I have a final tonight.

This post is me just taking a moment away from studying. My brain hurts a little, I think math is going to start pouring out my ears soon. But to be honest, I think I'm starting to enjoy math a little. Mostly because I can relate it to physics, but that's another story.

The dorms have been blissfully quiet, thanks to 24 hour quiet hours being in place. Thank you, everyone, for following the rules. Although, the dining hall has been eerily quiet because no one really talks anymore, too busy studying even while they eat. These kids get intense during finals.

But yeah, this is basically me procrastinating until I go back to studying. I just thought you'd all like to hear from me. Oh, that reminds me, Ramesh is done with finals after tomorrow, so she's heading out on Saturday. Valerie and Aly are also leaving this weekend, which means I'm going to be all alone for a few days. Goodness, what shall I do? Studying can get tedious and repetitive after a while, can't do that ALL weekend.

Other than that, not much to report. I think I rocked my Chinese Oral final, but we'll see how I do tomorrow on the written portion, and wish me luck for tonight on the calculus one. Hopefully it won't hurt my soul too much. T-minus 4 hours, 38 minutes, until everything comes to a climax.

I can do this!

Goodness. First breather since Thanksgiving. Apologies for not writing sooner, but everything sort of just collaborated and planned on being due at the exact same time.

First off, I FINISHED NANO WRIMO. So, to all you naysayers, neener neener neener. I did it! Yeah, it was a little hard, what with me accidentally breaking my computer (let's not tell this story) just as I got back to the dorms right after Thanksgiving. But thank goodness for Dell and their amazing technical support. So, I typed what I could during the week when I wasn't catching my two days of missed homework up, but Friday was when it really began. Skyelar and I looked at our wordcount that morning. It was dismally behind by about 22,000 words. And we had until midnight to play catch up.

I wrote 18,000 words that day.

That's right, I totally wrote almost half the entire book in just one day. I can't even begin to describe how amazing it is that my Fridays are almost devoid of any classes, and what classes I do have are delightfully brief. Skyelar and I were fueled by so much coffee, I'm surprised I didn't overdose on caffeine. But we did it! Granted, we lost so much sleep waiting for the validation page to load, we may as well have pulled an all nighter, but we finally managed to crash before the sky grew light again with the comfort that our novel was submitted and we had done a job well done.

And then school started to lose its mind. It was like someone suddenly the on switch in all the teachers. Papers were everywhere, panic in the streets, nobody slept a decent amount at all, my suite mate actually went one night without a single hour of sleep. Poor girl was tottering on her feet by lunch the next day. Study guides and exams an preparations for finals. Projects and essays and research all colliding into the past two days. In the past two days, I have had more homework and quizzes and presentations than I had averaged in November.

Absolutely ridiculous. But all in all, the next two weeks are shaping up to be quite the challenge. A few finals, thankfully not one for every single class, but all of them important. So, like I said, this was the first moment of freedom in a while. Don't be too upset if I don't write again until vacation begins, but I will try to relax my brain with more posts this month.

That's all for now.

Ah, the sweet month of November.

The first week has gone relatively well, my NaNo WriMo might have fallen behind by a day or two, but that can easily be made up this long weekend. School comes first, always. And speaking of school, I just had the latest night of my life for schoolwork.

If you had told me I would stay up until 1 trying to write a lab report at the beginning of the semester, I would have laughed at you. But I now see that it is in fact a reality. Late nights are the bane of my existence. Thankfully, it was the first time I had to resort to such drastic measures, and hopefully the only one for a long time.

But enough about that.

Satellite club has put the major project on hold for now, until the Goddard Institute gets back to us on the details. In the meantime, we're going to work on something called a CanSat. Basically, they give you a simple mission, you create the satellite from scratch, and they launch it up as high as they can and then the satellite "delivers" a payload to a martian surface (ie: back to earth). We were looking at the design requirements the other day, and the club was just in tears laughing. Compared to the big project, everything looks laughably easy. I can't wait, because the whole point of this project is to give new team members hands on experience. Which means me. Heck yes.

And in other news, I am one step closer to world domination. If you count being a Community Assistant in the dorms world domination. We had a small party for the engineers out on the lawn last nigh with s'mores and cocoa and a fire. It was fantastic, and I helped make the whole thing work. The CA's are starting to love me, especially after the trick or treating I did on Halloween for the floor. And I'm busy planning one more event so I can just rock the interview and resume for the application. If I don't get to be a CA next year, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Other than that, my week has been relatively uneventful. Long weekend ahead, I think some well deserved rest and tea and Star Trek is in order.

Why hello. One last post for the month before we roll over into November. Let's just start this post off with an apology like I have been for the past few weeks. It got busy because every single one of my teachers decided everything would be due around the same time. But I'm past that now. Time for the super ultra spooktacular Halloween special post.

First off, this campus is creepy. Like, all sorts of creepy. From the weird people who wander this campus (need I remind you of the magical man who appears out of the blue on his majestic motorcycle?) to the weird places in the buildings (I have yet to find a basement that isn't suspicious looking) this campus is quite possibly the best place to be for Halloween.

To stat off with the basements, let's look at the math testing center. It's located underneath the physical sciences building because math is totally a physical science. I have to take a test there about once every three weeks. This is the nightmare a descend into every time:

Seriously. That is the sketchiest looking place I have visited so far. The actual testing center isn't much better. There are exposed pipes and electrical boxes and what not that make terrifying noises, flickering lights that would give even the sturdiest of brains epilepsy, and dead end hallways that lead to no where. I half expect to see a masked murderer every time I go to take a test. Ugh. But I didn't have to go today, so that was most excellent.

Next, I didn't dress up today. I figured, you know, being college, people restrain themselves a little better than they do in high school. Nope. I saw so many costumes today, it was great. I saw three Doctors, and one of them was wearing a fez. Needless to say, my day was made. There were quite a few clever ones, and a lot of really well made ones. I was impressed. Next year, I am definitely going all out.

Then, once I got back to my dorm, I decided this darn pumpkin sitting on my dresser was going to get carved today. I set out to clean it, think I may or may not have clogged our drain oh so slightly, and made a terrible mess of everything. It was delightful. And now my room smells like pumpkin. But here is what I managed to carve before starting homework:

Slendermannnnn!!!!!! The creepiest character from a video game ever. Ramesh and I are quite proud of ourselves. The seeds will be roasted/devoured tomorrow, and everything will be right in the world.

Speaking of tomorrow, November is here! Which means NaNo WriMo! Which means another book and a long month of delicious victory. I'm super excited. So, wish me luck, this side of the mad dash to completion. If I'm not writing, I'm doing homework so there is very little free time to be had for this, but I'll keep it up as best as I can.

 And to top off the end of the night, I ran around my floor in costume and handing out candy. I got so many confused looks. Many people started to apologize for not having any candy to give me before I could explain I was giving them candy. My community assistnt was impressed, so I'm super excited for when they interview for the community assistant positions. My plan is going along excellently.

Come forth, brisk Novemeber air. You cannot deter me from my quest. I will have another book with me name across the cover, and there is nothing you can do about it.

See you on the other side!

Wow, I am really bad at this blogging thing.

In the past two weeks, I had the best/worst weekend of my life, the best Chinese lesson ever, got around to actually draw something, went to a lecture by one of my professors, and actually contributed to the satellite club by correcting a calculation. Let's rewind a bit and elaborate on my nonsensical adventures.

The night after I last posted was Friday. I got back to the dorms, homework due by midnight already done. I figure, with all this time on my hands, I better do some more work so I can get ahead in case things get busy again. So I did every homework assignment available to be done. That was like two weeks worth. It felt great. Then I saw physics had some work. So I did that ahead of schedule. While I was watching Supernatural. I plowed through like an entire season on Netflix that night. And Tristan had made a joke that day, prompting me to draw it in my productive night. I was all alone in the room, seeing as Ramesh had decided to go have a scary movie marathon in the lounge.

It was really hard keeping track of time, and I swore to myself I was going to blog it, but I was getting hungry so I went to find Ramesh and see if she wanted to go get food too. Her face when I walked into the lounge was priceless. "What are you doing still awake?" I don't know. I was doing...stuff. I was productive, I know that much. Why? I'm hungry. "Nothing's open right now." What? It's like 11 or 12 at night. There's plenty of stuff open this late.

"It's 4 in the morning."

Oh. Well. We then discovered that Taco Bell is in fact open that early/late, and everyone was satisfied. We even got a show with our food when a catfight broke out on the patio between some other patrons. The streets and campus was eerily empty, but considering it was the wee hours of the morning, it was to be expected I guess. Jeff was spending the night, so we set up the sleeping bag for him and put on Netflix once more to go to sleep to. We wound up not falling asleep until 6 in the morning. That's when I usually wake up on the weekends. It was weird sleeping in until noon. Half the daylight was already gone by the time I was moving around. How do people deal with that?

Saturday wasn't much better. Skyelar came over, and we planned our NaNo WriMo on a cork board with all the little strings attaching people and events to each other. That only lasted until 4 in the morning. I was getting better at sleeping at a decent hour. Sunday I was responsible and went to bed at 11. It was the best weekend adventure I had ever had, but it completely wrecked my semi-normalized sleeping schedule.

That week was fairly uneventful, except I learned how to calculate heat transfer, had a meeting with my professor about an honors contract, and I think I found another thermal professor who might be able to help out with the calculations. I also had to report our findings in Thermal to the rest of the club, which was super awkward. Jordan was doing a lot of the work, and I was trying to follow along, but it was like trying to cling to a flyaway train. It just wasn't happening. And when I finished, it sounded like the rest of the club was extremely patronizing, like I didn't know how to do my job. They sounded like they didn't believe our results (although I can't really blame them. All I really said was that our numbers were messed up and I would have to re-do them to get a better result. Oh well. I'm the only freshman in the club, and the only other lower classman who had been there stopped showing. I guess I'll have to deal with them treating me like I'm incompetent (which, true it might be, they don't have to be so obvious about it).

This past weekend was the fall break, as much of a break as you can call it. It was weird going from two and a half weeks to just two days off. But I spent them wisely. Saturday, oh it was nice. The house was all mine for hours. It was quiet and I did my required reading and I cleaned. And watched more of Supernatural.I'm so far ahead of Skyelar I needed to stop so she could catch up. People need to watch shows faster, dang it. My dad is behind in Breaking BAd, and I just blew past him last night in Eureka. I need more shows to watch. Finished Sherlock, Doctor Who, maybe I'll get started on the twenty other shows in my instant queue.

Sunday was a homework powerhouse. Turns out my professor doesn't like putting homework out early, so more showed up when I thought I had done it all last weekend. Oh well. And my chinese portfolio is due this week. Cranked that out in a couple hours. And I drew some more.  All that work left Monday free for me to just play around on Monday. I made a waist cincher for my steampunk cosplay. And the way I stitched it made it reversible. Once I get the eyelets I need, it'll be 100% finished, and maybe I'll put a picture up of it.

Oh, speaking of pictures, I completely forgot about seeing the unicorn again. That's what Meredith has started calling the homeless looking wizard man on the unicycle that walks his teacup chihuahua. And I remembered that I can put pictures in my blog.

And I managed to snap a picture of him when we were walking. Meredith treats him like a shooting star: every time she sees him she makes a wish. Now you can see the absurdity that is a college campus. I thought it was going to be a little more sane than high school, but I can see now that was wishful thinking. 

Tuesday, Ramesh scared the crap out of me when I got back to the dorms. It was like a quarter to 7 in the morning, and she rolled over when I opened the door to greet me back. I wasn't exactly expecting her to be awake or even really conscious when I came back. Our room was definitely interesting when I came all the way in. Someone had drawn little pictures all over my closet (with dry erase markers, it's cool, easily erased, I do it all the time myself), and there was a huge bike just sitting in the middle of the floor. I wanted to clean but figured I should let Ramesh sleep. So I went to do laundry.

I found heaven in the laundry room.

This is what heaven looks like. Every single washer and dryer was available. And there was no one upstairs. I will never see this again I bet, but damn it was nice while it was me up there. I stayed way longer than my laundry took to do, because I was watching Eureka. Fabulous little show, it's like a mixture of X-files, Pushing Daisies, and Big Bang theory. You should watch it if you haven't seen it already. Anyways, no one showed up for ages, the laundry room was all mine. I sat on every single chair at least once. Because I could.

Once that was finally done I went to go eat. who decided the dining hall shouldn't open until brunch on weekends and holidays? Absurd. And thank you, lady at the POD market with barely intelligible english. I wanted a meal exchange, which meant I can only get specific food items but I don't actually have to pay money for them with the money on my student card, it's included in my meal plan. The conversation went a little something like this:

-places stuff on counter-
Me: Morning, I'd like to meal exchange, please.
Lady: -scans in items- Use money, yes?
Me: No, I'd like a meal exchange.

Lady: Money, yes. -takes card and starts to swipe it-

Me: No, ma'am, I want a meal exchange, please.

Lady: -hands back card and receipt- Thank you, have nice day.

Now I have less money on my student card because she charged it instead of exchanging, but I feel like trying to correct it would have just led to more money being lost and confusion being had. Oh well. Ramesh woke up around noon, we cleaned like crazy, and our room looks magnificent. I'm thinking of rearranging, but I have to see how long most of my cords are and if it's feasible. Then Jeff came back over to get his jacket, and to write an english paper on comic book heroes and how their creation mimicked the social environment of the time. Or something. But he doesn't know anything about heroes or comics. He's super lucky I'm Ramesh's roommate. We had a very interesting conversation, and he had an excellent paper done and turned in six minutes before the deadline.

The night wrapped up fairly quickly and I even went to bed responsibly at 10. Not that it really mattered. There was a fire alarm at midnight, and I'm pretty sure the smoke was on my floor. But it wasn't actually a fire because they sent us back in fairly quickly. At least, I think we had a fire alarm. Now I'm not too sure because no one else has mentioned it today, so maybe I just dreamed it? I distinctly remember walking out in my slippers though. Maybe I was sleepwalking. I'll have to confirm it with Ramesh later today.

But that has been the week and a half since I last posted. Though now that I wrote it, it seems a lot busier than I remember it being. Guess I'll have to write more often to actually remember anything.

Well, long time no blog. How absolutely rude of me.

I've had some major tests scattered in the past week and a half, thus lots of studying and practice, ergo not a lot of free time to just blog the night away. I passed all of my tests, so it was worth it. Classes are still the same, though the engineering lab is starting to pick up as we get closer to working on our actual project. I have a legitimate role in the satellite club, as a thermal analyst for the project (one of them). It's pretty darn hard, every single piece has about ten calculation that go into it, plus calculations for every point of contact between any of the pieces, and then all of those for an entire range of temperature fluctuations. I hope we get a program soon to help with that. Not to mention it is heavy upper division math I'm learning to help out with it. Not that I don't mind.

Campus is still great, I can't believe anyone thought there'd be trouble with living on campus. I love the gym, I love the student center, I love biking around to all my classes. Now if only I could learn to love the pedestrians. The teachers are awesome, my roommate/suitemates are great, there is almost literally nothing to find a problem with. Did I mention that my roommate reorganized and let me borrow her extra monitor? Pretty sweet, and a cable later I was rocking a two monitor set up. I can't even begin to describe how helpful it is with homework.

Went back to the house for another weekend, pretty interesting with my cousin and his friends up for the weekend. I got a new phone. It's alright, I guess. Darn touchscreen smartphones, invading every aspect of my life. Fingerprints, fingerprints everywhere. I don't know how I'm going to live with it.

Still, not much has happened, aside from me adding weights to my bench press and squats. But I do homework and run around and probably don't sleep nearly as much as I should but oh well. I eat good, I feel great, my classes are going better than I could have asked for, and NaNo WriMo is right around the corner. Don't know what we're doing for Halloween but I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get there. Halfway through the semester, and still going strong!

Wednesdays hate me, and I try to love them. It's a very abusive relationship. Not even counting all the classes I have to sit through, it's also the day when I have to go to the one class I don't enjoy this semester, the one day my club meets up, and the day Meredith and I go to the gym. It's my second lab in a row and also the day before most of my work is due in Chinese and my studying frenetically for the test.

This week's particular Wednesday was particularly nasty. The class I despise was in a completely different building on the farthest corner that I have never seen before. In the basement. A super sketchy basement where horror movies start. And then it was a chemical engineering advising class, but being a mechanical engineer, the advisors just gave me a sheet to fill out and ignored me. Not that I minded. It was a 4 semester plan for this and next year. Guys, please. I have every semester until graduation planned out. This is just rude thinking I don't know what I'm doing for even next semester.

And then Chinese, which was interesting. Meredith and I are not the youngest in that class, like we had originally thought. Pretty nice. But I had to book it from class to the calculus test I was scheduled for, in the testing center that was once again in a horror-esque basement hallway. Seriously, we have all these nice new building but we can't install an extra light or two in the dark poorly lit basements that everyone needs to use? Whatever, but the testing room was packed to full capacity. I have never seen so many people be so eerily quiet. Oh well.

Human event was after that, I still don't see the point of that class, if I wanted to take a philosophy class I would've signed up for one. I'm not good at philosophizing, it's just awkward. And then homework jam session in Meredith's room. Back to my room while she was off on some group event with her mentors, and then we hit the gym. It was freaking packed. Who are all these people, and why are they out at eleven on a Wednesday night? I don't understand these kids.

Thursday, my lecture is cancelled, so it sound like I might be doing a major homework jam in-between my two classes so I don't have to do anything this weekend.

Monday was pretty uneventful, aside from the fact that I was never in my room until I went to bed. Between classes and watching the super religious zealot preaching away on the stage by the Student Center (which, by the way, I am now apparently a Sin Devil going to hell for all eternity) and studying for tests I just remembered were this week, I just didn't have time to go back to my room.

Let's start with the screaming Jesus-Man.

He's been here for a couple days now, screaming scripture and other such nonsense at everyone who walks by. Because everyone on campus is either a pothead, gay/lesbian, muslim, a porn watcher, or a masturbator, and we are all going to hell. The entire campus. I guess that should make for an interesting party once we get there. But today he was on the main outdoor stage, and quite the group of people had congregated around to argue with him. One girl asked why he was there to interfere with how she was living her life (and no, don't ask, it wasn't me. I was just there to watch for the giggles). He claimed to love her enough to tell her that she was going to hell and there was really no way to do anything about it. Also, apparently only Christians can be judgemental of others, but non-christians who judge are hellbound. It was pretty amusing to say the least. I hope he's here again soon.

I have a Calc test tomorrow, and I'm hoping it's more like the written work than the online work. Because the online questions are ridiculously absurd. Hopefully the fact that I sort of took this class last year can help me. But it's been a long study session this week so far, so that should pay off.

Engineering lab today was amazing. We were learning to use a program by writing programming into it to plot and calculate long bits of data for us. I have to say, it was pretty cool. Except one kid in my class can barely work his online school account, so it was kind of tedious teaching him how to program in commands. I still don't think he got it.

High school lied when they said they were preparing us. Tests are held in completely different ways, labs are written in completely foreign ways, and my human event teacher told us to write our paper in first person with pronouns if we wanted to and that we could cite however we wanted. I think the entire class had an aneurism when that tumbled out of his mouth. He basically told me to forget the past six years of english classes and write like I once did in 4th grade. I still can't believe it. I think he's trolling us.

Still haven't made cookies, between my never being in my room and when I'm there Ramesh is always off on some sort of adventure. But we did have an awesome study jam session tonight for everyone's classes: Calc, Bio, Chem, Physics, I kind of studied Chinese by myself. But it's getting late, my physics lab was finally printed, and I think I need some serious sleep.

I guess there are only so many ways I can say I went to class before my blog starts to get boring. But, Sunday did start an interesting battle of wills. It started when Ramesh messed up Ben's computer settings when he left it on and logged in. So he and his friends moved her bed out to the hallway. And jack was on Ramesh's team, so they took all his dorm doors off the hinges. Aly and Valerie, my suitemates, were feeling left out until someone covered their entire door in Sticky notes. So they covered Brady's door with pictures of flowers and Justin Beiber and unicorns. And when Logan was visiting us, Aly took his glasses he had left laying around. So he joined Ramesh's team, and we switched their mattresses and dressers. Like, with the bedding on them and everything. And that's the story of how I am now in the middle of a prank war. I pray nothing goes too terribly bad, and this doesn't escalate completely out of hand.

Monday, classes, blah blah blah, went to my subsystem meeting for the Satellite club, and am now working with half to team to do Thermal analysis. As well as modelling in a program that I still don't have access to because of my newb-ishness to college. Which is a shame. But the club seems really nice and patient with me, despite the fact that I am the only underclassman there. Not even any sophomores to bridge the gap.

Tuesday,engineering lab, we made an embarrassment of a bridge that had quite possibly the worst weight ratio I've ever seen. Wednesday, lots of classes, lots of running around. Brought John with me to SDSL, he seemed super interested in the project. We talked about various things, fundraising mostly, then I went back to my room to do work until Meredith showed up and we went to the gym. I can add weights to my bench press now!

Thursday, not much happened. It's Thursday, what would you expect from it? Friday, Tristan and I went to the magical Science and Space building. I seriously want to just move in and live there. Got next semester straightened out, I can register as soon as classes are released. Ate lunch in Barrett, with lots of gelato (I love this college schedule) and played Magic until I had to go to Chinese. Afterwards, I found out my dad was coming home, so I threw some clothes in a bag and hopped on the intercampus shuttle with Tristan, whose mom was kind enough to drop me off at home. Found the house empty aside from my sister, so I just did homework until everyone got home.

Made a new pot of tea, and tried to watch Star Trek but it was just too late. Saturday, I had the house all to myself for the first half of the day, and finished most of my homework for the week. With tea. Lots of tea. Never enough time in a day for tea. Got ready, went to lunch with the rest of the family for my mom's birthday, and had an awesome time out for the weekend. Sunday, faced my brother with a brand new Magic deck and pretty much played the morning away after an awesome breakfast made by my mom. Then it was time for me to head back to the dorms.

First we went shopping around, returned some useless cords to Best Buy, I got some more workout pants, and lots of baking stuff. Tons, actually. Can't wait to actually make it. However, Ramesh had dinner with her family so we didn't make any last night. Sadly. I did laundry instead. As much as I enjoy going home, I can't do it often. Messes up my schedule too much. Laundry om Sunday night is not advisable. It's why I do it at like 6 in the morning. No one is awake for hours. And Meredith and I hit the gym after that. But no. No gym for me in almost a week. For shame. Hopefully she's feeling better tonight and we can go. Poor thing is sick today.

So now it is Monday, and I realize I haven't posted in a week. Apologies again. I'll try to be more regular than that, but not as much as every day. Classes are finally starting to kick in, so I have things to do with my time besides just piddling away on the computer. As much as that saddens me. So, see you tonight, maybe, or tomorrow. Off to homework!

Wow, I am truly sorry for not posting recently. I didn't think this big a gap would happen. Like I said before, my Tuesdays and Wednesdays are really busy, Wednesdays particularly, so I don't plan on having elaborate posts on those days. But then Thursday struck me down with a cold, so I just tried to do my homework as fast as possible and head to bed. Friday was similar. And now I've slept most of my Saturday away. This little cold just sort of punched me in the gut by surprise. Again, sorry. Now, to recap I suppose.

Tuesday, once more, was only exciting for my Engineering lab. Only this time we practiced designing and brainstorming. We had to reimagine a shopping cart. I may or may not have cheated a bit, as I had done this same project freshman year in intro engineering, and I knew what was considered good ideas. But I think a lot of the guys in my class have never been shopping in their lives. Some of their designs were more dangerous/unwieldy/impractical than the ones already in use. Ridiculous.

Wednesday, my physics lab was canceled for the short week, which I didn't mind. It was also the second meeting I went to for SDSL. I am now officially on the Structure and Mechanisms Subsystem team, or SMS for short (there are a lot of acronyms in this club. I'll try to explain them before I shorten them). We talked about the budget spread sheet, and set up task lists for each team, and I am trying to get the modeling programs they use so I can really be helpful when we get going in full swing. I found out that I can only download it as an upperclassmen, which was kind of a bummer. But I made this club an honors contract project, so my professor managed to pull some strings for me.

Gah, this is just getting too awesome.

Thursday, not very busy, I finally got sick. Now that I think about it, I think I may or may not have gotten it from a lab partner on Tuesday. Weird, because we all sort of avoided him like he had the plague (which he did, in a way). Oh well, lots of tea, soup, and juice followed. Skye and I met with an old friend for dinner we hadn't seen since Comicon, that was nice. Until we were trapped in the student center/cafeteria for an hour because of the dust storm that rolled over the campus.But we didn't mind, we just talked for a bit about stuff. I like how in high school, the first thing people asked was your grade, and in college it's what major you're doing. Just an interesting difference I noticed.

Friday, I finished the last dregs of homework I skipped for sleep. Turns out my self teaching for the last few problems was unnecessary. The professor said we didn't cover the substitutions as much as she would've liked, so she wouldn't be grading the last problems. I could've slept in another hour! Let the inwardly raging fit ensue. But the day had started overcast, and I managed to pull through the class with the last of the tissues in my pocket before finding that the rain the sky had been promising was finally unleashed. Well then. It wasn't a cold rain, so I figured it'd be safe to walk through. I kept to the overhangs as much as I could; I was still sick, after all. Tristan and I partied inside the student center until we were joined by Skye and Taylor, and turned it into a lunch date.

By the time we had to depart for our classes, the rain had subsided, thankfully. Chinese was uneventful, but Meredith and I raced back to the dorms on our bikes, trying and failing to avoid puddles. I waited for a bit in my room, then Tristan escaped his class and we decided to go fetch ramen for dinner. That soup was delicious. And definitely what I needed. It was also Tristan's first boba. I love boba. I don't know if I've said that already, but I'll say it again. We exchanged music in my dorm once we got back, then decided to wander campus again in search of an adventure.

Somehow our wanderings brought us to Pop Culture Paradise, a comic and card shop right off campus. It was Friday Night Magic, and the place was packed. We rummaged through the card bins, he bought some, I found myself clutching at some X-Men comics, and we left there spending money we probably shouldn't have, but oh well. Now I had something to read while I was in bed all day Saturday. He wound up leaving for home around nine, but Meredith got off work and dragged me to the gym with her. Exercise is good when you're sick, right? Because I certainly felt better while working out.

One more cup of tea after my shower before bed, and then I crawled into the covers and welcomed the end of a very busy day.

Today, I slept in. I actually, physically stayed asleep past seven in the morning. Granted, it was only until eight thirty, but that's besides the point. I crawled out of bed to grab my computer and watched movies all morning, trying to just relax and rest. Some soup for lunch, lots of tea today, and then a glorious six hour nap. I think that really helped. Unfortunately, every hour spent sleeping is an hour I wasn't doing homework this weekend. Guess tomorrow is going to be busy. But I am feeling better, even if I'm not completely back to normal. I know I put a lot of you through some worry, what with my disappearance from the internet, I'll try to keep this a little more regular, even if the posts are just quick "Hey, I'm alive, everything's okay" blurbs. Maybe I'll feed my blog some Activia or something.

Don't expect anything amazing from tomorrow. It's just going to be laundry, homework, and lots of sleeping. I think sleep is the greatest thing ever. Wish I could do it more.

Today was a holiday! Meaning no classes. A little bumming, but excellent for homework. I read almost an entire book today, did my physics for the next week and a half, and even caught up my calculus to being ahead of schedule again. And I even managed to get my loan sorted out. Kind of. But it's on track to being solved, so hopefully it's done in time.

Anyways, I made friends with Payton's suitemate, Sky. She is an amazing artist and I wish I had her skills. Her inks and proportions are just spot on. We were joking about writing a comic together, but it might just become a reality. At least, it would be cool. Because let's be honest here, I am one bad-ass author (okay, not really, but I can pretend). Not to mention we maybe geeked out every ten minutes when we remembered something and asked the other. She likes Dead Like Me, I like Repo! The Genetic Opera, we both just melted when we started debating comics. As a bonus, she's also a Whovian (someone obsessed with Doctor Who). And she wants to watch Supernatural. I smell a marathon coming on. Thank you Netflix.

For dinner, we were going to head to this Persian place called Haji-Baba, and make Ramesh order everything for us. It was a fair walk down the street, but we managed it. Kind of hot, I wore the wrong kind of shoes, but still an enjoyable trip walking with everyone.

Haji-Baba was closed.

Well, then. After hiking all the way back to the corner across from the dorms (seriously, why did I wear these shoes?) we stopped at Taco Bell, debated about Thai food, and somehow wound up in a pizza place. Very good pizza, I barely managed to eat most of a slice and a wing. Everyone else in a physics defying way tucked away at least two slices, a wing or two, and some of them even ate more than that. Where is all that matter going? The two tiniest people in the group put away the most food. Just by consuming that much mass, your own mass has to change. Or laws just don't matter any more. This confused me all the way back to the dorms.

Which also involved a trip to Taco Bell for even more food, despite the pizza we still had in boxes to bring back to our rooms. Ugh, so much food. It was a little ridiculous. But probably not as ridiculous as Brandon (guy on my floor) wheeling around the hallways on a unicycle he just happened to bring along. I'm worried about bringing enough soap and packing my toothbrush during move-in, and he obviously was worried abut his death defying toy. Skye tried it, and I told her to get off. I was not going to explain to her parents why their daughter was dead or in a coma.

I finished the last little dregs of homework while Ramesh continued to eat (seriously, though, WHERE is it all going?). Then I figured I would try to make my blog a little more regular. Tomorrow is my engineering lab, super excited. I think we're actually going to be doing something besides learned lab safety, so that'll be an interesting three hours.

Oh my goodness was this particular weekend busy.

Friday, classes got out typically and I went back to my room. Then Miggy had this great idea to go to the taco shop right off campus; and boy was it good. Pretty cheap, definitely college budget friendly. But that left us thirsty, so we set off to find some boba. It's this asian drink, not quite a slushy or a tea, but it has these little fruit jelly balls on the bottom that you can drink up with the juice. Very delicious. It was Ramesh's first time on a tram, so it was pretty amusing watching her on the train. After we got our boba, we went on a merry ravaging of the asian supermarket inside the marketplace, and bought tons of berries like raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries.

It didn't take long for us to return home and fall asleep.

 Saturday took a while to get rolling. Nobody else wakes up early, but that didn't matter really once I turned on my computer. The new season of Doctor Who premiered, and I managed to catch a live stream from England, which meant I watched it hours before it even aired in America. I've now watched the season premiere episode at least five times. That took up most of my morning. But I was expecting my mom to come soon, so she could drop off my books and we'd maybe catch an early dinner together before she went home. What I wasn't expecting was my dad to come with her. He had been off on a business trip, and he wasn't due back for a few weeks.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised and more than a little happy to spend the day with him. We wound up getting a few little doodads for my laptop and then went to dinner. The waitress asked what margarita I wanted (do I look old enough for that yet?) and then asked if we wanted separate checks. Who was she going to split it between? Before they dropped me back off at the dorms we made a quick ice cream run to fill my freezer (the cooler in the nearby market had broken, so Ramesh and I had been unable to previously buy ice cream). Then it was a sad goodbye, but I know they will be back for Parent's Weekend, so it wasn't really that bad of a goodbye.

Not two shakes after I finish putting stuff away does Ramesh come crashing in and asking if I want to make cookies.

Okay? She, a half dozen friends, and I all make our way up to the dorm kitchen, which is on the sixth floor in the lounge. There's a flurry of cocoa powder, PAM spray, and little dough balls flying all over the kitchen, not to mention the volleyball someone brought up to kick around like a soccer ball. I have some very weird friends. the cookies weren't even done baking until almost 10 at night, and by then I had gone to get the ice cream I had just brought back from the store. We made ice cream sandwiches out of the cookies, and then they went off to terrorize the campus while I went to be. IT was late, the monsters. I am not a night person.

Ever.

Sunday, well, today wasn't too eventful. I met Payton and a friend of hers in the dining hall, and wound up touring the campus with them to show her friend around while Ramesh was still sleeping the previous night away. Everyone has gone home for the extended weekend, so even during the day the campus is eerily empty. And hot. It's just going to be too hot for too long, and then it will just suddenly drop in temperature without warning. Ugh. I hate this climate. Anyways, after that I made a smoothie with the brand new blender my parents got me yesterday, worked like a charm. I make one damn good smoothie. And then we sort of chilled. I'm the odd ball in my suite. I like it cold. They don't. I wake up early. They don't. I clean up my half of the room. Ramesh doesn't. BAH.

Oh well. And tomorrow is most definitely homework day. Seeing as I don't have a whole lot to do. And I haven't exactly done a lot of it so far. But oh well. And probably laundry tomorrow as well. Seeing as no one is home in the dorms. I like it.

If no one else is in the dorms at the moment, do quiet hours still go into effect?

There was a football game tonight. Or something. So I've heard. Even the honors kids are all loud and rambunctious. Go to sleep people. Quiet hours start at nine. I think we won?

Excitedly, today was the one week marker into my college career. I'm still alive, so points for that. In that short space of time, I've managed to change my major, make a few new friends, already managed to find one class to dislike, a professor I look forward to, and do a majority of my homework well before it's due. In fact, a lot of my professors put the work up early, so I'm technically a week and a half ahead in terms of work. Plus, I've joined an extracurricular club that is probably going to be the greatest thing of my college career.

Today was of no real importance, other than a quick quiz in Chinese. However, afterwards, I treated Tristan to dinner on a guest pass and we hung out for a majority of the evening. Because everyone else was out at the game, the campus was eerily empty of people while we wandered in the twilight hours. Initially we headed out, unsure of what to do once he punished me in a Magic game: 275 to -60, ouch. We found ourselves headed to the library, which neither of us had explored yet. I know it's a library, but it was so unnervingly quiet, we retreated fairly quickly. After rooting through the shelves of Chinese literature and historical documents, on mechanical racks that compress and shift to allow access to different rows. I was worried of getting stuck between two of them, like Han and the gang in the trash compactor.

It didn't take long before we were completing a circuit around the school. I like the campus being empty. It's like it was mine for the taking. We glanced around the courtyard over the library (did I mention a majority of it lies underground?), before heading off in the direction of my class buildings, a complex that I feel I never really leave over the course of a day.

In other news, we saw a man with a hobo beard cruising along on a unicycle walking his little chihuahua up the walkway.

On our way back we managed to talk Skyelar down from her room and we raided the convenience store for drinks as we headed back to my dorm. Poor Ramesh has been bothered by everyone lately, to the point where we've been locking the door so they don't just walk in. Rude much? So we sat in there, chatting quietly until Tristan had to go home, because he doesn't live on campus with us. Lame.


So  we walked him to the garage where his mother awaited, I dropped Skyelar off at her dorm, and tried to avoid the crazy kids back from the game as I headed to my own room. It has been a very interesting, long, enjoyable, frustrating, rewarding week. And I hope next week, and all the weeks to come, are just as amazing.

But I have to admit, I am looking forward to the long weekend. Sleeeeeeeeeeep.

The only exciting thing that happened on Tuesday was I went to my Engineering Lab. So pretty. There was an entire wall of tools, everything labeled and shiny and organized, plus there was a rack of laptops for every group. Did I mention that we're going to be learning how to use power tools, and how to solder? Ugh, I'm so excited. Shame I only have it once a week.

Wednesdays are awful. But, being the middle of the week, I suppose I can bear with it. It was very long, very tedious, but I ended the day with a club meeting. My first one of college. And goodness. It was definitely worth it. SDSL, I finally remembered, stands for Sun Devil Satellite Lab. They are working on a challenge proposed by the Goddard Institute to build a cost effective solar camera, and they are hoping to launch in the next year and a half. I was worried at first, you know, being a freshman in such a technical club, but the moment they learned my class level, they became super excited; apparently they rarely get freshman new members, so the club is constantly losing people to graduation.

Unfortunately, they meet on Wednesdays, so that just increased my hours away from my dorm, but since Thursdays are easy, I guess I can let it slide. And with the close of Wednesday, I have now officially gone to every single one of the classes I have this semester. I do have to say, the 101 class that is required for all freshman is absolutely ridiculous. If it wasn't such an easy A and a requirement, I would've dropped the second I was out of class.  But as such, I'll just suffer through it. With everything being so wonderful so far, I guess something had to be wrong to balance out the awesome.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the worst days of my week, so if there aren't any posts then, I apologize. I'll try to make sure it's every day, but sometimes I just want to go to sleep. Other than that, I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the rest of the semester turns out; but it's looking pretty good so far from here.

Sorry for the lack of a post last night. I though about it, I honestly did, but then I decided to do a little homework and then a lot of sleep.

Yesterday was pretty straightforward; rode my bike around campus, figured out what was wrong (now to just fix the darn thing), and went to all my classes. Discovered I'm not stupid in calculus anymore: I had just forgotten nearly everything over the summer. But some crammed reading and a lot of practice problems have brought me back up to speed. We even learned something "new" that I already learned. I'm finding in a lot of my classes that I was prepped very well for college, even learning college material in some of them.

I also had my first human event class. Pickus is definitely an interesting fellow, but I think I understand how he processes his thoughts. Plus, he gives out A+. That's like the fourth class I have that does that. I'm not saying I'm going to get one in all of those classes, but I think one would be kind of nice. Let's just see which one I can do it in.

My butt hurts from my bike seat, but boy is that thing saving me some time. I crossed campus in like five minutes, under heavy traffic. It makes it nice, knowing I'll get there early with enough time to find a seat and not have to be worried about barging in late.

Like Ramesh did in human event yesterday. Our suitemate Aly has Pickus right before me, then I go, and then Ramesh is supposed to have the class after mine. So, imagine my surprise when she comes crashing in a half hour late into my class, breathless and panicked and hurriedly grabbing a chair to sit down in.

She looked at the time wrong.

That was probably the most interesting part of the day for me. So, we'll see how today goes, seeing as it's just six hours of classes with very small passing breaks in between. Thank goodness they are all close together around the same buildings.

Today was pretty mundane. Which, being Sunday, wasn't that unexpected. I enjoyed it. I didn't manage to fix my bike, sadly, but I can still ride it, I just have to be careful in a crowd. I still haven't heard from Discover. The bastards. I'm going to seriously have to call someone about this loan issue.

Biggest accomplishments today? Mom was kind enough to drop my fridge and text books off to my dorm, as was grandpa, thanks guys! I rearranged my room a bit to accommodate it, and proceeded to wake Ramesh up with my unpacking. But seriously, it was around eleven by that point. Stop sleeping. That was all done, and we decided to finally take out the growing pile of move-in and Target shopping trash that mostly consisted of boxes and product packaging. Our room is so clean and organized now; I love it.

I finished my calculus homework early today! It isn't due until Wednesday, but now I have that time to work on other things (fixing bike, cough). Also, I joined another club, some sort of satellite volunteer/internship club that works with satellites and data and things. First meeting is this week. I'm super excited.

I'm also looking forward to my first human event class. It's a requirement of honors students, and it sort teaches one to analyze, debate, and write arguments along with reading critically and applying those ideas to current events. I didn't have it last week, unfortunately, but tomorrow is the first time I have the chance to meet my professor. I picked him because he is very involved in Asian studies, including trips overseas. My thinking was become good friends with him, make sure he remembers my name, and maybe I'll get the chance to go abroad with him on a school trip.

The final piece of excitement to my day would have to be the gym. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I am. Maybe I was remembering PE, which was for a grade and seeking the approval of the teacher for said grade. It was not fun. But now, I dunno, I'm looking forward to gym days now. My only thought is because I'm doing it for me, and not for anyone else; not for a grade, but just to feel better and fitter. Meredith and I did a different set of weightlifting today, and while it isn't as bad as the first time I went with her, I'm starting to feel the soreness in my muscles. She said she enjoys making me hurt, and I kind of like it too. It's a good pain. I will say that she was impressed with my leg strength on this one machine.

She better be, I was doing leg workouts over summer.

But I am finishing the day with laundry and Chinese homework, while I type this up. It's a lot better than the first time I came to the laundry room. For one thing, everyone here seems capable of doing their own washing. No questions were asked of me tonight, yay. You'd think, these kids being the tops of their classes and getting into a super competitive honors college, they'd have some knowledge of basic life skills. I guess not. A lot of them can't cook either. It's a little depressing. Instead of the college 101 class (learning how to be successful in college: note taking, paper writing, etc) these children should take Living 101. How to cook basic human sustaining food, clean your clothes without ruining them all, and how to fix things with a simple tool set. Seriously people.

I really should get to bed. I have class tomorrow. But not at 7 in the morning. Ahahaha.

Today was very uneventful. It was kind of nice. Everything was so crazy lately the day to laze around was very welcome. I worked on some homework, realized I was entering an answer wrong on the computer which was the main cause of my frustration, and finally managed to finish most of it. I still have a little to do, but I figure I can save that for tomorrow, or I'll have absolutely nothing to do.

For essentially the entire day Ramesh and I stayed in our room. It wasn't until it got dark that I ventured out to eat some dinner, and then we headed down to the volleyball court right outside our dorm. For nearly failing PE in my freshman year, I was surprisingly decent at it. Meaning I didn't hit anyone and I actually contributed to my team.

Although I was tackled by someone and it kind of hurt a little.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the college wanted even more money from me. Seriously, either tell me up front all the extra fees and junk you people will be expecting from me, or give me more financial aid. Why am I being punished for wanting a higher education? Why can't college be free like high school? Ugh, I shouldn't be worrying about financial issues on top of all my school work.

And once more, I am ending the day with a party in the room. A bunch of friends we had been playing with hanging out around my dorm, and we're just sort of chilling. People are walking up and down the hall to frat parties and the like, but I feel pretty sure that our little parties are way more fun than anything we're "missing" at those sorts of things.

Here's to hoping tomorrow is just as lazy as today, with some productivity sprinkled in. Like fixing my bike brake once I find someone with tools. And setting up my fridge. I think a celebratory ice cream shopping spree will be in order once I have it up and running.

It was raining this morning. That was certainly exciting. The most amusing part was watching people try and figure out how they could possibly walk to class without melting. I don't have an umbrella myself. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I owned an umbrella. Or a rain coat.

But I made it to the first class of the day intact and unscathed, so I suppose I must be waterproof. However, Calculus II was a bit of a shock to me. I'm not entirely sure if there was a gap between what I learned and where they want me to be, or if I just literally forgot everything over my huge three month summer, but I nearly had a panic attack. There was a warm-up on the board I had very little understanding of, so I believed it to be a preface to the day's lesson. Nope. It was a review. I foresee a lot of self studying, review, and tutoring assistance in my future until I catch up to the class.

Then began the long four hour wait between classes. I plan on using this time for math homework, but seeing as I didn't really get any, I had to spend it with Tristan puttering around the Student Union. I figured out the last bits of credit hours for majoring/doubling/minoring in various things, so we'll see what my adviser has to say later on.

Chinese was again amazingly amusing. My teacher is very antsy, and you wouldn't think him proficient in Mandarin just looking at him, but the TA came in and he just started blasting chinese at her. It was quite impressive. Then came the actual learning of sounds and letters. Romanization of chinese is very difficult to a casual english speaker. It definitely showed in some of the other students attempts at pronunciation. I may or may not have an unfair advantage, having studied chinese briefly before. But that doesn't make it any less funny to watch and listen to.

Getting home wasn't bad, until I discovered that in my time away from the computer my calc teacher assigned homework. It isn't too bad, I just had a few issues with some of the later problems, which will be dealt with tomorrow. I'm tired of looking at numbers. Leaving the computer, I found my roommate Ramesh and Miggy our neighbor sprawled on the floor with tons of silver strings around them. They were trying to restring her guitar, and it wasn't going as planned.

How many honors engineering students does it take to restring a guitar?

Seven, apparently, because that's how many offered input that didn't resolve the problem at all. This is just another thing to be added to the busy list of the weekend. When will we just be able to enjoy the small vacations between weekdays? Oh right, in four years when school is done. For some people. I don't think I'm ever leaving school. This is just too exciting.


Oh, and a informal tally of my classes:
Intro to Engineering - 40 people, 5 girls
Calculus II - 30 people, 5 girls
Chinese - 14 people, 4 girls
Physics - 150+ people, about 1/3 girls.

What is up with this? Seriously, ladies, science is fun.

I STARTED COLLEGE TODAY.

In other news, I hurt all over. And it is nearly impossible to bend my legs, so walking up and down the stairs, as well as biking all over the place, made today very fun. I don't think I'll be able to do any lifting tomorrow. :(

I woke up early. So early. Like always. I woke up before my suite mates, who had to get to an early class. Bah. But that gave me time to really get ready, and actually try to figure out just where my classes were. It doesn't look that big on a map. In person: every thing is so spread out and far away. And the map doesn't tell you the foot traffic of every street.

But, being early, it was relatively easy to bike to my first class. I left a little early to get a feel for the timing, and good thing too. They seemed to just randomly draw numbers from a hat and label the rooms that. There was absolutely no logic to the order of the rooms, and it took me nearly fifteen minutes just to find the room. And the professor came in flustered and almost late. When the professor can't even find their room, you know you've failed your job labeling the directory. In the same train of thought, there were only three other girls in the class besides me. In a class of 40. This is going to be an interesting semester.

Then I went to see my adviser to officially change my major in the system. No one told me that their offices were just a pile of paint cans and loose dry wall. Their office was on the completely opposite end of the campus. I threw my hands in the air in exasperation, garnered a few quizzical looks from passerby for my efforts, and resigned myself to an early lunch at the food court. Never again. Anywhere that isn't the honors food court apparently tastes awful, so I guess I'm hiking all the way back from class so I can eat proper food.


After food was a long time to kill, which I spent wandering with Tristan, as there were literally no tables available for us to sit at. There is an awful ratio of sitting room to the sheer number of students. But we eventually parted ways so that I could head to my physics class. It was huge. And pretty awesome. The professor is pretty cool, and I discovered that it is in fact possible to earn an A+. That is now my life's goal. Because I reviewed the notes and realized that I already know a bulk of the information, so now it's just refining and honing my physics skills. All too soon it was over, but I headed over to Chinese, excited to finally have a class with someone I actually know.

My Chinese professor is quite possibly the sassiest hipster I have ever seen. He joked and made light conversation, and I think this is going to be a very amusing class. This was my smallest class today, and will probably be the smallest out of all of them: only twelve people. Not even my honors class, planned to be small, is that tiny. Again, though, there are almost no girls. This ratio is getting a little ridiculous.

On my way home to the dorm, I discovered that my bike brake was broken. That made for some tricky maneuvering through the crowds until I ultimately decided to just walk it. I probably could have navigated the crowd, but with my main brake gone I wasn't sure I could stop an accident from happening. I will definitely have to look at it this weekend. So I crossed the entire campus on foot, until I made it to what has to be, hands down, the coolest building the university has.

The Earth and Space Exploration building is brand spanking new, and it shows. Everything is lit up, projecting current missions and future missions; there was a room lined with windows that was dedicated to the Curiosity rover where people manipulate data coming in from the probe. The third floor common area had a carpet that was a patch work of pictures of various craters on the moon. Like I said, I almost just wanted to wander the buildings. But I had business to attend to. My major is now officially changed, but sadly I cannot declare any majors or minors until sophomore year. My counselor said doubling engineering majors is extremely hard, and that she's only had two people successfully do it. I'm going to be the third.

I'm torn between doubling my mechanical degree with astronautical engineering, or if I should pair it with Earth and Space Exploration, which is essentially NASA in degree form. I have some time to think about it, which is nice, but I need to decide soon so I can declare it and plan out the next few years.

And finally, the status of my student loans is extremely annoying. They paused my approval because apparently asking for only a fall term loan was crazy, seeing as I am a full year student. ASU already disburses any private loans in two parts, which I had not known before. You think they would have alerted me to the reason behind the hold up sooner than now. There's another thing to be done this weekend. Oh well. Over all, today was a good day, and I can't wait for tomorrow, and for the rest of the year. I have the strangest feeling that I am going to really enjoy college.

So, classes start tomorrow. I'm so giddy I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to sleep. But today was kind of busy, so we'll see how tired I really am once I crash into bed.

First things first, I went to the gym again today. But today, instead of just doing some piddly cardio workouts, Meredith introduced me to weight lifting. Like, the heavy bars that they use in the Olympics and such. She taught me how to squat, which is apparently a very posture specific workout that was hard to get right even without the bar. And the bar without any weights was heavier than I expected. It was a very strenuous workout, and I kind of hurt all over, but a good kind of hurt. I can't wait till Friday, when we go again. This workout is an every other day sort of affair.

I did laundry today, and apparently so did every other kid in the dorms. Every washer and dryer was occupied when I got there, but somehow Meredith and I managed to snag a few for our clothing. Although, it was amusing to help the other kids who were doing laundry for the very first time. "Can I put this with my whites?" "Why do I have to sort them?" "Is there just a 'Clean' button I can press? All these choices are confusing."

That took a good chunk of the afternoon, but aside from the small panic attack of thinking someone had stolen my clothes (they were just placed on a laundry table so someone could use the dryer when my load was finished, whew) it was a pretty mundane chore. It rained again this afternoon, as I discovered when I ventured out to meet my friends for our last hurrah dinner before things get hectic.

The thai place we tried was okay, convenient in the fact that it is literally across the street from my dorms, but not nearly as good as the place we found during Comicon. But that's besides the point. Dinner was kind of early so we could head down to the club fair, which was a little interesting, I suppose. I mean, I wasn't that interested in a lot of clubs, except for one or two. I did look into the Photography club, as I couldn't fit a class into my schedule this semester; and Quiz Bowl piqued my interest so we'll see how that pans out.

Other than that, I'm not really interested in a lot of the extracurricular activities they have on campus. Guess I'll have to start my own clubs. :)

Arizona is just too damn hot. I had all sorts of freshman orientations today, and the humidity was awful. I must have sweated like five gallons today. It's amazing how much the heat just saps away your will to move. I kind of vegged out for about an hour, regaining the strength necessary to go down to dinner.

In other news, my room has been remodeled and I now have a sitting room under my bed. It makes me super excited. I can read books and drink tea and kick my feet up while curled up under a blanket. My fridge is coming, my books are coming, and classes start in less than two days. The excitement is mounting.

I forgot to mention, I joined the rocket club today. They are named Daedalus, which appeals to my inner english major but I won't regale you with the myth behind the club name. So, maybe in a few weeks I'll be able to make things blow up and exit the atmosphere. Some of the videos they were playing at the booth were pretty exciting.

Weather rolled in, and took over every conversation in the dorms, but the lightning and the thunder just make me so happy while drinking a hot mug of tea inside. Tomorrow is going to be busy, with a club fair and a job fair and a dinner date with all my friends as a final hurrah before classes start. So this post won't be as long because I actually want to sleep tonight.

On the plus side, I went to the gym today. My running shoes feel amazing.

So, I may or may not have been sucked into downloading one game. But it will NOT distract me. It is going to be a strictly weekend amusement. Other than that, my morning was uneventful. There was a meeting for all the Barrett students, and we were forced to march all the way over to the Gammage theatre. The dean said a few words, and most of the faculty and speeches and advice given were what I've been hearing since freshman year in high school.

However, the students were getting restless as well and retaliated with some snarky applause. Instead of a long round of it, a single, simultaneous, booming clap was given after every introduction. It was brilliant. I love smart kids.

After that the day was free to us to do as we please. Lunch was delicious, I expanded my social circle a little more (I must have made at least fifteen friends in the past three days), and finally found Skye's room. We hung out, loitered in her room, and I discovered that her room mate is actually from China! Study buddy? I think yes.

Speaking of Chinese, some classes released syllabi today. Whilst reading the chinese class one, I initially thought nothing of it. Then I cam across a few nuggets of pure awesome. I think I'm going to enjoy this professor.

"No make-ups will be given, but you will be allowed four “free absences” during the semester. These absences can be for any reason, be it illness, university excused absence, military service, trips to Sedona, or free cupcakes at Sprinkles, but you only get four so use them wisely."


"Each absence past the initial four will be counted as zeros and will lower your overall average (zeros are the silent killers in average mathematics. Avoid them like ninjas with acid squirt-guns, also the ninjas are accountants)."

I mean, what? Thank you, professor, for being human and humorous. I am legitimately excited to meet you.

Then it was dinner, some more hanging out, playing a little bit of my newly downloaded game. And then my room mate returned to play on her Xbox. With gunfire and shouts pouring out of our open door into the hallway, we quickly established a presence on our floor as the gaming room to be. People poked their heads in, grinned when they realized what we were playing, a few were even bold enough to come in and join us in our shooting of pixelated terrorists.

A good hot cup of tea later, we hunkered down to wait out the storm so Skye could go back to her own room (which, sadly, is not in my building or even in the complex). I bought some amazing celestial apple cinnamon spice tea that I absolutely love (hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink).

And I am genuinely looking forward to the rest of the week, which hopefully will give me more exciting things to write about. Here's hoping my chinese teacher is just as crazy in person as she is on the computer.

I am an early riser. Always have been. No one in my suite wakes up before 8. You wouldn't believe how quiet a dorm can get when absolutely no one else in the dorm is awake, and how absolutely reverberating a noise can sound no matter how hard you try to be quiet. So, I did the only sensible thing I could do: plugged in my headphones, turned the computer on, and watched a movie. Even the light clicks of my keyboard, which I normally find so soothing, were crashing and jarring in the heavy silence that blanketed my room.

Thankfully, one other person in my building wakes up early, so around 9 (by this point I had already been awake for three hours. Go figure) I got ready and trotted downstairs with banana bread while she made me tea. We talked, and watched people move in while we sipped culture from a mug (even though she makes tea horribly. No milk? And honey instead of sugar? Blasphemy!). But then she had to leave, and then I wandered back to my room to find my roommate awake finally. I don't know how she could sleep for that long, but that thought was quickly driven from my mind by our suitemates....innovational solution to their bare windows.

They tore their moving boxes apart and plastered the tattered remains all over the window.

It was amusing to say the least.

Wandering took over most of my day, exploring the campus and just mingling with people I will be living with for the next year. Found the gym, and a huge computer lab, and even one of my classrooms. Bothered my friend, and then more friends appeared, and we started our politically incorrect game once more (which is about a billion times better with a multitude of people). That lasted, unsurprisingly, for a few hours. By this point, we all realized we were hungry and ate as an actual group, not by myself in my room.

And Barrett has a huge club fair that is full of water games while every single group tries to buy you with small toys and candy. It was amusing for a moment, but we quickly retired to the dorms. Once again, our room has become the central hub of excitement and socializing. I like it. These people are charming, intelligent, humorous, and just all around pretty relaxed. They aren't trying to keep appearances up, they aren't fake or throwing themselves around for attention like in high school.

If the classes are anything like the people in terms of change, this is going to be a very refreshing year indeed.

For now we are just waiting the day away until we can go and ravage the Target. Then we will come home with our treasures and settle in and await the start. And maybe I'll actually learn to sleep in this year, seeing as none of my classes start before 9. But I'm going to eat better, and go to the gym, and I'm going to just be so much better this year. A new start. I'm excited.

Whew. College is here. I moved in, I found my room mate, I am waiting for an adventure. This is what I have been waiting for since sixth grade, and to be honest, I'm just getting started. Classes start soon, my books are on their way,  and I'm ending the day in my bed while new friends and familiar faces mingle laughter with music. Already the atmosphere is relaxed, and I couldn't ask for anything better.

The day started off interesting. I kept trying to pack my boxes, but I would find something I wanted to pack. In desperation, I would look for another box so I could bring everything. But then that box would look empty and I would search despairingly for more stuff to fill it, before finding too much to pack and needing yet another box. I was caught in a vicious cycle, and it showed no signs of stopping.

I managed to contain myself long enough to finally tape up what I had and load it in the car once my mom returned from being busy. The universe decided to converge everything important onto one day, so it was certainly....trying. In a very long, very uneventful drive up, we managed to get to the freshman registration without any incidence. After dodging every free offer and soul sucking survey purveyor, I managed to extricate myself long enough to actually move into my room.

Loft beds are probably the trickiest thing to make, ever. How do I monkey up to put the farthest corner on the mattress? But my mom and I managed the job, and then after a few pictures and an introduction to my awesome room mate (more on her later), then I was alone. I tidied up after myself, hung my clothes, unpacked my boxes, and waited.

Friends came by, and we wandered, and we parted ways, and different friends appeared. We scoured for food and found an amazing marketplace attendant. And then came the most awkward but fantastic, politically incorrect, card game I have ever come across: Cards Against Humanity. That devolved into a tea party with How to Train Your Dragon playing in the background. People came and left, and some people are probably going to turn into great friends.

But my room mate.She is definitely going to become a great friend. I think she must be a clone of me, but they accidentally poured a concentrated dose of awesome in her clone tank. We were both anxious before meeting, after talking over the internet. Neither of us had wanted a roommate, and we were concerned about the partying habits of the other. What we discovered was that we were both obsessed with schoolwork and grades, loved to play instruments, and enjoyed kicking back to the same video games. Did I mention she brought an Xbox and like 3 monitors? Yeah, this girl is one cool cat.

And now I am here, listening to people exchange the guitar and fill the room with small talk and music and just being all around awesome. My neighbors are courteous, funny, and gamers,my room mate is the coolest thing in this dorm, and I think I'm ready for my adventure now. Let the games begin.