This title is not intended to be as emo as it sounds. I am merely quoting a song I have stuck in my head all of a sudden (I’ll Never Tell from the Buffy musical episode).
As I’m so fond of saying at this moment in time, I am currently in class. Now, don’t think I am slacking off. I am most certainly not. However, our 2D class is having individual critique right now, which means there is a lot of time to kill. I was fully intending to work on my pieces for the current project, but my plan fell through. You see, I absolutely cannot stand working in Adobe Illustrator with a mouse. Because of this, I planned to bring my laptop and Wacom tablet in today, which I successfully did. However, I neglected to bring the PEN, making it extremely difficult to use these tools. Alas, alas for me.
I realize, though, that I should probably give an accurate picture of my college lifestyle! It has been a while since I updated this, and therefore I should post my two cents on this whole “independent adult” thing.
So I am in college! I am in a brand new town, living in a brand new building, hanging out with brand new people, taking brand new classes, and eating brand new food. Sorta. That last segment may be a a little skewed. So I’ll elaborate.
I moved into Campbell (the best dang dorm building on campus, thankyouverymuch, for reasons I’ll share shortly) about three and a half weeks ago-ish. Let me stop here and say it’s a very nice building. Four floors, lounges on every floor (I think that’s standard, but that’s beside the point), multiple staircases making moving around easy, and extremely close proximity to the better (in my opinion) of the two dining halls. Epic win? I think so.
Continuing, I moved into my room, which is on the fourth floor. At first, I thought that was going to be downright awful. Actually, at times it IS downright awful. However, it contributes to the fact that I’m probably the in best shape of my life–I went home for a weekend and going up my home stairs, which used to wind me (embarassingly enough), was a piece of cake. I bounded up the stairs like a jackrabbit. But I digress. I live on the fourth floor in Everafter house, which is the most adorable theme ever. My roommate is named Lisa, and she’s very sweet. She’s a business major, and though we may differ in certain tastes, we get along remarkably well. We’re both cool with a bit of a mess, she puts up with my Joker posters and I don’t mind her country singer posters, and neither of us are in the room much. It’s a pretty sweet set-up!
The room itself is GIGANTIC. I mean, really. We lucked out and got a white room, and I’m pretty sure they’re bigger than the other rooms (I do have a point of reference–my BFFs both live in the other kind of room). We have all the amenities: a TV, a fridge, a microwave, a toaster, a sink, a medicine cabinet, two chairs, two loft beds, two desks, two rugs, and sweet pull-out closets for maximum space useage. Plus we have a nice window that lets us see the street, get sunlight, and let in air, BUT there’s a rather large tree in front of it, so people can’t really see into our room when we don’t want them to do so.
Now, I said I liked my hall, but I mostly just like the theme. I have about three friends in Everafter (my roommate, a girl I met at orientation named Morgan, and another girl named Karen who lives further down the hall). Other than that, I’m rarely in my hall. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Everafter (though, as my roommate and I agree, sometimes some of the girls seem…a tad snobbish? It’s difficult to say, but there’s that feeling you get). I just tend to spend most of my time elsewhere, hanging with friends. As that’s the most fun part of this whole story, I’ll save it for last.
Next, food. I said I was skewing it a bit when I said brand new food. That would be because I am skewing it a little. The food is relatively normal food. And GOOD! I mean, wow. I never expected to love pasta as much as I do. I literally eat at least one bowl of pasta per day. And on top of that, I’m branching into more interest sauces! Our alfredo sauce is phenomenal, I kid you not. I am thrilled whenever we have it. Homestyle cheese sauce is pretty excellent, too. …However, this means that I rarely eat meat. So I try to eat a ham and cheese sandwich for one meal each day. Y’know. For balance. I have also learned to love fruit and grape juice, the other two complements to my meals. I usually have either an apple or a banana with each meal. I am rather proud of myself for this! Breakfast isn’t great, but that’s because I have 8 o’ clock classes every day (poor life choice). I also could use a run to the convenience store across the street; I have run out of all breakfast food save for dry cereal. Hmmmm. I almost ate cookies for breakfast today, but I ended up just saving my appetite for lunch (I woke up at 9:30 due to having no class until 12:30 today).
That’s a pretty good segue into classes. I have five different classes. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I have Drawing 8-10:45 (ouch), which I actually really enjoy most of the time. We’re currently learning two-point perspective, which is a pain in my kiester, so I’m not terribly thrilled about it. After that, I have several hours to kill until Humanities from 2 to 2:50. I have that with, like, my two best college friends, so it’s quite a lot of fun (…mostly because they’re there, though…the teacher tends to drone on about unrelated topics, which is a pity that can be interesting on occasion but tends to not be so). Fridays are the same as Mondays and Wednesdays EXCEPT that I have a seminar at 9 instead of Drawing. Which is kinda nice! I could have sworn they said tomorrow’s seminar had something to do with ninjas. I’m really hoping I didn’t mishear them.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are not fun times for me. I have Oral Communication 8-9:45. They say it’s “not a speech class”, but it basically is. It’s not BORING, per se, it’s just not my favorite class. Plus I hate speeches, so that’s not earning any points. After that, I wait around until 12:30, at which point I have Art History. This class has the potential to either be really fun or really horrible. The professor is hilarious; he goes on weird rants in the middle of class and makes references to questionable things and is very charismatic and excellent. Unfortunately, I am usually kinda tired at this point in the day, so I sometime struggle with staying awake during his particularly off-topic tangents. It IS nice to have printed PDFs of his class slides, though, as I can take notes on those much easier than having to draw thumbnails of all his slides. Immediately after that, I have 2D concepts. It is currently my least favorite class. I don’t actually mind the work, I can deal with Illustrator (we’re moving into another program, too, so that’s a plus). I just don’t enjoy using Macs, I don’t enjoy having nothing to do during individual critiques, and I don’t enjoy having to use a mouse instead of a tablet. Hence why I’m not working right now. I suppose, however, that it could be worse. The teacher is very nice (I am one of the few students that can understand her–she has a very thick Korean accent that makes her somewhat difficult to understand, you see). That goes until 3:50, at which point I am free for the rest of the day to do what I usually do…
Last segue. Frandz! And by frandz, I mean friends. The reason I never spend any time in my room is because I’m too busy hanging out at David’s. Emily and David are my two best friends at UNI. They are pretty excellent, I shan’t lie. I met them at orientation, and I’ve pretty much been hanging with them since we all first congregated at David’s room to watch the Reduced Shakespeare Company perform Hamlet. In fact, we spend so much time in David’s room, he put up sticky notes denoting whether we are in the room or not (there are about four people other than he and his roommate who hang out there a lot, so there are indicators for all of us). My other two close friends here are Finley (David’s roommate) and aforementioned Morgan. I feel pleased that I have a balanced gender set as far as friends go (kidding–though I do find it amusing). Basically I spend every night eating/doing homework/studying/playing video games with these folks (Morgan less so, as she is often out and about being social, unlike the rest of us, ohoho).
Emily is very nice–if we’re still BFFs by the end of the year, we will likely room together. She’s pretty quiet, but she’s by no means shy or anything (she may say so, but it’s just not true, at least not around us). And she loves to read and draw, so she’s very artsy. Excellent! David and Finley, on the other hand, are NOT QUIET. They are two of the loudest people I know (at Finley’s behest, I should say that David is definitely louder). Finley’s kinda like Ryan (likes guitar, seems edgey though he’s actually not, fun to be around, plus SUPER excellent at playing guitar), David…is, like, a composite of all my best friends, remarkably (Grace’s competitive nature, Nicole’s craziness, Seth’s pranking/love of FREAKING ME OUT, Ryan/Sam’s ability in music…yeah, it’s a little weird, actually). And they’re the guy-est guys I’ve been friends with, I think. David actually likes sports. Actively. All I’ve known were Theatre guys, who…really didn’t (heck, I don’t). And let me tell you; I thought Theatre was bad about lewd jokes? That’s nothing. Simply from hanging out with David and Finley in the evening, I’ve learned I had never even HEARD a lewd joke until college. My God, it’s almost impressive how ridiculous the comments get. Hilarious, too, once you get over the initial shock of “I’m sorry–WHAT did you just–oh that’s HORRIBLE”. I’ve also never had more bruises, pretty certain of that. No, I’m not getting beat up. …Intentionally. I’ve become a terrible clutz, so I bang into stuff all the time. Ladders, loft posts, tables, you name it. Plus I am a frequent victim of just MERCILESS tickling, which means I end up flailing about in an attempt to escape, meaning I often whack my extremeties on surrounding objects/people. Apologies are necessary there. Oh, and all of my neuroses are being turned against me. Everything from talking about teeth injuries to my aversion to convulsing things has been used to torment me. Anyway. If you can’t tell, I’m having an excellent time with these people despite these things. There are probably a thousand other things I could say about this topic, but I’ll move on.
Oh, and I’ve seen/played a lot of games, too. Especially ones I already liked. We started out the year with Kingdom Hearts, then David started Ape Escape 3, then he got almost all the way through Psychonauts (before his PS2 broke, and he wasn’t able to save throughout the whole game), then he beat Jak and Daxter in five hours, then started Jak II, which he later dropped in favor of Pokémon Coliseum (which I’ve played, and I’m being taught a great deal of strategy in battles, which is awesome!) and occasionally Super Mario Galaxy. I find this excellent. Especially ‘cuz I just get to sit back and watch while he plays. Win forever.
So, in conclusion, college is awesome. I am having a fabulous time, plus I am learning things in classes and doing well with my homework load! I really couldn’t be happier.
Also, this is over two-thousand words.
Wait, let me revise that. It’s OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND words. But not really.
On an unrelated note, Grace and I made it into the second round of a tournament! I don’t think I have mentioned it yet, but it’s pretty excellent. It’s set in the 9 Circles of Hell! And our first entry looks AWESOME. The second is shaping up the same way. :D
Alright, I’m done for now. I think I’ve written enough. More to come!
