The Not-So-Good Parts of College Life

Now don't get me wrong, I love being in college. It is the best decision I have ever made. I love all the new people I've met and all the new memories I have made, however that's not what I am here to talk about today. It's not always sunshine and rainbows, and when people talk about college, they are often trying to sell it to everybody, so I've decided to tell you about aspects of college that not many people will tell you about.

First, you miss your family like hell. I chose a school that is about two hours away from my hometown, and while I can get to my family in that amount of time, it's just not plausible to do that all the time. I'm writing this on October 7th and I just spent the day with my parents and my siblings. This is first time I've seen them in 3 weeks to a month. I am very close to my mother and my sister, so that was a hard transition, and if I went to school even farther away, I wouldn't even be able to see them that often. It does, however, make it that much better when I do get to see them.

Second, everything is expensive. If you are dorming on campus, you will most likely have a meal plan, so food isn't that much of an issue, but if you don't have dinner before the cafeteria closes, you're screwed. So, you either go to McDonald's, or you go to the Walmart down the street and buy ramen or other cheap microwave meals. If you don't have a meal plan, you've got to budget for groceries, and that's not easy. Groceries are so expensive. And school gear? Yeah, you're not going to be able to buy a shirt for under $20 unless they have a sale going on. Sweatshirts? Forget about it. $50 a hoodie. If you don't have a job and your parents don't give you money, you're not going to have money in your account for very long.

Finally, all the time college takes. When you first come to college, it's super fun, you feel free from your parents, you feel on top of the world. Then classes start, and you realize you have no idea how to manage anything. You have to be the one to motivate yourself to go to class, your parents aren't here to make you, your professors sure as hell don't care if you show up or not. Obviously they want you to, but they won't go out of their way to make sure you do. However, in my school, if you miss about 4 classes, you automatically fail the class unless you have a legitimate reason. You have to stay on top of class, as well as your homework. Some professors will remind you of your homework, some will not. I've had to learn that the hard way. Also, you're going to want a social life. All of your friends are right there next to you, of course you'll want to hang out with them. Why wouldn't you? You've got to make time to see your friends, whether it be just doing homework together or going out on a Friday night. Top it all off with a job, you'll barely have any time left in the week to sleep. College is all about time management. Whether you know how to manage your time or not, college will force it.

With all that being said, college is a great experience. Hell, I'm just a freshman, but I can tell I'm at home here. Once you find where you're meant to be, all those things will seem so small. To me, college feels like a home away from home, and if that's where you're meant to be, it will to you too.

8 AM

If you're like me, you didn't really pay attention to times when signing up for your freshman year classes. That, my friend, will land you straight in an 8 AM class, and again if you're like me, that class is Monday through Thursday. This kind of sucks, however it can also be a good thing.

On the side of it sucking, I have to get up at 7 every morning to be able to make it to class on time. I changed my evening routine to: homework, shower, more homework, sleep. It's a lot more time management than just getting up on time. I have to go to bed at a decent hour to be able to function the next day, and honestly, I set three alarms to make sure I wake up on time, because I am prone to just turning off my alarms and going right back to bed. On one occasion, I actually did. My 7 AM alarm went off, and apparently I turned all my alarms completely off and rolled back over and went back to sleep. My best friend, and roommate, woke up and said "Hannah, it's 7:45, don't you have to be in class?" That was the fastest I've ever moved in my life. Usually I leave my dorm at 7:40 just to give you some perspective. However, I got up, dressed, packed my backpack, and was in my seat by 7:53. I was texting my roommate the entire time, and we were both shocked at how fast I was able to do that.

It's not all bad, though. Yeah, it might suck at first, but once I'm up, I'm up for good. I feel like I actually have time in the day to get what I need to done. I can actually eat breakfast for starters. I'll go after class and I have time to sit and have a nice meal. It's very therapeutic to eat breakfast by myself. I get to people watch and have some time to relax. Also, not many people are up at that time, so I'm basically by myself walking through campus, and I must say, my campus is beautiful. I'm not tired either. I get up, I make some coffee, and I'm good to go.

All in all, taking an 8 AM class has its pros and cons. I myself will probably not take another one, however getting up early isn't as bad as I thought.

College

So. It's been a hot minute. I'm not going to lie, my life has been way too hectic to even think about a blog. It's not that I don't like blogging, it's just a lot of things have changed. First and foremost, I'm in college now. That's crazy, I know. I've turned 18 and grown up and left the nest. That's funny because my college mascot is an eagle. Ah puns. But seriously, life has been insane this last month. So, I moved into college, but the very next day I got a call from my mama saying my Nini had passed away. It sucked. I went home immediately, however the funeral wasn't going to be until the following Thursday, so I went back to school to start my classes. I was so conflicted and I felt so guilty because on one hand, I was excited to have started college, but the grief I felt told me it was wrong to feel happy about college. It was rough, but that Thursday I went back home for the funeral, and I spent the weekend with my family. I came back to school with full intentions of not going back home until September 15th for marching band alumni night, however I went home again the following weekend. I wasn't planning on going back, but literally all of my friends went back to their homes, so I went home as well. Again, I came back that Monday and went to all my classes, and I finally spent a weekend at school. It was great to just hang out with my friends and not have to worry homework and studying. The next weekend I went home again for alumni night, and when I came back that Saturday, I brought a friend back with me. My roommate, and one of my best friends in this entire world, and I housed one of our friends who tried out for our residential independent winterguard. We had a ton of fun and it was cool to just hang out with old friends again.

That catches us up to now. As of this moment, I just finished all my French homework for this section, and I'm sitting at my desk in bright blue lipstick, just because I can. I'll probably be going to take a shower in about a half-hour, or maybe I'll call my mama. I don't know yet.


College has definitely been an adjustment, but so far I'm loving it.

Eyes

Eyes is the first of my late night writings to leave my journal

her eyes were the window into her heart and soul

she could never hide

what she was feeling inside

young, wide eyed, bright, alive with curiosity

constantly searching, looking, learning

older, sadder eyes, dark and empty

yet filled with a yearning

yearning to be loved, noticed, no longer alone

she gave up, it showed in her eyes

behind that hard smile

her eyes turned to stone

no one came, no one saved her

It's Been A While

I'm sorry that I keep forgetting about this blog that I haven't posted in a while. It's hard to keep up with a blog, and I didn't realize this when I first started it. This was a fun thing that me and my best friend decided to try, and I really enjoy blogging; I'm just crap at keeping up with it. What can you do?
So, what has happened since that last post promising pictures from a hangout with my "besties"? Well, that sleepover happened, and pictures were taken. I just kinda forgot about posting them, not gonna lie. Tayloranne, Angel, Rachael, and I continued to talk like "old times" for a while. Angel and I, however, had drifted so far apart that any hope of rekindling our friendship for good was not possible. I hate that, because it would've been good to have our old friendship back. But life is shit sometimes, and now its 11 o'clock at night a week before my 17th birthday, and my three best friends aren't coming over to my house next week to chill like they did a year ago. Honestly though, it's for the best that Angel and I aren't friends anymore. Our lives are just headed in two different directions, and it was better to let our friendship naturally drift apart rather than force it. I wouldn't mention her name like this if I hadn't when I first made this blog. I put her in as one of my best friends, and I just feel obligated to say that our friendship just didn't work out.

Tayloranne and I

I am still friends with Tayloranne and Rachael. I trust those two with my life. I don't want to jinx anything, but honestly, those two are my best friends. Over the past year Tayloranne and I have continued to grow closer, and Rachael and I have a rock solid friendship that I wouldn't trade for the world. I know this sounds eerily similar to things I have said before referring to all three of them, but I feel that those two are gonna stick around for a while.

Rachael, Lexi, and I

After all that happened, I found out my sister was pregnant, and that I was going to be an aunt, and that was one of the best moments in my life. My sister and my brother in law were hoping for a little boy, but I knew it was going to be a little girl, and so did my mother, but no one else believed us, they all said it was going to be a boy. However when Cheyenne went for the gender scan, it showed that she was having a girl. My mom and I went crazy buying cute things for that precious little girl, and meeting her was the best day of my life. I was in the beginning of my first class of the day when my mom told me her water had broken, and I freaked. My dad got me out of school and we flew to the hospital. Turns out the little booger wouldn't be born till 7:45 at night. We didn't get to meet her until around 9 o'clock, and I cried. She was ((and still is)) perfect. Little Paisley has her Aunt HaHa wrapped tight around her finger. And no, I didn't choose the nickname.
Well, that's a wrap on my little life update. I'll be back with another post soon about college and how fucking terrified I am.

Fun Times Are Ahead

Since the last post was quite sad, I think I'll share something fun that's going to be happening. In two days some very wonderful people are coming to my house. Now if you recall my first or second blog post, I mention some friends. Their names are Tayloranne, Angel, and Rachael. Now Rachael has been my best friend since 6th grade, the Christmas time of 2010 actually. I met Tayloranne and Angel in 7th grade, and we all hit it off. Fast Friends *cheesy smiley face*. Things were good for a while. 9th grade came, and something happened causing Angel and I to stop talking, and then for a few months this year, Tayloranne and I lost touch. Recently she reached out to me, started a group chat between Rachael, Angel, herself, and me, and then the fun began. It was a little awkward at first considering I hadn't spoken to Angel in about a year, but once we got back into the swing of things, we couldn't stop talking. In fact, we've been talking nonstop for almost a week now. We've made some plans to hang out this coming Sunday, and frankly, I can't wait. We're going to hang out at my house, or horse as Tayloranne thought I said, and go see a movie. We're going to hang out like we used to. It's going to be nice rebuilding the friendship we had last year. Pictures will come :)

A Little Bit of Sad

Hi, I know, it's been a while. It's totally not that I forgot I had this. Um, so a lot has changed since I last posted on here. I'm about to turn 16. Yeah, I've had a lot of sadness in my life since October of 2014. Two months after I posted that, my Papaw passed away. He wasn't your average grandfather, not in the slightest. He was young, passing away at the age of 59. I'll tell you, he wasn't the nicest person in the world, but that was how he showed you he cared. Honestly if he was nice to you he probably didn't like you. His passing was a shock to the whole family. It was out of the blue on December 19th, at 3 in the morning. My mother got a call from my Nini, and she quickly left to be with her. I didn't find out until later that day after I had taken all of my midterms and was out for Christmas break. Everything after that was such a whirlwind. I was at my Nini's house everyday from morning till night just trying to be there for her. My aunt came around for the first time in a while, and we spent a long time just looking at pictures and laughing about things in the past. It was good to shunt aside the pain for a little while, but later it was so hard. The pain hit like an 18 wheeler. It kept me up for hours just trying to keep my sobs quiet. We said our final goodbyes to him on December 23rd, 2014. Christmas came and went, but it was different without him. It was hard, and it hurt like hell.

A few days after Christmas, we found out Papa had pancreatic cancer. It hurt a lot considering we had only just started grieving for Papaw. My Granny and Papa raised my mama and her siblings, so we were really close to them. Papa was 85 years old, so he couldn't go through chemo and all of the tough cancer treatments. On January 20th of 2015, Papa passed away. It was like a shot through the heart. God it hurt. We were so confused as to why life would be so freaking hard for us; it was like the universe was against us. We went through hundreds of pictures and we laughed and cried, and we tried to hold ourselves together, at least for a little while. All the pain was duplicated as we went through everything again. My mother had just lost her father, and now she lost her grandfather. My sister, brother, and I lost two amazing grandparents, and we still had yet to mourn the loss of our Papaw.

Granny, Papa's wife, was obviously having a hard time. Papa passed away eleven days before their 66th anniversary. Granny was in obvious pain every single day. It really hurt us to see her like that. Not too long afterwards, Granny fell, and was hospitalized. While in the hospital, something happened and she became unresponsive. As much as we tried not to get our hopes up, the nurses were saying she was improving, and we felt a slight bit of hope that she would pull out of it. Unfortunately, she passed away the morning of April 3rd, 2015. It was insane how much it hurt. We still hadn't been able to mourn for Papaw or Papa, and now we had to try and mourn Granny as well.

Our lives have been changed forever. We lost three insanely amazing people within a matter of months. All of us are still trying to mourn the loss of these special people. It still hurts, and not a day has gone by that I haven't thought of them. Every single day I wish that they were here to witness the things that have been going on in my life. I want them to know my triumphs, and I want them to be here to comfort me in my fails. I know it sounds selfish, but I want my grandparents here for myself. God I miss them.