Wow! It's already March? My oh my, is 2010 going by quickly!

Well, it's been an interesting school year, to say the least. Between major roommate problems (you can find one such incident that still angers me here) and tough classes, I'm so ready for the summer! After tomorrow, it is Spring Break and I will get to go visit family in Canada. I'm very excited for this, as I haven't been up in years and I'm going by myself instead of with my mom, sister and brother like usual. 
 
 
So, last weekend my laptop's charger died. Thus, I've had to use computers at school to get anything done. It's so maddening, too, because it's the week before midterms and I was hoping to get ahead on papers and the like. Well, THAT clearly isn't happening now! It's strange feeling so isolated from daily news, email, etc., but it's nice at the same time being able to think more and force myself to be slightly more social. When I do have a working charger again, I'm still going to keep working on this "human interaction" thing. :)

I don't have much else to update you all on concerning my life. Things with Steve are going pretty well; we text or talk on the phone every day. He's been training in the field a lot and is excited for my visit in early April to his base. I'm excited for it, too, and am still waiting on buying a plane ticket, but I think it will be a fun trip!
 
 
Well, it's finally February, and I'm fully adjusted to my weekly schedule. One thing I will never adjust to, though, are the mysteries of my roommates. I won't go into detail here, but it's been anything but an easy living situation this year. In all honesty, I can't wait for May 6th., the approximate date I can move home again. 

Other than that little slice of crazy, stuff with Steve and I has gotten better, with the exception of Friday and part of Saturday. I don't know what was going on in my head, but I kept picking fights with him over little things. Have any of you done that before with your significant other? Those little fights escalated into bigger ones, and so by Friday night we had to say some tough stuff to each other. Saturdays discussion was a lot about the R word (reenlistment), which we both have talked about for a while. 
 
 
So, here we are, once again. I couldn't sleep and began thinking about what the future holds in the following months and year. It's quite possible I will be engaged for real (not just on Facebook...long story) in the next 6 months to a year, and married at the end of next year or perhaps sometime the following year (which will be here sooner than you think!) and I'm not even really sure what to do with my life. 

I know I have no rhyme or reason to plan it all this second, but it's who I am. I'm a planner, and what I do now reflects on my future. Not having a set A to B to C, etc. plan drives me crazy. So it's stressful thinking about marriage so soon after undergrad and also considering the possibility of law school while married to a soldier. Throw into the mix of Steve's reconsideration about reenlisting, and it's the perfect recipe for insomnia. 

With Steve stationed at Bliss, I scoped out law schools close by, for if we were to marry I would still like to pursue that degree. Turns out the closest law school is in Lubbock, an 8 hour drive away, and I assure you the program is most likely not Tier I. There are graduate programs around, but they wouldn't be law. 

I know I'm worrying for nothing, and I should focus on what's in front of me: a new job I start in less than 72 hours, along with a new school year, not to mention the fact that I can actually talk and text to my boyfriend instead of waiting for Skype to kick in while he's on another continent. 

I have a lot to be thankful for and much to do before graduation day (it's about 11 months and 2 days away!), but goodness, I should have a plan in place by now, right? Sigh. We shall see what happens soon!
 
Soon! 11/20/2009
 
Soon he'll be home! Very, very soon! Yay!!!!

Obviously, I'm very excited about the impending R&R starting, and not very excited for finals. But at least when they are over we can have total time with each other.

Some other updates: I'm officially graduating a semester early! It's exciting and scary, too. Thinking about what to do after college is daunting, but I still really feel like my calling is being a lawyer, or at least pursuing a law degree and seeing where that takes me. 

I hope in a year I feel more confident in this decision, because it's going to be a LOT of work. Not only is applying for law school going to be an uphill battle, but the 3 years (hopefully less; I'm hoping to find a program with summer classes) I spend in it will be a struggle, too. So, lots of prayers, please, about this pathway!

Also, I'm going to have to remember later on not to think about or talk about possible deployments (real deployments, not this "year-long purgatory in a country with a DMZ" junk). I know it will be difficult if/when that time comes, but goodness, why now, of all nights, did I have to think about that? It's like I just can't let myself be happy with life for one iota of a second. Sigh.

Have a good weekend, everyone!
 
Nomad 10/03/2009
 
Hey all! I thought I would give a quick update right now because I have a pretty big headache and reading research for my research methods class isn't really helping. Everything has been going pretty well in life; I really have no complaints outside of the fact that we're moving again, and so today I had to sort out the remainder of my stuff in my room and either box it up, take it to school or donate it. 

Even though my involvement in the military never quite began until November of last year, when Steve and I began dating, I've probably moved more than some military families even as a civilian. Sometimes I feel my existence has been a nomadic one. 

I attended seven different elementary schools from kindergarten through fifth (the best year being fourth grade, where I attended THREE different schools in just 9 months' time); lived in about 10 different apartments/houses in 3 different states (Wyoming, N. Dakota & now we're in Missouri) & am only 21, and looking to do law school out of state soon, which would be yet another move under my belt. All this while not being a military brat or wife of a soldier (yet - hopefuly; I don't want to push my luck!) can take a toll on a person!

I don't envy people who stay in one place their whole life; they really miss out on meeting new people or the potential to start over which moving provides. I guess even now, at age 21, I should be used to moving, but it still bothers me to move, even when it's necessary (like right now, with us putting our house up for sale and my mom and stepdad going through a divorce). 

The only constant security & stability I've had has been in the form of my mother, who even at the young age she is, with three kids to take care of and all the added stress of our situation, still is the best example I have of a driven, motivated woman. While it's never easy having to box up everything and move yet again to an unfamiliar place, we are able to make the move fairly smoothly considering all that we face in lieu of a move.

It's difficult to move and do new things, but I'm hoping all these moves I've had in my young life serve a purpose; maybe God has been preparing me all along for the trials of a marriage based around the military and all the moves which come along with it. Maybe I'll be able to orchestrate moves for my family as a "dependent" as fluidly as my mom has as a civilian. [*side-rant: That term for wives is pretty degrading, isn't it? You're MORE than a dependent, but I guess not in the eyes of the armed forces. Bleh. That's one thing that just irks me so much! *end of rant] 

While I don't know what the future holds, hopefully we don't have many moves left before we really have a home and aren't just attempting to live in a house friends are providing for us in our time of need. (Note: While I am grateful and very thankful we do have somewhere to go, it was such a DUMP before we got there and cleaned over the course of the end of summer!)

Ok, back to school work. Enjoy your weekend, everyone!
 
Obsessed 09/23/2009
 
The older I get, the more I realize I'm a lot like my mother. 

It's funny how that realization doesn't really hit a person until after they are on their own. But the more time I spend at college, living basically independent of family, the more I see how my mom's behavior has influenced my own. For one, when I was younger, I thought she was crazy to have us do all the cleaning chores as often as we did.

 It's not like there were that many of us in our family, yet every other week there would be bathrooms to clean, floors to vacuum and dusting to be done. Every day, dishes had to be done, and this became even worse around holidays when we cooked enough food for an army, but there were only about five of us living in our house. We never really had company over, so I never understood the fuss of cleaning so much. 

Fast forward to now, and you could say that I'm pretty much obsessed with cleaning, or at least with some things. Looking at my desk, you wouldn't realize that I like to be organized because it's messy, but I believe some things require "organized disorganization," like desks. I know where everything is, and don't really care if no one else understands my system. 

One place I absolutely cannot stand being dirty, however, is the kitchen. My rule of thumb is if you cook something, you clean up after yourself. It's common sense and common courtesy, you know? No one wants to look at a plate and wonder if it was just used to cook. So lately, when there is a large mess in the kitchen, my OCD Mode kicks in and I HAVE to either clean, or stare in disdain at the dishes of others who don't share my sentiments about a kitchen looking neat and not like a food bomb just went off. 

Maybe in some ways, cleaning is a remedy of mine. Physically going through the motions of cleaning helps me clear out my mind of the stress and worries that build up like so much grime. Perhaps that's why my mom likes having a clean house so often. When I was younger, if we had someone come over, she would usually say that "the house was a mess" and she apologized up and down about it, when in fact it looked fine compared to some of my friends' homes. I never really saw the harm in not cleaning so often.

Now that I'm on my own, though, and understand the value of owning things of your own, I take better care of everything, which includes cleaning even if things look pretty decent. A dish isn't just a dish; it's something I've invested in and though I could easily buy another one if it's cracked or broken, why go through the trouble of spending so much money when taking care of things better ensures they last longer?

So yes, maybe I'm a little bit insane in having a cleaning obsession, but there's method behind the madness.
 
Smelly. 09/15/2009
 
I went to class today feeling absolutely gross. 

No, I'm not sick, though swine flu is going around my campus. No, I didn't get up late, missing an alarm and feverishly throwing on clothes to get to class. I actually woke up right on time. At precisely 8:30 a.m., the alarm on my phone went off (every mil girlfriend and wife knows having a phone by them at all times is absolutely necessary!), and I dutifully shut it off and began to get out of bed. 

But something was amiss. I recalled that I had heard someone at about 8:26 a.m. get up, grab a towel and head out the door of the room. That someone was my international student roommate, and she had decided that though she had showered the night before, it was a good idea to shower again, at the precise time I was planning on showering. 

Now, normally this wouldn't be an issue, especially because on Tuesdays I have a class at 11 a.m. But today wasn't most days. A friend needed to borrow my car, so I needed to meet with him to hand off the keys, and at 10 a.m. I was meeting with a professor. So that integral shower beginning at 8:33 a.m. and ending at approximately 8:48 a.m. was doomed to fail the moment I knew the bathroom was occupied. 

I really do like my international roommate, and learning about one another's culture has been an interesting experience so far. I just wish I could have smelled a little nicer when I went to class today.