And Then a Month Passed

So I inexplicably fell off the face of the blogging world in October.
It was one of those instances of time slipping away from right under me.

I actually have a few posts that are waiting to be finished
...or flushed out into actual posts for that manner.
I would tell you what they're about
but I don't wanna jinx myself.
I'll just say that I'm excited to get around to them.

So what's kept me from writing in my blog.
Well, remember when I talked about writing in public places?
My attempts to continue doing so were utter fails.
Somehow it had become part of my habit
although it was clearly one that produced no results.

Secondly, midterms turned out to slay me.
Between art projects and papers,
I have been grinding for classes.
Luckily, most of those papers consist of short stories
that I may later share on this blog.
Either way, it's definitely going into my portfolio.
I'm proud of those joints.

The last thing that's been taking up my time is acting.
I'm in this play. It's called Rimers of Eldritch.
You've probably never heard of it. [adjusts hipsters glasses]
It's a big cast show that requires everyone on stage at the same time.
So the rehearsals have been intense.
But the show goes up this weekend:
Thursday at 7, Friday & Saturday at 8, Sunday at 2.
You should come watch me be a trucker.

But yeah, I should be much more active in November.
Until then, have a jolly Halloween.
Don't do anything that you haven't already done this weekend.
Word.

One More Year

So I picked up my school's 2011 yearbook this afternoon.
I actually just finished looking through it.
A lot of the senior portraits made me laugh.
Not because they were bad,
although some people looked real rough,
but because some just people were just so quirky,
you could kinda feel their personality radiating of the page.
It kinda made me regret not taking my portrait.
[I scheduled to take it twice but never made it because I would have been
one of those kids looking a hot mess in need of airbrushing.]

I bring up the yearbook as an introduction to discussing my fifth year in college.
For me, it's always been something pretty taboo,
something I wanted to avoid at all cost.
I say cost because my scholarship was originally only for 4 years.
[I guess since I took a semester off,
I qualified for that special extra year. Claver, my savior.]
But besides cost, I saw it as a sign of...
not stupidity, but of neglect and irresponsibility, I suppose.
It just seemed very unfavorable to me.

This isn't to slam any of the 5th year seniors who have come before me.
In a way, I was glad to have them around.
Not only were they some of the coolest people I knew,
but it was kinda nice to still have someone older to look up to.
That almost sounds vain, but I mean it sincerely.

There is only one way to describe being a 5th year senior,
a saying I've adopted in response to whomever asks me what's it like:
It's like going to Disneyland and finding all the characters you grew up with are gone.
It's funny and sad, yet very true.
Going through my senior yearbook made me realize that even more.
I was pretty damn tight with a good amount of people in my class,
so tight I could go to their place and stay their even when no one was there.
I would be sitting their on my laptop and welcome them as they came through the door.
Some even let me sleep on their couch multiple times
as if my parents weren't paying $10,000+ for me to live on campus.

But I noticed an interesting statistic while reading the yearbook.
Yes, reading. We don't all just look at the pretty pictures, as pretty as they might be.
And I quote, "818: students graduated as part of the Loyola University Maryland undergraduate class of 2011, 79% of students who attend Loyola graduate in 4 years."
I've slowly been realizing that last part for the past month.

St Peter Claver, patron saint for slaves 

Not to blow up anyone's spot,
but there's a fellow minority student finishing up their last couple of classes that I chill with most anytime I go to the CMC (Claver Multicultural Center). [Refer back to "Claver, my savior."]
In two of my classes,
there's at least one other 5th year student.
And during my travels this weekend, I discovered kids who I was very tight with my freshman year still in the area finishing up their degree as well.

It's like, even though I feel alone in this, I'm clearly not. Obviously there's 21% of us still out here trying to do work. Suddenly, I don't feel so stressed about being here for one more year.
Besides, that's another year I have to actually find a job.
Word.