So the most fortunate thing happened to me yesterday: My computer crashed. You’re probably wondering, how is that fortunate? Well, it didn’t happen over the past two weeks, in which case I would have lost my papers right in the middle of writing them, plus all my research. I mean, I did lose all of my music, my pictures, and my papers, but I’m glad it happened now rather than when classes were still in. Plus, most of my music is on cds (because I’m old fashioned and don’t have an ipod), most of my pictures are on facebook and myspace, and I have hard copies of all of my papers. So fortunately, I didn’t lose anything vital. I’ll have to re-save all of my pictures, re-copy all of my cds onto my computer, and re-type all of my poetry, but that’s better than not having any of it. The same night, my uncle called Dell and was able to get it all fixed, so I’m all good to go for next semester!

Oh wow have these last two weeks been insane!! I have been so busy that I haven’t had time to breathe, much less blog (which is pretty high up on my list of things to do). First of all, I returned to work at Barnes and Noble only to find that my boss had scheduled me to work for as many days as possible….right at the time when I needed the most time off. In addition to so much work, I had a 2,500 word paper due, a 1,500 paper plus presentation due, a written take home final that hadn’t even been assigned yet, and finally, I had to create a hair salon with my group for entrepreneurship group, the hardest of all. I also had finals to study for finals. In the midst of all this, I had to find time to pack for my vacation! Well, my papers are  done, even if I did finish only 20 minutes before class, my finals are done, and I presented my hair salon business with my group with barely a hitch (after spending a good 5 hours on it in the library the day before). For the past week, I’ve been operating on an average of five hours of sleep every night; one night with only 4 hours of sleep because I decided to go out with some friends from work until 3:00 in the morning. Now, it’s over for a month!! I left Thursday afternoon for Illinois, where I’ll be for a couple of weeks before I meet Aly in California and go on the cruise that her family generously invited me on. Then, I’ll be spending the last week with Aly before flying with her to start the new semester! I’m going to read as much as possible, revel in the lack of work I have to do, and sleep until 12 noon at least once (I hope). Then, I’ll get back to school and start the cycle of stress all over!

Last night while I was in the library doing group work, a pipe burst on the second floor of my dorm building. The fire alarms went off, and from the library, we heard sirens coming onto campus. Wideline came to the library and told us that we weren’t allowed in the dorms; the entire first and second floors were soaked. I lucked out on that one; I live on the third, which sustained no damage. When we finally went back over to the dorm, it was around 10:45.  The power in the building was shut down, so there was a big black spot where our building should have been. The RA’s and RD and Director of Res Life had ordered pizza for us unfortunate Old Lynn-ers. Then they gathered us all in a group to let us know we’d be able to get a few things quickly, and they were putting all of us into the Holiday Inn for the night. We didn’t know when we would be able to get back into our rooms. I was worried because I have to work today, and I needed to be able to get work clothes and bike clothes. But, from what I heard this morning, the dorm was opened back up and we’re free to live in our rooms again!

 But what an unfortunate week for this to happen! It’s almost finals, everyone has a million projects and papers due. I had just caught up on sleep a few days before; now I’m behind again. I got it lucky, though, I have to say. None of my stuff was ruined. I hope there wasn’t too much damage for people on the other floors; I imagine it wouldn’t be fun to have everything in your room soaking wet.