My poor roommate had the worst day! When she dropped me off at work today, it was raining sheets. She said it was barely possible to see in front her. Apparently, some idiot in front of her pulled to a complete halt on Glades for no reason. Aly had to slam her breaks and she spun out in the middle of the street. A cop saw the problem and asked if she was alright; he gave the other guy a ticket. So just when she thinks she’s free and clear, she’s driving onto campus and lightning strikes a tree right in front of her. It split one of the branches off, and it landed right in front of her car. She had to slam her breaks again. She said it took three security guards to move the branch out of the road. I was amazed when she told me. I guess if you look at it in an optimistic way, she had a very lucky day.

 For future reference for anyone reading this: Stay alert when it’s raining!!!

I had three different, horrible nightmares last night that were so bad they woke me up in the middle of the night. I haven’t had a nightmare in so long and I didn’t even watch a scary movie or anything. It just happened. I don’t remember one of them, but the other two were about dogs. One was a vicious dog at my house that had……egh….eaten another dog and had almost eaten my dogs. The other one I remember better, and it was much more gruesome. There was a man with his legs and arms tied to little stakes that were hanging in mid-air (which, now that I think about it, is impossible) and the his head was held by something. The rest of his body was hanging. (This is where it starts to get bad.) A dog, with very human like expressions, was going to jump up and down on this guys body until it detached from his head. Like I said, gruesome. I think it was some kind of torture. The worst part was, that this dream was so vivid. I never have vivid dreams; I always forget them.

 I’ve also noticed that most of my nightmares are about dogs (which I love, by the way). The last one I had was about two years ago. There was this evil, little bitty white dog with the most vicious teeth I’ve ever seen. Come to think of it, I think it ate some dogs, too. It had blood all over it’s fur and there was blood everywhere. I woke up so terrified of dogs that I was scared my dog (who was asleep at the end of the bed) was going to attack me if I moved. I actually cried when I woke up because I was so scared.

The bad thing is, these dreams stay in my mind. I constantly think about them. I have to consciously move my mind away from them and think about something else, something really, really good. If I don’t, I’ll never get back to sleep.

 Is it just me, or are there a lot of things disturbing my sleep lately?

There’s something different about me this year. I don’t really know what it is or what caused it, but I do know there’s something different. I have two jobs, which takes up quite a bit of my time. I have four English classes, which means that I always have a paper to do. I’m having major problems with my dad, which is a long story that I will probably never go into. I have to make sure that I divide my time equally between my roomy whom I love and the guy in my life. So why, with all these stress factors, am I so mellow? Why am I not in a constant hurry to finish everything? Why am I not going to bed at three every morning so I can finish my homework? Last blog, I mentioned time management, but even with good time management skills, so much stuff would be stressful. Maybe when I figure it out, I’ll share my secret. This world could use some more relaxation.

I start my first day at Barnes and Noble tomorrow.  I am so happy I got a job there! I get a 20% discount on movies and cds, 30% on books, and 50% at the Starbucks there. It’s going to be amazing because I buy so many books and discounts are helpful. I’ll be working in the children’s section, which is refreshing.  Adults are much more difficult to deal with, I think. My only worry really is keeping up with my four English classes. Two jobs plus a million papers? I’m going to be busy all the time. Fortunately, I have good time management skills, which is beyond important. I just hope that’s enough!

I love sleep. Truly. I don’t do it all the time, but it is what makes me such a happy person. So why is it that I woke up twice last night before the sun even rose and am sitting here writing a blog at 7:30 in the morning when I don’t have class until 11? I have never had so much trouble sleeping in my life, yet according to my friend Anand, I have the most comfortable bed ever. Is it the bug problem? Could be. Aly found two yesterday while she was cleaning and killed them with massive amounts of bug spray. I found one this morning, already belly up (thank goodness!). But I don’t think it is exclusively the bugs. The whole first week of school I woke up at 7:30 every morning. And my internal clock is not primed to wake me up that early; believe me, I did not wake up that early this summer. Of course, the window of my room does face the east. Maybe my subconscious knows that I’m missing the most beautiful sunrises by sleeping in and it’s just telling me to wake up so I can start my day with something beautiful.

I was laying in bed last night watching a history channel program about the threat of an eruption from the volcano Krakatoa when there was a miniature eruption in the room. I see movement from the corner of my eye, look to see what it is, and BOOM! Huge palmetto bug crawling around on my roommate’s desk. She starts screaming hysterically and runs out of the room (hey, bugs are scary!), and I give a little shriek, but manage to keep my head. I ran to get the boys next door, sure that they would know how to deal with a bug. Not a lot of help in that department. I finally think to pick up a food container (that I will never use again) to catch it with. Mission accomplished. I released the creepy thing outside, came back to the room, and was ready to go to bed after telling my roomy that it is way past time for her to do some cleaning.

She listens to me. She goes to throw some things away and BOOM! There’s another one. I am more prepared this time; I know what to do. So naturally, things don’t go so smoothly this time. The bug disappears before I can capture it. After ten minutes of fruitless searching with a container in one hand and a can of hairspray in the other, I finally give up and let Aly know there is no way we can stay in that room for the night. She agreed, of course. We notified our RA who swore to have maintenance there first thing in the morning and Aly and I escaped to the Holiday Inn for the night. No casualties.

Introductions, to me, are always the hardest parts of any conversation, speech, or paper. How do you make yourself appeal to a wide variety of people so that they will be interested enough to continue listening or reading? A public speaking teacher would say to use an attention grabber, so I will.

I’m a loser. I will not contradict anyone who calls me such, and I’m not offended by it. In fact, I often take pride in it. I’m very different than the average college student (well, at least how I perceive the average college student to be). The number one (and only important) difference is that I love to read. I haven’t met many people who enjoy words as much as I do. I’m actually working on my own miniature library. I actually fell so in love with reading at such an early age that I decided to major in English so that I could teach it. But that’s enough about reading; I don’t want to bore anyone with it on the first blog.

Some other things I enjoy include chocolate (an addiction), softball, writing poetry, history, and hanging out with the best roommate ever. The last one is what I’ll write about most often. Even if I am a loser, things get pretty interesting around me sometimes. My mom, sister, and closest friends are my saving grace and I couldn’t live without them. They make my life interesting and they hold me up when I want to fall.

So I guess my introduction is over. Don’t worry, though-you will get to know me very thoroughly as long as I’m writing this. Happy reading!