First Week at MSU

I am a very lazy person and therefore I have copied my entry from my school blog below in place of a new and original entry.

I have to say that my first week of college was what I expected as much as it was not what I had expected. You may ask "how can this be?" and I intend to explain.

How I expected:
1.) There is always something to do: I knew from books and movies that if you walk around campus, eventually you'll find some way to quell your boredom. This is something I've found to be true on campus and I have to say, I am pleased.
2.) Sorority/Fraternity life is everywhere: While I am not one of the people who wish to partake in sorority life, I have enough sense to know that there are plenty of people who are. In the first week of school while rush is taking place I have seen countless girls in dresses and boys in fraternity shirts throughout campus and I know this will not cease once rush is over.

How I didn't expect:
1.) There is a lot of free time: I had no idea that once my classes were out for the day there would be so much time to do my homework and partake in a number of activities.
2.) That I'd find so many activities in which I wanted to partake: I had heard, as I'm sure so many others have, that "there's something for everyone" in college. I have to admit that I was skeptical. I'm happy to say though that since I've arrived I have found many activities in which to join. I am a proud member of the Catholic Campus Ministry, English Society, and Folklore Club. All of these things interest me because of my faith and my strong like of English and literary elements that might some day impact my writing.

I suppose those of you whom have stuck around long enough to get to this point are about ready to stop reading, so I will wrap it up. College life is everything I expected and nothing like it at all. I hope everyone else had an equally eye-opening first week.

Rest in Awesome

If you didn't know, I'm a member of a vast group of people spanning all across the world know as Nerdfighters. No, we do not fight nerds, we are nerds that fight to increase awesome and decrease the level of world suck. Being a Nerdfighter can bring you into the company of some of the most awesome people you have ever met/seen online/followed on Twitter.

One of the people I have come across was a girl named Esther Earl. Esther is high spirited and awesome girl who turned sixteen at the beginning of August. She influenced many people in Nerdfighteria as well as the HP Alliance which is a charity that consists of Harry Potter fans. This morning when I awoke I had received five tweets from various people informing me of very sad news.

At around three this morning Esther was taken to heaven after a long battle with cancer. I am still shocked when I think about how energetic she was, even last week in her Youtube videos. Needless to say, Esther will be strongly missed.

Rest in Awesome, Esther Earl, you deserve it.

First Day

So, I've completed my first day of college courses and it wasn't as horrible as I thought it might be. I was able to get to all of my classes on time and even early. In my math class I was able to talk to my teacher about not having my book yet and she was very nice about copying pages for me. Then I went to my history class where I realized I had the wrong version of the book. Now I have to order a new one and sell the one I have. FUN? No. But psychology was fun and I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester.

I had lunch with my roommate and some girls from my floor. It was fun and I got to know them a bit better. Now I'm sitting in my room listening to Armoured Bearcub and smiling to myself about the fact I completed my math homework. Yes! I'm not sure what I'm going to do until the bbq at the Catholic center at six thirty but I'll probably get out of my room for at least a little while. That's pretty much all I have to say for the day.

Oh Yeah, College

Hey, followers! You want to know where I am? Well, I'm in my dorm room right now. I just spent most of these, well at least half of these past twenty-four hours moving in. I have all of my stuff set up and I have internet connection. This is really all I need: books, music, internet, computer, and coca-cola. I could live like this for a very long time. Well, I suppose that human contact and showering, and food is necessary. But for the next few hours I will stay in my room. Because I am tired. Last night we had this thing called Play Fair which was just a huge ice breaker type of thing where we got to meet a whole lot of people from our class. It was a lot of running. Then today we went to get last minute things from Wal-Mart and came back to the dorm. My family left then and my roommate, Crystal and I got lunch and walked to where our classes would be. It was a lot of walking.

I suppose that's all I have to tell you about college so far. I know, not that interesting, but at least I typed something, right? Well, I'll let you know when my life gets interesting.

So Happy

Do you guys want to hear something really cool? I'm really happy right now! What? That doesn't qualify as something really cool? What a bummer... not really though, because I am actually really happy.

This morning I woke up to an empty house and took the liberty of taking a long shower. After this I did the few chores my mom left for me and turned on some music. I was expecting the day to be long and quiet and despite how mad I wanted to be about being stuck at home (car is STILL being fixed) all day, I couldn't. I was just happy. Then my friend told me that he was going to be able to come over and I spent the time it took for him to get here dancing. We talked until he had to go to work.

He dropped me off at the Shell up the street from my house and I bought Red Bull that I drank on the way home. As I was walking I realized why I might be so happy. I finished rereading Sarah Dessen's novel, Keeping the Moon and as the main character realized the point of the story, I did as well.

Sometimes in order for you and other people to have confidence in you, you have to fake it. You have to act like you believe in yourself and soon others will believe in you. All you have to say is, "I'm confident in myself" and keep it with you. So I know now that I can be confident if I want to be.

Starbucks Blog

I bet all of you are wondering where I am posting from? STARBUCKS! That's right, I decided to be one of THOSE people who sit at a table with some iced coffee and their laptop and type things because I want to look important. That's not true.

I'm at Starbucks because the people at Beauty Brands were already watching me and my big bags because I look like a shoplifter. I bet you all are shocked that I'm not a shoplifter. I had a consultation about correctional hair dyeing at Beauty Brands and my mother couldn't pick me up until after four. So I told her that I'd be at Starbucks. I'm mostly here for the internet though because I hadn't been online since Thursday evening. Yesterday I woke up at six thirty so I could be dropped off at my grandparents' because my car still isn't fixed, and I was to have lunch with my grandpa. After said lunch my cousin Amanda took me to my friend Rose's house. We had so much fun talking and goofing around that I didn't fall asleep until after two. That wasn't a good plan though because I had to wake up in time to be picked up at nine fifteen.

At that time my mother took me and my sister to a baby shower for my cousin. That was a lot of fun and it gave me a chance to see some of my relatives before I leave on Friday. My cousin Theresa took me to the library because we wanted to watch Saved tonight, but tragedy of tragedies, they didn't have it. She then dropped me off at Beauty Brands and that leads us to where I am as I type.

The moral of this post: don't judge the people typing at Starbucks, they might just be desperate for internet connection.

Submerged

Life without a car: Day 3. Today I got to type a whole lot. Yes, this was mostly because I didn't have anywhere to go, but other than that I'm actually having thoughts that relate to the characters and I'm sort of getting into the narrator's mindset. You see, this girl is sort of a tough, accept no crap sort of person. Her best friend is her next door neighbor and he is very emotionally dependent on her. He doesn't make a whole lot of his own decisions and he depends upon her to fight a lot of his battles. Since I'm not doing a whole lot of my own things I'm starting to submerge myself in theirs and that's why I'm getting a lot more typing done. Subsequently I can't think of a whole lot to blog about.

Tomorrow I will be getting out of my house and hopefully will have more to say.

Bananagrams at Nine

I had been bored for the majority of the day because I have been without a car. I had retired to my room at around eight when my mom had refused to take me to the library. I was sitting in my room typing when I got a phone call. It was my friend Emily and she asked me who all was home and I told her everyone but my sister. She quickly got off the phone and I was left to think she was blowing me off. A few minutes later my door opens and she's standing there saying that she and my sister's boyfriend had brought some ice cream. I was completely shocked.

After we'd finished our frozen treats we decided to play a game called Bananagrams. If you noticed, the word ANAGRAM is placed within the name. You are given an allotted number of letters and build words from those letters. We played about five games and each of them took about ten to fifteen minutes. I got to apply my love of words into this game and I also got to spend time with my friends and family. It made me really think about what life was really all about.

Sure, I broke my writer's block today and typed about three pages, but I also got to do something I won't always be able to do in college. I thought being stuck at home would be completely and utterly unbearable. But it turns out that everything can be solved with family and friends.

Adapting to Our Surroundings

Well, I'm finally posting again which means that I've finally had a day with which I could incorporate a moral. Aren't you all excited? *Used sarcastic voice*

Today my sister and I went to babysit for our two cousins who are four and one. We were extremely excited 1. because they are so adorable, and 2. because the four year old says the funniest things. So we arrived at eight and already Luke had his Batman mask on, which if you didn't know, meant he WAS Batman. Before he sat down to eat breakfast ("do you know what's in my milk? Cinninim") he took off the mask and said, "I'm Luke now". So we watched him eat and my sister fed Jackson his breakfast.

From there it was pretty smooth sailing, Luke played with his Super Friends toys and Jackson walked around laughing and playing with random things along the way. Our cousin Anna joined them a few hours later and that's when Luke started getting a little upset when she "took my Joker" and didn't watch his Super Friends DVD. We ordered pizza and watched some Spongebob before she left when Luke told her mom to "make sure she doesn't take any of my toys".

The whole time Luke was wild and crazy and Jackson stayed very calm. He sat down with me a few times so I could read him one of his books and he smiled an awful lot. That's when I realized it: people adapt to their surroundings really fast.

Jackson was born into a family where there already was one wild little boy. He quickly realized, it seems, that if he wanted to coexist he couldn't combat Luke's wild behavior but he had to stay calm. He always is ready to give a hug or be held and that's probably how my aunt can cope with those two. (They're really not that bad.)

I think I'm a lot quieter and introverted because of my surroundings as well. My older siblings were always so busy and popular that it just seemed too overwhelming to me. My sister always had something going on and she always seemed to be getting in trouble with my mom so I figured that if I didn't do a whole lot, I'd get in a whole lot less trouble. My brother was always so good at talking to people that I didn't really ever feel like I had to say anything and that's why I think I'm a good listener.

I challenge all of you to look into your past or current surroundings and determine if those impacted who you are today. Did you adapt? Did you disrupt? Let me know in the comments. That means you, DramaDaddy.

Rearview Mirrors

First thing I have to say, I love my DramaDaddy. He always has the best comments for my posts and sometimes they are so sweet that they make me want to cry, especially when he put the lyrics to that Green Day song that I'm sure everyone knows.

He did make a very valid point about driving forward through life and not looking through the rearview mirror the whole time.

We always need to be aware of the present and all the experiences we can have if we notice the people and the places around us. This is sometimes hard to think about if you're always thinking "this is the last time I'll ever do this" or "I'm really going to miss this". What we should be doing is collecting new things from all around us and enjoying the stuff we have yet to experience.

True, it's nice to keep some stuff in the rearview mirror and look back sometimes on what once was. These are the things we save forever and pull out during the really bad times or even the really good ones. These are the places where we find the most comfort and the strength it takes to carry on.

But we have to remember to continue on through the journey. If you keep looking back, you'll eventually crash in the present and there's no going back without the car. If you can keep the present, you can also keep the past. You can keep it right where it should be so that you can always come back to it in the future.

Sure the past shaped who you are, but who you are and what you do NOW shapes who you will become. You don't want to stay the same, there's always room for growth and self-improvement, no matter who you are.

Random Monday Morning

So last night was the Senior Dinner for my youth group and it made me very sad to think about not seeing these same people almost every Sunday. They're like an extension of my family and leaving them behind is going to be just as hard as leaving my family behind. I learned so much about others and myself during my four years there and I will never forget all the memories I made with them.

Two of my siblings celebrated birthdays in the three days that I haven't posted and I want to give a shout out to them. (I suppose I give a lot of shout outs now.)

Cecilia: My beautiful sister, I hope that sixteen treats you better than it treated me. I hope it is a year that you remember for the good times you had and the great company you kept. Keep on singing and being the most awesome little sister I know.

Matt: You are now seventeen and as such I expect a great deal of things from you. Not really. I encourage you to enjoy your last year as a child as you go through senior year.

Today my friend Mary is coming over and I am very thrilled to see her because this may very well be the last time I see her before I leave for school. I bought popsicles specifically for this situation and I can't wait to talk with her and generally goof around. We are the kind of people that can make anything fun, even math which we had together for two years. We also befriended a piece of wood named Jameison. Speaking of which, I should have him ready for her arrival.