I see Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream
Okay so..I've disappeared off the face of the planet for a while. I've not really had time for a personal life..I'm slowly realizing just how badly design majors get hit in college. I thought pulling the usual one or two all nighters before a con was brutal to catch up on sewing..but when you have to spend 2-3 a week or getting a maximum of 4-5 hours sleep every night just to finish homework when you have only four classes at 14 credit hours...well..it's not easy. Apparently all design majors know this pain (from those I've talked to). And it's eating away at my grades and my life. Just means I need to find a better balance before I drive myself insane. I need to make certain assignments a priority and accept that if my work in art is sloper than it should be, oh well! Its mostly my art class that takes up all my time. Our most recent project explains it all:
15 fully finished (shaded) 4x4 still lifes.
I have..not quite 3 days to do this on top of all my other homework. I've spent my entire weekend (minus a few hours of cleaning) on this project..and what does this mean? It means Sunday I realize I still haven't gone to the fabric store to get fabric for my sewing class for pants I need done Monday and a top I'm starting Monday. It's about noon when I realize this so I look up stores near by. I see the closest one is only 5 miles away! I think this is just fantastic because it won't take that long so I can quickly run and grab my fabric before the store closes at 5 and get back home with time to at least start the pants and possibly finish if I decide to sacrifice another night of sleep. So I plug in my address and the store's address into the Metro Transit trip planner..according to this place it's going to take me 2.5 hours to get 5 miles. Yes, 2.5 HOURS for 5 MILES. For two yards of fabric I think not. I wouldn't even get there by the time the store closed with all the walking I have to do between bus stops on top of that 2.5 hour estimate. I'm not one to stock up on novelty cotton prints either so I can't use fabric I already own. So, I somehow need to get a yard of fabric still at least to start the next project on Monday..I decide I'm skipping my morning class on Monday. The day before a test. I probably need that review session (if there is one) since my grade is really dragging on the ground because of my inability to predict what precise bits of information our instructor will ask for on the quizes and because all these French and Italian words are difficult to spell (it's wrong if we can't spell it right) but oh well. I have no choice. I've never felt more helpless. I'll be greatful when I can drive and use the bus only for getting to school and downtown. Until you use public transit in the big city you have no idea how much of your life gets eaten away.
But despite all my frustration and anger at all of this I have to say, if I make it through this semester and eventually the entire year I'll have learned a great deal about time and stress management. Now I just need to figure out how I'm balancing a job into all of this..and finding one within a week..oh well. There are great lessons and life skills to be learned in college! I'll have to use this as best I can as an opportunity to learn more about balance and setting priorities. No time to focus on stress if you have to keep moving forward anyway! You have to find the silver lining somehow ^_^
I see a bobby pin
Today was...interesting. I discovered that I have a paper due tomorrow so I realize I need to go somewhere I can do some serious work. Home was out of the question because I really didn't want distraction and I hate the dim lighting so I just wanted to go somewhere else. I planned yesterday that today after class I would take the light rail to the Nicollet Mall area and walk to Panera Bread located on 8th and Nicollet Ave.
Being the super genius I am I decide to use Map Quest to find me this location. It tells me it's at a corner of a block in that intersection. I think that's sooooo easy to find. So after walking about a mile to home and back to the lightrail I take the lightrail to downtown Minneapolis/Nicollet Mall and I get off. Not be accustomed to the big city, EVERYTHING looks the same to me and not all streets are labeled so I have to walk about 2 blocks in the wrong direction before I realize I'm going the wrong direction so I turn around and walk 4 blocks before I look at the map again and realize, oh! I was going the right way originally so I turn around and go back noticing some interesting things on the way such a giant shoe on wheels. I'm not kidding. It was a giant red, high heeled shoe with wheels and a man sitting in where the foot would go driving it. I also saw a giant truck (like a U-HAUL truck) with these windows on either side showcasing shoes like a shop window might--not a picture, they were real...this is an odd city. Anyway, walking along and taking several twists and turns I finally wind up on 2nd Avenue...now, you see, in Nebraska numbered streets are streets and ONLY streets. In Minnesota there are numbered parkways, avenues, and streets so I get thoroughly confused at how 7th street turned into 2nd so I walk back until I finally get to an intersection on my small section map and do a bunch more walking until I finally reach the intersection 8th Street and Nicollet Avenue..only..none of the corners has a Panera Bread. There is a giant Macy's store, a giant Barnes and Noble, a bank, and mall entrance. I walk around in circles a few time and see nothing. I walk up Nicollet Avenue toward 7th and still see no Panera Bread. I walk back and enter the Nicollet Mall itself and find a mall directory..no Panera in the mall itself, but this is the location it's supposed to be. I walk around some more and still no Panera Bread. I look at my map and see there's a Target Center so I decide I'll just go there and do my shopping a couple days early.
....just because Target owns an entire block of city doesn't mean there's actually a Target store there. I walk around this block several times and do not encounter a Target store. Frustrated and having lost 2 hours of my scheduled paper writing time I decide I'm going home. So, I follow the map trying to find the light rail. I walk by a station and pay no attention to it until about half a block later there is a sidewalk closed sign so I walk back and THEN notice the light rail station. I laugh to myself and walk toward it and once on the platform I notice something odd..it doesn't look familiar. I look up and sure enough I'm not at the light rail stop I got off on, I walked to a different one along the same route somehow. It'll still take me to home so I decide to wait for it. It's late..it tends to be in down town since it has to stop for traffic and idiot pedestrians who walk on the tracks a lot. But as I'm sitting there waiting I notice I'm sitting right across from a strip club. Why there is a strip club right across the tracks from a rail station, I have no idea, but it was still interesting to see. I've never seen a strip club in person so I find it interesting to look at and I notice out in front there is this advertisement to come in to have "your every fantasy begin" and it's got this naked woman on it with selective parts of her body covered with words..I just look at it for a while trying to wrap my head around how this is legal in public when I notice this man comes out of the strip club bar and doesn't even look around just comes out, turns, and goes right next door to another bar. Quite the life to live I guess O.o
Luckily the train did come and after a lively phone conversation with Josh and Mama I made it home. I lost 3.5 hours of work time and am sore beyond words and a bit disappointed since I dressed up to go out and all only to not do anything but..you need experiences like this to laugh at sometimes. I'm not angry at what happened..it helped take my mind off of things and though it was frustrating, I learned a lot about down town and got my exercise for the year so all is not lost. But after that my weekly trip to the Mall of America to window shop is off for the week. I don't know how I'm going to get to school tomorrow on these feet @_@ I'll make it work...somehow.
Anyway! The richest part of all of this is..once I got home I was tempted to call this Panera location, wondering if they even existed. But first, I check a Google map...Panera exists all right. It was half a block between 8th and 9th street: the only direction I didn't go. I have been living in Minneapolis not quite two weeks...it's already driven me insane. But in a good way. I can't stop laughing at least.
Why do I open 3 browser windows for gmail?
So much has happened since my last update and to be honest I'm in no condition to explain it all so here's a brief overview:
-My last house has a 10 PM curfew--big no no for me, I like my RHPS midnight showings, thank you.
-I move..we had a day to find me somewhere to live
-I live in basement apartment for 2 more months or so and then I try to move to a commune
I'll post pictures later.
But anyway, I am sick today. I've been under a bit of stress lately and with all the new exercise I have to do daily (1/2 mile to train, few hundred feet to bus, few feet to other bus, few hundred feet to other building + other campus walking, and then doing it all again to come back home) and my body cannot do all of this with the little food I'm used to putting in it so my body is biting me back through making me sick. Of course despite my sickness I decide that I can go back home and get to class in time in 1 hour when it would normally take a little over 2. I had to go back home because I forgot my supplies. I got back home 10 minutes before class would start and felt about ready to collapse. No way was I doing that again so I e-mailed my teacher and have to take an unexcused absence -- 1 more (even being late!) and I will lose 2 whole letter grades from my final score. Talk about cruel..just means I have absolutely no room for error anymore. This means I will be keeping my supplies in my backpack at all times and NEVER using a different backpack and I will always leave for school no later than 7:30. College is just about learning I guess...lots and lots of learning. Let's hope I don't slip up again. I've already missed two of my other classes because I got lost on campus for a 1.5 hours before realizing their are maps on some of the street lights and the other time dad locked his keys in the van (naw, I was never mad). All of this is just HORRIBLE but I can't help but laugh at everything happening. There's no use crying over spilled milk, done is done. All I can do is not slip up again! Wish me luck!
Blueberry Waffles
New blog! Yay! Okay..so now, how to use the blog? Well it is "Katty's School Adventures" but school hasn't started yet 
Hm..well, I moved into my new room today. Didn't sleep too badly..admittedly it was hard to get to sleep while thinking about who all I'm leaving behind in Nebraska, but that aside I was fine. My room is a very comfortable size for me but I plan to live partially out of boxes for a while. The family who own the house are very nice people, especially Naima (she made me cookies!). Living somewhere new away from my family, friends, and boyfriend will be very difficult, I know. Throw in it's in a new town and state I've only visited once and I have a lot going against me, but I know I'm not the first college student to do this. It will take a lot of adjustment and some major coordinating and saving for visits, but I think I'll be able to make it through without too much difficulty. It's going to be a long, exhausting semester but at least I made it this far.
I suppose some other things to note might be that all my classes are in St. Paul whereas I'm living in the SE area of Minneapolis...lots of bus-riding. Means I won't be visiting my room too often during the day. It'll be like UNO all over again! Not a problem, once I secure myself a job I'll have something to occupy my time between classes followed by lots of studying in the evening and all sewing/wig-craft on the weekends. I suppose I should start fishing out a church (and seeing if a bus goes near one from here--or perhaps taking a bus to another bus) that I can regularly attend. It'd be nice to have a bit of community outside of school (and if I'm here the five years I expect I will be, all the better). I'm also planning on actually getting involved with school this time and joining an organization or two (plans so far: GLBT or Gay-Straight alliance and the anime club) so long as meetings don't interfere with work in with my schedule. Forensics is also something to start considering again..but with working and all I'll have to be careful not to join too many groups. Don't stretch yourself too thin! If I did there would be nothing left for anyone to love and that would be no good.
Well, I honestly think I'm out of thoughts to type so I'll end on pictures of my new (and not fully clean) room!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/akaisha/Photo499.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/akaisha/Photo498.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/akaisha/Photo497.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/akaisha/Photo496.jpg
As you can see I have Grandpa's old coffee maker set up. Grandma's old sewing machine (Shelly) is still in a box 
And I left Vash behind so Ty could use him to hem up his pants and figure out what's wrong with him (poor Vash's gears seem like they may be grinding). Mistress Furnipuu II is missing her chopstick (I know I packed it!) and the unnamed Yuna wig-head (aka my practice head) is guarding my wig supplies. My bed is made (though missing stuffed animals..I ought to get a pet net *adds to list*)