school is starting tomorrow

My birthday was yesterday. The big 2-1. I’m told it’s all downhill from here; this is sort of the last AWESOME landmark birthday. Unless you count being able to rent a car by yourself without ridiculous fees and insurance liability when you’re 25. But I’m told that is fairly anti-climatic.

Anyway, I had an amazing birthday. Leer and I took a visit to the local zoo. His mom got me a fifth of Absolut Pears. We saw cute animals. Then, we went out to the local bar for dinner and drinks. My friends bought be drinks and I felt like such a big girl drinking in a bar, but I feel like the novelty had worn off from growing up so close to a country with a lower drinking age, but whatever! It’s going to be nice to be able to have a beer with the rest of my friends from now on! And then, my friends who live in one of the campus annexes threw me a party. I’m apparently a hyper drunk, because I don’t think I stopped running around the whole night. It was a long night and I had quite a bit to drink, but I didn’t wake up in the gutter, I didn’t throw up, and beyond some drymouth and a desire for something greasy (like food from the campus cafeteria, which, alas, I am limited to only eating in 5 times per week this year, which I am starting to realize is going to be a horribly inconvenient travesty). But, that’s beside the point. I wanted food that I didn’t have to make myself. This is why I am generally lazy – I know that the home-cooked stuff is better, but it’s the prep and cleaning that I would like to avoid, despite the fact that I, oddly enough, love to cook and am a devout follower of the Alton Brown methodology.

Well, stay tuned. I’ll be sure to document my descent into crotchety senior-dom frequently (or as frequently as I can).

“when I was a child I spake as a child”

Yesterday, I turned 21. Tomorrow, I start my senior year of college. However, I still have no idea how or when it happened that I grew up. But somehow, I did. People my age are getting engaged, getting married, and having children, getting their big person jobs. I can now drive a car and drink (not at the same time, of course). But in many ways, I’m still a kid at heart.

I buy happy meals when I’m upset. I spent most of the summer watching a children’s show (Avatar: The Last Airbender) over and over and enjoying it. When I feel nostalgic, I’ll find copies of books I read as a child – Where The Wild Things Are, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, etc.

There is so much to think about with the coming year. I’m terrified, frankly, that I am not ready for the “real world” when I am being pushed more and more towards it. Where will I be in a year? When I left high school, I knew I would at the very least be in college somewhere, and every year I’ve had the prospect of making a return to something. But now, I’m trying to avoid having to return home and make something of myself beyond living with my parents until something else comes along. I want things to be simpler again.

But really, maybe I should consider elementary education instead of secondary – could you not see me as the most awesome kindegarten teacher ever? I’d totally be like Lily from How I Met Your Mother.

it just never ends

For some reason, I don’t ever remember moving being this hard. Ever.

I moved into my apartment Wednesday. Thursday, I was told to move again to a different apartment building because there was an opening and my apartment group was next in line to fill vacancies in this apartment complex. I hadn’t unpacked anything yet, so I moved. And not two days later, in order to get a lower rate on a smaller storage unit, Leer and I moved my roommate’s stuff out of the storage unit we shared for the summer. I’m amazed by the sheer amount of crap that both of us have and wonder how it ever fit in our room in Ingham Hall last year. Was there some sort of mystical stuff-vortex?  And ever since, unpacking has progressed extremely slowly.  Granted, I haven’t had the time and sit around and unpack for hours since I’ve moved in. I’ve been busy getting band camp prepped for the past week, so when I do unpack, it’s always pretty late. And then it’s just not a good idea to stay up extremely late because of the fact that I have to get up and be cognizant. It’s a vicious cycle, really.

I always say that “packing and moving is my least favorite activity, but I mean it. I’m a fairly impatient person, and packing/moving is a chore that takes forever as it is. But right now, it’s really my least favorite. My roommate moves in Tuesday, and the rest of my apartment-mates on Saturday. But I can’t wait to have a stable, operating apartment again. If only I had time.

for real this time

As of 8:30 am EST, August 11th, 2009, I am a fully licensed driver.

It’s very odd. One truth about my entire exsistence for so many years is that I didn’t have a license. I could drive, sure, but not alone. It was an oddity. Not one that I was always proud of, necessarily, but it made me different. But today, that fundamental truth of my existence was shattered at the very moment I was able to drive a car by myself. In fact, the owner of the car I drove for my test loaned me his car all day yesterday to move stuff from Summer Apartment to Campus Apartment asked me to pick him up from the laundromat in my goings on about town. IT WAS SO. WEIRD. DRIVING IN A CAR. ALL BY MYSELF!

And I got to do it AGAIN TODAY because I got a call from ResLife this morning telling me I needed to move again. This isn’t a problem because the apartment we are getting is only a few years old and much nicer (and has air conditioning. dear sweet air conditioning.) Also, the entirety of my old (“Briton”) apartment can fit in the living room of the new (“Mae”) apartment. And the new apartment is amazing, guys. TONS of storage space and closets everywhere. A beautiful kitchen with very nearly new appliances. Nice furniture and carpeting. A huge bathroom. A good location on campus – not in the center of things but not too far away from them.

That said, I am optimistic about this upcoming year. Perhaps it was just the rush of seeing a lot of people that you haven’t seen in a long time and missed dearly, but I have a good feeling about this.

the old apartment, as of tomorrow

And I’ve had a productive day.

The first thing I did when I woke up was visited the Office of Residential Life. I spoke to Ben, the guy I had been corresponding back and fourth with. He apologized for his email last night, wherein he told me I could move in on the 19th. This was problematic as band camp starts on Wednesday (the 12th) for me. This was also problematic because my lease expires tomorrow. Well, apparently, Ben did not have his early arrivals list in front of him when he sent me that email, so I am all set to move in tomorrow at 2pm.

I’m happy to get back into campus housing. Living off-campus this summer makes me wonder even more why some people fight ResLife tooth and nail to get authorizaiton to live in off-campus housing. It’s normally discouraged and almost never approved. To the school, “resdiential college” means “you need to live on campus all four years”, but this deeply offends some and they spend countless hours of time, energy, and rage fighting to get off-campus. Now, if you’re from the area originally, I understand. But there’s not a whole lot of housing options within the city of Albion for it to be practicial. Oh, sure, in a few cases, people are better off. One person I knew was as good as homeless when she went home so she got off-campus to have permanent residence. And then there is the odd person who simply does not think they should be made to live with anyone else and have to pay extra for a single. But for the apartment I got for the summer, which was a two-bedroom apartment that we put three people in, was $525/month. Plus utilities, which are expensive in Albion. For a nine-month school year, this would equal out to, if I was living in this apartment by myself, $4725. Let’s say utilites were $900, even though that is a conservative estimate. $5625. Not to mention paying for laundry at the laundromat because most places don’t have facilities. Oh, and cable and Internet – I think that $900 would just be basic utilities. Yowza. But for approximately that $4725 per school year (which I am eligble to pay for with student loans, scholarships, grants, etc – which I wouldn’t be permitted to pay for an off-campus apartment with), I live in campus housing, have all of my utilities, including a rather generous cable package and Internet, taken care of.

But, you know, whatever works for some people. I’m not saying it’s not totally a bad idea, but for my finances (student loans and part-time on-campus job, definitely no time for a full-time job elsewhere in town)

And I realize that Albion is sort of unique, being a “residential college”. If I had gone to a larger school where most people choose not to live in dorms after thier first year, I would more than likely be in an area with more student-oriented housing options locally and it would be more practical, but the case remains that the city of Albion is not really a college town by any stretch of the imagination.

That’s not to say I will never want to get my own apartment or that I will live at my parent’s house until I’m 25, either. I’m sure after this year I will be straining at the leash to go to grad school or work wherever things take me. But I want to enjoy my senior year with my roommates, friends, and cheap utilities.

I am an officially licensed driver…

…is what I would be able to say if I passed my road test yesterday.

The day was pretty much doomed to be horrible from the start. I was woken by the thunder rattling the windows in my bedroom and the rain pounding on my apartment roof. I had friends staying over, and they slept on the sleeper sofa that belongs to my landlady’s son and that she left in our apartment because apparently she didn’t have anywhere else to store it. Well, the pull-out bed has been breaking down gradually all summer, and yesterday morning I couldn’t even fold it enough to get in the frame. I was panicking because I was afraid she would try and hold us responsible and withhold our security deposit. So instead of trying to focus on my road test, I was calling furniture repair places to have this piece of crap couch fixed. One guy in Jackson said it would be $200 just to look at. A lady in Albion gave me her life story but ended up telling me the couch probably isn’t worth more than $50 at a garage sale. But Leer informed me that his dad said that tenants of an apartment are not responsible for any furnishings that are not listed in the lease. Considering our apartment came nearly fully furnished with the landlady’s son’s furniture but the lease said nothing about any furniture ANYWHERE (just “premises”). I think the best I can do is just tell her that it has been breaking all summer and just finally broke completely. If she tries to press it or withhold the security deposit, I’ll show her the lease and let her know it says nothing about the tenants being responsible for her storing her son’s shady furniture in our apartment.

We got to the testing site and it was pouring rain. We’re talking torrential, here. Streets becoming small rivers, lightning, thunder, etc. And it was freezing cold. I met my examiner. She had to run to the gas station before I started. But she got back, we did our inspection, and I did the parking portion. Unfortunately this meant that I had to have the driver’s side window open. In the pouring rain. By the time I got done with my parking portion, the left side of my body was soaked. Despite this, I passed the parking poriton with flying colors. However, by the time I got on the road it was raining really badly. I could barely see anything, including speed advisory signs on exit ramps and railroad crossing signs. Also, I hate city traffic and I’m not used to driving through busy intersections, which proved to be my undoing. She didn’t even give me a “mulligan” because of the weather.

Despite the rain adding stress to an already stressful situaiton, she insisted that I needed to be able to drive safely through the weather by myself.  I wish there was a smaller-town testing site near me because I think I’d have an easier time passing my test, but on the bright side, I don’t have to wait for a week to re-test like I thought I would. The examiner said I could take my test today if I wanted to. It would have been nice to because today’s weather, of course, is bright and sunny and warm, but I scheduled it for Tuesday morning in hopes that the weather will cooperate and I’ll have time to practice more.

The worst part, when we were finished with my evaluation and she had told me I failed, with the pouring rain and me being 20 years old and not able to pass a road test, she told me “try not to let it ruin your day”.

paid for and official

Or so my driver’s test is.

Saturday morning, 11am. It’s in Jackson. I’m nervous. I have proper documentation, my test is paid for, I have a car that meets all safety standards set by the testing agency, and I know the name of my examiner.

Leer took me out to practice parking and city driving. I’m not the greatest driver in the world because my five years of having a permit have not been marked with consistent practice. In fact, I think I went for a year and a half without driving at all. Or maybe I wasn’t used to the car or freaked out from being frustrated with parking (I did okay – a passable job, at the very least).

All I can do now is wait. I didn’t even feel this nervous when I took the ACT in high school. But this, this is big – this means being done with people making it their business to know why I don’t drive. This is the end of embarassing questions at the store or from my employers. It means not having to carry a state ID and looking like I did something to get a suspended license (which is why people my age typically carry a state ID, in Michigan at least).

I’ll keep you posted. Hopefully Saturday I’ll be a fully authorized driving machine.

The things I do for marching band, sometimes. I mean, seriously.

the other side of summer

My summer is drawing to a close, and I honestly couldn’t be happier.

Granted, it wasn’t a bad summer. Just a bit dull.

My job couldn’t be more repetitive, and the day I realized that I wouldn’t get in trouble if I just didn’t show up for the day (as a student summer job, they kind of take a “you probably have better things to do sometimes, show up when you feel like it” approach) happened to be the end of good paychecks for me. I did realize that if I didn’t work I wouldn’t get paid, but it became an act of great willpower to get up in the morning and go scrub floors or wipe windows for seven hours. Right now I’m on my last week at work and have – surprise! – managed to work almost a full week. Almost.

This summer has also lead to the discovery of entirely new heights of boredom. My apartment does not have cable, and I wasn’t willing to pay for the local cable company’s extra-high-without-a-monthly-commitment-pricing. We have three channels with an antenna and converter box. We had Internet for a while, but as it turns out, the cable coming into our apartment sucks anyway, so it only worked about 50% of the time. And because with boredom comes laziness, often going to campus to use the internet just seemed to be too far of a bike ride or walk. Most often it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway, unless I wanted to sit outside. My exchanges with the Campus Safety personnel this summer have been none too pleasant. They insist I have no business being near campus for the summer, so if I want to use the 24-hour access student computer lab in the admin building basement, I can come before the building closes or kindly suck it.

Well, okay then.

I had also made a lot of plans this summer to do things that I didn’t follow through on for one reason or another. Attending a Dave Matthews Band concert, somehow making a trip to Cedar Point, going to Sigma Alpha Iota national convention, etc. However, “real world expenses” and “oh hey, I don’t have any money” kind of got in the way.

In order to fill the void of the Internet, I’ve been hanging out with the guys that live next door. We’ve tried working out, watching movies seemingly without end. Neither of which are bad, because, you know, working out is good for you, and there are a lot of movies I apparently missed in my childhood that have caused me to bit sheltered and ignorant to a lot of pop culture phenomenons. But usually we end up eating a lot of bacon or assorted greasy snack while watching these movies, so I guess it sort of cancels out the exercise. (Whatever, I tried.)

And now, with the completion of all of that dullness, I am facing one of the most intense and confusing weekends of the summer, ever. Friday is my last day of work, and my roommate and her boyfriend are coming into town to crash with me while they attend a wedding on Saturday. You know, the day I take my road test. I should probably go to bed at a reasonable time on Friday, but I haven’t seen my roommate in a while (I miss her!) and I haven’t seen her boyfriend since exams (I miss him too!). So I’m willing to bed some serious girl-talk will ensue while her boyfriend is at the bachelor party. Oh yeah, after my driving test, I have a birthday party to attend on Saturday evening. Sunday, if ResLife doesn’t prove to be as fail-tacular as I know they can be, I’m moving into my campus apartment so I’ll have time to decompress and do some minor pre-band camp prep on Monday and be all moved out before my lease expires on Wednesday. Which, by the way, is the same day I’m actually scheduled to move everything in. But I’m also scheduled to start my during-the-school year job that same day.

Is it a tad ironic that I can’t wait until the school year because I have a feeling that while I will be busy, I will at least be entertained, and that I will be able to sleep in because I don’t have class until 11? Seriously, I think this is the first summer in a long time that I’ve had to be up before noon.

And that is why the real world sucks.

Or something.

overambitious recipes for when I have my own kitchen, finally

Most of these are bound by way of the kitchn (which, let’s be honest, I’ll be relying on this upcoming school year when I have to fend for myself). I’d like to try these out at some point at least, before I inevitably cheap out and live off of sandwiches, cereal, and frozen pizza. Because that’s currently my summer. And let me tell you, the College Diet is really, really boring.

First: this OMG ADORBZ panda bread! Sure, the recipe will take some conversion and I’ll have to find green tea powder somewhere, because I don’t ever remember seeing it at Meijer like ever, but this looks like it would be so worth it.

Second: this baked falafel. I love Mediterranean food and was vegetarian for forever and a day (okay, fine, two years) but I still appreciate things that are creative and filling without using meat. And the fact that you don’t have to fry this falafel is great – I’ve had about two mishaps with pan-frying falafel using plastic spatulas. You’d think I’d learn…

In nearly the same path (okay, not really, but… bear with me here), this Egyptian dish called Dukkah sounds pretty good, too. Almost like a sort of Middle Eastern version of Cheez-its or Goldfish. I’d serve it at parties and leave bowls of it sitting around the apartment in cute bowls on endtables like you would a bowl of cashews or something.

Maybe it’s just because it’s my sorority’s color, but lately, I have really grown to love the color pink. And just look at how pink this cake is!

Martha Stewart admittedly annoys the hell out of me. She always has, and I can’t place my finger on why. But because I am usually age five at heart and because peanut butter is one of my all-time favorite foods, these peanut butter and jelly pops LOOK. AMAZING. It reminds me of having graham crackers with peanut butter after school when I was a kid!

I’ll leave with this since I have to go to work soon, but doesn’t this look good? I’ve never really eaten Thai food (there was a severe lack of any sort of ethnic resturant where I grew up) so I think this would be definitely worth a try, and not terribly difficult to make. It looks like it could even be a decent between-classes snack. Because I imagine it’s a lot easier to think about the “problems of race in American literature” on a full belly.

only one week of summer left

I’m currently embroiled in several messes with several parties trying to figure out what the end of this summer will be like for me. I am done with my job on the 7th, take my road test on the 8th, move out of my apartment (hopefully) on the 9th, and start my “school year job” on the 12th.

I scheduled my road test. I also found a car to use. Unfortunately, it’s a boat that I will have to drive a few times to get used to, but it’s better than nothing. But the company wants me to pre-pay over the phone with a credit card two days in advance. Does anybody else see this as being a little shiesty?

The office of Residential Life at my college is being difficult, too. The lease on my current apartment expires on the same day that I start my next job. As such, moving will be difficult when I’m supposed to be checking out instruments and getting things squared away for the college marching band camp. As I have in the past, I asked if I could move in a few days early, knowing full well that I may have to pay roughly $25 a day as some ridiculous surcharge for early move-in. Okay, whatever. So I emailed them twice last Friday. Twice. Didn’t get any response. So I waited. And I emailed them again this Friday. They said my request would be processed and I’d know by this upcoming week… BUT!

We may be getting an upgrade to a better apartment building! BUT WE DON’T KNOW IF WE ARE OR NOT YET. So, not only do I not know for sure when I can move in, but I don’t know WHERE I can move in.

But, you know – details, details.