I'm an ego half-empty sort of girl

Not much to tell, actually.  I'm just making the effort to update this journal more often.

So, lately, my life has been consumed by my intensive Spanish class.  It's not hard, really, since I've had so many Spanish classes before, but it's just really time-consuming.  By the time I get out of class, get lunch, go work out, get home, and finish my homework, I've usually got about an hour before I collapse of exhaustion.  But, only two weeks and two days and then I'm done with it and I'll have two semesters worth of Spanish finished in less than a month.

Taking the class has reminded me how much I miss learning languages, though.  I'm thinking about maybe doing a minor in Spanish once I get back to my real school.  I think it would be useful, and maybe it would calm my parents down and convince them that maybe I will be able to get a job one day.

In between Spanish homework, I've been re-watching my Supernatural DVDs.  For me, SPN is one of those shows that I sort of forget how much I love it when it's on, and then the season ends and I can't get enough of it.

So that's been my boring week thus far: Spanish and SPN.  Today I've got class, followed by another trip around town with my friend to search for the final bits and pieces of a costume that she's making for a con this weekend.  Tomorrow's the final exam for the first half of the Spanish class, so I expect I'll be up studying for that tonight.

And, on an unrelated note, my birthday is in less than a week!  My family's throwing a birthday/Memorial Day party for everyone with birthdays at the end of May, so Corey and I, who are both turning twenty, are sharing our party with a nine-year-old.  We're going to have a Disney Princess cake, which I think is pretty awesome.  I may be turning twenty, but I'm still an eight-year-old at heart.

So I haven't post anything about a million years.  Life's been crazy busy for a couple of weeks, what with end-of-the-semester projects and papers and studying for finals and dealing with personal drama and... *sigh*.  But it's almost over!  I've got two classes tomorrow, and the the semester has officially ended!  Finals are next week (I've only got two - wonderful thing about being an English major: no "real" final exams!)  And then the week after that I start super-intensive summer Spanish for four weeks.  Woohoo!

But seriously, I'm sort of half-happy/half-sad to see this semester end.  It's been rough, no doubt, what with the roomies-from-hell and tons of family and friendship drama, but (and I know, I sound like such a nerd) I'm actually going to miss most of my classes.  Particularly the writing ones.  I went to my last writing workshop today and it kind of bummed me out to say goodbye to everyone.

Speaking of writing, I've been returning to the world of fanfiction after a particularly long absence, and it's been kind of cathartic, really.  I'd forgotten how much fun writing with other people's characters could be.

That being said, though, I am going to use this summer to put in some serious work on my original fic.  I wrote the first full draft for NaNo back in November, but I've decided to scrap like, 98% of it and start over.  So there will probably be many posts of me complaining how hard writing is.  Feel free to ignore those - it's just me being whiny.

Otherwise, yeah.  I just wanted to pop in, say hi, make sure I hadn't forgotten how the internet works.  Now I'm off to do more studying and, hopefully, start packing (Saturday is moving day!)

I seem to be stuck in a cycle of apologizing for not posting, promising not to do it again, and then disappearing for a week or two.  Sorry about that; life's been crazy.

But it looks like things have chilled out, for now, anyway.  My roommates and I all got away from each other for spring break and things seem pretty good at the moment.  And I really do plan on posting more often.  And this time I mean it :)

Sometimes I get really mad at myself when I look back on the conversations that I've had throughout the day.  I feel like I become a different person around some people, and that I'll just agree with everything they say and allow them to push me around without realizing that they're doing it.  I like to think of myself as a strong, independent woman who's not afraid to voice her opinion, but when I think about conversations that I've had (and today's just one example) I find that I'm only that strong, outspoken person around people that I know will ultimately agree with me, or people I can boss around.  When I've having conversations with people who are very intelligent and who also have strong opinions, I'm much meeker and more likely to end up agreeing with them.

I don't get Twilight.

I get the books, and I understand the appeal and the popularity.  What I don't get is why people hate it so much.

I mean, yes, the books are badly written and Stephanie Meyer is no J.K. Rowling, but they're not the worst books I've ever read.  In fact, when I first read the series two years ago, I honestly enjoyed it.  From the perspective of a reader, I think, they're good relaxation books.  They don't have any sort of deep, underlying meaning, and they're not books that are going to one day be analyzed by literary scholars (although one of my friends is currently taking a class on vampires in fiction: they're reading part of Twilight and watching episodes of Buffy.  I'm so jealous), but they're a fluffy little love story about a Mary Sue who falls for a vampire.  Sort of like a really cheesy fanfiction.  And sometimes it's fun to read really cheesy fanfiction.

(From the perspective of a writer, I have to say that I do hate them a little bit: I don't like that such a mediocre book gets so much attention when so many good writers are basically ignored.  It pisses me off, but I don't hate them for it.)

The movies are just So Bad They're Good that it's kind of hard not to just laugh when you watch them.  I really do believe that Robert Pattinson can act, he just chooses not to.  After all, he was awesome in Harry Potter.

So those are my feelings on what seems to be the most controversial subject among my friends right now: the girls love Twilight and Taylor Lautner, the guys seem to think that it's bringing about the end of civilization as we know it. 

I drove home Thursday night, and am very glad that I did because I woke up to find my parents' yard covered in about three inches of snow.  And in Tennessee, three inches meant that every school and business shut down and the entire town took a day off to play in the snow.  I built a snowman with my parents and then had a snowball fight with my best friend, ex-boyfriend, and the kids down the road, followed by several hours of sledding down a giant hill.  Friday night, my mom and I took some soup to my aunt, and it was like a little family dinner of homemade soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches.

Saturday the snow was still there, so I took the dog out to frolic in it for a little bit.  She attacked the snowman that was built the previous day, and looked adorably puzzled when she lunged at it and it just sort of fell down on her.  That night, my mom and I made hot chocolate and watched Jesus Christ Superstar and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Odd selection of movies, now that I think about it.

Today, I got up, packed up, ready to head back to school, and my car wouldn't start.  My dad and my uncle puzzled over it for a bit, ultimately deciding that I will need a new car before long (I'm kind of sad - I've had my car since I was sixteen) but, since I couldn't really go buy a new one today, my mom drove me back to school.  It was two hours of blaring the Grease soundtrack and singing at the top of our lungs and then lunch at one of the best Italian places in town.

All in all, it was a great weekend.  Now I'm back in the library, working on homework and listening to The Little Mermaid.  I feel like a little kid.

I've got a long day of homework and unhealthy amounts of coffee ahead of me.  Yay.

I'm going out of town next weekend, so I'm trying to get as much done as I can so that I'm not pulling an all-nighter next Sunday trying to do everything that I need to do for Monday.

On top of mountains of homework, I've got to write write three short stories for deadlines that are approaching far more quickly than I would like them to, and my cell phone has developed some sort of cell-phone disease where people can call/text/email me, but I can't call/text/email anyone from my phone.  Several e-mails to my parents (who pay my phone bill) and they've promised to get it sorted out. 

Oh well.  It's going to be a crazy week, so I probably won't be posting much (or else I'll be procrastinating and posting eve more.  We shall see).

Today I did laundry and pretended I was Penny from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.  Later I consolidated two bottles of water and pretended like I was a mad scientist mixing potions together.  It made lunch much more fun, and ended with my friends and I entertaining the cafeteria with a chorus of "Brand New Day." 

All in all, it was a very Dr. Horrible-y day.

...to make new people and generally reform my life.

I'm back at school, having made the trek back (driving my little sports car through the snow!  She's a trooper...) after a long conversation with my mother in the wee hours of this morning.

I've spent the last year-and-a-half being pretty bi-polar with my attitudes towards college.  One week I love it, the next I've taken an impromptu roadtrip to Vegas to escape from it all.  My mother suggested that some of these feelings could have to do with the friends that I've made while here.  I think she's right.

I'm originally from one of those little southern towns.  You know the type: you make friends in kindergarten and hang on to them until graduation.  Well, that's what I did.  Needless to say, I got to college and had no idea how to go about meeting new people, which was the one thing that I was really excited about.  So I did what every normal college kid does.

I partied.  And I met those people.  You know them: they never miss a kegger and they're world champions at beer pong.  They're fun, but they're not studious.  And I was always a low-maintenance, straight-A, drama-free sort of chick.  So I was conflicted; I could have friends and go out six nights a week, or I could be a loner and a loser and have no friends but study my ass off.  Freshmen year I chose option A.  This year I've chosen option B.  I've been miserable with both.

So I've decided to drop the old crowd.  Not that some of them aren't sweethearts, but I know where I want my life to go, and I can't have what I want if I'm with them all of the time.  We'll still hang, and there are no hard feelings, but I need some people who get me, both in RL, and maybe in the online world.

So this is me, starting anew.  Anyone want to come along for the ride?

Failed miserably.  Oh well.  My New Year starts tomorrow.  Yes, I think that's a good plan.