i work at target. we better get that cart back!

yesterday was a pretty good day.

me and rebecca and brandon took the bus to northpoint shopping center to get some groceries and hair dye. Of course (even though i said it was a bad idea) we went to safeway first. we ended up getting way too many groceries...definitely not an amount that would be easy to take on a bus. Then we walked the quarter mile to target with the safeway cart. upon arriving at target, we transferred our safeway bags into the target cart. we saw court when we were going into the target. that was fun. after we got everything we needed at target, we had to walk the quarter mile back to the bus stop. at which point we decided that either we would have to take the cart on the bus or walk back to school with the cart. we decided on the latter. i don't really know how long of a walk it was. it was kinda long but was over quickly. while we were waiting to cross the street at hawthorne and division, we heard so guy saying "hey, hey!" really loudly so we turned around to see this guy sitting in his truck in the parking lot behind us. he said "i work at target. we better get that cart back!" so we assured him that we would take it back later, knowing very well that we wouldn't.

once we got back to campus we took our cart up to me and becca's room to unload our groceries. brandon took the cart back to his dorm because we had no use for it.

then it was time to dye my hair. i was really nervous but also really excited. i had never done it before, so i wasn't really sure how to do it...it was kinda a learning experience. i don't think i left it on long enough though because it's not as dark as i was hoping it would be. i know that it is darker, but i can barely tell a difference when i look at my hair. it's kinda disappointing to go through all of that and have it not be as dark as i wanted. oh well, i guess i will just have to dye it again in a month or so.

brandon and rebecca went on a date last night, so i stayed in my room, got in my sweats and watched pride and prejudice, one of the greatest movies ever. it was really nice to just get comfortable and relax. then they came back and we watched an episode of lost, which was fun.

i didn't go to ballroom dancing club last night. that was dumb of me. oh well.

i am angry. we found out that the milk we bought yesterday is leaking, which means no cereal. i was really looking forward to having cereal this morning. ugh.

i should go do some reading for my c.s. lewis class. i to read pretty much an entire book by tomorrow at 4. oops.

the clouds of rain have come over campus to pour out their tears

i found out today that i am going to be missing what may have been the best concert of my life: the classic crime acoustic set, playing with tysen and moneta at the showbox. unfortunately, it is on november 3rd, just one week after i am home for fall break. what are the odds? i am horribly disappointed that i am going to miss this concert, but hopefully tcc will go on tour after the seattle show and come to spokane.

i realized today that i am going to have to buy all of my christmas presents in the two weeks right before christmas...which is basically insanity.

i found out today that the girl in charge of campus activities (who i have been emailing like to crazy to try and get some of my favorite seattle bands to come) is very interested in having Barcelona come play, and said she's talking with their manager right now! i am so frickn happy right now. like literally, you don't know how excited this makes me. i don't even know if it's for sure, or when, but just the prospect of them playing here is making me all giddy inside. i haven't seen any of my seattle bands in well over a month, which is a very long time to be deprived.

i have a ridiculous amount of reading to do right now. for each book (of the five...ugh) i made a little reading schedule of how far i need to get each day. this almost stresses me out more than it helps me because i never stick to the schedule...then i end up having to read like 100 pages in each book the day before i'm supposed to have it done. i'm not gonna lie, my c.s. lewis class basically ruins my weekends. we have to write responses to our readings by sunday night at 5...which basically means i have to spend the entire weekend reading the one and a half books that i get assigned each week. not to mention all the other reading and homework i have for my other classes.

i am leaving in about an hour to get my hair dye from target (in addition to getting some much needed grocery shopping done). i must say that i am really ready for a change. i have never dyed my hair before, and i am so ready to be done with this icky mousy brown color. i am also really nervous though....i have never done it before and i don't want it to look bad. ugh...hopefully it will be okay.

it started out sunny today, but now the clouds of rain have come over campus to pour out their tears. it's been so cold that i have already started wearing my coat that i bought for the below zero weather...oops. i have a feeling i am going to have to wear five layers once the snow comes. i am not looking forward to that day, because once it comes, it doesn't leave for months. i don't know why i wanted to come here to go to school.

so remember how i told you a few days ago that my plant died? well i'm pretty sure it's sitting on my shelf like a rotting body that hasn't been disposed of. don't worry, it doesn't smell like a decomposing body smells though. although, i'm pretty sure our milk went bad a week ago and we haven't thrown in out yet. maybe that's the weird smell in my room right now...

it was homecoming week this week. kinda lame and no one really cares about it. plus we don't even have a dance (not that i'd go any way....considering i hate dancing), we just have a fancy banquet. our homecoming football game is tomorrow and i'm pretty pumped. the one football game i have gone to is the only one we've lost all season. go figure! i'm hoping we win...but we are playing an undefeated team...so i doubt it.

not next weekend but the weekend after that is parents weekend, which i am super pumped for. not just to see my parents, but also my bugsy!! i am going to parade around campus with him showing him off cause he's so cute. i have told so many people that my parents are bringing him and everyone is so excited to see him. then the next weekend is fall break, so i get to go home for a few days! i can't wait to sleep in my big bed, get homecooked meals, and see mooky and my little kitten. i am so pumped. then the next weekend, me and rebecca's small group leader is coming to visit, and i can't wait to see her.

the next few weeks are going to be amazing (despite the fact that i'm missing the greatest concert of my life). and i'm actually having a pretty good day today. i'm actually kind of...happy. i haven't just been happy for no reason in a while. it's a good feeling.

I fear I will go crazy.

i realized i already wrote today, but i don't care...i need to get this out. you know when you spend time with someone, and the more time you spend with them, the more you don't like them? when literally every word out of their mouth annoys you? well that's happening right now. don't worry, not with my roommate...that would suck.

i don't really know what to do about this. there's not really much i can do, but i fear i will go crazy.

i find myself praying a lot these days. i pray a lot when i'm alone, which is quite often. it's comforting knowing that if i can't talk to anyone else, or no one else will listen and care, god will. i don't want to sound like some crazy obsessive christian girl who prays 24 hours a day, but it's nice to just talk to god, because he knows and understands my situation, and he's always there.

so many things have changed since coming to school that my mind can't even handle it all. some good, some bad...some horrible.

what do you do when being around someone just puts you in a bad mood? somebody help me. things are not going well for me at the moment. i just can't handle it any more. i just can't. i just can't.

i want to cry a lot, but for some reason, the tears don't come. so instead i'm just sad. i don't know if it's noticeable or not. but i figure it isn't because no one has said anything. i guess it's better that way. it doesn't help that i'm 5 hours from home and surrounded by the things that are making me sad. i think i'm going to take a nap.

sleeping away my sorrows always helps!!

hello, my name is maddie. it's been 34 days since my last drink

i ate dinner with an old friend last night. that was really good for me to do. i find myself getting sad a lot because of all of the reminders of home that i have surrounding me. around my desk i have picture of my puppy and my kitten, pretty much all of my friends, two mugs that were gifts from people i love, and of course my large array of band stickers. i'm not really home sick, i just miss things and people that are back in seattle.

i'm not going to lie, i really miss starbucks. it's been over a month without it. i didn't know i could go that long. the coffee they make in our on campus coffee shop is usually bad, but once in a while it will be good. i had a peppermint mocha the other day that almost made me sick it was so gross. i've just been spoiled going to high school where there are two starbucks within a half mile, and one practically on my campus. it was almost ridiculous, and just fed my addiction. it's like i'm going to SAA (starbucks addicts anonymous). "hello, my name is maddie. it's been 34 days since my last drink."

i can't believe it is already october. where did september go? i feel like i wasn't really living any of it. it was as if i was doing everything without knowing it. i feel like all i did for a whole month was read like a mad woman. studying has taken over my life (and rightly so, considering this is college) but i feel like i never have a moment to just breathe and relax. not to mention i am always tired, even when i get eight or more hours of sleep.

i am going to die my hair this weekend. i haven't really decided if i am going to do a dark brown or black. considering i have never dyed my hair before, i am hesitant to go completely black. i figure, if i start with a brown, i could always go darker.

i miss being able to go for runs with bubba. i don't really want to run here because there are always a ton of people around. i miss watching bubba run next to me and look up at me with his tongue hanging out. i miss watching him sleep when we get home.

i didn't realize before coming here how much music is a part of my life. i haven't been to a show in over a month. i think the reason i'm freaking out about it so much is because there aren't any available. during the last year, there were times when i didn't go to shows for a month, but i knew there would always be one when i did need to go to one. here, they are scarce and aren't the seattle natives that i love. i had no idea how much happiness it brings to my life. it's one of those things that just refreshes me and helps me get through the weeks...especially when i have one to look forward to. over the last few years i have started to go to way more local shows, and now that i can't, it's really hard for me.

my core class today was really super boring. rebecca fell asleep next to me, and patrick fell asleep next to her. rebecca had her head back, patrick had his head forward and the girl in front of me was asleep to the side...it was really funny. i really don't like that class. it's nothing like what i thought it would be, and it's a ridiculous amount of work.

we are having a little sammamish reunion tonight at didiers, the best frozen yogurt in the world. i'm really excited. oh geez, i miss home!

i need to go do homework before class. i love how i leave my gospel of john homework until an hour before class. that's a good habit...take note.

my best friend, a.k.a. my i-pod.

i went to church yesterday morning. it was really bad. it's nothing like what i am used to, and the presbyterian service just seemed so robotic to me. it really made me miss generation church. i especially miss the amazing, powerful worship and the best preaching in the world. it makes me sad that the only church that i really have access to right now is the one on campus, which is not really going to work for me.

i can't wait to go home at the end of the month. it's crazy to think that i am already over a quarter of the way through my first semester. i'm done with four weeks and there are about nine left. it's really crazy but i am so ready for a break. i can't wait to go sleep in my amazingly comfortable, large bed at home with my snuggly little kitten sleeping next to me. i can't wait to see tullamook's face when he sees me again, and i can't wait to hear bubba's snorting when he get's excited. i can't wait to be with family and have some wonderful, homecooked meals. i can't wait to have a hot shower for once!

who knew how much i would take having a hot shower for granted at home, but now i will most definitely appreciate it, since i don't have it now. i literally haven't had a hot shower since i have been here. if anything, they get to be luke warm, or give you spurts of hot water that last about two seconds and come every thirty seconds or so. i've tried going upstairs to use their showers, but they weren't that much better. i can't wait to go home and blast my music as loud as i want to and jump and dance around my room.

i only got about five or six hours of sleep last night, which is most definitely not enough. during gospel of john today, i could barely stay awake. i literally have NO idea what my professor was talking about because i was in and out of sleep the entire time. i kind of feel bad but her class is such a joke. i let myself take a half hour nap earlier, which helped, but i'm still really tired. i'm always tired, no matter how much sleep i get. i hate it. being tired is probably one of my least favorite feelings ever.

i have so much work i should and could be doing right now but i really don't want to do it. the amount of reading i am getting assigned is borderline insane. i can't wait until next semester. at least now i have a small idea of the work load for different classes so now i can try and balance it a little better so i'm not constantly swamped with work.

i have to read almost all of the book of luke, and eighteen chapters of acts by thursday, when i will be quizzed on it. and that is just for one class.

i miss my friends. i miss being around people who really know who i am, who understand and appreciate me and what i say. not that everyone here doesn't like me, just a select few. i have met a lot of people that i connect with and enjoy their company. i've been meeting a lot of people and hanging out with a lot of them, which has been fun. i just miss the comforts of people that
already know a lot about me.

you know what makes me really happy? music. if i feel down, i can just sit on my bed with my best friend (a.k.a. my i-pod) and just sink into a whole different world. and facebook... facebook makes me happy too. and my book of bunny suicides.

i'm pretty sure my plant is completely dead now. oops. oh, and did i mention i think i am going to die my hair? what color, you ask? maybe you will find out tomorrow.

don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?

i haven't blogged in a few days. i've already failed my goal of blogging every day. oh well.

i had my first major test on friday for my core class. it was really intimidating, especially since we didn't really know how to best study because we had no idea what would be on the test. i probably ended up studying for four to five hours and still didn't feel prepared. they made us take the test in an auditorium seated every other row, every other seat so that we wouldn't cheat. we had to leave our bags in the hall and so they gave us a piece of cardboard to use as a hard surface. i ended up knowing most of the stuff, but the last section, worth 40 points, was on one of the one things i hadn't reviewed at all. i think i B.S.ed it pretty well though. i don't want to speculate on whether i did well or not because when i think i do good, i end up doing horribly, and when i think i bomb it, i end up getting an A. whatever.

i went out to dinner with five other girls from my hall last night to red robin. it was great fun.

ballroom dancing club was last night. we learned the east coast swing, which was actually really fun, but kinda hard once we started getting to the spins and stuff. it's really fun dancing with a guy who actually knows what he's doing, because then you don't feel as dumb when you don't know what you are doing, cause at least they can lead you and you can kind of follow. i ended up dancing with this one guy who blinked a lot, but stared at me the entire time. and he asked me the question "so how are you liking whitworth?" twice in a matter of about one minute. i felt bad telling him he had already asked me that, so i just answered again. the last guy i danced with (i can't remember his name for the life of me!) dipped me at the end and i didn't freak out like the last time someone tried to do that! i was very proud of myself, and i have to admit that it was really fun.

it's also more fun when the guy knows what they're doing because they do more fun stuff like spins so you aren't just doing the same two steps over and over like i ended up doing with the guy who blinked a lot. let me tell you, doing rock step, triple step gets really, really boring after a full three or four minutes.

i think i am going to like ball room dancing club, since i already enjoy it after going twice. it's the only kind of dance i actually like. screw that dumb kind of 'dancing' you do at dances and give me the foxtrot! haha. it's so much more fun and you can actually kind of talk to the guy you are dancing with. plus it's way more romantic (not that i'm romantically interested in the guys i've danced with at ballroom dance, cause i'm most definitely not).

last night i hung out with charles, pierre, lucas and alan. we watched bill and ted's excellent adventure. i highly recommend it. it is a wonderful work of keanu reeves and is highly entertaining.

i feel like i have been reading all day long, but i haven't gotten much done. it's probably because i am sitting reading in front of my computer. so then i end up on facebook or here wasting my time away. i still have soooo much reading that i need to do for my cs lewis class, it's almost ridiculous. no wait, it most definitely is ridiculous. i still have about 250 pages left to read by 3:30ish tomorrow afternoon so that i can write a response to them and submit it online by 5. the thing is, i haven't really procrastinated that much, we just get assigned so much that it seems impossible to get it all done. i don't know how i am going to finish.

i really wish i had a car. i even have dreams about getting a car. i would love to be able to get off campus once and a while without having to be back by 6 (after this is when it starts to get sketchy waiting for and riding the bus). plus, the bus doesn't go every where that i want to go, especially to the church that me and rebecca want to go to.

it just sucks knowing that so many things would be different right now if i hadn't got in my accident. i was thinking today about how much my summer sucked. i didn't get to do anything i had planned to (especially train Belle and teach lessons), and my freedom was basically taken away when my car was totalled. it happened two days before my birthday, so the fourth of july sucked, my birthday sucked and then i had to get surgery four days later and try to do normal things like get dressed and bathe with a 'club' (as i called it) for an arm, which was very difficult. then i had to go to physical therapy and wear a brace at the ranch which made everything there hard. not to mention that my parents used the insurance money from my accident (which was more than we paid for the car in the first place) to buy my mom a new car. that really put the icing on the cake of an absolutely horrible summer. and now my thumb is sore almost all of the time because i have been writing so much in all of my classes. it pops a lot when i move it, and i have started holding the pen all weird so that it won't put so much stress on my thumb. people probably watch me writing and think that i'm weird.

i try not to think about it very much, but i can't help it. the pain is a constant reminder of how horrible the last few months of my life have been. i just don't understand why it happened. nothing good came of it. nothing.

i found out a couple days ago that Sham, the horse i had been riding for the last year and took to my last show, has been sold. it's really sad for me, but i know he deserves a home where he will be shown competitively and be able to use all of his potential. it's sad knowing that most of the horses i have known for the last almost four years will be sold. even horses that i didn't really like, i will miss. it's just like the song "don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?" i almost took all of the horses for granted, even the annoying ones, or the ones that would bite all the time, or the ones that tried to buck you off, or the ones that ran away when you tried to catch them. i will be very sad if i return home to find them all gone. i feel so out of the loop being so far away that i don't know who's being sold and who's not. it's weird. and sad.

so i really need to get back to reading now. i told myself that i would finish another 100 pages in the voyage of the dawn treader tonight, and i want to keep the promise to myself.

"i think it's just in their DNA to attack."

yesterday made me very happy. every night in all of the dorms we have what's called "prime time" where we have different activities going on. Arend (not my dorm), brought puppies and kittens from the humane society to play with. The kittens were really cute but i felt bad cause they looked really sickly, plus the room they were in smelled really bad because of their litter box, so i didn't stay with them for very long.


but, the puppies were so adorable. there were five pitbull puppies named Gus, Brindle, Carlton, Piglet, and one more whose name i don't remember. it really made me miss my dogs, but it was so much fun. they were so playful and were romping around biting each other and playing tug of war with a sock. After i had been there for a few minutes one of them just passed out and in a matter of minutes, the rest of them were asleep too. i picked up Brindle and held him in my lap. he fell asleep on his back and i sat there with him for about 45 minutes. it was really relaxing and calming for me. plus, it was the cutest thing in the world to see all of these puppies sleeping in all sorts of awkward positions on peoples' laps and the floor and stuff.

i ended up getting really angry sitting there with the puppies though, because of peoples' ignorance. people would walk in and ask what kind of puppies they were, and when they found out they were pitbulls they'd say "oh no, i don't want to touch them. pitbulls are vicious." i even heard one girl say "i think it's just in their dna to attack." which is simply not true. i have owned a pitbull and he was literally the sweetest dog i have ever met. he was so loyal and loving and absolutely snuggly. the ONLY downfall he had was his high prey drive, which cause him to try to attack our cats, bird and my rabbit. we ended up getting rid of him (not to a shelter, but to another loving home). we refused to take him to a shelter, knowing that even though he was super sweet, people would not go near him simply because of his breed.


pitbulls are mean because they are trained that way. it is not in their dna to be vicious or to attack people or other dogs. some pitbulls are bred to be fighting dogs and are trained to attack any other dog if they see one. these are the pitbulls that are on the news giving the rest of the breed a bad name. it's the same thing with doberman pinscher dogs. they are made out to be this super tough "guard dog" breed (which they can be, but ANY dog can be a guard dog...), but they are really sweet and loyal companions. my mom has always wanted one after being a vet tech.


it makes me sad that pitbulls have this horrible reputation of being vicious in nature, when they are wonderfully loyal and sweet companions, if they are raised correctly, in a loving home. they won't attack unless they are trained to. please, just tell me if this puppy looks vicious to you?

because to me, it looks innocent and like it deserves a chance at a good life. i think people need to open their eyes to what's really going on, and stop being ignorant. save the pitbulls.