Fall

Is the reason the season autumn is also known as fall because the leaves "fall" from the trees? This had never really occurred to me until Friday when I learned that something besides leaves fall from trees. Autumn is not only a time for leaves to change and eventually fall from the trees, but also acorns. I was walking to my philosophy class in Boyer Hall on Friday morning, just strolling along, when all of a sudden--BANG!! OUCH!! After the initial sting wore off I realized that I had just been hit in the head with an acorn. You wouldn't guess it, but an acorn falling from a good 15+ feet can be quite painful. What's more surprising is that it can leave a mark. After the small bomb landed on my head I rushed into the nearest bathroom in Boyer and looked in the mirror. To my surprise there was actually a cut on my forehead, and even more amazing--it drew blood. Yes, indeed, there was a small amount of blood on the cut. I feel a little ridiculous telling people that I actually have a wound from an acorn. For your viewing pleasure I have included a low-quality picture of the wound (it's the little red mark above my eyebrow)...

Snufflers

I find Snufflers to be some of the most annoying, rude, and disgusting people in the world. Now, if you are a Snuffler I don't mean to offend you, but I hope that maybe this post will cause you to change your ways. Snufflers, for those of you who don't know, are people with a runny nose who, instead of simply blowing their nose into a tissue, choose to "snuffle" their snot by inhaling it back into their nose creating a terribly disturbing sucking noise. Ugh! Just talking about it makes me want to puke! Now, what prompted me write about my frustrations with Snufflers was having to deal with classrooms full of them. There's a cold bug going around campus here at Messiah College leaving many students with a runny nose. Just the other day I was sitting in class, I believe I was taking a test, and all I could hear was an entire chorus of snuffles. It seemed as though half the class was snuffling their snot, and I could hardly focus; it was so disgusting! My question is...would it be completely rude of me to get up grab a handful of tissues and hand one out to every Snuffler in the room? Sometimes it's just so tempting because it would really benefit everyone...I would be relieved of the sick sensation in my stomach making me feel as though I was going to puke, and the Snufflers would be relieved of having to snuffle their snot every 3 seconds. So for all you Snufflers out there, please, out of courtesy to everyone around you, get up off your butt and grab a tissue. Thank you.

Identity

I'm sorry, but this is gonna be another long post...Ok so I've got this first year seminar class called "Making Room at the Table". It's an odd name, I know, but anyways so in this class we do a fair amount of writing; my prof refers to them as free writes. So on Monday I had a little bigger one about "identity". It was a pretty random assignment in which she wanted us to take quotes from our previous free writes and our peers free writes. She also asked that it be choppy ect. Anyways, most of that information really isn't important...So I wrote my 4-page essay and i've shared it with a few other people and the general response was awe. I don't generally allow people to read what I write, but because the response has been so positive I thought I might share a portion of the essay with you. It's just the last page of it and small portions might be slightly confusing, but anyways...enjoy!

What IS identity based upon?
To be completely honest, I don’t know really know exactly what identity is based upon. Is identity based upon our money? Is it based upon our race? Is it based upon our mistakes? Is it based upon a combination of all three of those things? Is it based upon a combination of many things beyond those three?
I’m sure that Webster’s dictionary has some simple, four-word definition of what identity is, but I think that it’s far too complex to define it with a simple phrase. I believe identity to be you. I think it’s not so much of what you look like, or your job, or what car you drive, but you. I think it’s your character, you heart, your passion, and your drive because it’s those things that define who you are deep down. It’s your character, heart, passion, and drive that make up the core of who you are, and not many of the outward appearances that people judge you by.
I feel like there are many people out there who don’t know their own identity. They have little character or heart, or they don’t know what they’re passionate about, or what drives them. I don’t know if I even know my own identity. I know that I am a woman of character…but I don’t always let it show through. I know that I have heart, and that it’s strong…most of the time. I know that I have passion…for some things. I know things that drive me…but I know there’s more out there. I know my character, my heart, my passion, and my drive, but I know them incompletely. Maybe it’s possible then to know part of your identity, and it takes time and experience to know yourself for who you are. I am only 18 years old, and I, Lord willing, have plenty more years to discover the rest of my identity. Identity is based upon you, at the core of who you are. My identity is based upon me… my character, my heart, my passion, and my drive.

Laundry II

If you have yet to read my first "Laundry" post then I would suggest scrolling down and reading it; it will help to make sense of this post. Now, on to business...the verdict is in and my missing undergarment was most definitely stolen. I just hope that it was a mistake after all. Now you may be thinking, why don't you just go to the girl and ask for it back? See that won't be happening because I'd never seen this girl before in my life and I don't remember what she looks like in the least.

While i'm on the topic of laundry...again...I'd like to mention that I learned another valuable lesson on laundry experience #2. I mentioned in my previous post that I shoved two loads from the washer into one dryer...well, yeah, that didn't turn out so well. Basically, the lesson I learned is that when you shove 2 bath towels, a set of bed sheets, 1 sweatshirt, 5 pairs of pants, 17 t-shirts, and 2 weeks worth of underwear and socks, somehow it's just not gonna get dry. When the 60 minute cycle was done the contents of the dryer were far from being dry. I then had to resort to hanging pants, sheets, t-shirts, etc all over my area of the room. Next time I do that much laundry I think I might consider forking out the extra $1 and using 2 dryers as opposed to 1.

Laundry

To begin I want to apologize...I said when I began this blog that I would post every week and last week I failed to do that. Later on in the week I had a post planned out, but just never got around to writing it. This post is not that one, but I hope to get to it eventually; maybe later this week. I'm very sorry, and I hope that you all can forgive me for this. Now, on to business, Laundry...I consider myself to be quite the launderer (is that a word?). I refuse to do for as long as possible as if it were my job. Tomorrow marks exactly 4 weeks since I left home and I have done laundry twice. I really feel as though that's too many times for a 4 week period, but you get to a point where you run out of underwear and this is what usually determines when I do laundry.

My first laundry experience was a frustrating one. I chose to do laundry on a Sunday afternoon...BIG mistake! Everyone and their mother were doing laundry!! I managed alright to get my clothes into a washer, but because I refused to spend my Sunday afternoon in the laundry room watching the minutes go by on the timer, I had to wait 2-3 hours to get my clothes into a dryer, and that wasn't without nearly getting into a fight with some inconsiderate guys.

Tonight is my second laundry experience and it's definitely been a better one. I really wasn't wanting to break down and do it, but when I noticed that I could literally see dirt on my bath towels (which hadn't been washed since I left home), I knew that it was time. However, who knew that the laundry room would still be busy on a Monday night? Certaintly not me!! My first attempt at bringing my clothes to the laundry was a failure. I went down around 8:30 pm and all washers were in use. I was upset, but I didn't allow this to discourage me from doing my laundry tonight...mostly because my sheets were in my laundry bag and I wasn't about to remake my bed without having washed the sheets first. I was a trooper though and headed back down to the laundry room around 10:15. This time I managed to find two open washers and shoved my piles and piles of laundry in. When most people bring their laundry down, they usually have a (1) mostly full laundry bag. Not me; no, I manage to drag down 2 very full laundry bags and I make sure that I fill those 2 washers full with clothes. When it comes time to dry I make that they all fit into one dryer because as a college student with no income, my dollars are very precious to me, and if I have to fork out $1 per wash and $1 per dry then i'm gonna make sure that I get my money's worth.

My biggest fear about the laundry room is that someone will snatch an article of clothing or two. For that purpose I always set the alarm on my cell phone to make sure that i'm back in the laundry room with minutes to spare before my load gets done. Tonight, however, has taught me that it's possible for your clothing to be stollen right out from under your nose. Ok, so I'm not sure because my clothes aren't out the dryer yet, but I'm pretty sure that an undergarment of mine might have been mistakenly snatched while I was standing right beside it. Here's how it went down...I had a dryer all picked out to put my clothes into once they were done in the washer. When the dryer cycle ended I removed the person's clothes, which schockingly only consisted of like 2 pairs of socks and tshirt (crazy!), and set them atop the dryer next to mine. This currently lost undergarment was one I had no intention of putting in the dryer so I placed it between the two dryers so I wouldn't forget to bring it up with me. I proceeded to put all of my laundry into the dryer, and in the process the owner of the clothes I had taken out of the dryer came back to claim them, which she did, and then she left the laundry room. Once I'd completed the great task of squishing all my laundry into the dryer I was about the exit the laundry room when I remembered that undergarment. I looked back and it was no longer there! I immediately became furious because I assumed that this anonymous person may have accidently grabbed my undergarment along with her stuff. As I walked up to my dorm I realized that it was possible that I had accidently thrown this item into the dryer. So now the question remains...was my undergarment accidently stolen? or did I throw it in the dryer? In approximately 15 minutes I will have the answer to that question!

I've heard before that good writing circles around from where it began so I've decided to circle my writing around by closing with an apology just as I began with one. I apologize sincerely for writing such a long post, and not just a long post, but a long post about, of all things...laundry! I guess there are just certain times when I receive great inspiration to write on certain topics, and for some strange reason, tonight I received great inspiration about my laundry. My apologies folks, I hope to bring you a more interesting topic soon!

Boredom

Alright, as my friend Nicole would put it..."let me set the scene for you"...it's a Friday night, 11:45 pm and me and 2 friends are sitting in our dorm, bored out of our minds. I'm pretty upset because now 2 Friday's in a row I've gotten really excited about a party, gotten prettied up for it, and then once I get there it's lame. Then I'm left with nothing to do for the whole rest of the night. Tonight was especially horrible because I went to this party (a clean party for those of you concerned family members), realized I didn't know anyone and that there was nothing to do, and came back to my dorm by 8:45 pm. What does one do when this situation arises? I'm pretty sick of sitting in my dorm because I've done enough of that during the week. The weekends are supposed to be fun, and so far they've been lacking in that. So basically this post is just a cry for help. What are poor college students to do on the weekends when they're bored out of their minds? I'm open to all suggestions...on campus, off campus, free, cheap...I wanna hear them all because I don't wanna spend another weekend night sitting in my dorm room writing retarded posts on my blog. But, just so you all know and you don't get worried about me, I bring to you a couple pictures of the fun I had last night having a sweatpants night with my girls at El Rodeo, a local Mexican restaraunt, and a little shopping followed by football in the parking lot of Giant, a local grocery store.

This is me and my friend Sarah "Spacey Sarah" Schooley

Ok so I'm not in this one but this is (from left) Nikki (roommate), Kristi Shea (hall mate), Nicole (softball buddy and adopted roommate), Sarah (hall mate), and Emily (roommate)

So anyways, post a comment, shoot me an email, do whatever to let me know what I should do next time my weekend plans turn out to be lame-o.

Worry

I've officially decided that worrying is 99% of the time totally and completely unecessary. Coming into college I was worried about a lot of things. What was probably most ridiculous was my worries about class. I think that I've probably been pretty much afraid of college classes for a few years now, but now that I'm in them I feel retarded for being afraid. College classes are fabulous! I mean you only have to go a couple times a week, professors don't care if you're there or not, you can walk in and out of class as you please, and you never have to do stupid busy work. The only things that really suck are the whole writing tons of papers thing and having to buy your own books thing. Those are indeed a pain in the butt, but whatever, I'll deal because it's all just part of the experience, right? Another thing that I was really worried about was softball practice, and after today (my first day of practice) I know that practice is also something in which worrying was something that was just completely unecessary. My very first college practice really wasn't too bad, ok so Coach wasn't there because she's not allowed to be there yet, but still. I felt like I played pretty well and we didn't even have to run that much! So anyways, the moral of the story is...don't waste your time worrying too much because it's stupid.