I Promise I'll Update Soon.

Hey everyone!!  My sincerest apologies...I promise I'll update soon!  I've been soooo incredibly busy that I haven't had time to give you all the details of my crazy college life!  It's been so hectic and I barely have a minute to sit down to relax.  Don't worry...I have an ongoing list with all the things I need to write about from the past few days so I won't forget.  But everything is good so far!  Write soon!

T-minus 2 Days.

If you include today, I have two more days before I leave.  Two more days I will live in the town of Normal where I have lived my entire life.  Two more days I get to spend in the home I've lived in since December of 1999.  Two more days I get to sleep in my big bed and wake up to my pretty purple walls.

Okay, so I know this is a bit dramatic.  It's not like I'm leaving forever.  Heck, I'll be back in a couple weeks for Labor Day weekend!  It's just that I know once I leave Saturday morning, home won't really feel like home anymore.  When I come back to visit, that will be all it is--a visit.  Once I leave, I'll begin establishing myself elsewhere, aka West Lafayette, Indiana.  Or more specifically...

Eleanor B. Shreve Residence Hall, Room 461

1275 Third Street
West Lafayette, IN 47906-4228

I love letters. (Hint hint).

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely excited to go to school.  But it scares me to think about what I'm leaving behind.  In Regina Spektor's song, "Small Town Moon", she says, "How can I leave without hurting everyone who made me?".  Everyone I know here has done something, no matter how small, to touch my life, and it kills me to think that I'm leaving that, and possibly hurting people in the process.  Not purposefully of course.  But  I know my family especially will miss me, and I them.

Anyways, raise your hand if you've ever wanted to sit at a  computer for 2+ hours taking a mini-course on alcohol education?  No takers?  Didn't think so.  But that's how I spent my Sunday.  First I finished the dreaded Common Reading Program assignment (what's one question you'd ask the author and why? how are your views different from those of another character? how is your culture different than that of the characters? use sources and cite them...) and then I proceeded to watch a series of videos and read several fake blogs and IM conversations to get educated on alcohol.  I loved how much they tried to gear it toward teens with all the media and technology, but didn't they know AIM was sooooo junior high?  I guess it worked though...I scored 100% on my final exam for the mini course.  Nailed ittttt!

My new least favorite word is goodbye.  Shall I even list some of the goodbye events I've had to deal with recently?

• Camping with Michaella, Kelly, Brett, and Matt was basically a goodbye, because I won't see any of them before I go.
• I hung out with my sister and all the girls I grew up with in my neighborhood last night.  I can't believe that I had to say goodbye to these girls who are practically my sisters!
• The girls and I had a "Last Hurrah" sleepover last weekend where we had to say goodbye to Jessica. Then some of us were together tonight to just spend some time together.  Nothing special; we just like to prolong our goodbyes apparently!  I'll see some of them tomorrow and even Friday too.
• My neighbor across the street who was basically a second mother to me growing up came over today to wish me luck because she'll be on vacation the day I leave.
• Today was my last day of babysitting so I said goodbye to my kids, Faith and Heath, as well as the 2 neighbor girls, Lauren and Julianna, and their babysitter, Annie, who we spent a lot of time with this summer.

As rapidly as my time here is disappearing, it honestly still hasn't sunk in yet.  You'd think it would, beings that I have most of my supplies I need, I've been saying all these goodbyes, and I've stopped wearing cute clothes because I need to pack my school clothes and don't want to be doing laundry right up to when I go.  (Okay, you caught me; when did I care about looking cute all summer?  I'm still just wearing shorts and t-shirts!).  But I still don't feel like I'm leaving!  It really probably won't hit me until I spend my first night at school...or maybe the second night since my parents will still be there the first night.

I can't seem to say it enough: I'm so incredibly blessed that I get to go to college with my best friend.  She came over a little today to give me my belated birthday/going away present (my birthday is in March, haha).  She had made me a big book full of pictures of us and captions to go along with them.  It was seriously the cutest thing ever.  If I knew I wouldn't be seeing much of her the next few years, I'd have been bawling my eyes out.  I don't know what I would do without her.  I love her to death!

Rlajsrenaldfkjgaeiuerhbvnkseuiwri I still have to pack my clothes for school.  I. Can't. Do. This.  What the heck am I supposed to bring?  Indiana has the same bipolar weather as Illinois, so do I need pants? Shorts? Sweatshirts? Winter parkas?  I don't knowww!  I know, I know; first world problems.

This was such a random post.  I hope you were able to follow along!

Just "Dumping" Some Information On You.

I know, I know, I'm soooo "punny".  But if you didn't catch it from my title, the whole thing with Chris suddenly evaporated into thin air because he realized it would be too difficult to say goodbye at the end of the summer.  And yeah, it sucked, and still does to be completely honest.  But I'm a big girl.  Heck; I'm a college kid!  There are worse things in life than inconsiderate males :)


So the other day my mom took me to Target to get some "basic" supplies for college.  And let me tell you, I never realized how many "basic" items I use!  I have an entire laundry basket full of these supplies and have absolutely no idea how I'm going to fit everything in a tiny dorm room.  I'm so used to having so much space to sprawl out and put my stuff...it's going to be a real test to keep my side of the room clean!


By the way, I got my laptop!  This is my first post I'm writing (or typing, I guess) with it.  It's a Toshiba something-or-other, and it certainly gets the job done!  I also got a mouse and some external speakers to plug into it for none other than DANCE PARTIES!!!


Speaking of which...


My roommate, Megan, says she loves dance parties!  This is the first day we've really talked since she just got home from vacation, but she seems sooo nice and friendly, and we actually have quite a bit in common, so I think this is good news. God had a reason for forcing me to get a random roommate!


Tomorrow my grandma is taking me out to pick something out for my dorm room...I'm thinking I want to get this inspirational quote board wall hanging to spruce up the place a little, but I honestly don't know how much wall space I'm going to have with all the stuff I want to hang up!  I'll definitely post some pictures once I move in and everything.  If the quote board doesn't work out, I'll probably get an iron, though I have no idea where that's going to fit in the shoe box of my room...


I'm becoming a pro at Skype!  Jenna and I just did it the other day and Brooke, my best friend who's going to Purdue with me, and I just practiced tonight...even though we live less than half a mile away from each other and will never really have a use for Skyping with each other since we're going to the same school...oh well, it was fun :)


I only have one chapter left in our Common Reading Assignment book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.  The boy literally built a wind mill out of virtually nothing.  Very commendable, but boy oh boy was there way too much physics in there for it to make any sense to a mathematically and scientifically challenged girl like me!  ...I skimmed through several paragraphs because it went right over my head.  Nothing like slacking on my very first assignment in college!

I Officially Have a Roommate.

I think I'll finally be able to sleep at night.


I no longer have to sit up in bed worrying myself about what psycho I may have to live with in the tiny closet-sized room I'll have to call my home the next year.  I won't have to imagine every possible awful scenario involving a roommate (is she a thief? will she come home at 4 am when I'm trying to sleep? dear goodness, please tell me she won't lock me out of my room so she can spend 'quality' time with her boyfriend...) any longer.  The nameless, faceless girl I will live with for an entire year now has a name.  Oh, and a face.  My roommate definitely has a face.


Her name is Megan, and I just "met" her the other day on Facebook.  Due to my natural curiosity and insatiable desire to creep on people, I instantly scoured her timeline and perused her pictures and was surprised at how...normal she seemed.  Most of her pictures were of her and her friends, which is always a good sign.  Plus, I got to chat with her a little too, and she's majoring in Elementary Education like me!  We already have some things in common!  My anxiety has been quelled, and my excitement for college is growing.  Having a great roommate will make it that much easier to leave behind everyone here.


Speaking of leaving everyone behind...okay, it won't be as easy as I just mentioned.


I'm not quite sure how much information I should reveal on here, but heck.  If you really want to know, I guess I'll spill.


So there's this guy. (Isn't there always?) His name is Chris, and I've known him for a little while now since we've gone to school together and everything.  But we really just started talking this summer, and I've loved getting to know him and his friends.  


Enter emotions.


Suddenly, both of us like each other, and each day I get closer and closer to leaving.  We decided that we can't officially be together because I don't want a boyfriend when I go to school.  But it really sucks.  A lot.  We've been taking YOLO and Carpe Diem to heart though, and even though we both know that we're gonna be screwed at the end of the summer, we're trying to make the most of it and enjoy each others' company while we can.  I'll keep you updated.


Enough of the teenage girl rant and onto the boring stuff.


I bought some things for college the other day!  This included:

• My bedding (we ordered it online...it's pink and black and white floral print!)
• A bedside shelf to put things on since I'm lofting my bed
• A lap desk to put my laptop or papers on when I'm studying in bed
• A drying rack for the clothes that I don't want to put in the dryer
• An umbrella for those drizzly Indiana days
• Rainboots for my treks across campus in the snow and rain

There is a tonnnn more stuff to get, but I'll worry about that later.

Registration and Other News.

Evidently, Purdue refuses to believe in the "freshman 15."

Last Tuesday was the big day: registration (or STAR as they call it at Purdue).  My parents and I drove to good ol' West Lafayette Monday night to get up bright and early on Tuesday for a longgggg day of walking. 

The three most important things I learned:

1. It will take me about 12 minutes to walk to the academic campus from my residence hall.

2. There is no dining court in my residence hall.

3. My residence hall is located right next to the rec center.

I mean, I'm not complaining.  If I have to walk such a long distance to my classes, I'll be healthier.  If I walk past the rec center daily, I'll be more inclined to work out.  If I have to walk outside in a blizzard just to satiate my hunger, I'll be less likely to eat as often.  But still.  I'll miss the luxury of a fridge just steps away without having to brave the elements to eat.

To further educate you on my wonderful experiences, I will provide you a list of random tidbits that happened to me or that I discovered during the day:


1. In college, there is a lot of walking.  And by a lot, I don't mean a lot.  I mean A LOT!  My classes are conveniently not located near each other all the time, and neither were the buildings we needed to be in for STAR.  Though I wore shoes that I had walked around many times before, I got some blisters on my toes.  Consequently, I walked around barefoot on the cement for awhile to give my toes a break.  Which just gave me more blisters on the bottoms of my feet.  Which caused me to limp around like an idiot for most of the day.  That's just what I need; my fellow classmates seeing me look stupid before school even begins.  Oh well.


2. I took a Spanish placement exam while I was there that day.  It was online and only took about half an hour, and I got 12 Spanish credits out of it, so I'm currently enrolled in a Spanish 30100 class.  I sincerely hope I'm not the only freshman in that class. How intimidating.


3. I am soooo incredibly lucky: no 7:30 am classes for meeee!!   My earliest is 8:30 on M,W,F.


4. I joined a club already!  It's called PASE, or Purdue Alumni Student Experience.  It seems super chill, and all the activities are fun and social-related so it's super low commitment.  I'm also in the Ross Ade Brigade, which is the cheering section at football games.  Right up my ally! 


5. I'm stocked up on Purdue gear!  When I left West Lafayette, I had accumulated 4 t-shirts, a sweatshirt, a fleece jacket, and a hoodie.  That'll probably only last me a couple days to be honest.


6. I haven't even started class, and we already have to read a book.  It's called The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.  We have to read it and do an assignment on it before classes start.  Yippee...


7.  We ate in the dining court at Earhart while there, and boy oh boy will I be eating in style in a couple of months!  There was soooo much to choose from.  And you can eat as much as you want.  On second thought, that freshman 15 seems to be teasing me right now...


8. I had my first Den Pop while there too, which are seemingly famous in West Lafayette.  More good news?  There is red cream soda in all the soda fountains there!  I tried it for the first time, and boy oh boy was it delicious!  Trying new things has already started to pay off!


9. For those curious as to what my classes are this year, they are as follows:

•      Biology for Elementary School Teachers (which I have to contract as an honors class)
•      College of Education DeVito Scholarship Program I (a research opportunity for me and 7 other Education majors)
• Introduction to Educational Technology and Computing (also contracted as an honors class)
• United States History since 1877
• Mathematics for Elementary Teachers I
• Spanish Level V

They should be pretty interesting!

10.  Again, I'm so incredibly happy that my best friend, Brooke, is going to school with me.  We even took some pictures together while at STAR!

In other news, I'm on the hunt for a new laptop, a graduation gift from my parents.  I'm going PC which I may regret in the future, but for now it will do.  It's cheaper anyways.  I just want some good speakers for DANCE PARTIES, which are inevitable where Brooke and I are concerned.

Also, thanks to modern technology, I've gotten to see and talk to Jenna, the friend that left for Utah, a couple times via Skype!  Though our computers don't like each other much and keep disconnecting us, it's so wonderful to see her and chat with her.  She's adjusting well and has already made some friends, which isn't much of a surprise because she's so bubbly.  But sometimes it just makes me miss her more!!

My First Goodbye.

Nobody said it would be easy, but I never wanted it to be this hard.

One of my close friends left for college today.  It's only June, and I already had to say goodbye.  I keep telling myself that I have two more months before I have to deal with the difficult stuff: the goodbyes, the tears, the sense of loneliness that will inevitably sink in when I'm thrust into a crowd of unfamiliar faces upon arrival at Purdue.  But I had to face it a little too soon.  I'm not ready to say goodbye.


My friends and I had a surprise going away sleepover for her the other night, so it was nice to have a last "hurrah" as a group.  We were a little too silly, ate a little too much, and stayed up a little too late.  But it was a fun goodbye nevertheless.  Today was the more intimate one.  As I sat on her bed and watched her pack some last minute items into an already crammed suitcase, I realized that this was it.  Since she is going to Brigham Young in Utah, I won't be seeing her until winter break.  As in December.


She had been bracing us for this day for months, continually counting down the days when she would begin this new stage in her life.  But in the back of my mind, it wasn't real.  This day just did not exist in my warped sense of time.  And suddenly, it was here.  It was like running from something and watching it over your shoulder, until all of a sudden you smack into a brick wall.  Okay, so maybe it's not that dramatic.  But it might as well be.


So I said goodbye in a whirlwind of tears and hugs, and now she's in Utah, seemingly a world away.  I'm so excited for her, but I'm going to miss her like crazy.


Perhaps it was good to have a goodbye come about so early.  Maybe I'll be better prepared for when I have to say my farewell to the rest of my friends.  But I got to thinking: I am so incredibly lucky that my best friend is going to Purdue with me as well.  I realized there was no way in heck I'd be able to say goodbye to her.  It would be excruciating.


Well, one down and too many more to go.  Let's hope I don't fall apart at the seems before I even get to school!

 

So Here We Are.

4 years.

1,460 days.

35,040 hours.

2,102,400 minutes.

126,144,00 seconds.

Time flew by.  One second I was a freshman in high school, the lowly man (or woman, I should say) on the totem pole.  Now, here I am, summer before my freshman year in college. 

It truly is crazy to think about.  Everyone always tells you to enjoy the time you have in high school before it's gone, but does anyone really take that advice to heart when they're standing at the front doors of a giant prison-like building, realizing that they're going to spend the next four years there?  Do those words really penetrate your brain when you're studying for that AP Chemistry test or hanging out with friends before a football game?

The general consensus is no.  No, you don't constantly remind yourself to enjoy high school.  It either happens or it doesn't.  Luckily, I did enjoy my experience as a Normal West Wildcat...most of the time.  But this isn't about reminiscing on my high school glory days.  Instead, I want this blog to be an "updater" of sorts.  For anyone who is crazy enough to follow my "college kid" endeavors and experiences--from doing my own laundry to figuring out how the heck I'm not going to gain 15 pounds--good luck.  I can't promise this blog will be good.  Okay, I can guarantee you that it won't be.  But if you're at all interested in seeing how my life progresses these next few years at Purdue University and how I'm growing up to be a "big kid," this is for you.

Enjoy!