My First Semester of College=Over

Wow.
I can't believe it. I'm almost done with my first semester of college. It's gone by soo fast, and I seriously can't believe that the end is near. It's crazy.
I've been so busy this past week, with it being dead week, and the time that I have to move out of my room. I'm so glad that it's the weekend, though, and I've been able to discipline myself enough to finish a few pages of my paper every day so that I can go out and do something fun. Last night I told myself that I had to finish at least two pages before Shannon, Laurel, Maria, and I could go out, and I actually did it!!! I don't think I've ever had that much self-discipline before; I was amazed that it actually worked!
After I got my two pages done, we all went to my room and cleaned out half of my stuff to bring it over to Abel, and it's currently all over Shannon's room. I definitely owe her for letting me "live" here while I'm in the process of moving. After we got that done, we all changed into our jeans and snowboots and went to the guys' house (that's where we hang out on the weekends when we have nothing better to do. We usually end up playing guitar hero and/or doing random, ridiculous things . Last night the guys were all sledding off of the roof, it's a wonder they're not dead right now).
Also, I have decided that I hate winter in Nebraska. Every day for the past two weeks it has either snowed or iced, or sleeted. It sucks. It's also extremely cold. Cold meaning that the high temperature is rarely above 25 degrees. Usually Shannon will check the weather on her phone and it will be around 14 degrees. We complain a lot, and it usually results with us just sitting around inside.
I guess all that's left for me to do is put up pictures!!!!

Us last night... CAUTION tape!!!
Me and some of the girls at a Christmas party
We chopped down that Christmas tree, then the guys decided it would look best with beer cans on it
Some more of us in our CAUTION tape outfits! Arent they cute?

All of my stuff sitting in shannon's room
Shannon, dressed up for our dance video
Me dressed up for our dance video


It's pretty obvious we have weird ways of relieving our stress. Whatever, it's fun.

Untitled

So this past few days has been really busy.
We had another swim meet this weekend. It was in Omaha, and it went all right. I didn't swim very well, I don't think I've gone that slow in a 500 since my freshman year. It was NOT pretty. I did, however, come away with a great collection of caps from other schools. It was pretty sweet.
It's been really cold here for the past few days, though, so when I got back to Lincoln and saw that the box from Mom with my hat had arrived I was pretty happy. The hat is really awesome, I love it.
I don't really have that much more to say, but I guess I'll put some pictures up.


This is the hat and scarf Mom made me.



These three are of the hat Mom sent in the package. I really like it, except I think the strings would look better a little thicker.


These are the caps that I walked away from that swim meet with.
Nice collection, I think.

Pile It On

Wow.
The end of the semester is so bittersweet. I love it because it means I'm that much closer to Christmas and New Year's, and eventually the end of the year. This year I'm especially looking forward to it because it means that my first semester of college is officially over!
On the other end of the scale, however, the end of the semester sucks. I think it's worse than any other part. The end of the semester is the time in which every teacher seems to pile on the work. I hate it. I hate the fact that I have two twelve page papers due, and loads of homework and studying for tests to do. It seems like I won't have enough time to finish all of this. I know that this feeling is partly due to my extreme love of procrastination, but it's really getting ridiculous.
I just feel so stressed, and, of course, the stress isn't helping my sinus infection, or my motivation. I know that I will get As in my honors seminar and my English class, but I am not sure if I'll be getting an A or an A- in my German class. Right now it's looking like it'll be an A-, and that's just making things harder for me. I guess the thing I'm most stressed about is my grade in astronomy. I changed that class to a pass/fail basis because I knew that I wouldn't be able to get an A, and I didn't want to ruin my GPA. Unfortunately, passing is a grade of C or higher. Not even a C- is acceptable. I'm concerned because right now I'm sitting at pretty much exactly a C.
To make all the stress worse, the whole roommate situation is a little ridiculous. Right now it's just kind of at the point where we know it's only a few more weeks of dealing with each other, so we're cordial. We both tend to avoid the room most of the day, though.
Well, I, being the procrastinator that I am, am actually supposed to be working on a rough draft of my research paper for soc right now, so I'm going to go back and do that.



PS: I miss Chewie. This is the last picture I got of him.

Mood: Accomplished

It's been a pretty wonderful past few days for me. I feel amazingly accomplished. Not only did I run my first 5K ever, but I picked a topic for my English paper and have started doing research for my 12-page Sociology paper. I enrolled in 19 credit hours for next semester, and have all of my homework done.
And the cherry on top of the sundae is this: I've been thinking a lot about changing rooms at semester, and one of the girls that I'm thinking about living with next year has a roommate that's almost never in her room this semester, and is probably moving out next semester. This is fantastic news for me; it means I'll have a roommate that I know and wouldn't mind living with.

YAY!!!!

Just an Update...

So not too much is going on here in the lovely state of Nebraska.
I just got back from fall break at home, and I had a fantastic time. We celebrated my birthday because it's exactly two weeks from today... and I decided I'd rather celebrate two weeks early than three weeks late. Mom and Dad got me a guitar, and I'm absolutely in love with it. I've spent at least an hour every day since I got it (a whopping three days) messing around with it and learning chords and notes. My fingers are so raw that it hurts to type, or even wash my hands. It's a little bit ridiculous, but I guess my theory is that the more I play, the faster my fingers will callus. But yeah... other than that, there really isn't too much to tell. I find out tomorrow what I got on the international relations midterm, and that will really suck. I don't even want to know.
Okay, I'm out.

Rainy Days

I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about rainy days that makes me want to curl up in a chair with a book and hot chocolate. It's always harder to wake up in the morning when the sun isn't shining through the window, and it's even harder when I've only gone to bed a few hours before. On the other hand, I love the rain. I love listening to it hit the window pane while sitting in complete silence. I love walking to classes without an umbrella or hood, and just letting it fall on me. There's something about the smell of rain, too. It just smells clean (at least here, where there's not too much pollution). I'm looking out the window... and right on cue, it's starting to rain again.

PS:
Just below are some pictures from the colorado swim club trip... the bottom picture is just all of us that went.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

I dyed my hair.

It's purdy.

I like it.

Troubles here in Nebraska

I hate room mates.
I hate condescending room mates.
I hate my room mate.
I hate Nebraska.
I want to come home.

<3 Alyx.

Life in Nebraska

It has been determined that I am not the type of person who can keep a blog.
I'm so bad at keeping this thing updated. It's been almost a month since I last posted.
Maybe it's because I just don't have all that much to say - there really isn't much going on here that's worthy of being posted.
I guess I'll just give an update real quick...
Swim club is awesome, I'm really glad that I joined. I've made a lot of friends, and it's great exercise. It motivates me to swim, and I need that because I'm lazy and wouldn't go otherwise. Not this weekend, but the next (Oct 5-7), we got invited to go to Colorado to a relay meet. I'm really excited, it should be fun. (i meant to talk to you about that, mom... :])
Classes are all right, nothing too amazing. I love German, English, and Sociology, but I really don't like my international relations or astronomy classes. They are super lame. It's mostly the professors, but I've decided neither of the subjects interest me.
Overall... everything is OK. Nothing absolutely amazing, but nothing totally terrible either.

Bored in Nebraska

The first two pictures are katrina and i being bored out of our minds. The last one is one of the many pictures that were drawn Friday night.


This is sooo boring. My room mate and I are sitting in our room on a Saturday night. What makes this even worse is the fact that our team won the football game today. In a college town like this there's got to be SOMETHING going on after a victory. Maybe it's just because everyone's gone home for the long weekend, but lately there's been a whole lot of boredom in our room. Last night we were so bored that we watched a movie, then ate some leftover pizza, then drew pictures and listened to ridiculous songs, then stayed up and talked until 5:30 this morning. Today wasn't much better... we woke up around 1:00, went and got some lunch, then worked out until 4-ish, then showered and changed and got some dinner, then came back here and have been here since.

You would think that there'd be more to do on such a big campus. Guess not.

I can't believe how I was Just Rudely Awakened

I never thought there could possibly be a sound more obnoxious than those buzzer alarm clocks. Apparently I was wrong. VERY wrong. This morning, around 11:00, I wake up to something that sounds a lot like the high schools fire alarm. As I'm jumping off my bed (nearly killing myself in the process), Someone comes on the PA and says, "Attention Neihardt residents, we have two cars that are illegally parked..." I was SO MAD!!!! My room mate and I decided that their whole plot was to wake me, Alyx with a Y up.
Mother, you may be wondering why I was still asleep at 11. Well, last night was the Big Red Welcome, and we made the mistake of going to the Movie on the Green. Why was it a mistake? It was by far one of the stupidest movies we have ever seen - Stomp the Yard. I definitely wouldn't recommend it. Of course, the dancing was pretty cool, but so not worth seeing the movie. We pretty much spent the whole time talking amongst our group (I met some pretty awesome people, one of which is double-majoring in Spanish and German Secondary Education) and making fun of the people in the movie. We didn't even get back to the dorm till 1:30, and then we decided to build Katrina's (my room mate) bookshelf. We finally got to sleep around 3.
While I was at the Party at the Rec (which is basically just all the sport clubs giving away candy, shirts, and fliers), I found out that this is the first year for the swimming sport club, and they're going to compete with other D1 schools, and even have a National Championship, which will be held HERE!!!! I'm so excited, because it's going to give me more motivation and other people to work out with, which is what i really need at this point. Plus, dad says it'll help my academics because I'll be physically active.
So far, I'm enjoying this place that we call college. We'll see how I feel as soon as classes start...

NEBRASKA

Well, here I am. I can't believe I'm here. I got a room mate and she's pretty cool, we get along really well. Here are some pictures of the dorm.
To the right are half of the shoes i brought (aunt chauntel would be so proud).
The rest are just pictures of the room itself.