hello, stranger

i am aaaatt....college!

it rocks.

yesterday dad and i drove five plus hours from the beach all the way across grimey-lina to school. i got there all of five hours BEHIND my roommate, Elav and she had already filled the room with her personal touches. Elav was out to lunch with her fam, and my other apartment-mates, V and Am were out to lunch as well, so it was just my father and i toting things into the apartment (with the generous assistance of some orange-shirted upperclassmen).

we made the bed first

(i'm top bunk, which is proving to be a ....er.... "fun" interlude hopping up and down from it)

then my mother, K, and L showed up, later trailed by my grandparents and uncle. after everyone had taken a look at our living space, they let me be for a few hours to organize my room and decorate and such.

i tackled my clothing and hung up everything in the closet, and put away clothes and such in the dresser, then collaged my various clippings and such on my cork board as well as the built in cork board on my desk

V and Am slept with their families at their hotels so they left in the early evening and i didn't see them again until this morning. around seven or so, my family came to pick me up and we went and had dinner at the campus inn...or whatever. the food was AMAZINGG i had a swordfish trio with salad and a lobster bisque i believe? i ate as much as i could and still had plenty of leftovers for lunch today :)

after getting dropped back at my apartment and saying goodnight to my family, i ran over to another crew girl's apartment to get schwasty with Elav and four other girls. some baseball team guys were there for a bit, as well as two kids Elav knew from high school; it didn't get too wild, but when C started throwing up we dipped...

i decided then would be a good time to call S, and a simple phone call turned into a skype chat while Elav and i enjoyed cupcakes and the apartment to ourselves for the night. I crashed around 12:30, move in day was exhausting...

today, mom picked me up at nine to get any last-minute purchases at a target ten miles away. we trekked there and back, picking up primarily more hooks and more hangers! who'd've thought those would be the things i used most abundantly...hmm!

we had our new student convocation in the afternoon, and after that i said goodbye to my mom, L, grandparents and uncle (dad and K i said goodbye to the night before)

after Elav, V, and Am returned from Fike (the fitness center) everyone showered and we made chicken quesadillas in our kitchen (they were delicious, for the record) with Srm from the apartment across from us. we had intentions to then go out for ice cream at spill the beans in town, but imminent thunderstorms and loud siren warnings (school induced) suggested we "head for shelter-ground to ground lightning!" and so on, so we modified our ice cream plans to just run over to the ice cream place at the student center. V, Am, Srm, Elav, Ln and i sprinted across the street JUST as the APOCOLYPSE OF RAIN STORMS occurred....only to discover it was closed, we were both soaked and slightly miffed, but agreed to sprint back to our apartment to enjoy cupcakes and ice cream while watching pineapple express.

tomorrow, Elav, Srm and i have the foreign language placement test (bleh) and then everyone has various orientation activities, but what i truly can't wait for is the welcome back festival/block party downtown tomorrow night!!!

lots of free stuff and lots of fun :)

the crew girls are great, but i do recall that i should make friends OUTside of crew (ha! necessary? meeehhhhh...) and hope to acquaint with a few strangers tomorrow

ps: alice in wonderland comes out on my birthday...i'm so excited

pss: can you tell i've been ffffound-ing it again?

rental bikes and the end of north carolina

today, K and i rented bikes and rode them along the beach about 3 miles down to the end of the island (also happens to be the end of north carolina, as sunset is the last island in nc). at the west end of the island, you can see across a little inlet over to north myrtle beach, and the last two miles or so of the island is uninhabited, and generally fairly secluded. the ride there was taxing on the body, riding a bike on the sand and into the wind was tough! K and i stopped halfway to take a break and jump into the waves (and alright we did have fun faux posing as "abercrombie" and "hollister" models)

(K standing in the water of the inlet between sunset and north myrtle)

now, besides a fun ride down the beach, we had a purpose in trekking down to the end of the island. K insisted, from her memory, that there was a submerged submarine at the end of the island, and wanted to go down and take pictures to prove it to both our family, and her friends from back home...

it ended up just being a submerged boat engine...

regardless, the afternoon was tons of fun, and i loved spending a day with my sister :)

nautical adventures

photo browsing on the web today!...some of my favorites:

i love those optical illusions things....where there is more than one image to be seen in a picture, and it blows your mind when you recognize the less conventional image.

comb? or house in the forest?

i love it :)

this one is awesome for two reasons: one) random assortments of pretty lights make me happy. perhaps a simple pleasure, but i'm not ashamed. two) this is like....lights in socks suspended from the ceiling. one day i will illuminate a room as such.

i have a thing for ferris wheels. i went on one once when i was six or so....and i loved it (while simultaneously was terrified). ever since, i've had a particular fascination with ferris wheels, despite having not ridden one in over ten years. again with the lights thing, perhaps, they're beautiful :)

this one i promptly bluetoothed from my laptop to my cell and made it the wallpaper on my cell. i'm totally into altered books and have been meaning to start work on a non-religious one (i completed a religious one last year using only photography), but through many mediums...sketches, paints, photography, mosaics? collages? possibilities are endless and i hope to pursue such a creation within the following year...regardless, i love the blankness of the pages except for the sketch of the bird....truly beautiful, truly brilliant

***

also, found a picture online last night of a river/reflection scenery landscape deal....K groans whenever i show her pics like that, but i made this one the wallpaper on my laptop...i think because it reminds me of oak ridge, which, despite the grodyness of the "nuclear water" was one of the most beautiful rivers i've ever raced on

speaking of beautiful waters...

the beach today was awesome.

i'm usually not one to enjoy the beach all that much, but i'd vowed to try to embrace it this year, and so far i am loving it!

my grandfather fell last night and due to the blood thinners he's on to prevent artery cloggings, his scabs bled incessantly all night and through the morning, so this afternoon my grandmother and uncle took him to the nearest medical center while mom, dad, K, L, and i went to the beach. mom went on a walk as soon as we got down there, and dad, K, L, and i went in the ocean. after quelling my recently arisen fears of sharks after a week of shark week (oh, but i do so love shark week), i found myself very relaxed, and i floated on my back while listening to K and dad negotiate K's allowance in a particularly amusing manner (K was very detailed, negotiating interest and emergency situations all in terms of her monthly allowance, meanwhile, dad didn't take anything seriously), and later tried to pitch L into oncoming waves, but failed on most attempts (we had fun anyway).

at dinner, pop showed off his see-through medicated state-of-the-art (??) bandage on his arm, through which i grimaced at his bloody scabs, and we all counted how many countries we'd all been to (pop won with 36, dad came in second at 27, uncle M at 18, mom at 12, K and i at 4 , and L at 2 )

i did the dishes while everyone else took a walk along the main street, and then while everyone went to sleep, dad, K, nana (for the first half), and i watched 'when a stranger calls' in the living room

day one of my beach trip has been fairly fantastic (despite the inevitable run-in with my mother...), but to be honest, i can't help but count down the days until clemson!

([<{FIVE DAYS}>])

goodbye, VA

leaving momentarily for sunset beach, NC for a week with my family...then straight on to college next saturday. going to miss everyone (S) ....and it's going to blow my mind being 8 hours away from all the people i love...

seeya in a week!

red dots

back from the trizz on saturday...what a delight!

spent plenty of time with former and present enablers, and ran wild with A and N, K and mlc, as well as A's brother D.

rocked the cat print purple shorts and various leopard print attire (spandex included) on kiwanis day, and even got two new rings and some other fun purchases in downtown black mountain.

the sermons were by this guy, JF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fife) from tuscon, AZ. he was very politically charged, and each sermon focused on a different social or political issue....ranging from global warming to immigration. the one that really got my attention however was the one he preached on immigration on thursday night. JF started an organization that helped refugees from el salvador and guatemala get across the border into america (and thus to safety). given the american distaste for hispanic immigrants (etc) crossing the border, such an organization has run into many issues regarding lawfulness etc (JF apparently has almost been arrested a billion times). he showed us a map that had a red dot in the desert for every refugee or illegal immigrant who has died in the desert due to lack of food or water (etc) while attempting to get into the united states. there were an astonishing amount of red dots and later, while talking about it with a kid from south carolina who was adamantly against illegal immigration, i realized this map was what truly made people angry/think about what JF had been saying...the kid from south carolina admitted that he absolutely opposed all illegals attempting to get into the US, but that such an opposition is conflicted upon seeing such a map...people shouldn't be dying too. JF's organization also goes out and puts water and food out in the desert for illegals (once they've already entered america) so as to not allow them to die and become another red dot on his map. the offering that night half went to the refugee assistance and half went to water and food placement in the desert....i donated as much money as i could spare and my sister gave all she had left. truly, the most inspiring sermon i have ever heard.

in the meantime, tearing my room apart packing for college...it's awfully hard to decide what i will and will not need....as well as which trinkets/posters/etc i'll want to bring along to decorate my apartment with.

and then there's the page long list of things i still have to go out and buy, oh boy...