My Final Post

Today is Thanksgiving day. After driving three hours home, I arrive at my Mamaw's (grandmother's) house. I had planned on going to my home, where my father, stepmother, and brothers live. However, they are busy and left to go to my stepmother's side of the family for lunch. Am I the only one that thinks they are rude? I am their only daughter, who barely ever gets to come home to visit, and they just leave right before I get home. Plus, it's Thanksgiving, geez.
Anyways, me and my Mamaw are the only ones here at the moment. We are supposed to be eating here at 4:00pm. Therefore, everyone will probaby arrive around 4:30pm and act as if they are on time.
I'm very bored. I picked at some of the food that is already prepared, so I'm not hungry anymore. I checked my emails and looked at my grades just because I was trying to occupy my time. My Mamaw decided she wanted to do some ironing while the turkey finishes cooking. So, I figured right now is the perfect time to write my final blog post.
I have never had a blog nor did I really even know what a blog was until this semester.
Hold that thought.
I find it very annoying for everyone to send out mass text messages about Thanksgiving. I am pretty sure everyone knows that today is Thanksgiving, so there is no need to send a text message to every contact in your phone saying, "Happy Thanksgiving!" I have received at least twenty of the exact same mass text messages so far today. It is really annoying. Stop it.
Okay, back to what I was saying. The whole blog thing is actually kind of nice. I have never been one to keep a diary or anything like that. However, I have always enjoyed writing. Especially if I am writing about a topic that partains to me, or writing about myself and my experiences.  English has always been my favorite subject, so I do well in it because I enjoy it. I am not a big fan of reading and memorizing, but writing comes rather natural to me.
I am pretty busy with a lot of different things so I am not sure if I will continue blogging immediately after this class is over. But, I am definitely not hanging up my hat as a blogger for good. I hope to make time for another blog in the future. Not only do I want to be an English professor, I want to be a writer so I think that blogging will do nothing but help me find ways to develop my ideas and thoughts in order to successfully write longer works one day.
I recently re-read all of the posts I have written in my blog this semester and it was very pleasant to relive those memories for a short moment. Even though some of the blogs were about an unpleasant experience, it is easier to laugh at my struggles now instead of at the time they had happened.
For now, I am done blogging and I hope everyone that has read my posts have enjoyed.

Registering for Classes

It is that time of the semester again. And just about any student at MTSU would vouch for me when I say that registering for classes is a pain in the ass every single time. First, I have to meet with my old advisor just to tell her I am changing my major. Then, I have to wait nearly a week and a half to get a response email from my new advisor, so I can set up an appointment time to meet with her. I made my appointment for a time that I could go directly after class and not worry about being late. So, I get to the McFarland building ten minutes before my scheduled appointment time. Before I knew it, it had became twenty minutes AFTER my appointment time and my advisor was no where to be found. I was not very happy. Why make an appointment if the person you are meeting with does not keep that time available for you? That makes no sense to me. However, I seemed to be patiently waiting even though I was slowly beginning to fume inside from anger. Thiry minutes after my appointment, my advisor walks out and casually calls my time. She does not even mention the fact that she was thirty minutes late. Can I get an apology or something? Apparently not. I decided to disregard her lack of respect for my precious time and change my attitude into a seemingly delightful one.
We decided on which classes I needed to be registered in for the upcoming Spring 2012 semester and I left her office. She had given me the time for my availability to register on Pipeline, so I was excited for that date to come.
November 17 at 1:00pm was my time to register. At 12:30pm, I was wasting time on Facebook and Twitter until the clock struck 1 o'clock. Finally, 1 o'clock arrives and to my dismay, Pipeline is not working. I am sarcastic when I say that this is a shocker, because this exact problem happens to me every semester. I immediately become irritated and begin to be very dramatic. After a short temper tantrum, I shut down the computer, and made myself some macaroni and cheese. My roommates witnessed my dramatic act of frustration and invited me to watch the movie "Dear John" with them, because they had just rented it. I ate and watched the movie. Then, I did some laundry and went to the gym. It was now 7:00pm and I had decided to give Pipeline another shot.
Pipeline was up and running!  I did not get a few classes that I needed, but I will hopefully be able to get into those classes after the purge day.
The moral of the story is when your advisor sucks, everything else sucks. Also, registering for classes sucks, and Pipeline sucks. I love Middle Tennessee State University, but every semester I want to pull my hair out after dealing with my advisors and Pipeline. Get it together, MTSU.

The End of the Semester

The end of my Fall 2011 semester cannot come quickly enough. I am tired of writing essays, sick of taking quizzes, over staying up late while trying to study, and I'm just over school altogether. I will never drop out of school, but I definitely would have to consider a few different things if it were not for the breaks we get. I'm very happy that MTSU gives us almost a month for Christmas break. I remember thinking the two week break we got for Christmas in high school was extremely long. This upcoming break is exactly what I need to recooperate for my Spring 2012 semester. However, I have learned a lot this semester. I have grown up and started being more responsible. I pay my own bills, live on my own, work at least 30 hours a week while being a full time student, and I have somewhat of a social life. I have finally decided on a major. I had a hard time making a concrete decision on what I wanted to do with my life. Finally, I decided that I want to be a college English professor. I feel as if English is my best subject, and I definitely think I will be a good college professor. I also made the relationship with my dad a better one. We have not always seen eye to eye on certain subjects, but my new found maturity has allowed for a healthy, blossoming father-daughter relationship.
This semester has really made me realize that hard work truly pays off. I have also realized that whatever effort I put into something, is in direct correlation with what reward I will get out of it in the end. I used to half-ass a lot of aspects of my life, including school work. I am so happy that I have now grown up enough to put aside all of the parties and superficial characteristics of the normal college life.
As this semester comes to an anticipated end, I want to make sure I finish out strong. I want to make sure that I do not miss anymore classes. I want to ace all of my finals. I also want to continue to balance school, work, and my social life. So, hopefully my new habits will come with me into Spring 2012 semester and all of the rest of my college career. The combination of all of my classes this semester have helped me firm my decision of finally choosing a major course of study. As a sophomore, I feel like I was late choosing what I wanted to do after college, I just really wanted to make sure I chose something that I will enjoy for many, many years as a career after college. Choosing a major that I am very happy with is definitely my biggest accomplishment this semester. I hope that everyone does not put off big decisions as much as I do, because procrastination can make life for college students, and anyone at all, very stressful. Do not procrastinate.

Free Time

Free time. What is that? I'm gonna tell you. Free time is time that is not occupied by an activity in which you are required to do. Activities that I am required to do each week are, go to class, go to work, clean my apartment, buy groceries, do homework, and studying. All of these things could possibly just not be done, but the consquences of not going to work would be, not having a job and not having money. The consequences of me not going to school or doing homework and studying would be, I would fail my class and not graduate from college. I really like money and I really want to graduate from college. Therefore, I am required to do what I need to do in order to make both of those things happen. Having a clean apartment is not important to everyone. However, I cannot stand having a dirty apartment. I clean my bathroom every other day, I make my bed every morning and make sure my room is clean before I leave, I wash my dishes as soon as I'm finished with them, I dust every few days, and keep all my laundry done. When I was growing up my parents made us keep our house clean, so now that I live on my own I still find it very important to live in a clean environment. So, even though cleaning is not necessarily a top priority to a lot of people, it is to me.
Now, after all of the things I need to do are finished, I have what is commonly referred to as free time. I do not get to enjoy the pleasures of free time very often, so when I do finally get a little time to do what I want, I often end up sleeping. If I choose to partake in an activity other than sleep, I have several options. My free time options usually consist of shopping for things I do not need, drinking margaritas at Camino Real, going out somewhere downtown Nashville, watching scary movies in the dark with my roommates, hanging out with my lovely friends while we gossip and crack jokes, going tanning, working out at the Rec, going to get my nails done, and occasionally an exciting opportunity to do something spontaneous will occur. Believe it or not, I thoroughly enjoy every second of free time that I get. I work hard at my job and I give my best efforts to being a college student at MTSU. But as most people already know, being a full time college student and having a part time job is very time consuming. Free time is very limited and I would advise everyone to enjoy all of your free time and treat yourselves to a little fun and maybe even some pampering. I know guys do not really enjoy tanning, shopping, or getting there nails done, but it is important for men to pamper themselves during free time as well.

Twitter.

Twitter has changed the life of many people, especially college students.
Events, television show, movies, games, sports, and just about every aspect of our culture has been magnified by a social networking site called Twitter. When anything that is of high publicity has been shown on the television or on the internet, people tweet about it. In return, other people on twitter want to know what is going on so that they can tweet about it also. For example, award shows such as, MTV Awards, VH1 Awards, the Grammies, the Hip Hop Awards, etc. These award shows are internationally broadcasted and then made into an even bigger deal due to the fact that tweeters go insane, because they have to tweet about every single thing that happens during the program.
College students have taken to twitter more than any other group of people. Tweeters tweet about things that happen during class, homework, roommates, assignments, projects, weird people on campus, annoying professors, worrying parents, promoting parties, etc. The list goes on and on.
My personal twitter career began March 4, 2010. I kept hearing everyone at MTSU talk about twitter, and people kept asking me what my Twitter Name was. So, I decided to break my addiction from Facebook and give Twitter a try. I kept my Facebook account of course, however I made my twitter page and my Twitter name is @im_Cassanova. At first, I did not understand the whole concept of Twitter. What do I say? Who cares what I'm doing right now anyways? Who do I follow? Who even wants to follow me? I was confused so I did not get back on my account for over a month. After I got my first iPhone, I was downloading applications and I saw one for Twitter. I downloaded it and set up the features for my account access on my phone. I was shocked to see that I had a couple followers, so I followed them back and began searching for more people at MTSU. Before I knew it, I had almost 500 followers and I was actually getting the hang of tweeting. I have always been good at expressing myself and I try to find hilarity in everything that I experience. Therefore, my tweets were sort of entertaining.
I knew I was addicted to Twitter when I began to wake up checking my timeline instead of my missed text messages and phone calls each morning. I used to tweet during all of my classes. Even though I hate to admit it, I am very happy that none of my professors this semester allow cell phone usage during their class times. I definitely pay much more attention when I am not tweeting the whole time.
Now, I consider myself an experienced tweeter. All of my friends are now on Twitter and honestly we communicate through Twitter more than anything else. I have quite a few more than 500 followers now and I try to always follow each person back so my timeline is very entertaining. Also, considering that I am coming up on reaching my 25,000th tweet, I am definitely addicted just as nearly every other student at MTSU.

My Motivation, Or Lack Thereof.

Middle Tennessee State University offers all of the university's students access to the Campus Recreation Center. Also known as, the Rec. The Rec center is fully equipped with everything needed for a successful workout. Despite the fact that I am paying for my use of the Rec through part of my tuition each semester, I have been in there approximately 15 times, in three semesters. It may seem as if I just do not care about fitness or I have no interest in working out, but that is not the case. I have intentions at the beginning of every week to go to the Rec, and workout, at least twice during that week. However, somehow as the week gets closer and closer to Friday, my motivation deminishes. Somedays I will even wake up early and plan to go to the Rec before class. It's not that I end up not having enough time to go, but I will find something else I need to be doing and work on that instead. Sometimes I do laundry , go get my nails done, or even watch a show on TV, that I haven't had a chance to watch in a while, instead of working out. My life is so busy between balancing school, work, and attempting to have some kind of a social life. It is hard to find motivation to fit in another actitivity that is not necessarily crucial. Fitness and staying in shape is absolutely important, but in my mind it is one of those things that can be done tomorrow, or the next day, or the weekend, or next week. The only time I have actually been to the Rec on a regular basis was Spring semester of this year, 2011. My friends and I began planning our Spring break trip in January. From January until springbreak, I had two months to get my body in shape to be on the beach in front of nearly every college student in the eastern part of the United States. Everyone I knew was going to Panama City Beach, Florida, and I had no choice but to tone up before getting into a bathing suit. I actually had motivation to go workout and use my access to the Rec center. Therefore, I got in my best shape in perfect time for Spring break in March. After Spring break, I told myself that I would continue to go to the Rec and keep up the shape that I had worked hard for. I went a few more times after we return from Panama City, but it did not take long for me to lose motivation again. However, it is nowhere close to time for Spring break, but for some reason I have been having the urge to get in shape again. I am not sure what has came over me, but I have really been wanting to go to the Rec. I am determined to workout at least twice a week starting this week. I am not behind in school, work is going good, and I have a pretty good balance going on right now. So, it is the perfect time to get back in shape. It is my privilege as a student at MTSU to use the Campus Recreation Center to benefit myself, and I will absolutely do so.

Homecoming Week

My previous years here at MTSU were very exciting around the time of Homecoming. Football games are always fun, Homecoming parties are so much better than the usual weekend parties, and the overall morale of the student body is very upbeat. Last year, my homecoming week was spent with my sorority, at parties, supporting the Blue Raiders, and just enjoying college life. However, this years homecoming has been quite different. Despite the fact that I had to work all week, I was sicker than a dog. I woke up Tuesday with all intentions to go to class, and I could not walk three feet without throwing up. No alcohol was involved for once. The next day I did not have class but I had to go to work. I woke up at noon, which I never get to sleep that late, I tried to eat some chicken noodle soup and that did not turn out very well. I was still sick. I had to call out of work and I slept the rest of the day. Thursday was no better. I slept completely through my alarm and woke up late for class, and since I still could not eat anything without throwing it back up, I decided to stay home again. Well, Friday I woke up on time. So, I went to work and felt a little bit better. I got off work around 10pm and came home to find my apartment full of strangers. Apparently, my roommates decided to have our own little Homecoming party. There was a keg in my kitchen, strange people on my couch, and my intoxicated roommates who greeted me at the front door. I was not very happy. Due to the fact that I had slept most of the week and did not go to class, I had a ridiculous amount of homework. My homework was the last thing I really wanted to do on Friday night of Homecoming week. However, it had to be done and I definitely did not want a raging party to be taking place in my apartment at the same time that I was trying to concentrate. This was a losing situation for me. I knew there was no chance of me getting some quiet time to study, so I packed up my books and headed to the BAS. I stopped on the way to campus and got me a coffee. After arriving on campus, I parked by the library because the extremely annoying construction disabled me from parking closer to the BAS building. I grabbed my book bag, my coffee, and my purse then I walked toward the BAS. I do not like being on campus late at night by myself because our school has some freaks and they scare me. I passed a few weirdos and a few normal people before reaching my destination. Low and behold, I forgot my stupid MTSU ID card. Therefore, I could not get into the BAS. After I stood there for a minute, I told myself how much of an idiot I am, and I decided that studying was just not meant to be. I went straight home, took a shower, and went to bed. I set my alarm for 6am, so I could wake up and have a full day of doing homework before attempting to go to the MTSU football game at 6pm. So, while all of my friends were partying last night after a week full of Homecoming festivities, the only thing I have a chance at enjoying is the game today. My Homecoming week has really sucked.

There Are Only Twenty-Four Hours in a Day

      No college professor should give only one day to work on and turn in any assignment. College students have other things to do. Everyday I wake up and either go to class or to work. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and every other Saturday and Sunday, I must slave away for eight hours at my job. On Tuesdays, My day begins with class at 9:40am and continues until my final class is over at 9pm. Thursdays, I have a slightly shorter day since I my final class lets out at 5:45pm. Oh, the joys of being a college student that also works about thirty hours a week.
     I'm not sure when these professors expect me to do all these stupid assignments. The most annoying thing is when I get an assignment during my 1:00-2:20pm class on Tuesday, and it is due by midnight of the same day. Is he serious? I do not get out of class until 9pm and in order for me to submit this little assignment I have to go to the BAS and use the computer lab, because my laptop is a piece of crap. The very last thing I want to do after being on campus for twelve hours is walk to the BAS, in the dark, by myself, on MTSU's campus.
     MTSU is not exactly known for being the safest University. It is not uncommon that female students are assaulted at night, or even during the day, while being on campus alone.
     I like to wake up early on days that I have to go to work, so that I can get as much homework and studying done as I possibly can. I usually do not have to go into work until 2pm. Therefore, I tend to get a lot done before I have to go. If my professors would actually think about the fact that some students do not have time to finish an assignment the very first day is it assigned, I would actually have time to turn it in. But no, they must think that their class is the only class I am enrolled in and that I do not have a job to go to almost everyday.
     Time-management is not my problem. I am very good at getting things done whenever I have the time to do them. Anytime that I am not in class or at work, I get my school work done before I participate in my favorite activities; hanging out with my friends and drinking margaritas. Thanks to all my professors that think I have all the time in the world to work on their assignments, I have no time for anything except putting things into the Dropbox on D2L.
     Today, I ended up calling out of work in order to have one full day to only work on homework and studying. I will probably regret this decision when my paycheck comes, but since my professors think I am superwoman, I will just have to deal with it.
     No assignment should ever be only given ONE DAY to complete.

Awkward

I am not sure if it's just me, or if every college student's life is full of awkward moments. Whether it be someone accidentally passing gas on the bus, my roommate sneezing a stream of snot across the room, or just not knowing what to say when approached by a weirdo, awkwardness seems to enter each and every day of mine.
I have always been proud of my ability to take control of any situation. At even the most awkward times, I can somehow make light of the situation and allow it to be more comfortable for everyone invovled.
However, my most recent moment of inconvenient circumstances definitely wins the award for how awkward a situation could possibly be.
Every Tuesday night my friends and I have movie night at one of our apartments. Usually it ends up happening at my friend Jessie's apartment across town. I have a 6:00pm-9:00pm class on Tuesday nights, so I am usually pretty tired after it considering my Tuesday morning starts with a 9:40-11:05 class, and I really do not have much of a break at all. So, when my roommates told me we were having movie night at our apartment, I was excited. I could lay on my own couch until I fell asleep without worrying about being at someone else's apartment and having to drive all the way home after the movie.
I did not think twice about my friend, Kelly, informing me that she would be bringing her new boyfriend, Josh, to movie night. She was so excited about their brand new relationship and wanted all of our friends to meet him. After she gave me a brief recap of their week-long romance, I said, "Okay, awesome. I can't wait to meet him!" and then we got off the phone.
Josh is a fairly common name, right? Everybody knows a million people named Josh. Perhaps, that is why I did not even think that this particular Josh could even possibly be a Josh that I already know. The most recent person I have had an encounter with named Josh was a boy I met at a club in downtown Nashville. I was extrememly inebriated and so was Josh. We danced for a few songs and then went to the outside area of the bar so we could get sone fresh air. He told me he also attended MTSU and we spoke about a professor that we had both taken at different times of the previous school year. The only other thing I really remember about our conversation was that we exchanged phone numbers.
Due to the amount of alcohol I had consumed, I was feeling sort of nauseous. One minute we were laughing and I was trying to fix my hair, and the next minute he was yelling at me because I threw up on his shoes, his pants, and in his beer.
My friends, Lacey and Tasha, seen me from a distance and came to my rescue. I was escorted to the car where I continued to throw up until I got home, and passed out on my bed.
The next morning, Lacey and Tasha told me about how mad the guy I was talking to, Josh, had been. I was so embarrassed. However, I was even more embarrassed when I checked my text messages. Josh had text me. He actually text me about four or five times. My favorite one of his text messages said, "Cassie, seriously you are too cute to be getting that drunk. You threw up all on my s***. Great night but um, yeah I don't think we can talk after that. See you around." Well, that was that. I never though I would actually see him again, or even care if I did see him.
It's a small world. I was laying on my couch, ice cream in hand, and ready to watch this movie. There was a knock at the door so my roommate gets up to answer it. I hear her say, "Hey Jessie!" and then Jessie walks in. Immediately following behind Jessie, there was Josh. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped. It took him only a short second to realize who I was. So he said, "Hey Cassie," and then he started laughing. Jessie was looking at both of us trying to figure out how we knew each other. I still had not said a word, but my face was as red as a fire truck. I could feel the blood rush to my face and the moisture exit my mouth and go all the way down my throat. I finally mustured up the word, "Hi."
Jessie finally asked where Josh and I knew each other from. I lied. I simply said we knew each other from school. Thank goodness Josh played along.
The remainder of the night was filled with everyone else laughing at the movie, while I stared. I stared at the tv, ate my ice cream, and did not say a word.
Last Tuesday night was an epic fail.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

     Go to the party, or stay home and study? Go to the movies, or go to the BAS and finish the endless amount of homework? Go shopping, or read the assigned chapter for World Civilizations Part 2?
     I'm at a constant struggle, between myself and myself. I enjoy making good grades and not having to stress out over being unprepared for tests, essays, etc. However, I thoroughly enjoy partying, movies, shopping, going out to eat, drinking margaritas, and just plain "hanging out". Even the simple task of making myself go to class can be a difficult situation sometimes. It just always seems like there is something else I would rather be doing.
      Whenever I think about how much I hate doing school work, I also think about how much I hate working a minimum wage job right now. I literally work like a slave just to make a few dollars. I get to go to work for a too many hours, get bossed around like I'm a three year old, and just be miserable until time to leave. I definitely do not want to be working a minimum wage job for the rest of my life. I would not even be able to survive except for the simple fact that my parents pay for basically everything of mine while I'm still in college. The only thing I have to pay for is food, shopping, and margaritas. If I had to actually pay some bills, I would be homeless, food-less, and alcohol-less.
      The hardest part of college is time management. If I could master the art of managing my time, I would be much better off than I am now. My free time should be spent studying instead of hanging out with my friends, but it is really hard to make myself do productive things with my time.
     Fortunately, I realize that I want a college degree. I do not want to struggle while raising a family later on in my life. I want to continue to have nice things and be comfortable. I want to be able to support my children the way that my parents support me. So, I have to choose school over all the fun stuff. Until I graduate, I have to cut back on the margaritas and shopping trips, and spend my free time studying and writing papers. I also have to keep reminding myself that college is just a stepping stone that I have to get through in order to have a successful life. I must give myself continuous pep-talks in order to stay focused on the bigger picture. I have to actually act like I am responsible so that my parents don't think I'm a complete failure.
     Thank God, I only have two more years left of college.
    

Relationships

     The first week of my junior year had began not unlike my two previous years at Middle Tennessee Sate University. MTSU is a very diverse university, and it is not uncommon to see variety of different people everyday. There are students with disabilities, students of every ethnicity and race, students that look like characters out of a cartoon, models, athletes, and just regular people like myself.
     Parking at MTSU is a real annoyance. So a lot of students choose to park away from campus and then catch the bus to campus. I'm quite lazy and I do not enjoy walking in the heat so I never even attempt to park on campus.
     All in all, everything seemed to be the same so far at MTSU as it always had been. However, I feel like I was supposed to pay closer attention to my surroundings on this particular day, for some reason that was not apparent to me.
     I caught the MTSU Raider Express bus after my 9:40 class so I could make my way to my car in the parking lot across from Greek Row. The bus made it's usual stop outside the BAS building, even though the building is now surrounded by excessive amounts of construction. It was very hot and crowded on campus, as well as on the red route bus. I always try to sit toward the front of the bus in order to avoid fighting through the crowd at the rear end of the bus, because that can really get annoying. I noticed a perfectly normal looking girl who was boarding the bus, however, she had her dog with her. It took me only a few short seconds to make the conclusion that the girl was blind and this dog was much more to here than just a regular pet. The German Shepherd was her guide dog. I imagine that it would be impossible for the girl to navigate herself around campus without this animal. She spoke commands to the dog such as, "Scoot back," and, "sit." I watched the two of them interact as the bus continued on it's route. The dog sat very still as it's owner placed her hand on it's back, and then the dog laid it's head on the girl's lap. The pair appeared to be extremely close and comfortable with one another. I cannot imagine the closeness of the relationship between these two, but from what I can guess, they both depend very much on each other.
     In the few moments that I had watched this interaction,  I found myself having to take a second to appreciate relationships in general. The relationship between this girl and her guide dog, my relationship with my friends and family members, and all relationships can be made to seem so irrelevant. The interactions we all have with other people are the very thing that makes us who we are. Humans have the need to be loved and have relationships with people, as well as pets.