ashley

I am writing to you from my computer...on my new desk!!! my mom brought the correct colored desk this weekend and we put it together last night. my room is finally complete. I have my nacho bitch poster attached to my whiteboard with magnets. it looks awesome. yessss. pics to come...if you guys care haha.

I am completely insane! I am going crazyyyy thinking about living in an actual apartment next year. I am so damn excited. I can't wait to decorate it and make it amazing. I love that kind of stuff. I've been watching HGTV every time I go home, and now I am watching their shows online. I don't know what my problem is! I've found a duvet cover and a few decorations from Urban Outfitters which I plan on getting as soon as I get my tax refund. I know it's only a temporary place, but I really want to make it my own since I will be living there for at least 2 more years.

There is a show on HGTV called House Hunters International and I get so jealous every time there is a person on there searching for a place in France. I want to go back there SO bad. I can't believe that before I had gone my sophomore year in high school, I never gave any thought to going to France, and quite frankly, I didn't care that I was going. I just wanted to go because my friends were going. It turned out to be the most amazing experience of my life, and I want to go back now and really take advantage of that opportunity. I would love to study abroad or something, but I know that'd be really hard on me because I can't even be 3 hours away from home without complaining. I would love to do it though, at the same time. There are programs here that cost the same as tuition at my actual school does, so it wouldn't be a huge expense. I really want to get out and see the world as of late. I feel like I am losing my chance to do that...because as soon as I graduate, I have to get a job, I have to spend my money on "adult" things, and I won't have much time to go on adventures and see new places.

I love the history and the beauty of France. I was looking at apartments in Paris online, and while some of them are wtf-worthy for the price, some of them are also gorgeous. They do things so differently there, but I wouldn't mind having a washing machine under my stove, or having a small bathroom. I'd just love to live there for a while. I feel like I am letting my life here hold me back from doing things I would LOVE to do.

So, my small friends list...where would you live, if you could live anywhere? And why?

The prospect of staying in Chico really isn't seeming as bad as it once did to me.

I am the most indecisive person I've ever known. I exaggerate too. I exaggerate everything because it makes my ideas and decisions seem more possible and not so nonsensical as they would seem otherwise. I'm not as unhappy as I say I am in Chico. I LOVE Chico. I love this city. I hate that I don't spend as much time with my friends as I should, but it's not as if I am friendless. I do have friends. I know the main reason I am not happy here is because I am totally confined to a dorm room. I have no human contact, even when I go out into the kitchen I share with my other roommates. If I had contact with people, I would be so much more likely to be happy and to want to stay here.

The thing is that I have a boyfriend. I admit now that I have been embellishing my reasons for going home by saying I am "so unhappy" and that I also miss my family. It's not really that. I just hate missing my boyfriend. I hate it. And while I do miss my mom and dad, I know they wouldn't be my reason for moving back home if I didn't have a boyfriend. I feel so horrible for my boyfriend that we got into this when we did -- when I was leaving to go to college. But honestly, I am ONLY 3 hours away. 3 short hours and 200 miles away. It's a hell of a lot better than being in Northern California and having a boyfriend in Southern California like other people that I know. I love him so much, and as long as we love each other, I should know he is not going anywhere. He will love me whether I am 10 minutes away or 3 hours away. Maybe by next year things will get better and he will have more time to visit me than he did this year. I love him so much, and there are some things out of my control that make me want to be by his side every minute, but that's not possible, and in the end, I need to do what I need to do. I know he will be there for me no matter what, but I am kind of scared to reveal to him that I will be staying here because I've been "decided" on going home for a few months now.

And now, I am about to commit to something. I am going to sign a lease on Wednesday to live with my friends Lacie, Lauren, and Breanna. I got really lucky with this -- I was going to live with them last year, but I backed out because I was indecisive, just as I have been this entire year. I just need a distraction. I need to live with people I know, I need to get a job -- I need to be distracted from feeling sad or lonely (in the sense that I don't have my boyfriend with me). I need to live with people I know and like. I hang out with them the most out of anyone I know, and I know we get along well enough to live together. The apartment is so nice, and it's very clean too. I have my own room to decorate as I please and I can bring my full-size mattress from my dad's house up!

I will always miss my boyfriend, but I don't think I am ready to give up on Chico. I also just don't want to deal with the hassle of learning a new school, their new processes, and everything else. I can still visit on the weekends. I have to remember that.

Quick update...
- Christmas was great.
- My dad says that for the first time in a long time, I looked really happy and content (last night 12/25).
- I'm getting a new (used) car (wow, my dad is WILLING to help me with it), and using my savings to make payments. I'm either getting a Honda Civic of some sort or the Volkswagen Jetta of my dreams! I'm only debating between these two because my mom looked on Consumer Reports and they said that VW Jetta is one of the worst used cars to buy. I'm a little worried about that. Especially when the Honda guy says they hardly ever have problems, they beat Toyota in 2008 for best car or w/e, and because he said he knows people who have Hondas with 300,000!!! miles on them. So yeah, I'm just a little worried...after my Taurus, I can't afford to have any more major problems.
- I'm going to Las Vegas next Tuesday with my best friend for New Years. It took A LOT for me to accept this because I have a hard time doing things without my boyfriend. I need to start doing that though and start getting myself detached a little, otherwise I will keep missing out on life.

Now my mom and I are going to watch Sex and the City the movie! Funnnnnn.

I want to join ohnotheydidnt, but they are dumbasses and won't accept most people. I don't get how in their rules, they say "don't make posts saying you're new here", when at the same time, they won't ADD new people as members. Just because you don't have a lot of entries or friends doesn't automatically make you a troll or anything. I understand, however, that there is always one person who joins and acts like a dumbass troll person and therefore ruins it for everyone else. Pathetically enough, I read their entries every day and laugh my ass off at the comments. I want to be able to comment too!

I drove home last night because on Saturday, I'm going to San Francisco with my mom and her friend to see the Christmas decorations and whatever else we can see! I haven't been there around Christmas-time for a few years now, so it'll be nice to go see if it has changed at all since the last time I went.

Driving home at night made me realize how the season really is changing. The low-laying tulle fog and temperatures that numb your fingers and tip of your nose are forcing me to realize that it is winter already! However, it doesn't feel like winter completely since the sun has been out. Not that I am complaining, because I personally really dislike the rain and cloudy days. It rained on Halloween this year, but it's not raining in December...weird. I love this time of year though, as I'm sure most of you do. I hate being away at school because it rarely feels like the holidays when I'm there. Well, actually it's just been this year because I don't live in the dorms on campus with all their fun programs and Christmas decorations and what not.

I honestly don't hate Chico at all. Since I've come the the realization that I want to move back home to go to school next year, it's not because I hate the school or the place. Chico, California is actually one of the most beautiful cities I've been to (and the only other place I've lived in) in California. It is called the City of Trees, and for good reason. There are gorgeous trees everywhere, and they are especially beautiful in the fall and early winter. The weather from late September to around May is ideal. Summers will always be unbearable for me, because I hate 100 degree weather. There is a park called Bidwell park that is so amazing, and it runs all the way up into the foothills where the creek begins. There's amazing swimming holes and amazing nature surrounding you here. The downtown area by the school is perfect. There's cute botique stores that aren't expensive despite what "botique" usually implies. There's good restaurants and lots of interesting things to do during the year, including the Farmer's Market. The people are great too, but it just so happens that I must really suck at socializing because I don't have many friends to hang out with. I will certainly miss the atmosphere of Chico. I admire it every single day. I wish I could just spend every day wandering around campus rather than being stuck in class. Just yesterday I wandered around campus before one of my classes and spent that time admiring how the haze left over from the tulle fog covered the trees and how sky was a perfect pure blue backdrop for the trees and their orange/yellow/red leaves. I love it there.

I've come to really value my education since I've been in college. I honestly love general education, even though sometimes it can be really damn annoying and make you wish you could just get to the point and focus on your major already. I've learned a lot about SO many different things and I am really thankful for that knowledge. I've learned about everything from geography to astronomy to history to sociology to philosophy. I am glad to know so many different things, and I find more often than not that most of the things I am learning now sometimes relate to each other more than they seem to at first "glance".

I wouldn't have stayed regardless because Chico State doesn't have the major I want. They call it "recreation" when in reality, I don't want to major in RECREATION, I want to major in hospitality and event management. I want to be able to work in a restaurant, hotel, or at a place that has events that need planning. I realized the difference when I noticed that San Jose State has one major called Recreation and another different major called Hospitality, Tourism, and Event Management. THAT is what I want, and I am going to do it. Besides, I can get a job easier down here (knock on wood), I will be able to see family/friends I actually care about more, and I know people who have done the HTEM program, so I can get advice and guidance.

Other than all this, I feel a big sense of relief right now and I really just want to go out and do something because I feel so much better!! I have a big, final paper for my Philosophy of Personal Values class to write, and I wrote a lot of it before Thanksgiving break. During break, I read it all again and realized how much it sucked. I decided to start it over, and I ended up with a much better result than what I had. However, I was so afraid that I wasn't answering the prompt question how my teacher wanted it to be answered. I e-mailed him right before break to ask if my ideas for the paper seemed suitable, but I never got a response. I finally got a response yesterday and he was very apologetic. In fact, he was so apologetic that he said he thinks he owes me some "special consideration" and that he would be happy to review my draft! asfjhakshfhsgd I am so happy he is doing this for me. It will be such a relief to see what he has to say. I'm just hoping the paper is a lot better to him than I thought it would be.

That is all. I guess I had a lot more to say than I thought I did!

i just got to reading my old GJ. i had a friend on there that i have no idea why i kept them around for so long. i met that person on livejournal way back in like 7th grade, and we were good "online" friends then. we got older and i actually met her at a concert once and she was excited to see me and was really nice in person. then, as a few more years passed and we were still friends on myspace, she'd respond to stupid surveys i'd post and what not, and make bitchy remarks to me. she even did that to me on my GJ as i noticed tonight. for all i know, she wasn't trying to be bitchy because you can't exactly hear the tone of typed words, but i'm pretty sure she wasn't trying to be nice about it either. i always felt like i had to justify anything i said to her, even if it was just something she said about what i wrote in a survey. every time i filled out a myspace survey while we were friends after she started sending me stupid messages, i would think before writing anything. i thought: will i sign on tomorrow and see "new messages" with her picture in the inbox? i'm glad she deleted me. i guess we didn't get along so well in the end. we never talked anyways near the end of things. but yeah. i just wanted to get that out because it does kind of suck. she wasn't a bad person, but i don't know why she wasted her time seemingly being rude to me about things that never mattered...

besides that, i am going home tomorrow night and then on saturday i get to go to san francisco with my mom! i'm excited. i should be studying for my math test tomorrow.

blogspot has seen a lot of me lately, so i figured i should stop neglecting my livejournal for those of you that care.

i'm in my second year at chico now, and i've finally decided: i am moving back home next year. i have absolutely no one in chico. those new friends that i mentioned in my last entry, well, they don't talk to me anymore, and i don't know why the fuck that is. they are the ones that made me want to stay this year, and now they can't even respond to a simple text message or facebook comment. what else do i have left here? all there is for me here is a beautiful campus. there is no major here for what i want to do specifically, and i don't have any friends except for carol and jenny and a few acquaintances that i still see and talk to on occasion. to keep it short, i've decided there is more for me at home than here. and my major is important, so i need to go where the best program for me is, and that just happens to be san jose state. i'm excited.

i only have 2 more weeks of classes and one week of finals before my 5 week winter break. then i'll be 3 semesters into college. i don't expect to graduate in 4 years at this rate...

that summer job i mentioned went well. i made A LOT of money, and saved about half of it in a savings account...$2,300. i'm doing it next summer as well, because i really need the money. it wasn't THAT bad although i did get into trouble for sleeping at the desk and for being late too many times. those were all mistakes and accidents though. i didn't mean to fall asleep and i wasn't late because i got caught up doing my hair...it was because there was accidents on the freeway and what not. all the things that are out of one's control are the things that made me late. it was a good experience i guess though. i learned that i definitely DON'T want to do office work for a living. what a boring life.

my boyfriend and i have been together for 1 year and 2 months now, and things are still good. i get a little moody now with him and for that, i feel terrible. little things have just been setting me off lately, especially since his seizure. and here goes another story. he had a seizure in my university housing room one night when he came up to visit me. the whole night was going weird, and when he knocked on my door 2 hours earlier than i was expecting him, i knew something was up. he told me he was sent home from work (his new job being trained to be a shift leader at rubios) because he seemed stressed. i knew he meant he had one of those blackouts he used to have from time to time. i researched it and found out it was most likely epilepsy, but because he doesn't know when they happen and doesn't know they happen, he didn't listen to me and thus, didn't take my advice to go see a doctor. that night he came up, we researched clinics for him to go get checked at. i let him get a pizza and bring some drinks into the room. we ate and he had a few drinks, but i did not drink. we went to sleep and around 1am, i woke up to him having a seizure. i screamed and screamed and didn't know what to do, so my roommates got help from an RA. i called 911 and there were paramedics and firemen in my room before i knew it. then, as they were taking him away, i got in trouble for having the alcohol in my room. as a result, disciplinary probation on my transcript/record, housing probation, a $69 alcohol edu class, and a 3 page paper about what i learned. my boyfriend stayed in the hospital for 2 days and his parents came up. as soon as he was released, they took him away from me. he came up to spend time with me, but it ended up being time spent in a hospital bed with my boyfriend who later found out his bill totaled $17,000. what an expensive weekend trip. i was so devastated that he had to leave that i called my mom, and she decided to come up and keep me company, which i thank her so much for. i love my mom so much and i am so lucky that she did that for me. after he returned home, his manager at rubios demoted him from shift leader in training to kitchen manager. less pay, and half the hours he got before. needless to say, he stopped going. it wasn't worth the fight, so he got into contact with chipotle where he used to work immediately. they wanted to take him back, but couldn't do it right away. he waited about a month, but now he is back there and although he is making $1 less than he did before he quit chipotle last time, at least he has a job again after a month of waiting and getting allowances from his parents.

i'm okay now, but for the longest time it seemed, i was so stressed about the entire situation. i had to deal with different people from the university about my punishment and i spent a lot of time reliving that night and hoping my boyfriend was okay. now he's on medication and for the most part, it seems to be controlling his blackouts. however, this past week while i was on thanksgiving break, he did have about 5 blackouts within the week, and this is after he got his medication refilled at the clinic that he is a part of now. it's weird, because before he got it refilled, i didn't notice him have any blackouts at all, and then all of a sudden he had about 5 within a week, and most of them were in the morning around the same time. hopefully that stops.

anyways, i'm sure you all cared to read that. i'm just trying to keep track of my life because it's moving too fast for me to keep up.

it's been a long, long while journaling world.

since my last post, i found out that i CAN'T transfer to san jose state, but at the same time realized that i want to stay in chico for another year. i started to become closer to a few of the girls on my floor and it'd be a shame to waste those friendships. besides, next year my boyfriend can stay in my room (even though i am living in university housing AGAIN which fucking sucks) and not have to pay for a hotel. i'm living in university housing because of my indecisiveness about what i wanted to do for next year, as well as because by the time i did decide, everyone i would have lived with already signed leases for their apartments. so i am stuck in university housing, with their stupid rules and their stupid fire drills and their stupid RA's for another year. but at least it's not the dorms, because i won't have to check my guests in and i can stay over breaks if i need to hang around for whatever reason (cough-a job-cough). a job that i don't want to have though because i happen to like having 5 weeks off between semesters...

speaking of jobs, i will (most likely, providing i pass the drug test which i think i should unless second-hand smoke is a problem) have a job that pays $17.48/hr in return for my life over the summer. i work 8-9 hours a day, 5 days a week, essentially giving up my summer for some serious money. $700 a week sounds pretty nice if i do say so myself, but working the same hours i go to school and therefore only seeing my boyfriend as much as i do now here in chico (when i'm in school) aka on weekends only really sucks.

and yeah, i am still with my boyfriend. 8 months and going strong. we're really happy. his family is so funny because they always ask "when's the wedding?" his cousin said they ask that because we look so happy together, and i am glad that not only are we happy with each other, but we portray that to others as well. my mom is having a hard time with me having a boyfriend. i think she is partly bitter that she can't find someone since my prick of a dad left her, and i think she misses me always being around. my dad has taken it better, but i don't want to talk about my dad because at the moment, i am really irritated with his dumbass remarks and just him in general.

finals are in 1.5 weeks and i can't WAIT to be done with my freshman year of college. oh wait, i will be a second year freshman for the first semester of next year! thanks to my 5 "invisible" unit remedial math classes for two semesters, leaving me with only 12 units for my real classes per semester. 30 units means you are a sophomore, and if you can do math, i will only have 24 units, making me a second year freshman. woohoo. fucking college and their stupid math requirements. they said i could get in with intermediate algebra, and then when i took the ELM, i failed because first of all, i suck at geometry, and second of all, i never learned trig!

oh, and my favorite band THE MATCHES are playing a free show on campus this friday. i'm stoked. sjkghskdghs

that's it. my hand hurts. i haven't typed a journal entry in so long...ouch.

gj died, or at least it's slowly dying! lmao so i figured i should start making my pointless updates here because at least they won't all disappear when the servers finally go down for good.

let's see what i've been up to lately...my boyfriend and i are doing amazing and i'm so thankful for that. i really, really love him :) we've been hanging out a lot lately and we've done quite a bit together, like we went to monterey and saw the aquarium and we went to the mystery spot in santa cruz. i'm sad that i only have 13 more days in fremont before i have to go back to school and spend all my money on stupid shit like books and parking permits. i don't know how i'm going to be able to save any of this month's money towards the beginning of february when i need to buy books, but i guess i'll have to somehow. gas isn't cheap these days and my dad doesn't think the budget i created for him is correct at all, so i'm stuck with like $200 a month, when i'll need more than that this and next month for all the extra expenses i'll be accumulating. whatever! i might go to school in san jose next year because it'd be so much cheaper than renting a room in a house with 3 other people and spending so much on gas just to come home. i don't know what i want to do, but right now i'm thinking more about money than what i really want. right now, i don't even think that what i really want is to have a job, go to school, and live in my own place next year with other people. i want to save my money towards something i want, and i definitely don't want to spend it on rent when i could just live at home, rent free, go to san jose state and save my money for something else. we'll see.

apparently i should update this journal but it's too much of a hassle to have more than one.....i don't do anything worth updating about and i am pretty sure no one gives a fuck anyways! let's chronicle what i did today: slept, ate, went to school and did pretty much nothing, laughed a little bit, went to rop and had a nice time getting free stuff from our guest speaker, then i came home and played with my cats. AND WOW I DID SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE BY THE WAY: i drove to pier 1 imports and applied for a job there and i wish i would get it, but i kind of doubt it. i think the fact that the application was so straight-forward and short and didn't reallly allow for much explanation or other attributes i may have that are more suited for a resume, i don't know how my chances are. and the fact that i have no work experience probably kind of hindered my chances. oh well. next week i'm going to disneyland on friday and i get to be a pirate IN disneyland and i have a sweet costume my dad's girlfriend is making (or made??) me already. heh, flying on friday the 13th...but yeah that'll be fun and i get to see her (robin, my dad's gf) awesome family and yeah. ummmmmm and quest started and it should be fun if i figure out what the hell i'm doing. the end.