curly hair, car loans, and camping. sort of.

Hey.

So, this is how long my hair is now. 

 And it doesn't really look that long, but then I straighten it, and it's like WHOA! I DO have hair after all! YAY! (I know, I know, I promised myself no more heat-styling. But really, did any of us believe that? I promise, that's the first time I've actually straightened it for real.)

 Also, way to begin my blog post looking like a crazy person, right? Whatever. Everybody already knows I'm crazy, so it's not like it's hurting anything.

So, school is fun. I'm supposed to be hypothetically buying a car right now, to get a loan and calculate interest and stuff. I'll do it after I finish this. I wish I were actually buying a car. This whole not-having-a-car thing is weird. When I'm working, I take their minivan to school. Some days when I'm not working, I can drive mom's minivan. Some days I'm minivan-less, but it just so happens that I have this great, generous friend who gives me a ride to school on those days. Which is pretty neat, and I'm super grateful, but I feel bad for having to ask all the time.

Oh, right, school. Philosophy is fun. We've been all about the foundations of Western philosophy in Ancient Greece so far, but we're moving on after midterms.

Math is super easy, which is ... miraculous. The prof is wacky, and sometimes class is boring, but I'll take boring over miserable any day.

English is so great. I just love English. That's why I'm even at college, y'all. This professor is fantastic. I'm supposed to be starting a narrative descriptive essay this week, though, and I'm stuck. With 23 years of life experience,  I can't think of a good topic for an essay. How does that even work?

Physics is interesting and hard. The prof reminds me of what my brother, Nick, would be like if he were a teacher. So, I really do like the class, I'm just not making As. haha.

I don't even want to talk about the freshman Critical Inquiry class. -_-

And I finally got my membership card for the Wellness Center on campus. Just in time; I have a 5k this Saturday, and I have got to spend the week trying to get back in shape. I thought signing up for this series would spur me back into gear, and it did not. I'm blaming it on school and work. Anyway, the treadmills and I are fixin' to become best pals.

Y'all, I was so excited to go to bed before midnight last night. Like, giddy. I was grinning as I set my alarm clock for 9 AM.

Um... So... what else should I mention? (I have become terrible at this!) Oh! I get to help teach little kids at church again. That's fun. I love kids so much. I'm actually babysitting my little 3 year old buddy right now, but she's napping. :)

I really want to go camping. Someone needs to call me and be all like, "hey! let's go camping!" And I'll be like "YEAH! let's hit the wilderness with some sleeping bags and marshmallows!" (Actually, I'll probably be like "crap. I really wanna, but I'm working for the next 5 weekends.") But, yeah. I just have this nagging little ache for percolated coffee in the early morning, surrounded by cool mountain mist, and late night marshmallow roasting, and cozy sweats and sleeping bags. I'm torturing myself here.

So, I guess I'm going to go hypothetically get a car loan now.
:) me

blurt

I've been too busy living life to write about it lately. (Haha, just kidding. My Pinterest boards might tell you otherwise.)  Actually, I have been writing about life, just not here. It's like I've mentioned before - the less blogging I do, the more I write in my journal. And I really have been busy. Life is changing a lot.

I used to wish I could see into the future. Just a little bit. To know what sort of major things would happen to me. I thought maybe if I knew, I could anticipate and prepare, or at least wait more patiently for life to change. Things start changing though, and I freak out. I feel like life has this sneaky way of lulling you into a feeling that nothing will ever change, and then it jumps you with like four major life changes all at once. It's a little scary. And now I'm glad I can't see things coming, because I know in reality it would just give me more time to work myself into a sleepless frenzy of high blood pressure, anxiety attacks, and stress-induced acne.

I'm supposed to be writing a one page paper about a time I experienced a "cognitive lens shift." Instead, I'm writing a blog post. Maybe I could write about how I used to wish I could see into the future, and then I realized that would be awful. That was a change in perspective. That counts, right?

I'm losing my train of thought. I'm not sure if I ever had one. Oh, I remember why I started writing this now. There was a handful things I wanted to post on facebook, but decided that would look ridiculous, so I should just get them off my chest here. I think I'll do a bulleted list, so I don't have to freak out about getting my thoughts and paragraphs just right.

• I want to go to Sonic. I want the sun to shine, and the breeze to blow, and for my best friend to join me at Sonic, drinking slushies and eating tater tots. But that's not going to happen, and it's making me sad.
• I miss my friends. I'm making new friends, and they are great, but it's not the same as getting to always be around the people I've been closest to for years. 
• I feel lonely lately. I don't like feeling lonely. It's an empty, dark bluish grey kind of feeling. And not a pretty dark bluish grey.
• Along the same vein as missing my friends, I miss Laura and Nick. Nick is my little brother who became the big brother I always wanted. He's got so much wisdom and strength for one so young, and I miss his hugs and talks and encouragement. Laura and I didn't really get along last summer, but we were best friends this summer. Every time I've pulled into the driveway since she left earlier this week, I'm hit with sadness when I don't see her car. 
• My favorite TV show is starting back up this fall, but it's not as exciting since it won't be the same without Erin to watch it with me.
• Summer is over. School is in, and I feel like summer never happened. I was spoiled by the last 3 summers. Those were spent surrounded by close friends, doing lots of spontaneous summery things. This summer felt like one big, long summer-length transition/waiting period. It was nice, but it wasn't the same. And sometimes different is good, but kind of sad.
• Celebrate Freedom - the biggest, awesomest, all day Christian concert ever is happening today. I was there the last two years, and this year I'm not. And Switchfoot is headlining again! And I hate that I'm missing that.
• I'm 23. This is not where I thought I would be when I was 18 and the question "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" came up. (speaking of which, I never blogged about my birthday...)  In all honesty, I imagined I would be married. Silly me. Nobody's ever even asked me out. I'm majorly tired of being single. (see 3rd bullet) But that's a secret, because girls who love Jesus enough aren't supposed to be unhappy about being single, right?

Wow. That was depressing. Maybe this is why I haven't been blogging! I promise I'm not this way all the time. I keep telling my friends I've been a little bi-polar lately. I'll have this pity party, and then two hours later I'll be all like, "Wow! God is just so good, and He's working so many new things in my life, and I just KNOW this is going to be a fantastic year full of new places and people and experiences! I'm going to learn so much, and I really believe God is going to show himself to me in new, exciting ways! This is so great!"

Okay, truthfully, I've been leaning pretty hard into the negative side. The thing is, I really do believe all that great stuff.  Just not enough to always feel that way about it. Every now and then, I have flashes where I feel like I believe it- excited and happy and confident and hopeful. I believe God is doing great things in my life, but mostly I still feel anxious and lonely. How does that even work?

Now I need to write some bullets about the good things going on, just to balance this crazy out.

• I signed up for a series of 5ks this fall! The first out of five was this morning, and it was lovely. The trail wound through woods, across a pond, and up and down lots of hills. It was tough, but so so great.
• USCA rejected my application at first, but I had an amazing admissions counselor who talked me through the petition process, and then I was accepted. Also, I qualified for a goodly portion of financial aid, so... that all worked out really well.
• I had a random, temporary job for a week a little while back that helped me pay my first school bill.
• I made it through week one of classes at USCA! So far, so good. But I'm letting myself be anxious about how things will be in a few weeks when the real homework starts hitting. Philosophy and English are my favorites, I think. Physical science... not my thing. The teacher is great, but I had a ridiculously hard time with a lab project yesterday, which is SO not promising.
• Not only did I make it through week one of classes, I made it TO week one of classes. You know that whole not-having-a-car thing? Well, I'm not sure how it happened, but I made it to class. (This is still on my freak-out list, though.)
• I got a new job! I'm babysitting some kids and an irish wolfhound overnight about three times a week. Still gettin' the hang of it, but I think it's going to go really well.
• Despite my whiny cries about missing my friends, I really have had a good time getting to know my new friends. I'm grateful to have met some people to hang out and have fun with. And bake cookies for. haha

So, as you can see, God really is working things out in my life. I am so thankful.
And still so freaked out.

(and here's a picture of me and my awesome sister on my birthday. Since I never wrote about that.)

update

In June I reduced my vitamin intake to two hugemongous pills a day, believing that the third was probably unneccesary. At the end of the month, I noted significantly less growth than the previous month, so I upped my dosage back to three hugemongous pills this July, and have seen quite an improvement.

So, three a day it is. 

The longest parts are 4.5 inches now. I had to trim the back of it to avoid a mullet.

It's long enough now that I can do a gel-and-slick trick to give myself a normal hairstyle of sorts, and avoid the resemblance to Little Orphan Annie.

My hair is the only thing in my life that I can observe, noting measured progress with certainty.

The rest of my life kind seems kind of suspended right now.

I'm waiting to hear back from someone about a job interview.

I'm going this week for another job interview.

I don't have a car, which makes getting a job difficult.

I don't have a job, which makes getting a car difficult.

I don't know what I'm doing this fall.

Waiting to hear from people.

Listening to hear from God.

So, I know it's silly, but I'm kind of glad that I'm growing my hair out for this reason: When it seems I'm making no measurable progress in my life, at least I can measure my hair and see that it's growing. Slowly but surely.

Hopefully I am, too.

growth

February 22, 2012

1.5 inches

June 27, 2012

3.5 inches

Three inches in four months, people. I'm not impressed.

Maybe if I sing to it it'll grow faster?

p.s. I don't wear my hair all sticky-outy like this. That's for effect.

Missing. Melancholy. Melodrama.

My brother, on his own at school,
My childhood friend, the first to wed,
My lengthy curls, so long since shorn,
And all my pets, so long since dead.

My boxes full of stuff upstairs,
My books and coffee mugs and plates,
My friends who made last summer fun
Too far away for coffee dates.