Blessing masquerade

I have decided to look at this community college thing as a blessing in disguise. I've known all along that, financially, it is the best decision. And finances can be pretty important when you've got your eye on a $20,000+/year tuition for vet school.

So this way I can stay at home, save some money, learn how to drive (I don't care about driving that much, but now that I'm going to be living with my family for another two years it would be nice to at least get away from time-to-time). It will also be easier to get a job with all the college-bound kids going away and everything.

Plus, this way I won't be as upset about leaving PHS because I still get to go to the football games. It will be like freshman and sophomore year when I just sat there with my parents, wishing I was in marching band. And I already told my sister she has to find someone to take me to homecoming.

It's pretty upsetting, not being able to go away. To ease the pain I decided to keep some of my dorm stuff, like the desk lamp and the comforter. Nothing is really as comforting as new stuff. Except maybe best friends :) And the fact that my birthday is tomorrow. Yay!

Life. Is. Not. Fair.

I have been fighting with my parents for weeks now. All along I have been planning to go to U of I. I signed up for classes, talked to my roommate, and bought dorm stuff. However, my family cannot afford college- at all and my financial aid was pretty crappy. Two grants, two federal loans, and one university loan still only covered about half the total cost for a year. But I decided, it would be totally worth it to go and I was completely willing to take out a private loan to the amount of $15,000. Private loans are something to be scared of. Variable interest rates, fees, and co-signers are not things to be taken lightly. So my parents have been trying to convince me to go to community college for the first two years- WHICH I REALLY DON'T WANT TO DO!!! So I was going to go through the grueling process of asking a relative of mine to co-sign my loan for me because my parents' credit isn't good enough. It was a tough decision to make, and I did consider community college, in the end I made a pro/con list, made a system to rate it and in the end the scores were U of I: 7, community college: -3.

Well, today I get an e-mail. One of my grants, provided be the lovely state of Illinois, wasn't budgeted enough money and now everyone with that grant only gets it for fall semester, not spring. And now, with another $2000 left unaccounted for, I just don't see how it's going happen. I'm in tears right now. I really wanted to go to U of I this year. It's going to be like putting a knife through my heart to go head and cancel all my U of I stuff and call the community college. But I don't see how I have a choice.

Purple music

My computer and my MP3 player teamed up against me and destroyed all but one of my playlists. Since I had to wash the dishes last Wednesday, I decided that it would be a good time to re-do them (I hate washing dishes and listening to music is the only way I can get through it).

I don't have a lot of songs. I used about 3 GB out of 8 on my MP3 player. I don't like to buy music. As much as I love it, it's not worth my limited finances when there are things like free radio. So it's hard to pick out songs for my playlists when my choices are so limited and I don't have most of my favorite songs. But as I was making one entitled "Smiles" (songs that put me in a good mood), I came across one song from my not-so-distant past that I love. I feel like if I had to describe myself using songs this one would be one of them. The lyrics are:


Sometimes I get so weird
I even freak myself out
I laugh myself to sleep
It's my lullaby
Sometimes I drive so fast
Just to feel the danger
I wanna scream
It makes me feel alive

Is it enough to love?
Is it enough to breathe?
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
Is it enough to die?
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be anything but ordinary please

To walk within the lines
Would make my life so boring
I want to know that I
Have been to the extreme
So knock me off my feet
Come on now give it to me
Anything to make me feel alive

Is it enough to love?
Is it enough to breathe?
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
Is it enough to die?
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be anything but ordinary please.
I'd rather be anything but ordinary please.

Let down your defenses
Use no common sense
If you look you will see
that this world is a beautiful
accident, turbulent, succulent
opulent permanent, no way
I wanna taste it
Don't wanna waste it away

Sometimes I get so weird
I even freak myself out
I laugh myself to sleep
It's my lullaby

Is it enough?
Is it enough?
Is it enough to breathe?
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
Is it enough to die?
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be anything but ordinary please

Is it enough?
Is it enough to die?
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be anything but ordinary please.
oh
I'd rather be anything but ordinary p lease.

My whole life has been a struggle to be 'anything but ordinary' , but whose hasn't? So far my life has been exactly ordinary. Efforts to combat this is what leads to the getting weird. As if all of my idiosyncrasies somehow add up to uniqueness. It isn't enough just to love, or to breath, or to die. There has to be more. I want to taste it.

And I want to taste it by going to University of Illinois and studying animal sciences. If I reach my ultimate goal of becoming a veterinarian, I feel as though my life will be fulfilling and I wouldn't be wasting it away. And once I am doing that, I won't be worrying about being "anything but ordinary" because I'll be doing something important to me.

This is a song that speaks to my heart and to my dreams. It's a song about something more, reaching for something more - goals. And goals are all I have in this world.

This song wouldn't fit in my "Smiles" playlist. That playlist is about outward happiness. So I made a new playlist and titled it "Purple". Purple is the color of my world.

And, yes. That is an Avril Lavigne song.

Roomies

I found out who my roommate is today. She friend requested me on facebook. At first, I was a little mad at university housing because when i went to their website it said the assignments wouldn't be posted until the 23rd. After I got over that, I went to check my school e-mail address (which I don't check that often) and sure enough there was an e-mail saying it was up. There was also an e-mail from my future dorm buddy.

I've been putting off e-mailing her back all day. I mean, what do you say to a person you're going to live with next year that you've never met before? So, I thought up some things:


Hey! Nice to meet you (sort of). We've never actually met but I know you're a person and I'm a person. Unless you're secretly an alien disguised as a person, but I'm cool with that too.

Hey! I know we haven't really met yet but I feel like we have because I already creeped on you on facebook. I read your profile and looked at all your pictures. You seem like a cool person.

Hey, Girl!!! I'm soooooo glad we're roomates. College is going 2 b like totally awesome! I soooo can't wait! TTYL!


Yeah. No.

Hopefully, I'll figure something out that won't make me sound weird, stalker-ish, or stupid.

Hypocritical indecisiveness

Recently I have learned how to turn pretty much anything into a blog post. I have so many ideas that when I don't post it's because I can't decide which thing to write about. So here's random posting again.

VBS is over! Yay! Though I admit those little kids grew on me and I'm gonna miss them (except for Little Sarah, the annoying one who cried all the time).

I got to see my old babysitters and their babies the other day because they're in town. I was kind of afraid of the babies since I hadn't been having good luck with children, but it was fine. Those babies are so darn cute.

My 18-year old cousin is in the hospital right now. I'm sure she's gonna be fine, but it's scary that she's staying over there.

After riding my bike to Target- I hurt. However, I do not regret not having my license because I have so many reasons not to. I am a little hurt that my friend says she's getting her license soon. We both took driver's ed at the same time and we both failed it. It was a special thing that we had.

My laptop has been driving me crazy. It randomly likes to switch to battery even though it's plugged in. When I don't notice, it dies. When I do notice I look like a freak shaking the cord and trying to verbally encourage it to work.

I am annoyed at my friends who replied 'maybe' to my facebook invitation for my birthday celebration. Make up your mind. Seriously.

FAIL

I actually did make a preschooler cry today.

I hate little kids.

Too much salt

I don't really have a topic for this post-just randomness from my day.

My sister and I ride our bikes to VBS and she was bugging me because I am so out of shape I can't keep up with her on my bike. Even though, according to her, she ran 10 miles already, then rode her bike really fast home, and I have the good bike. I was dying though. I can't tell you how long it took me to catch my breath when we got there. It took a while.

I volunteer with the preschool/kindergarten group at VBS. It was fun except when I took like five girls to the bathroom. We were in that bathroom forever. To make matters worse, my cousin who is in that group, locked herself in the stall. She couldn't get out. Plus, she spent the whole day telling me she was going to come to my house later and she never did. She lied and I was sad.

Later, my sis and I took our rodents outside. I was anxiously awating the mailman to find out my AP scores. We played catch. "Who gave her a mitt?" was the reaction of my mother. Just because I duck and jump away instead of actually trying to catch the ball? It only hit her car once.

My friend came over with a big, smelly, drooling creature, and a dog too (jk, kendall). My sister and I played butts up. I lost. Three times. But- I got a 5 on my AP psych test- so boo ya!

I ate cottage cheese for the first time today. It was good, but too salty.

Birth control

I have been babysitting for over six years. Little kids are amazing. They're so cute and they're learning things all the time, and it is really interesting to see the world from their perspective. I used to think a career with kids would be a good idea for me because I was really good with them.

But there is a exception to every rule and that exception is the kids I babysit now. They are little monsters. One day in Spanish class the girl sitting next to me asks, "Do you babysit the C*****'s?" "Yes?" "Don't you wanna just shoot yourself?" Well, I thought that was a little extreme, but I sympathized. Then I found out that this girl babysits them every week. Then I'd want to shoot myself. So I replied, "Yeah, [the boy] once spit on my face." "I know, he swears at me all the time!" Um, the boy to which we were referring, just turned 5. She lowered her head and shook it and I shook mine. We were in agreement over bad parenting.

When I told my mom this today, she was like, "And after you babysit them you don't want to be around any children!" That is totally true! Only I didn't want to admit it. Hopefully, the effects will have worn off by the time VBS starts next week. Or else I might make a preschooler cry.

wut up? nm. u? nm.

I haven't had much going on recently so I thought it would be a good idea to clean my room. That was two weeks ago. So far all I have accomplished is consolidating my junk- the stuff you can't throw away but can't do anything with, and dusting my shelves. Overall, I think I have actually managed to make my room messier. And honestly, I'm getting kind of sick of my room. That's ok though because it'll make it easier to move into that closet-sized dorm I'm going to be living in. I'll just add it to my list of reasons why I have to go away to college.

Please don't shoot!

Sorry Ryan for stealing the place where you got your blog template. I really wanted to change mine and this was the only website that worked. If it makes you feel any better this isn't even the one I really wanted- that one didn't work either (just my luck). You should consider it a testament to your coolness.

The death and resurrection of senior year

Today, I finally decided to go through that big stack of papers from last school year. I do this every year to separate the garbage, papers I want to keep, and things that can be recycled (because I'm so green- that's the thing now to be "green").

Going through these papers was like going through last year again. It was kind of teary for me. Last year, was actually a fun year school-wise. Yes, I had to wake-up early for bio, but I learned so much and I found it interesting (most of the time- I did fall asleep once). Talked to my friends even when the teacher was talking, my lab table somehow managed to mess-up every single lab, drank(/drowned) in the fire hydrant of knowledge, got called a "bio hero" on a quiz I did well on- I'm gonna miss this. And psych too- never a dull moment, there was always some random conversation going on, sometimes psych related sometimes not. Calc was a piece of pi (ha), and now that I think about it there was always some random conversation going on here too except the teacher was in it. Even the not-so-great classes were memorable- I will never forget how freezing my survey classroom was, or my lit teacher when discussing the paternity of two characters saying, "she did 'em both!" AP Spanish was kind of hellish, but I'm such a good student I managed to kick ass in that class too.

I'm gonna miss high school.

Cotton candy fingers

Yesterday, despite not being allowed to go on any of the rides, I went to the carnival with my friends. So I got cotton candy to eat while they went on rides so at least I felt like I did take part in the carnival experience. It was bad cotton candy though. I didn't think cotton candy could be bad. I was not aware of the different levels of quality. I ate most of it anyway because I paid the five bucks, and ended up with most of it stuck to my fingers. Couldn't finish it though. I offered the rest to my family. They didn't take my offer of "you can eat my cotton candy, but it's not very good." It's still sitting on the piano.

By the way, it was both pink and blue. The pink tasted better (slightly).