Magnets & Paintings

 Yesterday was a brilliant day, at least before I had my mental breakdown. (See the blog post I made late last night for that story.) You see, my roommate and I are intending on staying together as roomies next year, and we've been working on gathering stuff  for our room. Yesterday, we went out to the shopping center in Alabaster to go to Books-a-Million to obtain magnets. Our fridge has been sadly blank all semester, and now that we know we're going to stay together, we've decided to start our major redecorating by slapping magnets on our fridge.

Books-a-Million has a brilliant selection of magnets, and that's where we're planning on getting the rest of them. To the left, you can see the magnets that I picked out. (My roomie got a Pride & Prejudice one, a Star Trek one, and a SHIELD one.) I want to get the rest of the bombshell series (you can see it here) in magnet-form, but I dunno if they're going to do them. It's weird for them to have Poison Ivy but not Harley Quinn.

 Last night, though, my dorm had our first Pin Night since the Snowpocalypse in January (did I ever post a picture of my painted mason jar? I put a Hylian shield on it!). We did silhouette paintings of Disney characters. My first one I did is to the right - I found a neat picture of Elsa from Frozen. It was difficult to cut out, and I had to do a bit of touch-ups with white paint afterwards.

Then I decided I really wanted to do a red painting. I don't know why; I just felt like I needed something red on my wall. So I found a silhouette of Belle (from Beauty and the Beast, my second-favorite Disney movie, after Robin Hood and before Frozen). She has a bit easier to cut out, and I didn't have nearly as many touch-ups as I had with Elsa. I also had more tape, so that probably helped a lot with that whole thing.

I'm really going to miss having girl nights this summer. The entire fourth floor gets together for these pin nights (we did one every other week last semester), and we watch Disney movies. This week's movie was Pocahontas. Not one of my favorites, but cool nonetheless. I left before they watched Frozen, because I had that presentation to work on and I didn't want to wait for another hour and a half to start on that. (I didn't get much done last night, by the way. I got maybe two points done after my breakdown, nothing more.)

I may have to go out and get myself some canvases and make some more silhouette paintings. I know that my cousin Lila would love one with Elsa and Anna on it, or maybe just Elsa. She's a big fan of "Let It Go," and can almost sing the whole thing. Maybe I can make one for each of my cousins for Christmas or something. The paint seems pretty simple to get, and I could just find a cheap frame or something so that they all looked alike. May have to do some research and figure out which Disney princess they like best. 

And I may have to do a Joker one for my boyfriend. That would make his day. (He would have done a craft last night with us, because he did get there after his night class was over, but he didn't see any pictures he wanted. Which is understandable, because they all had to do with Disney princesses.)

Have a great afternoon, y'all! I'm going to get back to my class now.

Procrastination at its Finest

Ah, procrastination, how I love thee. Let me count the ways...

Actually, I hate procrastination, but here I am, writing a blog post about it as well as procrastinating at the same time because, frankly, I'm in a tight spot and I don't know what to do. I have a presentation on my final paper due tomorrow in my English 300 (better known as the Introduction to the Major class, a.k.a. the Class from Hell), and I haven't the slightest clue as to what I'm going to do it on.

Oh, I know which books I'm going to use. Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea. The two connect in a way unlike any of the other books we've read (although Roxanna, or the Fortuante Mistress and Foe connect rather well, but I didn't actually read those). Then again, I've only read about three books this year out of the ten or eleven that we had to read. I just got tired of the teacher's ridiculousness and started not paying any attention to what she was teaching. I even made up a paper I wrote for her and got a 97% on it. That's when I knew her entire class was BS. She looks down at us and treats us like we're in ninth grade. It's the most intellectually-insulting class I've ever been in (aside from my computer class last spring, of course). 

Here's the deal with the presentation: In order to do everything she wants us to do, I have to have the paper already written.

The paper isn't due for two more weeks. 

I have several more papers that are due before this one is that I have to worry about. I actually had a complete mental breakdown tonight while thinking about all the work I have to do. (It's not helping that I'm completely hormonal at this point. I think I scared Matt a bit, actually.)

Anyways, I think I'm done ranting for now. I'm going to go look at my presentation requirements one more time and attempt to see what I can pull together. I hope I can scrape by with an A on this thing. I need to get an A in the class, and I don't think the teacher particularly likes me. Probably because I'm smarter than her. I can't wait to get my hands on her stupid evaluation. I'm going to rip her to shreds.

I hope y'all have a great day :) Better than mine's been, at least. I also want to put in a plug for a little mini-series that I'm going to be premiering in the next week or so. I want to share the research I've been doing with y'all! I've had so much fun learning about these people, and I want you to hear about some of them, too! 

I've really got to get started now. Good night, everybody!

Classes - Fall 2014, Beginning of Junior Year

Sorry this is a couple of days late, but I got caught up in schoolwork the past few days and haven't been able to post! Anyways...

Since I'm part of the Honors program at my college, I'm able to register earlier than other people in my year for classes. This is a huge advantage because many of the classes I want to take would be quickly filled and I'd be left out if I didn't have priority registration.

So, what am I taking this fall? Glad you asked.

Tuesdays and Thursdays

9:30 - 10:45
Studies in One or Two Authors
I'm not quite sure what this is going to be, but hopefully it's interesting! It sounds interesting, at least...

11:00 - 12:15
Psychogeology & Creative Writing
This should be a cool class! It's all about how the environment affects your writing. 

2:00 - 3:15
Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction
Since I'm going to be minoring in Creative Writing (not to mention writing fiction novels, hopefully), this is going to be an essential class. Should be fun, too!

3:30 - 4:45
Introduction to the Study of British & American Literature I
This is one of three of the same class required for my major. (I, II, & III, of course.) I can only hope it's not boring!

Wednesdays

5:00 - 7:30
Modern British Literature & Early 20th Century Philosophy
It was the title of this class that caught my eye - and hopefully it turns out to be as cool as I think it's going to be. It's taught by two different teachers (and my boyfriend says that Forrester is a really neat one), and it's only once a week. If it's not entertaining, then I'm going to be stuck in a class that I hate for 2.5 hours every Wednesday night. And that's gonna suck.

***

And yes, you're reading my schedule right - I don't have class on Mondays or Fridays! I only have a night class on Wednesdays. But geez - so many English classes! I hope I'll be able to keep up with the readings and the papers. I'll have to really crack down and get things done! I'm sure I'll be able to do it, though!

Also, I have some very exciting news for y'all - my boyfriend's going to be graduating next May! He's only got a few more hours left in his major to fulfill, and then he's going to graduate! I'm so excited for him. He's been in college for far too long, and he was starting to give up. He has a goal in life to work towards now - he can see the light, and he's going to run towards it with all his might. And I'll be there for him every step of the way :)

So what's your schedule look like for next fall? Are you taking summer classes to get a leg up on your major? What's your major, anyways?

Day Two

Sorry this is late, y'all, but yesterday was a bit too crazy for me to sit down and write at my computer. I'm actually using my iPad to write this at the moment, because I'm out of my dorm and I don't have my computer with me.

Anyway, here's how yesterday went:

I got up early in order to go to the Room Change Day thing. You see, my room mate and I want to stay together next year, but we also want to change rooms to one on the corner. Unfortunately, the room we wanted was not available. Sad face. Anyways, I got dressed very nicely, in my business attire, and prepared to give my speech on Valerie Solanas.

The speech went...well, I suppose. I didn't hear anything negative back, and I was able to answer all the questions that were asked of me after the speech was over. I still think the woman is crazy (for proof, see my earlier post about her), but she could have had a good argument if the thing actually WAS satire, instead of being completely serious.

English was...okay. I don't particularly like the teacher (I don't think she has the slightest clue as to what she's doing, but she's also very young to be a professor. I'm just glad I shouldn't have to have her ever again. I'm trying to avoid ever having her again if at all possible. I think I'd probably actually jump out the window if I did.

Creative Writing was about poetry. I'm not a poet. I can't rhyme, I can't make flowery images, I can't make short lines. I can break up a piece of prose to LOOK like poetry, but I can't actually get it to be a poem.  Do you understand that?

After school, I went and had supper (I get out at 4:45, and by that time I'm starving, so food is a must) and then headed over to Matt's to help him with his essay and watch "Watchmen." He's doing an essay on one of Rorschach's quotes, and since I've read the book and seen the movie (though not as many times as he has, obviously), he wanted my help. And I gave it to him gladly. The poor boy has no sense of grammar whatsoever, and as not only an English major, but as his girlfriend, I am obliged to help. I'm glad to help. I want him to succeed, and I will help in any way that I can.

All in all, it was a rather good day. Come back tomorrow to hear about the classes I'm taking next semester! I think they're going to be a blast! (Did I mention they're all going to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays?)

Back to Work

Today was the first day back at school after Spring Break (and after pulling nearly 34 hours over 4 days at TreeTop), and it...wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I got to Chemistry and learned that we weren't going to be doing anything but going over the worksheets that she makes us do. I didn't have the worksheets printed out, so I just scribbled everything down in my notebook, hating my life. (I hate science. Absolutely hate it. I'm rubbish at it, and there are way too many things to memorize.)

Then I went over to Matt's (I have an hour between my two classes, so I usually go and make him coffee and snuggle a bit before we have to go to class) and served him coffee in the new mug that I got him from New Orleans. The outside is plain black and says "New Orleans" on it, but the inside is covered with pictures of masks and instruments and a sign that says "Bourbon Street." I also gave him his sticky pig that I got from TreeTop, as well as the fourteen little puppies I got him as well.

I walked into Spanish and was met with a lady from the office. She told us that our Spanish teacher was delayed in Guatemala, and that our assignment for today was a quiz. Once we finished the quiz, we could leave. I spent about five minutes on the quiz before I gave up. I think I got some right, but I'm not sure.

Since I had about an hour until I had to meet my friends for lunch, I picked up the copy of Watchmen my boyfriend lent me and read on the patio outside the cafeteria. I read for about forty minutes and then went in to grab a table for lunch. Lunch wasn't that great, but dessert was fantastic.

After lunch, I went to my advising session to get my classes all squared away, then I dropped by the Honors house to make sure that things are in proper working order. 

On a whim, I decided to drop by Matt's house (I have a key) and do his dishes and clean his living room. Some of his dishes had been sitting in his sink for over a month. (He NEVER does his dishes, and that's the one point of contention between us, which isn't a bad thing, I suppose. There are worse things to fight over!) I cleaned his dishes, scrubbed his sink, lysoled his stove, wiped down his counters, threw away all his bottles and cans and stuff on the floor, took out the trash, and picked everything off the floor and put them in its proper places. I danced and sang Disney songs while I did it.

Then I went back to my room, where my room mate and I worked on decorating K-9 and Dalek Mycroft for Easter. I made 10 eggs and we decorated them (to put them on Dalek Mycroft), five apiece.

Spent the rest of the day working on my presentation, went to dinner with my roommate and other friends, and then went back to Matt's to hang with him. Then I discovered that the presentation I was so proud of was absolutely wrong, and I had to redo the entire thing. I accomplished it, but I'm still not as happy with it as I was with the first one. But I screwed up.

Tomorrow, I've got to get up earlier than usual (I usually get up at 9:15, but I'm gonna get up at 8:30, so I can shower and get dressed) and go and reserve my room for next semester. We're trying to get a corner room - we're going to stay rooming together, but we want to change rooms. It's going to be difficult! I hope we can get it, otherwise we're going to be a bit disappointed. But the plans we have for next year are going to be awesome!

Anyways, I've got to get to bed now. I'll report on my success or failure at room change tomorrow!

Spring Break 2014: TreeTop

And now we've come full-circle. I hope you've enjoyed my (fairly regular) posts the past few days! As it's been Spring Break, I've had time to sit down and catch up on some blogging. Some of these posts were written in pieces over several days, and by the time I go back to school on Monday, I hope to have a good stack of "Scheduled" posts sitting in my account. It's been far too long since I had a good backlog of posts! I know, I know - it sucks reading pre-written material. Have no fear! I'll still write fresh things when I get around to it. Sometimes, though, I'm not able to get around to it because of...school!

Anyway, now that I'm back in Chelsea, I'm also back to work. My first (full) day at TreeTop, in the midst of the crisis that is Spring Break in Shelby County, went a little like this...

I'm scheduled to show up to work at 9:30 a.m., which doesn't really make sense because the place doesn't open 'til 10:00, and I'm prize center - I'm not doing anything that would require me to be there early. If I were café, Go Karts, or a manager, I'd understand being there early. But just for prize center? I guess I could restock...

...If I could even get in the door. When I pull up at 9:20, the whole place is dark, and I can't even get into the parking lot because the gate is locked. No worries; I was going to park in the side lot anyways (because I was in my truck, and I knew we'd get busy and I'd have to just move it over there anyways and yadda yadda yadda...). But now I've got a problem. It's 9:20, I'm supposed to clock in at 9:30, and there's nobody around. Eventually, two other people show up (my coworkers) and they also park in the little lot next to me. At 9:32, a manager pulls up and unlocks the gate. We follow her into the building, and I'm able to clock in at 9:36. 

Okay. I'm clocked in. I head over to the prize center while my coworkers go and do other things. I turn around and find that there's a lady standing at the cash register...twenty minutes before we open. 

"Ma'am, we don't open for another twenty minutes."

"I know. I just want to get this done before y'all do."

I stare at her. "Ma'am, there's no cash drawer. We aren't open. The owner isn't even here yet. The cashier's in the café finishing up her Taco Bell breakfast."

The lady narrows her eyes, and I scamper off in search of the cashier, who gets upset when I tell her that she has to stop eating and go deal with the angry old woman at the register. She basically repeats the same things I said, and the lady leaves, to wait in her car until we do open. The cashier locks the doors behind her. 

I spend the first two hours of my shift basically tidying up and restocking the shelves and the wall, because nobody comes to prize center at all. I get maybe three people in those first three hours, and they're all from the same family. Eventually, I have a posse of about three people around me, and we're able to deal with the crowd once they do come around. We have both cash registers running non-stop at this time, too: the line never gets lower than fifteen people deep until about six o'clock that night.

At around two, I'm able to take my break. I have a quick lunch and get back to the prize, because I don't want to leave the newbies there too long by themselves. They might get eaten.

It sincerely amazes me that people complain about long lines at places like this. I mean, it's SPRING BREAK. Other families want to get out and have fun, too! Heaven forbid you all decide to go to the ONLY ARCADE AROUND during spring break! And then complain about the lines! You're not the only ones that are entitled to get out!

I had to get the manager to do refunds for at least three people today, because people didn't understand the concept of "No refunds," "No substitutions," and/or "The line for [attraction] may be over 40 minutes long. Plan accordingly when buying the hour/two-hour/three-hour unlimited combos!" signs. They also don't listen to the cashiers say, "The Spring Break combo specials expire at the end of the day!" (There's also a note on the advertisements that say this.) People just amaze me.

Anyways, I'm going to quit ranting about the stupidity of humanity now before it threatens to overwhelm me. I've got a ten hour shift tomorrow, and I need to rest up for it so I don't snap and kill somebody. Wish me luck!

Do you work in a retail store during the holidays? Do you work at some sort of arcade, and thus feel my pain? What are your strategies to get through it?

Spring Break 2014: Biloxi

If you remember my post from yesterday, you'll remember how I went to New Orleans and took a lot of pictures, and came away with some cool memories. Today, I'm going to talk about our little mini-trip in Biloxi, Mississippi, where we stayed at the military base so that we could be within an hour of New Orleans. That way, we didn't have to pay the ridiculous hotel rates around New Orleans! And we would be extra-safe on base, and the on-base lodging is actually really comfortable! (It's a suite: mini-kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms [one master, one with two twin beds], and a living room area all for $60 a night!)

The first day in Biloxi, we were told by friends that we had to try this chicken place called "Raising Cane's." It's just like Zaxby's, only better! Since we love Zaxby's, we decided to try it. It was...meh. The chicken had no spice to it, and the secret Cane's Sauce was bland. It was a meal I could've gotten for much better at my parents' house. But hey - we tried it, so we can talk smack about it, right?

We also went to the BX (the Base Exchange - it seemed much bigger than the PX's I'm used to!) and looked at clothes and shoes and makeup and all sorts of other tax-free goodies. (I love shopping on-base.) I ended up getting a thing of Maybelline BB Cream (that stuff is awesome!) and a new magazine. I found that the BX was also selling Lucky Brand jeans - the very thing that my boyfriend swears by - for about 40% less than the retail Lucky Brand store at the Summit Mall sells them for. I guess that's one perk of being in the military - cheaper-than-retail sales! (Plus, it's tax-free.)

We got into Biloxi on Sunday afternoon, and spent the rest of Sunday relaxing in the hotel room and running around base. On Monday, we left on the short just-over-an-hour trip to New Orleans, and spent the day running around that city. We came back to our hotel room at the end of the day, exhausted, and planning out what to do on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, we ended up going to the Jefferson Davis Home that is in Biloxi: Beauvoir. The outbuildings and the outside of the house were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, but the porches have been rebuilt and the little houses reconstructed all according to detail and to scale. Even Varina's rose garden (Davis's wife) has been reconstructed to scale. It'll probably be beautiful in about five years or so.

 To the left, you'll see Jefferson Davis's bedroom. See the little metal tub in the middle of the picture? Somehow, the six-foot-plus man folded himself up in there to take a bath. I can't even imagine that. Of course, Davis's wife slept in the bedroom next to his, because men and women didn't sleep in the same room because men had to sleep sitting up or something along those lines.

 This is the view from the front porch of Beauvoir. Did you know that the beach wasn't there when the house was built? It was added in the 1950s! After they built the sea wall, the extra sand was sucked up and put into a beach on the edge of the water, according to our tour guide. That's something I can't even begin to imagine! Just...wow!

 After the tour, we were free to wander about the property, so we went and visited the cemetery. I enjoy looking at old graves (is that really morbid?), and there are supposedly something like 790 or so on the property. The gravestones are all so small. Some are bigger than others, some are cracked, some are faded, and some are missing "death dates." Some are just blank.

Some have even become embedded in the trees that have grown up in the graveyard, like the one that you see to the right. There were several that were near trees, but this is the only one that was actually in a tree.

I've been to a lot of military cemeteries, but I don't think I've been to one that seems so...lonely. It's alone. Almost would be abandoned in the middle of the city, if it wasn't for Beauvoir.

After we visited the cemetery, we went up and viewed the library, and my dad talked to someone there about his great-great grandfather, Josiah Roland, who fought on the Confederate side in the Civil War. Then we swung through the gift shop, and I bought a little "Confederate States of America" pin. I'll probably put it on one of my denim jackets somewhere. I wanted a confederate flag (the Beauregard Battle Flag, to be exact, not to be confused with the Stars & Bars), but they didn't have one in the size I wanted in a price that I could afford. It's okay, though. I'll get my confederate flag some day. (And best of all, my boyfriend's perfectly okay with me getting one! That's why he's a keeper.)

I know that some people who are reading this are probably thinking, "Why would such a smart and educated young college girl want a confederate flag? They were traitors!"

Well, it's part of my heritage. I had a great-great-great grandfather who fought for the Confederates. We have a Civil War cannonball sitting in our house. (I'll have to get a picture of it later - I'm not sure where it is at the moment!) We always sit on the Southern side when we go to the Dixie Stampede. I'm not ashamed of my past. We shouldn't be ashamed of our heritage. It makes us who we are. I don't know if any of my ancestors owned slaves, but if they had, that doesn't make it right. Slavery was wrong. I'm not one of those "The South was Right" people, but I do think that, in a way, they were justified for what they did. The South thought they were wronged, and they attempted to fix it. They just did it in a rather bad way.

Not everyone who flies a Confederate flag is a redneck, yankee-hating hick. Just remember that.