The facilities guys were outside and backing a truck up, which of course started the back-up beep, which forced Heather awake, and now I've had to deal with constant bitching since then. ^^;

ANYWAY. Today shall be spent doing nothing but fun things. I have a final tomorrow morning (that I'm not worried about), but absolutely nothing today. I want pizza and games. Real tempted to order something from Pizza Hut. Domino's is closer, but PH is way better. I'd kill for some Little Caesar's right now, though. XD;

I've been playing Virtue's Last Reward, the sequel to 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, since classes ended. I can't put it down. Just like last time. I specifically didn't start playing it when I got it at least a month ago because I knew this would happen. Basically, VLR is this semester's Homestuck. XD;; I'm flying through the game, partly because it's easier to this time around. There are WAY more branching paths as far as I can tell, but you're also able to jump to points you've already been in the story's flow chart, so after I make a choice and hit a game over, I just go back and switch choices. I've been gunning for bad endings first. One of them escalated QUICKLY. The other reason I'm flying through? TV Tropes. I want to read the game's entry SO BADLY and I can't because of massive spoilers. This is a visual novel, after all. I snuck a peek there once already and got a major spoiler, so I've banned myself from all of TV Tropes until I finish the game.

I'm looking to do things this summer. Last summer I sat around. This summer I want to avoid that. I'm going to look for a job when I get back so I can pull in some money. Depending on what the school gives me in aid (I don't know yet because Financial Planning still has yet to send award letters... it's never taken this long before), I'll either try to save up money to pay my part, or save up spending money and take out a loan for the last year. If they ignore my FAFSA, which they should since they know I don't have any income, I'm hoping to get the entirety of the Pell Grant again. That'll help... even though it might also drop the amount of institutional aid I get, but whatever. I'm going to look into private loans, because Mom was talking about them with a friend (when I was going to take a summer class--I've since decided not to take the class) and he told her that some private loan interest rates are better than fed. I've always known the opposite, so I'm going to do some digging. If it's true, though, I'm thinking about just taking out another loan. It shouldn't be for too much money. My EFC is only $3000 next year as opposed to the $8000 it was for this school year. If I can squeeze some aid out of the school, it might go down. Or they'll give me a 0 EFC like last time.

Heather went back to sleep when I started ignoring her, haha.

We totally had a Gossip Girl running a Facebook page for people of the Juniata community to post confessions. It started off rocky (a few select dummies used it to cyberbully), but the admin quickly stopped that, and it became a serious outlet for everyone who's stressed out over Finals Week. They were anonymous confessoins, so everything was posted: crushes, fantasies about people, drunken stories, drug use, sex stuff. The college administration got wind of it somehow and put a stop to it, which has most of us pissed off. Like, way to censor us. Way to bully whoever the admin is. (They received an order from the administration to "cease to exist". They was using campus internet, so an IP trace wouldn't have been hard, I imagine.) The person is graduating. I'm really hoping they'll wait until after graduation, maybe change the name of the page (it's called Juniata Confession--not that the college has the rights to the name Juniata, it's part of the area, it's the name of a river), and then continue it. They seriously brought together the campus community, and most of the content posted was SO positive. I don't get why they freaked out. It's college, so the drugs/sex stuff is inevitable. And if they're concerned about some of the more serious stuff that was being posted, like several members of the sports community abusing people, maybe something should be done about it instead of taking away the outlet. We're a D3 school, it's not like our sports teams are sooooooo fantastic that we can't afford the bad image. Nothing will change if we don't do something about it. Unfortunately, they don't seem to care. It's things like this that remind you, quite forcibly, that college is a business.

ANYWAY. I think I'm gonna play some VLR, then nap, because I'm not ready to leave my bed yet. ^^;

I skipped my class today to try and get some photography stuff done, since that's going to be my weekend and I wanted to get a decent start on it. I got back here at about 2pm. It's now 3pm. Heather and A are sitting on Heather's bed complaining about two of their friends. They have been at this for an hour. They have been at it for the hour that I've BEEN here. They've likely been at it longer than that, because Heather is the type to keep harping on and on about what's bothering her, and A does not stop it because A likes to talk.

I just wanted to come back to my room and watch some TV. You know, the TV that's currently on and neither of them is watching because they won't shut up. The TV that I'd take the remote for and watch anyway but THEY WON'T SHUT UP.

So glad I never had drama with Sophie. -_-

First thing: NCECA was awesome. There was SO much to do, and I ended up not doing some of the things I intended just because I was exhausted. You wouldn't think sitting and listening to half hour to hour-long lectures would tire you out, but whoa. Still, I saw some cool stuff, got some good advice, now really feel a need to travel, and am thinking about either applying for residencies or taking part in some workshops. There's also a pottery place in Greenwich Village that offers classes, a residency, AND an internship, so next time I'm home, I'm gonna check it out. I mean, the internship app will have to be in before then, but even if I don't get it, I might take a wheel throwing class. It'll keep me in clay over the summer and give me something to do for about... a month or so. Got a few books and brochures for grad schools. Not sure I'm doing that, but SMFA in Boston really interested me. Totally interdisciplinary--no walls between media--and only about 700 students TOTAL between undergrad and grad? Yes. Although this means getting in would be ridiculously hard, but anyway. ^^; I'm not looking at MFA programs right now, because I'm not sure that I have the self-driven focus that you need for an MFA. I'm looking at post-baccalaureates now. They're only a year long and will help me kind of figure things out before I go the whole way. And I'd get a certificate for my troubles. Nothing wrong with that. Anyway, Houston's weather. Oh god. Pennsylvania needs to freaking get with spring already, I want my 60-70-degree temps. It was so sad when we got back to Pittsburgh and the temperature was like 30-something.

I spent WAY too much money there, but whatever, yo. I got stuff I'm gonna use in class. One of those things was a throwing book, which will definitely come in handy considering what I have to do before April 12th. As payback for going to NCECA, instead of writing a paper, we each have to schedule an interview with one of the editors at the Juniatian (school newspaper), write a blurb on the ceramics studio FB page giving one of our highlights of the conference (pertaining to ceramics, of course--I already did that), and make 30 bowls to be donated to the Empty Bowls event coming up. I'm not exactly happy about the 30 bowls, although I would much rather make 30 bowls (or even more, for that matter) than do that stupid dinnerware project we were given. I'm so tempted to ask Bethany if that's an option. Honestly. I come out looking like a coward (or just extremely unsure of myself, which, hey, guess what?), but meh. Meh, damnit. And on top of everything else I have to do? MEH. The stress started creeping back as soon as I got here, and it was not helped by the fact that I processed two of the three rolls of film I've taken, one of which consisted solely of Houston shots, and half of each of which (is that even proper English?) did NOT come out. The film was developed, but apparently there were several frames that weren't exposed. I know at least once in Houston I accidentally took a picture of the inside of the case when pulling the camera out, so it would've gotten blackness... but I have no idea. I wasn't the only one with this problem. I'm not happy about it. A bunch of the Houston shots eitiher look like shit or didn't come out at all, and my slow-shutter speed attempts at home were also crap. Most didn't come out. The ones of my fan came out well, but the panning experiment with Craig failed miserably and other shots show signs of camera shake, even one I had on the tripod. (I was waving a flashlight around in the mirror while holding the Bulb button, though, so I guess that's my fault.) I'm probably going to bomb this photography assignment because of all this. I got a C or so on the last one because I didn't venture out of the greenhouse to take my photos, and I haven't gotten a chance to reprint any of those shots... and I'm running low on paper anyway, just ordered some more.

The only good thing right now is that I finished the video for WAM 2, and the only thing I should have to do this week is a blog post.

A has been staying up here in my room with Heather since I was gone, and she's still up here now, apparently asleep... I haven't looked over there. I hope this doesn't end up with her up here all the time again, I can't take that. This semester's been fairly all right on the roommate front aside from the whining.

Did I mention our latest ceramics project? We have to take the jar we made that we think was the most successful of the twelve and make it eight more times, each time changing it somehow. I planned to make two jars each day of the weekend, putting me at six. I only made one on Friday because my neck was bothering me. I made two yesterday and two today. But I forgot that I'd made one the day we got the assignment, so I'm still at six. I only have to make two more by Thursday, which is AWESOME. There will be NO stress this week. None whatsoever. This pleases me greatly. As for the jars themselves, I think I've had varying degrees of success with them, but I'm experimenting with them. I'm not just taking what I originally made and altering it slightly. One of them is kind of a smaller version of the first, but even it has changes. I'll probably take pictures of them once they're all done. I have a few, and I'm gonna post them to the blog I'm keeping for class. I'll link to it.

I didn't get everything done this weekend that I wanted to, but the last thing will hopefully be done later this week. Jeannine and I were supposed to record our small-group (2-3 people) recording for DAP. Sophie agreed to sing for us, and she said Alex would play guitar with her, but it turns out he can no longer do it, so we postponed it. Jeannine's daughter sings (sang?) in high school, so we're hoping the two of them can do a duet. Prof. Rhodes is just happy that someone's recording before break, so I think even with the minor setback, Jeannine and I are getting points for that. XD Our other two group members need to be slapped upside the head, though. Well, okay, one of them, D, might have an excuse. He's on the college basketball team and had an away game for some of the time, and then Duncan (the other guy) said D's father was in the hospital and he wouldn't be in class. D came to class anyway, but there's no telling if anything will change that makes him lose class time. Duncan is just a flake. He's really intelligent, but doesn't seem to believe in communication. We were all supposed to meet one night last week to go over things, and Duncan said he could come for a few minutes before going to meet another group for a class they needed to write a 25-page (!) paper in. He never showed up, leaving Jeannine and I to talk badly about him, because we totally did. He finally sent a message two and half hours after the meeting time to say he took a nap and when his alarm went off, his roommate shut it off without waking him up. (Kind of douchey if true.) There was another e-mail he sent that Jeannine basically had to badger him into. I can get behind the thing with missing our meeting and going to the other one. That's fine. If you're near a computer, get your ass on it and pop off an e-mail. COMMUNICATE. Because otherwise we form very low opinions of you.

Anyway, I'm recording the small-group thing with Jeannine this week if all goes well, we've decided (and by that I basically mean me and Jeannine) to record the large ensemble as a group, and we're leaving the mid-size (4+ people) recording to Duncan and D, because we were the ones to develop the project plan, we were the ones to secure the small-group recording, and we're the ones asking professors if we can record their rehearsals. We've been doing ALL the work and it's only fair. We have yet to hear from them on this. I will not have them fucking up my grade in this class, dude. I will crack the whip if I have to.

And that concludes the negativity in this post. Next topic!

I'm not wearing the binder today, giving my boobs a break, and it's annoying to look at myself. XD;; Can I just have surgery, please? But anyway, I'm keeping it. It feels pretty good on me: The only time it gets bad is when the compression part rolls up on itself, which doesn't happen too often. It seems like it makes the compression worse and I need to adjust it, to roll it back down. Also, I'd be having a much better time with it if my boobs would stop moving. The problem is it's made for cisgendered men, not for female breasts, so... yeah. ^^; I might possibly invest in one from one of the other companies, but I need to measure myself and make sure I'll be able to even fit them. The problems of being an American (where people tend to be kinda large) looking to buy something from a company in Taiwan (where people tend to be kinda small).

I got a JOB, yo. On campus, with the help desk. Two openings, and I got one! I don't know when I start. I'd imagine it would make sense to start after break and after I get back from NCECA, but we'll see. It'll be good to be earning some money, though, even if it's not much. A job is a job. And I'm sure I can use it to find leads to other jobs later on. I swear, I'm bitching quite a bit about this year, but so far it's been pretty damn good, school-wise. Good grades the first semester, I am enjoying my classes this semester even though I'm complaining about them, I get to go to a ceramics conference in Houston, I've got a job, and I was accepted into an honor society. OH, and I found out what my number for Room Draw is. They do it by class and by GPA, so as a graduate of 2014, I already get a pretty high number, and I'm on the low end of the first GPA tier. I expected a good number. I got 3. THREE. You know what that means? That means that when Sophie shows up to pick a room for us (since I'll be in Houston), we can pretty much have any room we damn well please. Also, have I mentioned how excited I am to be rooming with Sophie again next year? Because I am. One-sided crush notwithstanding. XD;

I still have to finish writing something for WAM, and then I am drawing for the rest of the night.

Also, I STILL want a mohawk. XD;;

Good: Heather and A's friend is back from overseas, and she's now rooming with A, so the two of them are pretty much never here anymore, as they're always in A's room.

Bad: That moment when I come back from a dance performance and the two of them are snuggled up in here, in bed, and it smells like skin in here, damnit.

Worst: When they don't say a single thing to me and leave to go to A's room.

First of all, rude as hell. Am I the only one who thinks it's rude not to acknowledge someone, flat out ignore them, pretend they're not even there? Because it irks the hell out of me. I was raised to at least say hey, if nothing else. I wish Heather would shoot me a text whenever A's in here, too. They were dressed, fine, but maybe I want some warning. Then again, whenever Heather's around A, any manners she may have fly right out the window.

Holy crap, can this semester be over already? I want my own space. I want to know that I'm going to come back to my room and no one will be in it unless I've invited them in. Seriously, if I don't room with Sophie and all the singles get taken before I get to pick, I'm going to Res Life to talk. -_- The good thing at least is I'm at the tail end of the first group of students to pick rooms, thanks to my GPA. Pretty sure I count as a senior now, so I'm thinking I'll be fairly high up on the list. I won't find out until sometime in March as Room Draw approaches.

Fucking annoying. ANYWAY.

Had my first week of classes. Digital Audio Production is going to be interesting. Prof. Rhodes is teaching it, for the first time, and he has someone there that has a degree in audio engineering and steers him in the right direction if he's getting something wrong, but his explanations of things can kind of... meander a little. Basically, I'm going to be reading the book like a boss. We're getting quizzed, too, so I need to keep on top of it. Photography, we haven't gotten into too much--not everyone has a camera at the moment--but we did experiment with photograms, and we'll be working with them again on Monday. We're going to be casting plaster molds in Intermediate Ceramics, which is going to be hilarious, I'm sure. I'll also be mixing clay at some point. Writing Across Media II will probably be fun despite my original concerns, and the class is stupidly small, which should make projects a breeze. Tai Chi, I was going to drop because I really don't want to be getting out of classes at three on Fridays. It's completely wrong. But I'm keeping it for now. I figure it'll be a good way to end my weeks, and Phil's a really nice guy; just his presence is calming.

Happy with my classes, unhappy with being back in this dorm. It's the first official weekend of the semester, and I'm expecting raucous drunken parties at some point tonight and/or tomorrow. Will not live in South next year; I'll probably go back to TnT, which I really should've lived in in the first place since they're known for being low-substance abuse, and the third floor of Terrace was pretty quiet when I lived there. But no, I listened to Heather, who most definitely had an ulterior motive in suggesting South. Namely that her girlfriend and a good chunk of the History Herd lives here. All my good friends are in TnT on the opposite end of campus.

Meh, done with this. I'm going to sit and draw for a while.

... you roommate's girlfriend is sitting your roommate's bed with her short shorts on, propping a book up on her thighs, LEGS SPREAD WIDE OPEN for you, sitting directly across from her, to see EVERYTHING.

I can't, damnt. I just saw more of A than I ever wanted to. -_-;;

ANYWAY. Other things.

Classes are done, and the only thing I have left to do is go to the wine tasting/final critique on Tuesday. Oh, and finish writing a reflection for Digital Storytelling, which I'm almost positive I'm getting an A in. (THANK GOD.) I'm currently obsessed with everything Homestuck and have started drawing fanart. XD I've drawn Tavros and a quick sketch of John, and I'm currently working on Karkat. Unfortunately I can't read it at the moment because the site's been down all day, or at least, I can't access it. (Sob.) I was also compelled to pin my locs up to give myself a mohawk because of Tavros (who wears a mohawk). I really like myself with a mohawk. I wish I'd have known I liked them before, I would've had the sides of my head shaved a LONG time ago. XD;; I'm make due with just pinning my hair up. It took two years to grow these dreads out to just about shoulder-length. I'm getting my hair done next Thursday, and I'm going to ask Roger if he can pin it for me when he's done.

Okay, enough of this. Back to drawing. I'm actually tempted to cancel hanging out today with Sarah, but I already said I'd go over and I'm half-expecting A to start annoying me, so I should probably just leave the dorm for a while.

Yeah, next year, I think I'm going to try to get a single.

I'm noticing things that annoy me about Heather and A... things like them talking through Elementary while I was watching the pilot, and beating their various woes to death. A was taking Zoloft for OCD and decided to quit it cold turkey for whatever reason, and kept complaining about the lightheadedness/dizziness she's getting as a result. Heather does the same thing--she's been having migraine issues all month and when she starts complaining about it, she will NOT stop. It's like, all right, I got it the first five times. I can't do anything about it, so what does whining about it do? I'm not saying she's not allowed to wallow in some misery--it IS migraine problems she's having, after all--but not all the time, dude. It was worse when they took her off her birth control (because that might have been aggravating her condition) and she was cramping.

Sophie said something about maybe trying to get a triple with me, her, and Sarah, and I think that would be the only arrangement that would keep me out of a single. (And even then, Sarah is absolutely OBSSESSED with Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, and Legend of the Guardians and treats you like you should have the same enthusiasm, and she likes to show you videos and recite them as they're playing, which has me wary of sharing a space with her. She's too... I'm not sure what the word is.) I'm sure singles cost more, but whatever.

A is just loud. I have my headphones on and I can hear her. I'm trying to concentrate on writing exercises I should've been keeping up on and she's cackling on the other side of the room. I'm tempted to go down to the lounge, but it has a weird smell and I like the comfort of my bed when I'm working on school stuff. Last weekend I had pretty much the entire weekend to myself. I think A's roommate must have gone home or away or something, because Heather was only ever up here for a few minutes at a time, and I had nights and most of my days alone in terms of roommate and girlfriend. It was nice.

I swear, I'm just too solitary. Or those two are too immature for me. I didn't have as many annoyances with Sophie, but Sophie is definitely more mature, so that could have something to do with it. She and I definitely meshed much better. Heather and I promised to room with each other way back in our first semester (like right after Inbound, probably), before A even existed, and in hindsight, I wouldn't have done it. This is why you really get to know people first before you move in together, haha.

I'm not as excited now for my classes as I was. Writing Across Media seems like a joke; Wine in a Vessel is good, but I'm nervous about the research paper and wish we could just have tests; Digital Storytelling still feels like it's going to kick my butt because my creativity completely SUCKS right now. I haven't properly drawn in ages, just doodled, which bothers me, but I just don't have the mood for it lately. Principles of IT-Digital Media is the only one where I'm like, yes, I can handle this. I don't like it. I have like two more months to go and it's only gonna get worse as the semester goes on.

The GOOD thing since my last post: Last week (the 20th) I called up Planned Parenthood and was like, "New pills. I need them." The general practitioner that called me back was going to put me on Loestrin (some number) FE, but I told her I'd like to get back on Quasense because I had a good experience before. She warned me that doesn't necessarily mean it'll go right the second time, and I said I'd rather take my chances, and if it screwed me up again, THEN I'd try the Loestrin. I've been on Quasense for a week. Bleeding has stopped. No cramping. No weirdness down there. I feel 100% normal. And the real test will be another three weeks from now when I'm supposed to start up again, but I'm confident everything will go the way it ought to. Next time I should have any discomfort should be December, during winter break, which is absolutely perfect timing.

Mom and Dad actually drove the new pills down here to me. Mom was going to send them express so I would have them on the day of the field trip, but Dad said they should drive them down since I'd been so ill. I got them two days earlier, and as such, I only spotted during the trip, and not much at all, either. Love my parents. They drove eight hours round-trip for me. <3

Anyway. Writing exercises and music. And eventually I have to write a blog post, but I might leave that until tomorrow.

Before I go to bed:

Today was our final critique for Explorations in Clay. We each had to sign up for a ten-minute time slot so sit and show our stuff to/talk to Bethany. Mine was at 9:50. When I got up, Emma was sleeping. I didn't think anything of it; I thought she'd gone, come back, and gone back to sleep. Her alarm had gone off at some point, but I don't know when; I didn't check my watch. I just heard the thing and went unconscious again.

Did the critique (went very well), then brought two textbooks over to Heather and Heidi, who paid me $85. Came back to the dorm after loading my washed laundry into the dryer, and took a shower. When I reentered the room after the shower, Emma was up and getting dressed. I'd figured she wasn't dumb enough to sleep through her final (although lucky for her it was just a CRIT and not an actual test!), but I'd given her too much credit. Turns out she hadn't had an early appointment. Her appointment was at 9:10. It was 11am when I was done with my shower.

And you know what? Two hours late, no one in the room but she and Bethany, and she STILL spent the 20 minutes applying her makeup.

I told Mom about it. Mom was like, "What's wrong with that girl?" Yeah. Pretty much. Priorities? Who needs those? And she wants to transfer to another school. She better hope her teachers forgive her constant lateness. I can't imagine her grades are going to be all that great.

Anyway, good night. :D Alarm's set for eight, I might get breakfast in the morning for the first time all semester.

Is the size 0 wearing a freaking shape-suit?!

Also, aren't you supposed to put your underwear on underneath said bodysuit? Because she totally did the Superman thing.

-_- Emma...

^ Was supposed to be posted an hour and a half ago when it actually happened. Now it's after 2pm, and I'm back from helping with the cleanup at the ceramics studio. And dear Emma, in predictable fashion, didn't get to class until half an hour in. As a result, she's still cleaning while everyone else is more or less done. She didn't sign up for a job when she got in because no one told her to, I guess (we were all kind of busy cleaning), and the buckets of glaze under one of the tables needed to be cleaned, so Bethany was like, "Emma, did you sign up for a job yet? No? Here, I've got one for ya." She could've been out in an hour like me if she hadn't taken 45 minutes getting lunch.

ANYWAY. I got shit to do. I think I might lay off the QM project for now and focus on the CS lab assignments. The project's not due until Monday at noon. I have through the entire weekend to get that done.

EDIT: I texted Mom about it. Her response: "Wtf???? o_O" XDDD

Me: *walks in with a food container from Muddy*
Emma: You went to Muddy?
------
Emma: You're going camping?
Me: Huh?
Emma: Friday, you said something about not being here on Friday.
Me: Oh, no, I'm going on a retreat.
Emma: Oh. With a club?
Me: Yeah.
Emma: Which club?
Me: AWoL.
Emma: Oh. *laugh* I have no idea.
Me: All Ways of Loving.
Emma: ... For animal?
Me: Nope, people.
Emma: ... Transgender?
Me: Everyone. Gay, straight, bi, lesbian, transgender, everyone.
Emma: Oh.
Me: *starts eating*
Emma: Is it camping?

Oh my GOD. ATTENTION SPAN OF A PUPPY. This is why I don't like talking to her. Everything you say just freaking coasts through her head and out the other side.

Also, I got back here like 40 minutes ago and she was in the shower. I left at 12:15 and she had just turned off the shower. Factor in maybe 2-3 minutes for her to get dressed. It's nearly 1pm and she's still doing her makeup. I saw Moffa on my way to Muddy, sitting outside of Sunderland Hall with an umbrella up, and when I came back he was gone... I think he either texted her and she told him to go on, or he said "Fuck it, I'm hungry" and left. (The latter isn't really him at all, but my mind totally plays it out that way.)

Rooming with Heather next year's gonna be awesome. She doesn't wear makeup, she's not a ditz, we get along far better...