I do believe this is the longest I've ever gone without an update...!

Okay, first off: college has been amazing, and wonderful, and terrifying, and everything else.  I did make a bunch of friends, so I shouldn't have been so worried when I last posted.  That first week was awful!  Just awful and lonely.  But around the second week, it got a little better because I found a Christian group and got hooked into their organization.

Ya know, I felt a little jealous of a friend of mine because he got to go off to Bible school instead of a college right after graduating high school.  But God knew my heart, and so He placed me here.  In my first semester (this past fall) I got deeply involved in about three different Christian groups.  I had friends to meet with one-on-one.  I had almost nightly Bible-studies, with seemingly some group thing somewhere every night.  I got seriously immersed in the Word.  It was wonderful. :)

I'm now involved in three Christian groups and two churches.  I'm a worship team leader (singer) at one of my churches and one of my groups, too.  It's been a lot of fun.

School has been crazy.  The first semester, my history class like ate my life.  It was the hardest and most stressful course I've ever taken in my life.  Praise God that it's over!!  I was sitting here, bummed for having a math test tomorrow, and then I realized how LESS stressed I am tonight than I was last November for one of my history tests.  Dudes, I am happy to be here and out of that class!

I still haven't finished my NaNo'09.  In fact, I didn't open it from around early January until yesterday.  I met with some of my NaNo buddies (I have NaNo buddies who live in my city now!!  And we hang out and write together--it's so cool!) and while we were sitting in the coffee shop, I decided to bust out the ole novel.  So I've written a bit in it again, and I think I'm ready to finish it.  Which is exciting. :)

I've also taken to writing fanfic now. lol  For lent, I'm not reading any fanfiction, but I've started writing it and that is fun.

I hope all of you are doing all right.  I'll try not to go so long without an update again! lol

Laura B.

New Home...

Well, I've moved into my dorm.  I don't think I've discovered that I'm missing anything crucial yet.  Hopefully that will continue... lol

The room is small, but so was my bedroom back home.  It's not very nice/amazing though, sadly. lol  It looked really broken down before I started putting my stuff up.  The paint's chipping on the dresser drawers/closets/walls/ceiling light.  But my room looks beautiful with my brand new sheet-set and fuzzy propped-up pillow-chair thing.  There's plenty of room for storage.

And best of all, my dorm is really close to the student center (where there is food and all kinds of random student-needed services) and right near the Quad, which houses almost all of the buildings I'll be taking classes in this semester.

I walked the closer half of the campus this morning.  Found all of my classroom's buildings, and went to check out Old Main, (the oldest building on campus.)  I discovered this little pathway that leads around the building, (and walks across the edge of a cliff / hill).  It was beautiful.  Lots of trees.  And the building looks like a large church, I think.  So amazing.  Anyway, on the back, there were all these carvings in the stone from people putting their names and the dates into it.  The entry that most fascinated me was "M. S. Tudyk 8/5/23"  I was like....wow!!  1923...That's cool.  I walked where that person walked.  And I stood where they put there name in the stone.

It made me think of my grandfather.  He died fairly soon after I was born.  (I've heard he refused to go to the hospital for what turned out to be lung-cancer, because he wanted to see his next grandchild.  So I was born a while later, and then I guess the hospital couldn't do much for him because he had waited so long.)  Anyway, there is a point to this: I was picturing him walking around the campus when I got to Old Main this morning.  He went to college here, and my mom did too.  It's kind of fun to feel connected to that history.  I'm walking around the buildings that my grandfather saw some 70 years ago.  It's very cool.

I stood and journalled behind the building for about half an hour, ranting about the history of this place and the names carved in the stones.  It was my favorite sight to see this morning.

I'm starting to adjust to living here.  It's a little weird being away from home.  But it hasn't been too bad yet.  Well, except for when I hugged my mom and sisters goodbye at the shuttle bus that would take them to their car.  Yesterday, they got on the bus and left me here; I was so heartbroken. lol  (Such a baby...)  I nearly bawled all over them, trying to say goodbye.  But the three of them are the people I am most close to in my family.  I'm really going to miss not living with them and seeing them everyday.  It kind of terrifies me.  So it was hard to say goodbye yesterday...and hard to talk to my mom on the phone when she called a little later.  I know I'm only 45 minutes away from home, but that place isn't home as much anymore.  This dorm is my home.  At least for now.  So I'm trying to get used to living here.

I think I'll go out and do some more sight-seeing.  If my legs can handle it. lol  The whole campus is built on a hill.  It feels like you're constantly walking up and down stairs.  One of my sisters decided she hated the campus when she first walked it yesterday.  Too many stairs and steep slopes.  I agree it's kind of ridiculous after a point, but it's so pretty here I'm not complaining.

Here's hoping I'll meet some people soon!  I've been too shy to do much.  I ran into a girl in the bathroom yesterday (community bathroom) and she randomly unloaded on an issue she's having with her boyfriend.  But I didn't really catch how to pronounce her name and I don't really know her.  She lives next door though, and from the sound of it, she is quite the talker.  I am not.  I prefer to sit quietly than to start conversations...unless the other person looks really shy, in which case I forget my nerves and try to make the other person feel better than I do.

Tonight there's an ice-cream social going on at the dorm next door.  Our dorm and that one are right next to each other, so I'm finding that we do a lot of things together.  So tonight, I guess I'll go and get some ice cream and see if I can find anyone else who looks like they haven't really met anyone...  Hope I don't chicken out. lol  I'm actually really shy...the internet is where I talk the most.

*~*Laura*~*

Life ends here:

Life...life as I've always known it...ends here.  Tomorrow, a little after noon, I am going to be moved out of my house and putting things into my first ever college dorm.  It's sad; I'll never live at home again, (except for occasional weekends, holidays, and perhaps a summer).

Also, as it happens, not a single one of my friends (anywhere) is going off to college this semester!  My two best friends are entering senior year of highschool; two others are staying in town for community college courses; another is doing a Bible school thing for a year; and the list goes on....  I'm the ONLY ONE in ALL of my groups of friends who's going off.  ...It's been kind of lonely.  No one here to commiserate with.

And then, to make matters worse, I've been paired with a sophomore roommate.  Even my roommate isn't in the same boat as me!

Really, I don't mean to be such a baby about this, but I feel completely alone.  It kind of sucks.  I'm moving away from my life, and it feels like everyone I care about is just staying here, going on with the life we used to share together.  I'm leaving everthing I love behind to go off to some strange new world and.... *sigh*  Sorry.  I should stop whining.

I'm not going to whine.

I think I have everything packed.  I hope so...  I move out tomorrow morning, arrive around noon, settle in.

My parents are going on a cruise...  They'll be gone during my first few days of classes.  I can't call home and tell my mom about my day.  (At least no one meant for that to happen; the scheduling was a last-minute change on their part, and they would have had to cancel if they didn't pick this date.  And besides, it's their 30th anniversary; they deserve a vacation.)

I don't really want to move out...  I love life here.  I'm not going to get to watch my youngest sister grow up!  I won't be in the house everyday when she creates some random masterpiece out of wood anymore or needs help deciding how to move the furniture in her bedroom!  My other younger sis can't come to my room and rant about the latest fanfic she's read.  We can't watch old tv episodes of shows we used to be (and still are) addicted to!

I'm not ready to let go.  But I have to...

I'll try to update sometime soon.  To let you know I haven't fallen into depression or decided I couldnt' handle college...

Laura

Work was really bad yesterday morning.  Rough shift.  Then I went home for two hours and argued with my sister for almost the whole time.  Then I went to work again, but it wasn't as bad that time.

Tomorrow I go to work early early in the morning...yippy.  But it looked like an easy day from the seating chart I pulled yesterday.  Should be a slow morning.

I went freerunning tonight, but not really.  I hopped some mailboxes...(meaning I jumped/vaulted and tried to get on top painfully, then jumped off).  It was funny trying to avoid all the people in the neighborhood.  We (my sisters and I) almost ran and vaulted onto a mailbox but stopped a few feet away when we realized someone was sitting on the other side of it. lol

*~*Laura*~*

Nervous Breakdown: over

Yep, I'm okay.  Last week was...last week.  I was kind of stressed out, (as if you couldn't tell).

Right now, I'm trying to forget it all.  The past.  The future.  It's all gone.  Music.  Ludovico Einaudi is playing through my headphones and I'm sitting in the present--only the present moments exist.

I'm choosing not to worry about tomorrow.  It doesn't matter.  Neither does two months from now.  Nothing matters but the present.

I have no work or violin lesson tomorrow, and my workplace is closed for the 4th.  So I have an honest to goodness three day weekend ahead of me.  Three days of no work.  You can't even believe how ecstatic I am.  I work five days a week, and have a hectic sixth day of other things.  I am so looking forward to pampering myself with wasteful expeditions and junk food and extra sleep.

I've decided that as I am moving away in about a month and a half (the 19th of August) that I must do at least one extra special thing for myself each day.  I want to make the most of my last weeks at home.

Yesterday I bought ice cream.  May not seem like much, but I really enjoyed it.  My friend slept over the night before.  I've cracked open some fun books that I never finished last summer.  I've been rewatching old favorite movies.  Tonight was Mission Impossible 3.   I also printed out the sheet music for Einaudi's "Fly" song.  (Think Nokia camera comercials or NBA if you youtube it. lol)

It's time to enjoy my last summer at home as a pre-college kid.  I have 48 days left at home....

*~*Laura*~*