El fin! Hasta enero, Springfield. Hasta pronto, amigos :-)

I am free! 🙂

This is a little bittersweet though. It’s been the best semester of college by far, potentially the best of my life ever. It was much needed after the worst semester of college and my life ever last semester. But this one has been awesome. I am a little sad it’s over and that I won’t see a lot of my friends and professors or be on Drury’s campus until January. But then I remember I’m going to LONDON in 3 months so I stop being sad pretty quick.

I actually haven’t been that stressed out this week. I’ve been stressed all semester, in a good way though. It kept me busy and kept me going all the time, but I just feel so satisfied when I check things off my list of things to do, so I’ve been managing my time really well. Considering how much I’ve been working, I’ve had to. So I never got panicked-stressed out.

Friday night we had our final Summit project presentations. Here’s me and my roommates outside our house wearing our Volunteer shirts we got from the shelter.

Today I had my final presentation of my research project. I still can’t believe that dang project that wouldn’t go away is… gone. If anyone’s interested in learning about Media Framing of the Sandy Hook Shooting and wants to read a 17-page paper about it, hit me up. My mom told me she thought it would be really boring but it kept her attention. So there’s a testimonial, if you’re skeptical.

I got my final grades for my two Spanish classes where I have an awesome teacher. 97.75% in Spanish 302 and 97.6% in Senior Seminar! I got a 98% on both of my final papers. The other day I was talking to my professor and she said I’ve really improved a lot and I am probably one of the ones who have improved the most.

Here’s a picture of me and my class at her house after the Iniciación ceremony for the Sigma Delta Pi honor society! Those little kids are another professor’s kids.

I’m really going to miss my Spanish class!

I don’t know what to do with myself now. Probably eat a lot of food, right? I’ve been having a lot of Chipotle and pizza lately.

Or maybe I should work on cleaning this:

… Nah. I’m going to enjoy my freedom for now.

Here’s a list of some of the best things about this semester (no particular order):

• Going to Atlanta to watch the basketball team win the national championship
• Getting the outstanding sophomore in the communication department award
• Eating dinner at my Spanish professor’s house with my class
• Winning extra credit for our research poster
• A cat named Georgie at the animal shelter
• IPHONE
• Getting prepared to go to London
• Making new friends with people in my classes
• Being addicted to the Jodi Arias trial (Guilty- first degree premeditated murder)
• Going to St. Louis for a weekend with Caitlin
• Not having any classes I hate
• Not having calculus which is the ultimate class I hate

I’ll be home on Friday night, see you guys for Dirty Dancing on Saturday night! I’ll make some snakes. Oops I meant to say snacks, but it’s funny that I said snakes instead so I decided not to change it.

And t-minus six days until the Of Monsters and Men concert! That kind of snuck up on us, didn’t it? Hooray!

Cathy

P.S. Let’s come watch Andy Roddick play on the Springfield Lasers tennis team sometime this summer! I don’t really know anything about him but I know you guys do.

P.P.S. I’m still in shock it’s summer now. IT’S SUMMER RIGHT NOW. It feels like it was just last summer, right? I’m so excited for pie-worthy stories and sitting on the big rock at Bass Pro and being scared of creepy people and raccoons. Can we go camping on your property again, Kendyl? I wonder if Nick will be allowed this year.

P.P.P.S. How is it that we graduated from Chrisman 2 years ago? How is it that we just finished our SOPHOMORE YEAR OF COLLEGE?

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Looking back, looking ahead

So today was the last day of the first semester of my second year of college. That’s a lot of ordinal adjectives. Also, I’m now in my final two days as a teenager, before I enter the abyss otherwise known as “the 20’s”. So I thought I’d just take some time to look back a little at both of these things.

This semester has been a really hard one for me – and I don’t mean that my classes have been hard. I didn’t necessarily like many of them considering that they were all basically Gen Eds, but if that was the extent of my problems this semester, then that probably would have been okay. As you guys know, on the first day of the semester I got some terrible news and things got off to a bad start for me, and it never really could come back up after that. Also, I guess I’ve begun to view the world in a different way than I ever have before, and while that itself isn’t bad, it can be unsettling and uncomfortable at times. But I also realize that this is a part of life that is important, because of course nobody sees everything the same way for their whole life.

Even though there were some bad days, there were also a lot of good things that happened too. I finally was able to find a job, and it’s one that I really enjoy and is easy to balance along with school. I volunteered at the animal shelter and the puppies, kittens, and three other volunteers named Lori, Chase, and Jason never failed to make me smile. I made some new friends and hung out with “old” ones more. I called my mom a lot when I had bad days, and that always helped. I feel like we got even closer this semester. I spent time with my family when I went home, and I went to a Sporting KC game with my dad. I feel like I’ve learned to appreciate people more and the time I have to spend with them.

As far as turning 20 is concerned, I have kind of mixed feelings about it! On one hand, I’m excited to leave behind the negative connotations that come with the title of “teenager”, because personally at age 19 and maybe 18 I never really identified with being a “teenager” anymore. I’m excited to start something new. On the other hand, I’m sad to leave behind the negative connotations that come with the title of “teenager”, because it represents new freedom, immaturity, teen pregnancy (jk), irresponsibility, being carefree, and it gives you an excuse for when you mess up. I’ve had a lot of really great experiences as a teenager, like my first trip to Europe, and some really bad experiences as a teenager. It’s weird to think that soon I will be moving into the next decade of my life (the one that precedes “the 30’s” – yikes) and that this age group is usually highlighted by real jobs, bills, marriage, and sometimes children. That is seriously disconcerting and also really freaky.

Overall, I’m excited to be moving forward. I’m glad that The Semester From Hell is over, and I’m pretty indifferent about leaving my teenage years, but I like to see these endings as opportunities for fresh starts. I am determined to make the best of them and enjoy every moment. I hope you guys enjoyed my first philosophical post. I recommend that you go listen to some Of Monsters and Men because they are the soundtrack of my life right now, and I’m going to spend some time with my family before I leave for Germany in 9 days!

Cathy

P.S. I just convinced my mom to let me have a birthday party next week, you’re all invited (except I already know that Kendyl and Derek can’t come). But the rest of you have no excuse.

P.P.S. Sorry for ruining the title pattern of the weekdays, but I feel like it didn’t really fit with mine 😉

Never get sick.

Never get sick. Trust me. It sucks.

I went to the doctor last Wednesday and I had a fever. They drew some blood and tested me for strep and the flu. I had pretty much every symptom of the flu other than vomiting but I think that’s because I hadn’t eaten anything. The doctor said that if it wasn’t the flu, then they would recommend me to stay in the hospital overnight for observation. What?? After not sleeping for about 36 hours I went back to my apartment and finally fell asleep for a while. When I woke up I talked to my mom and she said she would come to Springfield on Thursday and take care of me.

Luckily we have an extra mattress in our apartment so my mom was able to sleep on the floor in my room instead of getting a hotel. This is a little graphic but here it goes: When I woke up on Friday I couldn’t open my eyes because they were crusted together, I think it was a side effect to some medication. I went back to the doctors and got some chest x-rays, and then my mom convinced me to just come home for the weekend.

But that meant I had to call in to work for Saturday and Sunday, when I had already called in two other days that week. The manager wasn’t too happy and I think he wanted to fire me, but he asked me to bring in a doctor’s note so I did. Thankfully I still have my job right now.

I slept a lot this weekend.

The week’s been decent except for the fact that I most likely failed my calculus test yesterday. I voted yesterday, but unfortunately the polling place was out of “I Voted Today” stickers which kinda pissed me off. Also I was quite unprepared for the method of voting. It really threw me for a loop.

seriously, what is this?

No hanging chads here. I only voted on 5 issues, also I voted for all the people who weren’t running against anyone just so I could feel like I was being a good citizen and voting for more than 5 issues.

Unfortunately I didn’t wear a patriotic outfit. That must be why they ran out of stickers.

Cathy

Climate Change, WTF?

Hey everybody.

My first two weeks have just been aight.
With everything that’s going on with Moritz’s family right now, I’ve been having a really hard time concentrating on anything, I just worry about him so much. I’m super unmotivated and I basically feel like I’ve been a zombie ever since school started. This could also have something to do with the fact that I don’t give two shits about any of the classes I’m taking. Calculus I with this Russian guy who says “wariables” instead of “variables”. Sociology with this crazy lady who wears shirts that are too small for her large bosoms and admitted to smoking weed. Fit for life, come on, that one is self-explanatory. Adapting to Climate Change, WTF? And Spanish 301, Composition and Literature, where we read poems written in medieval Spanish when we don’t even understand regular Spanish, and all poems are ambiguous as hell already, so how am I even supposed to answer 30 questions about this damn poem? Hey, remember that time when I was supposed to be an Advertising and Public Relations major?

Life in the apartment is pretty good though, gotta admit.

In case you forgot, I’m living with Caitlin (suitemate from last year), Kayla (friend with German boyfriend, only said boyfriend now is attending Drury), Deidre (friend of Kayla’s) and Said Boyfriend from Germany, Tobi (he has a dorm but he practically lives here). He’s cool, I wish my Said Boyfriend lived here too.

So, the four of us girls have to start our service project pretty soon. Last night I spent the better part of 4 hours making our blog that we are supposed to have, instead of working on Spanish homework like I should have. Here’s the address to it, hopefully it becomes pretty rad. http://summitcares2013.blogspot.com. I decided to use blogspot because it gave me more editing liberties, and this blog has to go on the Drury webpage. Yikes.

That’s about all, but the only other noteworthy thing: Remember #DUprobz (@DUprobz) ? Well now there is @DUgossip. LOL! For some reason Springfield has a website where you can freely browse all the mugshots that your heart desires, and @DUgossip posts the mugshots of people from Drury and other funny stuff about people. They even have their own email so we can anonymously send in “tips.” How clever!

I’ll be home around 4 on Friday, until Monday afternoon. And I’ll be slinging wienies with Tristan from 12-8 on Saturday. I hope I see you guys at Santacaligon! (Except I won’t see you Morg) 😦

Cathy