Please Note

The grand opening for Liberty's very own SnowFlex was this past weekend. Basically, it's a synthetic ski slope, the first of its kind in the U.S., that can be used all year long, regardless of temperature. Looks pretty sweet to me! I guess I need to lug my snowboard here to school with me next time I make a trip home so that I can be a part of the fun! It's also nice because it's only $2/hr for students to ski or snowboard. While it's not a full set of slopes like a ski resort would be, that's still super cheap! My college budget loves it!

It's also Spiritual Emphasis week, a sort of spiritual kick in the pants to start off the year. There are services tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday night with a special guest speaker, whom I've heard is really great. I didn't get around to checking it out tonight, but I'm thinking about going tomorrow and Wednesday to see what it's all about. Besides, it can't hurt to get a little extra dose of Jesus a few times during the week ;).

Speaking of which, I'm really enjoying being here so far! I had a lot of reservations about everything at first/right before I got here, I'm really enjoying the whole experience so far. I really like my classes, and I love that they're taught from a Christian perspective, even if I disagree with a few of the rules. And even that isn't bad, because many of them are not enforced as harshly as they appear to be on paper. Not bad.

I figured out the Google Reader thing! It's great! If you don't already have one of these delightful creations set up, just click here, and sign in with your Google account (whichever email that's hooked up to your blogger account). All the blogs you follow will be in one place, and you can read them as you go, entry by entry, like one big email account of blog entries. I'm sure that most of you know of/have one of these already, but I just figured mine out and it makes my life a lot easier, so hush and pretend you just found out about it!

I really miss my dog.

These Things I Know For Sure

in no particular order...

1. I love my roomie.

2. I love my boyfriend

3. This is where I'm supposed to be.

4. I love Law & Order.

I'm thankful that I don't have too much homework.

5. I can survive on my own if needed!

6. I never want to live alone.

7. I like college!

5 Best Things About the First Day of School

I decided to do something new (to me) in blog-world today and write on one of Mama Kat's prompts that she provides a list of every week. I chose the "5 Best Things About the First Day of School," since I just had a first day of school on Monday!

Here goes:

1. New school supplies! This might make me dorky or something, but I love new pens, binders, and notebooks. Too bad you usually have to use them for homework (eww).

2. New friends--you know, your fellow classmates, who have to endure the same torture that you do, so you band together as a result.

3. First day of college usually means new furniture (this year anyway...), which I love with every fiber of my being.

4. Learning things! I know this sounds totally lame, but learning is pretty cool when you think about it. Especially since I'm privileged enough to be able to go to college, as many people don't get that opportunity.

5. Fun college-campus activies: sporting events, campus-wide block parties, the list goes on and on. It's never boring!

Other than that, the first week is going well. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I signed up for the 7:40 am class on Tues/Thurs, but I get the feeling I'm going to need a stronger alarm. Otherwise, all is well thus far! Enjoy your week :)

Totally Awkward Tuesdays!

Once again, this Tuesday caught me by surprise. I've been so busy with getting ready for classes and going to classes and trying to get from one side of the campus to another, that I nearly forgot about my TAT! Check out Tova Darling's blog for the full Totally Awkward Tuesday story.

My story was my first awkward college experience. Unfortunately for me, there are probably many more to follow. Anyway, my new roomie and I share the basement of The Dollhouse, as I like to refer to the single family home that the 5 of us rent out. In the basement, there is a large main room that two of us share as a bed/living area, and a smaller, unfinished room that we've converted into a TV/sitting area.

My boyfriend and I were sitting on the couch, watching some TV (and that is all!), when my roomie got home. She had 2 of her friends with her and after all the introductions were made, she announced that it was gross how she always has to come home to my boyfriend and I making out (this has never actually occurred). My roomie is tricky, and very sarcastic (but I love her). Since we had just met her friends, this made for a very awkward few minutes, but thankfully her friends know exactly how she is and just shrugged it off and laughed. Silly roomie...

Tuesday/Thursdays are my looong days for classes, (5, to be exact) so I'm on campus taking a break in the computer lab/library. So far, I really like my classes. Even though there are a couple of the mandatory freshman classes that everyone thinks are really lame and extremely easily (thank God for that), those seem to be pretty interesting as well. We'll see!

I survived!

I have officially survived my first day of classes at Liberty! Actually, that's a pretty overdramatic statement considering the fact that I only had 2 classes today, and they are both those easy but mandatory freshman classes.

Overall, I actually liked the classes/experience today a lot. I think it's awesome that the professors pray to open each class, and they have a very genuine love for their students and a desire to see them succeed. At the community college that I transferred from, this was far from the mindset of many of the professors, some of which visibly hated their jobs. So that's really refreshing.

Things I don't like:

1.Parking is ridiculous. I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise at all, since enrollment at Liberty increases every year, and the first week or so is always frenzied (not to mention the number of parents still lingering around campus). Anyway, as a commuter student, that makes it a little frustrating to get from class to class, but I've been assured that this will die down.

2. There are so many people everywhere! I don't mind a lot of people, but it's a little overwhelming. This will also die down after a few days, I know, but it's sort of shocking after going to a community college with about 30 people (maximum) in each of my classes. I've never felt so small-town!

3. I got $400 automatically from the school as a scholarship to use on books. Little did I know, these expire in October and I sort of forgot to use any of them on my books this semester. So, I can trade them in for a Barnes & Noble gift card since that's what our bookstore is. Big ooops. I definitely don't need $400 in Barnes & Noble money, but the bookworm in me is pretty psyched about it anyway. :)

All in all, it really wasn't bad though. I love being in college!

I think I'll have a better (or more realistic, anyway) feel for everything tomorrow, as I have the more difficult classes then. We'll see!

one day down...err...too many to count to go

So my first full day as an official Liberty student went pretty well. Okay, I'm lying, it was pretty rough. I woke up to a phone call that my dad had to go to the hospital back home and received a call from my own doctor's office letting me know that I have some pretty crazy things going on with my thyroid. Did I mention that this is the first time I've ever been away from home? Needless to say, when you add that to the drama of moving in here that began yesterday, you get a recipe for a pretty bad way to start off the whole "college experience." I'm thanking God that my boyfriend is here with me, so that I had a least one person I know and trust to hug when I got all this crazy news.

Thankfully, my dad is okay and is back at home again after many long hours, my thyroid will be fine, I'm sure, and the Dollhouse situation seems to be worked out as well. And I was feeling pretty good because I found my way around campus by myself pretty well and navigated getting my parking permit, student ID, and picking up the books I'd ordered (all in separate places, by the way). Tomorrow I have to go to transfer orienation, which will likely be a long, boring session of information that we didn't really need to know. But thus is life, I suppose.

The adventure begins

So, it's my first night in the Dollhouse, as I like to refer to the house that I share with four other girls closeby to Liberty. I have to admit, while I did nothing actually Liberty-related today (I didn't even go on campus yet), I am completely exhausted! And I'm not sure that I'm loving it yet. Let me tell you why...

1. I first entered the basement (that I'm sharing with one other girl, who won't be getting her until Friday), and there was water all over the floor. Apparently there have been a few leak issues that are supposedly were resolved right before I got here, so there shouldn't be any repeat incidents, but it wasn't exactly the greeting that I was expecting.

2. My landlord doesn't know about me. In the state of Virginia, having more than 4 unrelated females living together in the same house is legally considered a brothel (explains the lack of sorority houses). Most college kids who need to get around this law just put 4 names on the lease and have one unsigned roommate, and no one's the wiser. Well, apparently the landlord of the Dollhouse stated that if we have a fifth roommate, he wants more rent money. My lovely roommates decided not to tell me this until today, when I move in. So rather than pay the extra money, they elected to try to hide the fact that I'm living here. I suppose that's understandable, but I really wish that I would have known about it ahead of time, especially when you consider that my honest-to-a-fault parents are less than pleased. We'll see what happens...

3. I hardly unpacked a thing. I should probably get on that. Ahhhhh

Totally Awkward Tuesday!

Once again, I nearly forgot that it's Totally Awkward Tuesday! I know I said that my next blog post would be from my new room in the Dollhouse at school, but I lied, because I want to participate in Tova's Totally Awkward Tuesdays! Hop on over to her blog for all the details.

This awkward story happened while I was working as a receptionist in a physical therapy office. Before I worked there, I had no idea how crazy some of the patients are. Well, the front desk that the receptionists (me) sat behind was pretty tall. A person of average height could definitely see over it, but it made for a relatively tall divider between us and the patients who were making appointments at the front desk. It also gave the appearance that we were sitting much closer to the patient that we actually were, but because of the desk's height, our actual seats on the ground were much further from where the patients stood in front of the desk than it appeared.

One day, a male patient, who must have been in his late 50s or early 60s, for reasons that I have yet to figure out, decided it would be a good idea to reach across the desk, through the expanse between patient and receptionist and pinch my cheek. It was even more awkward because he underestimated the distance and had to lean really far forward in order to accomplish the cheek-pinching. It was so awkward.

Happy Tuesdays!

Here We Go....

I'm headed to school in a little more than 24 hours! That is, if I ever manage to get everything I need packed up, and that my flat tire gets repaired tomorrow (what awful timing...). Because tomorrow is going to be crazy, my next blog post will be from my room at school! I have to go to move in to the Dollhouse, go to orientation, and then classes start on Monday! Here we go...

Miracle please?

Somehow, I need to pack up all of the necessary contents of my room (and clean) in the next 72 hours. Ohhh my.

One Letter That I Wish I Could Send

So, I stumbled across this awesome blog, Letters from a College Student, where Faith tells it how it is, with the kind of honesty with which we all wish we could speak freely. I figured I'd try a letter of my own, since I'm anonymous anyway, to get a few things off my chest.

Dear Friend,

I had trouble addressing you as "friend," since I don't really consider you that anymore. I'm sorry for that, but I just don't think that we are. I'm sorry for everything that I did wrong, because I know that I had a part in it. I'm sorry that I didn't handle things the right way when I did finally stick up for myself. And I'm really sorry that it took me so long to do so.

I do, however, think that there a few things that you should be sorry for as well. The list goes on and on, but I'm trying desperately to forgive you for all of it, so I will keep it short. I wish that you had apologized for all of the times that you tried to rob my joy. I wish that you would apologize for all of the times that you pretended you didn't see my frustration and my hurt when you manipulated me. I wish that you would apologize for all the times that, because of your many insecurities, you tried to make me insecure as well. I am happy to let you know that even now, it hasn't worked. Despite your hardest efforts, I haven't let you affect my confidence. I wish that even after I confronted you, and laid everything bare so that we could work it out, that you had actually listened, actually apologized for your fault in the situation (I don't claim all of it), and that we would have been able to reconcile.

I am really sorry that we haven't been able to be friends lately, and that I doubt that we will ever be again, but I don't regret distancing myself from you. It has been one of the best things that I have done for myself, and after 20 years of letting you walk all over me, I vow never to let you, or anyone else do that to me again. Thanks for teaching me that, it was obviously a lesson that I really needed to learn.

Sincerely,

Me.

I needed that.

Closing in!

Well, officially 7 days (that's one week, people!) until my first-ever move away from home, and the beginning of my (real) college career! I'm nervous! And excited. But mostly nervous at this specific moment because this is probably the biggest change that I'll experience thus far in my life. That's pretty serious! It sounds so silly in comparison to actually growing up (which I've sort of done backwards anyway, since I've been working full time the past 2 years in order to be able to go to college full-time now), but it's going to be way different from what I'm used to, although I'm definitely excited to see where things go! Now it's just a matter of getting everything I need packed up in my car, which in itself will be a small miracle.

I'm beginning to think my new roommates will start to make regular appearances in my blog posts as well, as I'm living in a house (which I like to refer to as The Dollhouse) with four other girls. Something blog-worthy (and probably very dramatic) is bound to happen, but I'm hoping that it won't! Wish me luck ;)

Totally Awkward Tuesday!

Oh my word! It's Tuesday again already! And I almost missed it...I completely forgot that today was Tuesday, until I noticed that everybody else is writing out their totally awkward stories (check out Tova's blog for all the details)! Ahhh!

This awkward story actually happened to my mom way back in the day before she married my dad. She was over at his house, playing Pictionary with my dad and his parents. She and my grandfather were on one team, and my father and grandmother were on another team. So it got to be my mom's turn to guess what my grandfather was drawing (contact lense, by the way). So everyone was guessing words related to the eye, pupil, eyelash, etc., and my mother blurts out, "UTERUS!!!"

My stunned grandfather must've dropped his pencil and my dad and grandmother stopped in their tracks. Apparently, my mom had meant to say iris and that other lovely body part just slipped out in its place. Apparently, the group laughed for about an hour. I'm glad it was her and not me, though, but they can all laugh about it now :). I love my mom!

100% True!

I have a baffling but 100% true, happened in real life, story to tell you. I wish that I could say that something like it happened to me, but 1. I have an amazing boyfriend already and 2. it just didn't. It happened to my roommate, who seems to be a magnet for situations like this.

So let me start at the beginning. She and I are avid baseball fans, although for different teams. Well the team that she loves was playing the team that I love, so the two of us went to see the game. She noticed a guy standing around before the game, sporting her team's jersey and said something along the lines of, "look at the guy with the eyebrow ring! How cute is he?!"

Without thinking much of it, the game starts, and we all return to our seats. His is a section over from ours, although not really close at all. After the game, we continue on with our lives, all but completely forgetting about the guy with the eyebrow ring.

Fast forward to yesterday, when my roomie gets on a plane headed across the country to visit a friend of hers. I got a text from her asking if I remembered Guy With Eyebrow Ring from the baseball game, which I did, because by some crazy odds, he was on her flight! Seriously...the very same flight she was on, headed across the country! At first I didn't believe it, but she swore that it was true and even claimed she'd try to talk to him and ask if it was him to make sure.

Then, she calls me today to tell me that, not only were they on the same flight, they had the same 3 hour layover. She said that for a little while, they were waiting, and kept catching each other awkwardly stealing glances at each other. Finally, she boldly walked up to him (I can't say that I would've done the same, to be honest), and says, "You may think I'm an idiot for saying this, but did you go to the such and such baseball game this summer?" To which he replied, "Yes! That's where I know you from!"

What are the odds? Apparently, they continued to talk for all of the remaining layover, and he even asked the person sitting next to her on the flight to switch seats with him so that they continue to talk for the second half of the flight.

That being said, I've come to the conclusion that my roommate's life would make a much better blog than mine!

Things I'm excited about

a handy-dandy list for your reading convenience:

1. moving to VA to go to Liberty (less than 2 weeks left!)

2. Preseason football begins tonight!

3. I just entered Rachel at it's a hero's giveaway for a Starbucks cup!

4. I'm not going anywhere out of town this week and I just get to spend time at home hanging out with my brother.

5. I rented "The Good Life" with Zooey Deschanel, who I have an intense girl crush on

I'm pretty sure that's all for now. Hope you all had lovely weekends :)

Happy.

Well, I'm back from the last vacation-ing that I'll be doing for a while! Yes, very sad, I know. I completely missed this week's Tova's Totally Awkward Tuesday as well, and I'm very sorry about that! But what's done is done. I do have a fantastically funny (now, anyway) story from vacation for you though.

First, you should know that I went to the beach this past week with my boyfriend and his family. And I mean his whole family. Let me break this down for you...the boyfriend is the youngest of four siblings, who are all adults, 3 of which are married, 2 of which have families of their own. One of these families has 4 kids and the other has 5, making a total of 9 youngsters ranging in ages from 1-14. In addition, both of my boyfriend's grandmothers and his parents accompanied us on vacation as well. In case your head hurts, or your math skills are comparable to my own, that equals 19 people. Not such a big number, you might say? Did I mention that all of these 19 people (including small children) stayed in the same, 3 bedroom beach house?

And actually, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be! I'm usually pretty optimistic and I like to think that I have a good attitude most of the time, but I'll be the first to admit, I was not thinking that having so many people in one house was going to be a good idea. But everyone was somehow fit in (including people sleeping in sunrooms and attics, on couches and air beds) and everything went pretty well.

My boyfriend's mother instructed us that I would be sharing the laundry room with my boyfriend's 13-year-old niece. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I would be sleeping in the laundry room. On vacation. Once I realized there was an actual bed involved, this was not so surprising to me. Due to the rather large size of the laundry room, a full bed was pushed into the corner of it. While I was frustrated at first to have to share a bed, since I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep recently, it ended up working out fine since I really enjoy his niece and we had a grand old time. Well, if you're ever seen Dan in Real Life, then you have the perfect picture of the situation I found myself in when my boyfriend's mother decided that a load of clothes needed to go in the dryer at 7 o'clock in the morning on our vacation. I probably don't need to remind you how noisy dryers are (not the new, nice, quiet kind), especially when you're sound asleep less than three feet from them.

Needless to say, I was not thrilled when it happened. But now I think it's pretty funny, so no harm done.

Ebony over at Sizzling Publications tagged me in Six Things That Make You Happy, so here you are:

1. my turtle

2. my boyfriend

3. my bed...ahhh

4. the beach

5. my family

6. new furniture

I'm also supposed to tag 6 people whose blogs make me happy, but I don't follow enough blogs apparently, because many of the people I would have tagged have already been tagged. So until my blogging popularity increases (or if it does...), I'll have to remain tag-less. Sorry to disappoint!

Vacations galore!

I apologize in advance for the inordinate amount of parenthesis used in this blog entry

Well, I got back from vacation number one a few hours ago (thank God for the end of the longest car ride ever), and overall it was great! I went surfing for the first time (loved it), got a nice starter tan, and even sent a post card to my pen pal! I felt very accomplished. It was also my boyfriend's first vacation with my family (even though he's been around for a while) and the extended family loves him, the immediate family loves him more; it's really great for all parties involved.

There is some sad news :(. I have (had?) a pet zebra finch, and literally a few hours before we got home, a freak near-tornado swept through our town, with wind speeds we haven't seen in...ever (seriously, one of our trees was completely uprooted), and knocked over the birdcage (they like being outside), causing it to collapse, and allowing my favorite bird-friend to escape! So I was pretty upset upon discovering this, but I'm holding out hope that she'll fly back unharmed when she gets hungry. Or that she at least enjoys her new found freedom to the fullest.

I'm also feeling really productive because my arrival in good ol' Lynchburg, VA for college is closing in and I'm being really good about deadlines for things related. You're allowed to be proud if you want.

And lastly, I leave for vacation numero dos in less than 48 hours (you're allowed to be jealous)! I'm just taking advantage of finally getting to act like a student and have summers off again, so don't judge.