Wow, I have come to the realization that I have been writing a lot lately, and with that, I have therefore additionally come to the realization that I have been seemingly complaining a lot as well, and to this, I have to laugh, because I promise you, even though that is what the majority of my blogs as of late have been centered on, my life is not a terrible mess at the moment. For the most part, my stress level has been very low lately, because I know what I have to do between now and the end of the semester, and I have a plan as to when I am going to complete each assignment and about how long each assignment is going to take me. Stress has therefore not really been much of a plague lately, but as I have been saying a lot lately, fear of the future has been a plague.

Of course, I suppose that fearing the future is in itself some form of stress, but when I feel something powerful, such as fear or anger or even extreme happiness (even though I have come to find that, oddly enough, happiness is the most difficult emotion to express), I feel the need to write about it, and that is why I have been writing so much lately. In this particular case, as I have been saying, the future is bothering me to a great extent, and because of that, because that is really all that is bothering me right now, some of this may be a bit repetitive to those who have been following my blog entries, but even if that is the case, there have also been some new developments, ones that really aren’t either good or bad at this point, because since they don’t really clear anything up for me, they don’t help me.

As I said very recently, I emailed financial aid about my issue regarding the townhouses. For those of you who have not been following my blogs and thus don’t know what I’m talking about, a group of friends, basically my best friends here, want to live in the townhouses next year. This was not on my agenda at all. It didn’t become part of my agenda, in fact, until one of these friends told me one day that she was considering the townhouses next year, but at the time, I didn’t take her as seriously, because she didn’t seem insistent on it or determined, for that matter; it more seemed as if it was merely something that seemed like a good idea to her. Now, however, everyone is determined to make it happen, and I seem to be the only one who finds fault with it.

I understand that I am very seriously jumping around here, and I apologize for that, but by the end of the blog, I will try my hardest to tie everything up. Anyway, I seriously doubt that there are, but if there are any of you who are reading this and don’t know what I’m talking about when I refer to the “townhouses,” then when you get the chance, take a look at west campus, and you’ll see a good amount of new buildings being built by the lagoon behind Oneida Hall, and these are the townhouses. The benefit is that they’re sort of like apartments; you get your own bathroom, each one of you (six per apartment) get your own bedroom, etc., so needless to say, it’s an appealing idea, because it’s kind of like living in a house. However, in my personal opinion, the cons outweigh the pros, which is why up until this was mentioned, I wasn’t considering this even in the slightest.

My plan was always to live in Riggs and to hopefully do so with a roommate that I can pretty much count on getting along with (I didn’t have the greatest experiences last year as a freshman, and I was miserable). This year, the Riggs part didn’t happen, because it was full, and so I had to live in Waterbury, but first of all, I love Waterbury, and second of all, the latter did happen. A good friend of mine agreed to room with me, and so far, it couldn’t be any better. We get along great, and there’s a very hefty amount of respect between the two of us, not to mention the fact that, as I said before, he is part of this group that I keep mentioning, and the problem with that is that if he goes and I don’t, then I’m back to square one.

Anyway, allow me to list off what I see as the cons of living in the townhouses. For starters, I don’t see them as being very convenient for students who don’t have cars, which I don’t. It’s so far away from everything. I’d have to leave the house a good half-hour or so before each class begins to ensure that I get there on time, and of course, the simple solution to that is to take a bus, and in the winter time, that is most definitely what will be happening, but when the weather is nice, I don’t want to be taking a bus everywhere I go. I like walking when the weather is nice, not only because it gives me alone time to reflect and to enjoy the world around me but also because it’s a little bit of additional exercise. Secondly, back to the winter issue, buses run, so getting to class would not be an issue; however, on weekends when the weather is terrible (which describe weekends of which there will be plenty, something you have to count on when you live in Oswego), I see myself cooped up in the house all weekend long, not even leaving to eat since their plan is also just to cook at home.

Additionally, and this is the most pressing con, it is more expensive. I have been told that it costs a lot more, since you’re paying to live in a single, whereas now, I’m living in a double, and that would drastically affect my bill, since I highly doubt that financial aid would cover the difference. Returning to what I said earlier about financial aid returning my email, they said that they are unsure of whether or not they would cover it or not but that I should keep in mind that they might not, which sort of annoyed me, because I am keeping that in mind; that’s why I emailed them. Anyway, I’m not sure what to do, because one idea that they (my friends) are considering is reducing or potentially even canceling their meal plans just to cook at home, and if I did that, then maybe I’d be okay, since the price of living in the townhouses would replace the price of having a full meal plan; however, then, I’d have to drop money (which I only get $1,600 a year of, mind you) each week for groceries, so either way, I lose.

There is no way for me to win. As I said the other night, my friend David is considering coming to Oswego for his BA, but the problem with that is that, first of all, he’s not coming until fall 2010, and I need to either make a decision regarding the townhouses or select a roommate much earlier than that, and I can’t select him as a roommate if he doesn’t get here until fall, because he won’t be a student here yet. I would say that I need advice, but I don’t really need anything except to make a decision, and I can’t do that when I don’t know how much financial aid is going to help me as far as money is concerned, and although I hate the idea of being so disconnected from the campus and being in an area where there is nothing but residence halls and therefore being so far away from classes, the finances are what trouble me the most, so I can’t even begin to think until I get some closure as to whether or not that is going to be a problem, which I think it will be.

If I can’t live in the townhouses, the plus side is that I won’t have to deal with all of those cons that I previously listed, but what it also means, however, is that I risk rooming with a jerk that is going to be incredibly difficult to live with and who I don’t get along with, and it also means that I won’t be with my friends, that they’ll be all the way on the other side of campus having fun without me, and I’ll barely see them, and that’s something that I cannot handle, and I don’t want to ask them to consider forgetting about the townhouses for two reasons. First of all, that’s an awful lot to ask someone; I cannot and do not expect people to live their lives, making decisions, for me. Second of all, I know that they wouldn’t anyway. They’ve made it clear without actually explicitly saying so that they are pursuing this with or without me. I am more or less dispensable. If financial aid drops that bomb on me that says that they’re not going to cover my expenses and I therefore can’t do it, they’ll just find someone else. There is so much to think about, and I really, really hope that this works itself out.

Have you ever felt insignificant in an environment that is so significant to you? If not, allow me to tell you how much it really does hurt and how overbearing of a feeling it is. There are some people to whom you could give the world, and they wouldn’t appreciate it. Your status would not elevate at all, because your status is not changeable; you just are who you are, you have the importance that you have, and you can’t really do anything about that no matter how hard you try. It feels a lot like being born into a “destined” caste system, in that even if you make the sacrificial attempts to elevate yourself, it doesn’t do any good, but now, I am beginning to get a bit repetitive.

It’s just that, sometimes, I feel as if high school never ends, if you will. You get to college thinking that everything will be different, and don’t get me wrong, it is; it’s very different, but the behaviors are different while the outcomes are the same, which is that someone gets hurt, because even though it’s typically a much different kind of drama, there is still a lot of drama. In this particular situation, I can’t exactly call it “drama,” but what I mean is that in high school, there were always people, like me, who were being ostracized in one way or another, such as myself, and again, it was under much different circumstances then, but really, that’s kind of how I feel now.

I feel as if there’s a ranking of importance that is consistently occurring just about everywhere that I go. Ideally and I would like to think somewhat realistically, there is not supposed to be a system of ranking in a group of friends. Obviously, in everyday life there is, because you’re obviously going to be more important to your significant other, for example, than you are the stranger you say “hi” to at the newspaper stand, but in a group of friends, I don’t think that that type of thing should be occurring, and yet, I feel that, for me, it does, not necessarily frequently but from time to time.

I really do not want to go into specifics here, but I feel as if I have to if my goal is for you to understand how I am feeling. As I mentioned in my most previous blog, a group of friends here, my best friends here, really, want to live in the townhouses next year, an idea that they have been talking about for quite some time now, and initially, as much as it went against what my plans originally were, it was a bandwagon that I was prepared to jump on despite the inner-conflicts that I was experiencing as described in my most recent blog, because I didn’t care as long as I was with them, but I had an epiphany today, and not the good kind of “Eureka!” ones that happen every now and then but instead the bad kind of “Oh, no!” ones that happen even more often.

This epiphany was one that I am surprised I have not thought about prior to today, but whatever reason, I haven’t. To be perfectly honest, the only reason that I am here at this very moment is because the financial aid award that I received from SUNY Oswego was and is incredibly generous, and what I realized today is that since the townhouses are a bit more expensive than the residence halls, I will most likely be expected to pay a great deal of money out of my pocket since I very seriously doubt that financial aid would increase my award due to me living in the townhouses. I sent them an email quite recently asking them about it, but I honestly felt a bit embarrassed doing so, because I am essentially asking them if I will receive money due to a decision I ultimately make to live in a more expensive setting; it seems like a ridiculous question to even consider.

How this plays into what I was saying before is that I told them about this today, since today was really the first time that I really began to consider this, as I said before, and it didn’t really seem to faze them. The only thing that seemed to really bother them is the fact that now they have to look for yet another person to live with them, since they need six. I just feel as if it had been someone else besides me who was experiencing this problem or who, for that matter, decided that they didn’t want to do this, then the entire idea itself would be shot, because they couldn’t possibly do it without one of them but can without me. As I’m sure I have said before in a blog entry, I do tend to be a bit paranoid at times, and this does tend to have negative consequences in my life, but I have also noticed that it’s almost always people that I deeply care about toward whom I feel paranoid.

At this point, I really have no practical solution. My good friend David from home said that he might be able to come up here for school since he currently goes to a community college close to home, but here’s the problem. Most likely, he won’t be here next semester, which means that since he’ll be considered a transfer for the Fall 2010 semester, I will not be able to request him as a roommate, and even if I could, he most likely won’t be officially admitted until after I have to select a residence hall and thus a roommate, and the problem is, apart from my current roommate who is a part of the aforementioned group of friends, I don’t really have any guy friends here, not ones that I’m close enough to to live with, anyway.

I just don’t know what to do. I can’t help but shake the idea that the happiness and the near-perfection that I am experiencing now is one day very, very soon going to be obliterated due to change that I have no control over, change that I don’t understand why needs to happen, but change that I cannot and ultimately would not want to stop, anyway. My expectations are not to control peoples’ decisions, and I am certainly not self-centered in the least bit, especially not to the point where I’d want someone to completely defer an idea of theirs due to me and my monstrously long list of problems. I guess that I’d just like to feel a bit more important to people that are very important to me. Who knows? Maybe in some elaborately epic way, everything will work out. Sometimes, the universe has a way of self-correcting itself.

It is so difficult for me to believe how quickly winter is approaching, and it kind of scares me. Today, I went to Penfield with a couple of friends to do homework at around 3:30 or so, and by the time we were done at the library and therefore heading back to Waterbury (which was a little after 5), it was starting to get dark outside, and by the time we were back at Waterbury, it really was dark outside. The days are beginning to get shorter and shorter, and night falls earlier and earlier. Winter is right around the corner.

I don’t understand and I have never understood why some people love Winter, but that’s just my opinion. It gives me a feeling of being sheltered. Practically everything in nature is covered by a cold, white substance which dominates the earth for months, and I guess that it makes me feel the same way. It makes me feel cold and sheltered. In addition, most plants and trees are dead, and everyone, myself included, is more inclined to spend more time inside since it’s so cold out (and here, windy, too), and I hate that. The season itself affects my mood for the worse, and that is why I say that the approaching months scare me.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Christmas, and I love the snow when it’s here around the holiday season, but I often find myself (every year, in fact) wishing that it would go away afterward. Right now, I am really happy, but I suppose that my fear is that this current state is the “calm before the storm,” if you will, and that I don’t have very long before an end is put to it. Last year, my most difficult times, not only of my freshmen year but of my entire life thus far, were spent during the winter months, and I really don’t think that that is a coincidence.

Everyone enjoys “alone time” every now and then, myself included. However, I am pretty sure that I’d go clinically insane, as I think a lot of people would, if most of my time was spent alone, and last year, that’s how it was for me. I was primarily alone probably 80% of the time, and that time alone was primarily spent doing homework and studying. It was just an all-around difficult year for me, and at the end of the year, I made a pact that I was going to do everything that I possibly could to make this year a better one, to make it exceed last year on so many levels, and so far, I have done just that. I have been getting more sleep, I have managed my time more effectively, I have had a lot more fun, and I have had a much more accelerated social experience.

It’s kind of sad when I actually stop and think about that, because as happy as I am now, if only I had had everything last year that I have this year, if only I could have been as happy. If I had been, a great deal of pain would most likely have been prevented, and next year, I have a couple of friends who want to live in the townhouses, and likewise, that scares me, because even though I know that the townhouses aren’t exactly in the same vicinity as the residence halls on that side of campus (Oneida, ‘Daga, Cayuga and Seneca), but they are still on the same side of campus, and I’m so afraid that being on that side of campus again is going to bring back memories. I left that side of campus to avoid the trauma, and I love this side of campus.

You, whoever you are reading this, that is, might be wondering why it is that I don’t just tell them this and stay on this side of campus. “Surely, you have other friends,” you most likely wonder, and yes, I do. I have plenty, in fact. However, this particular group of friends is the closest to my heart and has been since I first started here last year as a freshmen, and I really don’t think that I could realistically live here without them and be happy. I will follow them wherever they go, and sometimes, although not always, there are ways around pain. Sometimes, there is help available for you, and that is yet another reason why I have not said to any of them that I don’t want to live in the townhouses. I know that if I am in pain for whatever reason, they’d be there to help me.

In the meantime, I am just going to relax and enjoy life and enjoy this school year. My problem is, I suppose you could say, that I fear change. When my life takes a turn for the good, I fear that something is going to ruin it, and when I become vehemently comfortable in a certain situation, the idea that it isn’t always going to be like that, that it is one day soon going to be drastically changed, really scares me. I have a lot of friends that I know I won’t be seeing too much of next year, especially on weekends in the winter time when there are no buses available, and no matter where I want to go on weekends in the winter time, for that matter, I’ll have the choice of either staying cooped up inside or venturing out into Oswego’s Winter chaos. There are a lot of aspects to the experience, such as those just mentioned, that I’m really not looking forward to by any means, but like I said, for now, I think I’m just going to look to the future as a positive enforcement and hope for the best, because after all, what else can I hope for?

Well, I’m finally starting to feel a little bit better, and needless to say, this past week has not been easy. All of a sudden, all of the work that I need to do is going to hit me like a ton of bricks right in the face, and that will be a wonderful feeling, and I also have to worry about whether or not my professors are going to be merciful in excusing my absences. As I said before, though, there was no way I could have made it to class if I wanted to. I could barely think let alone even walk, and I certainly couldn’t talk. I’m still not all the way there yet, but I sure do feel a lot better than I did last night. I’m not sure what caused the sudden transformation; I guess that I’m just thankfully starting to get over it, thankfully.

On a much happier note, however, today is Halloween, which is always exciting. Of course, it would be a lot more exciting if the weather wasn’t so lousy. I don’t mind it being cloudy, because that helps set the mood, but it’s raining, and it’s also rather chilly, both being reasons why I’m hesitant to go anywhere tonight. I have a group of friends that want me to go trick-or-treating, which sounds like fun, but first of all, as I said, I really don’t want to go out in the cold, and second of all, what would I do with all of that candy? I’m certainly not going to eat all of it. I have a couple of other friends who are going to a friend’s comedy show at the campus center, and I kind of want to go to that, because something tells me that on Halloween night, they’re going to be starving for an audience, so that might end up being what I do, but half of me is tempted to dress up for it, because otherwise, my Lady Gaga costume is going to kind of go to waste.

I’m kind of randomly ranting from one topic to another, but I guess right now, more than anything, I am nervous about my professors. One of them sent me an email and seemed very understanding, telling me not to come back until I felt better (I plan fully on returning to classes on Monday since I foresee myself making a full recovery by then), but I have one who didn’t answer me at all, and he’s the one that I’m kind of worried about. I did receive a message from someone, though, that if I go to the Point, they might be able to help me out, so I may just have to do that. It seems to me like if you’re so sick that you don’t even want to eat, then you shouldn’t be expected to attend classes, especially since that just increases your chances of spreading it and also especially since if you can’t even think, you’re not going to be learning anything anyway. More than anything, all I did, all I wanted to do, was sleep.

Returning to the trick-or-treating idea, however, I was told today that cops will be clearing the streets at 9 p.m., which is another reason why I don’t think it would be all that much fun, anyway, even if I was feeling okay. I’m sorry, but that’s so ridiculous. I understand the fact that they don’t want kids out late at night, drunk and likely to hurt either someone else or themselves and that they don’t want kids out wreaking havoc, but 9 p.m. seems a little strict to me. At least make it 11 p.m. I mean, essentially, I say “kids,” but we really aren’t; as college students, we are adults, and ultimately, we have the right to be out. Something tells me, however, that they’re just going to be sending people home who look like they’re either drunk or up to no good, because what if it’s just a group of people going to the movies or going to the store to pick up something? What if whoever they see isn’t even a college student? How would you go about making that determination? Like I said, it just seems ridiculous to me. I guess that’s about it, though. I hope that everyone has a fun but safe Halloween!

Wow, this has been one crazy week! Basically, today is Thursday, and I haven’t been to classes all week, because I have been that sick. This past weekend, I started to feel a little weak, and I felt a minor pain in my throat, but that has happened to me before, so I just drank some water and turned in early, assuming that it didn’t mean anything, but Monday morning, I knew that I was coming down with something serious, and as the week has passed, my sore throat has only gotten worse and worse to the point where it was completely unbearable. Last night, I felt short of breath, because my throat was swollen, and it therefore felt as if it was closing up on me. I called my friend Kim, and she rushed back to the dorm and had SAVAC pick me up and bring me to the ER.

Here’s what’s really ironic about all of it, though. I was in so much pain that I needed an ambulance, and yet, I waited in that hospital for five hours until I was treated, and as it turned out, it isn’t the flu or strep or anything to that effect; it is a severe case of viral pharyngitis, which looks and sounds a lot worse than it is. It’s merely a sore throat caused by a bad cold, which I suppose doesn’t really go to show too much less of a serious issue, because I was in a lot of unbearable pain (I couldn’t even swallow), but still, considering the kind of pain that I was in, I was definitely expecting to have been diagnosed with strep.

Of course, there is still a chance that I could have it. The doctor gave me a throat culture, and the results will be back within two to three days, but he said that he doesn’t think that it’s strep, because he couldn’t see where my throat was swollen or anything, which is odd considering the fact that when the nurse first examined me, she said that she couldn’t believe how swollen it was. I’m not really sure what that signifies to me, but I just find it very odd that the nurse would say one thing (she even specifically said that it looked like strep to her), but then the doctor would say the opposite. I would have argued that point to the doctor, but it was 4:30 a.m., I was in pain, and I just wanted to get out of there, to be honest.

Being this sick has shown me what great friends I have, though. Let’s see, I have one friend who picked me up Gatorade (my mom suggested I drink that, because my younger brother and my younger sister just got over being really sick, and it really helped them) from the store, as well as cough drops and a stuffed manatee named Mr. (Mana) Tee. I have another friend who has been worried sick about me (no pun intended) and has been bringing me soup from the dining hall since I don’t have much of an appetite for anything else (actually, there are a few friends who have been bringing things to me from the dining hall), and then there’s Kim, who stayed with me at the hospital last night until 2 a.m., even though she had an 8 a.m. Philosophy class today. I seriously never did anything to deserve friends like this.

I am feeling a lot better today, though, thankfully. I have not gone to one class since Monday, because I have had no desire to leave my dorm room, and hopefully, my professors will be understanding of this. My mom brought me medicine today, and it’s helping me a lot. It feels so good to be able to swallow again. It still hurts but not unbearably so like it did before, and hopefully, I’ll therefore be able to get a good night’s sleep tonight, something I have not been able to do in two nights in a row. My hope is to go to classes tomorrow and get back on my feet, but my priority right now is to get betters, so like I said, hopefully, my professors will understand. I just figured that I’d write about this since it’s something at least semi-interesting that occurred in my otherwise relatively mundane life.

Here I am, sitting in my room, and of all things, I’m actually thinking about how much I absolutely love college, and no, I ensure you, I am not insane. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was completely and entirely stressed, because I was so overwhelmed with work that needed to get done, and at this point, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but a reminder to all that feel as if negativity is consistently slamming them in the face is that life is full of lessons to be learned, and therefore, every experience becomes an opportunity. There was a quote that I read once, and as a matter of fact, I am pretty sure that it was on an edition of Toilet Talk that I read it, but it said something like a pessimist sees failure in every opportunity while an optimist sees opportunity in every failure, and I think that that speaks a great deal of meaning.

I’m, of course, not at all saying that when times are tough, you should just try to ignore them and think ahead, ignoring every conflicting situation that you are currently experiencing. “Everything is going to be okay” or “just look at the bright side” rarely, if ever, work, at least for me, anyway, because when you are experiencing a situation that is vehemently difficult to deal with, that’s all that’s on your mind at the time, and although you understand that whoever is trying to help means well, their words mean nothing at the time, but keep in mind that usually, if I’m correct in saying this, you’ll end up thanking them, because as it will turn out, they were right. There was a bright side, there was something to look forward to, and most importantly, there was something to learn, and as long as we do in fact learn the lessons that life so desperately wants us to learn, then we’re on the right track.

Just this past week, I kind of had a breakdown, because, once again, there was so much going on, and it seemed as if one unfortunate event right after another was hitting me like a brick in the face. I had a History paper to write, and I didn’t think that I had any idea whatsoever how to write it. Also, the last time that I went home, I discovered that my father had somehow discovered that I am in a relationship with a male, and since he is extremely religious, he believes that being gay is a choice and that it’s a sin, so he told me that Ray (my boyfriend) could no longer visit me anymore, specifically because he is a “bad influence” on my two younger siblings (a sister, 13, and a brother, 17), and the reality of what that meant caused me to hit rock bottom this past week as well. Ray and I have been together for almost eight months now, and never in my life have I been happier, and his coming over to my house was an easy and convenient way for us to spend time together; now, it’s not so easy, and when we do spend time together, it’s for much shorter periods of time, and we’re never alone.

This was eating away at me as well as a number of other problems, and as I usually do in situations such as this, I panicked, unsure of what to do. However, a friend of mine once said that the universe has a way of self-correcting itself. He didn’t come up with this on his own, of course, but I give him credit, because I am pretty sure that he is where I first heard it. Back when he first said it, I thought that it was utter nonsense, but my recent experiences have showed me that he was right. Almost everything that goes wrong results in something right, and what went wrong happened, because we were meant to learn something from it, and that is indeed something beautiful.

Just as a small example, college is obviously very stressful. As a student, I am consistently being challenged, and there is rarely a time that I am completely free and am able to do something relaxing. However, at the same time, there is a reward at the end of almost every long and winding road. I feel accomplished when I complete a challenging paper (which is exactly what I did this weekend, having worked for about four hours on my History paper), and I feel accomplished knowing that as a college sophomore, I have made it really far at this point, and continuing in this same direction is going to one day soon result in teaching high school students English Literature, something that I have been wanting to do for years, basically for as long as I can remember. I really do love college, because every now and then, I do get those relaxing moments where I can reflect on life and how good it has been being to me lately, how rewarding it feels to be productive and to get work done. Ultimately, going to college is a decision that I’m really glad that I made.

It’s so hard to believe that we’re nearly halfway through the semester already. Tomorrow, well technically today, I suppose, I have to take my English 304 midterm, and I am very nervous about that, because I remain pretty confident that I am going to get a pretty terrible grade on it. I am just not used to this kid of English course. Ever since middle school, English classes did not involve actual assessments but instead portfolios which consisted of written work throughout the year, and now, I have to take an actual written assessment in the traditional sense, and I have a multitude of different terms that I need to know the meaning of as well as a multitude of different names that I need to associate with literary periods, and I am really stressing out.

Basically, this semester has really been pretty on and off for me; it’s been pretty bittersweet, in other words. A lot of goodness has come out of this semester, a great deal that is much different than my situation last year. For example, I have an awesome roommate who I am so happy I asked to room with last year; there have been absolutely no issues whatsoever thus far, and I don’t foresee any taking place. There’s a great deal of respect between us, and I definitely think that that is the main reason why this is really working out for us. So, anyway, I am really happy with my living situation, which is currently Waterbury, and apart from the ear-piercing fire alarm, I love everything about it.

Other than that, though, like I said, I’m kind of struggling to sync myself with this English class, and additionally, I am taking Biology, and I am having a really tough time with that as well. I got my first test back last week, and I remember leaving the class in which I had taken the test, thinking that I had managed to pull of a solid C grade, but no, I didn’t have any such luck. I failed it miserably. I was really upset the day that I found out, but not that I’m the type to blame other people for my mishaps, but in this case, I really do think it’s partly my professor that is at fault for this grade, because she flies through the slides, and when a student will ask for the slide to be brought back up, because he or she didn’t have enough time to get everything down, she will say, “All of this is in the book,” so what I’m wondering is why I’m wasting time coming to class then if all of my learning is to be done from the book.

I learn by taking notes in class, letting that sink in and then going over my notes and deciding on what I understand and what I don’t, and what I am not quite absorbing, I resort to the book for, and I am having trouble doing that now, because I’m not learning anything in class. She did say the other day in class that all of the notes are on Angel, so I might just have to go there to read up on the notes, because this really is pretty ridiculous if I may say so myself. I cannot allow myself to fail this class; I really want to put all of my general education courses behind me so that I can get into my major. I honestly do not understand general education requirements. I’ve never in my lifetime going to use anything that I am learning in Biology, for example.

Anyway, I went home this past weekend, and that was really nice. I love this weather; and I love this time of year and everything that it involves. I love the Autumn air, leaves, apple cider and Halloween, of course. The only thing that I don’t like about is that almost all of the things that I love about Autumn, with the obvious exception of Halloween, are indicators that winter is coming, and I hate winter. I can’t stand snow, and I can’t stand the cold, and yes, I chose to Oswego, but don’t ask me why. Everyone always asks me that when I declare my detestation of the winter time, “Why are you going to Oswego then?” Well, I suppose that’s about everything that I wanted to cover this time around. Hopefully, I will be writing a bit more often, but there is just always something occupying my time, and it’s usually not something I’m having too much fun doing. I hope to write again soon, though!

A few months ago, I saw the trailer for the film 500 Days of Summer, and it instantly went on my mental list of movies that I had to see. Although I can’t recall the exact date, I remember that it was supposed to come out sometime in July, and when that date came, I realized that it was only playing in certain cities, and my city was not one of them, unfortunately, which I was pretty upset about, because I had been waiting and looking forward to it for so long. Thankfully, however, it just opened in my city this past weekend, so I finally got to see it.

As a whole, I really liked it. I thought that it was really cute and original. At first, I didn’t like the whole idea of time jumping around so randomly, but eventually, I became used to that, and now, I see it as one of the ways in which it was original. I really wish I could go into all of the ways in which I thought it was original, but if I do that, then I will be getting into heavy plot details, and I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone. I will do my best anyway; this is the type of the movie that is somewhat difficult to discuss and review without getting into plot details, so I will try to be as vague as possible.

I thought that the choice of acting was really good, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom Hansen and Zooey Deschanel as Summer Finn. I really liked the way that Deschanel dealt with the character. Summer Finn is a firm feminist who doesn’t believe she has to give herself to any man, and her firm beliefs sometimes initiate stubbornness in her character, and I personally thought that Deschanel played this out so well. Gordon-Levitt played Tom’s role really well too, the casual, somewhat awkward Michael Cera-like dude that you would just naturally expect to be with a girl like Summer.

The plot follows the two of them who meet at a club and pursue a friendship. However, Tom likes Summer as more than just a friend, and even though the relationship starts to get a little bit more serious, such as the two of them becoming intimate, for example, Summer doesn’t want anything serious with him, and she doesn’t want to call what they have a relationship. Another reason why I found this movie to be original is that you see right at the beginning of the movie that she breaks up with him, but you don’t really know why or if they’ll end up back together or not.

However, my biggest problem with the movie was a personal one, which is why I say that overall, the movie was really good. I honestly couldn’t really connect with it or understand it, because I’m not in the same boat as the theme of the movie is. I am in a very serious, loving and trusting relationship, and I wasn’t really sure what this movie was trying to say. Perhaps, it was trying to say that love is only a fabrication, that it doesn’t actually exist, but I see that as being ridiculous. I offer that as a suggestion, because a line very similar to that is actually in the script. Another message that it could have been trying to convey is that events don’t happen because they are meant to be; everything is coincidence, but I don’t believe that either, so ultimately, I wasn’t really sure what to make of the movie, but like I said, it was really cute. The acting was really good, the soundtrack is exquisite, it’s cute, and the plot is original. Ultimately, it’s a decent “summer” movie.

Welcome back, or for any freshmen reading this, it’s a mere welcome! So, here we are are back at college, and for me, the summer seems as if it really flew by! It doesn’t seem like that long ago at all that I was packing my bags and heading home for the summer, and now, my sophomore year has begun, and I’m thinking, “Wow, one year of college is already behind me,” and the thought is rather daunting to say the least. Forget about the summer flying by; everything is flying by! It doesn’t even seem like that long ago that I was in high school let alone a college freshman!

This year, I am living at Waterbury, and I actually really love it! The only part of it that I don’t like is that there is no dining hall connected to it. Lakeside and Cooper are approximately the same distance, with Lakeside perhaps being a bit closer, and right now, I don’t mind in in the least, but when it starts getting really cold, and the snow starts to fall, which basically always guarantees for ice, then it becomes something that I mind. Other than that, however, I really feel as if Waterbury matches me; whereas last year, when I moved into Oneida at the start of my freshman year, there was quite a bit that I didn’t like.
There’s always the homework, which never seems to end. For any freshmen reading this, keep that in mind. I made the mistake last year of assuming that college was going to be high school with a dorm room, and it’s not by any means. College gives a lot more homework than high school, and you need to do your best to manage your time, because I myself ran into a lot of problems last year with that, literally being driven insane with the homework and feeling as if I didn’t have enough time to do it. Already, I have been given a great deal, but I have figured out what to do differently.

The work actually doesn’t take as much time as is usually taken to complete it. The problem is when your mind wanders and wants to check Facebook, or go on AIM, or talk on the phone, or text, or eat, etc., and I therefore learned that I needed to go somewhere where distractions such as these weren’t going to be an issue, and what better place is there than the library? That’s therefore where I have been doing my work, because I have come to find that the work gets done a lot faster there. I feel more concentrated and “in the zone,” and things like Facebook and AIM don’t distract me, which is surprising, because if it’s not reading out of a book or something to that effect that needs to be done, I am on a computer, which still gives me the opportunity to steal time and hop onto Facebook, but for some reason, I don’t feel the temptation like I do in my dorm room. I think that it might be because in my dorm room, I am in a tighter, more enclosed space.

Another thing that I vowed to change about this year as opposed to last year is a more appropriate bedtime, which, so far, I have been doing a very good job upholding. Last year, I often went to bed at like 4 or 5 a.m., and that simply didn’t work, because then I had class, and I was exhausted, therefore taking a nap in the afternoon, losing more time. The first night that I was here, I went to bed at around 1, and last night, I went in at around 10 (I am currently sick and therefore felt pretty tired early). It’s been awesome, because this morning, I woke up at around 9:30 feeling totally revived and awake and got right up and went to the gym to workout. I even had time to do a little bit of work.

I know that this year is going to be better, despite the fact that my current issue with books is looking like a bad omen. I tried to get a job over the summer, but my attempts were futile, because no one was hiring, and I therefore have no money for books. Yesterday, I got my refund, which totaled over $300, and I figured for sure that that was going to be enough, but it isn’t. I bought everything yesterday except for what I need for two classes, Psychology and History, and that came to $213. My Psychology book is going to cost $90 used, and the books that I need for History are going to cost $40 and $60. To break it all down for you, I still need almost $200 and only have a little over $100. I’m trying to figure something out. My Psychology professor brought up a really good point in my class last night. He said that in the book that we will be using for our class, there will be roughly thirty pages out of the 150 or so that are really going to count, and yet we pay $90 for that book, which breaks down to approximately $3.00 per page; it’s ridiculous. Books are so expensive. I’m not looking at this as a bad omen, though, because I just have a very strong feeling that this is going to be a great year.

As the summer is very rapidly dying off (there is only a little more than a month until we return), I am beginning to seriously think about this coming year and what I am going to try to do in order to make it better than my freshman year. I didn’t really have the best year last year, and I know that that really is more or less the case for most if not all freshmen (since they’re in a new environment and are just beginning to learn the ropes), but for me, it was more of a personal thing. I made a really stupid decision, and it seemed like I was becoming something I didn’t want to become, and I blamed it on so many things, including myself. The point is, however, that I am actually looking forward to my sophomore year, because it seems as if so much is going to be different.

Yes, there are some of the usual things that bothered me during my freshman year, one of which was my roommate and I coming from very different environments and attempting to tolerate each others’ very different personalities and lifestyles, which, I admit, was not very easy for me to do, even as accepting of a person as I am, and this year, that’s going to be different. I am rooming with my friend Allain, and he’s a really cool kid, so I’m looking forward to that. I also know of a lot of friends who will be living in the same residence hall as me (Waterbury), on the same floor even, so that will be great as well!

There are some people who don’t think so because they see a totally different side of me, but I am a very social person. I don’t like being alone (I vehemently loathe it, in fact), and I don’t like feeling isolated, which I did almost all of the time during my freshman year, and that became a very serious problem for me. I like being with people, even if it’s just to watch a movie or even just to do homework together. Like I said, though, I will be with a lot of friends this year, so I think that things will be a bit different.

I definitely need to try to improve my sleeping pattern; that’s for sure! That’s because, for the most part, during my freshman year, I didn’t have a sleeping pattern! There were times that I would walk to class in the morning like a zombie, because I didn’t make it to bed until 4 or 5 in the morning, and obviously, that’s just not acceptable. I can’t and won’t do that this year! I am making it a mission to be in bed every night by 1 a.m. at the latest. The biggest issue last year was the unbelievable amount of homework I had (which will most likely, God forbid, only be worse this year), which I stayed up very late doing, but my hopes are to try to manage my time better, which, I know, is easier said than done, because as a college student, you kind of just want to have fun and be free of authority and responsibility, but my education is very important to me, and I don’t want to screw it up. I want to be responsible, and I want to do the very best that I can do, which I don’t feel as if I did my freshman year.

As far as my summer is concerned, it has been relatively uneventful so far. I have spent a lot of time with friends, sure, but it’s not like I’ve taken any vacations or anything like that. I have had a massive amount of dentist appointments (bleh) thanks to my inexplicably massive amount of cavities (I rarely ever drink soda, and I brush all the time), so that hasn’t been much fun, but taking it easy is nice; that’s for sure. It’s certainly a very different lifestyle than what it was like in college. I very much enjoy not reading ninety pages out of my Astronomy book or writing three papers all due in a week’s time. I have been tutoring a kid who is in transit between sixth and seventh grade, and of all things to be teaching, yes, I am teaching math! Let’s just say that it has been rather interesting. Well, I’m going to run for now, but I hope to write again soon!