Life with Madi

Wow.  This week has been intense and stressful and emotionally exhausting!

First of all, there's the fact that Obama came to my university yesterday and I didn't get to see him because I had to work (whine whine whine, I know...but whether you like him or not, who wouldn't want to see the POTUS in person??)



And then there's my first foray into dating.  There's a guy that's into me but I really just want to be friends...and I've never had to deal with anything like this before.  There's gonna be some feelings hurt and I may lose this guy as a pal....UGH I'M SO BAD AT BOYS.

And, of course, the clincher- it's finally time to say goodbye to Yunioshi:

Between balancing a video blog for my school newspaper, moving into my new apartment, packing for said apartment, and moving my sister to Colorado, it's been awfully hard to vlog lately.

I will tell you, it's been quite an eventful few weeks and I guarantee that the upcoming weeks will be just as stressful.  But stressful in a good way, if that makes any sense at all.  Stressful busy, stressful accomplished, stressful independent.

The only bad part of these last few weeks has been my lovable junk-heap of a car.  It was my first car, a lovely old 1990 Volvo, and I've had it for the past 3 years, driving it between states and to school and with my windows down with music blaring and up and fogging with the cold.  It's been good to me.

That is, except for lately.  It's been smelling of gas every time I drive it and last week, when I was nearly in the middle of an intersection, it shut off without any sort of warning, leaving me stranded in a turn lane.  This scares me, if you can imagine, mostly because my dad looked it over and thought he fixed the problem but the uncertainty carries between us both.

So, we thought it was fine, for now.  Then today, I try to turn it on and I discover the battery is flat dead.  No lights were left on, nothing was plugged in where it shouldn't have been, nada.  A mystery.  And this is the second time it's died in two weeks.

I'm nervous because if I get a job that's not walking distance from my apartment this semester, I'm going to have a big need for a car.  Especially since my parents live two hours away from campus and I tend to like to drive down to visit them.

UGH.  This car.  So lovable but so unreliable.

First, a week of finals.
Now, a week of moving into our new house.  CRAZINESS.

I haven't even posted my latest vlog yet, y'all.  I'm crazy behind.
On the upside, I got good enough grades to keep my scholarship! YIPEEEEEE!

As you probably already can tell, this post is about my major and how I used to hate it.  I switched from Journalism and Technical Communication to Communication Studies.

I majored in Journalism because I honestly thought that, naturally, that's what my next step was.  After all, I was editor of the yearbook...what was I supposed to study, agriculture? (I actually considered that and I am not ashamed).  I picked journalism because I thought that was where I was supposed to be, not because it was where I wanted to be.  So, second semester, there was this one class that really cleared things up for me- newswriting!!  I hate newswriting with a burning, fiery passion (sorry to all you newswriters out there, it honestly is very honorable and you have to be smart and clever as hell to do it).  I spent one class period in that newswriting lab and told myself, "What the hell are you doing?  You don't want to do journalism!  You just want to write!"

So I dropped that sucker and enrolled in a Public Speaking course.

Not that I love public speaking or anything, but it's a required course and I enjoy it far more than I think I would have enjoyed NW.

BUT ANYHOO, I was still not too enthusiastic about Comm Studies.  Honestly, I started believing the stereotype- that it was a common major for people that wanted to do smooth sailing in college- basically, the best way for slackers to graduate.  And that upset me A LOT.

But, I've been sticking with it, because stereotypes are usually fake (ESPECIALLY this one), and I finally had a meeting with my advisor to talk about new classes.

This is the part of the story where I fall in love with my major.  I had a new advisor because of the major change, and she is the sweetest thing on Earth.  The first thing she asked me when I sat down was if I was interested in film.  I was like

Today was a really great day until I checked my grade for my Psych test.

Honestly, it was such a shock because I thought I did so good.  I studied hard for it; I went to the review session; I took practice quizzes.

And I ended up doing worse than my last test; the one I thought I bombed.

Now, I sort of feel like a failure...which, I know, is a bit overdramatic considering that it's one test grade.  But the thing is, I have a scholarship riding on my grades, and, also, I'm extremely anal about grades.  I'm like Hermione Granger except not as smart.

I just sort of feel like crap, so I thought I'd vent here.....I'm going to go eat sushi with the pops tonight and hope that I can forget about this and just do better next time.

Laterzzz,
cooper

WHAT? Cooper's blogging twice in one day, WHAT???

I know.  But I have too much stuff on my mind to not.

Here's what I'm thinking about.
1.  New Girl is on tonight and I could NOT be more excited.

2. I may have met the girl I'm going to live with next year.  I really wanted to live alone, but I was thinking it would end up being WAY too expensive and that's not kosher.

3. I'm procrastinating studying for Psych but I really need to get on that.  I can't afford to fuck up this test- my scholarship is in grave danger!

4.  I have no idea what to do for my vlog for the collegian.  It's due tomorrow morning.

That's the end of that.

It surprises me how much I actually waste time thinking about it, but I do....glasses, or no glasses?

Only someone who wears frames really understands the battle us four-eyed females have with our most important accessory.  Every morning when I get up I ask myself, 'Is today a glasses day?'.  On special days, like for example, my first day of college, one of the first things I decided was, 'Okay, I'm not wearing glasses today.  I want people to notice me without them.'

For me at least, it's like having a mole on your back or a scar on your knee- you don't want to show it until people really know you.  I've recently climbed out of my glasses-shell and have gotten more and more comfortable with wearing them in public.  It's not like I think they're ugly or anything, but I wonder if they change the way people look at me...do they make me more or less approachable?  Do they make me more or less attractive to the opposite sex?

I guess this kind of problem is pretty narcissistic, but I would be lying if I said I never thought about it.

Anyone else have this dilemma?

Have a smashing day,
Cooper

On Tuesday! And it was splendid, indeed.  After a lovely breakfast and stimulating day at school, my parents treated me to Genghis Grill (my fave restaurant) and we opened presents.

And look at my loot!

Glee was amazing tonight.  GLEE! YOU WERE AMAZING TONIGHT! Hot peppers, it was good. 

Yes, yes, I know this outfit looks suspiciously akin to my valentine's day outfit, but I promise, I'ts got it's differences! In fact, now that I look at the picture, the only things really the same are the shoes and the jacket. So, HA!

I actually did not feel too simple or too anything today. I felt quite nice. That is, until I got my government test grade back. That was not so nice.

Ugh.  I feel awful.  It usually helps to write about it.

Remember how last night I said I was looking forward to this weekend, even though I'm being pummeled with homework?  That statement is now false.  I am not looking forward to it.

It's little things that are beating me up, like the fact that I tried so hard to turn in my paper on time to my English teacher yesterday and simply forgot to turn it in online (which is apparently a big deal these days, because it's not complete if you have the hard copy in your hands or anything *please note the sarcasm*) so now it's late.  I've got 104 trig problems that I could have started on those snow days we had, but I'm incapable of doing anything until last-minute so I'm finishing those this weekend.  All of them.

I've got a butt-load of court cases to write about, which I also could have started last week, but I decided to watch River Phoenix movies instead.

I keep telling myself it's the stress of yearbook getting me behind, but I don't think that's it.  I think I'm just a slacker at general.  Which bothers me, because I do work at my education and I work at being intellectually respected and for me to just stop trying like this.....

Oh, God.  I'm going to suck at college.