The College Laundry Experience

So, before I start off…I must tell you all…that I am indeed in college.

I know it’s a shocker (…not really.  It shouldn’t be a shocker anyways; some of my more recent blogs were all about college…and the plane ride to college…)

Anyways, I’m attending Weber State University now in Ogden, Utah.

Because I lived in Pennsylvania….and Utah is 238,343,642,556 miles away, I can’t go home every time I need to do laundry…or pick up something I forgot at the house…or cook food…

…I really miss home-cooked meals…

Anyways!  Because of this, as we speak right now, I’m down in my dorm’s basement doing laundry.

Now, this isn’t THAT big of a deal, because I’ve done laundry a lot over the course of my lifetime… from the time I was little up until the day before I left I had done laundry…now the methods and stuff changed over the years…but still, the basics remain.

So, why would I be writing a blog about doing laundry then?  Well…I just have a few complaints I would like to make evident.  I’ll make my list pretty…and might even add a picture to it!

#1: There are only 6 washing machines; 2 3 of them are out of order

(As I write this, the one machine that DID have my clothes in it now says that IT is out of order as well…so…yeah. Only two used to be out of order, but in the course of a few minutes, another one becomes inaccessible.  And actually, this little fact pissed me off.  Why? Because the clothes that were in the washer that now says Out of Order aren’t dry…they’re soaking wet…and not clean.  So what do I have to do? I have to put them in another washer and run the load again.)

#2:  The washers don’t hold very many clothing  items

(This means that if you wait to do your laundry for even like…a week…and you have a lot of clothing…you’re looking at using at LEAST 2 washers.  And, if there are 6 of them, and 3 are out of order, the chance of you being able to do all your laundry at once…well, the odds aren’t good.)

#3:  The washers are HE (High Efficiency) washers

(Okay, this doesn’t seem like THAT big of an issue…but look at it this way… I assumed that I would need regular laundry detergent to do my laundry…and the regular laundry detergent requires you more detergent for fewer loads.  If I would’ve known that the washers were HE, I could’ve invested in HE detergent, which you can get more loads out of with less…or so they advertise..  Plus…I really don’t know how well HE washers work with regular detergent…I don’t want to make it explode! Mainly the last point is my only concern..

*Honestly, I don’t know THAT much about HE products…so don’t tear me apart on this point; I’m just naïve and know what I’ve been told)

#4: It costs $1.00 per load to wash, and $1.00 per load to dry

(Let’s flash back to points number 1 and 2.  Specifically, in point number 1, the fact that while my clothes were IN the machine in the process of being washed, the machine went Out of Order.  And in the second point, let’s look at the fact that the machines don’t hold very many clothes.  These two points mean that #A: If the machine goes out of order on you in the middle of your load, you have to pay ANOTHER dollar to finish the load, and #B, If you have to use more than one machine, it means that you’ll be paying at least $2.00 just to wash them.  And then if you dry them…you have to dish out another dollar AT LEAST

*I know it sounds stupid to complain about a dollar…but a dollar here and a dollar there…plus if you do laundry weekly or even bi-weekly…you’re looking at a lot of money JUST to get your clothes clean!)

#5:  The washers are small, but the dryers are HUGE

(This isn’t really a complaint…but it doesn’t make sense!  I mean, that basically means the amount of clothing you can take up for 2 washers you can use to dry with just one dryer…which can cut down on costs.  But seriously…the washers should be bigger! That way instead of having to use 2 washers to do clothes, you only need to do one, which means you can free up a washer for another person who needs to use it…and seriously…this dorm has a lot of people who tend to want clean clothes)

#6:  Lots of people, few options

(In a building this big, there are going to be people constantly funneling in and out of the laundry room looking to wash and dry their clothes.  This is going to be really, really hard to do, especially if it takes 1 or 2 people to occupy all the available washing machines.  I mean, they’re freed up when the washing people go to dry their clothing items…but still.  It’s just..stupid.)

Okay that’s my rant.  Any opinions? Let me know.

Note: I’m glad that they do have facilities to help students get their clothes clean—I really am grateful—but the facilities they DO have need to be 5 million times more accessible to the students who paid good money to go to this school.

My Plane-Ride Adventure

 

As you guys know, I’m pretty ADD.  Which does not bode well when it comes to going new places.  The whole way from our house to Baltimore, MD I was sped looking out the window at things (and helping my dad with directions).  Then when we got to the airport and parked, dad made us haul ass to get to the shuttle bus station, which was about to leave.

Our driver was such a funny black lady, saying things like “Yo betta sit down ‘less you wanna get hurt!’  And stuff like that…She was amusing.  And it was fun just riding in the bus…I was smiling and my dad was just looking at me like I was crazy.

And then we got to the airport and had to go through security…which was easy…but the lady who was telling us to go through the metal detector was impatient which wasn’t cool.  Oh well.

Then we had to wait.  We were there 3 hours early…and we sat in the terminal that whole time.

Me being ADD made that part really fun! I kept looking out the window and watched the planes take off and was like ‘omg that’s so cool!!!’ and then I randomly decided I wanted to be a pilot… until my dad told me you have to go to school for a longgggg time. And I don’t want to fly a plane that much.

I started taking pictures of things with a camera that my parents got me for my birthday…nothing too exciting.  But at the time I thought my pictures were awesome because I had never been in an airport terminal…well, I was when I was like 5, but I can’t remember that! 

Here are some pictures I had taken

Yeah. At the time, I thought these pictures were the greatest thing ever and they’d end up in a magazine…

Now….I know that dream is NOT going to come true.  Except the sky picture is pretty shindiggy.

So after that my dad kept getting up to go get food or go potty or whatever…personally, I think he was just making excuses to leave me.  I was acting really goofy and totally like I had a mental issue, so I can’t say I didn’t blame him.

He came back one time with a puzzle book and a pencil…he paid $5 for a pencil that came with one extra piece of lead.  Haha he got ripped off.  It was fun.

Then the time came to board the plane.

My dad was put in group B…and I was put in group C.

Which means that my dad got to board before me.

And considering I had never been on a plane before…Uhm…I didn’t like the thought of boarding without him, and potentially not being able to sit near him.

So he left me and I had to wait another 5 minutes…and was freaking out the whole time…

And then it was my turn to board.

I got onto the plane and started looking in the seats frantically to try and find my dad…and as I was getting closer to the back…I was freaking out more, thinking that I was on the wrong plane or that I had missed my dad!

But then right before the last seat…I saw him. And relaxed a little.

And then…my friends…I tried to put the seatbelt on.

That was the worst experience of my life!  Oh my god it wouldn’t fit! I kept trying to connect the two parts and I was freaking out and my heart was beating faster and I kept worrying that the plane was gonna take off and I was going to die.  And even worse…it made me feel fat.

Yes, I know I’m a bigger girl to begin with…but instead of me feeling like I was a healthier chubby girl…I felt like I was 900 pounds.  And it was a horrible feeling.

It was like THIS versus THAT

It really frustrated me because the seatbelt was just a LITTLE too small.  Like…I could almost get it…but not quite.

So this little old Asian man was in the aisle beside me and saw me struggling…so he came over and helped me…I don’t know how someone who looked like he weighed only 100 pounds got this seatbelt to click…but somehow he did.  And my dad made sure it was clicked… so that was a little bit of relief. 

But then…I couldn’t feel my legs. It was so tight like…the circulation was being cut off!  Which wasn’t good…but I dealt with it.  For the rest of that leg of my journey I tried to forget all about the stupid seatbelt…but yeah.

So then the plane took off…and I got all ADD again.  I was looking out the window and being all like omg! a plane! I’m in a plane! the plane is taking off! and my dad was sitting beside me looking like he was going to die!  He didn’t, which is good, but still.

Then the plane was in the air…and I started to feel sick.  I think I started to feel sick after I was trying to get the seatbelt on.  Because like…too much blood was in my head…and then we took off…but I felt miserable the whole ride.  Like I kept feeling sick.  But it wasn’t all bad.  We got free food!  Well, first they went around asking what you wanted to drink…and since I was feeling sick I kept getting ginger ale.  And then they came around with this big tray of snacks and were like ‘take as many as you like!’ which I basically took to mean ‘if you take more than two things, I am going to judge you forever.’ 

But the snacks were cool!  I got some animal crackers that were shaped like airplanes.  And I was all excited.  I told my dad, “Dad! These are airplanes! I’m going to play with them!”  So I made one fly around in the air and kept saying vrooom vroom!!   ….suffice to say, my dad couldn’t stop laughing as he told me planes don’t go vroom. 

So I tried to zone out and listen to music to keep me from being sick.  Which worked some…

Then we descended into Denver airport…but we weren’t going to get off there.  I had to unbuckle though and I was freaking out about having to buckle again…and feeling sick again.  So I had my dad ask for a seatbelt extender and the attendant was like ‘wasn’t she on the plane already with a seatbelt on?’ and my dad had to tell her that I couldn’t breathe with it on…which made me feel bad, but oh well.  So I got an extender.  And me and my dad moved seats.  So I got a true window seat!  And then I felt sick even before we  got off the ground.  So I closed my eyes and tried to not throw up.

And then the plane started to leave again and I opened my eyes and watched it…

And when we were up in the air…it was…amazing to say the least.

It looked like we were floating on a sea made out of clouds…it was incredible…one of those experiences you really want to remember…

and then I got that weird taste in my mouth that told me I was going to puke…and I almost did!  But then I fell asleep for the rest of the time and then we landed and I didn’t get sick.  But I kept the bag just in case.

And the rest of the night I felt soooo sick.

Well, that was the short version of my plane-ride adventure.  Overall, it sucked.  If I hadn’t’ve felt sick, then it would’ve been fun.  But I felt sick.

Ugh, it’s my own fault for going to college so far away from home.

Anyways, if I never have to fly in a plane again, I’ll be happy…

…but I know I’m going to end up experiencing all that again; the good and the bad.

Lessons I learned for next time:

1) Ask for a seatbelt extender the second I get on the plane

2) Hope there’s more free food to make me feel better

3) Take lots of motion sickness meds before I go.

4) Try to take a train or drive instead.

When College Finally Hits You

 

I know 2 or so months ago, I made a blog about college hitting me…

But that…that was a lie.

At the time, I THOUGHT I had made the realization that high school is over and I’m starting college…but honestly, this feeling didn’t hit me for real until a few weeks ago.

You see, it didn’t really hit me until I signed up for college classes.  Once I was figuring out what classes I was going to take, my mind said “Wow, Sarah, you’re actually going to college.” It was a crazy revelation.

I realized it even more when I noticed it was the end of July (now the beginning of August) and I thought about the fact that I hadn’t seen any of my friends really during the summer.

It’s funny; the end of your senior year at graduation, you hug people and tell them that you’re going to hang out this summer. But I haven’t really hung out with anyone…well, except one of my best friends in the whole entire world, which was awesome of course…but still there are other people as well.  I only have 6 days left until I leave for college…and there are so many people I want to see and haven’t gotten to see yet.  I just…I hope I get to see them before it’s too late.

It’s not like the previous years where I can just wait for school to start to see them.  It’s not like I’ll be walking into the same building, waiting in the cafeteria every morning like I had before…going to my FBLA advisory in the morning on the first day and then to my classes and seeing my friends and teachers.  It’s odd to think that the people I grew up with…I won’t be seeing them for a long time.  I mean, I’ve lived here for 8 years.  And people I got used to seeing on a daily basis…I won’t be able to see them anymore.  If I don’t see these people now…I won’t see them until April.  If then. 

I feel as though if I don’t see some of these people now, we’ll just continue to drift apart until I never hear from them at all anymore.  And that scares me.  I started to realize this when I was writing yearbook entries.

I spend a lot of time on each entry I write; especially since it was my senior year, I wrote down as much as I could.  And I didn’t care how much space I took up…I put my heart and soul into each individual entry.  And for some of them I got pretty long responses…but for others…they barely wrote anything.  That made me realize that a lot of people meant more to me than I meant to them. And even though I really cared about seeing them this summer, they most likely didn’t feel the same for me.

It’s odd to think that I’m almost eighteen years old. Legally an adult.  I mean, where did that time go?  And I don’t feel any different…

I think that’s how life gets you; it sneaks up on you a little at a time so you don’t notice.  And then one day it hits you and you realize just how far you’ve come, and you see just how much further you have left to go.

It hit me further when I started to clean my room.  It’s a mess and I really need it to be organized so I can figure out what I want to take with me to college and what I won’t mind leaving here.  And when I was going through my papers…I decided to throw away all my papers from high school I didn’t need anymore..

 

This picture…this was high school.

This was a majority of the papers…you can’t really tell how much is there, but there is a lot…it’s just all piled underneath.  There are papers from elementary school in there too…and middle school…this is basically what my schooling as I knew it consisted of.

Chemistry. AP European History. Physics. AP American History (I and II). Latin (I and II). Sociology. Psychology, PreCalculus. Earth Systems Science. Civics. Algebra II. Lab after lab after lab. Scantrons. Tests. Quizzes. Studying aids…There are even fliers for prom and other social events in there.  And my finger splint I used when I hurt my pinky in dodgeball Junior year.

It’s hard to come to terms with all this.  I mean, I know high school was only 4 years, but it was a huge part of my life.  And it’s going to take me awhile to get used to the fact that I won’t be going back to that school anymore.  I’m going to have to get used to saying “Yeah, I graduated with him/her”.  I’ll have to get used to doing all the college work on my own without much assistance.  It’s a scary thought.

It feels as though my life is actually starting now.  Like, honestly and truly starting.  And I don’t think I’m ready for it…

And even if I’m not ready, I’m going to have to face it anyways.  And learn as I go. 

It’s at least a little comforting to know that if everything goes wrong, there will still be people out there I can turn to for some help…and even when I graduate college and am on my own, there are some people I will be able to go to for help for the rest of my life.  And that gives me comfort.  It makes me feel lucky.

I’m also lucky I got the loan..

Yes, I did get it, but I am seriously getting screwed over for it. I borrowed $11,098 and am going to probably pay back $27,000 which…really sucks. But I’m glad I got the loan.

Anyways, yeah. That just about sums up everything.

You know, I’ve been working on cleaning my room a good 3 weeks now, and it doesn’t look like I’ve done anything.  It sucks! Especially since it’s getting down to a crucial time where I need to get done as much as I possibly can.  I have today and tomorrow to come up with a list of things I need for college, Saturday to go shopping for those things, and Sunday/Monday to finish cleaning. By Tuesday I need to have all my stuff packed, and then Wednesday me and my dad are leaving for Utah.  Then Thursday me and my dad are going to drive around and check out the area.  Friday, I move into my dorm…and then I’m on my own.  My dad’s flying back home on Saturday and I won’t see him until April probably.

And sadly, I know April will be here before I know it.

That only scares me because April is 8 months from now…and that’s a long time to have fly past you.

I just hope I can get everything done in time.  I’m crossing my fingers.

I really want everything to go well too with college.  I really hope it does.  I want to have an amazing college experience, and hopefully I will.

Okay, I’ll stop talking now.  I hope you guys didn’t mind my ranting about how sad it is to be going away…but you know, it’s kind of a big deal. At least to me.