olive branch's totally cool website!

I move out of my dorm in a couple of hours. I should be trying to sleep, but it's so quiet—my roommate is gone—and it just feels so wrong. I've made so many memories in this building/with the people of this building, and while I'm glad to be living in an apartment next year (so excited to have a kitchen!), there's just something about living in a dorm that's a once in a lifetime experience. It's going to be weird to go home for a couple of months, and not be able to easily hang out with friends at any hour of the day (or at all, considering our different locations).

In other news, the end of this semester went better than the end of last semester: while I'm not proud of any of my final projects, it seems I will be getting As in all of my major-related classes. One year down, three more to go.

Like so many other people, I traveled to see the total solar eclipse! Getting there was a bit of an experience—my dad and I made the last minute decision to completely change our plans based on the weather forecast, but it ultimately paid off... there wasn't a single cloud in the sky during the eclipse!

It's so weird to me that the last time I saw a total solar eclipse was when I was 12. So much in my life has changed since then. It's going to be even weirder next time, because it will have been more than a decade. I wonder what weird reflections I'm going to have then.

It's been quite a while since I last talked about roller derby here, by which I mean, the last time I did so was when I joined the team. It's been six or so months, and after clearing the last of the prerequisite skills, I'm finally at the point where I get to attend practices that emphasize derby techniques and strategy more than learning to skate (I'm also technically eligible to skate in bouts!). I recently attended my first practice of that type and absolutely got my ass kicked, both figuratively and literally (I regret looking at the bruise).

It's extremely weird to go from being fairly competent at practices to sucking at them. While definitely frustrating, I am also aware that it's fairly common, and that I'll develop my skills with time (which I have plenty of, considering that I'll be here for a couple more years at least). I'm curious to see if I develop into more of a blocker or a jammer—I kind of thought I was going to be more of a blocker, but I finally tried jamming for once and enjoyed it more than I expected (ignoring my limited endurance), so who knows what will happen. Regardless, I'm enjoying myself a lot and am excited to keep going (even if half my body aches right now).

Sometimes, you just have to be an English major whose brain doesn't want to cooperate, by which I mean, I've barely been able to focus on reading or writing for the past couple of days. It's extremely frustrating, especially because I care about the subject and want to do the best work that I can, but I can t and I'm not entirely sure why. I'm going to try to give my brain a break by listening to some of my readings while working on an art project—maybe that will help?

My pointless, extremely materialistic hobby is magnet collecting—whenever I go to an interesting place, or different city/state/country, I tend to buy one since they're fairly easy to find, being a very souvenir-y thing, and besides, they can be justified as "semi-practical" (by which I mean, they make the fridge look nice). Anyways, several of my friends sometimes bring back magnets from their travels for me (♥), and since I started collecting in early high school, my collection has ballooned to sixty or so magnets. The whole reason I'm bringing this up though is because I strongly suspect the collection is going to expand a ton over the next couple of months: most of my previously mentioned friends are going abroad over the summer, and I will be taking a trip in the near future as well, and these circumstances have inspired me to try to created a magnet map for this site (if I can not dox myself in the process)!

Unrelatedly (except for the fact that the magnets will be on the kitchen fridge), I know for certain that I will be living in an apartment next year and since the food at my college sucks, I won't be purchasing a meal plan. So, I'm in the process of collecting recipes and learning how to cook for myself. Tonight I made vegetarian chili and cheddar drop biscuits, and both came out pretty good! Here's to hoping that I'll find recipes for and make more delicious food soon.

If you'd like to see the blog posts from this site pre-renovation, click here!