5 AM

It's five am...why am I still awake?

I've been working on lots of random schoolwork, trying to finish this first draft before my conference tomorrow (later today...). It's proving to be extremely difficult--I think my brain is mush. I should really stop taking three hour naps at 8 pm. On the bright side, I actually got my final memoir presentation done pretty early! Wooo productivity. I guess I'll just drink a lot of coffee later to make up for not sleeping. I envy my roommate over there sleeping right now.

I'm not a fan of this recent cold weather. It makes our dorm room even colder than outside almost, and most of my warmer clothes are at home. I'm huddled up in blankets and sweats right now. It can go back to springtime any day...

I'm so glad that the semester is almost over. I am so burnt out and stressed out over school. I think I will sleep for a week when I get home. I did those teacher evaluation things the other day, and as I was doing them I realized that I had all really good teachers this semester. Compared to last semester, it was a ton better. I'm really thankful for that, because my last semester teachers were really discouraging.

Last blog post! Yay! Actually, I kind of enjoyed this blog. Last semester's English blog had to be about political stuff, which sucked. This one seems more like an actual blog. I might actually keep using it if I can figure out how the rest of the website works. Ha-ha. I'll probably forget though.

This has probably honestly been my favorite English class I've taken. I'm kind of sad to be done with it, but then again, it's good as well, because I don't really like English besides getting to read.

La la la, I guess that's all.

Uhhhh

I hate coming up with titles.

SO I went home again this weekend, and decided I had time on Monday morning to drive back instead of being sleepy and driving back late Sunday night. I left with what should have been enough time to carry all my stuff back in, get some breakfast, and get to English class. Unfortunately, the traffic and rain were not on my side. I hate missing class because I always feel like I miss everything important. Oh well, can't really do anything about it.

I got here at about 11:40, so I decided to plan out exactly how I wanted my schedule to be next semester since my registration time was at 1:00. I ended up getting registered in less than five minutes with all of my classes and times I wanted--a first for me here at UT. I was so amazed at how smoothly it went. I wish I could say the same for my roommate; she ended up working on her schedule for a lot longer than me because some classes she wanted were closed.

This week is kind of crazy with a lot of things being due, having extra credit things to go to, working, and having papers to write. Trying not to stress out.

Also, being a complete Harry Potter nerd, I was very excited for the public opening of the website Pottermore. It's basically like you're in Harry Potter world and you get a wand and placed in a house (I'm in Slytherin!) and you get to read extra information from J. K. Rowling. It's kind of exciting for me haha. So that's a highlight!

Now off to go work on my poster.........

Almost forgot...

I almost forgot to write my blog, ahh! I'm usually pretty on top of this blog thing. I had a speech due today in my public speaking class, and of course I didn't start writing it until this morning. (My class isn't until 6:30 at night so it wasn't too bad). Speeches always give me the worst anxiety, no matter how many I've done or how prepared I am. I felt unprepared today because I started writing it so late, but I think I ended up doing alright. We had to persuade our audience, which was a lot better than our informative speeches because it wasn't all facts facts facts. BORING. But yeah, I ended up doing my speech on why people should read more, and over half of the class decided to ditch today (most of the people there were only there because they had to present as well) so it wasn't as nerve racking as having to speak to the entire class. I don't know why, but every time after I give a speech, I get really shaky, even though it's over. It's kind of annoying. Oh well, at least that's over with.

On to Easter weekend! My roommate and I left for our 3 hour road trip back home on Thursday afternoon after we picked up our checks from work--the weekend was already starting out well :) Haha. We had a fun trip singing loudly and talking and all that jazz. Then she dropped me off and I got to hang out with my family.  We went to the Red Box and got Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which my dad complained about but then ended up actually liking a lot, and we got some lame movie that no one liked and I honestly can't even remember the title or what it was about. The next day, one of my best friends, Kellen, picked me up and we had planned to go to Opry Mills Mall since it was FINALLY open, but it was so packed that we ended up going to the yucky Rivergate Mall instead. I got some shorts and earrings from American Eagle and she got a ton of other stuff because she has a better paying job than me. Haha. We went to eat at Chick Fil A and I ended up seeing some people I knew, so it was nice to catch up with them for a few minutes. After that, I went home and watched my brother play xbox for a few hours and talked to him about his friends and crazy things that 14 year old boys do. Saturday I did some laundry and helped clean around the house, and my cousin Brittany picked me up that evening to stay the night. We did some gallivanting around Nashville and met up with my cousin Andrew (her brother) after he got off of work. Then, Sunday morning, she curled my hair and made it all pretty. We were planning on going to church but our ride was sick, so we just ended up staying with our family at their house instead. My mom and aunt cooked us some yummy food and we had a grand ole time painting eggs and watching the younger kids hunt for Easter eggs. Then, Ivy and I began our ride back to Knoxville, and that's about it.

I feel like all of my blogs are about my weekends...hmmm. Oh well. Here are some pictures just because.

My cousin, Andrew

My cousin Keyra and my uncle Mark--painting Easter eggs :)

Kellen! 

Accounting and apartments

So I dropped my accounting class yesterday. I've gone to most every class, paid attention, done my homework, studied, and I was STILL doing completely awful in that class. It was incredibly frustrating for me, because I'm not used to doing badly in classes--even ones I hardly study for! I don't know what it is, but I just can't grasp the material I guess. I felt an incredible weight lifted off of my shoulders after dropping the class, though. I had been stressing about this class since early February probably, and the knowledge that I no longer had to worry about it is just so relaxing.  Also I get to sleep in more on Mondays and Fridays, which is always a plus.

On the brighter side of this weekend, my roommate and I signed our leases for apartments next year! It seemed like such an adult thing to do, it kind of scared me. I was mostly excited though; living in these dorms is no picnic. Since the other two girls we thought we would most likely share our apartment with kind of backed out, we had to end up letting them pick random roommates for us, so fingers crossed that we don't get any crazies. Anyway, we went on the tour of the apartments and signed a million papers and it was done! It felt so weird doing something so huge without my parents being there to say "Yes, this is what you do..." Even though I'm nineteen years old, I still feel like I need my parents' approval for these sorts of things. My roommate and I are completely excited to decorate our apartment and actually have our own rooms, because even though we get along great, sharing this teeny tiny dorm room just isn't a good situation for anyone no matter how good of friends you are.

Spring break, etc.

I'm really sad that Spring Break is over, because it was a great week (and because I have to do school work again...).  My roommate and I went to Panama City with a bunch of people from UT, and it was a ton of fun. There were a lot of us going, but we were in this huge condo, and the only issue was the showers thing...imagine a ton of people with only three showers...but it wasn't too bad. I met a bunch of new friends and got to go to the beach every day. You really can't tell by my lack of tan, since I am unable to tan properly. Oh well. We went to Pier Park a lot, which is like a shopping place across from the pier that has cool restaurants too. It was really sad on Thursday when we had to leave. The car ride back was kind of uncomfortable because we had to switch cars and I was in the middle of the back seat with nowhere to sleep comfortably. 

On Friday I got to hang out with my dad and my brother all day, which was nice. My dad took me out to lunch at Cheddar's, which is my favorite restaurant. Then we picked my brother up from school and did some shopping around for random stuff they needed. Then I had to go stay at my mom's, which was much needed because I hadn't seen her in over a month. We went clothes shopping and went to see The Hunger Games movie, which was really good despite the major differences from the book.  I then went to visit my friends at MTSU on Saturday because we wanted to see each other before I had to go back to school. I unfortunately got pretty sick there, but my best friend took care of me and I felt a little better the next morning. I'm still a little sickly, but nothing too unmanageable. I just wish I was back with my parents to take care of me. And I wish it was still spring break...I'm not ready to get back into the swing of classes and exams and papers. :(

New friends, shopping, and good food

Ahhh, this past weekend has been so good. I'm blessed with such good friends, it's mind blowing.

Friday night after work, I got to go see my friends' band (they're called Average Age Statue, and they're really cool). We had to wait for the first band to finish before them, because they played last. I thought the first band would never stop playing, but finally AAS got to play, and it was great. I never get to see their shows, since they are normally played in Nashville while I'm in school or working, so it was a nice experience. Afterwards, I hung out with my friends and met the band members that I hadn't met before, so now I have some awesome new friends. I hung out with them last night as well. They're all really funny and cool, and had me cracking up all weekend long.

Today, my roommate (Ivy) and I went shopping for spring break next week! It was exciting because everything seemed to be on sale today, so I might have bought a little too much...but I think that's okay every once in awhile. Then we went to Zaxby's for dinner, which is my absolute favorite fast-food type food. I was extremely excited to go there, because she never wants to go with me.

My weekend and other things ~

So I went home this weekend for the third (I believe) time this semester. Last semester, besides breaks, I only went home one time.  For some reason, I've been a little more homesick this semester. Actually, I'm not sure if it's really homesickness since I still love it here in Knoxville so much. Can you still be homesick if you like where you live as well? I suppose so. Anyway, I was planning on driving home Friday night after work, but seeing as the weather picked Friday to be awful and scary, I had to wait until Saturday morning. 

I had a lot of errands to run this weekend at home, so I was glad the weather was nice on Saturday. I spent the rest of the day running around White House and Hendersonville with my brother running errands and pre-ordering him some video game, and then we went to Steak N Shake to eat. We then watched The Rum Diary with my parents, which was a decent movie. Then I went to see my best friend Zack, who is lucky and already on Spring Break since he goes to MTSU. This morning I went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel with my cousin Andrew, and we caught each other up on our lives.  Then I drove back out to Hendersonville to interview my grandmother for my paper. I ended up staying there for quite a few hours just talking to my grandparents and watching tv with them. I then went home, did laundry, and accidentally took a two hour nap (which is probably best since I had to drive back). I was still tired when I got up, so I decided to drink some coffee with a lot of sugar and creamer. I think I'm starting to like coffee now...oh no! Haha.

Right now I'm revising my draft for my draft workshop tomorrow. I'm a bit nervous about having everyone read my paper, just because I always feel like I'm not a good writer. I guess we'll see tomorrow, right? Ah!