When My Sibs Came to Town...

So a couple weekends ago, my brother, sister, and sister in law all came to visit me at college. My roommate was gone, and they brought an inflatable mattress and crashed in my room. Before their arrival, I was a nervous wreck, and was running around cleaning like a mad person. When I was finished cleaning, Jonathon came and gave me peanut butter and pretzels and tried to calm me down. Eventually they arrived, and I ran at them in the parking lot and attacked them with hugs. The first thing my brother said to me was 'you wear hats now!' xD. The first night they were here, we went to see the engineering college's presentation of Reduced Shakespeare Company, which was HYSTERICAL, with Jonathon and per his recommendation. They all had a fantastic time :). After that, we crashed in my room for a while, then went to dinner on the strip. When we came back, my brother and his wife went to sleep, and my sister and I headed up to 'the family room'--the study room where my friends and I all hang out. Most of the 'family' was in there, and it was so much fun to share them with my sister. Over the course of the evening, she broke up with her boyfriend, which wasn't easy for her. I think that being 9 hours away from him and having the support of myself and my friends really was the ideal situation for this to happen, and I'm grateful that she had the strength to do what she needed to do. Here is my brother crashed on the floor xD:

The next day I treated my sibs to dining hall food and gave them a bit of a walking tour, including the basement of the library and around the football stadium.

My brother kept playing with the lights in the basement, and I was running around turning them back on. In the afternoon, they went to Wal-Mart with a grocery list to do my shopping for me while I tried to do homework, and while they were gone I wound up napping, then being woken with a phone call from Jonathon, who wound up throwing rocks at my window. When they got back, they came with LOADS of food, as well as college gear for themselves :).

In the evening, a friend named Cody(who was of great help to my sister) accompanied us on a walk to a local park, which turned into an extremely long walk off campus and eventually to an amazing restaurant, where I had pecan fried catfish, half of a burger, and some gouda grits :D. It was fun to eat with my sibs and my friend, and they got along great, which really made my night. The next day my sibs and I had breakfast at IHOP, which was fun, and then went to Wal-Mart together and got a couple more things, and I returned some junk jewelry I'd gotten for Halloween and didn't use. After Wal-Mart, we said our goodbyes, and my siblings left… it was so hard to see them go. Here's a pic of us four right before they left:

Luckily, I got to see my sister again during Thanksgiving break… which will be covered in my next post :). Until then,

My Fall Break/Halloween

Hey everyone! I just thought I'd post about my fall break/Halloween weekend/Monday, because quite a few funny stories stemmed from the events that happened over those few days, and I thought it might be nice to make y'all laugh a little :). First off, a friend named Jonathon and I went to another friend's, my suitemate Katelyn's actually, house for fall break, to go to her church's Lebanese/Middle Eastern food festival and a local haunted furnace that had been converted into a haunted house (cue lightning). While at the food festival, I ate Kibbee, a delicious Lebanese dish, as well as kaak (which is somewhat cookie like and said 'kike'). I also bought my sister a bedlah (one of those jingly jangly skirt things the dancers wear), much to the amusement of my friends, who joked it was really for me.

After the food festival, Katelyn, David (her cousin), Ryan (her brother), Jonathon and I all headed to the furnace, and I've got to say, it was a TON of fun. Partly because I discovered that I completely FAIL at haunted houses--I kept laughing! I was truly in amazement at the makeup jobs these people had… it was so impressive! Funny story: at one point, this monster guy was shouting something, and I didn't understand him, so I yelled 'what did you say?', and then he hopped up on the other side of the fence from us and shouted 'do you wanna die little girl?.' He wound up asking if I wanted him to come over the fence, to which I responded 'I just wanted to know what you said!,' and he wound up doing just that. While he was storming in my general direction, I raised my hand, because I wasn't sure he'd be able to see me in the dark, and he yelled 'I can find you little girl! You don't need to be raisin' your hand!'. After he came over, he threatened to take out my teeth and kill me and all sorts of stuff, and I just said I was sorry, I just wanted to know what he'd said xD. He also said that I was gonna bust my head open inside the furnace, and that he'd come steal my teeth then, and I said 'thank you for waiting until they're out of my head!' automatically, cause seriously, who wants their teeth ripped out? Katelyn was livid that I'd 'attracted' the monster to us, and I said I'd try to do better. I guess that pretty much sums up my general attitude throughout the haunted furnace--genuinely impressed and fascinated, but not remotely scared, and cracking up quite a bit.

After the furnace, we went back to Katelyn's house, and then we watched Elizabethtown per Jonathon's recommendation. It was actually really funny and heartwarming, and I loved it :). After the movie, he and I just talked for a while, until eventually we fell asleep.

On Monday, Halloween, a couple days after our visit at Katelyn's house, she approached me and said that she was upset with me, that I was a terrible house guest, and that I'd offended her mother by acting 'weird'. The point is my Halloween had a bit of a rough start. But getting into costume (I was a ballerina style bat) was fun, and so was eating with Jonathon and Katelyn despite the unresolved tensions. Jonathon was a pirate for the first half of the day, and the Phantom of the Opera for the night (and our friend Lin was his Christine). Katelyn was a creepy porcelain doll, and other costumes of my good friends include Slytherin quidditch player, Cheshire cat, and Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Overall, Halloween was a lot of fun.
Random related things:

• You know that bedlah I got for my sister? Turns out she just bought one, so I get to keep the one I got--it WAS for me, after all, much to my friends' amusement.
  
• One of the main parts of Elizabethtown is when one of the characters sends another off on a journey, with a map that begins "this is a very unusual map"--remember that one for a future post ;).
  
• Jonathon suggested writing thank you notes to Katelyn's family for letting us stay, and within mine was an apology for whatever I did to offend. While chatting with Katelyn the other day, she said her mom said thanks for the note.
  
• I'm really freaking tired.

Music That Moves Me: Waiting For the End

"Waiting for the end to come
Wishing I had strength to stand
This is not what I had planned
It's out of my control...."

As most of you know, my time at home wasn't the easiest or the most pleasant. The end of the summer was fun, but only because I was practically living outside of the house, be it on the road or at the USNWC or at my sister's place. But overall, my depression had me in a tight grasp, and I was struggling with my concerns regarding college as well. I was waiting, just waiting, for my time there to come to an end, and praying with all my might that I could stay strong and not break under the pressure until then. "All I wanna do is trade this life for something new, holding on to what I haven't got." There was a time when I was simply clinging to an idea, the vague and alien idea of freedom, and desperately so. Parts of this song perfectly describe my past, the feelings I had of exhaustion and weakness, that feeling of waiting… and then the wait was over.

"So, picking up the pieces, now where to begin?
The hardest part of ending Is starting again"

and now I fear I'm starting to slip into a whole new world of waiting for the end...

"Sitting in an empty room,
Trying to forget the past,
This was never meant to last,
I wish it wasn't so..."

My fear? Losing this. This freedom, this happiness, this whole new world I've been blessed with. My new family, these people I love, this distance from everything I hated back home. I'm on scholarship. And I'm going to fail at least… 2 classes, maybe 3. Which means my GPA is hosed. In addition, in doing so terribly academically, I've risked losing my friends simply by disappointing them all… I fear some of them are growing tired of caring so much when I'm not making much progress fixing things. I'm still trying to figure it out, and I'm battling the pessimistic idea of waiting for the end to this happiness. I fear it isn't meant to last. But I'm determined to MAKE it last. Okay, so I've already ruined this semester. I've partly accepted that. But next semester I'm going to take control, because next semester it really counts. Anyway, I guess overall, I like this song because I most strongly associate it with my past, with waiting for THAT to come to an end, and with that ending and me having the chance to start over here. I could take up that attitude again, but I'm not planning on it--I fear it, but I will not choose it.



The other day at dinner this song played over the radio, and I said "I love this song." My friend Jonathon asked "what does it mean?," and that is what prompted this poorly written post. Just ramblings I guess. But anyway, Jonathon is one of my best friends here, and is new to blogger--if a couple of you could hop on over to Life of a Jonathon and see if you care to follow, I'd appreciate it, and I know he would as well. Love you guys, and talk to you more later,

Thnks Fr Th Mmrs

I was recently informed that someone who was once my closest friend no longer wishes to speak with me, for various reasons, and sadly I understand. He's ready to move on, and if that is what is best for him, then that's okay… I made an effort, and I guess that's the best I can do. I still have a handful of happy memories from our time together, even though they are outnumbered. I think that the phrase 'all good things must come to an end' proved true over a long and painful amount of time, and a part of me… a small part, but still a part… is relieved that we're both now free from our strained relationship. Thanks for the memories, even though they weren't so great, I guess. But I'm not posting to pout, I'm posting just because it is a part of my life I'm letting go, and wanted to share that with you. Now, I'm off to make more happy memories in my new world, my new home, even though I'll never forget the people who helped make me who I am, him included. That's been my mission since I arrived at college, a mission I share with select friends… the phrase 'ah, memories' is in frequent use between one friend and myself :). I've witnessed a spider weaving its web, stood by while a friend swung my purse over his head to mess with bats, sat in a creek for hours talking, watched the sunrise with a friend from the roof, ridden around walmart in a buggy, ridden on bicycle handlebars, went to a Lebanese food festival, went to a haunted house (actually, a haunted FURNACE--more on that later), got primer in my hair that's STILL there, and of course, slept in various places other than my room (including the roof, in a bikini… we're not supposed to go out there, but I needed sun! xD). Haha, I'm an Olympic sleeper and champion memory maker xD. I guess that despite all of my constant stresses about my (to quote a friend of mine) 'metric shit ton' of homework, I really am learning to love life while I'm here. I'm happier than I've ever been, and that's good enough for me :). Talk to y'all later,

My First Vlog--Nov. 4

Hey everyone! I decided to give vlogging a shot--what do you think? I repeat myself some, and was nervous and sleep deprived, so it is kind of lame, but you get the idea xD. Share your opinions--I value them!

Thanks guys, love y'all, ttyl!