Stressed out

    College is already stressful enough and I already have so much work to do. Add volleyball on top of this and it makes studying and homework that much harder to do. I know I have to manage my time because I have far away games every week and practice every night. On top of that I have had tournaments every weekend so there is no time to catch up. I feel like I have no time to do anything. My daily routine is get up (usually after several touches to the snooze button) go to class, eat, do homework, eat, volleyball, shower, do more homework, bed. Repeat everyday. Now don’t get me wrong I love volleyball and the girls are all super nice and I have fun, but sometimes I just need a break.

     So it’s Tuesday and the only class I have is at 8:30. I have the rest of the day to do my homework and study for my huge Italian test I had the next day. But wait, I didn’t have all day, I had to leave at 2:30 in the afternoon to go on a long bus ride for three hours just to play one volleyball match. I spent all my time from eleven until two doing my homework and making colorful flashcards for my Italian test. As I got on the bus I was overwhelmed with exhaustion. Class at eight thirty kills me and I usually go straight back to bed when I get back to my dorm, but not today. Today I made better use of my time and did my school work. So instead of doing the smart thing and studyon the bus I took a nap. This nap was definitely needed and when I woke up I felt rejuvenated.

    After the nap we still had about an hour on the bus so I thought I probably should start studying.  I was definitely putting off the studying because I am awful at languages and I was slowly dying of nervousness and anticipation of what the test would be like. I am awful at languages and so I had good reason to be nervous. However, as I was studying I realized I knew everything. My Italian teacher is so good and actually teaches us the material. I calmed down and realized I had nothing to worry about. All I had to do now was my math homework and read two books for two different classes. Oh the joy of homework. So as soon as I was calm about Italian I had new worries to think about.

    Luckily my game only took an hour and a half and we were back on the bus by 9 ready to make the three-hourride back to campus. I was freaking out about all my homework. I would have no time to do it. The next day I had a full schedule of classes and practice that night. I had no idea what I was going to do. I had not brought any other homework on the bus assuming I would need the whole time to study Italian, but as I soon learned I had made the wrong decision. I wouldn’t get back to campus until at least twelve thirty and I was in no mood to do homework when I got back.

    As I was starting to feel my anxiety level rise my coach made a comment that made me instantly smile and mentally scream “THANK YOU”. What you ask did she say that made me so happy after being so anxious and overwhelmed well just the best news to ever come out of someone’s mouth. She said “No practice tomorrow”. Ah after those words left her mouth I put away all my work and fell asleep knowing I would have time to do everything the next day. Never in my life have I been so happy. Maybe that’s an overstatement but hey when you are overwhelmed and slammed with homework any extra time you get is a miracle and makes you overjoyed and bursting with happiness.

the adventure for cookies

     It’s a typical Wednesday afternoon at RC. I had just gotten out of my ten fifty class and was heading over to commons to get some lunch with Kristin.  Now, on normal days I don’t usually eat the main dish that is served. I’m not a big fish or chicken person, so the main meals don’t usually appeal to me. I am usually stuck with pasta and a salad, which I enjoy, but it would be nice to have some variety. However, on this Wednesday afternoon  I was pleasantly surprised to find out they were serving grilled cheese! My favorite. I’m a kid at heart, and what kid can say no to a grilled cheese? So, I gladly took a warm grilled cheese sandwich with cheddar cheese and tomatoes. Nothing can be as good as my mom’s grilled cheese she makes me when I am sick, but this sandwich came pretty darn close.

    

     I was in such a good mood after eating that grilled cheese sandwich. Is that weird of me to say that food made me happy?  Oh well, what can I say - I’m a foodaholic. Now comes the best part of the meal…. DESSERT!  I walked up to the dessert table, and my mouth was already watering for the warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven that were just waiting to be eaten. Except when I got to the table, I was shocked to find no cookies.  What is this?! I thought. Instead of cookies and brownies and other delicious desserts they had apples. What kind of sick joke is this?  Who would serve apples as dessert? Nothing healthy in my mind is considered dessert. I don’t know what these people were thinking. So, knowing I would not get dessert, Kristin and I had the brilliant idea of walking to Kroger to get some cookie dough. Let me tell you, this was not a brilliant idea.

    

     On this Wednesday afternoon the sky was cloudy and the air was very humid. Kristin was wearing jeans and  a sweatshirt. I was the smart one and put shorts and a t-shirt on knowing that walking in the humidity would make me hot. I plugged the address of Kroger into my phone, and we were off on the 1.7-mile trek for cookie  dough. Everything started out fine. We thought, hey, 1.7 miles is a breeze, we can do this in no time. Boy, were we wrong. We made it to the duck pond and had to sit for a rest.  I was so unmotivated and ready to just walk back to campus. We still had at least another mile to walk, and I started to believe the cookies were not worth it. Kristin pushed me to get off my lazy butt and keep walking. I promise I’m not that out of shape that I can’t walk a measly 1.7 miles. I mean, I play volleyball, so that means I’m in shape right? Walking should not make me this tired. So, reluctantly I got up and kept walking.

    

     On the walk I was sweating and thinking to myself, why the heck did I think walking to Kroger to get cookies was a good idea?  Thirty minutes later we finally got to Kroger. We got  cookie dough, a pan, and oven mitts and were out within five minutes. No way were we going to waste anytime in a store when we could be back in the dorms making cookies!

    

     The way back to campus wasn’t as bad as walking to Kroger. We walked at a pretty fast pace, and there was a nice breeze blowing. We were about ten minutes away from campus when we realized the sky looked pitch black. Uh oh, it looked like it was going to rain. No way were we going to get caught in the rain. We had walked so much just for cookie  dough, and gosh darn it we were not going to get rained on! We picked up our pace, and luckily we made it back to the dorm before it started poring. 

    

     When I got back to my room, my roommate was in there. I told her my thrilling story of walking all the way to Kroger. I promised I would never make that walk again. She simply said “why didn’t you just text Izzy to give you a ride? She has a car, she would have taken you guys.” And of course this just made my day even better. (Note the sarcasm).  I wasted an hour and a half of precious time that I could have been doing something else.  Ugh, I was so mad. But hey, you can’t go back and change what happened.

   

      The cookies were definitely worth the long walk to Kroger and back.  We put the cookies in for nine agonizingly long minutes, and when they came out we waited about ten seconds before devouring them. These cookies were definitely worth the hike. Not as good as commons cookies, but they definitely satisfied my craving.  Nothing beats cookies straight from the oven. These cookies were crunchy on the outside and gooey in the middle. Just how I like it.

    

     The moral of this story is to never underestimate how far away something is, and always try and find out if someone will drive you to the store. However, I did feel a bit better about eating so many cookies after the 3.4 -mile walk to Kroger and back.  At least now I don’t have to work off the cookies since I already got my exercise for the day with the walk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_chip_cookie 

update from a sick girl who is in dyer need of medicine

I never realized how much I needed my parents until I got to college. Of course I appreciated them before, but now that I’m doing everything on my own I realize how much my parents did for me. I am especially missing my parents this week because I am slowly losing my mind from being sick. At home when I was sick my mom would make me warm chicken noodle soap and hot chocolate with mini marshmallows floating on the top and she always knew what medicine would make me feel better. I am totally a daddy’s girl when it comes to most things, but when I’m sick all I want is my mom. At home I have a whole cabinet full of all different kinds of medicine for different issues, but at college I have nothing. I totally forgot to bring medicine. Do I have any way of getting medicine? No, I don’t have a car and all my friends are busy. I have already had a rough day getting through all my classes and having volleyball practice. Let me tell you something, playing a sport while you are sick is not fun. As I played I was clammy and I could barely breathe. We did a serving drill where if you don’t get twenty serves into a certain spot on the court before you miss ten then you have to run five sprints. Just my luck we didn’t get all the serves and had to run. As I ran back and forth from the end line to the net I could feel my heart racing and my chest tightening making it hard to breathe. As we finished the sprints I was so glad practice was over. I don’t think I could have lasted any longer. After practice all I wanted to do was go back to my dorm take some medicine and go to sleep. Then it hit me, I have no medicine to take. Who will give me medicine? Who is going to make me feel better? All I wanted was a nice little pill that would relieve me of my stuffy nose and let me sleep. I asked around to see if anyone had medicine but no one did. I asked the other freshman if anyone would walk with me to CVS to get some medicine, but all of them were busy. I was out of luck. I had no medicine and no way of going out and getting it. At this point I was thinking, man I wish my parents were here now.  If they were here they could drive me to the store and buy me medicine, and they could take me to chick fil a and get me a cookies and cream milkshake to soothe my aching throat.  But my parents aren’t here so that didn’t happen. So I go back to my dorm and used up all my tissues blowing my nose. It’s eleven thirty and I decide I might as well get some sleep. This brings me to issue number two. It’s eleven thirty at night and all I want to do is sleep. Can I do this? No. I lay in bed tossing and turning. One leg over the cover with one under; then I shift, with my whole body under the covers, too hot.  I lay on top of the covers, too cold. Not only was I wide-awake, but also every five minutes I had to get up to blow my nose. I ran out of tissues so I had to use napkins, which made my nose burn. Lovely evening I have been having. (Note the sarcasm) Every few times I blew my nose I looked over at the clock and saw the time ticking away. Eleven thirty then twelve then twelve thirty and one.  Miraculously I was able to go to sleep around one thirty and was able to sleep through the whole night.  Note to self for the future, don’t forget to bring medicine when you go away places!! Next time my parent’s come to visit I am going out and we are buying medicine, hot chocolate, marshmallows, and chicken noodle soap. Nothing could be as comforting as being home when you are sick, but at least next time I’m sick I’ll have a few things to make me feel better.

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