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.