1. Construction sites. They’re building a large parking structure in the campus parking lot, and I enjoyed seeing the construction progress. Same too with the apartment building at 12th and K. I’m sure it’ll be done by the time I go back to school in August.
2. Going outside during the day. This seems odd, but really, it’s true. During the school year, I have to walk between classes, and wait outside for lightrail and buses. I’d probably spend about two hours outside during the day. Now I get to work at 7:30 in the morning, and don’t go outside until it’s time to go home at 5pm. I could go outside during the day, but it’d only be for a few minutes on my break.
3. Assigned reading. Yes, I realize this makes me look like the biggest geek. But I like reading new authors, and it’s nice to have some direction in who to read. I wouldn’t have known I like Blake and Wordsworth and Donne without my Brit Lit classes.
4. Seeing people not related to me. Since I work with my Mum for my aunt, the majority of the people I see on a regular basis are related to me. I miss seeing people who didn’t know me when I wore diapers. Really, it means I need to get out more.
5. Quality blog posts. My mind has turned beyond mush since the end of the semester, and I can only hope that I snap out of it sometime soon.

I’m sure I miss more things than that, but that’s all that I can think of at the moment. I need to stop playing Sims2 at night, and start writing again. My fiction has been seriously lagging, and I can’t even bring myself to read a book that isn’t a romance novel.

Warning: Serious gloating ahead.

So, I just checked my grades, because my sister’s were all posted yesterday. I’ve been checking on and off for a week, and while my English grades have been up for awhile, I’ve been waiting for my Math grade to post.

Final grades for the Spring 2006 semester.

Will you look at that? Seriously, and A in Math? I totally didn’t expect to pull my grade up from a B, since I did horrible on the quizzes, and stopped turning in my homework at the end of the semester.

But the gloating is all about the 4.0. Not just for the semester, but the whole year! Genius! This should go a long way towards petitioning all my drops and failures off my transcript for when I transfer. I really fucked up my first two years in college, and it took a two year break to get to where I needed to be.

So, while I feel like a looser that everyone I graduated with—if they attended a four-year college right out of college—has already gotten their B.A., and at 23 I’m still working on my A.A. But, I’m so very proud of my grades, and am glad I took that break.

If I hadn’t have taken that break, I’d have a A.A. in Business now, hate my job, and probably wouldn’t have ever even thought of going on to get a B.A. As it is, I’m on track to finish my A.A. next year, transfer to Sac State in fall of 2007 to get my B.A., and am even thinking about getting a Masters.

I would have never dreamed I’d be an English major, or that I could do all this. It took that break to really decide what I wanted to study, and now I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Now, to convince my Dad that I need a really good present for doing so well… Like a spinning wheel. I really want one of those.

—”Somebody Told Me,” Hot Fuss: The Killers