Things to be excited for…

It’s been a while now, huh?  More than a month, actually, and this is the first post of the new year.  Not much has changed.  I’m back at uni, working on my psych degree and studio art minor.  Classes are going well, professors are mostly stellar, the norm.  I’m taking developmental psych, cognitive psych, ANOVA/experimental statistics, design 1, and logic.  All in all, mostly major/minor specific.

It’s snowy here.  And cold.  But that shouldn’t come as any surprise to you (come on, it’s Kirksville; we wear shorts when it gets above freezing).  My friends and family in Saint Charles recently got a foot of snow, which pretty much makes it the first time that Kirksville had less–even if we’re only talking by a few inches.

But enough about classes and weather and cold!  There are marvellous things in which to be excited for!  New albums coming out this year, the marriages of both of my sisters, the tentative backpacking trip to Chicago, visiting family in Florida, and working at what is quite possible the best place in the world for three months.  It suddenly hit me today just how much is coming up within the next six or seven months.

Both of my older sisters are getting married: Joslyn in April and Jessica in August.  Joslyn’s will just include going home for the weekend, but I will have to get myself to Colorado Springs, CO for Jessica’s.  At first, my dad informed me that I would just fly there, but for the same price, I could give myself a multiple day vacation in Chicago and just take the train.  Sure, that’s an extra two days of travelling, hostel costs, food, et cetera.  But you know what?  I’m totally up for it.  My room mate and I started scouring the internet last night for train prices and hostels in the Chicago area and how to backpack your way across the country.  Now, I just need to present the idea to my mother.  That will be interesting.

Meanwhile, lots of new albums come out this year that I’m pretty darn excited about.  Florence + the Machine (whom I was gushing over a year ago), Kerli Koiv, Coldplay (about damn time), et cetera.  Loreena McKennitt and Robyn both just released new albums that I would love to get my hands on and might save as a special present to me for my birthday (or for getting through the semester, either one).

It’s strange to think that this semester will be done and over with in only three and a half months.  Come 6 May, and I’ll be back home in Saint Charles.  And on the 15th, my lease will start on the house that Jess, Noah, and I have up here in Kirksville.  I won’t be staying there for the summer, which leaves a bit of a waste in the rent that I will still be paying, but it will be fun to come up over weekends and start fixing the place up.  We’re pretty excited to get furniture and paint and mix-matched dishes into there.

Anyway, I hope that this was a sufficient update.  I’ve been working on another blog post for some time, but it really hasn’t been coming along well.  So this is my much more friendly alternate.

Keep it classy.

Missi

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WOOHOO!

WE HAVE OFFICIALLY SIGNED THE LEASE!

And you know what else?

ANN, GINNY, AND JAMES GOT THE HOUSE NEXT TO US! With both houses right next to each other and the leases and deposits all turned in, we’re already musing over what next year is going to look like. One North is taking over Pierce Street, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on my Five Awesome Potters project with friends; lots of exams in child development, Brit Lit, social psych, and even in drawing (I know, right, why an exam in drawing?); and have been chilling outside as much as possible before the cold comes to play.  Next week, I’m going back home to Saint Charles for my fall break, and I’ll be spending the next two weeks reading hard-core for my social psych paper and exam.  It will be a relief to get everything over and done with!

Not much else going on, but I thought I’d tell you about the lease.  It’s so exciting, and we all feel like we’re taking giant steps in the direction of adulthood.  Slightly scary.  Slightly humbling.  Definitely awesome.

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Everyone is a potential lunatic.

Including me.  Or so Natalie Tran has taught me.

Jess, Noah, and I have been looking around town lately for houses.

Wait, I just started this blog out bluntly.  Let’s start again:

Two weeks ago, it dawned on me that leases for houses and apartments are signed around October, and I suddenly found myself in panic mode to start looking for off campus housing for next year.  Cue crazy plans and drama and hours of searching and falling from plan A to B to A again to C to D.

Now, before you ask me why I’d want to live off campus even though I absolutely love it here in 1 North, I’ll tell you.  First, it’s cheaper.  About four thousand dollars per year cheaper.  Second, I will no longer have to take out student loans, which means I could possibly graduate with only 12,000 dollars of debt.  Freaking spectacular, really.  Third, ResLife really messed around with my dorm house over this summer, switching rooms, suddenly adding room mates, turning our dorms into offices and then placing us in the Romance Language house (when literally 90% of the house is in German), et cetera.  So, all of us in 1 North have been looking into moving out for the next school year.

After a lot of my plans fell through, it ended up being Jess, Noah, and me looking for an apartment or house together, and Jess ended up getting in touch with this really nice guy who rents out houses three blocks from campus.  We found out that he had three three-bedroom houses for rent next school year, and next thing we know, a group of nine of us from 1 North was on its way to tour through these houses.  And you know what?  They were nice.

Sure, not the greatest houses in the history of mankind, but definitely nice.  The price, around 700 dollars per month (then split three ways) is a good place to start, the landlord is incredibly nice and quick to fix any problems (we talked to the tenants about this), and the house has lots of perks.  A brand new washer and dryer, the option to paint any room whichever colour you’d like, a basement with plenty of storage space, two bathrooms, a kitchen with stove and fridge, dining room, living room, and hard-wood floors!  We even have parking in the back of the house so that we won’t have to parallel park on the street, though admittedly, I’ve gotten pretty boss at parallel parking over the past year.

But we all three really liked it both times that we toured one of the houses, and after some talking with parents…

We’re ready to sign the lease!!

That’s right, kids.  I very may be signing a lease soon (if no one beats me to it) for my very first house!  It’s beyond exciting, and Jess, Noah, and I have already started talking about furnishings and paint colours.  I’m fairly sure that I want to paint my room this pumpkin/rust/brown colour that I found on Apartment Therapy.  It looks so rich and beautiful, which will be great with my all brown, violet, rust, and green décor.  Noah’s room has wood panelling that he would end up covering with posters, and Jess is perusing the different colours of purples to decide what she wants.

But we’re extremely excited, and I thought I’d share some of the fun news.  I’ll keep all of you posted as new developments come our way!

“Come away with me in the night,

Come away with me

And I will write you a song.”

–Norah Jones, Come Away With Me

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