That’s it. My first term at college is officially over. I’m heading home today after my last final at noon. This week…. this week. What do I say? I have gone from rock bottom to being the happiest I have been in a long time. It has been hell to say the least, but cumulative tests and term-end projects do tend to be buzz kills. I was lucky. I only had one written final this term. That’s how my week started. It didn’t go well. I’m pretty sure I bombed it. I wallowed for a good portion of the evening.

That night, I was helping my friend with a project that we had for our English class, and discovered that there were free snacks in the cafeteria for a study break. [I’m a sucker for free food] A group of us went down and ended up talking about the most random subjects. They included: Native American Children’s Stories, cable TV, stealing each other’s iTunes, root beer, identity theft, crazy RA’s, and many other things that should not be repeated.

After a delicious snack of [free] nachos, we returned to the English project. Here is where a nice night of studying turned into story worth repeating. For some reason we allowed ourselves to be taped into the room in which we were working. We knew what was going on, but choose to close the door and hope for it not to happen. If I may say, Ignorance is not Bliss.

To the right is the work in process with its creator. Steve labored many minutes on his masterpiece. Little did he know that I intended to destroy it in one pounce. After many minutes of careful deliberation with Melony (wearing the pink), we plotted our escape. Some say that I lunged through the tape like a tiger on the savanna. Others claim that I flew through with the grace of a baby hippo. Whoever you believe, we escaped.

I was ready to call it a night, but the night kept calling me. I was ignorantly unaware that Hairspray came out on DVD on Tuesday. A midnight run to Meijer later, and then we were all watching a movie until late into the night.

All of this in ONE DAY. I can barely believe it. A depressing Monday morning and afternoon nearly had me considering what schools I could transfer to after I lost my scholarships. And by that night, I had laughed more than I have in many many weeks. Now fall term and finals week is over, no more, done, complete, and concluded. I can’t wait for the new year and the new term.

[Below: Not from last night, but I was in a similar mood at the time]

I’m feeling good right now. However, if you would have talked to me last night it would have been a very different story. If anything had gone wrong last night, I probably would have just stayed in the fetal position in the lounge until Thanksgiving. It was about 11 pm on Monday when I stupidly began a ten paper due on Tuesday at 10am. The thesis, “The environment and economy cannot sustain ethanol as a supplement to gasoline.” Truly an exciting topic [not]. But it’s not that horrible, it was only a rough draft. I worked for 5 hours, showered and took a 2 hour nap, then got up at 7:30 and worked until class at ten. I would say quite an accomplishment.

Other than getting a decent paper and a few stress headaches, I also learned some things that will probably be the downfall of me. Last night I drank a 5-hour energy. [Da-dun-dun] I’m pretty sure it’s the closest thing to crack that can be sold in a vending machine. The label said it was lemon-lime flavored, it lied. Thank god Michelle had told me that they taste horrible, or I would not have been prepared. Some Strawberry Ice Bubble Tea washed it down and cleansed the palette. I soon felt the effects. I went from wanting to take a nap and just say screw everything to, I kid you not, running up and down the halls, yelling barely ten minutes later. You might say, well that sounds great, you had enough energy to get everything done, I did. But now, I’ve discovered that 5-hour energy works. A new tool in my procrastination toolbox [Facebook, Instant Messenger, Xbox, Random Walks and sleep were previously already in the toolbox]. I know that its only November, but I am making a New Year’s Resolution to kick my procrastinating habits in the butt. I really should have learned better in high school.

First off, sorry. I don’t have any decent pictures from this week. I’m thinking about buying a camera soon. But we’ll see.

The past 2 weeks have been pretty random. The Friday before Halloween, The Residence Hall Association sponsored Prom from Hell, which was a costumed Dance party with food and Halloween activities. We danced the night away with the wicked witch, a ‘cereal’ killer, and the whole Sailor Moon crew. I could barely walk after that night because of all the activity. But alas, we continued. I ended up eating the leftover pizza and playing Mario Party with Steve and Joe our Area Hall Director until 2 in the morning. Needless to say, I slept in the next day. The randomness continued throughout the week. The Tuesday before Halloween, I was doing homework and got a text that simply read. “Waffles!” So, we headed out to Omega, a 24 hour restaurant in the Hinsdale area. I have been told that the banana pancakes were delicious.

Halloween, yes you guessed it, continued with the randomness. Ok, I have not lived in walking distance of a Chipotle before, and I was not aware that if you dress like a burrito [i.e. Make a foil hat] you get a free burrito on Halloween. We didn’t care if it was free or not, we wanted Chipotle. After visiting two packed Chipotles, we lost our appetite for the glorious goodness of burritos and settled for the terrific tastiness of Panera. The night was actually calm, it was too cold to go trick or treating, or so I was told. The night consisted of The Game of Life- SpongeBob Edition followed by apple cider to get in the fall mood. That was a quite weird time, things settled down for a little while.

That is until the radio station, 93.9 The Lite, became The Holiday Lite. Yes, my friends, Christmas Music! Christmas is by FAR the greatest holiday in the history of man. In accordance with this fact, I have already decorated my room with a 3 foot tree, garland, and red, green and white lights. And, I’m happy to say that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Hopefully I will have pictures up later this week. My laptop is being a little weird.

Many people have yelled at me because they believe that I am ignoring Thanksgiving. And my response, Thanksgiving is the tailgate of Christmas. At Thanksgiving, you find out who your not going to invite to the holiday party, you start stretching your stomach in preparation, make a batch of egg nog [non-alcoholic] just to make sure you have the recipe down, and talk to everyone to find out what your going to buy them for Christmas. Thanksgiving is a test run of Christmas. A rough draft if you will.

The Final will be due December 25^th.