Shit out of luck

I have been sitting here at my computer for a good 15 minutes tapping away at the keys, then furiously hitting the delete key, then making squinty faces, and again wondering, what on earth can I write about?

Update of my life: I am now officially a 2nd semester senior. It became official at approximately 2:57 pm on wednesday the 6th day of December after I had finished the 2nd final of the day, handed in a final paper, and completed a group project. I don't think that I have breathed such a large sigh of relief in quite some time, then again, it wasn't really "breathing" because my sinus have been plugged (but are now gloriously draining) with green shit since before Thanksgiving.
But now I can rest, take a load off and get some well needed rest. And by rest I mean, babysitting a good 5 days a week, shopping in my offtime, cooking to feed the hungry bellies of all my friends who are painfully enduring finals, and of course getting lots of good sweat time in at the gym. But this is the kind of life I like. I get a sick pleasure out of being overbooked, scheduled to the minute (amen for day planners and post it notes), and doing for others. Oh wait, I see the light, I know what sort of random insanity I am going to enlighten you with....

My day planner: "Her what?" I am sure you asking yourself, "give me a break, no one gives a rats ass about her day planner." Okay, so I am not going to write about my day planner (although it is a lovely eggplant colored leather coach one with lots of calendars, phone numbers, and note pages). So here it is, what I really want to write about.....satisfaction with accomplishments, deadlines, and tasks.

Do you ever write sometime down on your "to-do" list, just so you can get the satisfaction of crossing it off? You must admit, there is nothing like a nice solid (----------) through a tasks. No? Well are you more of a [x] (box checker)? If fall into either one of these categories then you know what I am getting at. Who cares if you already started that outline, or read that paper, or met with your friend for lunch at noon...its worthwhile to write it down, to be able to mark it done.

I guess I am not going anywhere logical with this, but I'll just ramble on tangentially...
One of the biggest differences that I noticed between high school and college was the ability to get ahead. In highschool, you knew what had to be done for the night, even the week and you could pretty much plug along at the work, but when you were done, you were really DONE. The test taking, or paper writing was the final culmination of the week or two's worth of knowledge acquisition. I recall days where I was distressed that I had so much "stuff" to do that I couldn't complete anything, but only begin a few things.....If only I had known what the next 4 years of college held in store.

Welcome to college. The place where on the 1st day of class you are told about everything that you will cover in the course, everything that you should be doing outside of the class to prepare, what the "required" and "recommended" readings are (from my experience, only pay attention to the former...I swear professors get kick backs for plugging their colleagues latest work). But all that you really key in and listen to is forms of assessment (how many papers, how long they have to be, how may tests and are they cumulative, and most importantly...is there extra credit?)
No lie, the first week of classes freshman year, I was ready to have an anxiety attack. I had these 5 page syllabi for the ENTIRE semester and I always knew what was coming next. I would no sooner finish up the assigned work, but then I felt like I should be moving onto the next assignment. I realized that this WAS NOT LOGICAL, nor was it good for my sanity OR social life...but only after I spent an entire weekend reading 3 books for my American societies class, only to go in an take the "Quest" (way to long to be a quiz, but not counted as much as a test) and realize that I couldn't;t remember shit from any of the books, everything blurred together. In fact, I was jealous of the kids who had skimmed only 1 book because at least they could bullshit an essay- it may have been vague, but at least they kept the theories, philosophers, and implications straight...in my mind, it seemed sensical that Darwin's theory of economics shaped the ideals of the American Revolution.
AND THAT IS WHERE IT ALL CHANGED. Welcome to college, the game isn't getting ahead, its staying afloat. Since making this realization my life has been much better. You all know me, well unless you are some crazy blog stalker who enjoys reading random people's musings, and yes, I still get stressed, still like to get it all done, still am looking for that vertical symmetry in the grades, but lets face it...You can't have it all...
Learn to live: enjoy your friends with all of their quirks, take advantage of all that the city has to offer (24 hour WaWa's, lots of homeless people, taxi cab drivers who make you thankful for seatbelts), realize that coffee tastes best when you make it yourself on a cold snowy Saturday morning while you sip it in your pajamas, that the world won't end if you have to go to class with a wild set of curls because you overselpt and didn't have time to straighten your hair, that no one will remember if you wore those jeans out to Smokes last night and are wearing them again today, that sometimes you have to go to happy hour at Mad4Mex on a Tuesday for your mental health, that boxed Franzia wine gets you just as drunk as the $200 domperrigon, that hooking up with multiple boys in the same fraternity will more than likely get your name "out there" (for better or worse), that homemade cookies do wonders for the people you care about, that an apple a day (if its from Fresh Grocer) WILL NOT keep the doctor away but rather send you to the ER with e.coli, that fall and spring break are perfectly timed to allow you to regain mental composure despite the weeks before and after sucking more than words can express, and that wasting time on Facebook, Wikipedia, and UTube are all perfectly acceptable.

So I know that this post didn't really flow, but I guess the take home message is: enjoy what ya got, and what ya gotta do.