Oh, The Life of a College Student!: Part IV and V

Sorry about missing yesterday -- that just means I'll leave twice the blog today (a blog of randomness).

My second summer here worked out better than I could have ever planned. About the beginning of April I realized summer was fast approaching and I had no place to live (which I find is the case most April's!). Randomly, my friend from the A-Team, Karilyn Flake, said she thought there was an open spot in her apartment and helped me get the contract and necessary documents to move in. We talk about this a lot because really, we didn't know each other very well -- at all -- then. But, luckily for me, Karilyn is what I like to call an "insta-friend" -- someone who you can instantly be best friends with and fee like you've known your whole life, when really, you've only known them for maybe a day. It's the best kind of friend and I recommend keeping people like this around. It really is great! Anyway, the rest is history....we became best friends -- and I don't mean that in "Oh, you're me best friend forever!" as most people would think, but she really, truly is my best friend. I can't explain it and I don't know if you'd understand, so I'll just leave it at that. We had the best time that summer, and have always had good times. Her sense of adventure and high energy has kept me going through some of the most difficult times and also kept things in perspective when it seems as though my life is in fast-forward with no pause button. She's the one that has kept me sane throughout these years and I don't know if she'll ever know how much that has meant to me. The majority of my stories, experiences and memories from my college life include her and throughout the next week or so you'll come to know her a lot more.

Lucky are you!

Summers in Logan are the best! Hardly anyone is on campus, which you may think is a bad thing, but really it's the best! "The dog days of summer" -- I really don't know what this means, but I imagine you could use it to describe Logan in the summer. Campus is dead except for every SOAR day when new students flock grudgingly (and sometimes nervous-excitedly too) to the TSC to complete orientation, EFY groups sprawling out on the lawns and eating catered food from The Coppermill, dance camps and competitions, as well as cheerleaders galore and football and basketball camp boys smelling up the International Lounge. You can always tell when they come in the building to eat.

My summer diet consists of chips and salsa, frozen fruit and go-gurts, apples, a random slurpie or snow-cone, and fresh tomato sandwiches. Also, those spontaneous midnight chocolate and butterscotch chip cookie sprees. This happens probably too often and always too late in the day. Slushy Gatorade is always kept on hand for those too-hot-handle days when your roommates (not Karilyn and I) are too cheap to turn on the air conditioning, even though the apartment is 100+ degrees. I've found that Sam's Club is a great place to visit in the summer and Karilyn and I even made a plan one day that we could live there. They have everything you need -- even though both of us would prefer Costco over Sam's any day -- we just couldn't figure out how we were going to shower. We're still working on that one.

Sunday Waffle Nights, "So You Think You Can Dance" watching, playing werewolfe, going to the Farmer's Market every Saturday, just sitting and listening to the bands at Summerfest, and dressing-up for the opening night of a movie are just a few of the entertainment excursions I enjoy in the summer. This past summer I realized again that I love riding my bike -- everywhere -- or running to places. I love running early in the morning, or later at night when it has cooled down. There's nothing better than running in the summer -- it's so calm outside, very little traffic, few people out and about, the sun is coming out for the day, you get to just think by yourself, about whatever you want, or nothing at all -- it's just you and peace. And I would have it no other way.

One night last year, as I was getting ready for bed I heard a knock on my door. In walked Karilyn with her pillow and a blanket. "I'm just going to sleep on your floor ok?!" So more blankets were brought in for a make-shift bed and then lights were out. Nothing was really said, maybe some laughter about the randomness and craziness of it all, but we said good night and that was that. No questions were asked why she would want to sleep on my hard floor, or why she decided at 11:45 in the p.m. she was going to sleep over, but we always get a good laugh when it's brought up!