fall.

    I love fall. I love the leaves and the way they sound when they crunch beneath my shoes. I love the brisk but sunny mornings. I love having an excuse to drink coffee and chais whenever I please. I love sitting in my living room by the fireplace, watching crap tv.

   All these things sound great, right? There’s just ONE THING that completely ruins fall for me, and that is the appearance of the common cold.

   I can’t think of anything more irritating than when someone in my class just can’t stop sniffing. It’s like they don’t notice they’re sniffing every seven seconds. And there are different classifications of sniffing.

• The dainty sniff: usually comes from girls who are trying to be discreet, still irritating though. It’d almost be better if they just manly-sniffed once every ten minutes instead of dainty-sniffing multiple times per minute.
• The snorty-sniff: generally erupts from a dude who should really contemplate just leaving the room and taking care of that. Really gross and moist sounding. Has made me gag. 
• The relentless sniff: most common type of sniff during tests because of the angle of one’s head. On average, a sniff occurs every five seconds throughout the entire exam. Has made me contemplate serious violence.

Here is a picture of what I endure during a test.

   I don’t know about the rest of my peers, but I generally try to keep some sort of snot-catcher with me in class during cold weather to prevent irritating everyone due to constant sniffing. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who gives a shit because I haven’t had a class in the past two weeks where there aren’t at least 3 relentless-sniffers. It is so distracting that I admit I’ve looked up from my exam just to death-glare at them and mentally curse them.

   Seriously, people. Grab a freaking tissue on your way to class if you know you’re having some phlegm-related issue! No one wants to hear you sniffing snot back up into your sinuses. Repeatedly.  

breaking in.

Sometimes I think back to my high school days and think, “Man, I don’t have any cool stories…”. My college friends tell me these crazy things that they did like throw big parties in the forest or take a road trip to someplace random just for kicks. But then these memories come flooding back and even though they aren’t insane and daring, they’re still pretty damn funny.

For instance, my best friend through high school and I were pretty dumb. We weren’t very good at communicating with our parents, seemed to be breaking curfew more often than not, and partook in a lot of scheming of plans that always managed to fall through. My mom will probably read this and think “really?” Yes, really. But you didn’t notice because a) teenagers generally can’t communicate with parents b) “breaking curfew” as in by five minutes and c) of course teenager plans fall through. So not only were we dumb, but we weren’t the slightest bit rebellious. But I like to pretend.

Anyway, I can recall this one time when my friend and I drove to my house after school to get ready for some sort of sport event. We had to get prettied up, of course. As we got into my awesome maroon Mitsubishi Expo to leave, I realized I was no longer in possession of my keys. We laughed because everything’s funny at sixteen. I attempted to re-enter my house to look for my awesome camo lanyard only to realize I had locked myself out of the house as well.

Obviously we panicked. There was no way we were going to be late to the game and miss watching the guys pretend to warm up when really only focusing on how long they can flex their arm muscles, seemingly oblivious to the crowd of giggling girls wearing too much eyeliner. Whoa! Sorry about that.

So we circled the house, pushing on windows and wiggling doorknobs to find a point of entrance. Nearing defeat, an idea occurred to me. My little house had a semi-dilapidated greenhouse that attached to the dining room through a set of doors. I remembered a little window at the end of the greenhouse, the only one with a screen, and decided that would be our ticket in. I ran to the garage to fetch a box opener, my adrenaline pumping at the deed I was about to do upon my own home.

I carefully wiggled the piece of wood off from covering the screen and hastily cut a few slices around the edge of the screen, somewhat like a doggy door, and motioned for my friend to crawl through. She looked at me like I was nuts but I defended myself by reminding her it was my house so therefore my rules. She obliged.

I remember urging her through despite the mass of cobwebs and dead beetles that prevented a smoother entrance. I even gave her legs a little guidance as they were waving sporadically halfway out of the hole, but she didn’t appreciate that and responded by kicking me in the ribs. She finally made it through, Indiana Jones style, and entered the dining room. The keys were retrieved successfully! I then realized I had to cover up my breaking-and-entering evidence. I resorted to using some duct tape, replacing the wooden slab, and piling a few odds and ends to block the proof.

We made it to the game in record timing! We told everyone our awesome story and shared a few high-fives at the expense of our rebellious deed.

It took me about a month to confess to my dad that I was a vandal. I sheepishly pointed at the hole in the screen after leading him into the greenhouse. He looked at me as if I was half-“special”, half-ill-bred and informed me of the spare key stuck to the back of the door to the garage. The garage I entered to retrieve both the box cutter and the duct tape. The garage my car was parked right in front of.

Our story wasn’t so cool after that.

NOT friends, cont'd.

To see Part 1 of this post, click here.

    Tysha and I managed to survive in the same living space for an entire semester. I came to realize that having an odd roommate is part of the "college experience" and provided me with numerous learning opportunities. To emphasize, let's go through some pro's and con's.

      PROs of having a roommate who was literally the exact opposite of myself:

   1. Taco Bell really does taste better after 11pm. I was once offered one of her three bean burritos while doing some late-night homework. This could also be considered a con, however, because it took me about three months of random indulgance to realize late-night bean burritos don't exactly, uh, sit well.

   2. Sleeping is necessary. Due to the fact she slept close to 19 hours a day, I found myself also relishing extra sleep. If I had a get-up-and-go sort of roommate, I would not have been able to sleep in whenever I felt like it. (You think I'm kidding about the 19 hours, don't you?)

3. Thanks to Tysha, I quickly became accustomed to the lingering scent of stale beer and marijuana. It allowed me to attend parties unaffected by the particular scent.

   See? Those are all good things, right?

   I'd go through the con's, but I would hate to be mean. Or sarcastic.

   As first semester came to an end, I decided I could deal with another semester rooming with Tysha. The decision was made mostly because I was too lazy to disassemble my enormous loft and I was afraid of having to clean all the dust bunnies out from under my desk.

   Finals week came along and I found myself facing an 8:00am Anthropology exam. Tysha was gone so I had the stuffy room all to myself. I studied late, probably too late, and was happy Tysha had chosen to spend her evening elsewhere, giving me plenty of focus-time.

   I was used to her coming’s and going’s so it didn’t surprise me much when I heard a key fumbling at our lock.

   The extra voice, however, did surprise me. Particularly because it didn’t belong to a female.

   Due to my extreme fatigue, I rolled over and forced myself back to sleep. It was almost working until I heard noises that instantly made my eyes snap open.

   For respect of your gag reflexes, I won’t go into too much detail here. Let’s just say the noise made when slapping two water balloons together closely resembled that of what was coming from, oh, three feet below my head.

   In addition to the slapping noises, there was murmuring. And…sighing. And the soft whimpering noises I was making from under my pillows to block out the horror.

   I sat awake, half crying – half humming, for about two hours. TWO HOURS. All I can say is he must have had some sort of super power. Or she wasn’t, ahem, the best.

   At about 6:00am, my alarm went off and I climbed down my loft with about three hours of sleep. Considering there was a male in the room, I had to collect all my clothes and supplies and head down the hall to the communal bathroom where I got dressed in an empty shower stall and washed my face in a two-foot-tall sink clogged with God knows what. I stalked back to my room only to literally run into the owner of the male voice from the previous night’s adventures. He stepped to the side, winked at me, and whistled as he walked down the hallway toward the stairwell. I almost puked.

   After my exam, I left Tysha a note (she was sleeping) saying I no longer wanted to be her roommate and that I was moving out for the second semester. I also told her she was gross. Looking back, I probably should have clarified why I said that. Oops.

   Also looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t say something when they were just getting going. Something along the lines of “HEY! I’M F&%#ING SLEEPING HERE!” Although, knowing Tysha, that probably wouldn’t have deterred her. I also could have thrown something at them, but then again there’s no way I would have succumbed one of my pillows to such…nastiness. So I just sat there.

   Basically, whenever you talk to your elders and they tell you about that one aweful college roommate, remember that it really does happen to everyone. I never even saw it coming. You've been warned.

study, you fool!

   Well I have learned my lesson about posting on blogs without saving my work. Last week I typed out this really funny post (I was definitely laughing to myself while typing it) and pushed “post to blog” when I finished checking over it. Lo and behold, my internet connection was lost and everything I just typed was lost somewhere in Internet land. I was pissed.

   But since I’m so dedicated to writing to no one in particular, I decided to redo it. This time I’m typing into Word then pasting & copying. Like I said, lesson learned.

   So two weeks ago I had what I like to call a Week From Hell. These roll around every so often, typically during the school year when I’m already irritated with, well, everything. But this week was particularly hellish because it crept up on me and really bit me in the butt.

   I’ve always used a day planner, even in high school, because I honestly cannot retain information. If you tell me something, I can promise you I will forget it. Unless it’s something really juicy, or if it regards dogs and/or coffee. I like dogs and coffee, and juicy pieces of gossip. This year I decided to start a new strategy involving planning my days out literally hour by hour or class by class in order to manage my time better. At first, it sucked because my days were calculated out before I even woke up but now it’s working great and I actually get stuff done! The one downfall, however, is that it only goes week to week.

   I usually make my new Week Schedule on Sundays and I look in my planner to see what all needs to be done and strategically put it on the day of the week that would work best. It’s a science, I tell ya! So the week before the Week From Hell I managed to not mention anything about all the upcoming exams, quizzes, and assignments in my little schedule. Therefore, when Sunday rolled around, I looked at the upcoming week in my planner and saw this:

   So obviously I immediately panicked, realizing I hadn’t even began studying for all those tests and exams.

   The one I was most worried about was on Thursday in my upper division Accounting class. Needless to say, I spent every night up until that exam studying into the wee hours of the morning. It sucked. My brain can only handle so much information so slowly things began to shutdown, mental-state wise. The exam began at 6:30 and this is my thought process:

3:00 – Alright, self. You’ve got just about three hours to learn everything you need to know about chapters 6 and 7. You’ve got this. No sweat.

3:20 – Ok, good start. Looks like you’ve read a total of…two pages?! WTF self? You don’t have time for this! Get going or you. will. fail.

3:32 – My brain hurts. And I want some Craisins. Ok, so I’ll get up after I finish this page, go to the bathroom, grab some Craisins, check Facebook, put my hair up…anything else I can do to waste time??

3:59 – I just wasted a half hour doing nothing. Get to work, idiot.

4:30 – Now that’s more like it! A solid half hour of studying and I kind of know what I just read! Now for a reward. Oh look, Family Guy’s on! Awesome.

5:00 – Shit. Shit shit shit my test is in an hour and a half! It’s ok. I’ve got this.

5:13 – I hate my life and I don’t care if I fail. My brain hurts and this makes no sense. Another episode of Family Guy?? Saweet.

5:30 – I just realized I have to leave my house in a half hour in order to get to the test on time. STUDY YOU FOOL!

5:59 – I no longer care. Yay, tests!

   Some of you might find that sad. Or disturbing, either one. I just figured I’d give you a glimpse into the thought process of a semi-ADD college student who can’t manage time worth a damn.