Ah, College

I've only just realized how neglectful I have been to this blog. Strange how college does that to you...I arrived here only last week and have been busy with something every day since then. When I was in high school I always imagined college students had ample amounts of time on their hands to spend how they liked. Now I see that the time spent in class is prioritized in a number of different ways: sleeping, eating, studying, socializing. For the most part, that seems to be the correct order of importance. I find it so funny. The noise outside my door is always in flux depending on the time of day. But I can handle it.

And I suppose I am expected to elaborate on what life is like on this little Oglethorpe campus. I'm going to say that I love it. The nervous anticipation before I arrived had cast a little doubt on my decision to attend, but now I'm happy to say that I am now comfortably settled in with plenty of new friends and am having lots of fun. That sounded like a postcard letter, didn't it?

So I guess I'll start from the beginning:

Orientation was extremely exhausting. We woke up at 7 and got back to the dorms at 11. Our days were full of cemetery clean-ups, dance parties, ice breakers, and lots of awkward moments. But I enjoyed it. I met a lot of people, made some new friends, and played some really hilarious rounds of Catchphrase...I realize I'm over-generalizing, but bear in mind, I have an entire week of college to get through. :)

Monday marked the start of classes. I found out the hard way that French 101 is complete immersion. Heh, but I think I'll trek through because I know I do not want to study Spanish again. I was probably one of the only freshman in the class, so it was on top of that extremely intimidating. I think I will enjoy my 18th and 19th Century Lit class even though it's starting out a little slow, the class is only around nine or so people. And my playwriting class is really funny. It reminded me of how much I missed having theatre people in my life and how I can't wait to stop being that quiet little freshman in the corner.

I had my first college nap. I think that's worth noting. Ha.

On Thursday a couple of friends and I decided to attend a Sorority Recruitment function. It meant free ice cream, so why not? I met a lot of girls from all three of Oglethorpe's sororities, all of whom were nice, inviting, and extremely talkative. I know they're supposed to be that way for potential recruits/pledges/sisters, but it convinced to me to at the least go through Formal Recruitment. That's an exciting possibility.

And the most important new detail of my new Oglethorpe life is that I was cast in the first show of the season! I'm starting where I left off last year: on the stage. We had our first read-through, and the show is hilarious. I'm so excited to start rehearsing for the show at the end of September.

Otherwise, I've been spending my time in good company. I've watched more horror movies in the past few days than I have before in my entire life. And I've seen what a real Frat Party is like...but we won't go into that too much. But now another movie party calls. Bien nuit, mis amis!

Don't you like my French rhyming skills?

Note: If it wasn't already obvious, this post took my four days to complete. I will try to get better at this.

How do they eat?

I have been so productive today. I wrote myself a To-Do List…

…and then proceeded to doodle all around it as my mom and I sat on the couch watching the recorded episodes of my mom’s regular soaps and eating leftover pizza. I think it turned out very pretty, don’t you? I also think I deserve to loaf around during my last week being at home; it’s nice to just sit around with my family and do nothing more than just enjoy each other’s company. In a week that will no longer be the norm. It’s so strange to think about that.

My mom was watching me as I drew and she asked me what I was thinking about and I told her I wasn’t thinking about anything. Doodling is that way, I guess. In a way, it comes from the subconscious…and I guess my subconscious is full of linear forms broken up by circles and dots. It’s a spontaneous mess of lines and curves. Spontaneous. Suck it Andy Warhol.

Aside from my productive venture into list-making, today I went cake-tasting with my future sister-in-law. Case and point: best cake I ever had. Now I feel like a pig. And old. I feel so old, my brother is getting married. I feel so old, children don’t know who N*SYNC and the Backstreet Boys anymore. I feel so old, I was born almost twenty years ago.

And I know I really have no room to talk. Commence the scoffing. I deserve it.

I’m hoping my rye sense of humor translates onto this computer screens. I’ve been told my posts depress. I’m hoping to change that. Maybe I’ll add an emoticon to clarify. :)

EDIT:

I found out today the theatre schedule for OU. It only makes me more excited to get there.

I only see in shades of grey.

So here I sit, typing by the light of the lamp in my bathroom because I am so considerate at 1:15 in the morning and don’t want to disturb the cat that has taken over my bed by turning on the light. I believe she senses the eminence of my departure and therefore feels comfortable to lay where she pleases. Recently, it has been my pillow space.

That is how I am explaining my being up this late. It’s either that or admitting the number of Dr. Peppers I drank today (two; I’m cutting back). There isn’t anything I can do about it now, so I go back to what I always do when I’m this late and write. I don’t feel like grabbing the pen and my journal, so I neglect it for tonight and reach for my laptop because I feel this blog isn’t updated with as much frequency as I had intended when I first started.

I’m rambling. I should probably do this update right.

Sunday was my eighteenth birthday. Nothing too terribly exciting. Spent the day with my family and the boyfriend, nothing much to tell. I did have a very delicious Oreo cake though. Yummy. Can you tell the reality of turning eighteen hasn’t hit me yet? (So-called)Important things never really hit me as I experience them, they tend to slowly seep in for me to realize much much later. Good thing? Bad thing? Or nothing at all.

Yeah. We’ll go with that.

I feel like I’m starting this countdown a little late: eight more days until I leave for Oglethorpe. I probably should have started this in June? Oh well.

Believe me, I am excited, I just need to stop blogging in the early morning hours after I spend my night watching Star Wars on Spike and discovering that episodes of My So-Called Life are on Hulu. Waste of time? I think not. Bad for display of human emotions? I think so.

I suppose I will do a more convincing job of relaying of the excitement and anticipation I feel about finally going to college at a later date and more convenient time of the day.

I should kick the cat out of the bed and get some sleep. Expect me to update more often.

A Midsummer Night’s Musings

Ah, July. It seems that my summer of limbo is passing by so fast.

Only two weeks ago I was running around Charleston with four of my friends in celebration of our new-found freedom. Now I sit at home every day and prepare.

Prepare for what, exactly? In less than two months I will be arriving on a college campus with (almost) everything I own in tow. Slowly, my living room accumulates more and more stuff. The imminence of college lies heavy on my house.

Not to say that this is a particularly somber time…I am very excited. It’s just knowing that I will soon be experiencing entirely new and different things that makes me restless and anxious for it.

But I feel mostly that I’m preparing to leave. My father and I finally have some time to spend together and I am reminded of how well we get along and how much I am going to miss our sarcastic repartees across the dinner table that drive my mother to roll her eyes and groan her displeasure.

For some reason I don’t feel I can communicate all of these feelings effectively. They all come out so flat and the words get all jumbled up somewhere in between my brain and my fingers. None of it is transferring well here. It must be connected to this recent dry spell in my writing, but nobody wants to hear about that.

I have to be ambitious. Words don’t write themselves.

You can tell it’s getting rather late and my mind is wandering this way and that, seamlessly flowing from one thought to the next.

I should probably stop now. Hehe.

Summer Insomnia

It is currently 1:38 in the morning, according to the alarm clock on my bedside table.

Ah, my mistake. It is now 1:39.

My room is the only one still emitting light and noise. Everyone else has gone to sleep and for some strange reason my body still doesn’t feel the pull of exhaustion. It is inevitable I will force myself to lie down in the dark around 2:30 and wake up sometime around 12:45. And it is rare that I can find anything productive to do with myself in any case…there is a to-do list staring at me on my mirror and so far I’ve only managed to cross one thing off of it. There are still many pressing things that need to be resolved in a timely manner, but I can’t seem to muster the will to accomplish any of them. Summer seems only to exacerbate my laziness. So being the hypocrite I am, I will just continue to wax on everything that needs to be done. I am, however, proud that I managed to rearrange my room all by myself the other day.

It’s a start at least.

I was talking to Bryan the other afternoon about blogging, and I confessed that I was thinking about starting one. He encouraged me to do it, and so here I am. I don’t know what I plan to accomplish with it or what exactly I mean to talk about that anyone would have an interest in, but we’ll see how this goes.

It occurs to me that my current case of sloth is a by-product of boredom. Boredom, apparently, is dangerous for a creative mind. Perhaps I need to do something with myself, seeing that my half-hearted job hunt has proved fruitless. I still have an empty canvas in the corner, maybe I should paint something. I tried drawing from magazine advertisements earlier, but in the end I made Gisele look demonic, but I’ll blame that on the fact that I only had colored pencils at hand. Or the fact that I can’t draw.

Yeah, let’s go with the colored pencils.

I must confess: it doesn’t feel any different, being a high school graduate. In fact, it didn’t feel especially special being a high school senior either. All my expectation ended in disappointment, I suppose. The summer before I go off to college is starting out like any other summer, except for the fact that all of my friends are scrounging together beach trips with more earnestness than they would otherwise. But perhaps I’m being too cynical. Perhaps it will hit me when I step on the Oglethorpe campus next fall that these friends -most of whom I’ve grown up in some form or another- will not be around anymore. Even now though, the thought really doesn’t scare me all that much. Consult me again come September.

So change is coming. I know it. I expect it. And I just hope it doesn’t hit me square in the face when it does. Because I want to be ready for it.