The Finish Line!

I took my last final this morning, and I am so incredibly glad it's all over. Now I have time to just hang out and do the things I didn't have time to do when I had so much homework. I had time to clean my dorm room really well today which is good because it was driving me insane! I am going to play Madden and Nerts with Kristen and Rebecca tonight, and tomorrow I am going to be lazy for most of the day. I'm going to do a little laundry and pack to go home, and then at about five I am taking Rebecca to the airport and going home to eat real food!

Speaking of home, Friday night at about twelve fifteen, three hours after I posted on here, Kristen, Rebecca and I decided we were going to drive to my house and spend the weekend. We got there at about two in the morning, and Saturday we did nothing but eat and watch America's Next Top Model. It was a much needed break, and we just enjoyed being in a house with a ton of space. We left at seven on Sunday morning so we could get to church at Midtown on time, and although we got very little sleep, we had a really good weekend.

Since I mentioned church, I guess I should add here that I am still a little starstruck here in Nashville even though I just saw my first celebrity. I've been looking for them since I got here, but Sunday as I was waiting to put my chair up after church, Kristen asked me if I would know what Chris Rice looked like if I saw him. I told her maybe, she pointed him out, and Chris Rice was totally standing across the room from us. Apparently he goes to church with us. That's not super exciting, but I was pretty stoked!

Anyway, hopefully now that I have some free time again I can stop neglecting my blog. All I really want to do over break is play chess, do yoga, sleep, and read Harry Potter, but maybe I'll find some time to write too.

Taking a Moment to Relax

I have been super busy lately, and I wish I had more time to write, but I have to take every spare moment I can get. This week was finals week, and I have now finished all but two of my exams. I have two on Monday, but I only have to study for one and the other is just a no-pressure presentation. I've been a little stressed lately, so tonight I am just taking time to sit and do nothing.

It's so crazy that my first semester of college is almost over. I have had a good time, but I am ready to go home and spend a month without homework and class. I might even have time to read a book of my choice! For now, I am just going to play chess, watch a movie, and sleep. I'm almost finished!

Thanksgiving Recap and Catch-up

I should definitely be doing something else right now, like the many papers I have due over the course of the next few weeks, but instead I want to take some time to recap a little and get some of this junk out in the open. It's not that anything exciting or phenomenal has happened, but I just don't want to do that other stuff yet, so I am writing instead.

My Thanksgiving break was wonderful. I wish it wasn't over because I don't want to be back at school, but I missed the people in my dorm, so I'm really excited about being back. There is a girl on my floor from China who is studying abroad, and she got to come home with me. It was really cool to have her there, and I think she enjoyed it too. I learned a lot about China, and I also learned that I don't want to be Chinese because they are pretty strict.

My nose ring had to be taken out because it was like infected. That kind of makes me mad because it's been two months and I've kept it clean, but I had to take it out, and I'm really hoping that once it heals the hole will still be there and I won't have to have it pierced again. I think I would do it again though because I liked it, and now that it's gone, I miss it.

I think I'm going to run a half marathon in March, at least that's the plan. I was going to do one my junior year of high school but it turned out to be the same day as prom so I quit training. I'm kind of excited about it, especially since I have three friends who are planning to run it with me and we can train together, but at the same time, I ran a little ways today, and I always finish thinking why do I do this to myself?! Anyway, we'll see how that goes, and maybe in March I'll have a sweet post about how fit I am and how far I can run!

On a more important note, I went to church at Midtown today because I felt like I needed a day to come back and rest and get back into the swing of Belmont, and I'm so glad I did because the sermon was wonderful and seemed to be directed right at me. The preacher talked about Nehemiah being faced with a decision to live out of fear or faith, and then talked about how we face that decision all the time in our lives. God showed me some areas in which I have been living in fear, and I realized I don't have to live that way. I have to trust God to take care of things, and then the outlook doesn't seem so bad. I'm really excited because I can see God working, and this is probably the most important thing I have to write about today.

This has been a really random post, and I feel like I've just jumped from one topic to another (because I have), but I have so much to do that I can't take my mind off of it enough to just write. So here I must say goodbye and begin writing about China and their brief period of naval dominance. Woo hoo.

One is the Loneliest Number...

I haven't been able to post anything on here in so long because I never have time, and I wish I had time to catch up on everything that has been going on, but even now my time is limited. I wanted to post something on here though because I've been thinking weird things (that isn't a good way to put whatever it is that's going on, but it's all I can come up with, so there it is).

On Sunday, I will have been single for nineteen years. First of all, I realize that sounds very dramatic because I have only been dating age for a few of those years, but when I start thinking, that is the thought, so it is important to have that phrase out in the open. It has never really bothered me before to be single. It's not that I don't want to date or have a boyfriend, it's just that I don't base my life and my success or happiness on whether or not there is a guy in my life. Lately, however, I have just been wishing that I had a guy. I think it's mainly because I have friends who get a lot of phone calls from boyfriends "just to check in" and I want that. I want someone to call or call me every day just to see how things are going. I know I could have a relationship like that with a girl who is a friend, but it's not the same. I also know this shouldn't tear me up like it does, but I think I just want to feel loved. I know there are a lot of people who care about me, but it seems like the boyfriend has the role of making that known constantly. I also tend to idealize relationships because I've never had one, so I'm pretty sure I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should. My life is also free from boy complications which are inevitable, even in good relationships.

I'll be okay, but for now I'm just sulking a little. Someday I will find that guy who calls me just to check up or say hello, and when I do, I know there will be a reason for these nineteen years of singleness, but until then, I'm going to continue knowing that it's okay to be single. I'm not alone by any means, and there are lots of people who love me, so I will be content with that and keep waiting!

Fall Break...From What I'm Not Sure

My fall break didn't exactly play out as planned. When I got out of class on Wednesday, I packed all my stuff and got ready to go, but on the way home I was meeting my mom for lunch and going to play Bingo at the nursing home with my grandmother (Mema) like I do every Wednesday. At lunch my mom asked me if I would go straight to the nursing home when we finished eating instead of waiting until two-thirty when Bingo started because my grandmother was not doing very well and my great aunt, who needed a break, wasn't going to leave unless someone else was there to stay with Mema. When I got to the nursing home, she was not well.

I guess I should add here that she was diagnosed about seven months ago with brain cancer and given six months to live. Until now, she's been okay. She was alert and seemed as healthy as you could expect, but you wouldn't have thought she was dying.

Anyway, when I got there, she was sleeping and would not wake up. She would look at us if we talked to her, but she never did say anything. Obviously, we didn't play Bingo, but I sat with her for a few hours and then went on home. Thursday, I went back to the nursing home and spent a few more hours. Saturday, I went again, and today after church I went again. The nursing home is half an hour away from school and just over an hour from home. I would have been better off to just stay at school as much as I saw my friends and family at home.

I feel like I sound bitter about not really having a break, and I don't want to come across that way because I completely understand. I'm really glad that when I needed to spend a lot of time there I've been able to be there instead of having classes. I'm just a little stressed and tired, thus the bitter tone.

Now I'm back at school, and I'm very tired. I'm thinking I may be in bed well before ten o'clock tonight because I am absolutely worn out. I am also, once again, not at all upset because of my break being crazy, just tired and in need of a place to say some of this. Now that I've gotten it out there, I'm going to do a little homework and get ready for bed!

Cancelled Class!

I was starting to feel a little stressed yesterday, but I got everything under control and I was just trying to make it through today. I had a big test this morning, and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought. I probably didn't make the best grade in the class (I would pretty much guarantee that), but I did okay, and it's over! I was also supposed to give a presentation in my class today, but when I got there it was cancelled! I've never been quite so happy because now I'm debating going to the Beaman to exercise or taking a nap. I haven't decided which I'm going to do yet, but either way I'm not going to class or giving a presentation, and I've only got three more classes before fall break! Life is good.

Loving the Love Songs

Well, next week is midterm week, and I really only have to take one midterm. The problem is, I also have a bunch of crap (namely essays) due at the same time that I have to take this monster of a midterm in the one class in which I have a test. I say this because I have wanted to update this thing for a while now, but when I am studying (or trying to study), I think, no, if I'm going to write something it will be the paper I have due. Instead of writing a paper, though, I go somewhere else and do something unproductive, and in the end I think I should have written in my blog because at least it has a little bit of value. Anyway, I should be doing something else right now, but if I didn't do this it would continue to drive me crazy.

I guess now I can finally get to what the title of this thing is all about. I have been on an easy listening kick lately, and I can't figure out why. I use Pandora radio online, and I got a Michael Buble station, so for a solid week now I've been listening to a lot, and I mean a lot, of him, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others along those lines. In some ways, these songs depress me. I've been single for eighteen years, so I don't like to hear gorgeous men (Michael) singing about someone they love because I want that someone to be me. Perhaps that's the cause of my mood, though; maybe I just want to hear it all and imagine they are singing to me. I could also be reading a lot into this because there is also no obvious cause for my Relient K obsession, so maybe I just really like the music. Either way, I don't seem to be in any hurry to stop listening to this stuff.

I had some excitement yesterday; my roommate and I got a huge couch for our dorm. We went to Goodwill and found this sweet couch that we got for fifty bucks, and we spent a good part of our night last night cleaning it. We also got a little table to put in front of it, and I got a chess set to put on the table. Our room is so homey! I don't really know how this paragraph applies to anything, but I'm excited about the couch.

Well, midterms are still next week, and since I didn't wake up until like 55 minutes ago, I've already wasted a lot of study time, so I guess I should stop this even though that is the last thing I want to do.

I Think I'm Getting the Hang of It

So, I think I'm learning how to cope with this college thing. I still work a lot, but I'm learning to prioritize. I've developed an addiction to Madden, which Kristen and I went to Wal Mart to buy at ten o'clock Sunday night, and I've been trying to keep my work done so I can play. The thing that scares me is that I've got the basics, but there's more. This morning in Colloquium, Dr. Boan gave us the template for our plan of study, and I realized that I'm going to have to do quite a bit of stuff that is above and beyond the every day homework. I just have to keep telling myself that I'm not the first person who has ever been to college and that everything is going to be okay.

Speaking of a plan of study, I've been giving my major some more thought. I am realizing more and more every day that I love English. My problem with an English major all along has been that I don't really want to teach, but the more I think about it, the more I think how bad can teaching possibly be? I wouldn't make a ton of money, but that isn't what life's about, and the more I think about it, the more I think I would actually enjoy teaching. My other option would be writing, but I'm just not feeling writing. I'm going to keep thinking and especially praying about it, though, and I know the answer will come.

I also feel like I should mention here that I have a cold. I've been sick since I woke up Saturday morning, and I feel like it's never going to go away! My biggest fear is that I might have mono because every time I take a nap I know I could still sleep more. I don't think I'm as tired as I should be if I have mono, though, so for now I'm going to assume that this is a common cold. If I'm still sick and tired in a week, I will visit health services, but I'm thinking I should be over it by then.

So, I guess life is good. I'm starting to get really situated and be used to this life, and I'm still loving it. I'm excited to see if I end up becoming the best darn English teacher in the world or if I decide to do something completely different. Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to it!

Bad Habits and Impulsive Decisions

I mentioned in my last post that I was incredibly sleep deprived, and it's times like this when I know exactly why that happens to me but decide to do nothing about it. I have to write an essay for American Lit in the puritan style about John Smith and Mary Rowlandson. The smart thing to do in this situation would be to get a head start and not have to be freaking out about finishing it tomorrow, however, I am checking my facebook and posting this. Along with my Fourthmeal Taco Bell addiction, this is a terrible habit, but like most habits I have no desire to correct it, and I will be up incredibly late tonight even though I could actually go to bed now and still keep the essay for tomorrow. I don't know what appeals to me about being tired because I stayed up late doing nothing.

I think I should also document my trip to get a smoothie on Friday. Kristen and I went to Smoothie King and decided that we didn't want to go back to campus, so we walked around the mall. While mall-walking, I mentioned that I wanted to get my nose pierced but I had some questions about it, and I wanted to go sometime and talk to someone who pierces noses about it. She and I are just alike, so she said, "Why not go right now?" To make a long story short, within an hour I had my nose pierced and she's going to get hers done when we get out of class tomorrow. We have a very dangerous friendship because neither of us thinks clearly around the other. Oh well, I don't at all regret my piercing, so I guess it's okay, but in the future we should probably not go anywhere alone together (I realize that the phrase "alone together" doesn't really make sense).

Some people might see my current state as a downward spiral into a life of, I don't really know what word I'm looking for here, but some might see it as two steps in the wrong direction. I think I should make it clear though that I am not losing self control and doing stupid things just to do them. I am still thinking clearly, and everything is going to be okay!

Comfort, Tacos, and Sleep Deprivation

I feel like the story of my college life so far can be summed up in the title of this post. I can't easily forget that I am paying an insane amount of money to go to Belmont, and I have to wonder why. I know I could have gone to other schools for free, and it's not like a specific major brought me here because I don't even have one. I was personally really attached to Belmont from the beginning, but I can't justify the price without a plan except that I felt like this was where I was supposed to be. I prayed about it thinking that it might be my desire to come here instead of God's plan that was leading me in this direction, but I am confident that I am here for a reason. That being said, I have to say that I'm not really comfortable with that idea. I like to know what's going on and why things are happening. I want to know what I'm supposed to major in and what job I'm going to get and where I'm going to be in ten years and even farther along than that, but at this point I'm living day to day not knowing what's going on.

The really awesome thing about all of this is that God is showing Himself to me right now. He has made it very clear that this is a time for me to trust Him and the plan He has for my life. I can't say that I like it, but I know I'm looking for God in ways that I never would and relying on Him more than I would if I thought I had everything figured out. Through all of this, He keeps sending me small, and sometimes huge, messages saying, "I'm here, and you can trust me!" I'm excited about that, and I'm just praying that I would walk by faith and not by sight.

On a less deep note, I have developed a Taco Bell addiction. This is a strange dependence because the truth is, I never really liked Taco Bell that much, but since I got here I have taken the idea of Fourthmeal very seriously, and it worries me a little. Every night at about ten or eleven I start craving Taco Bell. I don't know what this means, but I do know that I have got to get to the Beaman and keep off the dreaded freshman fifteen (or forty in my case).

And the last piece of insight I have tonight is that I will never have a normal sleep pattern as long as I am in college. I stay up way too late every night, and then I get up way too early. I take naps whenever possible, and I am always tired, which is understandable when I describe my sleep habits. I am lucky to be in bed by one every night because all I do is homework, and occasionally I will get sidetracked which makes the homework go longer. I don't know if I will ever adjust to this schedule and have real free time again, but we'll see.

Overall, I'm adjusting I guess. I still have to say I love it here, and I love college in general. I would love it more if we could cut the school part out, but I guess it could be worse. Whenever I get close to a meltdown, I am reminded that everything is going to be okay; there are more important things in life than school, and thousands of people have survived college already, so it's not like I'm the first person. Everything is going to be alright!

A Purpose Perhaps?

I think I should preface this entire post by saying that I am so ADD that my mind changes constantly, so no matter what I say here, it will most likely change.

I think I've found a major that I would love! Since I'm in the honors program, I can customize my major and tweak it to make it exactly what I want it to be instead of a general degree in one specific area. Knowing this, I think that I would like to study religion and literature and see how they influence each other; I would also like to look into using literature to understand a culture or an event based on religious beliefs. I'm sure there are people who do something similar to this if not this exactly in their work, but I can already see at least one huge problem I might encounter.

I don't know what you might call this major, something like "religion in literature" maybe, but the name isn't important. What is important is that I have to be able to get a job after I spend this small fortune on an education, and I'm just not sure to what field this degree might apply.

I have started every other paragraph in this post with the word I, so why stop now? I do think that this degree could have a lot of application in the real world. For instance, we now know what the puritans were thinking and how they justified what they were doing here in America, even if it wasn't very nice (I'm obviously taking American Lit right now), but the same sort of thing is currently going on all over the world. The world is not anywhere near tolerance, so wouldn't it be nice to understand what's happening on a global scale as far as religious persecution and terrorism? There is great value in understanding why people feel justified to kill other people based on their religion.

Like I said earlier, (notice I was the second word of this one) there are people who already study these matters, I would just have a more specific degree. I don't know, however, how you come across one of these jobs.

Oh well, for now I will be keeping this plan in mind--it will most likely change--and just being content with waiting on God to let me know what I'm supposed to do. I know that there is some kind of plan for my life, and I'm learning that I won't get to know about said plan in my own time, but that's okay. I will just enjoy life, and see where it takes me! (I find this closing interesting because I could see where a person could pick it apart and try to understand how my faith influences my decisions and even predict how I would react in a situation...sounds familiar!)

The Journey Begins

Okay, so I guess I should use this first post to explain what this thing is all about. It doesn't really have a useful purpose, although I think I put something in the description about telling my kids what college was like without having to speak to them, since that is the direction personal relationships are heading. Whatever the description says, I think it is important for me to make it very clear that I much prefer conversation in person--myspace and facebook are fun, but I would much rather be able to tell if anyone cares at all what I have to say. Anyway, now that I've completely forgotten what I was writing about here, this is really something more for myself (I'm from America, so I have the mindset that everything is about me) to chart who I am now and who I am becoming. I had another blog about the time I made the transition from middle to high school, and when I went back to read it recently, I was glad I had kept it because I learned a lot about myself from what I had written.

Now that I've had that deep moment, I guess I can really get started by saying that so far I love college; the almost two weeks that I've been here at Belmont have been pretty awesome. I'm not one of those college students who parties all the time (I've also met a lot of others, so I wish we could get away from the stereotype, but I'm also guilty of making assumptions based on nothing, so I understand). I have no idea at this point what it is that I want to major in or do with my life. They tell me that's okay, but that doesn't make it less scary since I'm spending a fortune on something that I don't even know will be useful to me in the future. I've been doing a lot of work, but I enjoy my classes for the most part, and the people here amaze me.

What I think I love most about Belmont is that it's a collection of people who fascinate me. The best way I've found to describe some of these kids is that they look like they just stepped out of a music video, and even the less emo-looking ones are fun to watch. I should add here that I am a people-watcher, and I have been known to sit on benches in public places for no other reason than to observe, so this is my kind of place. I'm making a lot of new friends, and it's strange to think about, but somewhere in the back of my mind I realize that I am becoming a new version of the same person. That sounds weird, but I can tell that I'm being shaped by the ideas and cultures of the people around me, and I am unconsciously learning new things about who I am and what I believe. This sounds really dramatic for the first two weeks of school, but I'm a little bit of a drama queen.

I'm excited about this journey that I've set out on to becoming my own person and being truly independent for the first time, so it's going to be interesting to see where I end up!