Ready or Not... Here You Go.

To answer that question.... No. I don't.

And thats only 1/100th of the terrifying reality that is about to hit me.

May 14th is sooner than you think. And with that day comes a diploma, a raging party, a cake, some legit cash from distant relatives, and waking up the next day with a massive last college hangover and a slap in the face by the real world.

Personally, Im terrified.

Graduating means becoming a real person. It means doing things for yourself, paying your own bills, finding a job and an apartment, and frankly, giving up your childhood.

Dont get me wrong. Witt has mostly prepared me for that. But the thing is, I never gave it a chance to sink in. When senior year started it didnt feel like i was 3/4ths of the way done with college, and coincidentally, with my childhood. So i cruised through senior year, excited for summer, like it was any other year, and id be back in the fall.

Lately the reality of the situation has start to hit me. I wont be returning back to Witt in August. I wont eat the gross food in the CDR again. Or streak the hollow. I wont find myself posted against the aids wall, too drunk to remember the name of who Im dancing with. And I wont drive to Coldstone for ice cream at 1am when my roomates and i are bored and craving sugar.

I wont be able to be a college student anymore, and I really never thought that day would come. 

Being about to graduate has taught me that i have taken my time here at Witt for granted. I have let the moments slip by, banking on the fact that id have many more moments to remember. And then i realized that the memories are about to end, and the real world is looming on the horizon, waiting to expose me to its horrors.

Im terrified, really. But Im ready... at least as ready as ill ever be.

Burried By Books

Suffocation.

Its the exact feeling I have when I think about all the work I have coming up in the next two weeks. And I know im not alone.

From the hundreds of people I see daily in the library, post, the hollenbeck computer lab, even the basement of the science center.. I know im not alone.

The end of the semester is a stressful time as it is, with hundreds of us seniors about to graduate, and forced to face the reality of the real world, you would think we had enough stress on our plates.

But on top of it, our professors seem to think that the end of the year is perfectly acceptable time to pile on the work, causing numerous papers, tests, projects, presentations, critiques, etc, all in the same few days.

Personally, I think the end results of such numerous projects would be more successful if teachers spaced the work, and didnt leave the biggest projects for the end of the semester.

With more spaced out projects, I believe students would be able to put more into their projects, and as a result, get better grades and present better.

Since Ill be graduating in three weeks I guess the problem doesnt reach to me anymore. But in the meantime, ill be suffering to survive these last few days.

Rain Rain Go Away, That's What All My Haters Say

But seriously... enough is enough. It's poured enough cats and dogs lately to represent every PETA and Sarah McLaughlin animal rescue commercials that have ever been aired.

I feel as if this spring it has rained more than in past years. From watching the weather and reading about constant showers, upcoming drizzles, and extreme thunderstorms, I have been tuned into the fact that the rain this year is more than usual.

There have even been numerous flood watches and warnings in surrounding areas. Even at my home in Chicago there were flood warnings, so its clear that the rain isnt just centered on Clark County.

Normally I dont mind rain.. but those are the days when I have nothing to do but lay in bed and watch continuous episodes of Glee, and alternate my stalking between facebook and twitter.

But lately the rain has drenched me walking to class before a presentation, caused me to flip mud at my butt the entire walk to class, postponed my outside runs, and left me feeling dreary.

After checking the upcoming weeks schedule I was clued in on the fact that mother nature doesnt plan on stopping her showers anytime soon. The rest of the week is supposed to rain, taking a break for friday and saturday, and continuing sun-tues.

Hopefully the clear friday and saturday will remain that way, because Wittfest is on the horizon.

In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed and your umbrellas in your bag.

The Springtime Sneezes

Seven.

Thats how many times I have sneezed in the last 10 minutes. Now I'm no doctor, but that's just not normal.

I dont know what it is with the springtime, but i have been getting increasingly sick each and every day. Today when I woke up I could hardly breathe. All day ive had a fever, been continuously sneezing, and coughing.

So its allergy season, and naturally that would by my excuse as to why i am sick. However, i am allergic to only one thing. Fuzzy caterpillars. And I havent seen any of those around campus lately so im gonna go ahead and blame mother nature.

This odd weather being 80 degrees one day and 43 degrees the next with rain and snow is NOT doing it for my immune system. Springtime is the time when youre supposed to feel rejuvenated after the winter, and ready for the world. However, I can hardly move my body, and the world from my bedroom is not nearly as exciting as it should be.

So as I down yet another dose of medicine, and facebook stalk until i fall back asleep, ill scorn mother nature for its choices. Stay warm already, its almost may!

Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Wife

But really, hide everything. All your belongings, all your favorite things, and yourself. Because Wittenberg is not the safest place in the world.

Call me crazy, but I dont feel safe at night. I mean, I used to. Sort of. Until this weekend.

Saturday night my house was broken into. I live on College Ave. in a nice brick duplex. While I am surrounded by campus owned houses, mine is owned by a landlord.

The intruder spent ten minutes scrapping at my back door before finally busting through two separate panels, one of glass, the other of Plexiglas. And just like that, I had a fourth roommate.

An extremely unwanted and unaccepted roommate, that is.

This person, who is described as a girl with blonde hair and small fingers is thought to be a Wittenberg student. Witt police say that if it was a "townie" robber, they would have robbed us blind. Instead, they took a black northface jacket, and $25 cash. They left behind another northface, three coach purses, three laptops, two ipods, countless credit cards, a shitty tv (i dont blame them), and expensive ipod speakers.. to name the valuables.

How do I know it was a student you ask? Savannah was sleeping on my couch, and witnessed the entire thing.  However, the girl looked similar to one of my friends, who lives on the other side of my duplex, and is always over, so she assumed it was just her.

Who else would be rummaging around my house at five thirty in the morning on a saturday night (or sunday morning)?

Needless to say, I dont feel safe. I havent slept in days because every noise i hear  I assume is a blonde burglar left to rob the rest of my poor college-selfed things.

I wish Witt police would do their jobs, and actually find the criminal for once.

Until then, i sleep with a golf club next to my bed.

The Drop of a Hat

Have you ever heard someone say to you that things can happen at the drop of a hat? Now upon first hearing this phrase I naturally assumed that it was an asinine statement in which I would never find an relevance. First of all, the chances of me having a hat are slim to none, and secondly, if you had a hat, why would you drop it?

That's all wrong, isn't it?

Things can happen at the drop of the hat. This means that no, you dont have a literal hat, and no, you arent going to drop it. 

Instead, this phrase has a lot of meaning. It means that something can happen in your life that is so quick and unexpected, that it was as if you were wearing a hat, and suddenly the wind blew it off. Just like that, it happened. And you had no warning of said happening.

After this weekend, this phrase has new meaning for me.

Anything can happen, at any time, unexplained, unexpected, and unbelievable.

This weekend I had a hat dropped on me.

I had gone to bed friday night, after talking to my best friend for hours on her car ride home from Florida. She was supposed to be back at 5 am, and I wasnt supposed to wake her up in the morning, even though I was so excited to see her.

When i rolled over at 9am, I had every intention of going into her room and waking her up, even though she had told me not to. But a message on my phone caught my attention. It said "I'm not home yet... call me when you get this."

That's when the hat started to drop.

Upon calling her I learned that she had been in a car accident, about thirty minutes after I had talked to her. The breaks in the car had malfunctioned, and stopped working, and all five girls were rolling through the hills of west virginia going 95 miles per hour, preparing for a collision, which was the only thing that would allow their car to stop. After four minutes of agonizing anticipation, their car took out 100 yards of gaurdrail, flipped seven times, and hit a tree. Upon hitting the tree, the car lit on fire, giving the stunned girls less than 5 minutes to get their things out, and run. While running away with their bags in their hands, looking over their shoulders, they watched the car blow up.

The hat had dropped.

Anything can happen at the drop of a hat. After listening to the story of my best friend surviving a car crash that the paramedics explained "no one should ever survive"  I was finally clued in on the true meaning of this phrase. I have never been so thankful in my entire life, and I have begun to take things more seriously, and not for granted anymore, because anything can happen at any time, and you are not guaranteed anything.

Ill never look at a hat the same way.

Scheduling a life that has no space left to fill

Its the time of the year when everyone obsessed over their schedules for next semester. Which is why we are supposed to blog on scheduling. However, since I'm graduating in may, I don't have to schedule for classes this semester.

Instead, I find myself constantly glued to my assignment notebook plugging in various dates Nd assignments. My schedule has a list of things to be added to it, yet there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to get it all done.

Between classes, my job, homework, community service, and various errands and chores, I'm left wondering how I'm supposed to find the time to do it all. And while I'm busy pondering the unlimited hours left in my day, graduation is looming closer and closer by the minute.

With seven weeks til graduation I have my own schedule to work out. Inbetween finishing all my projects and homework for the end of the year, I'm always searching for jobs and sending in my resume to various employers.

With real life looming on the horizon I find myself searching for a new planner. One that can fit everything I do in it as well as a few extra hours in each day. That way I'll be set and finally able to do what I need to do and still stay sane.