Home - A Photo Tour.

Every place has something good in it,
from the falling down ghettoes of southeastern Kentucky, to the TOO COLD flatlands of North Dakota.
I love Fargo, I really do...in the summer. The whole town smells good, and it's less crowded because most of the college kids have gone home.
I moved here in July. A year (11 months, but who's counting?) is plenty enough time to get to know a place.
Because I didn't make any long-term friends I didn't already know before I came here,
most of the places I'll miss will just be stores or places I spend time at by myself...but here they are anyway:

^Every time I see the bridge that connects the states, I think of the time Mike and I walked 2 and a half miles in search of a Hardees, and we called his mom to tell her we walked to North Dakota. XD She didn't know it was only 8 blocks to North Dakota from my apartment.

^The buffalo with the human face, at the art museum next to the library. Every time I want to go to the coffee shop, the Moorhead mall, or if I catch a bus downtown, I have to pass this. It's freaking creepy but I kinda feel like it's the mascot of my neighborhood.

^Just kidding. I hate Hornbachers. But it's where my food comes from, so I have to be a LITTLE bit thankful it exists.

West Acres is probably my favorite place in the entire town. It was where I bought virtually all my clothes from 7th grade up to now. When I come back here to visit, I'll have to go there to spend more money I don't have. :)

^This is where I ate lunch today. One of my first memories is trying a parmesan pretzel at this same restaurant. They're greasy and overpriced, but I had to have one because when I was younger, it was a big tradition, and I wanted to feel like a little kid again.

^Yeah, yeah, more food. This is the candy store, where I get my bag of Jelly Belly beans that are the same flavors every time. Pomegranate, Kiwi, Pear, Peach, and Plum.

^It is disgusting how much money I spend at Hollister in one shopping trip. Everything in there is bright and colorful...My wardrobe is so dark, except for the stuff I've bought from there.

^Before the store next to JCP was a tux shop, it used to be a toy store. KB Toys was where I first learned that I could blow all my birthday money on one trip. XD I remember being 10 years old throwing a penny into that fountain. I have pictures standing in front of it at 16 years old, and at 21, I bought my convention dress at JCPenneys, as well as towels and washcloths for my *4th* apartment.

^A girl I knew in college told me there is an Asian Market in Nashville, and one in Knoxville too, but both of those cities are an hour or more from where I'll be living. I'll miss having fancy ramen only a 15 minute bike ride away.

Of course, there are MANY more places I'll miss (EXTREME PITA, Cashwise, the seasonal DQ 3 blocks away, the Moorhead library, Moxie Java, Target, Taco Johns, and Pizza Ranch, to name a few), but I don't have pictures of them. I need to make a list of things I should do every holiday when I can afford to come visit.

I wonder what I'll be doing at this time next year, and where I'll be...I hope I'll be enjoying a summer in Cookeville just as much as I've enjoyed summer here so far. :)

Reflections on another semester – DONE.

Today, I finished the last math class I will (hopefully) ever have to take. I still feel like I just started. I did a LOT of work, but is it bad to say I feel like I haven’t learned anything? Most of the information in ALL of my classes, not only math, just went way over my head. I feel like I was shot out of a rocket and have just been flying through everything since January.

I’ve spent the last four months so distracted, I don’t know how I managed to end up with a 3.5 GPA. (For now. I still have to get through finals to know the grades that will go on my transcript.) In January and February, I was consumed with planning the trip Mike and I went on. There was a lot to do! I was searching for the cheapest possible hotel, going out every few days to search sale racks for outfits that wouldn’t make me feel like a loser (Eh, I felt and looked awkward the whole two weeks anyway), compulsively checking Accuweather for upcoming storms that never happened…and generally, I was so excited that I couldn’t stop bouncing.
I spent most of March in Kentucky. The first week of it was spent here, packing and cleaning. (Or better yet, procrastinating when I SHOULD have been packing and cleaning.)

When I got back from Barbourville, I stayed out as much as I possibly could (while mourning the temporary loss of Mike AND my babies!), sometimes just going to the mall to window shop, other times picking up things for our new apartment in Cookeville. After I got my acceptance letter to TTU, my focus shifted to schoolwork, because I want to get the best grades possible, in order to pick up a scholarship or two.

Now I’m broke, worn out, and almost done. This semester was easier to get through than the last one, but it’s still taken a lot of work to get through it with my sanity intact. I’m both nervous and excited to see what the next school year will bring! A new state, new living situation, and HOPEFULLY some new friends. I never quite understood how I got through this school year without making one new friend at school. Everyone I talk to outside of class was either found on Craigslist or someone I knew from before.

My teachers were tough this year, but they pushed me to try to move past my slacking ways (which didn’t completely happen, haha). I loved having Mrs. Whitney for both Speech and Mass Media…I never thought I’d get through a speech class and pass it (let alone end up with an A), but she made it interesting. I’ll never forget the one day I was really stressed out about money (it happens at the end of every month), and she stayed past her typical hours just to listen to me.

Mr. Soiseth’s Food Science class was mind-numbingly boring and the hour dragged on, but at least I got to have a class to write in. And his tests were easy. He was sympathetic to my missing-the-bus situation, but I still won’t miss him much.

Ms. Ellefson got me through math. I liked her, but it was weird being taught by someone who’s only 3 years older than me. It was hard to see her as a kind of “authority figure.” More than that, I’ll miss Danelle, the woman who sat next to me and always asked to see my cat pictures. She was cool, and so supportive when I told her about my crazy-impulsive school choice. I’d like to stay in touch, but most women around my parents' age don't get too much into Facebook.

There’s probably more that I can leave without looking back to. I’ll happily say goodbye to the bus creatures, though Tennessee no doubt has some creepers of its own. I won’t miss FIVE MONTHS of snow. I won’t miss the school that I’ve attended for 9 months where no one my age looked at me twice…

Summer will be a welcome break. Like I said on facebook, I’ll be BUSY. Garage sales, cleaning out my apartment, and FINALLY moving. But it’ll be nice. I’d much rather be busy packing than busy studying. And the crappy stuff (cleaning out my mom’s house, planning another bus trip, and saving money) will be easier when I remind myself of the good things to come. :)