Adventure 44 - Reflections

It's a little mindblowing that I'm done with my first year of college. It seemed like it went by so quickly, like graduation wasn't a year ago (well, almost). But my stuff is (mostly) packed and I'll be leaving to go home in the morning.

I feel like I accomplished a lot this year. For example:

• I started off with a core group of zero and now have quite a few friends from several different groups of people.
• I joined new groups, like VOX and sword team.
• And I got my orange belt. And I used a real katana to slice things.
• I took a variety of different classes, ranging from theater stuff and stop-motion animation to journalism and biology.
• I had two pretty consistent part-time jobs at one of the campus dining halls and at the children's science museum downtown.
• I learned to be pretty self-sufficient living on my own (though cooking and laundry were things I already knew how to do).
• I familiarized myself with the city enough so I know where basic things are (like grocery shopping).

And most importantly, I learned how to push my own boundaries by trying new things.

It's been fun. I look forward to more college adventures in the fall.

Adventure 43 - Packing Up

It doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but I had to give my fridge back to the fridge rental people so I started getting things together. I found a box of all the cards I've received the past two semesters from various family members (including my ex's mom, who is the most awesome ex-mother-in-sortof-law ever). The best cards in terms of sayings are as follows:

(front) I don't just think the world of you, I think the universe of you...
(inside) ...including Jupiter and little ex-planets like Pluto.
(Of course, they should've just said "I think the Solar System of you," but I doubt that would've had quite the same effect.)


(front) Chips without dip. Pretzels without beer. Macaroni without cheese. Bagel without cream cheese. Mashed potatoes without gravy. Me without you.
(inside) Not only do I miss you, but now I'm really hungry.

But my personal favorite is still this birthday card I saw in a grocery store once:
(front) I bet the Angels were smiling the day you were born.
(inside) They came back to beat Detroit 10-9 in the bottom of the ninth with a walk-off grand slam.
(horrible baseball joke but I thought it was great)

Adventure 42 - The Meaning of Life

You know I had to do that, though if I really wanted to be accurate, the post would've been titled "Adventure 42 - The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything."

Anyway, I have some video footage from the massive fucking thunderstorm that just hit that I would like to share.

Adventure 41 - Motivation

I'm finally done with my 20-pager, but I'm still running a little low on motivation. I came across this this morning and I'm going to share it, between its inspirationalness and my lack of motivation to post.

Adventure 40 - Crunch Time

Because I have a 20-page paper due tomorrow and I only have about 11 done right now. Ugh.

Luckily, once I'm over that, I don't have any big projects left. I have a presentation, a paper to fix, two others to write and two exams, but no more 20-pagers.

And I love how I can say that presentation + paper fixing + 10 more pages to write + 2 exams is "nothing."

Adventure 39 - Reminiscing

I'm friends with a lot of the girls and some of my coaches from my high school softball team, and looking at all their softball posts made me realize how much I actually miss it. It's not just the hitting, I can get that at the batting cages back home. I mean being part of the team. JV's 13-5 record junior year. Our comeback win over the number-one team in the state after our shortstop busted her knee mid-game. Counting hits, at-bats, runs, any stat I could think of. Making sure everyone's were spelled correctly (most of the time they weren't). Getting my own jersey as a manager. Being able to rattle off game scores on demand. Being the unofficial team mom and lending stuff to the freshmen who forgot theirs. Dishing out bandaids and ice packs. My hideous pink bat. Avoiding all the rocks and dog poop on the JV field. Getting stuck in the briars getting foul balls. Still not remembering the away win cheer after three years. And knowing that my generally unorthodox contribution to the team meant something to someone.

Adventure 38 - Abnormal

I've lived in New England for almost all of my life, so I've had my fair share of weird weather and was prepared for anything upstate New York could throw at me. But 4+ inches of snow in late April is a little extreme even by my standards.

I guess Mother Nature is trying to make up for the lack of snow here all winter, considering that this is the most accumulation we've seen and may be more snow than all winter combined, but April? Late April? I mean, here I was roasting my ass off in my room on Friday because it was in the 70s (and I had my windows shut because of all the potheads celebrating 4/20), plus it was nice last Monday and a few other times between Spring Break and now. And now here I am talking about how I went outside in my rain boots and bathrobe to see how deep the snow was this morning. (Such a class act, I know.)

Generally the groundskeeping crew is really good about keeping the paths clear, I just hope they can keep it up. I'm already sore from the sword team seminar on Saturday (6 hours of stuff), I don't need to add falling to the list of injuries.