Trashcan Ownership for Dummies

Happy end-of-summer, people. Though, the end of summer isn't all that happy, I suppose. So, less happy end-of-summer and more depressing end-of-summer.

The end of summer is depressing.

Hence the blog.

Gah, but seriously, it's been a while, hasn't it? How's everything been with you? How's your life going? How are your kids?

(Don't answer. I don't care.)

I moved into my kick ass apartment last weekend. So...that's a bit exciting. I have all sorts of non-matching furniture that I stuck inside of it and then pretty much called it a day. All of my friends with new apartments spent all summer collecting furniture and acessories and whatnot. I decided to not do that and instead spend the last week or so panicking.

It's been fun.

Mostly I stole furniture from unsuspecting members of my family and then spray painted it while they weren't paying attention. I also got some stuff from goodwill. And for everything I couldn't steal or goodwill, there was Walmart.

I bought a trashcan there yesterday. For some reason, buying a my very own trashcan made me feel like a grownup. Feeling like a grownup made me very depressed. I do not want to be a grownup. I want to exist in a perpetual state of immaturity and never pay back my stupent loans.

But on the bright side, I have a trashcan now.

But no wifi. That's the downside of Fort Danielle 4.0. There is no wifi until Tuesday. So...I've been bored. And depressed. And lonely. I can't waste all of my time online. I've had to find other ways to waste my time and they are far less enjoyable than mucking around on the internet.

Like, I actually cooked food that wasn't a grilled cheese sandwich. And then I cleaned the kitchen. And made tea. And then watched dvds and listened to cds....it was like the early 2000s.

Anyway.

My dawn-of-time-esque escapes aside, I started classes today. I'm taking four sociology classes and I love ALL OF THEM. It's such a shame that there's not exactly a clamoring need for more sociologists. If there was, I would so get a doctorate. I feel like the world would be a better place if I had a doctorate.

As it is, my more profitable major is likely where I'll end up pursuing a career.

Criminal justice. Woo.

No, but I like criminal justice. It's just that sociology is basically criminal justice with the part pertaining to criminals filtered out.

Yay! No criminals or risk of getting shot at!

I should go...I have another class today (personal finance...that class so doesn't deserve a woo.).  But once 'm done with that, I'm free to go back and chill in Fort Danielle 4.0, aka the Batcave.

Yeah. I am 100% a responsible adult-type person.

The Negative Effects of Mass Effect

In celebration of finals week, I've crafted this good old-fashioned video blog just for you! 

(don't tell the others)

Anyway, I hate finals. They suck and make me sad. I've been existing in a state of constant anxiety for the past like month. 

But instead of doing anything to relieve this anxiety like, I don't know, studying I've just been taking a lot very discouraged naps. 

Sigh. One day I'll be a fully functional and responsible adult. You'll see. You'll all see! 

Until then...have a video blog. 

A vlog, as it were. 

So, there's that for you. I would write more, but, you know...finals. 

(Protip: When you want to go play video games, but don't want to be rude, just say finals. Trust me.) 

The Five Things No One Tells You About College

One week left to go of sophomore year, you guys. One more week. And then I am free to be unemployed and poor in the comfort of my own home instead of unemployed and poor at college

Hoo-rah.

So, as of next week, I will personally be halfway done with my college education with a degree in journalism/telecommunication/advertising/graphic design/criminal justice/sociology. (Mostly criminal justice, but hey. I've majored in all of those things, so whatever.) So I think I'm a credible source so far as college and stuff goes. I'm part of that culture, or whatever you want to call it. I'm cool, I'm hip, I'm part of the target audience that the Twilight movies tried (and failed) to market to.

(Mostly, the Twilight movies ended up being marketed to 13 year old girls and middle-aged women unsatisfied with their marriages. I was an advertising major for nine days. I know these things.)

Anyway, I was bored and thinking about college as, you know, a concept. I came up with five things that I really wish someone would have told me before I came here and my life got all screwed up.

Without further ado...

The Five Things No One Tells You About College

1. The Monopoly Money Effect

Unless you are one of the lucky few with rich parents who are also generous, you will be paying for college yourself. Just, an FYI...college is stupid expensive.

I know I'm probably the first person to tell you this awful, awful fact, but it's true. I could sell all of the organs in my body on the Taiwanese black market and still be in debt after college. I know. I checked.

(My debt adds about 75 cents a day in interest to my rather impressive running total. So...there's that.)

I'm paying for my degree with stupent loans (which is a combination of the words "student loans" and "stupid loans" because they are both things. Stupid, I mean. And also for students.) It's pretty cool because I just sign a piece of paper and them I get all of this money. Money for books! Money for food! Money for netflixs!

Money that I, eventually, am supposed to pay back. That part, the whole "this is not my money to have for keeps, this is my money to use right now and then give back later" doesn't really seem all that important right now. It's like monopoly money. It's not like real human money that I need to pay back. It's colorful paper money that charges interest in fun not in dollars.

That's a lie. It does charge interest in dollars. So now I have negative dollars Which is, like, the opposite of fun.

But, right now, it's hard to visualize the pile of money that I owe my school. Instead, I visualize the pile of xbox games I could buy with the money I owe my school. And v-neck tees. I look awesome in v-neck tees.

So, yeah. Monopoly money. Except, in this scenario Free Parking is actually $2,000 per semester parking and the Community Chest gives you free rape whistles instead of cash.

Like I said...college is weird.

2. Motivation is Hard

In high school, there was always someone there to tell you to get your shit done. Be it your parents, your teachers or your guidance counselor, there was always someone there telling you that you had to do your homework before you were allowed to take naps and eat pizza.

I mean, you could ignore them if you tried hard enough, but there were always around. Like gnats. Or very over-involved prison wardens. It was really hard to not do things in high school because there was always someone there to give you shit about not doing it.

But in college, you can do what you want. Want to sleep through your 11:00 class? That's fine! Whatever, bro...we know you have other things going on. No one is going to come remind you that you have a test you didn't study for or an essay exam that you're currently sleeping through. That's your business.

You have to make yourself study and make yourself go to class and make yourself not eat ice cream and pizza rolls for every meal. And it's really hard. Why would I go to class when instead I can stay in my dorm all day, not put on real pants and play xbox for literally fourteen hours without stopping?

That's one of the many reasons why college is awesome. And why so many people flunk out.

3. Graduating is Confusing

Have you filled out forms w, 92, button and a² + b² = c²? Have you taken all your classes in perfectly sequential order? Have you filed out a zoning permit for the ground you are currently standing on? Have you slaughtered a goat to the the old gods? 

Oh, you slaughtered it on a Tuesday...yikes. I'm afraid only goats sacrificed during full moons that fall on Wednesday are admissible. 

So sorry, but it looks like you aren't going to graduate this year! Try again next time. 

This is how it feels. This is exactly how it feels. It is way too complicated to graduate. In high school, people were always hounding you and making sure you had the right credits and all the other stuff you needed to graduate. Here, they just kind of shrug and say "everything will probably be okay, probably." 

You know what? They are probably lying to you, probably.

As someone who had majored in a stupid number of different things, I am well acquainted with the guidance office and the people who work there. Their favorite things to do are to put you on hold, transfer your call and "accidentally" loose your paperwork. 

Sometimes, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in college forever. Literally. 

4. Be Yourself (Plus a Million)

For many people, college is the first time they've really been without adult supervision. They are free to do whatever they want and nobody can tell them no. Little Jimmy can dance if he wants to, he can leave his friends behind because his Dad isn't there anymore to tell him that he needs to stop dancing and go outside to play with the other kids.

Every little bad or annoying thing about a person is magnified by, like, a thousand in college. In high school, I was sort of antisocial and I was kind of into video games. Now, I very rarely leave my dorm and spend a good three hours a day xboxing (that's the verb form of playing xbox not, you know, boxing with the letter x).

Kids who sort of liked photography? Yeah, say goodbye to their faces because they will be hidden behind a lens for the next four years. Kids who had a lot of boyfriends or girlfriends? They will become straight-up prostitutes. Kids who occasionally partied? They will likely never attend a class. Kids who liked going to the gym? They will never stop exercising! 

Girls who were snarky and kind of liked to blog? They turn out awesome. And sexy. And awesome.

Yeah, well...I fully support people taking happiness where they can find it, but it is, just, really annoying sometimes. People become themselves in college. But...like to an extreme degree. A disturbingly extreme degree.

5. The Bubble

College is not like the real world. Not even a little bit. In the real world, you cannot wander around at four in the morning just because you feel like it, order a pizza and them sleep until noon the next day. In college, no one judges you for that behavior. That behavior is expected. If you get up before nine in the real world, you are a normally functioning human being. You get up before nine in college, you either have a class or are still awake from the night before.

College life is a bubble. People can see you on the inside of the bubble and they sort of understand what you're doing, but something about it is off and you can't really see all that well past the soapy exterior.

The bubble is pretty cool when you're inside. Everything is pretty colors and you get free sandwiches sometimes and everyone understands the references on Glee. But when you leave the bubble, like to go home or to leave campus, everything seems sad and depressing and nobody wants to debate philosophy with you, they just want you to order your damn coffee and go. This leads to a bubble-cling effect where the people inside the bubble want nothing to do with the people outside the bubble.

The people outside the bubble are weird. They wake up too early, they don't read the same books or listen to the same music as you and it's scary because they used to be in the bubble too, didn't they? Then you start to panic about the bubble popping and what on earth you'll do when you are forcibly ejected from the bubble and are no longer allowed to ignore the people on the outside.

And that's where graduate students come from.

That's my list. Do with it what you will. I need to go see if I can score a free sandwich from some guy on the corner. Later, all.

Non-Fruit Ninjas, Dragons, and Cake

I'm baaaack! 

Well, not back so much as...writing again. I don't know. I've always been, like, around. I didn't go anywhere. I just didn't do any blog writing of late. Anyway. Things. 

I've got, like 16 days of school left. I am not excited. I like school...well, not school so much as my dorm room and not living in my house with lots of different people. There are lots of people at my house. Lots. I think we could be our own tiny nation, if we so desired. 

My dorm room is small and safe and clean and mine. My house is literally none of those things. Meh...I will miss you, room 336...

Anyway. I've decided I want a snake next year. Or a cat. One of those two creatures. Maybe both, I don't know. Pope John and I agree that I've gotten to the age where I can start filling my loneliness with animals. And cake. 

But back to my snake. His name will be something clever and he will eat dead mouses and everything will be fabulous. Unless he sneaks out of his cage at night and kills me. That would not be fabulous. That would actually suck. But...back to his name! I'm thinking Vincent Van Gogh. It could call him Vinny for short!

 But then people would think I named him after the Jersey Shore...

Hmmm. That would not be acceptable. I've never even seen the Jersey Shore (the place or the television show...) 

I'll keep thinking. 

So I went and saw a bodybuilding competition yesterday. It was weird. There were a bunch of really fit guys on stage (which I liked) and a bunch of really fit girls (which I did not like so much). They were all either really tan or painted orange. 

It was SO WEIRD, you guys. SO WEIRD. 

I was kind of disgusted, but also kind of fascinated. They were all so ridiculously in shape. I just wanted to tell them that there is a point where you stop looking attractive and start looking like an alien. 

Or a collection of balloon animals. 

The winner got a sword, though. I really want a sword. I could play real-life fruit ninja. But, with my terrible coordination and poor vision, fruit ninja would most likely turn into actual ninja. 

Because I would accidentally stab and kill someone. 

So, less ninja and more accidental murderer. 

Manslaughterer. 

I should know more about this. I am a criminal justice major, after all. 

Oh! In major news (ha, get it? because it's major news, but also news...about my major...oh, puns...) I added a second major. 

I am now a criminal justice-slash-sociology major. Hoorah! My life didn't feel quite useless enough for me.

 No, but I'm actually really excited. I love sociology and the only reason I wasn't already majoring in it is because there is no such thing as a job for someone with a sociology degree. 

But! With a criminal justice degree, I am somewhat marketable! So I can write more papers about how the emergence of the hipster subculture represents the breakdown of traditional gender norms, but still eventually get a job! 

Yay! 

So, the weather kind of sucks today. I know, I know...I'm talking about weather, but bear with me. It's hot, but it's also wet. It's like the inside of a dragon's mouth. 

If dragons were real and had mouths instead of, you know, no mouths because they are make-believe. 

But, I digress. I've changed clothes three times today, because I can't deal with it. I have no dragon-mouth temperature suitable clothes. I don't know if they even exist, what with dragons themselves not existing and all. 

Yeah. I should go before unicorns and basilisks get involved. 

Everything would just get weird if that happened. 

Wednesday Bail

So...I've been a bit AWOL these past few weeks, haven't I? You all didn't even get a post-valentine's day rant. 

And, for that, I apologize. 

Guess what I've been doing? (if you said eating, sleeping and procrastinating, you're not wrong) Mostly, though, I've been playing my Xbox. Go ahead, shake your collective heads with disapproval. I know...I'm the worst. 

I just...I started on a new game series and I could not stop. In the past, like, month I've gotten average of 5 hours of sleep a night. I have a problem.  

But, no, I finished my game series (Mass Effect, if you were wondering) about a week ago. And the ending of the third game was so soul-crushingly horrible that I couldn't summon the will to do anything other than sleep, eat cereal and cry in the shower. 

And...that's what's been happening with me. 

Moving back into non-video-game-related matters, my spring break starts at the end of this week. "But, Danielle," You might be saying, utterly perplexed, "You can't be having spring break! It's February!" 

To that, I would respond, "I know. Ball State just sucks. At everything." 

But, no, my professors are trying to squeeze in their exams before we leave on late-winter break. I have four tests this week. It's the worst. 

So, I had to take this written exam. One of the questions was "describe three different types of bail." Well, I only knew two different types of bail. So, I wrote those down and then stared at the paper. And I stared. And stared. 

And I could not even come up with a made-up kind of bail that sounded even a little bit reasonable and/or legitimate. 

So, I wrote "the third type of bail is Wednesday bail. Wednesday is exactly the same as regular bail expect it is paid on a Wednesday." My professor just wrote the word "NO" on my paper. 

It all worked out fine because I got a B+ on the exam and I was like, "eh, whatever. I'll take it."  I still think I should have gotten an extra credit point for cleverness. Because, technically, Wednesday bail is a real thing...

But I digress. 

This is short...but I really don't have much else to say. I'll be back when something depressing happens. 

The Consequences of Aging

I'm bored as hell.

This class...I'm starting to think that Thursday night blogs are going to be a regular thing. I am actively trying not to pay attention. Seriously. It's like I'm spiting the professor, Ball State and my student loans by getting absolutely nothing out of this class.

Meh. This sucks.

Anyway, I signed a lease for an apartment. So...that's good. And expensive. But also good. I'm gonna have my own kitchen and stuff, but no car. So, I'm not exactly sure how exactly I'm going to get the grocery store.

I mean, it's not like I'm going to take the bus. Someone might accidentally touch me or breathe my air and my many mental disorders won't let the shit fly.

 I'm joking.

(Or am I?)

My many issues aside, I need to start going to the gym again. (Or, like, for the first time. I haven't really been before.) But, no, I picked literally the only major that, like, requires you to be in relatively good physical shape. Apparently, fighting crime requires being able to run and also do push-ups. Who knew?

I currently get winded walking up stairs (or stair...one stair...isn't that just, like, a ledge? Or an uneven piece of ground?) But, whatever. All I know is that I have a ways (a very, very long ways) to go before I can run a mile and half like the FBI wants me to.

Anyway. I'm 20 in fours days...so that's a thing. I'm not really all that excited. I feel like once I'm not a teenager, a lot of the weird shit I do will be less acceptable.

Watching cartoons when you're a teenager? That's cool, bro. We get it. You're still young. You're just bored and tired of watching the Maury show. It's totally normal that you feel like watching a few episodes of spongebob now and then.

Once I'm 20 though...watching cartoons stops being understandable and starts being creepy. Same thing with being unemployed and single and obsessed with video games.

God...I'm still single. Gah. My life is the worst.

And to add fuel to my single-sadness fire, Valentines Day is coming up. I've got my sad playlist and carbs ready. Bring it on, you stupid day devoted to happiness that I'm not allowed to be a part of. Sometimes, I feel like being in a relationship gives you membership to some super-secret happiness club.

I want to be part of the super-secret happiness club!

But I feel like the things that I mentioned before (watching cartoons, being unemployed and being obsessed with video games) would kind of be detrimental to being in a relationship. Also, I hate feelings and talking about them. So...that doesn't help.

This class is slowly sucking the life out of me.

But, I should go and at least try to pay some sort of attention. Ha, I'm kidding. I'm going to go and online shop until this stupid class is over.

The Ballad of me, my xbox and the Spider-People

So...screw college.

That is how I'm feeling right now. Mostly because I'm in the middle of a three-hour night class and three-hour night classes are no fun. I'm not even kind of paying attention.

It's a "myths and legends" class. I hate it. I know what you're thinking. "Danielle, why are you in a myths and legends class? You're a criminal justice major! Oh no! Did you change majors again?" 

No, I didn't change majors again. I just have to take this class because Ball State is the worst and wants to make me take stupid classes about things that aren't criminal justice related. All I want to do is bring justice...to criminals...

A working knowledge of myths and legends will not help me do that. I highly doubt I'll ever need to know anything about creation myths in my career. Unless I'm after a serial killer who is obsessed with creation myths and legends.

I don't know. It sounds like an episode of a network crime show. Like SVU or NCIS or CSI or DMV or some other acronym.

I want to go home...to my dorm...where my xbox is...

I've gotten a bit...umm...obsessed with that lately. I went on Friday and bought a new game. I spent all weekend inside my dorm and beat it by Sunday. Now I'm replaying it on a higher difficulty. At the rate I'm going, I'll have it beat again by tomorrow.

I have a problem.

Speaking of problems, these creation myths are messed up. The world was a weirder place when there were no drug laws. All these ancient people were probably all hopped up on meth and LSD and whatever.

I know they didn't have the resources or technology to make crystal meth back then. Don't tell me that. I'm a criminal justice major for God's sake. I've seen Breaking Bad. I know what I'm talking about. 

The professor just said the words "cat-people" and "evil magic" in the same sentence. I really don't think I can take this level of ridiculousness much longer. I mean, I'm wacky enough on my own. I don't need your assistance, random professor. 

So, I've been looking at apartments for next year. It's stressful. Living in a dorm, I don't really think about all the money I'm forking over. It's one big stupid payment. But with apartments, everything's about rent and me paying it and that's not cool with me. 

I am excited about having a kitchen, though. I'm pretty sure I'll end up eating nothing but grilled cheese sandwiches and popcorn, but in my head I become a five star chef. Eh, whatever. I like grilled cheese. 

Good lord, this story just got weirder. There are spider-people, a water-monster and wind what speaks people language. I don't know how I'm supposed to deal with this. I don't claim to know how the world was created, but I'm pretty sure that spider-people didn't have anything to do with it. 

Well, I should go and listen to this drivel. Eventually, I'm gonna be tested on it and be expected to know why the spider-people created the world and what the cat-people's evil magic had to do with it. 

I swear I'm not on drugs. This is actually happening.