End of the year thoughts

Whenever I go to my dashboard, I love clicking the “Write” button to put up a new post. I don’t know why 🙂

This year has flown by. I’ve met so many great people and learned so much about journalism and myself, among other things. In high school, I was one of those students who didn’t really have to work very hard to make the honor roll. It was a nice thing at the time, but imagine my surprise when I came to college. My study habits were weak and there was an increased temptation not to go to class. In high school, I never skipped a class because I was stuck in the same building for the whole day, so it just made sense to go to all of them. Here, I had breaks and reveled in naps in-between (and sometimes straight through) classes. Needless to say, my fall quarter grades were less than perfect, and my parents weren’t very happy that their hard-earned money was being spent on me skipping class and partying every weekend.

Winter quarter, I shaped up. I went to class. I only skipped when I felt sick; I was recovering from a “rip-roaring case of mono”  (my doctor’s words) I had caught over winter break. My GPA improved by .4, and my parents loved me again…kidding. They’ve always loved me. I slowly developed better study habits and time management skills, which I am still honing and will continue to do so for the rest of my time here. This quarter, despite the gorgeous weather (and, this week, the raging monsoons and countless tornado watches/warnings), I have gone to class and kept up with everything. I’m not quite to Dean’s List status yet, but I’m getting closer and closer. I am seven classes and four finals away from completing my freshman year at Ohio University. My feelings are similar to my peers’: I want to be finished with finals, but I am not ready to leave Athens and all of my friends for the summer. It’s been a great year.

I’ll leave you with some of my favorite pictures of the year.

that’s not all of them…but you get the drift: my year was GREAT

A bittersweet weekend

This weekend was AMAZING. By far the best weekend of the quarter, if not the year!

Friday, I spent some time laying out on the green with Lindsay, Susie and Jenny. We then went up to the house for a little bit to join Katie, Kaleigh and Erin in the sun. Erin’s boyfriend called and we went over to his house to play cornhole and lay out even more. It was just a great time with some of my best friends from the sorority. Then later that night Amanda, Lindsay, Jenny and I went to Sig Ep and saw pretty much everyone we knew there! Cassie dropped her phone in the toilet and can’t get a new one until she goes home in 10 days. She’s not happy.

Yesterday was the highlight, but also the saddest part of my weekend. It was Senior Sendoff for my sorority. We had the secret senior reveal. I was so happy to see Molly liked the gifts Mandy and I got her, and she got us some great stuff as well! Then we had lunch and the saddest part was when the littles read their letters to the bigs. Lots of tears were shed, and I thought about what I’m going to do next year because both my grandbig Julie and big Erin are graduating. I started to write the letter in my head, but it brought tears to my own eyes to even think about it. I just know that I’m going to sob next year. Then came the time for wills. I wasn’t expecting to get anything willed to me because I’m only close with a few seniors. But Lindsey surprised me by willing me a Clay Aiken shirt (I’m not a Clay fan but Lindsey says it suits me anyway), a clarinet music holder (we both played clarinet in high school) and a broken Superman alarm clock (I don’t know). Later that afternoon we all went over to an apartment some of the seniors share and I wore my Clay shirt and brought along a hula hoop that was part of the gifts that Molly got me. I had so much fun! My cornhole skills weren’t as sharp as they were Friday, but Amanda and I still did okay. I got to spend a lot of time with Lindsey and Molly, so that was great. I cannot even express how glad I am that I am part of such a great sorority. Alpha Omicron Pi has become my family, just as I was told it would become. I could not ask for a better group of friends. I am so excited to live in the house for the next two years and to grow as a person because of it. I know Greek life often has a bad connotation, but joining a sorority was honestly the best decision I have made in college, and I won’t be surprised if I still feel that way in 2011, when I am a senior. I don’t even know what else to say; I don’t feel like there are any other words to describe how much AOPi means to me.

Amanda and I left around 8:30 to go to Jimmy John’s for food and we ran into Claire along the way. After eating I came home and crashed and woke up around midnight and watched some TV with Cassie and Terry. Fell back asleep around 3 and woke up this morning at 11 to go to brunch with Erin, Audra, Julie and Becca. We went to the diner, as usual. We didn’t stay for long because we all had things to do but it was still a good time. I came back and did laundry and made notecards for econ and philosophy. Exams are coming up so quickly and I really want/need to do well. Then Cassie and I set up the grill outside on the patio. Terry brought over burgers and pasta salad and we had a little cookout. Amanda, Katie, Michelle, Krista and Mallory joined us for a little bit. Amanda and I went up to talk to Megan for a little bit since we haven’t seen her much lately. She’s studying abroad in Denmark next quarter, so we’re not going to see her for a long time.

Whew. That was a lot. I was just really excited that I had such a great weekend.

It’s that time again…

Next Tuesday I schedule my classes for fall quarter. I like scheduling because it means the promise of new classes; however, I despise it at the same time. My registration date is later than a lot of other people’s because I am a first year and none of my AP credits transferred (boo!). The News Writing  and Info Gathering classes that I have to take at some point before I can take any other journalism courses have already been filled, so this will be my second quarter in a row without any journalism. I guess that leaves more room for me to continue knocking out my Generals, though, and I think I’ve found a schedule that works, provided these classes don’t fill up before Tuesday:

Introduction to the Arts

Elementary Statistic Reasoning

International Relations

Non-Western History Before 1750

Only one of the classes (Int’l Relations) is a 200-level, the rest are 100s, still. I feel kind of weird that most of my classes will still be 100s, even though I hear it’s perfectly normal. I just can’t shake associating 100 with freshmen, 200 with sophomores, and so on.

Wish me luck with scheduling 🙂

We have to forgive to survive the labyrinth

***WARNING: If you have not read Looking for Alaska by John Green, but think you might want to (look up the bio at Amazon if you’re not familiar) do not read this post! Spoilers are sprinkled throughout!

I devour books. It’s as simple as that. I learned to read at the age of three and haven’t stopped since. On my  Facebook, the little place where it has you list the books you like is longer than any of the other sections. Do not expect me to go into a bookstore or library for shorter than 45 minutes.

Since I have been back in civilization (home, and for about 3 days) I have read two books, 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson and Looking for Alaska. I really liked 13 LBE (enough for it to go in my “Books” section on Facebook),  but I absolutely loved Looking for Alaska. I’ve never read anything quite like it. It was a unique story idea, with the basis of last words and everything. I look forward to reading John Green’s other book, An Abundance of Katherines. The first two chapters were printed in the back of LfA.

I wish I was more articulate tonight. I have to save all of my brain power for an extra credit paper for philosophy. On the bright side, it only has to be three pages…but, alas, it is philosophy…

I leave the stars to judge

I was reading the latest issue of Nylon (a great issue, by the way – SO many artists/bands I want to check out), and I came across an article on Welsh pop star Duffy. It caught my eye because in her picture she just looked so innocent; it was adorable. I listened to a few previews of her songs on iTunes and then bought her entire first album, “Rockferry”, and it was worth every penny. I’ve had a really busy week, and Duffy’s music put me in such a good mood. CCFMDS on Nerd Society put it best when he said, “Duffy’s voice will remind many of Amy Winehouse, but perhaps not as edgy or gritty as Ms Winehouse’s.  There’s more of sweetness to Duffy’s vocals.” I liked Amy Winehouse for a little bit, but her voice started to annoy me. Anyway, apparently Duffy’s a lot bigger in Britain than she is over here in the U.S. I’m sure it won’t stay that way for long, though.