Coming Home

As finals week wound down last week, I started moving my things home. I only live thirty minutes from campus, so it wasn't much of a move. Sometime before Friday (Tuesday I think, but maybe not), My mother and I discussed and I finally decided that this move home would be my last for a while. I'll be living at home with my mother and the bunnies this coming semester. I'm almost sad to leave the dorms, but I'm glad to be saving money now.

Moving home also means moving back into my old room. Thankfully, my "old" room isn't actually that old, so there's no Barney or butterflies to paint over on the walls. The big problem is that this room is much smaller than my dorm room and, obviously, a lot smaller than the two rooms I used to live in, so everything is so cluttered and I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment.

What, over the summer, was my desk is now cluttered with odds and ends and things I'm not really sure what yo do with. My shoes are piled, horribly, in a box. Clothes on hangers lay all over, mostly draped over boxes and such as I try to sort out what to keep and what to put in storage to donate. I'm really a clothes hoarder. I'm the worst with tee shirts. I really should make a tee shirt blanket, but I can't bear to cut the shirts anymore than I can get rid of them! Maybe I'll take a walk down memory lane and show you all some of my favorite "memory tees."

I did want to show this though. No, not my mismatched bedding, though the actual sheets are too cute and I'm really happy with them. Even the random comforter I found isn't as bad. My dorm bedding matched the purple pillow there. It looked horrible with my princess-style day bed and pretty pink everything else. Anyway, I'm currently reading Mockingjay and I'm so happy to be home for this part, specifically. Anytime I'm home, I seem to find or make time to read a lot more than I do in Arkansas with family/friends or at the dorms. I'm much less prone to lay, well, prone (ah good old Rifle Team terms leaking into my life again). I don't spend as much time laying around dreading doing anything. Instead I find I read a lot more, write a lot more, and blog a lot more.

I think this move will be good for my grades and mental health. It also puts me spending more time with my mom, which i a big deal to me if I'm hoping to study abroad soon. ;)

How did your finals go? Any big changes set for your December? What are you reading?

Dorm Yum: A Must Haves List

This week seems to be the week of lists! Monday I posted the list of weekly shows I'm watching this fall and today I thought I'd post about the food I like to keep in constant supply in my dorm room. These are, by far, not the only foods I keep in my room and certainly cannot make up an entire diet (most private universities I know have a cafeteria for that), but these certainly make my life easier and my blood glucose level happier.

1. Bread & Butter : This is an absolute must for me. I love to keep "French" bread or at least wheat rolls in my room at all times with a tub of Land-o-Lakes in the fridge. I'll eat a piece of buttered bread before a morning class, or after, or before bed, or as a midnight snack, or as a study break snack, or as all of the above. They say "[one] can not live on bread alone," and indeed you shouldn't, but I challenge that and say I could live on bread and butter for at least a few months.
2. Decaf Coffee : My kidneys may damper my caffeine intake, but they will not take coffee from me! I love to get up every morning, turn on the coffee pot, and wake up fully with the smell of brewing coffee. Not to mention it tastes good (I also like to keep herbal teas for late, cold nights)!
3. Water : I'm not one to drink tap water, and I've noticed a large number of my friends who forget to or simply don't keep water in their rooms. This leads to either: 1) they buy expensive purified water from the bookstore or b) drink the sodas from the cafe and nothing else. This isn't very healthy, so I like to keep a case of 24 bottles of spring water in my room at all times.
4. Crackers/Nuts : Right now I have several kinds of crackers in my food drawer and a can of cashews. I love the option of having crackers or nuts to just munch on when I'm studying or louging back reading. Wheat Thins are a great option and come in several flavors, as are the Ritz brand toasted chips.
5. Chocolate : I am a firm believer that a controlled amount of chocolate is good for your mental (and possibly physical) health. When I can find them, I love to have the After Eight chocolate mints or when I can't I usually go for the dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips from the baking section. Chocolate chips are great because you can eat a handful without eating all of them.

As I said this isn't all I keep in my dorm, but these are really my must-haves.

What are your dorm/kitchen must haves?

Letters and Solitude

I do now, and always have, adored written communication. In school we wrote notes and now notes have turned to letters. Sadly, my old penpals and I have lost touch, so I look for new penpals! That's what I've been doing recently, searching and messaging new potential penpals! I am so excited to get back into letter writing with lovely people from around the globe!
I've always thought there was something wonderful about handwritten letters. I love knowing that someone spent the time and energy to find a pen and paper, sit down, and write out their thoughts specifically to send to me, and that I've done the same in return.
I really hope I find some amazing penpals again and that we can keep in touch for several years to come!

Interested in writing me? email me at lifeducks (at) gmail (dot) com and maybe we can work out something out!

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On an entirely separate note, I'm moving into my own room! Yes, I'm still living in the dorms, but soon I'll be moving into a single room, meaning I will have two beds and so much more room! I'm extremely excited! I think having a room to myself and more room to spread out will help me study and do better in my classes. 

Above is the outside of the beautiful dormitory in which I live. The rooms in this dorm are huge for dorm rooms! I certainly hope everything will be better when I don't have a roommate. Not that I don't love my roommate, I just can't handle the stress of my heavier course schedule and sharing space anymore. I still love my roommate, she's one of my good friends and one of my sorority sisters, but I need my own space. 

You all should certainly be looking forward to a tour of my room when I get settled in!

Have you ever lived in a dorm? Did you like it? What are some of your best study tips for hard course work? 

A Catch-Up Post

Goodness it's been so long! School started and everything went crazy! I haven't been here in weeks and I haven't been on Twitter for about as long! It's crazy! Here on campus I don't have a computer in my room and I certainly don't have a private computer, so it makes anything I can't do from my phone rather difficult. Here we go now, I'm going to try to catch y'all up on this thing that is my life.

1. Classes are.... classes. There is a lot of reading in my classes this year. We just finished one novel in my English class, The American by Henry James, and we've started another, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. I probably won't review the first, I was unimpressed. I adore Henry James and I felt that novel was such a let down from the short stories I love.
   My french class is insanely difficult. We have a student who is fluent and from Togo, a French speaking country, and he gets as many things wrong as the American students do!
   History is not what I hoped it would be. I really need to read the course descriptions better! I hoped to study the great Kings and Queens of England (ie. Henry VIII, Elizabeth, William & Mary, etc.), but instead we're studying more about the uniting of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland and the British Empire! Such a let down!
   Script writing is amazing! It's a seminar style and I really love that. Each week about 4 people have 4-5 pages of a script they wrote read. Mine is being read today! I'm so excited! I've also got almost 20 pages of my script written. Perhaps I'll turn it into a short-ish film some day!
2. Joined the fencing team. This is actually a really new thing. I joined last Tuesday and had private training that day, then went to bouts on Thursday, and have private training again tomorrow! I really love fencing so I'm excite to learn more and compete for the first time in December!
3. Roommate is awesome! She's one of my sorority sisters and our room is amazing! We took away the whole dividing-the-room-between-rommies thing and made it one big room of sharedness. It's also covered in my photography and her art!
4. My sorority is great! We just got a new pledge class of really lovely, awesome girls! I'm extremely happy to see my sisterhood grow and I can't wait to get to know my new sisters more!
5. Grad school is in the works. I've picked out my top two Grad Schools (SOAS, University of London, or University of Hawaii, Manoa).
6. Doctor Who is.... GAH! I adore this show so much! I'm currently on the two part special that is the last with the Tenth Doctor and it's so sad! I don't want to see Ten go, but I'm interested to meet this Amy Pond that everyone is obsesed with!

I think that about sums up my life since we last spoke: Dorm, Class, Sorority, Fencing, Doctor Who. Yep, that's my life. I hope to be able to get back to posting regularly, but please excuse any college kid slacking I do.

How have you all been?

Dorm Style

I'm going to be really original for a moment and do a kind of "Back to school," university edition. I'm starting my second year at university, living on-campus, so I thought I'd share some of the things I think are needed in a dorm setting, plus some things I think would just be awesome.

Must Haves:

At very least, a calender is important. I think the bigger the better. They come in all kinds of designs so make a big calender a decoration in your room and keep up with all your school assignments and social events!
I like this one from Pottery Barn Teen

If you're allowed a mini-fridge, coordinate with your roommate and try to get one. I have the one pictured above and I really love it. It's so handy for left overs and the separate freezer means ice cream is easy to keep. I got this one at Target last year and it's still in stock online.

Life in a dorm is a life of little space. I got a storage thing similar  to this and ended up dedicating most of the drawers to food items that needed to be in the fridge. These can be found at most any super store. The above is from Target.

A desk lamp is absolutely essential. Some dorms may come with them, mine did not. I got one to clip to the side of my bed or desk and I hate it. I'm getting one similar to the picture this year. These lovely things are the easiest way to make life comfortable for both roommates. This one's from Target.

I've purposely left out the things no one forgets (ie: pillows, blankets, laptop/computer, etc.) These are the things I pick up after moving in and realizing I needed them.


Killer Personalization:

Most dorm rooms come with a bed, a desk, mirror, desk chair, and dresser. That doesn't leave much room for guests, so a fold-up lounger would be perfect for friends and easy to store. I really want to get this one from Pottery Barn Teen.

I only have posters in my room that I put up with command strips, but I think these wall decals would make an amazing touch to a dorm room. The above is from Target and they have them in all shapes and sizes and for all genders!

I really really want one of these in my room. Not only does it leave another surface to be customized, but it also has the inside to hold books, and as we know, I love books. This is one from Target

These loungers are absolutely priceless! It's so easy to lean back on one of these in bed to watch a movie or read a book for a class. I'm sure you can get these at most stores with bedding departments, but the one pictured above is from Target.

Area rugs are great and functional. They are easy quick personalization to make your room look more cozy while they also protect your feet from the cold tile of the dorm floor! I don't have one for my room, but I plan to get one. This one is from Pottery Barn Teen.

And that's all the tips I've got for you. If you're going into your first, or any other, university year, I hope it goes great and good luck!

What are/were your dorm must-haves?