Soon Things Will Come to an End

It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm sitting here in the dark with headphones on and no music playing. I just completed one major project but I still have way too many to go. I know that graduation is very much just around the corner and that it will be here sooner rather than later, but I still can't help but feel that there's just this gross amount of time hanging around so that I can procrastinate. In this sense I'm very happy I decided not to move on to graduate school just yet. I've been in college for the last 20 years of my life with little or no breaks and I'm tired. And even though I feel as if there is time while still knowing that there really isn't, I still feel pressured to get things done. I wish I were a better student, bottom line. Even though I get excellent grades and my professors all have high opinions of me (I think?), I'm still not as accomplished of a student as I'd like to be. It's not about extra curriculars or getting involved (done both, have disliked both). It's about feeling like I accomplished something more than a Bachelors degree. I'd rather feel that I've kicked the habit of procrastination rather than just having quit smoking cigarettes. I'd rather feel like I've grown. When surrounded by some of the idiots that matriculate here I feel well beyond my years, and yet within the 4 corners of my own dorm room I still feel like I'm not quite an adult yet. I really wish this feeling would end. Only time will tell. And there's only three weeks left of it.

At a Standstill...

One of my biggest pet peeves is when I have to disregard my personal timeline in favor of doing things on someone else's timeline. It's very difficult for me to relinquish control of my life in that manner, but sometimes it is simply unavoidable. This weekend, for instance, is no exception.

We are supposed to be moving right now. Yesterday we picked up Jeff's dad's ginormous SUV and brought it back up to school. This morning we were to go pick up the trailer from U-Haul, take a load of my belongings and furniture up to my parent's home up north and tomorrow take Jeff's 55" tv and his belongings down to his home down south. Except the whole thing has gone south, in a manner of speaking.

We didn't wake up until after 10am and we were apparently supposed to pick up the trailer around 9am. Jeff doesn't know how to work an alarm clock, I guess. So he went out to pick up the trailer, except there was some sort of problem that they couldn't fix, he could find a fix for at Home Depot and couldn't explain to his father over the phone. So now he is driving the SUV back down to his place and then willd drive it back up. This means that I must wait approximately 3 hours. It's already going on 2am and we had projected to be nearly done at my home by this time. That's obviously not going to happen. Additionally, I've been the only person to pack and clean and all Jeff has done is complain. I'm tried of cleaning after him. I feel like a housewife (and not in the best possible way).

We're in the final 2 weeks of instruction during my final semester of my senior year of college and I put an entire weekend on hold to get this moving stuff done. I'm way behind on projects and at this point I feel like I will never graduate. And I have to wait 3 bloody hours. This is why I hate not doing things on my time frame.

CAR Love Life

I did it! I traded in my old crappy clunker of a car for a brand new car (okay it's used, but brand new to me!) I had a 1992 Ford Thunderbird and I traded it in for a 2007 Hyundai Elentra in a beautiful metallic blue. I'm so happy with the car and find any and every reason to drive it around town. Jeff likes it a lot too, even comparing it with his car once in a while (your doors have this material on them that make them more sturdy than mine! or I wish my car still looked new, etc... ) I'll have photos of it soon. What I need to be doing right now is studying for a Spanish test on Wednesday!

Happy Saturday!

Photo by me.

For a while now I've been in the process of trying to replace my old junk of a car with a newer used car, one that won't fall apart or feel dangerous, such as my current vehicle does. Yesterday I was home with my family for the day and we looked at a potential vehicle, but that's not going to work out, unfortunately. Fortunately, they have told me that they have a few vehicles that would work well within our own terms, so I'm heading back up there today to take another look and hopefully drive home in a newer used car!

Independent Study

Photos by me. Getty Villa, Malibu, CA.

I'm currently in my final semester of college as a student of art history and I'm taking a course in independent study for the second time. Last semester I wrote an 18 page paper on my observations from shadowing a college professor. This semster I'm writing an illustrated glossary of architectural terms for undergraduate students of art history. I have input about 165+ terms into a template (which I'm thinking of redesigning so it looks, well, more polished) and now I'm concentrating on incorporating images and textbook-style text. I realized that I have a lot of photos of buildings and random architectural elements that I can include in my book, chief among them these snapshots I took at the Getty Villa in Malibu last year during a trip for another class. Still to this day I'm surprisingly pleased with how nice these photos turned out considering the quality of my former digital camera (3 megapixels, something a kid would have about 5 years ago or so). Now I'm using a Canon PowerShot which I'm in love with and makes me feel confident as a photographer hobbyist.

I think this weekend, if time permits, I'll walk around campus and take photos of all of the tremendous architectural elements we have within our very own campus. My school is the actual Hotel California, the former mental hospital in Camarillo. Now it's California State University Channel Islands, but the architecture is still the same as it was at the start of the last century and serves as both a great example and homage to the school I've called home for the last two years.

What Should Be Happening Right Now!

Photo by me. Jeff cleaning the kitchen.

I hate when cleaning needs to be done and yet there is no energy to do said cleaning. I feel the same way about homework and studying and all that great college stuff. The room is still messy, albeit, slightly less occupied by my stuff, but messy nonetheless. I made a plan to clean with Jeff but that was 43 minutes ago and nothing has happened. Unfortunately my back is hurting incredibly right now so I'm not in the mood to do much, but I must do something! Sitting around being lazy is just as bad as not cleaning. Actually, I think it may be the same exact thing.

Transitioning & Snuggles

I came home to my home this weekend, armed with suitcases full of clothes, books, all of my dvds (mostly the cases) and some knick-knacks to alleviate the amount of packing I'd have to do come move-out day (which happens the day before graduation). I had barely started unpacking when Snuggles decided to claim the suitcase as his own. It's so darn cute when pets do this. I've had Snuggles for about 8 years now and I've had to be separated from him the last 2 years while I've been at school. I'm definitely looking forward to having him around full-time again. I think he knows that I'm coming back by the amount of stuff that keeps appearing in my room.

Speaking of which, since my room has been a catch-all of a variety of things while I've been gone, I'm keeping track of it's progression via photos. How do you transition from the adolescent belongings to an adult room? For the past 2 years I've been collecting and buying things to help with this transition and I feel really positive with how it's going so far. I'll soon post photos of the horrendous befores and the currents, all so I can hopefully envision the glorious afters.

Happy Easter!

Photo by me. Santa Ynez Mission, 2009.

I'm not one for celebrating days like today as I consider myself agnostic. But in the spirit of things, Happy Easter! Today I'll be heading back to campus after spending the weekend at home with my family. It's been relaxing, but strange at the same time. We're supposed to go have brunch soon but everyone is still in their pajamas so maybe we'll just end up making breakfast ourselves. I've still got some things to do here before I head back to school, such as laundry, finish unpacking (I'm bringing things home from school so I won't have so much to bring home the week of finals) and get at least some homework done. If only the Internet wasn't so addictive!

When I Realized I Love Color

 I wouldn't have identified it as a love of color at the time, but when it happened my heart nearly burst with a happiness that I cannot explain simply.  It was the first time I watched Sofia Coppola's 2005 masterpiece Marie Antoinette.  The colors were exquisite confection that was hard to ignore.  It burst from the screen and just filled me with such deliciousness.  My grandma bought the DVD for me as part of a gift for going off to college and since then she has fallen in love with the movie and I've given the DVD to her, settling for a copy my mom recorded on her DVD-R and Comcast Cable.  I haven't watched it in a while, mostly because I can't bare to watch it on my own.  No idea why.

 I don't remember quite when it was (this happens to me frequently, it seems) but some time ago I started a folder on my (shared, with my boyfriend) laptop called Collection and started saving every photo I came across that filled me with even a margin of what I felt the first time I watched Marie Antoinette.  Six hundred photos later I cannot help but give in and admit that my love of color is extraordinary.  Of course, all of the images are "stolen".  Not in an illegal way, but in a way in which I saved them because they are beautiful and inspriational and if posted here I have no way of crediting anyone who took the photo.  So if anyone ever happens to stumble upon this little blog of mine (if I have the patience and aptitude to keep up with it) and sees a photo they have taken on it, please let me know and I will be ahppy to give credit where credit is due.

I know that most people, when they start these things up, go into it with an idea of what they want to say and express and I know I've even tried to do that in the past and I know that it does not work for me, at least at this point in time.  I never have the time to dedicate to one particular task to complete it on a regular basis, which is odd considering my whole life is scheduled out for me until exactly May 16th of this year.  That's the day I graduate from college.  After that I have no idea what I will be doing.  Anyway, this will merely be a hobby, one I hope to maintain as frequently possible, as I hope to one day progress it into something that is very real and substansial.  Until that day comes, enjoy.