The Weekly Review

It has been another crazy week! I've been feeling a little down and just a little out of it, and I've also holed myself up in my room watching The Office on Netflix if I wasn't doing homework. This is the happiest time of the year and I feel like this has been the weirdest time of this year, for me. I'm just trying not to make myself miserable and to enjoy the last few weeks of 2012.

Monday:
My cousins' great grandma passed away sometime last week, so my mom, aunt, and I went to the funeral. As much as I really don't like funerals, especially because I don't like goodbyes and that's the ultimate one, I like them for the impact they have on you as you leave. They remind you to treasure life, to recognize those significant moments, go after your dreams, speak your mind, and let the ones you love know how you really feel.
This one was no different. It broke my heart to see my aunt and cousin in pain at their loss, but reminded me of the hope that we'll see our loved ones again. The pastor that spoke was rather interesting...He didn't seem to have much information on who he was speaking about, so he filled it in with random facts about the era that she grew up in. He mentioned things like refrigerators, The Grand Ole Opry, and the differences between her generation and now. The service didn't last too long, and we were able to visit with my aunt, uncle, and cousin, along with some of my aunt's relatives, which was nice.
After the funeral, we came back to my house; my aunt dropped us off. Then, my mom and I decided to go to the mall so I could look for a dress to wear for the Christmas concert on Friday. Well, I had also received a Christmas card in the mail with a Starbucks gift card from my good friend, Cassandra, and was super excited, so my mom and I grabbed some coffee. It was perfect, because it was starting to get a bit chilly. We made our way to Forever 21, and I was instantly overwhelmed with the holiday attire everywhere, consisting of sparkles and glitter. I think we went around the entire store, and after trying on several outfits, I decided on a classic black dress. I really like it! I was slowly starting to lose energy, so we checked out and headed home.
I spent the rest of the night taking pictures and just hanging out, which was nice.

Tuesday:
Tuesday was really great! My friend, Michele, picked me up and off we went. We talked the entire way, as always, filling each other in on our weekends, friends, and whatever else comes up. When we got to school, I went to the library to hang out with my usual group. I finished up some creative writing homework, then searched Tumblr and other sites that came to mind. Amanda and I were drained from that, and we hadn't even gone to class, but you know what? It went really well. Amanda, Toni, and I went up for our critiques, which made things go a lot quicker. Our professor likes to "pick" on us and just jokes about us being the power trio, because we always sit together and are usually laughing or talking about something. We've joked that we should make t-shirts or something like that in honor of it, which he would think is hilarious.
Anyway, Professor Dyer joked that Amanda and I should work together on our pieces of fiction since they both involve music, that we could incorporate a lot of the characters with one another. He was coming up with all of these hypothetical scenarios, and we were dying of laughter. So, you know, that's always something we have to think about if we can't get it to work on its own.
There were suggestions made, including one girl who told me I needed to work on the southern dialect in my story. She griped, as she always does, and nitpicked, which I found extremely annoying. Normally, I can take criticism from other people (other than family), but she's one I can't take it from...She has to point out something wrong with everyone's pieces, including names and hair color. She griped that she wanted to know my character's name, etc. She made some pretty decent points, but the way she comes across all high and mighty makes me just not want to do it in the first place.
When class ended, our "power trio" walked outside, griping about the critiques we'd just gone over and pointing out the fact that our stories seem to get the most interaction, because we write about things that are REALISTIC. What a concept....
I hopped in the car with Michele, and we headed back to town, making plans about our photo shoot that we wanted to have on our way to school on Thursday. The rest of the afternoon, I just stayed in my room, glued to my ipad, watching The Office. It just seriously keeps getting better and better.
Later on, my best friend, Marissa, came over. We had decided that Tuesday and Thursdays were going to be our days to hang out, but because things have been crazy for both of us the past couple months, we haven't been able to hang out as much. So, we talked for a good solid couple hours. We seriously have the best talks, and I love that we keep it real. We can make fun of one another, we can be honest, and I don't have to worry that I'm going to be ridiculed for how I think. We sure had a lot of dishing to do too! We even did a little flashback to high school, talking about some of the drama that happened and re-reading one of the journals we used to write in and pass to each other back and forth in the hallway. Then, we decided to start watching The Office, because I told her I couldn't stop watching it. She also loves it just as much as I do!
We ate dinner with my parents, talked for a little while, then went back to my room to gawk at The Office. We were laughing our heads off, and found Andy Bernard's quote, "I am now chopping Phylis' head off with a chainsaw!!" incredibly funny, so Marissa posted it on Facebook. We chatted a little more, and it was just a lot of fun. I love those simple moments of hanging out with just one or two really close friends. Those are the moments I never want to take for granted. 
After Marissa left, I continued my "Office" marathon, staying up til the wee hours of the morning. 

Wednesday:
As sad as it sounds, it was one of the best days I've had in awhile. I woke up somewhere around 11, and immediately started watching The Office, and I spent all morning on my bed, staring at the faces of Jim, Pam, Michael, Kevin, Phyllis, Meredith and the rest of the gang. They just really cheer me up. My mom had a doctor's appointment  and came home with Chic-Fil-A, which made me really happy. I stayed in my pj's, still watching The Office for the rest of the afternoon and not doing anything, but getting way too emotionally involved with Jim and Pam's relationship. I realize how pathetic it is, but honestly, I don't care.
Finally, I decided I needed to do something productive, so I took my very last math final of the last math class that I will ever take. It feels weird to say that, because it has been such a long time coming, but what a load off. It feels good to know that it is all finished, and I can finally start moving forward to the things that I actually WANT to do. I then decided to get ready; took a shower, put on make up and was ready to head to church for practice.
It's always such an amazing time being with everyone; band, singers, choir, and others that are helping out with the concert, because you know that every little step of the journey is being brought together for the greater good and it's going to be something really special. The relationships that I've made over the years have seriously changed everything for me, and have led to so many other incredible open doors over the past few years, especially this year, and they keep coming. I truly believe God gives us the people we need in our lives at the right times. He knows when they're going to walk in and walk out, and what purpose they're going to serve in our lives for a certain amount of time. It has been an absolute blessing, and this is no different. I even got an offer about possibly singing for the youth department on Wednesday nights. I'm just not sure if I'm feeling led to do it. It sounds good, but sometimes I just scare myself out of big opportunities or make up lame excuses. I can't use school or work as an excuse, so it looks like I'll have plenty of time. Now, it's just a matter of where God leads. 
Back to practice; We went through an entire run through of the concert set list. It actually went pretty smoothly considering it was our first time running through the entire production with the choir and media. There was a lot of joking around, and just messing around, getting into the Christmas-y spirit.
When practice ended, Viviyan and I walked to the front of the church parking lot, because it was a bit warm inside, and it was chilly and rainy outside. We made plans for what to do on Friday before the concert, and just talked about our days, until my parents came.
I picked up Chic-Fil-A for dinner (yes, the second time in a day) and watched The X Factor, then stayed up until 3:30 or so watching The Office. I honestly regret nothing. And the coolest news I received all day was that John Krasinski got a Twitter!!!!! AH!

Thursday:
Oh, today was quite the adventure. I woke up a bit later, and was sort of dragging to get ready. I couldn't wake up, which makes sense, since I was up until almost 4. I was still trying to wake up as we headed down the highway when Michele picked me up. Michele and I had planned to do our photo shoot, so we'd pull off to the side of the road to take cool pictures of the sky or whatever else we wanted to at the time.
Well, we had almost made our way into Taft, when we saw some cool vineyards. We pulled across the street and took a few pictures, then Michele asked if I wanted to get closer. We had plenty of time before our next classes started, so we thought sure why not? Well, when we pulled off to the other side, closer to the vines, the car started sliding in the mud a bit, and it felt like we were stuck. We got out and it didn't look that bad, so we just sort of blew it off and started walking around to take pictures and even made a video. As we were walking back to the car (or sliding, because my boots were now covered in mud), there was a truck that pulled up right behind us, and one of the guys got out, walking over to my side of the car. At first we thought maybe we had crossed a line and were going to get a warning about something, but the guy ended up asking if we needed help getting out of the mud. We responded with, "Nah, we should be fine, I don't think it's that bad," sort of thing. But, Michele started the car and the wheels just kept spinning and going in deeper. The two guys in the truck apparently did something that dealt with getting people out of situations like this, because they had the proper tools to help us out of the mud. One of the guys stayed and talked with us, asking where we were going sort of thing, and the other flipped around to drive us out. It didn't take long at all to get out, and when they were done, they came back over to the car to talk to us. The driver made a comment like, "I thought maybe it was my girlfriends from Taft," to which we just laughed. Michele thought maybe we should offer them coffee or something, but we ended up deciding against that, because you just never know about people these days. Anyway, we were feeling extremely thankful that those guys happened to be in the right place at the right time, because otherwise we wouldn't have had any other idea of what to do. The road we were on would have been a little hard to describe for those who haven't taken it before. So, maybe it wasn't our smartest move, but it was hilarious and definitely made our adventure even more memorable. You're only young once, right? And it all worked out just fine.
We laughed about it all the way to the campus, and wiping the mud off of our boots, while walking to the library. We went to the bathroom to clean them off as best as we could, but mine were way too clogged with mud to do anything about it. I had some things for creative writing to get done, so I decided to give up and get started. I sat at my usual table, which was low in attendance today with only Amanda and another of her friends. I was still laughing from my morning, so I explained it to them and they were laughing. Then, we got into our work, while searching Tumblr. I was only there for about 30 minutes, before deciding to head to class.
It was a pretty typical, boring day. It was our last class of the semester, so I was trying to enjoy it as much as possible. Amanda and I chatted before class, while searching Tumblr, then Toni came in and class started. Our professor talked about our reading that we're going to have on Monday, and how things are going to work, as well as how our final project should turn out like. And then when the actual critiques started, we went back to scrolling through Tumblr, which was much more entertaining. Luckily, there were also only three submissions, so they weren't bad either.
Finally, class ended and Toni wanted to show Amanda and I this SNL sketch of "The Californians", which was really hilarious. I think I'll have to look up more of those, because Kristin Wiig's facial expression and voice was just killing me haha! When Toni was done, Amanda and I waited around a few minutes to talk to our professor about a few things for the submission reading on Monday night, but ended up talking a little while longer about transferring and our majors as well. It was nice, because we don't really get to talk to our teachers all that much with it being a bit of a bigger class.
We walked outside when we were finished, and realized that that was the last time we would be walking out of the class, commenting on the interesting people, and the crazy things we'd overhear. Our class is actually like The Office, when I think about it. We have a lot of really off color, strange personalities. They blurt out whatever they feel like and it makes for some really wacky conversations, while the rest of us on the other side of the classroom just laugh. Yeah, I'm really going to miss it in that sense. I've learned a lot about techniques in writing, that I never thought I would have. It has given me a new perspective on other genres of writing, and knowing the kind of direction I'd like to go in, as well as planning where I want to take a story when I start, rather than just improvising every time I open my laptop.
I met up with Michele and we headed back to town, talking about the rest of our day and making plans for Monday, since she'll be going out to the reading with me. We took a few more random pictures, but not pulling off to the side. It made me think back over the semester and what a great semester it has been. It feels like it passed off extremely quick as well. All of my classes were pretty decent and didn't have too much work, there were just a lot of tedious assignments. I still have one more test to go in theater, but it shouldn't be too bad, so I'll finish that next week. But, other than that, I won't be going out to the campus anymore for classes next semester, since I'll only have one class online. It was a bit of a sentimental day for me, remembering when I first started as a Freshman almost three years ago to the progress I've made now. But, I'm really looking forward to this Christmas break...Almost an entire month of all kinds of exciting things, but I'm really not looking forward to more free time. Maybe it'll give me a chance to help out friends in their classrooms and other things that present themselves! It's going to be good :) It's a time to get refreshed and focused again on what I need to do. A new season is coming.
Marissa also text me, notifying me that John Krasinski has a Twitter now. That led to a really long discussion of how witty he is. I told Marissa that I was looking up his IMDB and wanted to watch all of his movies, and Marissa said she'd watch with me. So, we're planning on doing that! YAY!
The rest of the afternoon, I watched The Office and ran to Target with my mom to pick up a curling iron. I was not in the most chipper of moods, so I'm sure I was delightful to be around, but I got a little bit better later on. Tonight, I had dinner with my parents, and we watched The X Factor and an E! special on LeAnn Rimes.
Well, you already know what I'm watching right now, so I won't bore you with the details, but I should probably turn in for the night pretty soon. It's going to be a BUSY day tomorrow with the church Christmas concert at our convention center, and that's just the beginning of a crazy weekend! It should be a blast and instead of being annoyed by details or figuring things out, I'm just going to soak it all up and live it up. That's what life is all about, and I'm going to make the most of the last few weeks of this year.

That's all for now,
Shelby