Second Year, Second Semester
Things are going pretty well! I'm actually very surprised, considering how badly getting back to Kansas went.
I was suppose to leave for Lawrence Monday, but once everything was loaded into my red hatchback it was almost three o'clock, which would have meant getting to Lawrence probably around midnight. And then i would have had to unload it all that night, which would have been a gigantic pain. What really sealed the deal was my mother's pitiful please of "why not stay one more night?" Why not? Why not lounge around at home and watch basketball with my mom, who would otherwise have to spend the evening alone?
So i stayed. It was just too easy. One more day of not facing another semester of mess.
Tuesday i tried again. And lucky i had not left the day before: as i stowed a couple of socks in my closet, i noticed i had forgotten to load half of my hanging clothes (the sweaters and other cold weather clothes, of course). Then, thirty minutes after i left, my navigator, my electronic transplant of a sense of direction, completely gave out. I exited the highway, called my mom, and haphazardly made my way back to my house to switch mine out with my dad's (he, of course, has a sense of direction and therefore doesn't need his on a daily basis). On my third attempt at leaving, the navigator put me on a different route, which i later figured out was the shortest distance, not the shortest time... which meant i added about an hour to my trip.
Well, an hour before i took a wrong turn halfway, and had to take a 44 mile detour. And then, when i reached the next exit to turn around, i messed it up and got back on the highway in the same wrong direction. The navigator announced that i had added yet another 40 minutes to my drive, to which i replied "Fuck that!" Without thinking twice, i used one of the no u-turn nitches in the median that police lurk in to make a u-turn.
Then, an hour out of Lawrence, my ipod died, so i had to search around in the semi-dark to find a cd to put in. There was one car on the highway at that point, so my slight swerves as i reached across the car seemed like they didn't matter. Oh, except that that car was a state trooper, who felt the need to pull me over. I told him i'd been driving for 8 hours from Dallas back to school and was tired, and he asked me a bunch of questions about crap in my car, including what use to be in that glass bottle i had sitting in my cupholder. Thanks, officer. He gave me a warning and told me there was a rest stop somewhere up the highway, i wasn't paying attention. Fuck that. I watched as he followed me another ten miles, and then exited. Even if i was tired, no sleep till Lawrence.
I got to Lawrence about 10 hours after i first tried to leave. Colin came over to help me unload my stuff, and in exchange unloaded all his drama on me - a great way to start off what i was hoping would me a much less dramatic semester. We went and got coffee (and i actually drank coffee, the second time in my life) and decided to team up to try to get through this semester as best as we can, all crap considered.
But so far, there hasn't been much to "get through," at least for me. With the exception of the surprise welcome home gift my roommates gave me - taking down the flyer off our door about a test of the fire alarms early wednesday morning, so that i woke up and stood out in the rain in my pajamas while our building showed no signs of burning - everything's been pretty peachy. My room's still a gigantic disaster area, i have been eating grapefruit three meals a day because i haven't really gone grocery shopping, and it is ridiculously frigidly cold and icy, but everything's been pretty good otherwise. I've already found something to fill my ample free time - a local theater group who was at veggie lunch thursday asking for volunteers to cook food to sell as concessions at their show. Because i needed an excuse to cook, i volunteered my services, and suddenly i'm wrapped up in this group of local actors and they're terribly excited to have someone who's willing to do anything. "She cooks, she paints sets, she does stage work, she acts," announced Cynthia, the woman who roped me into concessions. "I don't act! I can't act! I'm no good!" i said with an air of flustered modesty. "Well, we'll teach you! You'll do it all!"
So things are going pretty well. Doing things by myself has gotten significantly less lonely and depressing and more independent. I'm just hoping i can keep this motivation up. It's nice to be consistently happy at school again.
I was suppose to leave for Lawrence Monday, but once everything was loaded into my red hatchback it was almost three o'clock, which would have meant getting to Lawrence probably around midnight. And then i would have had to unload it all that night, which would have been a gigantic pain. What really sealed the deal was my mother's pitiful please of "why not stay one more night?" Why not? Why not lounge around at home and watch basketball with my mom, who would otherwise have to spend the evening alone?
So i stayed. It was just too easy. One more day of not facing another semester of mess.
Tuesday i tried again. And lucky i had not left the day before: as i stowed a couple of socks in my closet, i noticed i had forgotten to load half of my hanging clothes (the sweaters and other cold weather clothes, of course). Then, thirty minutes after i left, my navigator, my electronic transplant of a sense of direction, completely gave out. I exited the highway, called my mom, and haphazardly made my way back to my house to switch mine out with my dad's (he, of course, has a sense of direction and therefore doesn't need his on a daily basis). On my third attempt at leaving, the navigator put me on a different route, which i later figured out was the shortest distance, not the shortest time... which meant i added about an hour to my trip.
Well, an hour before i took a wrong turn halfway, and had to take a 44 mile detour. And then, when i reached the next exit to turn around, i messed it up and got back on the highway in the same wrong direction. The navigator announced that i had added yet another 40 minutes to my drive, to which i replied "Fuck that!" Without thinking twice, i used one of the no u-turn nitches in the median that police lurk in to make a u-turn.
Then, an hour out of Lawrence, my ipod died, so i had to search around in the semi-dark to find a cd to put in. There was one car on the highway at that point, so my slight swerves as i reached across the car seemed like they didn't matter. Oh, except that that car was a state trooper, who felt the need to pull me over. I told him i'd been driving for 8 hours from Dallas back to school and was tired, and he asked me a bunch of questions about crap in my car, including what use to be in that glass bottle i had sitting in my cupholder. Thanks, officer. He gave me a warning and told me there was a rest stop somewhere up the highway, i wasn't paying attention. Fuck that. I watched as he followed me another ten miles, and then exited. Even if i was tired, no sleep till Lawrence.
I got to Lawrence about 10 hours after i first tried to leave. Colin came over to help me unload my stuff, and in exchange unloaded all his drama on me - a great way to start off what i was hoping would me a much less dramatic semester. We went and got coffee (and i actually drank coffee, the second time in my life) and decided to team up to try to get through this semester as best as we can, all crap considered.
But so far, there hasn't been much to "get through," at least for me. With the exception of the surprise welcome home gift my roommates gave me - taking down the flyer off our door about a test of the fire alarms early wednesday morning, so that i woke up and stood out in the rain in my pajamas while our building showed no signs of burning - everything's been pretty peachy. My room's still a gigantic disaster area, i have been eating grapefruit three meals a day because i haven't really gone grocery shopping, and it is ridiculously frigidly cold and icy, but everything's been pretty good otherwise. I've already found something to fill my ample free time - a local theater group who was at veggie lunch thursday asking for volunteers to cook food to sell as concessions at their show. Because i needed an excuse to cook, i volunteered my services, and suddenly i'm wrapped up in this group of local actors and they're terribly excited to have someone who's willing to do anything. "She cooks, she paints sets, she does stage work, she acts," announced Cynthia, the woman who roped me into concessions. "I don't act! I can't act! I'm no good!" i said with an air of flustered modesty. "Well, we'll teach you! You'll do it all!"
So things are going pretty well. Doing things by myself has gotten significantly less lonely and depressing and more independent. I'm just hoping i can keep this motivation up. It's nice to be consistently happy at school again.