Category Archives: Life

Hey there, 2013

I have to remember to write the date correctly now. :P

My New Year’s Eve wasn’t super exciting, but it was fun. Steven’s girlfriend came over, and then I had a couple of friends that came over as well, including Andrew. Steven’s girlfriend doesn’t come over often, so it was fun to hang out with her. We started the evening off by watching Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, a movie I hadn’t seen before but really enjoyed. And then we played our annual tradition of The Farming Game, despite the naysayers. For the first time in about five years… I lost. :O To win, you have to accumulate $250,000 in assets and Steven ended up winning, though by the end we were all donating him money for him to win, haha. It’s a great game.

Andrew and my friend, Emily, and I headed out to a chain diner for a late night snack at about 2:00 AM and got some shakes and fries. It was really fun because I haven’t seen Emily in such a long time, since I’m off at college and she got a part-time job, so she works a lot. It’s the first time I’ve seen her all break, actually. But I hope to grab a bite with her again before we leave to go back.

It had snowed quite a bit over night, so the cars were all covered with snow and ice. Andrew’s such a gentlemen; he scraped Emily’s car for her. <3

Looking back at last year, I had three goals: to read more, to write more, and to remember what was important. I did read more books in 2012 than 2011, thought I didn’t meet my specific goal of reading all of the books that I own, but let’s face it; I didn’t even think that goal was really plausible because I just keep buying books. :P I didn’t write as many posts in 2012 as in 2011, but I did do better in NaNoWriMo this year, so I think that is about the same. As for remembering what’s important, it’s impossible to forget all the friends and family that I love. <3

This year, I can only really think of three goals:

  1. Read 52 books this year. I’ve not done it before, but I know I can do it if I make time. I love reading, and by making this goal, hopefully I’ll just force myself to make room for it!
  2. Have a 3.5+ GPA this semester. I got all my grades in for last semester and I got all A’s and an A-! Woot! I was pretty proud, considering my French class was hell; I’m not really sure how I pulled that off. My overall GPA was a 3.9, so I think that having a 3.5+ is very plausible as long as I just keep focused and work hard.
  3. To blog more. It’s not a big issue if I fail this one, I would just like to keep my blog a more active. I tend to disappear and then sporadically update with five new posts in one week. So I suppose consistency would fall in there, too. I was pretty all over in 2012, so let’s hope this year’s a bit better with 2013. (Though, I’m still trying to get my time management all figured out with college, so we’ll see how this goes, haha.)

If you haven’t noticed already, I’ve given the site a bit of a revamp, to celebrate bringing in the new year. I’ve cleaned the site up a bit by deleting useless pages and I have a new simple and clean theme which I really love. I really liked my last one, but I was getting tired of it and needed a change of scenery. I just like the crisp, organized, cleanliness of it. Amidst my life of chaos, haha.

Aaaand I’ve finally gotten around to doing something I’ve been meaning to do forever: I’ve added the first and second journal of my trip to France and Italy!! You can find them under the visitor section (or I will be linking to them). My travelblog that I had intended to create just fell through; I just didn’t have enough time for it and for this site. So I’m going to be uploading them bit by bit, and hopefully will have them all up by this summer! I’ve added a bit of an introduction for those that aren’t quite sure what I’m talking about, or for those who’ve forgotten. I already shared Journal #1 with you all summer of 2011, but that was quite a bit ago, so I’ve re-uploaded that one. I added Journal #2, which is completely new and exciting! :D

I hope you all enjoy them and I’ve love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to leave comments on them! I think that in the future I’ll do some kind of journal type things with my trip to Greece/Turkey/London, or maybe favorite memories. I haven’t decided yet; no one may even read these journals, so we’ll just see when the time comes!

I feel great after getting all of this done today. Tomorrow I work in the morning with my mom, and then I’m hoping to catch up on some blogs and catch some tweaks on here that I may have missed. And lots of reading. :love: I’ve finished the book Graceling by Kristin Cashore (which I would highly recommend) and I’ve started the sequel, Bitterblue, so I’m excited to read and finish that tomorrow!

I’m Being Shoved out of my Comfort Zone

I can’t believe I’m writing this right now from my college dorm room, approximately 250 miles and four hours away from home. That thought makes me really sad since I miss all of my friends and family but I’m also really excited. Maybe I should rewind a little bit?

I didn’t start packing until the night before we were set to leave like a pro so I was scrambling around my room, trying to decide what to take and what not to take. It doesn’t help that I wasn’t sure how big the dorm room was (I figured small) or what type of furniture was in the dorm room. So I just winged it because I couldn’t remember from about a year ago when I originally checked the campus out. I packed most of my clothes and really just essentials… though I did bring all my pillows… I couldn’t resist! My mom, sister, and I went shopping for toiletries and school supplies, etc. It was so difficult, trying to pick out things that I thought I would need without knowing what I needed.

I stayed up until about 2:00 AM packing and was making a list as I went along of things that I didn’t have and still needed. So we had to go shopping again in the morning, LOL. It was terrible and lesson learned that I will not be procrastinating for so long college packing. My brother Steven wanted to take me out to lunch afterwards so that was really sweet of him. It was nice to eat with him and my mom and just talk about stuff before I left. Aw, I miss my family. :love:

We had to wait for my dad to get home from his chemo treatment. (And while I’m talking about him he’s doing fantastic! He’s just taking chemo as a precaution so that the cancer doesn’t come back. It’s been such a blessing that he hasn’t had any side effects except for the hiccups, which is pretty funny. :P)

It didn’t really hit me that I was leaving home until everything was packed up, my room was bare (and clean for once) and my parents were waiting for me to get in the car to go. Not going to lie, I started to cry when I had to say good bye to Tabor. I wanted to stop by Becky’s house before we left to drop off a few things and just to tell her good bye, too. I started to tear up then too. I mean, I’m leaving the girl that has known me better than I’ve known myself since the 2nd grade, and leaving the only place I’ve ever called home for my eighteen years of existence. Growing up sucks.

The drive was uneventful, which I am thankful for. Trying to get into the dorm was the most frustrating thing of the day – but that’s just because traffic was backed up from everyone trying to turn into the street the dorm was on. Once we were able to pull in, I checked in, got my keys and we unloaded. Within minutes, a pack (and I mean pack) of guys helped me carry my junk up to my dorm room. And like a loser, with all the guys watching, it took me a while to get the door open. x_x

Walking in my dorm for the first time, I was unimpressed, but now that I’m moved in and settled, I really, really like it. Me and my roommate, unintentionally, have the same exact teal and green comforters and sheets. We both had green lamps and I had a blue square ottoman while she had the same one in green. It was just really weird since we didn’t plan it at all. :P The rooms came with a mini-fridge and microwave unit which is :)

My roommate is really sweet and so far, we get along really well. She’s a Christian, which is an answered prayer for me and we’ve been doing a lot of the different activities together on campus.

The first night I was extremely homesick. It was kind of embarrassing. My mom called me on the phone and I was trying to give the shortest replies I could because just talking to her was making me tear up and I didn’t want to cry in front of my roommate. I’m just an emotional person. D: Which is actually why this post is a little over do because I couldn’t talk about home without tearing up…But today was a lot better! Andrew, my roommate, and I explored the campus so we knew where certain halls were located and which rooms our classes were in. Just staying out of the dorm really helped. Staying inside my dorm is just kind of… depressing, haha.

Tonight a group of people met up and we played capture the flag and zombie tag. If you haven’t played zombie tag, it is so much freaking fun. It’s just like regular tag, with one person starting it and they’re a zombie. When they tag other people, they turn into zombies as well. So we had all these students running around campus acting like zombies. It was a ton of fun and great to meet some new people! ;D

So while my start to college was a little rocky, I’m meeting a few more people and having a bit more fun. I’m a bit nervous about classes starting on Monday, but I’ll be fine. I’m probably going to go to bed soon because I’m so exhausted! I swear by the end of this semester I’m going to be super skinny with all the walking I’ll be doing on this campus! :P