A Random Compliation of Things I Can't Get Enough of

1. Nutella
2. Cheese
3. Pasta
4. Pesto
5. The amazingness of Netflix Original shows
6. How pretty Ezra Miller is
7. How amusing I find Captain Jack Harkness
8. Bacon (keep in mind, now, that this list is in not particular order)
9. Surprise visits at work from friends
10. Traveling 
11. My goofy, lovely, heartwarming, hardworking coworkers 
12. My boss's questions about words
13. Post-It notes
14. Milkshakes 
15. The food at Aslan 
16. Young Adult novels - dystopian ones in particular at this moment  
17. My bay-life roommates 
18. My sister's artwork
19. My older brother's traveling adventures (read: living vicariously through one of my family members who makes more money than me) 
20. My nephew's laugh 
21. Seeing the ways that my oldest brother and his wife work really well together
22. Gratitude that my mother never gave up her dream and found a way to have her family live overseas (I don't really know how to phrase this one but you get the point) 
23. The little tells that my dad has that says he really likes his job 
24. "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Panic! At The Disco
25. Actually, a lot of songs by Panic! At The Disco
26. The "Shut Up and Dance" movie clip video that has been taken off YouTube :( 
27. My glorious friends 
28. Having time enough to craft 
29. Crafts (yes, I am making these separate things) 
30. Long walks to Boulevard 

I was eating some ice cream with Nutella in it, and got inspired/mushy so ta-da! 

Too Long of a Thought to Reasonably be a Status

I did a thing today.
Well, actually, I did many.
But this one thing in particular got me thinking.
I counted how many days left until I graduate from college.
Just in case there is anyone graduating from a Washington-quarter-system school this spring is reading and doesn't want to know, I will abstain from putting the exact count on here. I seem to be a minority in the fact that knowing exactly how many days left of something doesn't tend to stress me out.
I am presently a little stressed out. And, if I'm stressed out, so are lots of other people.
For now, I will leave them my sympathies but also say that I've got my own problems to worry about.
Namely the fact that all I really want to be doing with my spare time is crafts, going out for drinks, and planning for my future. I'll wake up in the morning and think "I'm actually going to do some job research today".
But then I go to class. Class is a problem. Well, class presents many problems.

1. I don't remember the last time I felt fully engaged in a class.  
2. Not feeling engaged leads to me being very tired and, sometimes, dozing off in class. 
3. Dozing off in class lends itself to my feeling bored and thus not having much motivation.
4. Not having much motivation means that I don't really ever want to do my homework.
5. My homework needs to be done. 
6. I spend a lot of time uselessly wandering the internet to procrastinate.
7. Then I have to rush getting my homework done so I can go to bed at a semi-reasonable hours, which means that I don't get a chance to do anything that is productive but not homework. 

I spend a lot of time chiding myself, "Robyn, if you're not going to do homework right now, you could at least be looking at job stuff. Or working on that writing project. Or that crocheting project. Something that is productive somehow." But I know that technically homework should be my priority so I don't feel like I can let myself do other productive things.
This may sound a little ridiculous but, you've already read this far, so let me explain. When I get the ball rolling with a project, I don't want to stop. It is the reason why I have a few things at work that I know will only take my two minutes to do each but I wait until there's ten of them so that they can all just be done at once. A better way to say this, perhaps, is to say that if I get up the motivation to edit a chapter or research job prospects, I want to have a few hours to dedicate to that endeavor. However, with homework looming over my shoulder, it feels like I don't have the time to commit to these projects.
Then it gets to be nearly four hours of sitting around time and I get stressed out thinking about how much I could've have done and feel the instant desire to go straight to bed. Sleep is my solution for most problems I encounter.
I remember a lot of my teachers in high school saying that high school was preparing me for college. After having been at college, my contention is that high school doesn't really prepare you for college because there is so much more to college than academics. As I near the end of my college career, I worry that college hasn't really prepared me for post-college life. This is partially my doing...most students who study linguistics go on to grad school or do some sort of teaching program. I don't want to do either of those things, which begs the question: what is next for me?
I wish that I could dedicate my time to answering this question. Or, more accurately, all the little questions that lead up to this question: Should I work for a hotel? An airline? Should I take the plunge and try writing professionally? What about just working at something that will make me enough money to do the things I want to do with my life: travel, make crafts, spend time with people, write? How do I write a convincing resume? I have to do job applications again?
But, no, I have to start reading about adjective phrases, review the uses of 'estar', and diagram the rising action of short stories.
I give school the grade of A+ for its excellent job of getting in the way.

Adulthood--Here I Come

By a lot of accounts, I am an adult: I can vote. I can get a drink with dinner. I could go into the military if I wanted to. I could get married if the opportunity presented itself.
By my own account. I'm about half of an adult: I have a part time job (and, trust me, it's very near a miracle). I am still working towards paying my own bills and the parentals still pay all my rent. I spend most of my time doing school things.
As of this moment, the school things dominating my time are trying to figure out if the plan I've had for the past six months is actually going to work out in the end. Just a pro-tip, it's really hard to get into English classes at Western if you're not an English major. Being a Creative Writing minor, I now have to worry about whether or not I'm going to be able to get into the classes I need. Luckily, Western's professors have been historically wonderful about helping me out when they can so, for now, I just have my fingers crossed that something works out.

Don't worry, Mom, I'm registered for a full schedule. I'm just hoping my classes change over the next two weeks.

This is what I find crazy, though: up until classes start and even for five days after they start, your schedule could change completely. I remember last September there was one day where my roommate walked into her room then came out a few hours later and announced "I'm adding a French minor to my coursework." In college, it seems like things can change in the blink of an eye. I'm sure life has its own curve balls but at least I won't be changing the classes I'm taking every ten weeks. 

Before coming to college and while I've been attending school, I've heard a lot about how "you'll never be in the same place with as many of the same-age people doing roughly the same thing as you are than in college". True and, I admit, it is nice to have a standard set of questions to ask anyone I run into on campus:

1. What's your name?
2. What's your year?
3. (if they are an underclassman) How are GURs going? Do you know what you'll major in?
4. (if they are an upperclassman) What is your major? How is that going? Do you have a minor?
5. (if they have a minor) What's your minor?
6. (if they happen to have some departmental overlap) Have you had Professor X or Y? What did you think? I've heard a lot about Professor Z and I'm taking my first class with them this quarter. 
7. (if they happen to have no departmental overlap) What kinds of things are you interested in within your major? What drew you to those?
8. Do you have post-graduation plans yet? 

...I could probably go on but then I'll spoil all of my scintillating small talk questions and, really, who wants that?

Back to what I was saying, it's nice to have all of these cards to play. But I usually want something more than their academics because, let's face it, no one is just their academics. 

I don't feel like nearly enough of my life is explained when I tell people: "Oh, yeah, I'm a Linguistics major with minors in Creative Writing and Spanish." Sure, it gives a pretty good idea of the fact that I like to think about languages but it doesn't tell you anything about why or what else I like to do.
This is all a very long winded way of saying that I am very much looking forward to graduation this spring. I'm almost chomping at the bit to see what the world outside school is even like. May I point out that I have been in school for sixteen years? Sixteen years. I have no idea what the real world is like but I know I'm getting bored of this one.
I started hitting this wall probably halfway through sophomore year, this wall of "Wait, shouldn't there be something else that I'm doing?" and I'm just about to start senior year now. I'm an intelligent, attractive twenty-something with dreams of traveling the world, and finding the perfect street side cafes in which to write my novels and ordering chai tea after chai tea. I want to learn how to weld or woodwork or both. I wonder what boxing is like. Could I run a marathon? Could I walk the Pacific Crest Trail? This seems like a prime time to be exploring everything I want to explore and, yet, I'm going to be sitting behind various school desks until June...

T-minus ten months to being a real adult.

A Day Alone with Granita and a Good Book

Day 1.

Day 2.

Day 1.

Day 2.

Day 1.

Day 2.

Day Off.

And repeat.

This has been my schedule since August 3. To quote a few of my coworkers, "I have no concept of what day it is anymore, I just know whether it's a day 1 or day 2." For two weeks now, I've been on staff to help incoming freshman understand the ins and outs of Western's academics as well as assist them in planning their schedule for the first quarter. Thus far, it's been equal parts rewarding and exhausting--especially since we only get one day off a week.
The Sunday night before work started, I was a bridesmaid my childhood best friend's wedding in Salem. Many thanks and thousands of boxes of Good and Plentys are owed to my father for making sure I was back home in time to get to work that first Monday morning. This past Sunday was one of my roommate's birthdays, so of course we had to celebrate.
Yesterday, however, was probably my favorite August Sunday so far.
This past spring, I found a book called "I Hunt Killers" by Barry Lyga at my local library. I devoured the thing. It was the kind of book where, when I went back to the library to pick up reading material for a trip in June, I picked up the sequel, "Game", without a second thought. Similarly to the first book, I ate up the second within 48 hours of starting it--maybe less. My brother, who was on the trip with me, was so entertained/distracted/intrigued by my outbursts at the book that the series ended up being most of the dinner conversation one night.
It's dangerous to get me started on the books I'm reading. 
Mid-July, I made another trip back to the library and found the final book of the series, "Blood of My Blood" as well as five other books. I told myself that I was going to save the Barry Lyga novel until last and until I had a day to just sit down and read, but then that day didn't come for six weeks. Being an adult and actually taking care of my responsibilities takes a lot of time away from my reading.

Lemon Granita = Success

But, with the impending due date drawing nearer, I decided to make my day off--this past Sunday--a date with this book.
Of course, I'd also been feeling homesick earlier in the week so it turned out to be a date with "Blood of my Blood" and a granita recipe I received from my mother this past Christmas.
The lemony-goodness was so tasty, I could almost believe I was sitting at Old Time Bar, crashing the Saturday morning teacher breakfast. Almost.
I tend to forget how much I enjoy days set aside to do exactly what I want--whether it be read, experiment in the kitchen, or play with my craft supplies--as opposed to the things I should do. Having a Sunday to just wake up lazily then roll over and dive right into a book was amazing. It both reminds me of weekends past and has me looking forward to weekends once I don't have homework to be concerned about doing.
I'm really big on reflection. I think it's important to know how something affected you in the past so you can know whether it's worth investing in or risking in the future. In addition to the multitude of other things I've learned so far this summer, I know that taking a day to just read and stir my slowly freezing granita is as close to a perfect Sunday as yesterday could have been for me. Now if I can just find more time in the near future to relax and do rejuvenating things, I'll be quite happy.
For now, though, I have to pack.

My Last Day of Being 20

A year ago today, I was busy moving into my current apartment.
Two years ago today, I was chilling at my brother's place in Seattle.
Three years ago today, I don't actually remember where I was.
Honestly, that's kind of weird to be thinking about--where I was a year ago and how far I've come since then. Originally, I was planning on making this a long, semi-philosophical post about this year. But the real point of all of this can be summed up pretty succinctly:

I am proud of all that I've done this year and I am beyond excited to see what I'll accomplish in the coming year.

That said, cheers to being twenty and T-minus 2 hours and 20 minutes to being 21 :)

A Structured Summer?

Breaking News: I have been looking forward to this summer for months. 

Okay, maybe not the most breaking of news, but hey, still true. This summer has so many things in store. To name a few, this Thursday I'm going to see my favorite comedian; my birthday is next Friday; 4th of July plans is going to be explosive (if you'll pardon the pun); and I am going to be a bridesmaid in my oldest friend's wedding.
Mind you, those are just some of the big events.
And they're actually not the point. 
The real thought that provoked this post is "Wait a second, this will be the first summer ever where I have a place I have to be every day." Never in my life have I experienced this phenomenon. Usually, as soon as school's out, there's a mad dash to see all of my friends one more time and then we all go our separate ways for the summer. A military upbringing and a college lifestyle do not make for a lot of continuity or community in the summertime. Sure, when I was a wee tot, I spent my summers chilling around my family's house. We'd go camping, work on house projects, do pretty much whatever. But there was no structure to it really. Then we moved to Italy and spent our summers traveling. Well, we spent any expendable time we had traveling but, again, no structure in the summertime. Since coming to college, this is the the first summer where it didn't completely make sense for me to go spend the summer with my parents. I already have an apartment here and my parents are going to have a pretty transient summer. That is to say that I don't summer feel like living out of a suitcase enough to join my parents on their five week trip around the northwest corner of the US.
Basically, up until this year, summer has been this weird blob of time where I don't really actually completely have to do anything. 
That is not to say I didn't get things done but nothing was ever required.  
This summer, however, that will not be the case.
For the next six weeks, I will be in class for four hours a day, Monday through Friday. After those six weeks are up, I'm working the summer orientation programs hosted by my university. Besides a few random days off and weekends, my summer just morphed into being like every other part of my year.

My summer has a schedule.

Seriously, I have to be up in time for class at 9 and rested enough to be able to sit through 4 hours of class. Once work starts, my schedule will shift but it'll still exist. 

I have a summer schedule. 

Me. 

And I'm kind of excited about it. It means that I will actually be doing things this summer. Besides doing classes and eventually working, I want to be better about working on all of my writing projects (which likely means I'll be posting here a lot more) and getting back into running. I have goals and places to be this summer. 

Well, that's one more step on the road to adulthood. 

Lessons from a 19 Credit Quarter

Holy cow. It's done. I am officially finished with my first (and hopefully only) 19 credit quarter. On top of that, I managed to swing straight As in all four of my classes. If I ever had any doubt that I'm good at school, this past quarter cleared it right up.
Honestly, I've been trying to sit down and write this post for a week and a half. Even now, I'm thinking about which Netflix flick will claim the next part of my evening. But, after a week and a half of decompression time, it's time to blog.
To kick this off, let me just say that this quarter was crazy. I call it my 19 credit quarter because that's how many credits I was taking officially but, for about half the quarter, I was also taking 2 credits of volunteer training. 19 + 2 = 21. 21 credits...until I was cracking under the pressure and, unfortunately, had to remove my 2 volunteering credits from my schedule. Did you know that someone in the professional college world suggests that students should spend 2 hours doing homework/studying for every 1 hour they spend in the class? 21*2 = 42. While 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything, I was dumbfounded after I did that math. 40 hours a week of homework? Every single week? On top of spending time in class? I get that I'm a student and that school is important. But I am also a human. Humans need time to do other things--like eat and sleep. And, okay, I'll be honest. I wasn't spending 40 hours a week on homework. Nor (after mid-quarter) was I spending 21 hours a week in class. And, let me tell you, things felt much more sane after that.
Contributing to how crazy this quarter felt were all of the surprises that popped up. Whenever I told anyone that I was taking 19 credits, they offered sympathy and/or empathy. For perspective, 15 is the average course load. So 19 credits is a lot, both to those who haven't done it and to those that have. After this quarter, though, 19 credits doesn't feel like such a big deal. Surprise. Now, see above. I'm good at school. I have been since kindergarten. Back then, it was because I loved it. Now, however, I think it's more force of habit. School is what I know, so it's very easy to be good at it. That said, I am surprised that I managed to pull all As. Two 300 level classes, a 400 hundred level and a Spanish language class--not actually an easy combination. It feels like (and maybe sounds like) I'm bragging but I am seriously shocked at this quarter's grades. It makes me wonder what would happen if I enjoyed a higher percentage of the work and applied myself more. Not gonna lie, I did most of my reading for these classes with this or that TV show playing in the background. Except Spanish. Focusing on Spanish anything was too hard with an English audio soundtrack in the background.
But not all surprises were academic. Eventually (perhaps inevitably), most of these surprises became situations that had to be dealt with. For this or that reason, I'm sure that the others involved wouldn't super appreciate the details of those social situations appearing here but I will say that I learned a lot about my friends--both old-ish, brand new and every where in between. I learned a lot about who values me, how they value me, and who is just completely full of it. Pro-tip for anyone who is earnestly interested in being my friend: don't tell me you want to hang out and never pull through on it. It gets really boring to hear. 
On the flip side, however, I would like to say a thing or two to my baby dragon and my live-in cat:

I am dearly pleased to have met and become friends with both of you. It was a much livelier quarter with you two in it and I am grateful for all the cuddles in addition to the experiences. I hope that you are both enjoying your respective summers but, also, hurry back. I miss you.

I guess the concise way of expressing the feeling that this quarter has left me with is, when I look back on this quarter, I can see how much it inspired me to (and sometimes demanded that I) change. Scratch that, not change, but come more into my own. You know that joke "Give a girl the right pair of shoes and she'll conquer the world"? Well, I think I found the shoes. I'm just waiting to put them on. 

Why wait? Because, for the moment, my path is planned: finish college. After that, we'll see what happens :)

I'll tell you a secret, though...I bet I'll try them on a lot more often now. 

Look out, world. I am Robyn. Here me roar.

29 Days Left

Okay, so yesterday I decided to/made the mistake of counting how many days we have left in the quarter. Then I made a list of all the papers/projects/tests that I will end up completing before I turn in my last final. Want to see how crazy it is?

Over the next 29 days (21 of which contain some version of class) I will do the following things: 

• English Final
• Morphology and Syntax Paper
• Morphology and Syntax Wikipedia Project
• Capítulo 14 examen (Chapter 14 test)
• Capítulo 15 examen (I trust you to figure it out)
• Advising labs
• ASA Final

Suffice it to say that 19 credits is treating me about as well as I had expected: rudely. I'm finally hitting that point in my life when I don't want my life to be revolving around school anymore. Admittedly, that's a bit scary because (like most Western society 20 year olds), I can barely remember a time when my life wasn't dictated by what was happening at school.
But that also drives my curiosity to find out what in the world the world is like when I'm not always thinking about this or that assignment that I have to get done for this or that class. What is the like to go on a trip during the fall but not over Thanksgiving weekend? What is it like to wake up on a Saturday morning and ask yourself what needs to be done around your house before thinking about your homework? Honestly, what is it like to not have homework? What is it like to be working full time and being able to use (most) of that paycheck to fuel my hobbies? What hobbies will I discover when I have the time and energy to explore?
This myriad of questions is just a sampling of the barrage in my head. The point of all of them, though, is that schools is not the end-all-be-all I've been taught to think of it as. This is to say that school has been a big deal all of my life. And I'm smart so getting good grades was more fun than not, doing my homework was better than not, and paying attention in class ensured that teachers didn't scold me in front of everyone. Looking back, I don't actually know how I got through middle and high school. I had a huge list of extracurriculars and still managed to graduate with honors. I know that's not going to happen in college because I've been slowly coming to the realization that getting straights As isn't what I was made to do or should be doing or should be worried about doing. Honestly, I am much more interested in sorting out the social whirlwind I tend to find myself in. Knocking over some of those dominoes will have an affect; maybe it'll be good, maybe it'll be bad but something will happen. Contrast that with studying the word and sentence structure of Native American languages.
Sidebar: That is not to say that I think studying Native American language isn't valuable or worth the time. It's just not what I want to do with my time.
I'm just saying that figuring out my social whirlwind currently feels more valuable to me than spending 19 hours a week sitting about in class. My fingers are super crossed that taking fewer credits for the rest of my college career will help balance out this feeling of "I am so ready to get out of here". And, for those moments when my social life is progressing on a happy and linear path, I would still much rather be spending my time working on my writing endeavors, reading new books, crocheting as many things as I have yarn for, and watching all of my TV shows.
Devoting this much energy to school is taxing and I am so ready for a time in my life when I can devote all of my energy to something besides assigned reading and paper writing.
Here's hoping the rest of this quarter treats me kindly.

What Does Learning Mean to You?

It's about that time of year again, time to be applying to scholarships. The following is my submission to the 2015 Fall CourseHorse Learner's Scholarship, coursehorse.com/scholarship.

The above quote from Mark Twain is one of the most apt ways of wording how I feel about education or, rather, learning.
One misconception that I notice people have about learning is that it always happens in an academic setting, textbook open and pencil in hand. Currently, I am working through my sixteenth year in some sort of academic institution and I can say with perfect certainty that many of the most important lessons I have learned have not been related to my academic studies.
From the moment we are born, we are perceiving and processing the world around us. We start learning practically as soon as we open our eyes and that process never stops. Our first lessons are simple: how to eat, when to sleep, what noises inspire us to laugh (even if we don't understand the concept of "funny" yet). From there we progress to rudimentary communication; children often use their hands to communicate before they can produce speech. As small and fragile as babies are, they find a way to tell the adults around them what they want. They are able to do this because of what they have observed the adults around them doing.
As soon as we are able to communicate with spoken words, the lessons we must learn increase in difficulty: learning "please" and "thank you", learning not to throw temper tantrums when we don't get what we want, learning how to tie our shoes. Most of these lessons are taught to us by those nearest to us, usually our families. In this sense, our families become our first teachers.
I had five first teachers: my mom, my dad, and my three older siblings. I quickly learned about sharing, about playing nice with others, and that my mother's cookies are as close to magic as food can get. I remember sitting at the dinner table as a child and just watching the rest of my family interact with each other. Through those nights of observation, I learned that mild teasing was a form of affection, listening to others would always be appreciated, and lively discussions was a sign of a healthy set of relationships. Obviously, it took me a long while to be able to articulate what the lessons were and what their consequences on my life looked like.
As is the case with most American children, I entered kindergarten at the age of five and was instantly overwhelmed with the new environment. While simple lessons like my ABC's set the foundation for my ability to communicate successfully later in life, being in a classroom with other students gave me one of my first chances to try communicating with relatively unfamiliar people. I learned that I liked people who wanted to run around at recess and follow the rules during class time; I learned what kinds of people I enjoyed people around. As I grew and moved up in school, I continued to learn about the subjects set forward in the curriculum of my classes but I also continued learning about the people I spent time with and, through that, had some of my first realization about the kind of person I wanted to be. As an example, I saw the class bully and didn't want to be mean like that; but I saw the student who brought cupcakes to share on their birthday and wanted to be nice like that.
Once I entered high school, I had a firm understanding of the person I wanted to be and how I wanted to be involved with the world--namely, I was an introvert that just wanted to read, write, and spend time with her few quality friends. However, my school had other plans for me, which resulted in me holding various leadership roles. Through those positions, I learned about my own quiet style of leading.
Referring again to the above quote from Mark Twain, it is worth nothing that many of my high school lessons that have stuck with me were not directly related to the course material. My AP Calc teacher must have taught me about integrals but I remember the speeches he gave to my classmates and me about taking care ourselves once we were on our own. That said, the fact that I always loved walking into my English classes and spent a fair amount of my spare time working on non-academia related fiction stories gave everyone around me a clear idea of my ideal future career path as a writer.
As I work on completing my sixteenth year of schooling, my learning goals are almost equally balanced between academic, professional and social: progressing through the requirements of my major and minors, trying to gain more work experience, and figuring out the best way to navigate my personal relationships, respectively.
Learning, to me, means acquiring the knowledge it takes to be a useful member of society. This can happen in school academically but it is also happening every minute of every day. If someone refuses to learn, they will inevitably become a drain on productive society. My parents always taught all of their children to be intelligent, independent, and innovative. My siblings and I were encouraged to learn because our parents knew learning would give us the tools to achieve our goals while also adding something positive to the world around us. 

Spring Quarter, Here I Come

I'm always surprised when I start missing elements of previous life stages. People always say that change is good so I tend to think "I've changed, life's changed, shouldn't it be better now?"
Well, yeah, it's true. I am happier in my current life place than I was a year and a half ago or two and a half years ago or four years...you get it. But I do find myself missing things about previous life stages. Having thought about this quite a lot, I think what I miss about these previous stages are the simplicity.
For example, I'm a junior now, which means that getting into certain classes is crucial but also occasionally difficult. It also means that, this quarter, I have to do the thing I always call people crazy for doing and take 19 credits.
Let me say that again:
I'm taking 19 credits.
And those are just my official credits, mind you. I have two extra class hours a week so I can be trained for a volunteer position I'm taking on (fingers crossed) next year. My supervisor wants me to start this quarter. :O We'll see how that goes. And then there's dancing and writing group. Suffice it to say that I am going to be very busy this quarter.
Being that busy is something that I've been nervous about but, also, I'm kind of looking forward to it. It'll be a good challenge. Before this academic year started, I think I underestimated how restless/bored/unsatisfied not having a job/something besides school to do would leave me. Granted, most of my busy will be school related but there's more to be doing now.

Speaking of which, I should get back to my homework. 

Dear friends, your love, support, and understanding will be greatly appreciated this quarter. 

Love, Robyn

Post College Is On the Horizon

Do you want to know a secret? I've been trying to write a new blog post for three months but (for this or that reason) it keeps not happening. So today I'm determined to create a post.
Here we go--
Last night, as I sat at my kitchen counter working on job applications, I looked over to my roommate and said, "Do you realize that, in a year, we will have just started our last quarter of college?" Suffice it to say that we had a mutual freak out moment that this phase of our lives is actually that close to ending. Yes, we still have a calender year with five quarters to get through (this spring quarter is included in that count as is this summer quarter) but that's not really that long.
Well, it is long and it's not.
Right before this school year started, I ran into a dancing friend who was entering her senior year. I asked her if she had any plans for post-college. Her response was something along the lines of, "Graduation is nine months away. If I got pregnant right now, I could have a child by the time I graduate. It's still too far away to really think about." She went on to clarify that she was not planning to get pregnant and that she had a few ideas about what she might do once she had her diploma in hand, but the "it's still nine months away" comment was great for a laugh and to remind me that senior year is about more than graduating.
While I am still a junior, I can feel senior year approaching fast and I'm doing my best not to be terrified of everything that it means. I mean, really, junior year comes with its own set of worries that I'm trying to tackle at the moment. Why take on senior year worries now?
Though, I do admit that one of my favorite pastimes recently is pondering what I might once I'm out in the real world. Here's my list of ideas so far:

• Author of novels (probably YA fiction) 
• Flight Attendant
• Vagabond
• Something in the marketing/communications field
• Travel Writer 

For any who don't know, I'm studying Linguistics as my major, Creative Writing as my minor, and am planning to also complete a Spanish language minor. The summation of these are that I'm into language(s). The logic train in my head goes: languages -> cultures -> people -> travel. I'm also a very people-centric person, which is to say that I need to have people in my life pretty constantly. That's probably kind of a ridiculous thing to state verbatim because we, as humans, are social creatures, but I'm a fan of extra clarification so ta-da. Being as mobile as most of these aforementioned ideas would allow me to be is both wonderful and terrifying. Wonderful because I would presumably be in constant contact with lots of different people. Terrifying because I don't know how likely it would be that I'd be in regular contact friends and I care very dearly for my friends.

My dream, pretty much

Again with the obvious statements but being out of college is going to be such a new experience. School has been an integral part of my life since I was five years old. I'm nearly twenty-one years of life on this planet so some quick math leaves us with the fact that I've been school-centric for sixteen years. And I'm still preparing to add one more year to that count before I find a new norm. 

A new norm. Really, that's what graduating is going to mean for me (and what I'm guessing it means for a fair number of my predecessors.) I know there's an ideal that people who attend universities will learn not only their chosen subject matter but also how to adapt, grow, and do both productively, possibly with other people present. I'm also hoping that I have learned how to adapt better than I mastered (or perhaps "mastered") my chosen subject matter. While I am curious about linguistics, love creative writing, and desire to know more about the Spanish language, the skills taught to me in those classes may not always be directly applicable to life in the real world. (No, I don't really consider college to be the 'real world' but it's a good stepping stone). That said being able to adapt to new situations will always serve me well.
In short, it's hard to believe that the college part of my life is so close to being over and I am very curious to see what post-college has in store for me.

Halloween Begins

 My roommate altered the caption after I drew this. It now says "The beautifully drawn pumpkin says: Happy October!" with 'beautifully' in fancy cursive. Anyways, a vampire-esque pumpkin seemed like a necessity today so, ta da, there's a vampire-esque pumpkin.
Speaking of my roommate, (scratch that, flatmate) she would probably say that Halloween has been going on ever since our calendars hit October the first. She says (and I don't quite know if she's joking) that "Halloween is a mindset". It's an interesting concept to have a mental state equivalent to a holiday. I'm not sure how much we've been Halloween-y thus far this month (though there has been an upwards trend in how much we listen to the amazing tunes provided by "Rocky Horror Picture Show"). I wonder what that graph would look like..."Number of Rocky songs listened to vs. Time of Year". It'd be a line graph for sure, with lots of colors. I like colors :)
Coming back to the point, if we allow that maybe Halloween didn't quite start on the 1st of the month, I think it can officially start tonight. At least for me. My flatmate's Halloween may start tomorrow. Tonight is the first of what feels like many Halloween parties that I will be participating in. Begin the parade of costumes (of which there are actually six--oh my). I think I'm most excited for the costumes (no, the plural isn't a typo) that I'm going to wear on Halloween itself.
Side note: there are "free hugs" people in Red Square :) I love the "free hugs" people.
Also, wow, I'm a ridiculously large fan of parenthetical statements... whoops
The other reason that this weekend should be amazing is that I have an out-of-towner coming up! Namely, my brother :) I feel like I haven't seen him in a while, so getting to spend the weekend doing all manner of fun things should be quite wonderful.
So the conclusion of all of this is that Halloween and midterms shouldn't happen at the same time :/ but that this weekend and this coming week are going to be fan-freaking-tastic!
And now I'm going to go giggle about how that's a reference to my linguistics class... Happy Friday! 

4 Hours of Sleep + Quiz + Test = Good Day?

Newly realized pet peeve: when someone walks slowly and doesn't pick a side of the sidewalk! I'm all walking behind them and don't want to be a jerk about the fact that I walk faster, but they make it so hard to pass politely! All I ask is that people are aware of their surroundings!
I've had a lot of strong feelings this morning...sometimes sleep shortages are great for brain blasts. But only sometimes. I promise not to make short nights a habit. Pinky promise, even!
Okay, a few deep breath...in...out...in...out... And moving on
For any who don't know, people watching is practically a hobby and, dear goodness, the Underground Coffee House on campus is just bursting with interesting people to observe. I find myself legitimately unable to concentrate on story planning (NaNo is 8 days away!!) when chilling in here because there's always someone doing something that I'm curious about. Extra points to the girl who was at an adjacent table for having a sweet tattoo :) Like, I have so many characters and character relations to sort out but I won't be doing it here because people are interesting, man! Perhaps they can function as inspiration later...
Though, speaking of adjacent tables, I've decided (officially) that getting to know someone is seriously the biggest favor you can do them. Or yourself for that matter. Like, there's this pair of girls in my Spanish class that have a history of giving me grumpy feels because of how much they whisper and chatter in class. They always seem irked about the material, which is confusing to the nth degree in my book. Anyways, after the Spanish test today, I ended up in the Underground (for the WWU cats who don't know, the Underground has a sandwich with apples on it. It's amazing. Go eat one). After I sat down and sort of settled, it clicked that one of said pair of annoying girls was sitting at a nearby table. We said 'hey' and chatted about the test/class. Now, let me be clear. I don't think this one interaction is the key to me never being annoyed again, it was nice to touch base and get to know a bit of what makes her tick. (sidebar: I feel obsessed with clocks at the moment).
I'm sort of in this "I love people" daze at the moment. This week has been kind of a whirlwind in regards to how much friend/people interaction I've been involved in but I'm at a very happy place in the storm--if you'll pardon the analogy. Like, Monday was blah but last nigh and today have been exceptionally lovely. New friends (or rekindling older friendships) are quite rewarding. And nice.
I should maybe stop calling them 'new' when I've known of them for a year... Maybe. I shall have to reflect on that

Anonymous Superheroes in the Harry Potter room

For some reason, I find it really entertaining to listen to EDM in the "quiet" areas of the library. (clarification, I do use headphones). I just think it's funny how often I hear that silence is better for studying and then feel like the odd one out for liking to have some sort of noise happening around me when I study/do homework. Fun fact, "CSI: NY" functions really well as background noise. I honestly think it helps my brain focus if it has two things to focus on. Otherwise, it wanders to random-whatever or just kind of shuts down. The former tends to lead to another thing to focus on (over the past few weeks, it's been running off to NaNo planning whenever it gets the chance). The latter, however, gets me into some trouble. If you look at my notes, you can definitely see the moments in class where I start drifting off.
I thought I was supposed to get less fidgety as an adult, not more. Seriously, it is much harder for me to sit through a boring class now than it ever was in middle or high school. Though, I admit, some of that can probably be attributed to the fact that I was getting more consistent and just more sleep than I do now.
Speaking of NaNo planning, I think it's okay to start the count down now: 16 days until I can actually start writing :) Between then and now, I plan to finish sketching out all my characters and their relations to each other, map out their city, and flesh out my plot. Lots to do in between all the homework and Halloween plans. My roommate's enthusiasm about the holiday is pretty infectious and, since Halloween is as good an excuse as any for a party, I have the need for five costumes. Let me say that again. I will be wearing five costumes over the course of the last week of October. And I have an idea for a sixth, should the need for it arise.
Confession time: the inspiration for this post came mostly from desire to not to more homework. Sorry if it's a little scatterbrained :P
But can I tell you about the other cool thing that happened today? I stopped by the international studies office here on campus and picked up some study abroad research things. Spain sounds fun.  Potential summer plans, right there.

Also, just in case anyone was curious, here was my music of choice this afternoon; it's one of my favorite sets: Adventure Club -- "Superheroes Anonymous Volume. 3"

Oh Dear. Mondays.

Here's what today has looked like up until this point:
1) Alarm at 7:00 a.m.
2) Snooze until 7:20 a.m.
3) Prepare for day until 8:00 a.m.
4) Leave for campus at 8:00 a.m.
5) 8:30 a.m. to 9:50 a.m. is Linguistics
6) 10:00 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. is Spanish
7) Catch bus home
8) Watch episode of "CSI: NY" while making/eating lunch and dinner
9) Leave (again) for campus, catch bus at 12:40 p.m.
10) Meeting with academic advisers at 1:00 p.m.
11) Finish meeting at 1:30 p.m., head to library
12) Complete Spanish homework by 2:05 p.m. and wonder about Linguistics

Oddly enough, this is not any more busy than a typical Monday. Usually my step 7 is to go to the gym, a shower is added to step 8 and I don't catch a bus back to campus until 2:40 p.m. -- just in time to make it to my class that goes from 3:00 p.m. to 6:50 p.m. How I'm going to stay awake in that class today, I have no idea. I used to be able to just zone out but now my brain automatically tries to go to sleep. All I want to do with my afternoon is go on a run, plan for NaNoWriMo, and watch "Hemlock Grove". Alas, I shall be stuck in class -- trying not to plan for NaNo. (Perhaps failing not to plan for NaNo.

Honestly, if there has to be one day a week where I am out of my house practically all day, Monday is probably a good day for it. No one likes Mondays anyways and then it's all over. The rest of my week is always pretty nice.

Here are some teacup bunnies for your Monday troubles

Welcome to Monday - Week Two

good morning pulmonic lungs, ridges, and egressives,
welcome to monday - week two
vocal folds not shown in class
but "glottis" is giggle worthy
do sexy voice. now do frog voice
have I told you how I love my professor?
articulators and tips, blades and hard palates
m as in "magic" and b as in "book"
welcome to monday - week two
conjugations and Spanish pronunciations
Si mi papá es profesor de ¿matematica?
I forgot how much I missed language
Even if that guy is in my class
I should probably tell mi profesora about Italy
welcome to monday - week two
surprise! another syllabus day
four hours class in one sitting
can't believe I haven't fallen asleep
well, mostly not
welcome to monday - week two

First Week of Classes, Year Three

It's surreal to think that I have officially started my junior year of college. Technically I crossed the junior-credit-level threshold at some point last school year. But it feels so different to cross that threshold than to walk into a classroom and think "This is my junior year of college". Thankfully, classes have gone very well thus far. Linguistics and Spanish are pretty up my alley, and my third class doesn't start until Monday so jury is still out on how that'll be. (Actually, the jury isn't even in yet because Monday is still three days away...anyways!)
I am happy to report that I feel a lot better going into this year than I have in previous years. Certain life elements feel more where they should be and it feels like I have a clear goal about what I need to be doing--at least on the academic front. Plus I get to explore the joys of off-campus living, which is pretty stellar so far. It was really nice to already be settled into my abode before classes started. Though, to be honest, it took until the last of my friends were back in town before I felt completely settled. I guess I didn't realize how much I believe the philosophy of "It's not where you are, it's who you're with". Retrospectively, though, it makes pretty perfect sense that I think like that. Some of my favorite vacations and cities are almost solely favorites because of the people I was with while exploring, and while I do have some amazing memories of me doing my own thing, I enjoy getting up to shenanigans with people more than doing it by myself.  Yay for friends!! :)
One of my goals for this year is to write significantly more than I've been over the past two. Sophomore year feels pretty successful since I did NaNoWriMo and I know that freshman year was affected by how swept I was with everything college. But I want to write with more regularity and increasing quality, la la la writer-goals. I don't know if I'll be doing most of my writing here or creatively in one of my many journals (seriously, I have four blank ones on my shelf at home). But I will be doing it somewhere. Fingers crossed, at least.
Basically, cheers to starting a new year and all of new chances this year will bring. Despite the homework I already have, I'm pretty excited :)

The Last 3 Posts of this Challenge

I've spent the last three days unpacking my new apartment and being on a train so I greatly apologize for the lack of blog posts but I haven't had internets until right now so I'm just doing the best I can. 
Day 29...Inside Your Fridge
There was nothing in my fridge on this day. Seriously, it was entirely void of any food stuffs. I guess that's what happens when it's the first day in a new apartment since there just hasn't yet been time to get food things. It's always funny to look at an empty fridge just because there should be so many things inside of it. I have a feeling that there will be so many things inside of it once I'm home in a month (many thanks to my flatmate cause she'll be the one stocking it this time mostly). Full fridges are happier to open so I'm very excited for things to start living in there.
Day 30...Nature
Feels like I haven't got to experience it for a while now--I've been doing a really irresponsible thing and spending all the time I can sitting about on Netflix. I did go swimming in a cove near school a few weeks ago and that was absolutely lovely (if a bit cold). One thing I'm really excited for about my new place is that it's one the ground floor and there is a nice grass patch right outside my back door. It's nice for me and the for the deer that like to snack there. It was very exciting cause the first night in our apartment was marked by there being a deer in our backyard. The previous tenants told us that they managed to feed the deer one time so I imagine the deer are comfortable hanging out there, which will be fun to see if they come as regularly as I hope they will.
Day 31...You, Again
Today, I am twenty years old. Happy birthday to me! It feels kind of crazy, honestly, to say that I am two decades old. Maybe possibly because of the fact that the past two days have been crazy and I am running on about nine hours of sleep probably. As suggested above, the last two days have been move-in days for my new apartment. It went really well but it was such a long process. Napping on the train today was a life saver. Now I just get to chill in Portland for a few hours :) Powell's is a block away from the coffee shop whose internet I'm stealing and I'm going to head over there in a bit. Probably won't buy anything but Powell's :) For any not the Pacific Northwest, Powell's is a ridiculously huge bookstore. Like, if you go with someone and split up, you might need to call them to find them again. It's this nerd's dream. Time to go explore the shelves :)

Day 28...Light

I'm of the opinion that light is a very good thing. I like the idea that light is a characteristic. Like a picture has light spots and dark spots, but that has a lot more to do with lighting. No, I mean more so whether the picture is light in such that it lifts your spirit somehow. I am in love with anything that lightens the spirit because, in this day and age, it's very easy to get bogged down in everything that goes on in life. Currently, I'm organizing my move into my first apartment, wondering about jobs, trying to find out what the plan for the summer is, and being excited to be back in my town for a few days. The last of this list does a very good job of lightening my spirit because I'm working hard to see many people that I've been missing a lot over these past two weeks. Realistically I'll probably see four of them but that's four more people than I got to see yesterday so yay!
Back to light. Light is just interesting (and I'm beginning to understand why people say "interesting" doesn't really have value as a word anymore). There is something beautifully simplistic about light. It's just there. It comes with the sun and (mostly) leaves with the sun. It's there and then it's not. It's predictable and constant. Light itself seems to have a comforting characteristic. (We're excluding electric lights for the moment). One of my favorite things is to wear clear prisms on sunny days and just watch how the light flows into the prism and refracts back out into the world. I know I should know why that works but my 7th and 8th grade science knowledge is currently playing hard to get.
I'm almost always happier when there is light around. I feel nicer in the summer months and I am happier to be around people who possess a 'light' personality characteristic. Light (like color) is inspiring to me, both in its presence and its absence. (This is to say that going on walks at night is one of the best times to feel connected to the world around.)

Day 27...Lunch

Lunch isn't really a meal I spend a lot of time thinking about. It's just a marker that my day is halfway over. Today, lunch consisted of a pork and cheese melt that was basically leftovers from a party that happened last night. The one thing that tends to confuse me about lunch is that I don't know how social of a meal it's supposed to be. Sometimes it's grab'n'go. Sometimes it's brunch. Sometimes it's "I didn't really eat breakfast so I'm starving!". It's sort of weird, the odd in between.
I dunno, it's lunch. *shrugs