Last weekend was Halloween or Halloweekend, whatever you want to call it. Some people and I would be comfortable saying most people love Halloween, I am not one of those people. I do not dis like it I just find it a little annoying having to buy or think of a costume.

                Back in high school we never really had to dress up, not many people had costume parties and I stopped trick or treating when I was like 11. In college it feels like Halloween goes on for about a whole week. It’s actually only 4 nights, but that is still hard. No college student is proactive enough to think about their costumes a week or so in advance, it’s pretty much a decision that is made on that day. With a low budget and very little time it’s hard to think of a plausible costume, and especially me, because I don’t leave my room unless I’m at least an 8.5 on the hotness scale, which only happens on my most awful days.

                So you can’t think of a costume to make an easy fix is Halloween express. They have hundreds of different options you’re bound to find something. So I pull up, open the butterfly doors to my lambo, and slowly but surely swag walk my way in to Halloween Express. Right now I’m thinking of either being a school girl or anything that will show off my physique. So I’m standing there and I’m appalled, all the costumes or 4 digits, there is a decimal place in-between them but still $39.95-$50.95 is a little ridiculous for a costume, especially for the quality material these costumes are. Don’t get me wrong, daddy’s got stacks but I aint made of money.

                After some  long minutes of heavy thinking, I decided to go ahead and buy a priest costume because I mean what girl doesn’t love a priest.  I love going out and seeing what everyone else I wearing but the burden of thinking of costumes is just too much for my little brain to handle.

I know I may be a little late on this topic but I really dislike not having my car at school. Most people wrote about this in the first couple weeks, but it hasn’t really been until recently that it’s actually been bothering me. Even if my parents told me I could bring my car to school most likely I would decline. I drive a 1992 Buick Road Master station wagon with great wood paneling on the side. The burden of taking care of it would be a hassle. It averages a trip the shop just about every 4 months, which really isn’t too terrible, when I’m home, with my own mechanic, and my dad to pay and take care of it all. So remember that while I complain the rest of this post.

Being on such a small campus it’s nice to get off every now and then, whether it’s just spending the day out and about somewhere or going away to visit some friends one weekend. Since I began school in late August I have really only left Salem once (not counting food and Chipotle trips to Roanoke) and that was to go home for fall break.

My sister is a senior at Virginia Tech, which is only half an hour away, and one of my best friends goes to Washington and Lee which is about an hour away. For a while now I have been wanting to go visit them but finding a ride is extremely hard. My friend has invited me to many of his fraternity parties but of course, no ride.

One of my other good friends goes to Hampden- Sydney, about 2 hours away, and next weekend is supposed to be a pretty big weekend, there is even going to be a bounce house, don’t ask me why it just sounds dope, am I right? A lot of my friends from home will be there a long with my cousin who is the brother that I never really wanted and didn’t have. I haven’t seen him since before I left for school so seeing him next weekend would be great.

Along with these reasons my biggest argument is I need it for baseball. Come spring time I will have to find a ride every single day to and from practice. Being a pitcher we don’t have the same schedule as position players so the amount of possible rides was just reduced by 75% (our field is not on campus). But why wait until the spring, two days a week now I have to find a ride to EC for conditioning, and the other three days I’m supposed to go and throw at EC. Baseball wise I haven’t ran into any troubles, but some day the baseball gods will join with the Car/Transportation gods and strike down on me leaving me with only one way to get to the field and that is to walk, and on some real I aint really finna walk like 1.2 miles, that’s hella far am I right?

The past few days, since I have gotten back from fall break, I have experience a great problem. Every day after my classes I come back to my dorm just exhausted. The whole time I’m in class all I can think about is one thing, getting back, watching Netflix, and passing out into one of the greatest naps ever. Pretty much all semester I have been taking naps, but never this serious.

            It doesn’t take long, I hop into bed, select a TV show, and one or two episodes later……. HE GONE. Now this is nothing unusual, the unusual part is when I wake up. I guess it was about Monday I was taking my usual nap, when I did one of those things your brain wakes up but your eyes don’t. I was sleeping on my side, and had been for a while, so I decided it was time to roll over on my back. My brain sent the message down my spine to the rest of my body, but my body was all like “nah you trippin, I aint movin”. I was lying on my side unable to move, I knew it I was paralyzed. Once I realized I couldn’t move, I tried to open my eyes, Nope that wasn’t working either. I didn’t panic, mainly because I was half asleep, so I just went back to sleep and later on woke up as my normal functioning self.

            Ever since then I haven’t woken up paralyzed, but every day I wake up and feel as though I have been drugged or something. I wake up to my “half awoken” state, which I tend to hallucinate in, and think to myself that I am not in a normal state of mind. I feel as though I have just gotten my wisdom teeth taken out, not the pain or swollen cheeks, but the loopyness. Just yesterday I had only been asleep for about 20 minutes and I woke up feeling loopy, and I thought to myself “why are you on drugs it’s a Thursday afternoon you have an advisory meeting in 20 minutes, and conditioning later on.

            This is the first time all semester I’ve had strange occurrences while napping, I think I can blame it on the 6 A.M. work outs we have been having Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I would like to point out the fact that I am not a drug user I have just simply had my wisdom teeth removed. 

Everyone says that college is so much Work, and nearly impossible for student Athletes, but so far I haven’t been very overwhelmed. Of course occasionally you get a heavy work load with a paper due one day and a test in a different class the next, but as long as you divide up your work throughout the week you’ll be fine. Every day this week I have spent at least 4 hours at the field, from 6 until 10 every night, which means I usually don’t get back to my dorm at least until 10:30 because I have to get dinner from the cavern. Between class, classwork, and practice I always find a way to fit a nap in at some part of the day, and get my work done before practice, which allows me to come back relax and get to sleep before 12:30. So far this fall, my goal has been to get all my work done before practice every night at 6, which mean I need it done by five. Luckily the way my schedule is set up, my latest class is 11:50 and on Tuesdays and Thursdays 10 which allows me plenty of time to nap and get my work done.  Just the other day I decided that I would save a little homework for after practice, which was one of the most miserable things I have had to do since I got here.  

                As I sat down at my desk, roughly 10:45, exhausted from the day the last thing I wanted to do was a little bit of homework. I have a hard time paying attention to my work when I’m well rested, how do I expect to do a half way decent job on this after being up for 15 hours, having 3 hours of class 5 hours of practices, and most tiring a 2-3 hour nap. I slowly and sadly started my work, just thinking the whole time the many things I would rather be doing. I would catch my mind slipping away thinking about other things and not focusing on my work.

                After about two hours I had finally finished, a task that had only taken me an hour previous time. I learned many many important things that night. First off, I have plenty of time during before practice to not only take a nap but also get my work done as well, and second off that I am not napping nearly as much as I should be if doing a simple task such as homework is so difficult at only 10:45. Luckily our fall season ends tomorrow so all next week and until after winter break I will have five extra hours to nap, and possibly get work done if I’m feeling productive. 

The other day I was doing what I do best, eating in commons. As I was walking to the back of the cafeteria, something caught my attention. It was beautiful. I sat down at my usual seat and began eating my extremely healthy lunch. The whole time I sat there with one thing in my head, no matter what I did I couldn’t get my mind off it. I ate my boring meal, most likely a bland salad with a chicken sandwich, or noodles with some sort of sauce, I’m sorry I just can’t recall what I had because my mind was elsewhere. It seemed like an eternity until I was united with what mattered to me the most. I had finally finished my meal. I stood up and began to proceed forward. At this point I felt bigger than life. I was walking in slow motion just like in the movies. I rounded the corner (still in slow motion) and finally stood there in front of it. It was as if the clouds had parted and a beam of light descending from the great Mount Olympus, as only the great Greek god could have formed something as special as this. A grin slowly grew on my face. I reached out and picked two up, and proceeded back to my seat. Although it wasn’t a long walk, the anticipation was killing me. I finally sat down after a grueling trek, when all of the sudden I realized….. I needed a new drink, but I knew the perfect drink to get, and boy was I going to drink the hell out of that drink. I sadly stood up, said good-bye, just for the moment, to my newly acquired prized item, and proceeded all the way to the other side of the cafeteria to get my drink. When I had finally arrived back to my table, I sat down and prepared myself for the upcoming events. I reached to my plate and picked it up. (in slow motion) I elevated my hand to my mouth and took a bite, out of the most room temperature average chocolate cake you can imagine, what a letdown it was. This whole time I had been anticipating some marvelous chocolate cake when in reality it was the most ordinary chocolate cake out there. Don’t get me wrong it was good, if given the opportunity to have it again I would, but it’s nothing I would crave or ask for. One thing Is for certain, it was nothing Zeus baked up on Mount Olympus. 

                Usually when I hear the term “Breakfast Club” I think of the old movie about the High Schoolers all in Saturday detention. Just the other day that term was ruined for me, It went from being a happy cheerful movie to hell all in just about 45 minutes.

                It was right after practice, we had are usual team meeting in center field. It started out as a nice talk after a very successful practice, but soon escalated. Coach McGuire was no longer happy. He gave us the usual reprimanding about how we post inappropriate thing on social media and for that we will have our first “breakfast club” the next morning. I have never been a part of a one of these notorious events but I could tell that waking up at six for extensive physical activity was not going to be fun, and also now when am I supposed to do my laundry? At our first team meeting he told all of us to clean up our different social medias because he would be checking them twice a week, to make sure we weren't posting any inappropriate things that would make us as an individual or a team look bad. Any way a few player posted some stuff and long story short, Its breakfast cub time.

                My eyes slowly opened as I picked myself slowly out of bed, I reached to my desk to grab my phone when a shock of fear struck through my body. It was 6:35. We had been instructed to arrive at the Bast Center between 6:30 and 6:45 or else our punishment would continue on for a couple days. One of the advantages of going to a small school is nothing on campus is more than a 10 minute walk. Luckily Marion to Bast is about three. Although I knew I wasn't going to be late, I didn't expect to sleep through my alarm. I scurried out of bed, threw on my cutest workout out fit and was out the door in 3 minutes

                As I walked into the main entrance of Bast, with sleepy eyes and bed head, I realized that the next 30 minutes were not going to be very fun. As I looked around the room I noticed that everyone looked just as tired as I did.  We proceeded into the gym and did the dynamic stretches we do before every practice. After doing our high knee and butt kicker exercises the doors to hell opened, and we entered Donte’s inferno.

                It was a 4 station circuit work out with clapping push ups, suicides, box jumps, and sit ups. We were to do each station 10 times for however long it took the suicide runners to do their suicide. The first 2 rotations were a breeze, but then your muscles slowly started to wear down and turn to Jell-O. The burning sensation in your shoulders became too much to handle, push ups became nearly impossible with your sweaty palms slipping on the floor. Stations got longer because the suicides got slower, and finally, the tenth rotation came, I finished the last set of box jumps and immediately sat on the floor when the whistle signaled the suiciders had finished. Finally, we were done

                I sat on the floor stretching, finally catching my breath, all I could think about was going back to my room, showing, going to my only class of the day and getting back in bed. How awesome did that sound, just taking a nap and sleeping until practice time that night. But then the unthinkable happened. Based off the last suicide our coach said “Some people had too much left in the tank, so back at the grind. The next fifteen minutes we spent running laps around the basketball court. Every time he blew the whistle we were to sprint until the next whistle. If my legs were Jell-O during the first half the workout they were pudding now. Finally he blew the whistle for us to stop. We all met at center court put our hands in and said “Noke” after a count to three. 

Although it didn’t come as a surprise laundry is the biggest pain in the butt. I have never done laundry before in my life, my parents have always done it for me. Leading up to college I knew I was going to have to do it and I knew I would hate it. I used to always listen to my sister when she would come home her freshman year, talk about how awful it was to lug all your clothes down to the first floor, throw them in the washer and be on call for the next hour. After the first week I decided that since I had run out of underwear that it would be in my best interest to go down to the first floor and clean my clothes. In my dorm we have six washers and eight dryers, most of them were open and my first experience was a breeze. It only took thirty minutes to wash, so for that time I just sat downstairs in the common room and talked to my dad, who I hadn’t talked to since he dropped me off. Drying the clothes took a little longer but the majority of the dryers were open so it wasn’t that bad. I threw my clothes in and went back to my dorm and watched TV for an hour or so. It wasn’t until my next trip when all went to hell. It was about a week later, same time of day as the week before, again…. I ran out of undies. I waddled down stairs carrying my cheap laundry basket that’s already falling apart after two weeks. As I walk into the laundry room I stared down the only open washer I saw and quickly got to it before someone else. I threw my tide pod in along with my clothes and left to come back upstairs and finish watching a TV show. As I was leaving I noticed that none of the dryers were open, but who cares? I have thirty minutes by the time I come back down one will be open. Thirty minutes pass and I make my way back down to the laundry room to find not one dryer open, but many are done. A little annoyed I left my clothes in the washer and made my way back up to my dorm. Ten minutes later I go back down to the laundry room thinking “this is my time” there was definitely one open now…….NOPE, Still the exact same clothes in the dryer. It’s been at least thirty minutes since this persons clothes have been done and they are inconsiderate enough to not come and get them. Many people take peoples clothes out and put them on the little table for folding but personally I would rather not grab peoples underwear and anything else they have in there. Finally on my third trip down a dry was open and I quickly got it. An adventure that should have only been an hour and a half was stretched out to three. From now on I will be waking up at 6 A.M. Saturday mornings to do my laundry.  

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Just about two weeks ago, I set of on a new journey, a new life. Before college not much had ever changed in my existence, I went to the same school for fourteen years, lived in the same house for nineteen years, and have had pretty much the same friends. On August 24^th just the day after my nineteenth birthday all this changed. I left my hometown, my family, and all my friends to move up here to little Salem Virginia. Going from the flat ground of Virginia Beach and Norfolk to the mountains of western V.A. alone was enough change. As you pull in on move in day it hits you, this is my home for the next four years. I looked around and saw this little brick college campus right in the middle of this small mountain city, and as strange as it felt I knew this is now home. Getting ready for college emotionally is nearly impossible. Very few people have been away from home for more than just summer camp, and even after those four or six weeks you still end up going back to the same life you had before. College is a time to explore new things and make all new friends, and that can be stressful.  Luckily there is always something to do here, whether it’s going to parties, sporting events, or exploring Main Street with new people. Everyone on campus is excited for a new school year and willing to help you with anything you need. The cold mornings and hot afternoons make it a little hard to get dressed for class, but it’s not a far walk anywhere on campus. One of the hardest adjustments of college, just in general, is all the free time and how to spend it. It’s so easy to waste it watching TV or just hanging out with all your new friends, but It needs to be for studying because after all you are a full time student. It is extremely possible to do all your work and maintain a good social life. With all this change it will take time for adjustment, no one is going to be able to dive right in and automatically be 100 percent comfortable, but leaving your comfort zone means growing as a person and that’s one of the many goals of college.

picture (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.virginia.org%2FListings%2FHistoricSites%2FDowntownSalem%2F&h=0&w=0&sz=1&tbnid=z1riEzs6nd-KrM&tbnh=160&tbnw=240&zoom=1&docid=oM4eWc9VehgK2M&hl=en&ei=4xMqUvTPOvLA4AOT5YHwCg&ved=0CAEQsCU)