Right now I’m enjoying my spring break; after this week, I’ll have approximately one more month of my freshman year of college. Our final exams are the first week of May; then after that, May will be a whirlwind with my brother’s graduation and vacations–and then summer will be here. Over the summer I’ll have plenty of time to do the one thing I really have to do: work on my writing projects.

I have to read over “What to Do With a Gun” and “The Journal of Brian Ezhno” so that someday I can revise them; I still have most of “Jake Morrigan” to revise; “Fall of Heaven” might continue; I have to write at least to the end of Waxing in “The Cerulean Empress”; not to mention I have to map out “Moraya Koshka” and “Falling Awake.” The easiest project will probably be Jake Morrigan, since revising by section isn’t too hard–except for the section(s) I have to split up, like the one section where in the original version I covered the entire war in which Jake actually participated. I’m not sure how much longer it’ll be made, so it’s kind of been dogging on me. The toughest thing to work on is “Moraya Koshka”–you would not believe how difficult the research is, to find out about trade conditions particularly for Russians during the 1800’s. I couldn’t even find anything pertinent at the library at school! I have bits and pieces of other things I want to de-awkward and such, too. I need to get some input on “The Little Bird” and either scrap or amend “And then he was dead” (and give it a frigging title). “La chute de la maison des Moreaux” could use some fine-tuning also.

I actually left my writing stuff back in my dorm on purpose, because I didn’t want to get wrapped up in it over spring break. Pretty dumb, because now I’ve run out of things to do and I would love to be working on my stories right now. Unfortunately I’m at a stage in some of my things that I need the maps and printed plans and old copies to work on the stories in the first place, so without my expanding binder and my folders and Jake Morrigan binder, I am at a loss. Also I have trouble reading long things on my computer screen, and where 9 pages is long, I can’t exactly get through any of the reading I need to do of my stories, either, and I don’t want to waste ink on stuff I already have somewhere.

But, since I have to do something, I’m off to… do something. Arrivaderci!

My spring break started on Friday. Mom came Thursday and stayed the night, then Friday she drove Tyler and me home. On Saturday I went with Dad to Walmart, but besides that I stayed home and hung out with my siblings. Saturday night Kaitlyn, Ben, and Britt’s friend Luke came over and they played Cranium with Britt, Nick, and me. It was awesomely fun. I played on Kait and Ben’s team the first time, and we won; the second game, Nicci, Brittney, and I were on a team, and we won. So I won twice, and everyone else but Luke won once. Luke wasn’t on a winning team either time, very sad. But he seemed to have fun besides. lol.

Sunday morning Mom sprung a road trip on me. We packed up and headed south. Sunday we reached North Carolina, after driving through part of the Blue Ridge Parkway (would have been prettier later in the year!). The first overnight we spent at Whiteville, NC.

On Monday we did a lot of shit. First we were on our way to Cape Fear when we were sidetracked by a self-guided tour through the U.S.S. North Carolina. It was the most awesome thing, really. We got to go almost all around the ship, including into the turret and the bridge and below deck. I got some great pictures (too bad I forgot my battery charger..).

After the USSNC, Mom and I reached the Cape Fear River at Southport. We took some pictures there (lots of sea gulls), and then went to the first beach. It was Caswell Beach off Oak Island, where we also got pictures of a rather ugly lighthouse. The beach also has a giant oil line running across it, so it wasn’t amazing. You win some, you lose some, right? So after Caswell Beach we hopped into the car again and drove down to South Carolina. We spent the rest of the day in Myrtle Beach, actually at the beach, then at this little plaza where we ate at Joe’s Crab Shack and found Ripley’s Aquarium (we got to pet rays again, huzzah!). You had to cross a bridge to get to the aquarium and some other stuff, and the water under that bridge had the hugest catfish I’d ever seen–and they begged like dogs! It was pretty crazy.

We spent Monday night at Murrells Inlet. Holiday Inn Express mattresses are heavenly, by the way. I recommend HIE just for their mattresses, although their breakfast isn’t too bad, either. Tuesday we were headed back home. We stopped at Surfside Beach in South Carolina; we tried to get to the North Carolina zoo, but we got there at 4:13 and it closed at 4:00. Needless to say I was very disappointed. We skipped the American Tank Museum in Danville, VA, since it was way too late by the time we even hit Virginia, but Mom said sometime after Nicci’s graduation hopefully we’ll take a trip down that way and do those things, too, especially the zoo.

Mom and I got home at midnight Tuesday night. We stayed up until about 12:30 drinking tea and looking through pictures. I read the next introduction in my Gnostic Bible then went to bed, too. And now it’s Wednesday morning and I have no idea what’s going to happen the rest of my week. I will most likely go visit Ben and Kait at Shep, maybe invite Anthony over to watch Midnight Meat Train with me and get that screw I need for my computer, maybe go over to Jeff’s, and maybe do something with Tyler if I’m desperate. (Kidding!) I still have lots of cooking to make up for since last time I was home, too!

So Spring Break is the week after next. These 18 credit hours I’ve been wrestling with are starting to wind down finally, after midterms and just before the final grade homework hump. Next Tuesday I have an exam in two classes of the three classes I have; and I only got out of that third exam because our professor gets giddy talking about some things, and the ethics discussion is going to extend beyond this morning. There will probably be a quiz in Spanish next week, although I couldn’t say when. I know in marketing we’ll be taking our exam after break, and we’re not even close to our next exam in psychology.

And I’m still contemplating my minor. I’ve worked out my potential schedules for the rest of college, and the big hole in my plans is really my minor. I don’t know whether I really want to do meteorology; I’m kind of leaning toward creative writing, if it’s possible to minor in it. Beyond those two, if I like economics, maybe, but I doubt I’ll be good enough at it, and beyond that I don’t have a clue. I don’t really want to minor in Spanish, and the other foreign language minors are boring (French, German and Japanese). I wish we had law classes at Marshall, but all that’s here is Criminal Justice, and talk about boring! I would love a class on Constitutional law–hey, I found one. It still depends on my minor (how many credit hours it requires) when I can take that class in my schedule. though. Maybe I’ll take PSY330, too. It’s “Human Sexual Behavior.” I would find that interesting. I probably won’t actually take it though, methinks it’s too much.

Anyway… it’s finally almost the weekend, and tonight is my time to unwind, because tomorrow night I have to start reading for my accounting exam and looking over stuff for my journalism exam. Yikes!