Cheesy made Easy

I'm currently eating Mac and Cheese.

Let me tell you, nothing has ever tasted so damn good.

Before I can properly describe as to why I say this, I will rewind the clock just a bit.

It's 9:25, and I'm on my way to meet Randy to go the Rec as usual. Everything is normal, except for the constant bombs of water falling from the sky.

It's not so bad, and I like rain. On the way to the gym, at least.

The way back, it's cold as hell (okay maybe its 52), raining harder, and windy.

My dorm to the rec= 20ish minutes.

So that was fun walk.

But really, it was kinda fun. Good talk with Randy, and rainy and cold is better than hot and dry to me any day.

I got back to my dorm, recieved a giggle from Rex at the sight of my hair, and promptly made mac and cheese.

I've developed a strange habit of listening to jazz and classical music lately.

This has to wrap up soon, Rex just climbed into bed, and I don't wanna be a D.

A strange thought creeped into my head earlier: What would the 10 year Sean think of the 18 year old Sean?

I spent a good 20 minutes (which I should have been studying during...Whatev.) thinking about this, and came to the conclusion that 10 year old me and me would get along alright.

I'm not a massive jerk, and I drive a cool car. I think that met qualifications for being cool when I was 10.

Oh, quick story to wrap things up:

Earlier today, I'm chilling in my room studying.

Rex walks in, grin on his face, and says

"Sean guess what!"

I look up, ask what? and he excitedly, and happily responds:

"While I was running I got hit by a car!"

(He's fine)

The kid makes me laugh.

Glade: Fresh scent!

Wandering about the WSU campus, I look at the building names and realize that I'd really like to be filthy rich someday.

The majority of buildings here are named after people who donated large sums of money to the University. I walk by Southside Dining Center, and notice the name on the building is Hall, (the first name escapes me...) So Mr. Hall donated a ton of money to WSU, and if this guy is anything like me, he was hoping they would name a residence hall after him.

For instance, I live in Stephenson Hall.

I sorta wonder if this Hall guy donated money for the shiggles of a residence hall here being called Hall Hall.

Imagine the confusion...

"Dude, which hall are you in?"

"Hall."

Back to my original point, I'd like to one day have a ridiculous sum of money I could straight up give to WSU, preceded by a temporary name change to Werxfunkcarblemaincat, or something.

.....And thats what has been on my mind lately.

Oh yea, classes started yesterday.

Monday Wednesday Friday- Gened and Math.
Tuesday and Thursday- Engrish, Psych, and Music.

Earliest class= 10:10, meaning if I eat in my dorm and shower quickly, I can sleep in until like 9:45 if I really want to, and even later on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I got homework from all 5 classes.

I wanted to refrain from telling people this, as I knew their smug reaction would be "Welcome to college"

Naturally, I inform my mother that every single on of my professors assigned either reading or an assignment, and her reaction were the exact words.... Welcome to college.

The thing is, I saw it all coming. Currently, I have completed Gened, psych, english, half of music, and half of math. I hope to finish music tonight (which is due Thursday) and math tomorrow (which is due Monday.)

So for now, I feel like I have a decent grip on things.

For now.

Me and the rec center are becoming good buddies. After a ridikulus (ree dik ooh luhs) leg workout, I walked back to my dorm (a lovely 15-20 minute walk depending on pace) and threw together one of the best things ever:

Well, the first thing I saw when I opened my fridge was bread.

So I grab a slice of bread.

Looking up, I see peanut butter.

So I smear so of the substance on the bread, and just as I'm about to call it done, I see the bag of flamin hot cheetos out of the corner of my eye, and without thinking twice pour a small bit on the bread, roll it all together, and a few seconds later I was rather satisfied and downing my glass of chocolate milk.

And now ima go watch Dexter.

Free food?

So day 5 of college, I'm starting to get the hang of things.

I believe the main reason that I feel relatively comfortable with my surroundings is the fact that classes have yet to start, so a week from now, if I'm still feeling rather chill, I'll be pretty happy.

With the comfort of living here, I'm starting to miss home quite a bit. I see pictures of people doing cool (ish) things back in Tri Town, and I feel like I'm missing out.

I say that now, but who knows, maybe by the end of the year I'll think you guys are all lame and boring.






But don't count on it. :)




Me and Huihung (who will from now on be called Rex) have been getting along fine, he's pretty quiet, and is rather easy to live with.

We (everyone on our floor) had a meeting today, 26 guys crammed into our "lounge*" to listen to our RA give us some ground rules.

*Most floors have one of two cool features: A small kitchenette, featuring a sink and microwave, or a huge ass lounge, many have both.

Us cool kids here on the fourth floor have neither. Our kitchen was somehow selected to be the place where the microfridges are to be stored for the year, and our lounge is about the size of a standard dorm room.

So one of the guys who lives on this floor, Uris, gets people to throw some cash his way so he can buy a microwave off of craigslist to put in our lounge.

Two days later, it's confiscated and nowhere to be seen.




The upside of all this? That's about the only thing I have to whine about so far.

I'm kinda strangely diggin the food a lot. My breakfast usually consists of a yogurt/fruit/granola thingy, some bacon, and a biscuit with gravy.

In order to conserve money, I generally survive off cheetos and chocolate milk until dinner, which is usually a sammich with fruit, or a slice a pizza.

I haven't gone crazy with eating yet, and so far I've been to the gym every day.

Oh yea, one more thing to whine about, I live far away and downhill from EVERYTHING.

Meaning, if I want to go somewhere, it's a long walk, and all up hill.

I made the mistake of working out my legs yesterday. The 20 minute walk back to my dorm was rather unpleasant.

So classes start tomorrow.

During high school, I had to get up at 6:15-6:30 every day to get to school on time.

Tomorrow I'm playing it safe, and waking up at 8:45. Most Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I'll be able to sleep in until closer to 9:30. Tuesdays and Thursdays won't start until almost 10 for me.

I'm realllllllly liking that.

Combined with the fact that it's already cooling down here, meaning I can actually sleep, and you get one satisfied Sean who thinks he might not fail all of his classes.

Oh yea, I have no idea what to major in.

I am good with computers, and I like writing.

So that means.... Computer Engineering, or english or journalism or something.

Problem with any engineering program is that you need a few years of calculus.

....Which isn't going to happen as far as I'm concerned. Plus, I don't want to be here longer than 4 years.

So for the time being it looks like I'm headed towards something in the communications department.

I'm taking all of the required stuff this year so that next year I can start with stuff towards my major (if I have a clue what I'll be doing by that point.)

Tomorrow I have Gened 110, and math 105.

Also I'm hungry.




Sorry for the lack of sense. I miss you guys!

Also come visit me.

my arms are tired

Today, it didn't start off too well.

Sleep was next to impossible by my standards, finally dozing off around 3:30 and waking up every hour or so until hunger and despair caused me to climb out of my bed in a daze. I showered and whatnot, and hit up southside cafe for breakfast.

Biscuits and gravy, bacon, and a banana. Hellllllllllllll yea.

I came back to my room, talked to Rex for a minute, and then gave in to the fact that I need to purchase books for my classes.

542 dollars later, I was on my way back to my room from the book store (a 10 or so minute walk) laden with rather heavy books. My arms still kinda hurt.

I came back to my room, played some video games, then met up with Ben to venture out to the unbeknownst land that is the north side of campus. We ate at Northside, found it was just about the same thing as Southside, and then we departed for the parking office where I picked up my blue level 1 (the lowest/cheapest option) pass.

Around 2:30, I ventured a nap. It was strangely successful, waking up 3 hours later rather awake and pumped. I lazed around my dorm for a bit, and then Ben, the asians, and I grabbed some dinner. I managed to spend under 3 dollars on my meal!

We again departed. I figured it was time to get to know some of the people from my floor, so I wandered into the open rooms and a few minutes later, five of us ventured to the rec center to play some pool, which I still suck at, and then after missing the bus and seeing the line of people waiting to go to shopko, we took a ride in the Sentra to the soon to be out of business store to reap the benefits of the back to school sale.

So, our floor doesn't have a microwave. Pretty much all the other ones do.

Naturally we went to a girls floor, popped a bag, went to another girls floor, and repeated, first wandering about asking the first female we found whether or not they had a microwave on their floor.

;)

Finally the five of us met a few other guys from our floor, and watched Anchorman in the common room.

Today, it ended pretty well.

and stuff

This morning came far too early.

I slept in my bed for the last time until Thanksgiving break, but only for roughly 4 hours. For some strange reason, sleep was not the easiest thing to come by last night (or should I say this morning?)

10:15 this morning meant one thing to me: Appearing in traffic court.

I'm sure most of you recall the blog concerning the ticket and whatnot, and this morning the issue finally came to a close.

Original ticket: 175 for speeding, 134 for defective exhaust. After paying 187 dollars for a new muffler (and for my car to still be loud, and simply sound horrible) I entered the court room hoping to not have to pay the exhaust ticket at all, but not really getting my hopes up.

Good thing to, because I only got it reduced to 80 dollars. However, I did get the whole thing differed, so the the insurance won't increase.

All in all, I spent $442 dollars on the entire mess.





Oh yea, I'm at college now.

I got all my goodbyes in last night, many of which almost ended rather messily.

Things at WSU are going rather smoothly so far. I've been hanging with Ben and the asian twins, and making a few new friends in my building.

A few of you have taken a strange interest in my room mate, so here is the story of how we officially met:

My room is right next to the common room. I'm sitting in the common room talking to a guy from my floor, when all of the sudden I hear a loud and rather unpleasant sounding crash that sounds uncomfortably close to the room I'll reside in the rest of this academic year.

I walk over, unlock the door, and see Rex standing in the middle of his bed.... Or what was his bed before it pretty much fell down everywhere.

Nothing was damaged, and I walk over and we shake hands.

Five other guys from our floor and 20 minutes later, his bed is reconstructed and things are good to go.

We talk for a minute or two, and then I peace out to meet up with Benjamyn and the Trans. We do nothing for a few minutes to remind ourselves that we aren't all that cool, and then head to dinner.

I somehow managed to buy 13.10 worth of food, but I'm hoping I didn't see the discount for being a student applied... Because I will last like a week at that rate.

We then hit up the rec center and did some hella weight lifting, and my arms feel nice and beaten right now.

Finally I came back to my dorm to recharge, and met some more people from Stephenson North. We sat around in a dorm eating from a massive box of pizza, chatting it up about where everyone's from and whatnot. We played a game of Apples to Apples (which I discovered I'm beyond terrible at) and then dispersed.

Now, I'm gonna try to sleep in my 80 degree room.

Pullman is treating me well so far.




Btw, I really friggin miss everyone back home already.

Hey Sean, what are you doing tomorrow?

Party at Albertsons Tuesday night, come, bring friends, prepare to be kicked out and move down to the sports complex on Keene.

hhhWhy?

Because I leave for WSU on Wednesday.

I would love it if you came to see me off on Wednesday as well, though I have no idea as to when exactly I'll be departing for shenanigans in Pullman. Why? Because (rewind a few blogs back, and recall the grand tale of my ticket getting) I mailed in my ticket requesting a date in court to explain the circumstances of my actions blah blah blah, and what day do they give me? August the 18th of course, at 10:15 am, aka pretty much when I planned to leave home.

Last night laying on a couch in a basement not belonging to me, the realization that I leave for college in such a minuscule amount of time truly dawned on me.

At the time I had been what felt like seconds from sleep, yet when this lovely fact dawned upon me all things tired simply vanished, and I laid awake staring off into nothingness not exactly content with life.

I realized that my room has yet to be compacted into a few plastic bins. It's kind of like I don't want to finish packing because I don't really want to leave.

Perusing through one of the many handouts I received while at orientation, I found myself reading a list of things that many incoming freshman fear about their college experience. Nearing the top of the list was "Having to prove myself over again"

I read that the first time and pretty much said eh.

But then, I was like sheeeeeeeeeeeit.

I guess one could say that I'm a bit anxious about doing the whole friend making thing again.

It has been said that first impressions matter quite a bit in this world. If this statement is true, I'm in trouble. As most of you know, or probably have realized, I don't do so great with first impressions. When people see my awkwardly red face, shake my sweaty hand, and hear my name as "John," I don't think they immediately feel the desire to surround themselves with my company. Others who have known me for a period of time exceeding 12 seconds may disagree, but I won't have a lot of those others with me at college.

Alden and Jeremy, who I have been buddies with since K-status (Kindergarten) will no longer be attending the same school as me, nor will they be a 10 minute drive down the bypass. Both will be hours away at different colleges, which kinda freaks me out.

I guess I'll have that one blonde kid to keep me sane (or push me off the deep end.)

Well that's my brain right now.

I'll get back to the good stuff.

I woke up at 10:30 this morning. Yea, I know, arising at 10:30 isn't normal or healthy. Luckily I went back to sleep until about 2, so it's all good. I immediately left to help out mah cousin Mason with computer stuff,* it was supposed to be a simple task, and I seemed to have forgotten that absolutely NOTHING is ever as simple as it seems with computers. Ever. Don't even try.

*Is it just me or is everyone suddenly in need in Sean's free tech support? I mean as usual I don't really mind helping people with their minor issues, but its sorta like everyone realizes I'm leaving and decides they need to get my help one last time before I'm free of computer illiterate people. Until, that is, word gets out in Pullman that I know how to plug in a keyboard. Then I'm effed.

Came home for a bit, and went to Amber's. I kinda forget who all was there, so I'm going to avoid naming everyone to save myself the embarrassment of leaving out that one person by accident. We watched a few episodes of Boy Meets World (hooolllly crap flashbacks to elementary school) and got pizza just in time for me to go home and eat, where I was greeted with copious amounts of sarcasm and more than a few smart ass remarks from my dad about me never being home.

So then I left again.

Mick, Gareth and I went to Gareth's house to build Mick's computer.

Waitwaitwait: Mick and Gareth went to Gareth's to play Chatroullette, I built Mick's computer.

Finally the night ended at Sharri's with some good friends.

Two days.

It's been a while... yea yea yea

"I kind of enjoy the fact that there is absolutely nothing to do here. It forces us to spend time together."

-My Aunt, day 3 of our family reunion.

That pretty much sums up the past few days of my life.

Sunday morning I departed from West Richland and traveled down highway 12 for a few hours until we arrived at Lake Mayfield for our family reunion.

It was a relatively small get together, featuring about 20 members of the Wise family (my Dad's Mom's side) getting together to... reunite, or something.

I'm a bit too tired to want to recap the events of the trip, and all I'm really focused on right now is spending as much time as possible with the Tri Town gang before I leave.

I leave in two effing weeks.

Blake and I rolled out of bed this morning at 8, and departed from the Lake by 8:45. I drove the entire way in Blake's '94 Suzuki Sidekick.

Worst. Drive. Ever.

Driving 194 miles in an extremely slow, loud, and uncomfortable car ranks up there in my least favorite experience list. Passing people was especially scary, as I foolishly assumed that dropping down to 4th gear, hitting about 4500rpm would increase my speed at a high enough rate to easily get around all the semis. Reality kicked in, very slowly, as the car struggled to accelerate past 40mph up a hill. Combine this with the fact that there was no air conditioning, meaning the windows were down most of the trip, toss in a loud low quality stereo, and you have one exhausted tired slightly displeased Sean extremely happy to drive his own car again.

So I get home. I try to leave immediately, but some people are just sort of dumb. Instead, I head to CBRC to have a brief chat with my manager, and then see the people who I haven't seen in what feels like forever. Tyrell (Tyson) and Josh are pleased to see me, and Drew (who was swimming with the kids at the time) was so excited that he delivered his happiness by sending a group of kids to hug me.

A group of unclean dripping wet kids.

They latch on to me and I immediately want to drop kick them back into the pool.

As usual, I somehow find the patience to resist the impulse, and instead just shake them off and grunt.

I talk with Alden for a bit and come to the sad realization that I was at work, without working. I was at the one place that I never wanted to be when I actually had a reason to be there.

But then I realized work is a lot more fun when you aren't actually working.

Prime example: You all remember Isaac, right? The wild swearing streaker kid from an earlier blog?

Well, after swim time, Isaac enters the main room, gets his clothes, and goes into a bathroom to change. Seconds later, he reenters, absolutely unclothed, and announces

"I forgot a sock."

He walks over to his bag, picks up a sock, and walks out like nothing strange was happening.

That was pretty much my que to leave. As soon as I stopped laughing, I peaced out for home where I lazed around until Pete and Tyson came over.

We sit in my room until Tyson and I grow weary of hearing Pete whine about how hungry he is. We give in to him by heading to Tyson's to make some pasta roni, or whatever, and it was all very un good. Kalli and Sydney met up with us, and pretty soon we were on our way to My Fro Yo, which is pretty much my new favorite place.

We met up with quite a few people at the wonderful establishment of sub freezing dairy products, and had a jolly old time. Gareth, Connie, and Brenna met up with us at this point, and finally all the chill people head to the spinny park.

Dani, Amber, Mick, Josh, and Josh all met up with us at the park and a jolly time was had by all, other people flowed in and out and it was just another dandy night in the Tri Cities.

It's nights like tonight I'm really going to miss.