All I wanted was an ice cream sundae…

For dinner today I went to PCB with a friend.  After stuffing our faces with every item of food that was within reach, we decided it was time for ice cream sundaes.  There were marshmallows, sprinkles, whipped cream, nuts, and more.  I was beyond excited as we ran up with our bowls and flung open the freezer.  Now, I have never really been good at scooping the ice cream out of the bins.  I am not sure if it is because I am pathetically weak or if the little scoopers make it impossible to obtain a huge amount of ice cream.  My friend, who is smaller than me, went first, and she had no problem.  At this point, I felt confident that if she could do it, then so could I.  WRONG.  I stood there for four torturous minutes hacking away at what seemed to be a sheet of ice.  The worst part was that a line started forming behind me so that everyone could watch how much of a pro ice cream scooper I was.  At the end of the four minutes I barely had any ice cream, so to make up for it, I threw on a mountain of whipped cream.  I have no idea what the problem is.  I have no issues opening the doors to Hodges, yet I can’t get a freaking scoop of ice cream.  I sure hope that I’m not the only one who has this problem because everyone I talk to can get all the ice cream that they want out of that thing.

City of Bones

So lately in class we have been discussing memoirs (of course), presenting memoirs, having quizzes on memoirs, and writing our own essay-memoirs.  A couple of times, out of the blue, Professor Greene asked different questions like “who writes fiction?” (yes) and “who enjoys reading fiction?” (double yes).  THIS IS ME!  So for this blog post, I decided to share my own review of my absolute favorite book, which is not a memoir, for a change.

It is called the Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare.  The first book is titled City of Bones and is going to be a movie sometime next year.  I was BEYOND excited when I received this news!  When I first read the book, I was around 15 or 16.  A friend recommended it to me, and because she has good taste in fiction, I found myself sucked into it as well.  At 15 years old, I thought it was pretty dark, but it doesn’t bother me now (I don’t know if this is because I am used to it, or just because I like stuff with a dark side to it.  Most people are very surprised when they hear this from me).  Basically it takes place in modern NYC.  The main character is a redheaded troublemaker named Clary Fray.   Clary learns that she is part of a race of humans called Shadowhunters.  These Shadowhunters are given special abilities and weapons in order to kill demons.  After her mom is kidnapped, she realizes that in order to find her, she must team up with people she hardly knows.  As the story progresses and the characters gallivant across familiar NYC locations, it becomes very addicting.  I am a ginormous fan of New York, having been there at least a dozen times, and so reading this book is the equivalent of eating lots of sugary peeps.  Lots and lots of peeps. Yes, there are vampires, and warlocks and all that good stuff in it.  No, they do not sparkle or marry humans.  It all sounds very strange and childish at first, but Cassandra Clare has a way of making it all incredibly funny and giving great story plots.  She keeps some hilarious blogs as well, which I frequently creep on.

So yeah, read this book if you think flying motorcycles, snarky best friends, and tons of action are cool!  I definitely tried putting the pictures of the series on here and it wouldn't let me so you can always google for them.

Walks into very first college class……blinks…..end of the school year?

It would seem that we have only been in college for a couple of months, right?  That “winter” we had was only a week long cold chill, right?  Wasn’t welcome week like two months ago?  Every time someone walks up and mentions that we have around four weeks left, I want to flip out.  This place has become home to me, and the thought of leaving it again for my real home in Alabama really freaks me out (ironic, right?).  Some days it seems like I haven’t been here long at all.  Other days, when I’m bored, I will reflect on how much I have changed at UT and I will feel as though I have been here forever.  It’s rather depressing to think that it is almost finals time, when it still feels as though I have just made it back from Ignite Summit and have made my first friend here.

I guess I am so nervous because there is no guarantee that I will still be here in the next year and a half.  I made a promise to myself when I was eleven after having my gallbladder removed.  That promise was to become a nurse.  However, I am not in the nursing program yet.  For whatever reason, I did not know that we were supposed to apply to the College of Nursing separately, so now I am competing with all of the other students in the same position.  It is notoriously hard to get into nursing school this way.  The frustrating thing is, I am taking the same courses as my fellow freshmen who knew they were supposed to apply.  A lot of these people have not been doing so well in a few of these classes, but I have been doing relatively ok.  Please note that I am not trying to insult any of my classmates, but you might understand if you felt as much uncertainty about your future as I do right now.  They could stay in the nursing program if they kept a GPA about 3.0 (I think) and I still might not get in even if I have a GPA of say 3.7 or 3.8.

I do not regret my decision on coming to UT.  I have learned so much here and have made many friends.  I wanted to experience a different state and challenge myself by starting over somewhere that I didn’t have a single friend.  It will be the absolute happiest day of my life if I am accepted into the Nursing Program here, because I will stay at the school I love, and will not be forced to return back to Alabama.

September 11th

For some reason, I can’t get my mind off of 9/11 today.  I know it is April, and that September is a long way from now, but it’s just something I have been thinking about lately.

My family was in St. Louis, MO at the time (where I was born) for my uncle’s funeral the day before.  I don’t remember the guy very much because I was in elementary school.  I do remember one fleeting moment when they were about to close the casket for the day, and all of the sudden I found a rose lying on the floor.  Being a kid, I plucked it off the ground and ran up and placed it on my uncle’s chest before they closed the casket.  Anyways, back to the story.  The next morning was the day we were leaving to drive back to Alabama.  I remember waking up in the hotel room to the noise of the national news on TV.  I look over and my parents are sitting at the foot of their bed with their eyes glued to the box.  With one glance at the TV I knew that they were watching a movie.  But why would they be watching a horror movie right after waking up?  We had to pack up after all.  I asked them what they were watching, and my mom looked at me funny and said it really was the news.  Later, as we stopped at McDonald’s to eat lunch, we watched more news channels showing the airports going into lockdown and the Arch in St. Louis, where we had just been, was closing down as well.  I guess it was a good thing we didn’t book a flight back home.

It was so hard for me, probably a seven-year-old, to understand the absolute horror of what was unfolding.  A widely used phrase is “the innocence of children”.  This is entirely true.  As a seven-year-old, I simply could not understand true hate and how destructive it can be.  As an adult, it sticks more to your mind, leaving a flashbulb memory (I believe this is the term my Psychology professor used).  It stays with you almost forever, and once you begin to think about it, it is hard to stop.  It is appalling and makes people afraid.  I think we have come together more as a country since this event, and hopefully other countries will see that freedom isn’t such a bad thing to have after all.  Oh well, I guess “haters gonna hate”.

Dreams

So in this blog I will be talking about…you guessed it!  Dreams.  Why do we have them?  How do we have them?  What would life be like without them?

First of all, if you want answers to these questions I am NOT the person to ask, simply because I have no idea.  I am, however, pretty good at interpreting dreams.  They basically represent your fears and desires.  I heard from somewhere, maybe Doctor Oz on Oprah, that dreams are your brain’s way of sorting through what happened to you during the day and your thoughts on these events.  I guess it stores stuff away for later and discards what you believe you won’t need.  God only knows how they actually get to be in color and so freaking real looking. 

The reason I am writing this is because I had a really horrible nightmare last night.  I seriously haven’t had one that bad since I dreamt my mom died after a car accident.  So last night’s dream could only mean that I dreamt my dad died.  Only, he died so that I could live.  Basically we were trying to get away from something, like an organization (now that I think about it, seeing the Hunger Games this weekend probably inspired this dream!).  We were stopped by some people, and in order to distract them, he sacrificed himself so that I would have time to run.  The worst part was that the rest of the dream was me going about my daily life at UT knowing he was gone.  It was the worst feeling in the world.  I give all you people who have lost a parent a ton of cool points because you people are so brave.

I can give you guys some advice on how to stop your dream if you are having a nightmare.  The first thing you need to teach yourself to do is realize that you are dreaming.  I know that it is easier said than done.  Once you realize this, then all you have to do is squeeze your eyes shut really hard.  Just keep doing this, and I promise that after several practices, you will actually begin squeezing your eyes shut instead of just in the dream.

I’m just terribly curious about some of the dreams other people have.  Maybe it’s because I have considered studying sleep and such because I think I have insomnia.  Are everyone’s dreams as crazy as mine?  Mine range from tasting the skittles coming from a rainbow, being shot at by a terrorist, and running away from a stuffed quacking duck gone wild.  Can they remember dreams all the way back from kindergarten like I can?  Are they vivid and unforgiving?  

Oh, and I promised that I would post that poem I wrote about Singer Island, so here it is.  Please don't be too harsh on me, because I am not a poet and I wrote it over a year ago.

                         Singer Island

Surrounding bliss.

You stand facing open air on a high balcony

With stars and black skies above.

Gusts of wind and waves crashing in harmony

Fill your ears with a music oceans love.

On the edge of the world there is no fear;

Only calm, for the future before you is spread.

The right is the mainland holding stress and lights growing near,

But the left is the navy blanket, a more comforting choice in your head.

You long for that warm water, for it whispers

All your dreams, your secrets and reassures an unsure heart.

Alas, both of you know the side to be considered.

Those lights, that society waits for you to depart.

It is time now; Lights call, time crawls

Decisions made will change everything, so you must go with strife.

The ocean's slowing music eases your path's calls

But it never ceases, it will be with you all this life.

Choose now.

 

Awake My Soul

So this weekend I literally got only 5 hours of sleep.  Yeah, I’m dead serious.  On Friday night I got 3 hours and on Saturday night I got 2 hours (thanks a lot time change).  It wasn’t exactly my fault because I went on only the best church retreat you could ever go on: AWAKENING!!!  I’m not going to go into too many details, just because it would take too incredibly long, but I will describe how it made me feel.  

This was the second retreat that I have been on since I got here and both have been nothing short of incredible.  Whenever it is time to drive back to campus once the retreat is over, I literally feel as if I need to be dragged back kicking and screaming.  It is so depressing to have to come back to the reality that is life when you feel as if you have all you would ever need being around others that share the same love for God that you have.  There were around 40 of us all stuck in the same cabin for a whole weekend.  It was really nice to be able to just relax, talk, and be away from the stress of college and real life.  One thing that was pretty sweet was that the only real “meal” we had was chili.  The rest of the food consisted of soda, chocolate, nutella, cheese puffs, and any other type of junk food imaginable.  I got so little sleep because we hardly had any time to complete any of our activities.  If I had gone one more day on such little sleep, I probably would have had to have been hospitalized for exhaustion and dehydration.  But all in all, it was an amazing weekend full of many spiritual highs.  I do not regret going one bit….even though I just got done taking a 9 chapter stats test that I wasn’t able to study for over the weekend.