Family

I tend to complain a lot on my blog so tonight I thought I would change my tune and talk about something positive in my life, my family. I have the warmest most accepting and supportive family a girl could ask for. I have three grandparents who love me and support me and one looking down on me from heaven. I have a mom and dad who aren't afraid to tell me I can do better and call me out when I'm not doing my best but are also my biggest fans and supporters. I have a not so little brother who drives me insane but will always be my best friend. I also have 9 younger cousins, who are more like siblings that know how to keep life interesting.

 

You could say we don't like to make normal faces in pictures...

More later...

TBI Benefit Concert

Today is the TBI Awareness Concert, in case any of you aren't familiar with the acronym TBI stand for Traumatic Brain Injury. Dr. Keegan runs a TBI Club on campus that give some local individuals with TBI socializing opportunities. These opportunities are very important because TBI patients can have impaired social skills after their disease or accident which makes it hard for them to reconnect with loved ones or meet new people. The concert today is in the Blueridge Ballroom in the student union, that's the one upstairs across from Greenbrier theater. Doors open around 7  and admission is only $2 but they will also take up donations if you feel inclined to help out.  Several A Capella Groups will be performing including my own, One AcChord, and Hannah Adam's group, Ear Candy. This whole event was put together by a fellow CSD Undergraduate Hannah Adams so it would be really great if you guys could come out and support the cause. Hopefully we'll see you there!

Quick Sand week

This is the point in the semester where everything seems too hard. I don't know why it's this week, it happens every semester there's just that one week I decide I'm done. I call it quicksand week cause it come out of no where, the floor just falls out from under you and it's too hard to move forward. Not that this week has been academically challenging, it's actually one of my lighter weeks. I just it's just what this week marks. This week is the end of March. It's the mark of one month left in my Junior year. It's registration time which has forced me to think about A) Summer classes, What am I taking? Where and I living? Where am I working? Can I do all that and an Internship? B) Senior year, which means one thing... grad applications. Add on the fact that my A Capella group has less than 5 rehearsal until the showcase and my fiance has decided to join the military and wants to talk about moving our wedding up and I feel like brain is about to explode from the stress. Quicksand that sounds about right.

More later

RESERVing Judgement

So this weekend my fiance told me that he want to explore the option of joining the military reserves. My first reaction was shock, then disbelief, then I was pissed, and now I'm in research mode. He views the reserves as a way to fund his education, do something productive with his life, make his life more structured and disciplined,  and support our future family. I can't  help but repeat the word deployment over and over again. I know that reserves are not as likely to be deployed as active troops and that in most cases deployment is voluntary but I can't help but think about what could change in terms of warfare in the next six years active and two years inactive of his contract. I'm incredibly proud that he wants to take on such a daunting task as boot camp and the training after and I do think in a lot of ways he is well suited and will excel but I know he doesn't want to be deployed and I certainly don't want to be without him for an entire year. We're looking everything from the reserves of all five branches to the NC National Guard to figure out what is the best options for his needs and his situation. I'm developing a list of questions for the recruiter scowering discussion forums, blogs, and websites trying to get as much information as I can. If any of you have first hand experience with any of this I'd love to hear about it feel free to comment or email me.  

My Roommate

At the begining of the year everyone loves their roommate, you're best friends. It's all fun and games cooking together and decorating your place. Fast forward to second semester and she's your worst enemy. It's that time of year. I don't know how it happens, I've heard about it plenty of time but while my roommates have gotten on my nerves in the past I have never felt to much dislike for a person I once counted as a friend as I do right now. To make matters worse we've been best friends since my junior year of high school and have an enormous amount of common friends.

It all started with a fight, she was seamed about something I put on facebook and instead of talking to me about it she just let the frustration built up until she had a dramatic meltdown. When I say dramatic I mean truly one for the movies there were insults flung at me that knocked the wind out of me.  I apologized for the imagined insult but she was already to far gone on the crazy train and eventually the things she said to me ended our friendship.

But that's not what's important right now, my point is ever since I decided she's not my friend and stopped making excuses for her everything about her seems unbearable annoying. The way the blows through money, her inability to unload the dishwasher, she way she talks really loudly on the phone to her mom every night, they way she "forgets" to buy toilet paper even after constant reminders, the way she laughs, and her frequent lateness on our power bill. All of it drives me insane now!I think it's interested how we make excuses and allowances for the people we care about and as soon as we stop caring we see them through new eyes.

Death to the Financial Aid Office

So my FASFA has been selected to be audited this semester for some reason, I guess it's random because it's never happened in the past. Basically what this means is they request all this paperwork asking the EXACT same questions as the FASFA... why? I don't understand. This is made more complicated since they require both mine and my parent's signature on everything and I do not go home more often than once a month because of my work schedule and all my Tax papers are in a file at home. My FASFA was submitted February 8th and I'm still dealing with this paperwork nightmare thanks to the University. I'm so annoyed and fed up with the whole situation.

Grad School

GRAD SCHOOL.. I feel like this phrase has been echoing in my head all week. The daunting anvil hanging over the cartoon character's head just waiting for the SPLAT. Grad school has been the one damper on enjoying my under graduate career, the one thing that makes it terrifying to pursue my dream job.

Lately though I'm trying not to see this as scary but as a challenge to be conquered. Through the many seminars, online research, review books, and practice tests I've been swimming in this week Grad School suddenly seems more attainable. Not to say it isn't still scary but I'm choosing to use it as a motivator not as a deterrent. So when the FedEx guy delivered my GRE review books today instead of crippling fear I felt determination, now hopefully I can ride this wave of motivation through next year.

More later...   

Is it that time already?

So it's dawning on me that Spring Break is next week and it's a down hill slide to senior year after that. It's hard to believe that we have less than two months of our Junior year left. It feels like it was just yesterday when I was a homesick freshman contemplating community college. Tonight I'm going to a graduate school seminar and I can't help but wonder when I got so old. 20 years down and it went in a blink of an eye. It reminds me of a song by John Mayer.

Don't know how else to say it, don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I want to get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't but honestly won't someone stop this train

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find away to say that life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said help me understand
He said turn 68, you'll renegotiate
Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
Don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train