Backend of Forever

Hey everyone! Sorry I went MIA for a while. I officially graduated with my Bachelors in Equine Science! I passed with As in all of my classes except one, where I got a B+. That last week was very stressful, but the final weekend was nice. I worked at Garden State Horse Show that Friday and Saturday (5/5-6), and it was a great experience. On that Saturday I was able to watch a few professionals competing. They were jumping jumps that were biger than I am! (I'm 5'7"). The awards ceremony for the equine department was pretty dull. Senior Week wasn't terribly thrilling, but the President's Ball on Thursday was pretty fun. I went with Tweedledee, Tweedledum, and two other friends. They had two of their friends, as well, so there was a good-size group of seven of us. They played decent music for about half an hour in the middle of the dance, but the rest was obnoxious ghetto thug music. How on earth are people supposed to dance to that? It seriously felt like we all should have been riding around in cars with lights under them that did wheelies to the music. I did have fun chatting with my friends, though, and we piled into a photo booth for some fun pictures. Overall, it was a nice evening to end on. The next day, Friday, I packed up. I was planning to head home on Saturday when everyone was busy with graduation on the other side of campus, but they were supposed to get a big storm in the middle of the night that wasn't supposed to let up until Monday. I ended up heading out late Friday night. Thankfully, I managed to make it home shortly before midnight.

On Saturday, my middle brother and his wife came over for dinner. We were celebrating Mother's Day a day early since my sister-in-law's parents were having a crab feast on Sunday. I also started strawberry plants in some planters to hang around the property. Hopefully the birds don't take them. Sunday was an adventure. We found a little red eared slider (a kind of turtle) in our swimming pool, just hanging out. We put him in a tupperware container and took him down to this little stream at the bottom of our property. I named him Terrance the terrapin.After Terrance was released, Mother showed me where all of the wildlife cameras are on the property, and we collected the SD cards. When we replaced the cards we tossed some bird seed for the animals. Apparently, they get a ton of animals around here, and have gotten some really good pictures and videos. After that, I wandered over to Urgent Care. I thought I had a sinus infction. Turns out, that turned into strep instead. Yaaaaaaaay. My doc at the Urgent Care place actually offered me her horse. For free. No strings attached. Pretty awesome deal, if I only had a place to keep it. Figure I'll ask around and see if anyone is interested. On the way home I stopped at Tractor Supply and picked up seeds for cucumbers and baby watermelons, the two things Mother hasn't started yet.

Today has been a pretty productive day. I was thinking of starting to unpack, but opted to work in the yard instead. I did a lot of weeding in the front yard, swept the entire driveway, and weeded Ponderance Place (a part of the yard I plan to decorate and make it nice to sit there... Hoping to get a hammock for it, too). Got to drive the Polaris to drop the weeds in the woods. I still have more weeding to do in Ponderance Place, but it already looks a lot better. When Father got home, we weeded around the pool and trimmed a large hedge back there. Overall, it was a nice, productive afternoon.

How has everyone else been?

Ever feel like holding on to someone, knowing they're slipping away, but don't because you don't want to be seen as needy or clingy and end up chasing them away?

Well, I think I'm coming to terms. I'm not happy. Nowhere near, in all honesty. However, I am getting better adjusted to the quiet. It's a painful, lonely quiet, but it hurts less now that I have more things to do to fill my time. That's the plus side of the semester finally kicking in. I have to write my senior thesis paper this semester, which will take up plenty of my time and help me stay focused on something other than the silence.

We have had two weeks of classes already. My riding class is really small, with only 3 of us, which means more individual instruction. I am really happy about that. Our instructor also wants to give us horses that we enjoy riding, and has ideas for musical rides, drills, and creative jumping lessons. I am really interested to see what she comes up with. She seems like the type who will push us hard, but will cheer us on while doing so, which is rare to see in this competitive industry. As for my other classes, I am taking Fundamental Theories of Riding, Management of Equine Activities, Equine Nutrition, and Senior Seminar. Management is pretty dull. It's pretty much all about running hunter/jumper horse shows... It's like this school forgets there are more disciplines than that. Nutrition is pretty cool so far. THe other day we spent the entire class weighing every horse in the barn (all 96 of them). We were also assigned project horses for the semester. We will be doing a semester long small group project where we analyze the horse's health and create a feeding plan to get them to a proper weight and maintain it. My group is doing a horse that just arrived a couple weeks ago. His name is Leo ("A Midsummer Night's Dream"), and he is a gorgeous bay warmblood who is only 12 years old. He is a tad underweight at the moment, but fit, so our goal will be building up what muscle he has and maintaining his condition while packing a few more pounds on him.

Last semester, Dragon Age Girl adopted herself a freshman. Let's call her Lamb for now. For most of last semester, Lamb was very quiet and went to great lengths to avoid interactng with people. Towards the end of last semester, I officially brought her into my little group of mionions, as I like to think of them. They call themselves my ducklings, and now there are 3. Well, the poor unfortunate Lamb is stuck in a riding class with the Tweedles, and Tweedledum, specifically, has been aggravating her. Lamb, having no social skills and plenty of anxiety troubles, immediately demanded to her advisor that she get her scheduled switched. Trying to be a supportive older friend, I explained to her that in life she won't be able to pick everyone around her, and this university is a better place to learn to deal with people than out there in the real world. I offered her skills for dealing with them, because since I've known the two of them I have had to come up with plenty. She shot down every single one in favor of simply demanding to her advisor and to the department chair that she be allowed into other already filled classes just to get away from them. I'm sorry, honey, but the real world won't just move to oblige you because you don't like someone. Coping skills are vital to learn, and better now than later when your job and income depend on your interactions with others. Well, her advisor told her the exact same things that I did. I guess advice only matters when it comes from someone who is tenured. Or maybe it was because she realized her little tantrum would get her nowhere. She is now avoiding them like the plague when she isn't in class. The down side is that she has been messaging me an average of 14 messages an hour for the past week and a half since I gave her my google name. The reason I gave it to her, and I told her this flat out, was that it was the quickest way to get ahold of me if she needed a ride back from the barn after her riding lesson (she rides directly after I do and the shuttle doesn't always run that late). That was it. In case of emergency. Well, she has been abusing the ever-living hell out of it, messaging me to bitch and whine and complain about Tweedledum. Like, I get it, you don't like them. Fun fact: No one around here does. But we don't have a choice, so we cope, put up with what we have to, ignore the rest, and carry on with our lives. Besides, you asked me for advice, shot it so far down it downed in the Indian Ocean, and acted like a spoiled brat who thinks the world should bend to suit you. I don't like self-entitled brats. Get over yourself, learn to have an actual conversation instead of a 24/7 bitch session, and then try talking with me again. I like to converse when it goes both ways. I'm happy to give advice if you ask for it and I can. But I have better things to do than humor your petty childish whining. I'm not sorry.
TL;DR: This freshman is really getting on my nverves by constantly whining to me and thinking the world revolves around her.

Last weekend I was super excited because I got to see my best friend. I really needed to see her and relax with a friend for a while. I don't get to see her often, as we always seem to be a state away, but when I am at school she is only an hour away, so I can visit her once in a while for a day. We hung out and chatted for a bit. She is madly in love with Prompto (FFXV), so there was plenty of teasing~ (ilu and I will ship it for as long as I feel like it). We hit up an outdoor mall by her, which was a lot of fun. I picked up the book The Color of Magic (Pratchett), which is the first Discworld book. There was an awesome little candy store where I got more than I should have >.> I regret nothing when it comes to my candy store purchases. There was even a Peeps store! You know the marshmallow peeps? They had GIANT plushie bunny peeps, tons of marshmallow-y goodness, and Mike-and-Ikes galore. I picked myself up a super comfortable zip-up hoodie that says "Chillin with my Peeps" on it. Cliche, I know, but I have a secret love affair with peeps and I geeked pretty hard when I saw the store. Anyway, I had a ton of fun with my bestie and I am hoping to visit her again sometime soon.

Games: I haven't gamed too much lately. I've been trying to focus on schoolwork. I have played some FFXV though! The Moogle Chocobo Festival started on Mon Jan 23, and it is so freaking adorable!!! I managed to knock out all fo the quests and I have done all of the activities at least once on each difficulty. I want to grind some of them to get the chocobo racing trophies and buy the car decals and paint colors.

Books: I set aside The Ocean at the End of the Lane for a little while. I got to a lull that I was having trouble focusing through. Instead, I have started The Color of Magic (Pratchett). I have about 40 minutes between clsses on Mon/Wed, so I manage to knock out about 20 pages at a time between all of the interruptions. So far it is quirky, but nothing exciting yet. I have heard great things, though, so I plan to stick it out and see if I feel the same as others.

TV/Movies: I have made it to Supernatural S5:E13. Progress. I am definitely not as into it as I was in the first few seasons. I am trying hard to stick it out, but the writing makes it difficult. It realy did, in myopinion, lose a lot of its charm and what made it uniquie when they decided to go the Angels route with it. I have also been watching Glee, for something out of my usual genres. I have to admit, I went in with a lot of skepticism. Some of that skepticism was justified, it seems, but a lot of it was also proven wrong. Most of the actors have truly incredible voices. I am very impressed (It helps that they were all about a decade older than the characters that they portrayed). The show does get very "after school special" way too frequently. I'm on season 3 episode 14 and so far it has felt like every other episode gets in your face with a moral issue. I get it, television is a platform for moral issues, and it's a show for teens so go out there and accept yourself and be you. But there are plenty of shows who have managed to get the same message across without being so... overwritten.

That's the latest in my little fragment of the world. Hope everyone has a wonderfully lovely week!
-NF