7 weeks.

After my first seven weeks in college, I think it's safe to say that I have already started to change as an individual.  From my experience, here are the changes a college freshman experiences before fall midterms:

A solidification of ideas and morals:  

Where you stand on things like underaged drinking, sex, manners, and what is "right"or "wrong" will go through a metamorphosis. You realize that somethings you thought were okay really aren't and visa versa. Can also apply to politics, but most freshmen don't care yet.

Religious beliefs:

Christian? Muslim? LDS? Atheist? Buddhist? Islam? Animalism? Polytheism?

Whatever religion you previously affiliated with  will either become start to have a stronger part in your life or disappear almost completely. Most freshmen would rather sleep in on a Sunday.

Use of independence:

Freshmen very quickly find out how much independence they can handle.  Sometimes, the ability to party every night and skip every 8 a.m. gets to be too much.  Especially when the first exam is a fail.  They also learn about setting up a schedule, time-management, budgeting and studying.

Family values:

Homesickness will set in, or at least friendsickness.  Freshmen learn that maybe they miss home more than they thought they would, and regret  how quickly they said good-bye on move-in day.

Human relations:

Dealing with people who have opposing beliefs, contrasting personalities, and abrasive characters can be difficult.  It can be down-right impossible if your roommate is the one with whom your personality clashes.  College forces you to deal with people in a civil manner and allows you to become more accepting of differing personalities.

In my seven weeks I have become a more organized person.  I have also solidified my beliefs, realized that maybe I need my mother more than I thought, have had to deal with some pretty unruly people, and have found a church that I love to get up in the morning for.  For me, a night in the dorms with my girls is more fun than a night in the forest with a bunch of drunkards.  I have found time to indulge my love for volunteering through Habitat for Humanity, and I have realized that I really am more of an introvert than an extrovert.  

College is great, just don't go into it expecting anything less than for your perspective on life to change completely.

X is for Xanax (Alphabe-Thursday)

Life is one giant ball of

 oh-my-god-what-am-I-gunna-do-now-my-life-is-a-hell-hole-I-have-hit-rock-bottom-nothing-is-ever-going-to-fix-this-problem-God-please-help-me-I-can't-do-it-any-more

moments

mixed with the much preferrable

yes-this-is-perfect-life-can't-get-any-better-than-this-I-am-on-top-of-the-world-and-nothing-will-bring-me-down-I-love-me-life-and-everyone-in-it

 moments.

Don't deny it, everybody has hated their lives at one point or another, we aren't perfect.

For the days/weeks/months full of the less preferable string of words, we all just need to sit down, take a Xanax, sip some wine and relax.

At least, thats what soap operas and sitcoms aimed at a teenaged audience teaches us, right?

Disclaimer: for those of you who do not know me, I neither drink nor take Xanax.  This is purely fiction.

V is for Voluptuous

"If you got it, flaunt it."

Well sometimes, "you" got too much,

and should just get rid of it.

There comes a point in Voluptuous just turns into plain Ginormous.

Ginormous Butt

Ginormous Thighs

Ginormous Ta-Ta's

Now, if you love your Voluptuous-on-the-verge-of ginormous butt/thighs/ta-ta's...by all means let it all hang out, or keep them all in with too-small clothing.

Just remember that the rest of the world is looking at you, too.

http://www.sinanbastas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Huge-Butt.jpg

I am ridiculously frustrated with being sick ALL of the time.  You may think that I am over exaggerating, but I'm really not.  My heart is irregular and it causes me to feel run-down, sick, and tired every minute of every day of every week of every month...since November.  Some days are better than others, for sure, but even on those "good" days I can barely walk the mile to my class without feeling lightheaded or go up the 48 stairs to my floor without legitly being out of breath.

I am stuck in the body of a 70 year-old...and I hate it.

Hopefully it will get figured out eventually, and by eventually I mean like, tomorrow...because I can't enjoy the "best years of my life" when I have to spend it all feeling like a zombie.

sorry for the rant.

"Love is old, Love is new, Love is all, Love is you"

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over,  it became a butterfly"

You and I, we struggle every day to be able to look through the hot messes of our lives and see the beauty inside of it.  Some days, we lose the battle and are overcome by the nastiness of the world.  But every once in a while we come across a perfect day full of beautiful things and people and ideas, and those are the days we try to achieve over and over again. 

The world is full of beauty, it wasn't created to be anything less than perfect. So, why do we pollute it with our ugliness -- our anger, our jealousy, our hatred, our selfishness, our words, our gluttony?  If we want lives full of beauty, we need to stop suffocating it with our own ugliness.

We deserve better than a world wrapped up and suffocating in ugliness.  We deserve a metamorphosed world, beautiful and perfect in itself again.  Not a world speckled with beauty, but one that shines so bright it almost hurts.  

&& all this has to start from the inside out <3

http://www.iamashcash.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/caterpillar-to-butterfly1.jpg

Adjustment

Sometimes, it takes a heated debate to make a person open her eyes and actually see the big picture.  My honor's course involves a game in which we have to pretend we are ancient Athenians in 403 B.C.  We have to decide how to rebuild our city back to former greatness through debates. Wednesday, two boys' heated discussion ended like this:

"Think of it this way: The 30 were just the little heads on a great big body.  If you chop off all of the heads, the body becomes useless"
"The body still has talons, it could thrash you when you least suspect it!"
"...Try thrashing without a head!"

I'm not completely positive why that stupid part of a conversation has caused me to rethink things, but it has.  I realized that I am unhappy with my current roommate situation, that I need to involve myself more, and that I already want to change my major.  My priorities are completely off-kilter, and I hate feeling like I do right now.  I've lost my faith, my biggest definer.

The thrashing, headless monster has nothing to do with any of those things, except that once it becomes headless, it needs to adjust to being blind and brainless.  YOU try thrashing without a head, and let me know how it goes.

http://mybreakthroughbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Monster.jpg