Gwen's Blog of Semi-Randomness

First off, congratulations to anyone who gets the joke, to all those who don't, go read or watch Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Secondly, this is it, by this time tomorrow, I'll be home. Then I will search for a job so I can afford to come back next year.  I have a short list of things you should know about the end of the school year at college.

You will have leftover dining plus money.  You will be unable to spend it.  I just got back from getting dinner at Out of Bounds.  There was nothing there.  There were no chips, none!  Nothing to drink but milk, not even water.  They were even out of the good batteries, the double and triple A's that my roommie and I have been buying to burn up dining plus money, so I had to buy q-tips.  I still have like, 12 dollars on my dining plus and two meals to spend it in.  My advice, stock up before everybody else realizes they have forty dollars of dining plus to spend and they start buying all the food you want.

You must defrost your fridge before you can take it home or else it will make a massive mess.  That would be bad.

Packing cannot be done before the last minute, despite what parents think.  There is a certain amount of stuff that can be gotten rid of, but most of that isn't packing so much as throwing stuff away.  The vast majority of stuff I have, I need.  I predict staying up late tonight to get this stuff packed up.  (Boo!)

Packing is a depressing process.  

First to go are all the happy things like posters and toys, then you have to start getting rid of the stuff you still need, and you have to live without.  Things like a large selection of clothes.  I have hardly any clothes left here right now.  All the fun things go away, except the internet.  They can't take that away from me!  They can't!  I won't let them!  (I'm not addicted to facebook and youtube and wiki and memory alpha and online comics, no, not me.)

Next on the list, selling back your books.  Bookstores are out to make a profit, not to give you a good deal.  Sorry.  They will give you half the price they would have charged you at the beginning of the semester.  My roommate actually got a pretty good deal for some of her books.  The main problem is that they won't give you one cent for an old edition of a book, even though most of the time you can get through a class just fine with the old edition.  My roommate bought an old edition of her history book for $16 instead of spending like, $60 on the new edition and the only difference was in the last chapter, so she was just fine.  You may find some books that you want to keep, but there will always be those books you can't wait to be rid of.  I mostly just don't want to lug those heavy things home, so guess who's going to be selling books back tomorrow.

Everything you have lost over the year can be found under your bed.  Unless you lofted it.  I intend to do that next year, these rooms are just a tad small for my liking.  Anyway, I found my super special awesome skull flip-flops, the evil shoes that give me blisters, a book, like, three hair ties, and my glasses case under there, and a lot of dust bunnies.

That leads me to another point, you will have to completely clean your room before you can leave.  If you don't, they charge you by the hour to have it cleaned.  Not fun. It might be advisable to dust a little more frequently than we did.  That is to say, ever.

Now a short note for incoming freshmen.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun.)

Enjoy that week they give you before classes start.  I envy you so very much.  I spent it worrying and fretting about my classes, but now I know I'm going to miss it next year.  I am going to miss it so much. 

Overall, I think I have learned a lot this year, not nesecarily things I will need to know in real life, like the names of the fully digivolved forms of the digidestined's digimon (say that five times fast), or how long it takes to ride the bus to the movie theatre (4 minutes), or how long it takes to walk back because I forgot to look up the nearest bus stop (18 minutes), but I have learned a lot.  I have made some friends in my classes that I intend to keep in touch with, and I have one super special awesome new friend, my roommate.  I have a cool new hobby that she has been teaching me, spinning, as in color guard.  I like rifle the best, but that is mostly because I like the sound the strap makes when I catch it.  I have discovered the joys of watching children's anime shows, Pokemon are cute, but Digimon has way more plot than I ever gave it credit for.  And Yu-Gi-Oh! is fun to watch, but I must admit to enjoying the Abridged Series better.  It is just so funny. (I like Yami best, buy my roommie likes Seto Kaiba.)

I'm not saying I haven't learned anything from my classes, its just that most of that wasn't what I would consider life altering.  I read a lot of stuff that I enjoyed, like Beowulf and the books I reviewed for my Young Adult Literature class, but I also learned that Candide really isn't as funny as the professor told us.  It wasn't that I didn't get the jokes, I got them, I just didn't think they were funny.  But I learned from it.

I've enjoyed this year and learned a lot and I hope next year is just as good.  Thank you all for reading my blog this year.  I hope you have a good summer. 

I decided to take pictures of everything pretty on my way to and from class this morning.

Here they are

So, I think that about covers it.

Enjoy spring. 

Wow that was a busy week.  Now I only have one week of classes and then finals, but most of my work is done.

This week I had to:

Write an essay for Tuesday morning,

Write a reasearch paper for Wednesday evening,

Do a presentation Thursday morning,

Write an essay for Friday morning, and

Go to Michigan for my sister's best friend's wedding Saturday. 

 Well, guess what, I got it all done.  And this week is happy happy bubble time.  I have no assignments due, I only have to study a little, and then next week I can take my finals and be done with this year.  So until then, my roommie and I are going to enjoy ourselves and de-stress so we can do better on those all-important finals.  And so we don't worry about how we are going to get all our stuff home.

OW!!!  I just managed to get a massive splinter stuck under my fingernail and had to pull it out.  Stupid old dorm desk.  Ow.

Ok, so, about the end of the year, start packing things off home early.  Over the year you will accumulate a lot more things than you brought with you on move in day.  It will not all fit in the car!  Also, it isn't a great idea to put off all those final essays until they are due.  You will have one week with no sleep.  That isn't particularly fun.  The advantage I have is that I got to go to a hotel and sit in a hot tub afterwards.  Ah, hot tubs. 

Oh, and the campus is blooming beautifully right now.  Lots of Daffodils.  "The Brigadier wants to know if the daffs are dangerous."
 

And so I leave you my faithful and patient readers. 

I've already told you how much I hate phones.  I'd much rather email or talk face to face.  That is just the way it is.  On this note, there are almost a handfull of people who know the number for the dorm phone.  The problem is that in a dorm, you have the same number as the person who lived here before you.  So take the number of people you gave the number to, and then add all the people they gave the number to.  Sadly, we have one poor guy who keeps calling asking for some girl we don't know.  We have told him three times that she doesn't live here, but since we are pretty sure he is less than shall we say, sober, when he calls, he doesn't seem to remember having had the exact same conversation several times before.  The problem is that I am too nice to just hang up on the poor guy, so I end up standing there listening to him talk about how great this chick was who gave him her number A YEAR AGO.  This chick he hasn't spoken to IN A YEAR.  This chick he keeps trying to call.

My reccomendation for all incoming freshman is this:  DON'T GET A LANDLINE PHONE.  Just use your cell.  Chances of getting calls from random people on your cell are a lot lower.  Now, if you have been in a room for a year and decide to stay there, then it may just be safe to get a real phone.  By then people will have forgotten about the previous tennants of your room.  Or at least have given up trying to call them. 

Speaking of rooms, we did room selection for next year a while back, and I will be keeping my roommie!  Yay for making best friends with some random person Ball State stuck me with!  No evil roommate drama here.  We did decide to change rooms though.  Mostly because we don't like walking up all these stairs.  And we want to escape our persistant wrong number.  I apologize to whoever gets my room next year. 

Well, have fun all.  I'll type at you later. 

Sorry I didn't get up a post last week.  I was just recovering from the whole wisdom teeth thing when I caught a real nasty cold.  It was lingering and I spent last weekend being really whiny and feeling like I was dying.  Of course being sick put me a little behind on studying, so of course writing a blog post completely slipped my mind.  I had two tests yesterday and then my roommate's best friend came up and spent the night.  We had a nice little adventure to the mall where we spent too much money, but we had a good time.

In other news, I think I'm going to start knitting a really long somewhat random scarf so I can be like the fourth Doctor.  I don't know.  I'll knit something.  Knitting is usually pretty relaxing.

 Well, I will talk at you again next week.  Have fun until then and thanks for reading.

These are the source of all my current woes.  Getting my wisdom teeth out wasn't all that bad, but now I can't eat real food.  And of course what do I want?  Crackers, chips, pizza, popcorn, french fries.  Oh well.  Since I only had two wisdom teeth to begin with, I guess I got off pretty easy.  I haven't had hardly any swelling, and I'm not in much pain, my mouth muscles are just sore, especially when I yawn.  I spent pretty much all day yesterday asleep from the pain meds.  Then I got up at 5 this morning to take the antibiotics.

So, yeah, my main complaint is that after just a day and a half, I am tired of jello and pudding.  I am fond of crunchy snack foods and I am currently deprived of that.  Not fun.

Oh, I did finally defeat Jade Empire in closed fist.  First time through, I played as a good guy, but I wanted to be evil.  It was hard!  There were extra fights, I ended up having to kill most of my companions.

Well, everyone enjoy what is left of your spring break. 

Alright, so I'm sure you all have grand ideas aboutSpring Break.  Going to some tropical paradise with every other college student in America and doing incredibly stupid yet somehow fun things.

I'm getting my wisdom teeth out.

Then I intend to sit on the couch and play x-box and generally be annoying and demand sympathy.

I am not going anywhere but home.  I will hang out with my friends and family.  I will sleep in.  I will do homework.  According to my sylabi, I shouldn't have much, but it should keep me occupied enough that my brain doesn't turn to slag from playing Jade Empire nonstop.  I intend to finish knitting this strange green rectangle while I watch TV with my Mom.

Even if I weren't getting my wisdom teeth out, I wouldn't be doing anything grand.  I can't afford to go anywhere.  I am paying my own tuition.  Scholarships sure help, but I have to ration myself on comics.  So instead of going someplace I can't afford and doing stupid things that are probably hazardous to one's health, I have created a short list of places I wouldn't mind going.  They aren't the typical spring break destinations like Florida or some random tropical island.  They are places I would actually enjoy.

London.  Sadly the first thing I would probably do when I got there would be to go to the BBC websites for Torchwood and Doctor Who and play with all the stuff that we can't get here in the States.  Then I would probably get a proper cup of tea.

Cardiff.  Not far from London, Cardiff is the setting of the show Torchwood.  My roommate and I have been planning our own imaginary trip there for ages.  We have a ton of places to go in Cardiff.  First stop, Roald Dhal Plass (I think I spelled that right).

New Zealand.  With the number of movies filmed down there, there is no doubt it is a beautiful place.  I really want to go see it.  It might even be cool to go hiking there or something.  Hey, they have penguins, why wouldn't I want to go?

 Like I said, a short list, but as far as I'm concerned, a good one.  No beaches, no spring break crazy behavior.  Ah well, I guess I'll have to settle with the couch, mashed potatoes, and entirely too much Jade Empire.  But at least I'll have my friends to hang out with.  Well, except my roommate.  She'll be going home too. But that's what Facebook is for, isn't it?

 Ok, so I decided to go through all the pictures on my camera, so here is a selection, including a few pictures of my still nameless roommate.  (I like to mess with your minds.  It is so much fun.)

 Everyone say hello to Bob again.  Bob is creepy.  Bob missed you.  We wish Bob didn't like those ears quite so much, they really freak us out.

 This is the friend my roommate made out of the carpet she dug out from under her bed.  Scared the daylights out of us everytime we came into the room.

There really isn't much I can say about this other than that yes, she is wearing like, 4 hats.  And yes, this is considered normal for us. 

Just a random pretty picture.  Of Ohio.  Not Indiana.  Not that you care. 

The big frog, Lucky Frog, belongs to my roommate, and the little one, Pinky Frog, is mine, but they are good friends and like hanging out at this pirate's grave. 

We ordered this poster, like, two weeks ago and it finally came and we jumped around and squealed a lot.  The room looks a lot nicer now.   

I just randomly decided to take a picture of this I guess.  Don't have a bloody clue why, but here it is.  A penguin, hanging in my closet, with my underused fan fiction journal.  (I tend to just type things up, easier to edit). 

 Well, have fun with these. I promise to update sooner next time, and to actually tell you something.

Hello.  Not much actually going on at the moment, so I thought I would spend a moment discussing the strange sleep patterns of what I am going to call the average college student.  Namely (or rather, not) my roommate.  Alright, and myself.  My roommate naps, a lot.  The other day she took a four hour nap, went back to bed at 11, and then got up at, like, 10. That day I took no nap, stayed up until midnight or one, and then got up at 10:30 ish.  Last night she went to bed at 7.  Yes.  7.  I will admit, in her defense, that our room gets really dark and we are usually too lazy to turn on the lights, so you get kind of drowsy.  Anyway, she went to bed at 7, I went to bed at 11:30, her phone rang at midnight (I'll talk about phones in a minute), she didn't hear it because she could sleep through a marching band, so I went over and set the phone next to her in case it rang again, and because I am mean like that.  At 1 she woke up and noticed her phone, so she checked it and saw she had gotten a call.  Not long after that she got up and read fanfiction until 6 this morning.  I woke up momentarily at 5, just long enough to see what time it was and notice the glow from her computer screen.  Then I went back to sleep.  She went back to bed at 6, and didn't get back up until 11 this morning.  I think I was up and about around 9:30 or 10.  I'm not sure.

The point of this is that you will sleep according to strange patterns when you are in college.  Mostly because you can.  If you have a few hours between classes, you will likely take a nap then.  But, as I demonstrate, it is also not strange to not take naps.  That was a double negative, just for my roommate's dad.  Long strange story.  Anyway, not napping and staying up late are normal.  In fact, I highly recommend staying up late, the internet is way faster when everybody else is asleep, and thus not using it.

Alright, so that is your lesson for today, on to my mini-rant.

Twice in the last week we have gotten a call where someone on the other end is whispering really hoarsly.  The first time I just assumed it was an old person who had a wrong number and was having trouble talking, but it is definately a prank call.  The more we tried to talk to the person, the more my roomate and I decided it sounded like someone trying to imitate those stupid phone calls of death from bad horror movies where some middle aged guy end up getting beaten up by a cheerleader.  And for anyone who cares, that is why I hate phones.  Anyone can punch in a number and waste your time, but with email, you can apply nice little automatic filters that stop spam.  I know you can get caller id and just not answer the phone, but honestly, who wants to listen to a ringing phone.  Not to mention that phone calls (at least to me) have a certain degree of urgency to them, so you always wonder (at least I do) if something has happened, maybe Mom or Dad, or whoever else had to borrow someone else's phone.  So basically my brain guilts me into answering the phone.  And I hate it.  Stupid phone, gruble grumble.  Stupid person grumble prank calling grumble grumble.

Oh well.  All in all a nice weekend has been had.  Looking forward to the next one and the performance of Love's Labours Lost that I am dragging my roomate to see (we actually have to write a short paper about it, but it should still be fun), looking forward to Valentines Day and getting to see my fiance.  He's a sweetheart.

Well, thanks for reading.

I believe I promised you two pictures.

Well, the first one is sad, but my favorite cat died when my parents were bringing me back to school after the long weekend.  So here is a picture of Jack.

To cheer myself up, I have been addicting my roomate to some of the greatest of British television shows ever.  Doctor Who and Torchwood.  In return, she has addicted me to the fine art of collecting icons to go along with my massive list of favorite quotes.

Here is a picture of the character from Torchwood who shares my first name.  This is Gwen Cooper.  She's pretty cool, I guess.  Not as cool as Jack Harkness who is from the future and can't die, or Ianto Jones, who is basically just in charge of coffee (I want his job, get to hang out and do all the cool stuff, but have no responsability if things go horribly wrong).

Oh, somewhat random, but you will have to take a physical fitness class if you come here.  It includes a lecture (between you and me, it is exactly the same as the health class I took last semester).  Take the walking class.  I love it.  The minute of push ups is pretty much killing my arms, but the walking is great!  I feel happier and I am definately getting to class faster (not that I need to since I obsessively leave a half hour early).  It is also a great way to make friends.  There is a group of 4 of us who hang out and stick together as much as we can.  We usually have lunch together when we are waiting for lecture.  It is nice.

Well, that was nice and random.  Oh, everybody enjoy what's left of Winter-een-mas!  If you don't know what that is, you can google it for yourselves.

Thanks for reading. 

If you read the comments, you'll notice a question about the BSU dance program.  Sadly, I know nothing about the dance program.  I hope to fit a beginning ballet class in next fall, but I'm not in any of the dance classes right now.  Sorry I can't be of more help on the subject Sharon.

The best place to find out about that would be here.  http://www.bsu.edu/theatre/article/0,,27105--,00.html

It is getting easier to get up for my morning classes, so I must be adjusting to my schedule pretty well.  Ok, it is bitter cold out right now.  Sorry for the dearth of pictures lately, I promise at least two pictures in the next post.  Not much going on at the moment aside from me having developed a new addiction, Scifi channel's Tin Man.  It pretty much rocks.  I am currently watching it for the third time.  I'm a little sad because there isn't a Wikiquote page for it yet.  I may have to fix that myself, because life is not complete without a Wikiquote page.

Wow, that was nice and random!  Oh well, I have Dancing Through Life from Wicked stuck in my head.  I cam home for the long weekend and have had the house to myself for a little while, so I have been singing it out loud a lot.  I think my favorite lines are "Those who don't try never look foolish" and "Woes are fleeting, blows are glancing." Yeah, I pretty much love that song right now.

Thanks all for reading my little happy ramble. 

This is going to be my rant on why things are wrong.

I really, really hate the idea of having one day to move in and get ready for a new semester.  You have to move in, send your parents home, unpack, jam all your stuff into the dresser.  It fit last semester, I swear!  Then you have to get all your stuff ready for class the next day.  This all must be done before a normal hour so you can get to bed and wake up in time for the class you scheduled for ridiculously early in the morning.  Grumble grumble stupid all my friends having another week of break grumble grumble. 

 Great, I wrote that first part yesterday, and now it is raining, my cute umbrella broke, it turns out that I didn't REALLY need to buy some of the books I did buy.  And I still have math today.  I hate math.  Grumble grumble wish I had this week off of school, grumble grumble.

I want to watch Tin Man again.  I liked Glitch, he was the coolest version of the Scarecrow ever.
Oh well, I guess I will settle for listening to The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny and telling you all that while I am really grumpy and whiny today, this will pass.  You will have really sucky days, you too will get over it.  Profs will do things that make no sense, they will talk about group projects, and you will hate them for it.  You will do the project quickly, get it done and over, and then enjoy not socializing for the rest of the class.  Your umbrella will turn inside out until it breaks so it won't open all the way anymore, and you will bust out a new one.

Ok, that sounded stupid.  I hate overdone inspirational stuff.  It just depresses me.  So, yeah, just like the rest of life, some days are pretty bad, but you can either get over it, or be the really mean grumpy person nobody will sit next to in class.  And while isolation might be ideal for those of you who read this because you are also an antisocial freak, there are better ways of achieving isolation.

Blah blah blah, come read this when I'm in a better mood.  Oooohh, my green springy pen, all is well with the world!

Hello all.

I said I would post, so here it is.

I have a cold.  I want to sleep.  Sleep is good. Jade Empire and Morrowind are good.

Things I miss about school. 

   Sleeping until whenever.

   all my stuff in one place

   next to no people, good since I'm so anti-social.

 Things I like about home

   seeing all my friends and family

   better food, not that Ball State's is bad

   time for games.  the xbox is definately coming back with me

   floor space

   no classes

Fun as it is to home, I don't think I'll mind going back.

Take care all, and have a Happy New Year.

Oh, and for those of you observant enough to notice the change in the title, yes, I am now a sophomore.  If you can, I highly reccomend taking courses for college credit while you are in high school.  It really cuts down the time you'll spend at school, and thus the money you will have to spend. 

A TWIST ON TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

'Twas the night before finals,
and through the college,
the students were praying
for last minute knowledge.
Most were quite sleepy,
but none touched their beds,
while visions of essays
danced in their heads.
out in the taverns,
a few were still drinking,
and hoping that liquor
would loosen their thinking.
In my room, I had been pacing,
and dreading exams
I soon would be facing.
My roommate was speechless,
her nose in her books,
and my comments to her
drew unfriendly looks.
I drained all the coffee,
and brewed a new pot,
no longer caring
that my nerves were all shot.
I stared at my notes,
but my thoughts were muddy,
My eyes went ablur,
I just couldn't study.
"Some pizza might help,"
I said with a shiver,
But each place I called
refused to deliver.
I'd nearly concluded
that life was too cruel,
with futures depending
on grades had in school.

When all of a sudden,
our door opened wide,
and Patron Saint Put-It-Off
ambled inside.
His spirit was careless,
his manner was mellow,
all of a sudden he started to bellow.
"On Cliff notes, on Crib notes,
on last year's exams,
on wing-it and sling-it,
and last minute crams!"
His message delivered,
he vanished from sight.
But we heard him laughing
outside in the night.
Your teachers have pegged you,
so just do your best.
HAPPY FINALS TO ALL,
and TO ALL A GOOD TEST.

This was sent to me via Facebook, so I decided to share.  Whoever wrote it is awesom, and they have my thanks.

Have fun, good luck, and for all you Hitchhiker's Guide fans out there, DON'T PANIC!

I have had about 7 chocolate candies and half a Jones soda today, so I am a bit hyper, especially since I just finished most of my finals.  Only one more to take, yay!

Note to parents, especially mine, I am in no way encouraging/promoting procrastination.  Nor am I addmitting to having procrastinated recently.  I'm just saying it works is all. 

Ztelsha, the Procrastination Fairy...of Doom!  My Roomie colored this to avoid studying when she had me hide her computer, Lexi.

Have fun all.  I will continue posting over break, but it will probably be irregularly, in a whole, whenever I feel like it kind of way. 

Hello all. This will be a short post as I am in the middle of studying for exams.

I haven't really tried any special techniques to relieve stress.  I take study breaks, usually to read some online comics or go to to youtube.  Sometimes I just end up taking a nap.

I have had to ban my roomate from playing freecell after she hit 300 wins.  She had me hide her laptop last night so she can study without the temptation of freecell or fanfiction.

I have like, 3 notecards taped to the top of my lappy, one with my finals schedule, one with my study schedule, and another one with a list of things to grab from home over break.

It really is a lot to ask someone to finish up their classes, take finals, pack up thier half of the dorm, and then go buy Chistmas presents.

I try to stay focused on one thing at a time, but it gets hard sometimes.  I can't wait until this week is done.  I really want to stop worrying about things and have some time to relax.

Well,  I better get back to working on that essay.  Take care, and good luck to everyone on their own finals.