Back to School Soon

Well, as promised, I am reporting on how my life in the past week has unfolded, and I am happy to say that it has unfolded in my favor. My mom has, more or less, decided to help me, and Wednesday was magical. Ray went to lunch with my mom and I, as planned, and afterward, we spent the day together at my house. My father was aware but displayed no problem with it, which means that hopefully, this is not an issue that I will run into again. Today, I saw him, as he spent the day with me and a group of friends. We attempted to see the Lovely Bones, but it wasn’t in showing in my hometown, and it was sold out at the next closest theater. We instead went shopping, and we had a great day.

My friend David, the one who will be living in Oswego this coming semester, received some good (not the best, but good) news yesterday. He will be living in Scales on the third floor with a student named Jacob. I can’t recall Jacob’s last name, but hopefully, he is a nice person with whom David will get along. We tried to room together this semester, but we tried unsuccessfully. Residence Life and Housing told him that because he is starting late, they have no room anywhere on campus that is completely empty. I don’t really care, because I really like my current roommate, but I just hope that David likes his, as well. Anyway, since he is in Scales and I am in Waterbury, we will be right next door to each other, which is good.

I can’t believe that I go back to school a week from tomorrow. That thought really is quite daunting. It seems as if the break went by so quickly. I hate that I might not be home for Valentine’s Day, but I am going to try to be. It falls on a Sunday this year, which means that I probably will not be spending the actual date with Ray, but we can always spend that Saturday together if I am able to come home that weekend. Anyway, if anything interesting comes up, I will try to write another blog entry before this coming weekend; otherwise, see everyone on campus next week!

Thanksgiving ’09

So, this weekend has been pretty productive, and that is one reason why I love weekends that precede breaks. Since I know that it is my last weekend before the break, I try my hardest to get everything done that I possibly can so that I don’t have to do work over break, and my weekend is therefore very productive. I really enjoy getting work done, especially when you have a list in front of you, and the more you work, the smaller that list gets. It’s simply an amazing feeling. Obviously, coming up this week is the very reason why we don’t have class, which is Thanksgiving, and so, I figured that, more than anything, it would be appropriate to write a blog pertaining to that for which I am thankful.

Firstly, I am thankful for my relationship. I am sure that I have mentioned it in previous blog entries, but my relationship is soon to be eight months long, and I have never in my lifetime been happier. For once, it feels like I have found the person that I am supposed to be with, the one person who I am going to spend my entire life with and who I ultimately was always meant and destined to be with, and that is an amazing feeling, that knowledge. So, I am definitely thankful for that.

Secondly, I am thankful for my friends. Without them, I don’t know how I would get by. They don’t even need to know that I am experiencing a difficult situation. Just being with them and spending time with them helps me through, and I have some friends now that I never could have even dreamed of having, friends who understand me and friends who I can say anything to, and they’re not going to judge me, because they are my friends and because they are just good people.

I think that the final part of my life that I want to talk about, something that I am thankful for, is the very fact that I am sitting in a dorm room right now writing this blog entry. Not everyone who wants to go to college has the opportunity to, and that is something that I am well aware of, something that I don’t ever take for granted or forget. I am here not only because I took the initiative and the effort to be here and because I worked hard to be here but also because I was lucky enough to have received such a generous financial aid award. Without there, I would not be here right now pursuing my dreams, so that is also something for which I am most definitely thankful.

As far as the holiday itself, I will most likely be doing what I always do every year. We don’t cook but instead go to the Beeches Inn which isn’t that far away from my house. We go there every year, usually between noon and 1 p.m. with an afore-made reservation, and it’s usually a good experience. I know that some of you may be thinking that I have been deprived of enjoying a home-cooked meal, since that is something that you most likely have the privilege of enjoying, but every family’s tradition is different. Besides, I don’t feel deprived of anything. If anything, I feel privileged myself, because home-cooked meals at my house call for days upon days of leftovers, and we do have a home-cooked meal on Christmas.

I am really looking forward to going home, seeing my boyfriend and spending time with friends. Trust me, as I think a lot of us do, I really need this break. I know some students, such as my roommate, who haven’t been home at all so far this semester, and I don’t know how anyone could do that. I would most definitely go crazy. Anyway, I am so happy that there are only two days of classes this week. I will be leaving Wednesday morning and will try to write a blog before then. If something interesting happens in my life prior to Wednesday morning, then I will try to write about that. Otherwise, maybe I will write a review or something. I recall Julie-Jo suggesting last year that we try to mix up or blog entries to incorporate different subjects, and I often do the best that I can to follow that advice.

Still Afraid

Wow, I have come to the realization that I have been writing a lot lately, and with that, I have therefore additionally come to the realization that I have been seemingly complaining a lot as well, and to this, I have to laugh, because I promise you, even though that is what the majority of my blogs as of late have been centered on, my life is not a terrible mess at the moment. For the most part, my stress level has been very low lately, because I know what I have to do between now and the end of the semester, and I have a plan as to when I am going to complete each assignment and about how long each assignment is going to take me. Stress has therefore not really been much of a plague lately, but as I have been saying a lot lately, fear of the future has been a plague.

Of course, I suppose that fearing the future is in itself some form of stress, but when I feel something powerful, such as fear or anger or even extreme happiness (even though I have come to find that, oddly enough, happiness is the most difficult emotion to express), I feel the need to write about it, and that is why I have been writing so much lately. In this particular case, as I have been saying, the future is bothering me to a great extent, and because of that, because that is really all that is bothering me right now, some of this may be a bit repetitive to those who have been following my blog entries, but even if that is the case, there have also been some new developments, ones that really aren’t either good or bad at this point, because since they don’t really clear anything up for me, they don’t help me.

As I said very recently, I emailed financial aid about my issue regarding the townhouses. For those of you who have not been following my blogs and thus don’t know what I’m talking about, a group of friends, basically my best friends here, want to live in the townhouses next year. This was not on my agenda at all. It didn’t become part of my agenda, in fact, until one of these friends told me one day that she was considering the townhouses next year, but at the time, I didn’t take her as seriously, because she didn’t seem insistent on it or determined, for that matter; it more seemed as if it was merely something that seemed like a good idea to her. Now, however, everyone is determined to make it happen, and I seem to be the only one who finds fault with it.

I understand that I am very seriously jumping around here, and I apologize for that, but by the end of the blog, I will try my hardest to tie everything up. Anyway, I seriously doubt that there are, but if there are any of you who are reading this and don’t know what I’m talking about when I refer to the “townhouses,” then when you get the chance, take a look at west campus, and you’ll see a good amount of new buildings being built by the lagoon behind Oneida Hall, and these are the townhouses. The benefit is that they’re sort of like apartments; you get your own bathroom, each one of you (six per apartment) get your own bedroom, etc., so needless to say, it’s an appealing idea, because it’s kind of like living in a house. However, in my personal opinion, the cons outweigh the pros, which is why up until this was mentioned, I wasn’t considering this even in the slightest.

My plan was always to live in Riggs and to hopefully do so with a roommate that I can pretty much count on getting along with (I didn’t have the greatest experiences last year as a freshman, and I was miserable). This year, the Riggs part didn’t happen, because it was full, and so I had to live in Waterbury, but first of all, I love Waterbury, and second of all, the latter did happen. A good friend of mine agreed to room with me, and so far, it couldn’t be any better. We get along great, and there’s a very hefty amount of respect between the two of us, not to mention the fact that, as I said before, he is part of this group that I keep mentioning, and the problem with that is that if he goes and I don’t, then I’m back to square one.

Anyway, allow me to list off what I see as the cons of living in the townhouses. For starters, I don’t see them as being very convenient for students who don’t have cars, which I don’t. It’s so far away from everything. I’d have to leave the house a good half-hour or so before each class begins to ensure that I get there on time, and of course, the simple solution to that is to take a bus, and in the winter time, that is most definitely what will be happening, but when the weather is nice, I don’t want to be taking a bus everywhere I go. I like walking when the weather is nice, not only because it gives me alone time to reflect and to enjoy the world around me but also because it’s a little bit of additional exercise. Secondly, back to the winter issue, buses run, so getting to class would not be an issue; however, on weekends when the weather is terrible (which describe weekends of which there will be plenty, something you have to count on when you live in Oswego), I see myself cooped up in the house all weekend long, not even leaving to eat since their plan is also just to cook at home.

Additionally, and this is the most pressing con, it is more expensive. I have been told that it costs a lot more, since you’re paying to live in a single, whereas now, I’m living in a double, and that would drastically affect my bill, since I highly doubt that financial aid would cover the difference. Returning to what I said earlier about financial aid returning my email, they said that they are unsure of whether or not they would cover it or not but that I should keep in mind that they might not, which sort of annoyed me, because I am keeping that in mind; that’s why I emailed them. Anyway, I’m not sure what to do, because one idea that they (my friends) are considering is reducing or potentially even canceling their meal plans just to cook at home, and if I did that, then maybe I’d be okay, since the price of living in the townhouses would replace the price of having a full meal plan; however, then, I’d have to drop money (which I only get $1,600 a year of, mind you) each week for groceries, so either way, I lose.

There is no way for me to win. As I said the other night, my friend David is considering coming to Oswego for his BA, but the problem with that is that, first of all, he’s not coming until fall 2010, and I need to either make a decision regarding the townhouses or select a roommate much earlier than that, and I can’t select him as a roommate if he doesn’t get here until fall, because he won’t be a student here yet. I would say that I need advice, but I don’t really need anything except to make a decision, and I can’t do that when I don’t know how much financial aid is going to help me as far as money is concerned, and although I hate the idea of being so disconnected from the campus and being in an area where there is nothing but residence halls and therefore being so far away from classes, the finances are what trouble me the most, so I can’t even begin to think until I get some closure as to whether or not that is going to be a problem, which I think it will be.

If I can’t live in the townhouses, the plus side is that I won’t have to deal with all of those cons that I previously listed, but what it also means, however, is that I risk rooming with a jerk that is going to be incredibly difficult to live with and who I don’t get along with, and it also means that I won’t be with my friends, that they’ll be all the way on the other side of campus having fun without me, and I’ll barely see them, and that’s something that I cannot handle, and I don’t want to ask them to consider forgetting about the townhouses for two reasons. First of all, that’s an awful lot to ask someone; I cannot and do not expect people to live their lives, making decisions, for me. Second of all, I know that they wouldn’t anyway. They’ve made it clear without actually explicitly saying so that they are pursuing this with or without me. I am more or less dispensable. If financial aid drops that bomb on me that says that they’re not going to cover my expenses and I therefore can’t do it, they’ll just find someone else. There is so much to think about, and I really, really hope that this works itself out.

The Horrific Future

Have you ever felt insignificant in an environment that is so significant to you? If not, allow me to tell you how much it really does hurt and how overbearing of a feeling it is. There are some people to whom you could give the world, and they wouldn’t appreciate it. Your status would not elevate at all, because your status is not changeable; you just are who you are, you have the importance that you have, and you can’t really do anything about that no matter how hard you try. It feels a lot like being born into a “destined” caste system, in that even if you make the sacrificial attempts to elevate yourself, it doesn’t do any good, but now, I am beginning to get a bit repetitive.

It’s just that, sometimes, I feel as if high school never ends, if you will. You get to college thinking that everything will be different, and don’t get me wrong, it is; it’s very different, but the behaviors are different while the outcomes are the same, which is that someone gets hurt, because even though it’s typically a much different kind of drama, there is still a lot of drama. In this particular situation, I can’t exactly call it “drama,” but what I mean is that in high school, there were always people, like me, who were being ostracized in one way or another, such as myself, and again, it was under much different circumstances then, but really, that’s kind of how I feel now.

I feel as if there’s a ranking of importance that is consistently occurring just about everywhere that I go. Ideally and I would like to think somewhat realistically, there is not supposed to be a system of ranking in a group of friends. Obviously, in everyday life there is, because you’re obviously going to be more important to your significant other, for example, than you are to the stranger to whom you say “hi” at the newspaper stand, but in a group of friends, I don’t think that that type of thing should be occurring, and yet, I feel that, for me, it does, not necessarily frequently but from time to time.

I really do not want to go into specifics here, but I feel as if I have to if my goal is for you to understand how I am feeling. As I mentioned in my most previous blog, a group of friends here, my best friends here, really, want to live in the townhouses next year, an idea that they have been talking about for quite some time now, and initially, as much as it went against what my plans originally were, it was a bandwagon that I was prepared to jump on despite the inner-conflicts that I was experiencing as described in my most recent blog, because I didn’t care as long as I was with them, but I had an epiphany today, and not the good kind of “Eureka!” ones that happen every now and then but instead the bad kind of “Oh, no!” ones that happen even more often.

This epiphany was one that I am surprised I have not thought about prior to today, but whatever reason, I haven’t. To be perfectly honest, the only reason that I am here at this very moment is because the financial aid award that I received from SUNY Oswego was and is incredibly generous, and what I realized today is that since the townhouses are a bit more expensive than the residence halls, I will most likely be expected to pay a great deal of money out of my pocket since I very seriously doubt that financial aid would increase my award due to me living in the townhouses. I sent them an email quite recently asking them about it, but I honestly felt a bit embarrassed doing so, because I am essentially asking them if I will receive money due to a decision I ultimately make to live in a more expensive setting; it seems like a ridiculous question to even consider.

How this plays into what I was saying before is that I told them about this today, since today was really the first time that I really began to consider this, as I said before, and it didn’t really seem to faze them. The only thing that seemed to really bother them is the fact that now they have to look for yet another person to live with them, since they need six. I just feel as if it had been someone else besides me who was experiencing this problem or who, for that matter, decided that they didn’t want to do this, then the entire idea itself would be shot, because they couldn’t possibly do it without one of them but can without me. As I’m sure I have said before in a blog entry, I do tend to be a bit paranoid at times, and this does tend to have negative consequences in my life, but I have also noticed that it’s almost always people that I deeply care about toward whom I feel paranoid.

At this point, I really have no practical solution. My good friend David from home said that he might be able to come up here for school since he currently goes to a community college close to home, but here’s the problem. Most likely, he won’t be here next semester, which means that since he’ll be considered a transfer for the Fall 2010 semester, I will not be able to request him as a roommate, and even if I could, he most likely won’t be officially admitted until after I have to select a residence hall and thus a roommate, and the problem is, apart from my current roommate who is a part of the aforementioned group of friends, I don’t really have any guy friends here, not ones that I’m close enough to to live with, anyway.

I just don’t know what to do. I can’t help but shake the idea that the happiness and the near-perfection that I am experiencing now is one day very, very soon going to be obliterated due to change that I have no control over, change that I don’t understand why needs to happen, but change that I cannot and ultimately would not want to stop, anyway. My expectations are not to control peoples’ decisions, and I am certainly not self-centered in the least bit, especially not to the point where I’d want someone to completely defer an idea of theirs due to me and my monstrously long list of problems. I guess that I’d just like to feel a bit more important to people that are very important to me. Who knows? Maybe in some elaborately epic way, everything will work out. Sometimes, the universe has a way of self-correcting itself.