I got no packing done. Okay I lied. I did sort all of my [rarely utilized] make-up! But other than that? Nada.

Yesterday, in comparison, was wildly productive. Even in spite of my [before now antisocial] cat's new found love/obsession of/with me I managed to pack up all of my clothing [which in hindsight was kinda dumb seeing as I still have to wear clothes for the next few days...], shoes [there were a lot of them], posters [which were technically already packed but I say still count towards the days productivity level] and [prepare to be proud] my books. Which, anticlimactically, didn't turn out to be as tough as I had feared. I just found myself in a great mood and ploughed right through. So here it is! The moment none have you care about let alone have been waiting for *pathetic and unenthusiastic drum roll ending in a puttering 'Ta-da"* My Books-that-I-liked-enough-to-shove-in-a-box-and-make-my-cousin-carry-up-stairs-so-i-can-look-at-them-on-my-shelf-at-college list!!!

-Harry Potter [1-7]

-Tricksters Choice/Queen

[which while large are staying whether there is room for them or not]

-Fat Kid Rules the World

-Chain Letter

[both of which are small so no worries]

-Canterbury Tales

-Much Ado About Nothing

- The Red Badge of Courage

[okay I admit it they're coming to make me look intelligent. BUT I also do want to read them. and as a bonus they were [all together] only a dollar at the swap meet]

-Slaughter House 5

-Paper Towns

-The Phantom Toll Booth

-The Kite Runner

PLUS all of my text books... add that all together and that is one box you will most definitely not find me carrying. [unless of course there's a fire. If so that will be the first thing I grab.]

I apologize for the rambley helter-skelter nature of this blog. The nervous [and very hungry] energy wouldn't let me sleep so I hope venting this way will help deflate my brain minions and grant me a few hours of rest.

Okay Izzie [mah kitteh] is giving me the 'tiem to sleep hoomin' eyes, and she's the one with the claws so, Night! [morning]

Days 'Til I leave for College: 1

[^Why I'm freaking out]

My week in pictures

See? What did I tell you?? Sorry I failed so epically to update last week. [and yes I realize I'm apologizing to the great abyss of nothingness, but it's really okay so long as the abyss doesn't start talking back]

I would lather you with the excuse that I've been busy, but honestly? I really haven't. I've had plenty of opportunity to blog. I've even let my cursor hover over the "new post" button, yet every time fate seemed to intervene. A customer was ready to check out. The cat wanted to be let out. I needed to check a price... etc etc etc. But not today! Today I clicked that button! and here I am... rambling on about, well, nothing.

So below I have collected a small amount of the random that has permeated the last week and added in some pictures to help [...wait for it...] illustrate my week. :]

To start off my brother turned 17 [and I didn't get ANY cake... I mean how cruel is that??],

I helped paint our kitchen/dining room [and by "helped" you can infer I accidentally smeared brown paint where white should have gone, landed a splotch of unforgiving paint on a window pane and managed to drip onto the one area of floor that was not covered],

I ordered my last few textbooks late [so now I'll be lucky if i get them before we leave],

I got snazzy new glasses,

My grandmothers, without conferring with each other, both managed to ridicule me for some reason or another within the same 24 hour time period,

I found my, assumed lost forever, purple converse hiding in my closet,

One of my best good friends left me for Stanford,

Some guy at Noodles and Co. gave my friends and I free [and wondrously delicious] rice krispie treats

and all I have packed so far can be counted on one hand.

I hope you all are having a super mega foxy awesome time doing whatever imaginary people do!

Days Til I Leave for College: 2

Dancing in public

It is a well known fact [at least among those who find themselves within my presence for more than five minutes] that one of my deepest desires is to see real life become a musical. Can you see it? The choreographed dancing, matching/ color coordinated outfits, excessive twirling and outrageously exaggerated facial expressions??? [insert dreamy sigh here]

While this has yet to happen irl, something happened yesterday that was kinda like it acctually happened only it you know, didn't.

Yesterday, it so happens, was my friend's last day before leaving off to college, we'll call her star wars buddy [SWB for short] and so she and I [as well as two of our other friends] decided she needed to be sent off in style. First stop was the movies in which we were a good 8 to 12 minutes late to (500) Days of Summer. [Which I must say was an awesome movie.] This is where my dream kinda but didn't really come true. You see there is a moment in the movie when the lead Tom Hansen [Joseph Gordon-Levitt] walks through a park smiling exaggeratedly [think this guy] and all of a sudden you begin to realize everyone around him is in blue. Then BAM instant musical, random marching band and all. [inser barely concealed longing here] It was magical! That's what I want to happen to me someday.
MAKE IT HAPPEN!



After that we embarrassed ourselves- Oh who am I kidding?- I embarrassed myself by dancing through the parking lot seeing how many people we could catch staring, or even better, deliberately NOT staring!

Next stop was the holy grail of last minute college shopping. Yes, you guessed it. The 99 cent store. We spent a good hour browsing through stacks of Pokemon, TMNT and Hannah Montana Folders, diving into piles of Pez and fighting each other with pool noodles and plastic bats. In the end, all we bought were a bag of Ring Pops. Although! We did come close to making SWB get herself a magnetic version of Battleship for her dorm fridge!

We spent the rest of the evening laughing hysterically. At each other, at life, at the awesome that is my cat. I'm not sure how the next year is gonna go but I feel better knowing I have such awesome friends to come home to that will understand the truly awesome nature of things like spaghetti cat.

Love you guys!

Days Left Til I Leave For College: 14

Book Judgement Day is Fast Approaching

College Dormitory
1. US a building, esp at a college or camp, providing living and sleeping accommodation

What this cut and dry definition doesn't tell you is that to prepare oneself for a journey to said destination is for, some [this is where you infer I'm talking about me], a momentous task. It isn't even that monumental for the reasons one might expect. I mean, yes, I am terrified to live "on my own" in a building full of strangers. Yes, I am terrified that I will have to shower in a stall. Yes, I am terrified about doing my own laundry on a regular basis.




YET none of these hurtles are ones I'm unprepared to surmount. All of these have been thrown at me for years. When one thinks of college life generally close after that you begin visualize the cliche cramped living space, shared bathrooms, ez mac, and laundry rooms filled with bubbles. What I'm really dreading [even thinking about writing about it begins my stomach in knots] is having to sort through and pick and choose which books to bring with me on this journey.



The only solid choice I've made is that Harry is coming with me. No if ands or buts. He must, even if I have to sleep with him on my bed to make room for him, he's coming. I can't imagine going an entire school year without Jo. It would be too painful. Where do I go from there? Sure, the college has an ENORMOUS library, but what if its raining and all I want to do is snuggle up with "The Phantom Tollbooth?" or the library is completely out of their copies of "The Book Thief??"

You see, dear figments of my consciousness, books are a big part of my, and many other's, lives. and to have to choose between them is like choosing favorites. Which SUCKS. Because the book I may LOVE Monday, might in no way stack up to the book I need on Friday.



*sigh, I'm not sure how much of that made sense, but I'll let you know eventually which books made the cut.



Days Til I Leave for College: 17

The Truth of the Matter

I'm going to be frank with you.
I have commitment issues.

That being said I would now like to outline what I hope to accomplish here.
Goal 1] Overcome said commitment issues. I shall blog. I shall blog with [unprecedented] regularity. I shall blog to no one.

Goal 2] Document my attempt at being a productive member of college society. Which as I'm not sure how productive a member of regular high school society I was, should prove interesting.

Goal 3] Eat healthier. And yes I do realize that this would, at first glance, appear to have little to do with blogging. Yet, that is where, my dear imaginary friends, you would be wrong. For by having it written down, this painful desire of my mother becomes far more difficult to ignore. And as I sit here munching on a batch wondrously delicious and salt coated McDonald's fries, I realize that this may be one of the more difficult goals to master.

And finally:
Goal 4] Survive. It may seem simple but think about it, people die EVERY DAY! Not just one or two either! HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS! Positive thoughts. //deep breath/ I shall survive. I shall survive packing for college. I shall survive moving 9 hours from home. I shall survive biking to and from, well, everywhere, this coming quarter. I shall survive.

As you can see, I am not one to avoid a challenge, and I can't wait to share it with you whoever you do, or don't turn out to be.