To whom it may concern:
Just took my econ exam. fml. This professor is so dumb he makes his exams too long (and he knows this) so at the beginning of the test he was like "oh there are some really difficult questions on there if you don't have time don't do them ill curve it". Like what???? I didn't even have time to read them. Why not just make them bonus questions and save yourself the work? I feel like I failed that but i really hope i didnt like i can work with a D or even a D- i just hope I got at least a 60. I hope. I feel like I probably got a 30 or something and I should just give up. I'm skipping my next class because that made me so upset. I pulled an allnighter bc I had three exams this week and im still tired even though I got 8 hours of sleep last night. I can't wait for the beach and seeing my friend from home. I hope I can graduate after this exam. If I can, then I'm excited to graduate. I've been ready to be done with school since the 10th grade.
-Violet
Ahoy!
ECON IS SO FUCKING EVILLLLLLLL SOMEONE HELP ME I CAN"T DO IT the test is on Thursday and nothing makes sense. I stopped going to the class so I've just been following along with the notes at home but the midterm study guide is covering different things than what we learned in class and the practice problems are asking different questions to the homework which is different from the old exam sheets! what am I supposed to believe! This man is so evil he said that he always makes it so that you can't answer all of the questions in the time frame and he asks trick questions. What am I supposed to believe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not even the exam !!!!!! I have a stats lab practical today, my reptile lab practical tmrw, my econ test on thursday morning, and a project due thursday night. But then, spring break. Friend from home is coming here and we r gonna stay at the beach like we have the last 3 years. Also Magnolia got into grad school!!!! Im so happy for her shes been working so hard at this for the last year (and for me because i would love to live there). More motivation to graduate on time. My study schedule is so crazy. About to slam caffeine and go to class.
...---...,
-violet
Hiya!
It's been a while since I've updated- crazy weekend just went down and it was a lot of fun. I'll give you a series of events. First, on Thursday, I went on an adventure across town after class on my bike. At first I just wanted to see how far this one trail went around this lake, but it diverged off and led to the farmers market. When I was 17, I visited here for the first time- almost exactly 4 years ago! and walked to the farmers market from my AirBNB. I stayed in a little hostel by myself and met some interesting people who were also staying there. At the farmers market I got some fresh strawberries and a free apple (long story) and some tomatoes. Apple in hand, I kept going down the trail to see where it led. I ended up in this really strange part of town I'd never seen before. There were electricity towers everywhere and the sky was an uncanny blue. There was nobody around except one other girl who was lost on a 10 mile run. I gave her directions back to campus that probably added on an extra 5 miles. I could hear a rooster crowing from a house nearby, one of those houses that's filled to the brim with odds and ends collected over the years. I was on top of a large hill overlooking a cemetery and multiple power plants. There was a playground where I went on the swings for 5 minutes. After that, I went to a park a little further along to see an art installation (giant trolls made of all natural materials) and then headed home. After that, I bought a mineragua from the gas station and asked some frat boys to open it up for me. It was a really strange situation. They were listening to "gucci gang" by lilpump and they all recited the lyrics in unison while looking at me as I walked up. After I got my cap off, the guy who gave me the bottle opener asked for my number, which was funny because I was incredibly sweaty and particularly dyked out with my outfit and unshaven pits. I guess I was wearing a tanktop so he probably was laser focused in on one subject. Continuing on, the next day I had work until 5 then got jimmy johns and then went to my friends birthday party. I brought one of the tomatoes from the farmers market which she appreciated. It was a small party and there was karoeke and cake and convos in the backyard. I had a fun time and walked home afterward which was lovely- it was about 65 degrees and breezy. The next day me Magnolia and two of our friends went swimming together at a nearby river. It was so beautiful outside and a nice mile long hike beforehand so we were nice and sweaty. I ate a crunchwrap supreme in the water and then went down a tiny waterfall. The water was sooooo cold but mostly nice, especially the first time I went inside. The second time, I accidentally froze my toes into tiny ice pops and it took an hour for them to come back to life which was extremely painful. After that, we went to the liquor store so me and one of the girls we were with (Dawn) could go out to a dance party that night. The dance party was fun and I loved the venue. They had a beautiful outdoor section that made me feel like I was in a real big city. They also had a drink called "the laura palmer"!!! It was pretty yummy but I don't love an iced tea drink so much. Hungover at work the next day but Dawn and I had a lot of fun. Now I have to study alllll weeeek. I'm so stressed for all the stuff I have to do. Probably won't update much until Thursday. I'll let you know how all the exams go. SOOOOO STRESSSEDDDD but im glad I could be a party girl this weekend.
YOLO!
-Violet
Today's Team Huddle:
Just came back from a MARVELOUS run. I felt fast- light on my feet and graceful. It's that perfect running weather outside today, where it's warm enough to just wear a sports bra but cool enough that you only have a faint glistening of sweat when you're done. Not too busy on the lake today either. Usually I'm dodging families and hikers and people with more dogs than they have fingers, but today it was mostly couples and other runners. As I rounded back in to go home, I ran into some friends of mine, who often invite Magnolia and I to house parties. It was fun to see them sober because I'm usually off my rocker when I go out. (Well, I say sober but I really mean just me. I had been wondering why I smelled weed as I was running.) It's always good to see friends when I'm out getting exercise. I haven't gone on a run with another person in sooo long. Sometimes I miss cross country and the camraderie of suffering through 8 miles together in the hot sun. I like listening to my music, but I get bored after a while. I've tried podcasts, but I prefer to let my mind wander as I pound out the miles. I took my exam yesterday. It was SO boring but not too hard. Overall, I've had a great day today so far. Wore a nice outfit with my new clothes from the bins, bought an apple and some chips at the grocery store on my way home, had an easy time in my classes, etc. There's a guy in my crayons and coloring class (conservation ecology, but it might as well be the third grade) who reminds me of this EVIL dude from my high school, but he's really nice. We are in a group together in class and today we had to create a diagram about the threats to an endangered species of our choice, and we chose this really stupid looking iguana that is being threatened by goats. I will insert the image of the goats that I used for the diagram below. Anyways... gonna eat some beans and rice and maybe watch some TV until Mags comes home from her parents' house. Omg wait I totally forgot. I saw my old rugby coach today (used to play rugby, long story) and I waved at her and she completely ignored me! The women's rugby team here is super cliquey, which is one of the main reasons I left. I made a lot of friendships from being on the team, but none of them have really stood the test of time, which makes me sad. I feel like that about a lot of friendhsips I've made in college, but I just try to remember that the nice times we had don't suddenly get erased because we grew apart or fell out of contact. College life is busy and ever-changing, so it makes sense that a lot of my connections have waxed and waned over the years. One of my friends from freshman year did invite me over to eat cake and hang out on Friday though so I'm really excited for that. I think I will get her a piece of fruit for her birthday, but a nice piece of fruit like an avocado or a crisp apple. Getting hungry thinking about cake and fruit. Gonna go eat now.
See ya later on 3! 1..2...3.. SEE YA!
-Violet
P.S.
Attention Walgreens Shoppers:
Went to work today. just a 7 hour shift but the customers were actually driving me so crazy I wanted to tear out my hair and scream. It feels like everyone sent their food back for a dumb reason or complained or asked for something extra. Worst sandwich i made today: a piece of sourdough toast with 2 over easy eggs, 2 turkey sausages, and 4 pieces of bacon. It was like a mile high. I don't eff with eggs at all which is funny because my main task as a grill cook at a breakfast joint is cooking hundreds and hundreds of eggs. I've probably cooked at least 5,000 eggs in my 2 years of working there. Other service jobs I've had in college have included being the checkout girl at walgreens and working at a deli which was awful. Anyways. Made Mexican rice for the first time tonight. It turned out better than expected but I steamed my thumb and got a huge blister. Still haven't fixed my car. I have an exam tommorow and i'm procrastinating it by writing this. Gotta clean the kitchen and shower too. Feeling: nervous.
Godspeed.
-violet
My Fellow Americans:
Skipped a day because yesterday was genuinely trecherous. Got to work at 6:45 am and left at 5:15 pm. I was initially planning to just work on my homework and chill out before my shift started at 10am but my boss asked me to step in if we got busy so I just decided to work the whole time. I know if I had just "stepped in", I wouldn't be getting paid for my time and just volunteering and to that I say HELL NO! Got a call 20 minutes into my shift that my mom had gone to the hospital (she's fine now) and that made me freak out super bad because I wasn't sure what was happening. Most of my coworkers were pretty nice about it because I had been crying and stuff but my boss isn't exactly a bastion of empathy so I felt really silly for getting freaked out after I found out everything was okay. My one asshole coworker saw that I wasn't doing well and decided to be super rude to me for the rest of the day for some evil reason. He's actually one of the worst people I've ever met. And he's 43 its not like he's some dumb teenager (which would still be rude but like OMG what is your problem you are a grown ass adult!). Maybe he was just being rude for no reason but it's like couldn't you be considerate! after I came in early and helped YOU out??????? anyways the rest of the shift was fine. We got a new guy in and he seems pretty cool but at one point he said something to me that was an exact quote of a part of my "about me" page on this website which freaked me out. Strange coincidence. One funny thing that happened: I was standing a few feet away from the checkout counter while my coworker took an order and I was listening in so I could get ahead on their food, and this lady goes "yeah ill have the BLT and for my side i'll just get the ancient blob." The ancient blob?? I swear I heard her say that loud and clear and I was wondering what the hell that could possibly be so I looked at the kiosk and it was Asian coleslaw. Lol I guess the sleep deprivation really got to me. Anyways after my shift Magnolia picked me up (see: broken car) and we were both so exhausted from our shifts that we just decided to get shake shack instead of cooking at home. Then we went to fresh market which is like whole foods but even more expensive and we picked up a bottle of wine to share while watching twin peaks. However, when we got home (around 8 ish, we both decided to lay down for a bit and ended up falling asleep at 9pm. I think that's the earliest I've gone to bed since elementary school. We ended up sleeping in until 10 am and then had to rush to pick our friends up to go thrifting. We went to a local version of the goodwill bins and then picked up Mags's sister to go to a benefit market for Palestine. It's organized by a local relief fund group and everyone there is super nice. We've sold some clothes there before but we usually end up leaving with more things than we sell (which is overall a good thing but lord knows we don't need anymore clothes). I got a cool drawing that i'm gonna put up on our bulletin board. After that, we went to this pretzel place that serves stuffed pretzels. I got spinach artichoke and I would rate it 7.5/10 overall. They had free arcade games there and we played this NBA game while we waited for our pretzels. I also had a cucumber soda called Mr. Q Cumber from the fresh market which was really good. And this "walking tamale" which was pretty gross. After we got pretzels we went to the brewery next door and I bought a "THC" seltzer (weird hemp stuff) even though I don't really like THC anymore. I might drink it tonight. I have work again tommorow which is making me grouchy to think about. I'm gonna try to have a productive week this week and go to bed on time. I really need to get my car fixed so hopefully I can do that one of the mornings before class. I can't get ubers because I have a flip phone (dropped my phone in a toilet like 6 months ago and got the cheapest phone imaginable to replace it) and pluz they're too expensive anyways but thankfully the only place I drive is my job. That's pretty much it. About to go on a run and do some HW and chill out 4 the rest of the night. Good talk.
SEE YA!
-Violet
Dear Web-Surfers,
Today was a boring day where nothing happened, so I'll just talk about my walk. I just came back from walking around my apartment complex/the nearby lake and trail. A few months ago, I discovered a mysterious corridor-like clearing in the woods behind my apartment. You have to trudge through some mud and brambles, and then walk through a small ditch lined with a mossy tarp, and then pass through a portal formed by vines looping off an old magnolia tree. (You have to hold your breath when you walk through the portal so you don't end up in an alternate universe where everything is the same but your dining room table is 3 feet to the right.) After that, you will end up in the clearing, which parallels the trail that I take to school. It's very mossy and beautiful, especially on rainy days like today. When I walk through there, I can pretend I live in the pacific northwest instead of a suburb in the south. I love the way the evergreen shrubs fuzz around the barren branches of the deciduous trees, making the entire understory seem like it's been steeped in moss. It was a little bit foggy today too, which makes even the most familiar landscape seem brand-new. Even though this path is right next to the greenway that I bike/run on every day, I find it far more interesting. The perspective is different, so I always notice things that I never would have paid attention to otherwise.
Some things I saw: 1. A tiny waterfall formed in a tiny stream that ran into the flooding creek, which babbled at a volume much larger than its size would imply. 2. A trashcan full of water and sticks inside of a crate that was grown over with brambles. 3. A bright blue tent hidden just a few hundred feet from the complex. I didn't go near because I didn't want to bother whoever was inside, but I hope they are staying dry. 4. Another portal. Had to go through this one too, and it was way smaller. Probably not nearly as powerful as the other portal but still held my breath just in case. 5. A deer corpse half submerged in the water. It was nearly all bones, but some bits of fur and gristle hung onto the skeleton where the creek was slightly deeper. The antlers were small, half-formed, and it made me wonder what had happened. Coyotes? Injury? CWD? It was macabre and beautiful at the same time. 6. Four living deer who ran away when I walked towards them . One of them made a snorting noise to warn the others and they scattered like a gunshot had just gone off. 7. A huge waterfall rushing out from the dam that controls the lake. For something so industrial, it was quite grand. I threw my walking stick into the rush and watched it fly downstream.
Overall, a good walk. I listened to "exploration" from the coraline soundtrack on my mp3 player the entire time. I just discovered a file of the original score which I downloaded before my walk, and I only put that one song in there, but it set a good vibe regardless. It was nice to get out of the house and spend time exploring my surroundings. I hope to drink my morning coffee at the lake this weekend. Tommorow I have to go into work early because I didn't have the energy to deal with my car today. Magnolia is gonna drop me off at 7! because that's when she goes into work and so i'm just gonna have to wait at the cafe until my shift starts at 10 :(. I hope they don't expect me to hop on the line and start working if we have a rush. I close tommorow and so i'm gonna rip some more of my CDs to listen to while I sweep and mop and wipe and scrub. Then, I'm gonna make some bulgur while magnolia cooks salmon for dinner. I should get started on that now.
Do svidaniya, Caroline!
-Violet
Hello Diane,
Well, I took my stupid quiz today. It went better than I thought it would but probably not amazing- we had to ID the wet specimens I was talking about and it's like 20x harder than photos because they turn this kind of amorphous gray color that makes them completely indistinguishable from each other. My head is buzzing with scientific names and morphology and frog calls. One update- my car isn't working! I think there's a problem w the starting motor or the battery or something but I hope it's not too serious. I really can't afford a new car anytime soon. Gonna get it towed to the shop before I go into work on friday morning and hopefully they can fix 'er up! I've been watching twin peaks w/ the old lady. I'm really liking it so far- we just started season 2 and I'm ready to get weird. I don't have much to say about it other than I think it's funny and sad and strange and overall a great vibe. My favorite characters are Audrey, Harry, and Dale Cooper. Oh and also the log lady and Pete the poodle. And I LOVE the soundtrack. I've been listening to the soundtrack for years and i'm just now getting around to the show. I spend a lot of time analyzing the books I read and discussing them, but I watch stuff a lot less critically. I have friends who can parse out the hidden meaning of a movie using the tiniest most innocuous symbols that completely go over my head, but I mostly just enjoy every movie I watch without much thought. TV shows are a little bit more hit or miss for me, but i'll watch pure garbage if the time calls for it. I watched the entirety of the summer i turned pretty last semester while doing my GIS (geographic information services) coursework and it was like I was glued to the couch against my will. Me and my coworker at the cafe spent like 3 months only talking about TSITP. One day, she was like "we're like old friends who only talk about drama from their high school, but instead of high school, its the summer I turned pretty." It might be the worst show in the world. However, I will be attending the movie the SECOND it enters theaters. I love going to the movies. The next film i'm going to see is minions 3. I've been a fan of the critically acclaimed motion picture franchise despicable me (and minions) since the first movie, which I saw at the drive in with my cousins. I currently have 7 minion themed items in my collection and hope to pick up some new merch at the showing. So yeah, I don't really have the best taste in television or cinema, but I have fun watching the tube. Tommorow I don't have any assignments due so i'm mainly gonna focus on my car. And run. I've been getting back into daily running, which usually only lasts a couple of weeks and then fizzles out to 3-4 times a week. Ive just been telling myself "you ALWAYS feel better after a run. you never ever regret going on a run." and that's seemed to be working so far. I fantasize often about running a marathon but I feel like I need a more stable schedule to train consistently. I've really been enjoying updating this webpage. I got 2 new followers which is awesome. I feel self concious about my jumbled thoughts i've written down here but I really wanna keep this stream of conciousness style and not get too crazy with it or i'll give up. Gonna wash dishes and read until 1 or so.
Farewell,
Violet
Dear Netizens,
This is my first entry to this online journal. I was really inspired to start an online diary after reading Kimya Dawson's on (I think) livejournal. I know that not many people will see this, so it's like I'm writing to the void. I am having an interesting sort of day. I woke up on time, but had to join my class via zoom because I forgot about a quiz I had to complete before going in. I always seem to forget about the time it takes to get to a place when planning out my day. Going to that zoom meeting means that I have to miss my in-person wildlife stats lab, which is okay because they don't take attendance and the TA says that I can just do it online, but I still feel like a lazy bum for missing both of my classes. Anyways, in my zoom meeting, I told my project partner that I started using HTML and that I could code a website for our project. I don't know if he would have agreed to that if he had seen this website beforehand lol. I'm really stressed right now because I have a lab quiz for vertebrate natural history and I haven't started studying AT ALL! It's on amphibians and I need to know 30 different frogs, toads, and salamanders. We looked at the wet specimens in lab and they were so gross, like slimy four legged gray pickles that had been sitting out for too long. I almost threw up before lab ended but I guess I can say I've seen a hellbender (albiet a dead one) IRL now. I don't really care for reptiles and amphibians. Like, theyre cool and stuff, but they don't really interest me the way that a lot of other taxa do. I think I'm gonna head to the library and lock myself in there for a couple of hours. I always start off the semester with a good attitude, like "im gonna be on top of my shit this year!" and then 5 weeks in it all falls apart and i'm playing catch-up until break. I'm excited to be done with college honestly. Like, on one hand, it's such an interesting experience that can only be captured in this very specific environment, and I'm gonna miss that when it's all done, but I struggle a lot to complete school work and go to classes. I have a really hard time motivating myself to do anything that isn't really interesting to me. Did I mention I have ADHD? Lol. I just want to be able to work full time because I thrive in that kind of rigid, structured environment that comes with a consistent schedule. All that to mention that i'm having a rough (hopefully) final semester. I got diagnosed with PCOS yesterday, and that's been hard for me to wrap my head around. It's such an under researched condition and it feels like I'm going to have to rigidly track every health metric until I die to prevent all of the different symptoms that come along with it. Writing this and posting it online feels really vulnerable! I don't think many people will read this, and it's completely anonymous (to my knowledge), so I shouldn't feel so scared. I don't think anyone will care so much about what goes on in a relatively boring persons life. Anyways, im off to go on a run and then camp out in the library until these damn frogs are cemented into my brain.
Peace,
Violet