Hi guys,
I created a new blog, because I feel like that in college, I should have a different blog for a different stage of my life. Plus, my friend Caleb said I have to start blogging again. So I really don’t have a choice. Anyway, here’s the address for the new blog:
http://listenforthesilence.wordpress.com/
I should have something up soon. Right now it’s just…there.
Hope you all are well, Steph
I have an amazing sister.
When I transferred here to GCC, I met a girl on the first day of orientation. Her name is Lizzy. I thought she was absolutely gorgeous and had an amazing, bright smile. She looked very open and friendly, and we got to talking. Because of her openness, we have now become amazing friends. I would definitely say that she is my best girlfriend here on campus.
The fun part about her is she makes me feel like a girl. Which sounds weird, but usually I’m not a very girly person. But around her, I can’t help it. She does my hair, my makeup, makes me try on jewelry and clothing and shoes. Even now I’m wearing a skirt that she’s letting me borrow, I have a skirt she gave me to use whenever I want to, and another gift she got for me. She makes me be a girl, and I love it. I get to act all frilly and fun around her, and we can laugh at each other, talk about boys, speak of absolutely ridiculous things, and just find joy in the small things.
God truly blessed me with her, because right now I’m so happy. I feel feminine, and I feel special. She’s such a ray of sunshine in my life, and I feel honored to call her sister.
I’ve endured through several emotional battles these past 12 months. Each of them has had its own devastating effect on my life, even the small events. When I came to Grove City, I was hoping to put many of these things behind me, as well as to straighten out other things that needed amends.
I thought it was working and that maybe, finally, everything was okay. I even met somebody who made me smile more than I’ve smiled in a long time. He makes me laugh, shows me how to appreciate life for its finer points. He makes me feel, a task not suited for the average person.
Most importantly, his devotion to God is powerful and deep. Talking with him about our Adonai is one of my favorite things to do. He inspires me to want to live like a child of God, not as though I’m alone and wandering through life with no direction.
Yet that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
Through a series of stressful events, I’ve discovered that, for the time being, I have to give up something precious to me. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to take much strength. Even more, it’s going to take trust. But I know that if this is God’s will, He won’t leave me crying alone. He’s going to hold me and wipe away my tears and comfort me.
I don’t know what the future holds. There are going to be some rough times in the near future, but I’m praying that in the coming weeks and months, God will bless this friendship and allow love to create a bond that won’t break.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love Never Fails.”
Listening to: Twenty-Four, Switchfoot.
So I was up till 2:30 last night, when I was walked back to my room by Wes. I was physically quite tired, and definitely ready for bed, so I went up to my room and simply brushed my teeth and took off my sweats and shirt, not even bothering with pajamas.
And of course, the one night that I’m not properly dressed, an alarm loudly goes off. But not just any alarm, – though at first sounding I thought it was my alarm, and my mind was just amplifying it because of how tired I was – it was a fire alarm. Yep, a fire drill at 6:30 in the morning. Four hours of sleep interrupted by the second most obnoxious sound that has the immediate effect of causing people to fall out of bed and making the most conservative girls want to curse (subconsciously they feel this, of course, since they’re too dazed to realize that this is the perfect moment for swearing).
So I try to figure out what my roommate is saying about what I need to do (a week of orientation and they never even mentioned fire drills. Gosh), dismayed at the fact that I need to put on shoes and a coat and get out as fast as possible. Remember the part about just taking my clothes off when I got home? Yeah. I also pulled on pants. Still didn’t have a shirt, but my coat would do….
Mostly.
We had to evacuate to the chapel and sit there, bemoaning the ungodly hour and it’s inconvenience. For those of us with 8:00 classes, this was a most inopportune time, as it was less than an hour till I’d have to get up anyway. My roommates regaled me with stories about last years fire drill as I attempted not to fall asleep on the hard wood pew.
Now I’m back in my room, drinking Mt. Dew at 6:50 in the morning, realizing that it’s futile and wondering if it would have just been better to skip the 8:00 class and sleep, saying it’s too dangerous to get to class in this ice or something. Regardless, I’m going to take a very long nap, which is unfortunate because I have much studying to do for my Plato quiz tomorrow, and it’s going to take a lot of time to gather the information I need and to memorize it.
Oh, Grove City, such a cruel, cruel joke you must play.
The past week has been absolutely amazing. I’ve gotten to bond with some people, create new friendships, realize that I have even less time in a week than I thought…I’ve been told that you typically have three options to choose from: friends, grades, and extra-curricular activities. And Grove City College lets you choose 2.
Awesome.
But I really do love it. I just need to figure out how to focus better. Which has become very difficult. But I’m trying to fix that, so we’ll see how it goes.
That’s about all I can say right now, but more to come later, especially after the Extravaganza. 
This weekend was absolutely amazing. For many reasons. And this week has been going pretty amazingly, as well.
On Friday night, I have no clue what I did. I think I was hanging out with the other transfers some. Saturday night, some of the transfers and I were messing around on one of the two baby grands in Ket Rec (where students go to goof off). A man who looked like he was a senior or so came up and told us that we should play the other piano because he had tuned it the previous week. Interested in the fact that he knew how to tune a piano, I began talking with him – sometimes in between playing – and we seemed to get along rather finely. And just so you know, his name is Wes.
Now, the binder that holds my sheet music is the same binder that i used for D&D (remember those days, folks?). So in my searching of sheet music, the sheets had slipped to the side, revealing some of my old stat sheets. And he saw them.
He got this huge grin on his face and pointed at them, a question already forming on his lips. “Do you…?”
I seriously cringed and answered that yes, I played D&D. I think I may have been expecting social exile after that. But instead of being ex-communicated, he instead got really excited and was like, “I’m the president of the Order of St. George!”
I just kind of stared at him like, “Uhhhh…” He went on to explain that the Order is a group here on campus that does a lot of anime, tabletop RPGs, and mock combat stuff. To which I think I almost started crying, because I’ve been missing D&D quite a bit. He personally runs a d20 Star Wars Saga campaign, which if he starts another one I intend to get in on.
After playing the piano, one of the transfers suggested we start a back massage chain, so there were about seven of us all in a line massaging each other. Wes is apparently known for his back massages, so at one point, he finally moved behind me – after hearing I have back problems – and began to give me a back massage.
It. Was. Heaven.
After the massage/during, I met a couple of Wes’ friends from the Order, two girls actually. Joy and Chelsea, both very nice. The next day, I realized I had left my binder in Ket Rec, so I went back to retrieve it, and Joy and Chelsea recognized me and beckoned me to their table. I met a couple people while there; Carl, who’s a very talkative Chem major and terribly nice. Brendon, who is going to be running a 3.5 Pathfinder D&D campaign (unfortunately, very different from the 4.0 I played, so I have a heck of a lot to learn). James, who…well….is just James. Zach, who has a girlfriend by the name of Chelsea (different girl). He’s very strong and very nice. Plus several other people. So I’ve been hanging out with said group quite a bit whilst studying.
Yesterday, I called up my best girl friend here named Lizzy and told her I was in a girly mood and wanted to mess around with makeup. So she came over with makeup and dresses and we had some girly time. (for girls here) She did smokey eyes on me using bronze colors, and it looked totally awesome. (end girls here). She also sprayed sparkles all over me, so for the rest of the night I was glittering.
I went back to Ket Rec to study with the Order group, and Wes eventually showed up for the first time since I saw him Saturday. He ended up standing behind me and giving me a back massage….again. Which was wonderful. But then I realized i had sparkles all over my back and started laughing. When I explained to him why, he looked down at his hands and said something like, “Yeah, I noticed that. I’m not a fan of sparkles.” I just kept laughing.
On a whim, Wes, Carl and I went to Walmart because I had some drinks I wanted to pick up, so that was a fun little outing. We came back to Ket Rec – it being about 11:30 pm at this point – and Wes continued massaging me as we all talked and laughed and said we didn’t want to go to bed. We discussed a multitude of random things, and at one point swing dance came up. Swing is really popular on campuses, I’ve noticed, and they began talking about different dips (when a guy grabs a girl around the waist and drops her backwards. You know what I’m talking about). So Zach decided to demonstrate three on me. The first two are fairly normal, one just having a complicated and dizzying entrance. But the third, which they call the Tackle Dip, was really interesting. Basically, you hold hands with arms extended fully apart, and then suddenly the guy pulls you really close, really fast, really hard (in Zach’s case especially, since he’s really strong” and just as suddenly dips you really, really low.
As if this wasn’t enough, he made me do it again and told me to put both my feet in the air. So I went through the breath-taking motions again, and put both my legs in the air, almost turning over and kicking him in the head.
Yeah. More instruction needed, thank you.
So they laughed at me, since I had no clue what was going on. Shortly thereafter, we finally ended up going to bed, and as we were leaving, where I thought I was just going to have Wes escorting me back to my room – because he said he would – I suddenly had three guys around me walking me across the quad. It was really rather humorous. I mean, I have had guys take me back to my room if I’m around them. I love it. I love having gentlemen with me. When we were at Walmart, Wes and Carl practically wouldn’t let me carry anything. So anyway, they escorted me back to my room, and I finally got to sleep at past 1:00 am.
So yes, my time in GCC has been extremely wonderful. Lots of work – which aaah, I need to get to – but absolutely amazing. The people are wonderful and I’m having an absolutely amazing time.
So I’m going to my first dance on the fourth of February. And I got my dress today at White House Black Market. Here it is:
Bad picture, but I’ll post some from the actual dance eventually. Well, after the dance, obviously. So for now, this is what I have.
That’s the title of an article that my roommate has on our door. And I thought I would type it up, simply because it’s that hysterical. I saw it on my first day and couldn’t stop laughing. So. (and things in parenthesis are my notes to explain)
When in the course of campus events…
About two dozen Grove City College students were seen dumping Bon Appetit (our cafeteria) pizza into Wolf Creek (the creek running across campus) late Sunday night. The students, dressed as Native Americans, were reportedly protesting the recent 50-percent increase in the price of Sunday-night pizza.
When asked why he was participating in the demonstration, senior Patrick Henry simply asked, “Is dough so warm or cheese so tasty as to be purchased at the price of three whole quarters?” Sophomore Nathan Hale, another one of the protesters, added, “I only regret that I have but one dollar to spend on my pizza. And dang it, I want two slices.”
The demonstrators had reportedly planned to dispose of the pizza in the Hall of Arts and Letters (one of the main academic buildings with a fountain in front of it) courtyard, but changed their minds after discovering that the fountain lacked a pool of water into which the pizza could actually be thrown.
Campus Security responded to the incident but failed to apprehend any suspects. The protesters had scattered shortly after the officers were dispatched, tipped off by a single light in Rockwell (science center) tower and a student on a scooter. A number of attendees had already left the protest early, apparently disappointed that the “pizza party” hadn’t been quite what they expected.
Officers arrived at Rainbow Bridge only to find junior John Paul Jones, who appeared to have been uninvolved in the protest, consuming some of the leftover pizzas and shouting, “I have not yet begun to eat!” at passersby. One of the officers called to the scene later referred to the incident as “the second most absurd episode involving costumed students on campus this year.”
Several members of the Grove City mathematics department were also in attendance. The students, who are currently taking statistical methods, were attempting to determine whether the presence of water below the pizza had an effect on its propensity to land topping-side down. The early termination of the activities rendered the results inconclusive.
A school official, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed concern that the dumping of the pizza would be a violation of EPA regulations, which classify Wolf Creek and the surrounding property as a wetland. Bon Appetit, in response to the environmental concerns, promised to create an “In Balance” pizza option design specifically for consumption by local wildlife.
Meanwhile, Raymond Hamby, a spokesperson for the western Pennsylvania Tea Party movement, expressed dismay at the student’s actions. “It’s sad to see people taking such a cherished icon of American culture and perverting it with directionless anger and anti-intellectual rhetoric,” he said. “The disruptive actions of these students only serve to undermine possibilities for constructive dialogue on the pizza issue.”
Despite the breakup of the initial demonstration, college officials believe the pizza protests are far from over. Bon Appetit’s records indicate that numerous “Ask the Chef” cards have been filed regarding the pizza, one of which stated, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all students are created hungry, that they are endowed by their mommies with certain unalienable rights, that among these are chicken patties, 50-cent pizza and the good brunch muffins they had last year.” Just how far the pizza protesters will be willing to go in pursuit of their rights remains yet to be seen.
Well, I arrived at GCC on Friday morning to be shoved into about five different orientations, a lunch, and LOADS of fun!
Firstly, this college is beautiful. I can’t wait till I have my camera and can take some pictures. Just looking at this college makes me smile. Living here? I feel like I’m in a scholarly heaven.
The people here are all very friendly. I’m in a dorm with three seniors (we’re split into two rooms), which I’m okay with, though I would prefer people my age. But all of my roommates are terribly nice, and I can’t wait to get to know them better.
I’ve learned lots of new games by hanging out with the students on Orientation Board (they’re the ones who hang out with the transfers and new students and help us get orientated). Ultimate Ping Pong is my favorite to watch (the guys become such idiots it’s hysterical) and my favorite new card game is Nertz.
As usual, my first day hasn’t gone as planned. I got up at 6:50 so I could go to breakfast. First I couldn’t find my wallet, so I had to go back in the room to get it. Then I didn’t have my schedule in my purse (it disappeared) so I had to go online to figure out where my first class was. Then when I went to find the cafeteria (the one I haven’t been to before), I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where it was. So I had to go back to my room and get a granola bar (thereby waking my roommate again…). I proceeded to the Sac (student union) to get a drink, and my student ID didn’t work, so I had to use cash to buy my drink. I then went to the building where I thought I had my first class…and figured out that I was looking at the wrong class and was in the wrong building. So, proceed back to the science center. After class, I went to the technology center to see if they could figure out what was wrong with my email, and ended up looking stupid because they had no problem.
Go figure.
At the bookstore, I found out they have a totally different policy for picking up books, so I had to fill out a form so I can get them later. Now I’m waiting for class, then I’ll go get my books, then I’ll go to lunch, then meet another student to buy a book off of her, then I have to wait for my next class.
I hate first days.
Today was an awesome Christmas. I had a wonderful, wonderful day with my friends. Christmas presents were amazing. I got a lovely necklace, a lounge outfit, Borders and iTunes gift cards, a cell phone for college (Samsung Zeal), and my Bose headphones! Our boarder, Brintha, gave me a book of India-inspired cross-stitches that are absolutely stunning, so now my mom has to teach me again, plus a gorgeous pair of glass earrings.
After opening presents and spending the morning at home, we headed over to my sister’s best friend’s house, where we spend the rest of the day with the family. Two boys, four girls…so much fun. At one point Zach, the oldest brother (20), offered to take me out on their horse, Bubba (interesting name, I know). So we went out and got on bareback, and struggled to get the horse to actually move (as stubborn as a donkey, it is). We finally got it out into the main part of the backyard, which can be seen through the bay windows where our parents were sitting. The family’s dog decided to show up at this point, which seemed to spook the horse. Much to my shock, it began to buck. Since we were riding bareback, with Zach sitting in front of me and my arms wrapped around him, there really wasn’t anything for him to hold on to, and he decided it would be safest to just fall.
And of course he fell on top of me.
It was mildly painful, but terribly fun. I can’t wait for the pain to settle in tomorrow. 
Then later, after the others had gone on their ATVs, Zach took me out. Knowing his reputation as a bit of a reckless driver, I was more than a little curious as to what they meant. So I got on behind him, loosely wrapped my arms around him, and waited to see how it would turn out.
It was nothing like I expected.
He’s a small guy, a couple inches taller and probably only a couple pounds heavier. So holding on to him felt like holding on to air. As he drove around, I found out that my expectations were quite underestimated. He drives terribly, TERRIBLY fast, and I felt like I was going to fall off the ATV on every corner. I voiced my concern, and he laughed and said we wouldn’t.
Riiiiiiiiggggggghhht. Just like you said the horse wasn’t going to throw us off.
But, somehow, we made it back safely. Apparently I was holding tighter and tighter to him, because he told my mom afterwards that I kept holding on tighter as the ride continued, and he was laughing about it.
hehehe. Oops…
Then we played Psychiatrist, which was hysterical, watched Salt, and began playing some game having to do with the stock market, which pretty much translated to Zach handing me tiles to put on the board. Obviously, I had no clue what was going on.
But it was a wonderful day, and I do hope that I’ll get one more day with the family before I go off to college. It was great fun, the best since I’ve moved.
So there’s my Christmas. Hope you all had a lovely day and spent time with family and friends. Love, Steph
