AY-YI-YI!

Tomorrow (technically today at this point) I am going home to Californ-I-Aayyy!!!!! I am so excited, I can't sleep. But I need to. Because at 5:40 tomorrow morning, I am heading to the airport with some of my bros and we are flying through the crystal skies to the best coast. I am too tired and too excited to form any more cohesive sentences about the thrill of the trip, but there will be more to talk about in the coming days. Get ready. We is a-comin.

Running on four hours of sleep.

Last night I slept for four hours. And it wasn't because of finals.

Yesterday afternoon, after a long span of blank computer staring, I barricaded myself in my room and finished my paper. It came to me like a thief in the night. Quick and sneaky. I was sitting at my desk for 2 hours and before I knew it, I had a whole essay about my house and my roommates. This is becoming a pattern, yeah? Sitting in Foxy Loxy: paper about Foxy Loxy. Sitting in my house: paper about my house. I think I'm on to something.

I pressed save and just like that, finals were over. Surreal. And wonderful. I was able to close out the night by going to a candlelight choir service at a local church with Spencer and our friend Lindsay. It was beautiful. And sitting in the dark church with the soft glow of the candles around us and the angelic voices echoing around us singing hymns was such an experience. And a perfect way to praise God for all he has done for me this quarter. And-- ironic-- there was a (literally) three minute sermon in between two songs and it was about the checklists of life and being able to feel closure in you life in the Lord. It was almost funny how appropriate the message was.

Anyway-- after the service (around 10:00), I downed a latte in about 10 minutes. This is bad for two reasons. 1) I shouldn't be drinking coffee at all because of how intensely it affects me and 2) I shouldn't even be NEAR coffee after 4:00 in the afternoon. Bad news. Moral of the story, I couldn't fall asleep until 2 in the morning and then, lucky me, I woke up at 6.

The best part is, it didn't even bother me! Post finals Julia is as cool as a cucumber because where there is lack of sleep, there is time to make up said lack of sleep. When I looked at my phone and saw that it was 6:05, I just laughed to myself and thought, 'Oh, pah, isn't that silly. I only went to bed 4 hours ago! No matter. I'll sleep eventually." And then I just sat in bed and smiled.

So, after I came back from dropping off my writing paper, I took a nice, long, guilt-free, celebration nap on the couch.

When I woke up, I went to my critique for Fashion Design. Ahh, yes. The end is near. I am very sleepy right now, but it don't matter. I'll get to bed eventually.

That is all I have to say. I'm going to go smile some more.

And the Finals Beat Goes On.

I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Today, I crossed 4 things off my list. FOUR! WoOt W0oOT. I finished my Intro to Fashion Final-- we had to deconstruct a women's suit and turn it into something new. 

Here is the School Bus/Mustard/Sunflower colored suit...

And this is what I came up with! 

I think Spencer rocked the socks off of it and made it look way better than it actually does. I was a little panicked about how it looked on the hanger: lifeless and very yellow. And then Spencer graciously took time out of her crazy finals schedule to let me do her hair and makeup, shove her feet into my small shoes and be all model-y for a little while. Seriously-- thank you so much, Spencer!

Slowly but surely, things are getting done. But, I'm not out of the woods yet. I still have to finish my math final and my writing final. The writing final that I'm still avoiding. The writing final that I still don't have any ideas for. Yep. 

I'm going to bed now.  

AND THEN THIS HAPPENED.

Moments after I ran out of my mocha (a tragedy), my phone rang.

It was Spencer with the best news I've ever heard in my life. She said that someone had called her and left a message saying that.....

drumroll please......

SOMEONE PUT AN OFFER ON OUR HOUSE AND WANTS US TO STAY AND RENT IT!!!!

This is, quite literally, the best news I've heard in quite a while. Frances and I just about peed our britches. We were still in Foxy, though, so we had to keep it on the DL. But we didn't do a very good job. People were staring.

So, naturally, the obvious thing to do is to make a video to document our excitement.

I think it is clear that I still haven't gotten much further on my paper. 

I'm fresh out.

Guys. I'm out. I have run out of good ideas. Anything original, anything new, anything interesting packed up all of it's bags around week 8 and left. Here I sit, at my routine table at Foxy Loxy, staring at a blank page. I have a writing final due next week and I got nothin.

You may remember this happening once before. Same table. Same class. Same blank page. In that case, I was able to beat the system and I decided to write a paper about Foxy Loxy. I just started typing about what I saw around me and the conversations that I heard and before I knew it, I had a full fledged seven page paper. Clever, yeah? And it turned out pretty well, but that tactic, now used and old, cannot be redone and I am, again, left with a blank page.

Maybe I should write about this mocha that I am drinking that is literally revolutionizing everything I thought I knew about hot beverages. Or maybe I should write about the man sitting at the table next to me. He is similar to the color of my mocha and I think he is very good looking. Maybe I should write about the fact that even typing that sentence just made me blush. There's something to that.

Also, let me just take the moment to point out that I have written this whole blog post with ease in about 6 minutes without even one pause in the rhythm of my fingers to the keys, other than to take a few gulps of this mocha. Why?

I think this blog is becoming a place for me to come when I am avoiding homework. Please see the last three weeks of blog posts as evidence.

I don't hate it.


UPDATE: 5 minutes later, I have finished my mocha. And now, there is nothing good in this world.

Finals are kicking my butt.

 

I'm sorry I've been a little slower on the blogging lately. For the past week, I have been in finals mode. I feel like I have been working non-stop on papers and projects and gaining no headway. There have been way too many days lately where I look back and I know that I was working on homework all day, but wait-- it's midnight and what have I actually gotten done again? Ugh. The worst.

On top of all of this, I am also in the midst of applying for summer internships and working out the potential of maybe studying abroad in the fall. Both very exciting things that are morphing into overwhelming things and then into scary things. I need to keep reminding myself that they are, in fact, exciting things.

Today marks the 7 day countdown until all of this is over.

Next Wednesday, I will be flying HOME to California for a whopping ten days!!!! I honestly cannot wait. Bonus: I'm bringing a few aliens with me! Spencer, Frances and Claire are all coming too and I can't wait to show them around Newport and all of the awesome things (read: food) that I have been talking about for the past two years.

I just allowed myself a nap for the first time in weeks (record length sabbatical) and when I woke up, two hours had passed! What? Yikes. Maybe I needed it? Now, I'm trying to wipe off the sleepy and get my study back on. Proving to be challenging. I have refreshed my Facebook page way too many times in the last 30 minutes. An embarrassing amount. 

I'm going to give you guys a list of what I need to get done. It won't seem like a lot. And it won't make any sense to you, but I need to type it out. Bear with me.

Deconstruction Project
Designer File
Finish Dreamweaver
Personal Essay
Revise Memoir
CSM Application
CSM Statement of Intent
Other four things I'm forgetting

Can it please be next Tuesday already?

Radiohead

Do you guys remember when this happened last quarter? I was blonde and Frances was crying. Good times.

In case you don't want to watch the whole video again, and have forgotten what happens from when I made you watch it last time, it basically just showcases the simultaneous elation and combustion of one Frances Russell trying to buy Radiohead tickets. After a brief moment of panic when it looked like we weren't going to get to go, myself, an admitted Billboard top 100 fan and all around Country Music listener, was able to wrangle together three tickets for their show in March. Had I ever listened to a full Radiohead song through? No. Did the fact that there was no real sing-a-long-able chorus in any of their songs kind of confuse me? Yes. But, my iPod and I are open to growth and maturity so I welcomed the idea of upping my cool factor by like 100 points and going to the concert. Plus, any concert with two of your best friends is fun, right? Right. Win, win.

Well, on Thursday, we went to the Radiohead concert in Atlanta and it was wonderful.

After shoving some clothes into our backpacks, we set out for ATL at around noon. Before we left we made sure to take some pictures of us being extra extra cool to get us in the right mindset for all of the extra extra cool people we'd be around later at the concert.

I made sure that I did not completely abandon my pop roots and made us listen to "Party in the USA" radio on Pandora for at least 50% of the drive. We braved an intense downpour on our way there that was actually so bad that we had to pull over for a few minutes to wait for the worst of it to pass. Spoiler: we survived.

After a quick pit stop at the mall (unsuccessful, but 100% necessary due to the fact that Savannah is highly lacking in that department) and an AMAZING dinner at JCT Kitchen, we found our way to Phillips Arena.

As we waited in line to get into the venue, it became clear to Claire and I were just visitors in this world of Radiohead die hards. Meanwhile, to our right, Frances had found her Mecca. It is really hard to explain how much Frances loves Radiohead.

They came on TWO HOURS after the promised start time, which, I guess, is just something that cool bands do, and put on an amazing show.

Here we see what Frances looks like when she's having a good time.

With two encores and plenty of long jam sessions, I would say that it was a highly successful concert. Frances remarked that they played mostly new stuff (or at least off the last two albums), which was a shame considering that, apparently, their earlier stuff os also great. 

Due to the fact that I only know one song out of their whole catalogue, I did not notice. 

We left in high spirits. I definitely felt cooler. And that I understood something about the world that people who hadn't gone to the concert clearly didn't. Like, I was apart of an elite club. But it was so elite, that it would never really describe itself as elite. 

Wait-- I just re-read that paragraph. The fact that I said "we left in high spirits" wasn't a sneaky sneaky pun/subliminal drug reference, just to be clear. I really just meant we left in a good mood... Promise, Mom. 

 ATLANTA BONUS: On the way home the next morning, we stopped at a Trader Joe's that might have been as exciting for me as the concert had been for Frances. There were mixed emotions of joy and sadness as I walked through the aisles buying all of my favorite goodies. Joy: Because I love TJ's. Sadness: Because I knew I couldn't stay there forever.