Room to Breathe

I don't think I have had time to breathe the last few days, let alone blog. The days go by in a blur and I can barely remember what I did yesterday! Oh, now I remember. I had my last RA class. Yay! I turned my application and now it's just a waiting game. I had so many big things due last week that I have very little homework this weekend. I have the usual set of chemistry problems due on Monday, but that will take an hour or two. I have a Spanish test on Monday to study for, that's no problem either. I've already started studying for my biology test on Friday right before I go to the airport! Just knowing that I'm going home next weekend has put me in a good mood for the past few days. Where normally I would wake up tired and grumpy and think about the million things I had to do that day and how many hours it was until I could go back to sleep, instead I would wake up thinking "this is going to be a great day!" And in general, it has been. I don't want you to think I'm in a bad mood all day long. This quarter I've actually avoided being in my room and having nothing to do. I would rather work and make money or be out with friends or something. Being by myself is boring. I never thought I would say that. But it's true anyways. So I keep myself pretty busy. I find that if I don't have anything to do then I end up falling asleep and I hate that.

I got my biology test back from a few weeks ago, and it was just about as bad as I thought. 75% which was exactly the class average. At first I wasn't sure whether to be upset about it or not, and now I'm just kind of indifferent. Whatever, it's not terrible and I still have 2 more tests plus a final and a couple quizzes to bring it up. I'm not worried. And this time, I'm not waiting until the night before to study. I've already started studying.

Today Daniel and Hope and I went shopping for the Super Bowl Party. Daniel and Hope are co-programming as RAs, and somehow I got sucked into it since it's my boyfriend and my best friend doing it together. We got $50 from leadership team, and then Daniel and Hope had a little bit of programming money that they could put in. Let me tell you, $50 does not go far. I thought we would have plenty of money, but once we got to Costco we realized that it was not enough. We wanted to get frozen food like wings and mozzarella sticks, plus chips and dip and drinks, and prizes for the raffle. With fifty dollars, we got the wings, mozzarella sticks, and two bags of chips. No drinks, no decorations, no dip, no prizes, no napkins/cups/plates. Yikes. So Daniel and Hope put in some of their floor's programming money and we bought some more stuff at Safeway with that. This has definitely been a lesson in budgeting and the astronomical price of food at the moment. I am so glad I'm in school right now and not out in the "real world."

Speaking of that, my brother is out in the real world, and it sucks. He worked for a long time at Circuit City and he did really well. He was a good salesman, people liked him, and he made enough money. He has also been in school for almost 5 years now, and he's still about a year away from graduation. He had talked about enlisting in the marines after he graduated and using his knowledge of Arabic to help him move up the ranks. Well, I guess those plans have moved up. He dropped out of all his classes this semester (in time to get a tuition refund) and he has no job because Circuit City is bankrupt. He had to move back in with my parents for the first time since he graduated high school because he couldn't afford rent anymore. That sucks. I would hate to move back home for any extended length of time. My grandparents told me he is going to enlist soon. Like in the next few weeks. So now I'm really glad I'm going home because he may be gone by the time I'm home in the spring!

Happy Super Bowl!

Drama!

There have been some rumors floating around Nelson and Nagel the past week or so and I do not like it!  Two weeks ago, Jessica talked to Daniel about the rule with "cohabitation".  Someone who she wanted to remain anonymous came to her and told her that he/she thought I might be living in Daniel's room.  Of course I was, and Daniel told her that with no problem.  She said that's fine, but it needs to change.  So that weekend we moved some of my stuff out and then on room change day I changed to live in Nelson so we moved all my stuff into that room.  Problem solved.  Daniel did not get in trouble, and I did not get in trouble.  I no longer have a key to Daniel's room.  I honestly don't spend very much time in any dorm room.  I'm so busy that I'm always at class, or eating lunch, or at work.  So it doesn't really matter to me where I "live" because I'm never there.  So we did what Jessica wanted, and she was fine and we were fine and everything was great.

 

So I have to stop here and explain something.  Every person that lives in Nelson gets a key to their room.  The key is a card that looks like a credit card.  You swipe it, and the little light turns green and the door unlocks.  For people who share a room, one person is assigned to the "#1" spot and the other person to the "#2" spot so that both keys work in the same door.  At the front desk, Troy has control over all those keys.  He can activate them and deactivate them at his special computer. Up until now, Daniel was the only other person who also had that privilege.  When Troy was gone on the weekends, Daniel was responsible for the key system.  

Daniel is living in a room that is effectively a double.  Therefore, there are spots in the key system for Key "#1" and Key "#2".  I had been using the Key #2 until Jessica politely asked us to not cohabitate and we politely complied.  Apparently someone informed some people higher up in the housing department and every single Key #2 for the RA rooms was deactivated.  We were not really concerned because I don't use it anymore, but sort of curious and confused as to why they were doing this now.  Apparently, someone went to the director of the entire Housing department and she told the people under her who told the people under them and it got back to Jessica again. 

 Jessica and Daniel and I were all upset because we had solved the problem.  It was taken care of and there was no need for anyone else to get involved.  We don't know who exactly "tattled" to the higher authorities yet, but Jessica is going to find out soon.  It might be the same person who came to her two weeks ago.  We are very upset because this might affect Daniel getting hired for desk manager and me getting hired for resident assistant next year.  The higher up people may not know that it has already been fixed and may not hire Daniel because of that.  It seems to us that someone really wants to get us in trouble.  And we think we know who.  

Someone we thought was a very close friend, but apparently is NOT.  Anyways, we are not breaking any rules right now and people have no right to say that we are.  There was no reason for this person to go and tell all of the staff of the entire housing department.  I'm sure they have better things to be doing than worrying about an RA and his girlfriend for goodness sake!  So I think Daniel is going to be having a chat with this person that we are about 99% sure did all of the tattling.  But for now, Daniel and I are confident that we are doing nothing wrong and Jessica is also confident and she is going to fight for us and tell all of those higher up people that she took care of it.  And that person is apparently no longer our friend.

Whoops!

Well, AFTER I made my flight for Thursday evening, I realized that I have a biology mid-term Friday morning.  I emailed my professor, and the most she's willing to budge is to offer it earlier Friday morning.  So I am now flying out there Friday at noon, and leaving Monday at 10am.  Luckily, Southwest doesn't charge anything to change flights.  It's still three nights, and I'm still missing three classes.  Just three different classes, and no test!  I actually considered skipping the test anyways because our final exam counts for two tests if the score is higher than one of our mid-terms.  But, I am going to be really upset if I would have done well on that test and just took a zero.  That's not like me anyways to just skip a test.  And this works out fine.  I'll be back in time for my chemistry lab on Monday.  Yay!

Phoenix Here I Come!!

So today, sort of on a whim, I bought a plane ticket home.

So many of my friends that live somewhat close by are like "Hey I'm going home for the weekend, see you on Monday!" and I'm like "oh man, I wish I could just go home just like that and have home cooked meals and see my family for the weekend."  So, now I can!  Actually, the real reason is because Beth's wedding shower is that weekend and I really want to go fulfill my bridesmaidly duties.  But I'm also really excited to see my whole family.

I will be missing 12 hours of work, and 3 hours of class, but it's all worth it.  I'm leaving Thursday after NATS around 7pm, so I'll be missing my physics class that night.  But honestly, not a big deal.  I don't learn much in class anyways.  I'll also be missing one hour of Chemistry and one hour of Biology Friday morning, but that's also not a big deal.  In Chemistry I can learn the material by reading the textbook, and in Biology my professor posts her lecture online so all I have to do is study that.  I am so HAPPY!!!

Oh, I'll be home February 5 at 10pm through February 8 at 7:10pm.  So I'll probably have to leave straight from the wedding shower.  But I don't care I'm so so so excited.  :-)

X-Games and Winter Carnival

It seems like everything in Colorado is about snow.  On the weekends the entire campus empties because everyone goes to the mountains to ski.  It's kind of cool that everyone has this common interest.  I love being up in the mountains, even if I'm not that great at snowboarding.  Well this weekend is a very exciting time for most of the campus.  Every year the winter X games are held in Aspen, CO, about 4 hours from campus.  I would say about half of the students drive up there to watch.  If you haven't seen the X games, it's like the olympics on speed.  The crowd is very involved.  In fact, there is an event called "big air" that is actually decided by the crowd.  There are a bunch of huge stars that all head up to Aspen for the games.  If you don't ski or snowboard, then you may not know most of them, but I think it's safe to say that pretty much everyone knows Shaun White.  And he's definitely there.  Daniel and I wanted to go, but by the time we got around to making reservations every single hotel was booked.  The events are free to the public and the resort even has a 2-day ski pass for $65.  That's a really good deal, because usually a 1-day pass is $90.  I know, skiing is expensive.  But anyways, everyone is really excited about going up to see the x-games.  It's like a huge party.  The crowd screams and goes crazy and the athletes really interact with the crowd and get into it.  Next year Daniel and I are definitely going next year.  At first it sounded miserable.  It's cold outside, crowded, you can't really see anything, and you have to get there hours before the event if you want a good spot.  But after talking to a bunch of friends that have gone, I've changed my mind.  They said that you don't really need a good spot to see because they have big screens set up with video of the event.  And as long as you bundle up, it's not really that cold.  We'll probably share a room with a group of friends, or even better stay with one of Daniel's fraternity brothers who lives up there.  I wish we had thought about this a few weeks ago, but that's okay.  We'll be in Denver next year too.  I'll have to settle for watching it on TV all weekend.  

Speaking of snow, in a few weeks the school is sponsoring "winter Carnival".  The student government (I think that's what it's called) rents out a bunch of rooms at Winter Park and sells them to students for cheap.  They also have discounted lift tickets, sledding, tubing, and sleigh rides up on the mountain.  On campus, they have "polar bear run", free Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and a big snowball fight.  Daniel and I can't go up to the mountain because we work, so we'll have to settle for the on campus activities.  However, the "polar bear run" does not sound fun to me, so I think I'll eat ice cream and throw snowballs at people.  That does sound like lots of fun.  See why I say everything in Colorado is about snow?  Coming from Arizona, I thought that everyone hibernated inside in the winter.  Nope!  In Denver, people take full advantage of the snow and they love it.  Too bad there hasn't been any.  Only one good snow about two weeks ago.  It's supposed to "snow-rain mix" tomorrow.  Yuck.  I hate that.  Regular snow you can just brush off and it's fine.  But snow-rain is wet and cold and all your clothes are soaking and when you go inside you're dripping.  And none of the snow sticks either.  But at least it's an excuse to go to starbucks and get hot chocolate :-)  Hope and I don't need an excuse for that.  It was 70 degrees today, and we went anyways.  lol

Unexpected free time

Today turned out to be a much better day than I thought it would.  I didn't get much sleep last night.  Probably because Daniel didn't get much sleep.  At 1:05am he got a call from the front desk telling him he was supposed to work now.  He forgot.  So that woke me up.  Then he woke me up again when he came home at 4am.  He was tossing and turning all night so I couldn't really fall back asleep.  I had class at 9 so I had to get up at 8 while he didn't have class until 11 so he slept in.  I hate it when that happens because I have to leave all the lights off and be really quiet.  Well, I don't have to, but I'm sure Daniel appreciates it.

So anyways, I didn't get much sleep last night and my Wednesdays are usually pretty packed.  Chemistry 9-10, Biology 10-11, Spanish 11-12, work 12-1, mail 1-2, lab 2-4.  So I woke up thinking "I'm so tired and I won't be able to go back to bed until after 4!"  However, biology was just a review day so we got out 30 minutes early.  I spent that 30 minutes studying for our exam tomorrow and went to spanish.  It turns out that my spanish professor really was sick yesterday, and today she wasn't feeling much better, so she let us out 15 minutes early.  And the mail didn't arrive on time, so I didn't even have to do that from 1-2.  I ended up with a lot more free time than I expected.  And I got to spend a lot of that time with Daniel.  It's kind of funny because we had a three day weekend, then almost all my classes got cancelled yesterday, and today I got let out early of two of my three classes.  This week has been crazy.

Today was room change day.  Anyone who lives on campus can go to the student center and choose any available room to move into.  Any double that is only occupied by one person, or an empty single.  I had been thinking about moving to Nelson just for convenience.  At this point I'm almost never in my room because it's so out of the way.  And I don't have access to Nelson from the garage because you have to swipe into the elevators.  So today I decided just to see what's open, and I moved!  There was a room open right in between Daniel's room and Hope's room on the second floor.  I don't know much about the girl that lives there except she's really quiet and antisocial.  I pass that room about 10 times a day going from the lobby to Daniel's room, so it will be a lot more convenient.  Right after I switched rooms, Daniel and I decided to knock on the door on our way back to his room.  We heard noise and saw the light change behind the peep hole and at the crack at the bottom of the door.  So we know she was in there.  But she wouldn't open the door.  So we just left her alone.  I guess she's really REALLY antisocial.  I hope she doesn't hate me for taking the unoccupied half of her double.  Oh well it's not like I'll be there that often anyways.

Besides that I had lab today which went smoothly and I actually got the results I was supposed to.  That never happens in chemistry labs.  Organic chemistry is notoriously hard, but all my friends who have taken it in the past said that the professor is really great and it's not too hard as long as you do the homework and study.  And it has been really easy until this week.  We started doing hybridization and orbitals and I have to really struggle to understand.  It doesn't help that I have to write down the notes as fast as I can before he goes on to the next slide.  I can't even concentrate on what he's saying because I'm trying to write so quickly.  But I did really well on the homework, so I guess I understand it somewhat.

I have a spanish "composicion" due on Monday and a physics paper due Thursday.  I hate hate hate writing.  Especially if it's in a foreign language.  At least now I feel like learning spanish will be beneficial.  It will definitely come in handy while we're in Spain.  I'm so excited for Europe!  But, I'm having second thoughts about the proposal.  I kind of want it to happen in Europe because that's so romantic and special.  But on the other hand, I would also love to be able to show my family and my friends the next day and call my sister and tell her and write it on facebook and everything.  I won't really be able to do all that from Europe.  I guess in the end it's not up to me lol.  But that doesn't stop me from daydreaming about it constantly!

Recently some "friends" gave me advice on marriage.  They told me to slow down and not be in such a hurry to get married.  I found that rather ironic and hypocritical because they both knew their husbands less than a year before they got married.  I have known Daniel now for over 7 years and we've been dating for over 6 years.  I don't think that's "rushing" into anything.  I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying anything.  I know they didn't mean anything rude, but I didn't ask their advice and I definitely don't want to hear that I should wait longer.  I'm already waiting until I graduate; that's long enough.  That's longer than many other people waited anyways.  Sorry if that was rude, but obviously it's a touchy subject for me.

Oh goodness I hate fire drills.  Yet another reason not to live on campus.  Adios!

That's life.

Well, the RA workshop wasn't too bad. Mostly because the staff members I got hate all that ice breaker game stuff too. It's kind of annoying because I know all of this stuff already. They spent an hour going over the job description and everyone in the class had a million questions except me. I've worked at the desk, I've gone on "community walks" with Daniel and Hope, I've even had to deal with midnight calls to take care of drunk, belligerent, noisy residents. But I have to go through these boring classes anyways.

We did this activity where they had us write in our class schedule and then made us add everything that an RA has to do (i.e. desk hours, one-on-one meeting, programs, duty, staff meeting, etc.). When I was finished, I still had my entire Saturday open and at least 4 hours open each day. That's more free time than I have now! But I could tell they wanted us to act all surprised and overwhelmed, so I played along. I want to get hired, so I'll do whatever they want. The class is two hours each Friday for 3 weeks. At the last class our applications are due and then we sign up for individual 45 minute interviews with one current RA and one current GRD/RD. I hope I get someone from Nelson or Nagel. I know all the staffs in both of those buildings and they all think of me as an RA already so that can only help me.

Besides RA class, I actually ended up with a bunch of free time yesterday. I guess I got my work schedule messed up and I actually didn't have to work at all. So Daniel, Hope, Kristen, and I played on the billiards table in Nagel and then they watched a movie while I worked from 11pm-1am. I was really tired and ready for bed after that.

A few days ago we got a notice in the mail that our car registration is up and we need to get emissions testing done. Great. We can do that in our hours and hours of free time. So we decided to get it over with on Thursday between my classes that ended at 4 and began at 6. When we got in our car, Daniel noticed that our left rear tire was flat. VERY flat. So he got out the spare, and spent 30 minutes showing me how to change a tire. I thought it was a good learning experience for the future, but also a massive waste of time. When that was finished, we thought we better go straight to Discount and get it fixed before we worry about emissions testing. That took the entire 2 hours between classes and I barely had time to scarf down dinner before I had to leave. So today we went to go get our emissions testing done. We didn't wake up until almost noon, so by the time we got there it was 12:55. They close at 1. Ugh. And they're closed tomorrow, and they're closed the next day. Did I mention it's due by the end of the month? So Daniel's going to go on Tuesday and hopefully the wait isn't too long. Cars are such a pain. We also realized that we are getting pretty close to 60,000 miles which is a big maintenance point so we need to set aside some money for that in the next few months. At least we thought of it now and it won't be a huge surprise expense. I think we manage our money very well in that regard.

Well I'll be working for the next 3 hours. I actually have very little homework this weekend. Probably because I just had a spanish test and most of my homework is due on Friday. So it will be a nice weekend. I'll make lots of money sitting at the desk blogging.