Things Change

Do you ever get bored with your space?  It happens to me quite frequently, especially when I have spent my year crammed into a dorm room with very few arrangement options.  Still, I get restless and feel the need the switch things up a bit, even if that means trying something a little unusual.

And last night, that's exactly what I did.

It's a little different, because it sticks straight out into the room in front of the closet, but it's weird enough to satisfy my need for something entirely different.  It also means that I have an entirely new wall space to decorate!

What's boring you in your life, friends, and what can you do to change that?

Blink, And It's Over

I cannot believe that this year has gone by so quickly! And yet here we are, in my final days of freshman year. I guess you could say that, because I am done with work and finals, my year is already over. But I don't know if I'm ready to let it go yet.

When I originally started this blog, I said that I wanted to chronicle my adventures and musings. What I didn't plan on capturing was how much I would change this year. If you go back to my earliest posts, you can see that I was an entirely different person, timid, quick to judgment, and generally unsure about my place in the world. While I think it would be a little much to say that I have my entire life figured out, I do feel good about pointing out how much I've changed. If there is one thing I've learned in my first year of college, it's that you need to go with the flow. Even the best laid plans can fall through, as I've discovered on multiple occasions this year, and when they do you have to be able to laugh it off and go with it. But at the same time, you can't get completely swept away; you need to take responsibility for your own life. Maybe this is what being an adult is all about: taking charge of your life when possible, and recognizing when you have to just let everything go.

The next few days will be a whirlwind of laundry, packing, and taking down my wall of color. Although I didn't quite cover the entire wall, I got pretty darn close to it. I can't wait until next year to start my next collection in my new room! Thankfully, my grandparents are letting me store some stuff at their house over the summer, so my dad and I will be driving home with a significantly lightened load. We're staying for the Giants vs. Athletics game this Friday, and should be on our way home Saturday morning.

I fully intend to continue posting throughout the summer, despite the fact that the adventures will be taking place in a Southern California beach town rather than the big city of San Francisco. I am actually terribly behind on posting pictures of things like my trip to the Mission District, Chinatown, Rio Vista, and my first every Bay to Breakers, so I will have plenty to talk to you all about. Keep checking back for the forgotten adventures of freshman year!

Thank you all for coming on this journey of my first year at college with me. It's been quite the experience, hasn't it?

The Final Haul

Well, I've certainly gotten terrible at updating, haven't I? I didn't even get to do a Thanksgiving post! And here we are, in the last few days of my first semester here in San Francisco. I'm lucky enough to only have one final, so I have been able to do a bit of exploring with my friends. On Friday, for example, we took a trip to Union Square to see the Christmas decorations.

They had up a Christmas tree and a little ice rink. We got hot drinks and watched people skate before going over to Macy's to ogle at the live kittens and puppies that they were displaying in the window. There were so many people rushing from store to store, so many lights, and so many billboards displaying present options.

Justine was successful in finding a present for her aunt: this naval nutcracker!

And our friend Cassie, who is a serious cook, was delighted when we found this gigantic gingerbread house. All in all, it was a successful trip.

Although classes ended last Wednesday, I have been very busy trying to find time to go out and explore the city while also completing all of my required essays. People have been slowly trickling out of the dorm, and the floor is beginning to feel more and more deserted every day. I am now so used to having people around me constantly that it is difficult for me to comprehend that I will not be seeing them for six whole weeks! I have a physics final on Wednesday, and less than an hour later I will be on my way to the airport. With any luck, I will write the next update from the comfort of my own living room, while enjoying a steady internet connection.

But first thing's first: have to conquer my final!

The Great Flood

Tonight was a very nice night. My living-learning community put together a big Thanksgiving feast, and it was really nice. Then we returned to the dorms, and were hanging out in the hall when all of a sudden water started trickling out of the boy's bathroom. Before long, it had turned into this:

Poor Justine got stranded in her room! The nice thing about being in such a close community is that everyone genuinely cared about saving other people's rooms. We all grabbed extra towels and tried to keep the water from seeping into the doors of people who weren't there. The university was also very good about responding. The hall director was up on our floor within fifteen minutes, checking rooms for damage and keeping us updated on the situation. And the maintenance staff had the water almost completely cleaned up in just 45 minutes!

Thankfully, it happened early enough in the night that we weren't all trying to deal with it at midnight or later. Also, because to day is the last day before Thanksgiving break and most people are gone anyways, the maintenance staff will have plenty of space to deal with the situation. Hopefully they replace the carpet, because if not it is nearly guaranteed that we'll be getting mold. And one of the girls on the floor recently developed a mold allergy...

It wouldn't be college without at least a couple crazy stories to tell, now would it?