"What we play is life."

Boring. Also, lame.

I have to be out of Chinook by Saturday at noon. No big deal, but my lease for next year doesn't start until June 5th. So, once again, I have to box up all my stuff and move it to other people's places, go home, then come back and move it all back. Gah. For once I would like to move straight from one place to another, instead of all these go-betweens. It's annoying, but more importantly, it gets other people annoyed at me.

I said a few weeks ago to my parents, very clearly, that if I had to choose between them taking me home and them taking me back to Pullman, I would want them to take me to Pullman so I could buy stuff on the west side to bring back, and so that my dad could help me move boxes back and set up furniture and whatnot. And what did my parents say? Oh no, don't worry about it, we'll bring you both ways. And what did my parents tell me yesterday? Oh, well we think we'll just send you back to Pullman on the bus, because we'll be so tired from our three week vacation to beautiful Italy while you're stuck in a big old spidery house cleaning horse poop and losing money because Penneys can't hire you back. Is that okay? No, that's not fucking okay.

They bought me a sofa-bed, a computer desk, and a chair from Target. But was this an act of parental charity? Oh no. They deducted the money from what they were planning on paying me for house-sitting. Of course. That's what parents do, right? They make well over $100,000 a year and I'm the one working year-round in food service to pay rent, and they're too cheap to just buy me a $180 sofa-bed for my new apartment. Thanks?

But anyway, they bought this stuff and they want to bring it over on Saturday because I'm supposed to take the bus back up to Pullman. But this would require storing it with someone. Steph only let me put boxes in her storage closet, because having a few boxes against a corner of her freaking gigantic apartment would just be too much of an eyesore for her. And Jon is less than enthusiastic about letting me store the rest of my boxes with him. I don't really blame either of them, but it's just so frustrating to be so helpless. I have no choice but to rely on my friends to help me out, and they get so mad at me, and it makes me feel like I'm nothing but an annoying burden. I'm really sorry, but there is nothing else I can do! So if I asked Jon to also store a sofa-bed, desk, and chair, I'm sure he would be just thrilled.

Plus, if I have to take the bus back up here, that means I have to get someone else to help me buy, transport, and set up the rest of the furniture I need. I will also have to get Steph and Jon to help me move all my boxes into my new apartment.

Can you see where I'm going with this?

I'm really frustrated, all around. I can't do this by myself. I need help. I hate having people mad at me, and I don't know how to fix it. I hate that my parents did exactly what I told them I didn't want them to do, and they just blithely assume that it will be okay with me. If I had known this from the start, I would have planned things much differently, but now there just isn't enough time. And the whole crappy thing is a losing proposition for me, because by house-sitting for them, I'm losing an entire month of pay. I just spent a bunch of money on the deposit and first and last month rent for that apartment, not to mention this laptop so that I could write my ten page and four page final papers without one hand holding the stupid adapter. I can't afford to be jobless for a month this summer, when I should be working 40 hours a week. That's at least a thousand dollars that I could have made from mid-May to mid-June if I could have stayed in Pullman, and I could have rented Chinook for only about $175 for that month. Then I could have moved straight from Chinook to my new apartment. As it is, I'm stuck all alone in that house for a month, cleaning horse poop, taking the dogs out, avoiding spiders, and doing NOTHING. Fuck.

So I texted my dad, saying once again that if I have to choose, then I'll get a bus ticket for this weekend or early next week. I mean, my mom was never going to help me move in to my new apartment anyway. She's like that. When any work is involved, she immediately opts out, even though she ALWAYS brags about how hard her job at Boeing is and how hard she always works. She didn't even help me move in to Gannon when I first came to college. She just said goodbye in the morning and that was that. She saw WSU for the first time late last semester, and I'm surprised she even made it then.

This whole situation just blows. With any luck, I'll renew my lease on this apartment and live there for all of junior and senior years. Then I'll have to move all my stuff back to Snohomish, which will be annoying, but by then I'll be 21, so I can just rent my own U-Haul or whatever and move it all and drive it all myself, no help needed from anyone else. Then I'll have to move it to whatever state I end up in for grad school. I'm guessing that I'll do the same thing then--just rent a U-Haul and drive it myself. My dad might come with me... he flew to Virginia when my brother needed to move his truck back to Washington just to drive with him. He might want to help me drive all my stuff to Indiana or New Jersey or Illinois or wherever. I don't know. Whatever.

Grr.

So I dropped Chemistry 101 and signed up for Honors Anthropology instead. This is an okay change because I'm still fulfilling requirements and checking things off my DARS report, but the longer I put off chemistry the less motivation I'll have to take it. Gah. But it would be so much freaking work... pre labs and post labs and pop quizzes and online homework points and huge exams... if chem was my only hard class, it would be fine. But Experimental Methods is going to be really hard too... research proposals and research papers and more statistics and a teacher who doesn't like to give "A"s... I don't want to wear myself out to get good grades in both these classes, plus two other psych/soc classes AND a 400 level honors class.

But taking into account the fact that I might not ever be able to list chem as my only hard class and put in the amount of effort that it requires, I might cave in and take geology instead. That would be an easy A, but a boring one. So I'll either take chemistry during a semester in which it's my only hard class, or take geology in a semester in which it's my only boring class. We'll see.

Tomorrow:
walk to Streit-Perham and get my keys before class.
11 am Social Deviance
12 pm get lunch or something
1 pm Big Band (my chops are going to suck)
2 pm UH 440
3 pm back to apartment, get uniform, walk to work
4-close work.

Whoo.

Well, I am about 75% moved into my new room! Very exciting. Now I am just sitting here with a sore back, wondering what I'm going to do for dinner. Hopefully the groceries I bought yesterday will last me till the weekend. And hopefully on the weekend Steph will go back to the grocery store with me.

Tomato soup? Maybe. Comfort food sounds good right now.

I also want to commandeer (Renee's?) season four of Friends, which is sitting tantalizingly in the living room. But if I do that I'll spend all night watching it. And won't have time to watch more tomorrow, which would be painful. But it's only 5 and all I have to do for the rest of the day is clear the stuff off my bed so I can go to sleep. What else am I going to do with these five hours or so? Certainly not anything productive. Hmm... tomato soup and Friends... this sounds fantastic.

Well, I only have one more week of working at Penneys, and that only ends up equating to four more work days, unless I can scrape up a few more shifts. How odd. One week of 40 hours, one week of 20 hours, and then one week of five hours. What weirdos. :D

I suppose with all my free time opening up in front of me, I will have to get to work on those projects I wanted to do over break. I don't have the WSU library with me, but I do have the online catalog, so I can start looking up some info there. See what I can find. And the roads should be all cleared up in a few more days. That means: MALL! Shopping = happiness.

But really... my last day is next Sunday. I don't think I'll be heading back to Pullman until the Sunday after. That's not cool. Almost a full week with nothing to do? Bad news bears is what that is. Maybe I can see if anyone else is heading up sooner than Sunday. I don't really want to stay here awkwardly if I'm going to be pretty much home all day, bored as hell and wishing I were unpacking my new room and prepping for my new classes.

Speaking of which--I finally checked back to see if UH 440 was open, and it is! So I dropped Motivation (ha ha, how ironic) and signed up for UH 440. Whoohoo! That drops my Tuesday/Thursday classes down to just Experimental Methods from 10:35 to 11:50 and Human Sexuality from 1:25 to 2:40. So I will have a break for lunch and general homework completion and then after Dirty 230 I'm done for the day. I like that better than three classes. And my MWF is still going to be odd--Chemistry from 9 to 10, break, Social Deviance from 11 to 12, break, big band from 1 to 2, UH 440 from 2 to 3. And on Wednesday, after that, I have Methods lab from 3 to 5, break, and chemistry lab from 6 to 10. So my Wednesdays this semester won't be fun. But at least my Tuesday/Thursday will be light!

Belatedly: grades came out a while ago. I am very happy: 4.0 this semester, which ups my cumulative GPA to 3.76. I am only 0.14 GPA points away from graduating with the highest honors from WSU, and I bet I can do that in the remaining five semesters. Now I'm wishing I had tried harder to do undergraduate research next semester, though, because I will need two to three letters of recommendation to apply for graduate school, which means two to three undergraduate research stints, and I only have three semesters left before I will be applying. Hmm.

I will have to make an appointment with my psych advisor to see if the letters of rec have to be from undergraduate research, because I will be taking the undergraduate practicum class for Basic Helping Skills sometime next year, and you'd think whoever teaches that class would be qualified to write me a letter. So that would bring me down to one or two undergraduate stints. The only problem with it is that I am not sure I'll have adequate time to do research assistance fall semester of next year, especially if I make section leader. But then, I could take 14 or 15 credits and then a full three credits of undergraduate research, and that would equate to about nine hours a week in the lab; so I could do those hours during the day time when I would have had another class. That would work.

We'll see.

Dentist tomorrow. Don't know how that will go, since when I open my mouth too wide my cheek hurts. I'll have to tell them that, and maybe I'll get lucky and they won't do the stupid tooth-polishing thing. That would be sweet. And it spare me some unnecessary cheek pain.

I can't believe it's already the 9th of August! This is so exciting. Only six more days until I can move into my room in Wilmer-Davis, and then only two more days after that till band camp starts. I thought this last two weeks would drag on and on, and they have a little bit, but now that I'm really and truly in the homestretch, the days are going to start flying by. Whoo! I cannot wait for the new year to start. It's time to shed my old skin and start over again.

Whoo!

Anyway.

Not much really going on lately. Today I bought a nice big fan so that this year during band camp I won't overheat in my own frickin' room. Yay. And then I found out that a girl in the music department that I sort of vaguely know is pregnant. Wow. She's really excited too--it was an accident, but she's pretty psyched. I am very impressed by her attitude. If that happened to me, I dunno what I'd do... probably freak out. :P

It's starting to get a little more lively here in Pullman. People are moving their stuff into their new apartments. Sweet! I am so excited.

Yesterday I had a bad day, and I hung out with Amanda and pretty much felt better immediately. We walked down about a mile to the nearest grocery store and got ice cream and then walked back up, which was actually really fun. Then we watched Ever After, which is basically the best movie ever made. I'd definitely say it's my favorite movie of all time. So if you haven't seen it, go watch it already.

I really like hanging out with Amanda. You know, we were the best of friends in my junior year of high school, and then she went to college and I stayed in Snohomish for senior year, and then we just didn't talk all that much this last year. So it's really nice to be able to hang out with her again, and sort of rekindle this friendship. I'm having a hard time for reasons that need not be stated again, and she's having a hard time because her roommates are a dating couple with relationship problems--enough said. So it's nice to sort of mutually complain and mutually sympathize and then eat ice cream and watch chick flicks. It's really nice.

And pretty soon, all the cool peeps I made friends with last year will be back in Pullman. Sweet.

Well, there isn't really any use in me blabbing on and on about how excited I am for school to start up again--and that's really the only thing on my mind right now--so I'll end this here. :)

Everyone is posting all these uplifting, exciting things on livejournal, and all I initially had to say today was that I still don't have a job and I'm more bored and frustrated than ever. However, after reading my friends page, I feel like I should try a little harder.

Well.

Oh, I know. I have ALWAYS had a problem with caffeinated drinks--not coffee ever, just soda. I kept trying half-heartedly to stop drinking them, or even just to drink less, but it never got anywhere at all. Finally, the day after I got off the train, I sort of put my foot down. I am extremely happy and excited to say that this is one day shy of exactly three weeks with not a single soda. I won't pretend this isn't a really big achievement for me, as dorky as it sounds... I'm quite happy that I've been able to keep it up this whole time with no lapses. Go me!

Living with Caitlin, actually, makes it really easy to make better choices. She's pretty much the healthiest individual I know. It kind of rubs off onto me. :)

What else... I think I might drop marching band. I will feel very bad, and be really sad when the football games are going on... but I think it might be the best thing for me. Marching band limits my time SO much, it's not even funny. If I cut it out, I could theoretically have enough time during the week to go to eighteen credits worth of classes, practice my flute like I'm supposed to, volunteer eight hours a week, and work forty hours a week. Theoretically. I would like to start out like that, and if it gets to hard, cut down my work hours. But really, marching band obstructs all of my weekdays, half of my Saturdays, and a lot of time spent worrying that I'm not good enough.

And if I work full-time or close to it throughout the rest of my college career.... you have no idea how much money I could save up. I could a) get through college without taking out a single loan, and b) even have enough money to be able to 1. study abroad without going into debt and 2. put down money on a car for graduate school, if I so desire to. How badass would that be? And I could do it while volunteering for AmeriCorps, which means that my chances of getting more scholarships just went up even farther.

And I think it's pretty decent as is... I'm on the president's honor roll, which seems to be pretty rare here at WSU. If I keep up my grades even as is, I will easily graduate summa or magna cum laude. It's not a 4.0, but it's plenty good enough for me. I mean, I got scholarships this year, with my measly 3.47 GPA first semester. I think I'll be more eligible with a 3.67 GPA, and even more eligible once I can add 900 hours of volunteer work to my scholarship application. I don't want to get my hopes up too high--those scholarships I got might have been specifically for freshmen--but there is a chance that I can get more. *crosses fingers*

What else?

I still don't have a job. I am trying my damndest, but the longer I go without a job, the less time I have to work before school, and the less hire-able I am. I have a lot of stuff left to pay for, and I'm fast running out of money. If I don't have a job in Snohomish, or even an interview, by July 8-ish, I will buy a bus ticket and go back to Pullman. Quizno's there will hire me back in 1.5 seconds, and I can get near full-time there. Plus, I am much less tempted to spend money on stuff I don't need in Pullman than I am in Snohomish. All in all, if I have no job by the 8th here, I will be much better off back in Pullman. I'll be sad, and I'll miss y'all, but it would be better all around.

Hmm.

I'm hungry.

Later.

Escape from Pullman, that is. Ha ha ha. I'm so funny.

Depending on when my last day at Quizno's ends up being, and when I can get a train ticket, I will hopefully be back in Snohomish the first week of June. Oh man, I cannot wait. I love Pullman, but I've had enough of it for one school year.

I actually have the beginnings of a tan. Go figure, right? But I'm sure that will be destroyed soon enough. I can't go very long in the summer without getting sunburned.

So I checked mywsu for the first time today in a few weeks, and it turns out I made the WSU President's Honor Roll this semester. Yay! I am happy.

Man. You'd think I would have more to say. Hmm. Oh well.

Final grades came out today! I did better than I thought I would, which is always nice.

Psychology 105: A-
Honors Sociology 198: A-
Wind Symphony: A
Flute 314: A
Piano 182: A
English 317: A
Women in Music: A-

Not that I'm complaining... this semester's GPA is a 3.83 for me, bringing my cumulative up to a 3.65. That's plenty high enough to graduate with honors if I keep it up, and hopefully I can keep bringing my grades up from here on out.

It's the last one that baffles me... an A- in Women in Music? I had a 105.6% in the class at midterms, got perfect scores on the papers for the second half of the class, couldn't have done any worse than a B on the presentation. Could I really have bombed the final badly enough to bring my grade down by, what is that, at least fifteen percent? Frick. I'm going to email Dr. Converse about that, just in case.

Summer has well and truly started for me. I worked my second day at Quizno's yesterday! It was really intense the first day--I was learning how to wrap sandwiches right in the rush hour, and I got so frustrated because I couldn't do it right and sandwiches were just streaming out of the toaster and you can't leave them in there because they'll burn but there's only so much counter space to keep them while you figure out whether they need lettuce or not and wrap them tightly enough so the sandwich doesn't fall apart and try to discern what sandwich it is so you can label it and do it over and over again while people are waiting behind the counter just staring at you. It was intense... I was ready to quit. But I went back yesterday, and it was so much better. I can wrap decently well now, I know for the most part which sandwiches are which, I can do dishes well and fill up sauce bottles and ring people up. The only thing I really have to learn now is how to make the sandwiches--that will be fun.

So I'm finally making money again. It's really nice, that feeling--knowing that you've got an income to rely on. Just in time, too, because now I have to start paying rent and buying my own groceries from Safeway instead of the dining halls. Fun stuff, right?

I applied to recruit for marching band too, but I haven't head back from them yet. With any luck I can get that to supplement my income as well. That would be nice.

Summer has only just begun, and I am excited for it. I am prepared now, with bermuda shorts and flowy tank tops, lots of sun screen and aloe vera, everything but the sunglasses which I will hopefully purchase tonight; ready for the heat and the bright sun that entails a Pullman summer.

Having said that... I am ridiculously excited for next semester already.

My own single room in Wilmer-Davis, literally a two-minute walk away from Kimbrough... the promise of a new professional model flute, provided I make enough money this summer to cover it after tuition... music theory, sight-singing, flute lessons, big band, wind symphony, psych 311, philosophy 198, and women's studies 200 to keep me busy... marching band to look forward to, with the exception of band camp, aka hell week and all it's sunburns... switching to part-time at Quizno's and working only the weekends... learning how to cook good stuff with Steph in her apartment... all the friendships I've made this year to rekindle with the promise of a new year... all of this, and more. I can't wait. :)

Even with everything that's been going on lately in my life, there's not really much I can write about here.

I had a wind symphony concert today. I'm really sad, because I'm afraid I won't be able to audition back into it next semester. Elizabeth will be in it, obviously. Probably both Nina and I will try out again. And there are four new flute players come in, one of which is a grad student. So potentially there are seven people trying out, and only five spots. That means I have to be better than at least two people. Gah. This sucks.

I registered for classes for next semester. As of now, this will be my schedule:

Music 251 MWF 8:00 (music theory)
Music 252 TTh 8:00 (sight-singing)
Psych 311 MWF 12:00 (stats in psych)
Psych 230 TTh 1:25-2:40 (human sexuality, whoo)
Philosophy 198 MWF 11:00 (honors philosophy)
Women's Studies 200 MWF 10:00 (gender and power)
Flute 314 T 11:00 and a half-hour lesson (flute lessons)
CMB MTWTh 5:45-7:00 (marching band, whoo)
Big Band II MWF 1:00 (love that jazz)
Wind Symphony TTh 3:00-5:00 (hopefully)

That's 22 credits. I'd have to audit four of them, since you're only allowed to sign up for 18 credits and then you have to start paying extra. However, although I like my schedule to be a bit busy like this, I'll probably end up dropping one class. As it is, I have music theory, sightsinging, stats, sexuality, philosophy, AND women's studies. That's six purely academic classes with lots of homework. Then I have lessons and two (hopefully) ensembles, which require practice hours. Plus I'll have marching band, which takes up a lot of time on weekdays and most of my Saturdays. AND I need to have at least a part-time job. Not looking so feasible.

So I'll stay signed up for all of these classes, and I'll probably end up dropping one of the academic classes. It'll probably be sexuality--as much fun as that class would be, I don't really want much during my Tuesdays and Thursdays. It depends on which class I end up liking better--human sexuality or women's studies. I really need all the other ones.

Big band concert tomorrow. Yay. I'm thinking about skipping my classes. We don't have the sound check till 2, no big band at 1. Piano at 12 is cancelled. And in Women in Music we're only doing more presentations. I think I want to stay up late tonight working on stuff and then just sleep in for a really long time. Yeah. Sounds good to me.

But that means I have to actually start working on stuff. Hmm.

Whoo, got a printer today! At first I thought the really big box was a joke, Christian, and I was going to kill you because I live on the sixth floor. Ha. But I printed my sociology paper just now, and I am so happy!

Christina and I went down to Quizno's and filled out our apps. This is very exciting stuff. As soon as I can figure out a pretty definite schedule for this summer at Quizno's, I can make another schedule at Hillside around that. However, whoops, Hillside needs to be more definite since they're only open from 7 to 2:30. Hmm. Oh well, I'll figure that out later.

Yay, it's all coming together. And that's a good thing too, since the semester is almost over! Four busy days of this week left, then dead week. Then I have juries on Monday (cross your fingers, this determines my music scholarship), Women in Music exam from 3 to 5 on Wednesday, Psych exam from 7 to 9 on Wednesday, and a piano final thrown in there somewhere. Whoo!

As soon as this week's craziness is over, I'm going to start going through all my stuff here and throwing away absolutely everything that I don't need. I have to move it all around so much in the next few years, I don't want to keep anything that I don't need. Even just short-term, I have to move everything completely out of Gannon and into Christina's apartment, but that will be easier than expected because she has a car, ha. Hopefully I can leave stuff like my printer at her apartment for the end of the summer so I can just bring clothes and whatnot back to Snohomish for July and August. Then back to Pullman and I have to move everything to my room in Wilmer-Davis. And then, probably before winter break starts, I have to move everything once again to Lisa's apartment in Chinook. Whew. But I won't let myself start going through my stuff until AFTER this week, because otherwise I definitely won't get any homework done.

Lesson with Ann tomorrow... yikes. I hope she won't be mad that I was sick last Tuesday and couldn't play at con. I was all ready and everything, if it wasn't for being indisposed. Hmmph. Oh well--not much I can do about it now.

I think next semester I want to be a tutor at SALC (Student Advising and Learning Center). I mean, I correct my roomie's papers all the time, why not get paid to do it? And I think they pay well too--nine bucks an hour or something like that. If I work a few hours a week at SALC and twenty hours a week at Hillside or whatever, then I'll be working over 20 hours a week, and apparently full-time students who work more than 20 hours a week get like $250 in food stamps a month. Badass much? I'm not sure if I'd be able to pull that off fall semester, since I have marching band, but maybe spring semester. That would be like getting free food every month, and I'd only have to pay for rent, and I'd be working so much that I'd be able to save a crapload and get ahead on saving for the rest of my tuition at WSU. Generally, all good points.

It's late and all I'm doing is rambling. Later.

Today I got my housing assignment for next year. Guess what?

I got a single room in Wilmer-Davis! Just like that! Room 202. All mine!

I am so excited. I heart my roomie, but it'll be nice to have a room to myself. Plus, I'm literally right next to Kimbrough, so I can wake up five minutes before my eight o'clock theory class and be on time. Yay!

I had an awesome day today. Took my Women in Music quiz and probably aced it. Took my piano midterm and screwed up the scales, but Paul said I did fine. Got out of English early. Finished my listening assignment (a day after it was assigned, whoot!) and even actually practiced today. Went to Wilmer-Davis and got a room for next year! I am a happy person today.

Spring break is so close! I can almost taste it. Ha. Tonight all I have to do is study for my sociology exam and make sure I've got my psych paper outline ready to turn in. Tomorrow: psych experiment (which fulfills my requirement for the semester, whoo), psych class to turn in outline of paper, soc to take that exam, wind symphony, first rehearsal with my accompanist, root beer floats in Leah's dorm, library with my roomie, choir concert at 8, and then I'm done. Then I just have one class on Friday! Piano and big band are both cancelled, so that leaves me with just Women in Music. Yay!

Speaking of rehearsing with my accompanist--tomorrow will be the first time I've rehearsed with her. Well, to be honest, it'll be the first time I've EVER rehearsed with any accompanist. Exciting! But in my lesson yesterday, Ann said that she wanted me to play in area con after spring break. That's literally the Tuesday after spring break. Not enough time! I'm rehearsing with Christina tomorrow. MAYBE we can rehearse on Friday, and MAYBE we can get together again on Monday after break, and then Tuesday is when I'm supposed to play. I'm not sure that's enough time, but who knows? Maybe playing with an accompanist is easier than I think it is. Ha.

My schedule next year is going to be so amazing. If everything goes according to plan, on Tuesdays I'll have theory at 8, con at 11, wind symphony at 3, and marching band at 5:45. On Thursday I'll have theory at 8, and then nothing until wind symphony at 3. Whoo! Time to practice, do my listening assignments, catch up on homework, and generally relax. And speaking of wind symphony, I think my chances are pretty good of auditioning back into it next year. Gilbert wants to switch completely to orchestra, and Marjorie is graduating. That means Elizabeth, Nina, and I are leftover from this year's section. The only way I'm getting kicked out is if there are three really spectacular freshman. Hopefully not. I like wind symphony.

Time to study. Caitlin, I can't wait to see you on Friday!!!

Looks like I'm living in the dorms next year. :(

Leah doesn't think she can convince her parents in time to sign up for priority housing. Chelsea and Bernie are both doing different things. Lisa already has roommates.

Sad day. I didn't want to live in the frickin' dorms again. Not knowing that they wouldn't hire me to be an RA. I'm okay with it, really, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with being constantly reminded. It's bad enough that my current RA was in my class last semester and was hired at semester. Ugh.

My only other option is to go co-ed. Talk about awkward... John and Mike need a roommate, and John said I could live with them, but can you imagine that? Awkward to the extreme. I like them both, but it's an intimidating prospect. If you're reading this, Lisa, don't tell them I said this--but Mike used to like me, and sometimes I get the feeling that John does too. Eek. I don't want to be "that girl", if you know what I mean.

However, I could still see if Jeff is getting an apartment. BUT, while being friends with Jeff is cool, LIVING with him is different because he does have a girlfriend. And I'm afraid that if I try to live with Jeff, then Jaron is going to come as part of the package. *sigh* Maybe I'll go back and beg Lisa. Take me! I'll sleep on the couch!

Pfft. If I drag this entry out any longer it will degenerate into weirdness and then I'll be depressed until I go to sleep. In which case, this is the end.

Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed.

I have a piano test tomorrow that I have not practiced once for. Augh. I guess I'll have to get up early tomorrow to practice for it. That means I have to actually get up when my alarm wakes me up. I wish I didn't have oily skin--I wouldn't have to shower every morning, which means I could get up and get dressed and go, without all the extra stuff. :)

When I get stressed like this, I go through and reconfigure my finances and/or my schedule. Did both in the last hour or so. I think I'll end up doing summer school twice. Summer sessions run from June 1st to July 22nd, or something, so I'll be in Snohomish for all of May and July 22nd to August 12th, or however the dates may vary year to year. I wish I knew everything ahead of time--whether I'll get more scholarships from the university or the honors college, whether I'll get more money from the music department. Whether I'll be able to work 50 hours a week this summer, still volunteer enough to get me by with my AmeriCorps contract, and still have time to hang out with my friends. Whether trying to a) take 18 credits and b) work at least 10 hours a week and c) volunteer at least 8 hours a week and d) go to marching band practice every day and games every few Saturdays and e) still have time to hang out with friends and f) get all my homework done on time and g) get the grades I want to get in order to graduate with distinction, whether that's all a plausible thing to do for the next three fall semesters and the next three spring semesters too minus the marching band stuff. I wish I knew how graduate school worked, how the undergraduate research credits work, whether the undergraduate practicum works like a research credit.

Oy. I don't know. I know I'm overthinking this all. I still have to turn in my AmeriCorps paperwork and get in contact with the Humane Society so I can figure out when I'll be able to volunteer. If I could volunteer for seven hours a week at the Humane Society and plan on going to the rec center one hour a week for stress relief, which is permitted under the member development category of service hours, I'll be documenting 8 hours a week. That's about the right amount of hours per week to get all 900 hours done in two years. I'd like to get ahead, but I don't want to overwork myself from the get-go. I'll figure it whether I can commit to more hours as the semester goes on.

I also have to get a job. I feel so useless not working, not making money to put toward this whole college dealio. Even if I only work a few hours a week, I'll feel better about my finances, I think. So I have to get more job apps and turn them in, hope for an interview, and set up a good work schedule.

After that the only thing I have to figure out for this semester and is how to get all my practice hours in. I have the obvious flute hours to get in, but I also need to practice the piano in order to get a good grade, and I would like to keep practicing my trombone. I'm aiming for twelve practice hours a week. I've got nice little practice goals written out for myself, because I'm cool like that.

I know that I'm overthinking this stuff way too early, and it's going to be stressful the whole time because I have to actually live through it all for it to go according to my plans. I know I'll have to edit my plans more times than I can count as I go along. Even so, I still go over my finance document and my schedule at least a few times a month.

I don't know. Whatever.

Blah.

I had a lame-o day.

Actually, I kind of feel shitty right now.

My friend just bailed on me. I have to go research and write an ENTIRE sociology paper tonight so I can turn it in tomorrow. Then I have even more homework.

This week was crappy. It was long and busy and crappy. On Tuesday, I went from 8 am to 6 pm with one hour-long break. Then from 6 pm to midnight, no joke, I did homework. Yesterday, I went from 11 am to 9 pm, with a one-hour break. I was so wiped out I didn't start my homework until 11:30, which was bad because my roommate kept talking to me and I was trying to read 100 pages that were due today, so I didn't end up reading all of it until this morning, which I got up early to do. Today I went from 10 am to 5 pm straight, got milk and bread at the market, called my friend Leah to (ironically) go to the rec center, and she bailed on me. Ugh. Now I have to walk all the way to the library in the freezing cold, write stuff about ten books, come back here, and literally write what will probably be a five page paper.

I'm trying so hard to get good grades this semester, and it's so hard because I have so freaking much homework. I haven't practiced my flute since Tuesday's lesson. I barely passed my weekly scales test in piano yesterday, and after this week, if I don't do them perfectly I'm going to fail them. Psych chapters are huge, and I have to read and take notes on one a week now. I have my first psych exam on Tuesday, and it's worth one quarter of my grade in the class. I have a soc exam on Thursday. Next week I have to turn in my AmeriCorps paperwork, and then I have to somehow fit eight hours of volunteering a week into my schedule. I also have turn in my honors college scholarship application next week, which means I have to write the essay soon. And I have to write at least seven pages of my creative story for English 317, which is doubly difficult to write because it's about GLBTQ issues, which are confusing for me right now for a number of bizarre and varied reasons that are just adding to my stress.

I thought, no big deal, I can handle all this. It's getting the most out of college. But taking even just 17 credits, getting As in all of them to balance out my cumulative GPA the way I want it to balance out, volunteering eight hours a week, AND getting all of my homework done on time is turning out to be a lot harder than it looks. I wanted to get a job this semester too--I might not be able to. God this sucks. I feel like crap right now.

Ugh.

No use bitching about it, I suppose. Sitting here complaining isn't getting my work load any lighter--just my bottled-up stress.

I woke up today with a very sore throat. I hope I'm not getting sick. :(

I happened to be looking over the coursebook yesterday (I was trying to see if English 317 had any prerequisites) when I stumbled on the Women's Studies page. You know, half of those classes are the same as other classes. I mean to say, Women's Studies 324, Psychology of Women, is the same class as Psychology 324, Psych of Women. The minor in W St is only 16 credits, and the funny thing is I was already planning on taking 12 credits worth of classes that transfer over to be W St credits. So what did I do? Reworked my schedule again. I swear, I've done that so many times this semester and I just keep getting happier and happier with my degree. All I had to do was add in three strictly W St classes, two of which are classes on homosexuality, and now I have another minor.

Five years at WSU and this is what I'm getting: Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Bachelor of Arts in Music, Minor in Sociology, Minor in Women's Studies.

The only thing that has not changed once and probably will not change ever is my BS in Psychology.

Hee hee.

But I am absolutely in love with my schedule like this. Next semester is going to be amazing, and almost every semester after that. (Excluding my sight-singing classes, which I am very apprehensive of, and the Bio and Chem that I have to take. But even those won't be so bad.)

Today is so boring. I have barely any studying to do for finals, and without homework I am at a loss. I've been sleeping and listening to Cake all day. Maybe I should clean my dorm room. I'm tempted to pack, but that would still be ridiculous because I still have six days left.

Hmmph.

I just checked my mail, and there was a letter from WSU's scholarship services, and guess what?

The Howard and Ada Hunt scholarship?

IT'S WORTH THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS! OH MY GOD!

I am so effing excited! I cannot believe how freaking amazing this is! Do you know what this means? My parents pay NOTHING next semester! I got it all paid for! Me! By myself! This is the amazing thing ever and I am so freaking excited I can't even think straight!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So I had my flute lessons yesterday. I'm playing at area con, unaccompanied, in three weeks. Eek! That is so scary, you have no idea. Playing this difficult piece that I've been working on all semester by myself in front of about thirty other woodwind players, several of which I know, in a mere three weeks time? Yikes. Then juries a few weeks after that.

Last week after my lesson Professor Yasinitsky invited me to be in flute choir. This week, after telling me how well I'm doing, she asked me if I had thought about double majoring in psychology and music.

This is fantastic beyond words. I was so disappointed not to have made it into Wind Symphony, and then to be stuck at 2nd flute in Symphonic Band, and on top of that for my instructor in band to keep picking on me for no apparent reasons... I was not a happy panda.

But for my flute teacher to think so highly of me--it's great. And she's not just saying it either; there are so many other flute players, it's not like I'm in demand on that instrument like I am on the trombone. She really thinks I can do great things.

I've been so disenfranchised with authority figures lately. Did I mention the contingency story in my science class? Where my teacher insulted my beliefs in front of everybody and tried to pass it off as being scientific? Yeah, that teacher gave me a D on an assignment about conversions. 6/10. She didn't even explain why, she just wrote "NO--see answer sheet" and marked me all the way down even if my setup was correct. Bitch. And I don't usually swear like that, so you must know how I feel about this person. And my symphonic band instructor picking on me. And my entire life, with my parents.... authority figures have not been good to me.

It's nice to have someone believe in you for once.

I came to a realization today.

I've been so worried about my grades... after midterms, I have a B in German, B in Science, B+ in piano, and A in the rest (English, flute lessons, trombone lessons, marching band--I'm not technically signed up for jazz band or symphonic band so I don't get grades for them). I was so disappointed in those Bs... in high school, that never would have happened. I've been so worried about my science grade in particular, because I keep getting lower-than-expected gradings on assignments.

Today I realized that this is college. Not high school.

My roommate has a D+ in chemistry 101 and a C in GenEd 110. My roommate had almost a 4.0 in high school.

It made me think about my Bs. They're really not so bad. I mean, obviously I'm going to keep trying really hard to get them up to As, but you know what? Even if my final grades are four or five As and two or three Bs? That's not so bad for my very first college semester, while I'm taking these ridiculous required classes. Science is hard for me to apply myself to.... it's so pointless. I'm never going to need to know that Ediacara fauna came before Burgess Shale fauna in the geologic time scale. That has nothing to do with my major. And German I lost a lot of motivation for after I decided not to minor in it. I'm suffering for it now, but I'm putting more effort into it now, so hopefully that will make a difference in my final grade.

I think when I get to the point that I'm taking two psych classes, a sociology class, wind symphony, flute lessons, and one of the requirement classes, I'll be better off.

I feel.... less pressured. I feel like I can relax a little more. I'm still going to aim for that valedictorian thing... or rather, suma/magna com laude or whatever the heck it is. That would still be fantastic to achieve, but I think I can stop stressing about grades so much.

I talked to my RA last night about my application. She gave me a LOT of good advice. I think I can actually do this.

Also, she gave me an idea for the creative part of my application--for hers, she did a powerpoint with pictures. What an awesome idea! I think that's what I'll do for mine. And doing that means I get to wander around for the next week or so taking pictures. And I have an excuse: it's for an application. :D

Hmm...

Learned today that to get a piano accompanist were I a music major who needed to perform several pieces per semester, I'd have to pay somebody $100. No joke. Just to accompany me! Since I'm a music minor and will only be performing once or twice, the guy I asked said he could cut me a deal and charge me $30. But thirty dollars! Eeek! So I'm going to ask my flute teacher if I could perform unaccompanied, which is a scary prospect, but I'm already pretty much broke.

Gah.

I still feel blah. I need to do my German and science homework. I should have practiced today but I just wasn't feeling it. At all.

The time schedules for next semester are up; I went and figured out what will hopefully be my schedule. Unfortunately I can't take both Psych 198 and Soc 198 because they're only offered at the same time. So I switched from Soc 198 to Soc 150, which is Marital and Sexual Lifestyles. What a kickass class! I love all my psych and soc classes. And if all goes well, I won't have class till 10 MWF. Plus, no marching band next semester so I have a looooot more free time.

Clubs I want to get involved in next semester: Psychology Club (plus volunteering with them on Saturdays at the Humane Society), Sociology Club, whatever the GLBTQ association is here, and the Progressive Student Union. I love the idea of activism. I think it's fantastic.

I feel like I wasn't very social today. I'm feeling the effects now. I want to get out. Do something. But I kind of can't. I have to do homework, but maybe after that I'll go down to the computer lab and print some more articles for my English paper.

Which I think I'm going to do on Gender Identity Disorder. There are next to no articles and books about psychiatric treatment, but I'm really interested in GID. (And this girl in my English class today said I used too many semicolons in my abstract today--in three pages, I used three semicolons. How is that too many? That's like saying hey, you used the word "the" way too many times.)

Anyway...

Toodles.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Interesting.

Hall government today. It was not particularly exciting. We passed a few things, talked about events, and that was it. (But that was fun to say... I sound like I actually know what I'm talking about.)

Had my RA information session today. Eek. Now I'm starting to get nervous for the whole thing. There's so much to do... online application, cover letter and resume, personal reflection piece, two letters of reference, participation in group activities, individual interviews.... and it's all due by the end of October! Very scary. I don't want to get my hopes up for this position, because if I don't get it... but I just might be a strong-ish candidate. I'm pretty much as involved as I can be this semester.... marching band, hall government, and community assistant. The interview and the group activities, all I can do is be myself and hope they like me. But the app, the resume, and the personal reflection piece... that's where it counts.

*feels overwhelmed*

Oh, and did I mention how terrible my day was yesterday?

First, I got demoted from first flute back down to second in symphonic band. We're still playing pieces I could have sightread in ninth grade, and I'm still reeling at how unfair this all is.

Then, I had my stupid honors advising. My advisor said "so why do you want to do psychology?" And I said "there are a lot of reasons," because I wasn't about to spill my life story to some guy I've never met before. And he said "like what?" What was I supposed to do? Spend an hour telling him exactly what has influenced me? It would sound like I was just trying to get attention. So I said, rather lamely, "oh you know, I want to know why people do the things they do." So he must have thought I was some stupid little blonde who one day thought hey, psych sounds good to me. For the whole rest of the thing, he kept telling me I needed to reevaluate my career choice. He gave me this patronizing spiel about how when you find the right career it just clicks, and you have to have a passion for your work. I was sitting there thinking are you kidding me? Don't patronize me. And after all that, I learned that I took this stupid Science 198 class for nothing. Nothing! I still have to take three other science classes! AND it's possible that NONE of my AP credits will count. Chem won't get me out of a science, for sure. I knew English wouldn't get rid of the 199 class for me already, but he even told me that my calc credit might not cut it! The calc credit that I worked so hard for and was so proud of? Might be worth nothing at all.

So that was crappy. And then immediately after that, my German professor who happened to be in the same hall as my advising was in asked to see me. She told me that my online homework wasn't complete enough. I said well, isn't what I'm supposed to do there what I already did up there? And she said I need a lot more than that.

And I started crying.

In my German professor's office.

Oh.

My.

God.

How embarrassing. You know that point when you know you're about to cry but you really don't want to, when your chin starts to wobble and your eyes start to hurt? That's when she saw that I was about to cry and said no, it's okay Ashley, don't cry. So of course that's when I started crying for real.

She was really nice about it though. She kept reassuring me, gave me a tissue and said she kept them in her office for a reason. She said that the first semester is the hardest, and you just have to hold on. I was so mortified, and I couldn't stop crying!

It was all in all a very horrible experience. I had a very shitty day yesterday, if you'll excuse the swear word.

So now I have to rearrange my schedule to include three extra science classes, and a 2 credit course next semester if I'm chosen to be an RA. If I have to drop my sociology minor because I was advised during Alive to take a course that won't actually help me at all? And a class that I absolutely hate on top of that??

I. Will. Be. Pissed.

So yeah. That was my life for the last few days. But tomorrow I get to look forward to vegging out in front of the TV with Steph, and on Saturday we're finally going to check out the rec center. Yay.

Oh, and I learned today that the Senate plays at Wired and Unplugged again on December 15th. Guess what? THAT'S THE DAY AFTER WINTER BREAK STARTS! THAT MEANS I CAN GO! I am so freaking psyched!

I am randomly happy right now.

:D

I went to the Community Assistant meeting an hour ago. That's the thing you do if you want to be an RA and get free room and board. I'm so excited! The application process for RAs starts in October and they hire you in November. How nerve-wracking! But I'll have this to put on my resume:

Community Assistant
Hall Government (Floor Representative)
Cougar Marching Band

Yay. I am pumped. There's a reflection piece that's part of the app in which you talk about why you want to be an RA. I'm going to start working on that soon, I think. I think I'll talk about how this job will prepare me for my career as a psychiatrist by providing me the hands-on experience with people that I'll need. I might or might not talk about my lack of involvement in high school... if I do, I can express how important acquiring these leadership skills are to me. I need to ask Amanda (my RA) what she thinks.

I decided against the whole HSAC thing. Too much effort, and I just didn't feel like I belonged there.

But yes. We get our next show tune tomorrow in marching band! Very awesome. I liked Second City Nights. Hopefully this tune is a good one.

I'm pretty happy with the direction my life is heading. All of the above... it all makes me happy. Taking Psych 198 and Soc 198 next semester... that makes me happy.

I had a crappy day earlier though. It seemed like I was doing something wrong in all of my classes.... my piano teacher corrected me on scales twice. My German teacher corrected my grammar three times. In jazz band Sterling insisted that the trombones weren't doing something right, even though I'm pretty sure we were doing just fine. In symphonic band my taecher told me that even though this is a college band, "oh we don't do anything formal during concerts. Just whatever."

I had a crappy day.

Then Steph and I went to the Bookie and bought WSU stuff. They have a great selection of clearance books too.... I bought Freud: A to Z for 5 bucks. Whoot! Time to start my psych collection.

But yeah! I'm in a good mood now. I'm thinking of maybe writing my honors thesis on psychiatry and the gay liberation movement. I mean, that's what I'm writing my English 298 paper on, but maybe explore something in that realm more thoroughly for my thesis. Maybe that's what I'll write my doctoral dissertation on for grad school... what a fascinating topic to research. The chance to emulate Evelyn Hooker.... heck yes. I am very psyched.

But that's enough out of me for tonight. Ciao.