Busy Busy

I thought second semester was going to be easier than first semester, but I'm quickly finding out that last semester has nothing on this semester, wow! My classes aren't that difficult, but they are a loooot of work. Drawing especially. Its frustrating enough that I don't like drawing and am not good at it, but its always the class I have the most work for, ugh! Why can't it leave me alone? In other news, I'm attempting to put together my portfolio for my march portfolio review to see if I can get into graphic design. I'm panicking about that, of course, because there are roughly 35 spots in graphic and most of my 175+ person class is aiming for those spots. I'm not that good at anything that isn't graphic design so I'm worried that I'm not going to get in.

I've been thinking about it and I would be happy with photography too, but all that worrying has lead me to wonder if I'm even meant to be an artist. Maybe I should switch my major before I get in too deep. Of course, if I switched, what should I switch too? I'm not really that interested in anything else. Its all a little bit much. I'm just going to apply to my programs and see what happens and then go from there. That's all I can really do, though I'm still going to freak out in the process. Its only mid February and I already need spring break really badly.

Good news, though, is that I think I've finally figured out my plans for study abroad. I think I'll be going next summer, 2010, to Verona, Italy and taking Italian, Art History, and Photography there. It would be from the end of May to the beginning of July (meaning I'd turn 21 in Italy, which is funny because I'd already legally be able to drink there and it would be my second milestone birthday in a foreign country. 16 in London, 21 in Verona). Verona seems like a really neat place. Its not a big touristy city since its close to Venice which is where all the tourists go, but it was the setting of Romeo and Juliet so its a really romantic place and you can go and see "Juliet's balcony"... So thats the plan for that unless I find an Italy program I like better. I'll be spending this summer saving up money for that.

Some stuff to look forward to this week though.. there's our Valentines day dance on Friday (a week late because last week we were welcoming our new pledges!). Saturday my cousin is coming down for the night and we'll have a good time partying. Hopefully I won't have too much work to do this weekend so that I can enjoy it all and not freak out! I need sleep... I was up until 6am finishing a drawing and tonight I'm hoping to get a lot more sleep.

Hello 4 AM

Why, oh why am I awake right now?

I'm sickkk again, stupid cesspool of a university. Honestly, I'm like constantly sick down here and I need to be well to go ice skating again on Wednesday! Its my roommates 21st birthday and another friend's 20th birthday, tonight is supposed to be a celebration and I want to go out and do so thoroughly! Come onnn! I've taken sooo much medicine to make myself feel better, its borderline disgusting.

Oh.
Thats why I'm awake.
The medicine makes me hyper. And I have to get up in 3 hours, noooo! :(
Of course, I'm not motivated to sleep because I can hear the wind howling outside my window and it does not sound friendly. I do not want to go out and meet it when I have to go to class.

But I'm just bitching to pass the time. I'm fine, I'm going home this weekend so I will be a-ok! That and I only have class Monday through Thursday so really, its not that long of a week.

A day of rest.. kind of.

So, what have I been up to lately? Oh, lots of things surprisingly. Spring recruitment has begun so I've been toasting marshmallows in a dirty fireplace, ice skating, and bowling all over the place. Its a nice change of pace, actually going out and doing activities, but I'm tired, so I've stayed in the past few nights whilst my friends party it up, but hey, I partied a bit too hard last week so I need a bit of a break. Can't be having that much fun all the time. Its not good for the liver or for the wallet.

Anyway, classes have started and I can tell I'm going to be busy. The classes themselves aren't bad, save for drawing because I absolutely abhor drawing, but I do like my professor. He's a monotonous self-proclaimed asshole (no, seriously, it was the first thing he said to us), but in that sarcastic way that I can relate to, so I like him and I'm doing some extra credit so that I can keep my grade up since my actual drawing skills suck a whole lot. In my design class right now, I'm doing 3D again, which is pretty lame, but I have the same professor as last semester and he knows I hate it and that its not my thing. We're on the same wavelength, so I enjoy his class well enough and its only 5 weeks long and then the class starts a new section, so yay. Then theres Italian 4 which is way more difficult than Italian 3, but with the same professor and a few friends from my old seven person class, so its not bad. That, and its at 11am now instead of 9am so no more falling asleep. I'm in a writing class too, which is weird, but my teacher is a grad student and she's pretty nice so I think it'll be ok. Its just 4 papers and 1 presentation so no big deal there. Lastly, a global literature classs which is actually really interesting. We looked at a bunch of historical maps and talked about how they relfected the world views of their creators and stuff and I think I'm going to like the class so yay!

Last week was relatively party crazy. I went out quite a bit and so now I'm taking it easy. Its hard to say no when you have nothing else to do and 50 frat brothers to bond with who have booze haha. So I had my fun and did my bonding and it was good. I went ice skating for the first time in a couple of years too and I'm surprised by how much I missed it! I'm having my dad get my skates sharpened at home so I can bring them back with me in case we go again and I hope we do!! I'm not as good as I used to be but I didn't fall and it was a ton of fun, definitely one of my favorite things to do. Bowling.. as usual I have no skill whatsoever. Its just throw the thing and hope it hits something which it usually doesn't haha, but it was still fun. I thought about going out tonight but decided on getting some jamba juice and laying around in my apartment and so far I'm content with that.

Today I was going to try to clean my entire apartment... obviously that did not happen. At least I got my laundry done, though. I needed clean clothes desperately haha. With a washer/dryer unit in the apartment I have no excuse to not do it. More good news, I finally got a new cellphone. I've been wanting one for a long time and my razr started to crap out on me yesterday so my roommate drove me to the verizon store and I got an enV2 which I loooove and then spent like two hours at the mall, which was also fun. I wish I had my own car, but its nice that she was willing to take me! Thats about it for now. I'm super tired and need to find a good ringtone for my phone!

Hello, world.

Its me! I'm back at school!
Winter break was all I wanted it to be and more :)

I had fun lazing around and sleeping and doing nothing, going shopping, hanging out with my friends in the 'ville. Took a road trip to Peoria to hang out with pledge brothers. Speaking of, I am no longer a pledge, yay! I had my initiation from Wednesday to Saturday last week. It was brutal and long, but it was worth it and I'm so glad I'm a brother now! Yes, brother. Not sister, haha. In every oath I took, I was a man.

So anyway, even though I'm back down in Chambana, I am not ready for school to start yet. I'd be perfectly happy to laze around in my apartment and whatnot, but I don't like this whole school thing. I'm already annoyed with design. I think that its just the fact that I dislike using power tools. I also forgot all of my drawing supplies at home, but luckily, I forgot a few other things and mama is coming down on Saturday to take me to lunch and give me my stuff. I only have drawing on Wednesday this week, so I should be fine for a day without my stuff. Theres bound to be one or two people in my class that I know that I can borrow from anyway.

The one thing I hate the most about being back is unpacking. The second thing I hate is all the salt outside of my apartment. My floors are filthy and I can't walk on them without shoes, which means I have to clean the floor but I really don't want to. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Going to an inauguration party tonight, haha. Should be fun. Having dinner at one of my friend's dorms before hand, which should also be nice. I love free dinners that I don't have to cook! Thats still a couple of hours away, though, so I guess I should clean the floor and then get ready to go! Yay Obama!

So, two days and I get to go home :)
I have one more final on Wednesday and I have to finish cleaning my apartment and packing by then. What have I been doing instead? Listening to Christmas music, baking, knitting, generally not doing anything related to what I should be doing.

Today was easy. I had my Italian final, which wasn't too bad. I'm going to miss that class. Just the people, not the fact that it was at 9am. That sucked. But the 8 person class was awesome, we were hilarious because none of us wanted to be up and at class at 9 so we were just sarcastic and grumpy all the time. Oh, memories.

Nothing much to do tomorrow other than study. I'm going to go screw around with some of my pledge brothers in the afternoon and go to dinner with a couple friends from elementary school and then come home and finish packing and studying for my art history final aka my 'this class is boring and i can't be bothered to stay awake for it' class final. God, I hate art history. Its drier than a saltine cracker and definitely not as tasty.

In other news, I am pretty sure I was bitten by a brown recluse spider. I have this disgusting bite on my ankle thats all greenish and swollen and stuff (not like extremely, though. the whole thing is the size of a dime haha). So now I have to ice it and take an antibiotic and see if I get a fever or nausea or whatever other symptoms come along with those bites. I'm doing my best not to be a hypochondriac about it. I checked my bed for spiders like two minutes ago and saw this huge black thing, almost screamed, and then realized that it was a big piece of lint. Still, hopefully I'll be able to treat it by myself without having to to to McKinley (or McKillme as we like to call it) the oh so reliable campus clinic. I mean, at least if I go I get free condoms and a sucker?

Take That Realtor Lady!!

Got my late fee on my rent revoked.
Someone came in and looked at the window.
Was apologized to profusely.

Just goes to show you how being a bitch can pay off.

Window still isn't fixed, though.

Still, classes are done for the semester so I'm in such a joyous state that I cannot be brought down save for by the thought of impending finals.

So let me express to you how much I enjoy having a teacher that tries so hard to not be offensive when critiquing your artwork that it just becomes even more insulting than it would have been if he had just said he didn't like your work.

"Oh wow. Thats.. interesting what you did there. I wasn't seeing it like that but now that you mention it I can't see it as anything else and... Well.. I mean, its not a good or bad thing, but... Yeah."

I'd rather you just tell me its a piece of crap.
I already knew it was.
I am not a 3D artist. Never have been, never will be.

So anyway. This evening, after classes were over and done with, my roommate and I decided to crack open the bottle of wine that I have to celebrate. Let me tell you, nothing makes you feel more stupid than having it take over half an hour to open a single bottle of wine. With a corkscrew, mind you. I worked hard for that wine. Maybe that's why it was sooo good when I finally got it open. Makes you wonder if everything would feel better if you struggled for it. I'm not going to ponder that further because I thoroughly do not enjoy struggling. At least not for wine.

Only three tests and I'm out of here for some much needed time at home. Hopefully this time will include shenanigans.

And here I was thinking that I was going to be productive tonight. I sat around, ate pizza, watched Jumanji and drank wine. Last night? Baked cookies and listened to Christmas music. Tomorrow? Maaaaybe some studying.

As a parting thought, Erin, thank you for the Christmas card! I love getting mail so that just made my day. I don't get much mail down here unless its a bill, so it was a nice change :)

The home stretch.

Yes, its almost almost almost winter break! I cannot wait.
Three more days of classes, three tests, one event at the house and then I am going home!!!

This weekend has had a few ups and downs, mostly ups, so thats good. Our party on Friday was awesome! It was a "hawaiian christmas" theme, so it was fun. I ran around with a mistletoe headband on, had a good (but not ridiculous) amount to drink and decided to go around and try to get everyone to kiss me or to kiss everyone that I knew. They were all on the cheek, but thats acceptable. Theres a guy that I have a little thing for in the frat, so after a few drinks I was obviously paying him special attention which he did not seem to mind. It would have been embarrassing save for the part where I was hugging and kissing everyone else too. So hey, success there.

Had a pretty significant hangover, which wasn't really expected, but thats ok. Its gone now. I had a ton of fun and thats what counts. It was a good ending to a stressful week, save for the part where I flaked out on clean up which may or may not get me in a bit of trouble. At this point, I really do not care, though. With winter break so close, nothing can bring me down.

In other news, I just got done sending an angry e-mail to my realtor. I got an email a few day ago that I owed a late fee on my rent. Its due on the first of every month and since I started living there I've gotten a statement delivered to me every time telling me how much I owe since its always different due to utility fees. This month, I did not get one so my roommate and I were confused. Furthermore, we got our energy bill and it had more than doubled since last month which is ridiculous. We did a little looking around the apartment and found that the sealing on our big windows is faulty and we have SOLID ICE inside our apartment and theres a draft blowing in. Thats why our heating cost so much. My roommate called maintenace twice and talked to three different people. The proceeded to not believe her and argue with her saying that "a little frost was to be expected and was no big deal". My roommate told them that she knew the difference between a littel frost and solid ice and that this was solid ice and that she wanted to someone to look at it. Finally, they agreed that if it was solid ice, that was a pretty significant problem and that they would send someone over in the next two hours to look at it. Three days later, no one has come.

So I emailed them and she is going to as well, saying that we believe the late fee was unfair as we were not warned that there would be no statement, and that we shouldn't have to pay the entire heating bill because of the faulty sealing. I also told them about the maintenance people not coming and that they were argumentative and that it was unacceptable that someone hadn't come. I told them that if it was not fixed and if our heating bill was that high again we were going to have a problem. Its ridiculous. I haven't told my parents yet, but if maintenance doesn't get out here tomorrow, I'm going to tell them and let daddy dearest have a little chat with them.

And now for an update on my to-do list:

- Pledge final for the frat
- Live in week at the frat
- 2 parties, one Wednesday and one Friday
- Shopping for parties on Wednesday and Friday
- Rewriting papers
- Journal/Sketchbook
- Final project in design
- Computer Science homework
- Italian messages

I'm almost done with the journal and the messages, so I'm almost there! Three more days then some studying and I'm outta here! :)