Twilight.

The very word that can make an entire nation either cringe in disdain or scream joyously. For the past few years, the Twilight series has taken over the hearts and time of teenage girls across the country. Seeing the reaction of this phenomenon and the obnoxious effect it has had on said fans, I have made it a personal goal of mine to never read the series or see the movies

It is because of my past disgust for this series that I am pained to admit that I, Jordan Love, have began and finished the entire Twilight saga  in a matter of weeks. I first started reading the first book, Twilight, out of sheer boredom. When I first got home from break, before I started working, I had endless amounts of free time on my hands and I had an entire series sitting dormant in my sister’s bedroom. After the first couple of chapters, I was hooked.

Over the course of the past 2 weeks, any minute of free time I’ve had was spent with my nose in a book. Although I will never be a screaming girl yearning to be in the arms of Robert Pattinson, I will also never be the sarcastic jerk standing in the corner mocking the Twilight lovers. I have come to understand why people enjoy the series, but I will never understand why people read the series again and again. I’ve read it once, and that’s enough for me.

Time to move on to the next good read!

The one downside to having younger siblings is their tendency to wake up at dawn on Christmas morning and expect everyone else to be bright eyed and bushy tailed waiting to see what Santa has brought. This year I heard my little brother creeping into my room around 7:15am insisting I wake up so we could exchange gifts. Here I am, nearly 2.5 hours later and absolutely exhausted. It’s Christmas break and I’m a college student. We aren’t meant to see the sunrise.

On the plus side, I made a very wise investment the other day while shopping at target. While passing through the boys section, a pair of footie pajamas caught me eye. Perhaps it was the fact that they were substantially over sized to be in the little boys section, or maybe it was the array of dinosaurs all over the fleece. Whatever it was, I HAD to have them. Best purchase ever! I can’t stop wearing them, but I might once I go back to school… I can’t see people looking upon my onsie with favor.

My friends from home and I sporting our footie pj's!

This time of year is especially nice because all of my high school friends that have been away at college finally come home and spend unsurpassable amounts of time together. Currently, I am sitting in a room with 3 friends that went to California for college, 1 friend who has been in Durham, and 2 local friends that stayed around to attend college near their families and jobs.

It’s always fun to sit around and share various stories from each of our college experiences while also partaking in enormous amounts of junk food. It’s odd to hear about my friends from California never needing so much as a heavy jacket. Here in NC it’s been freezing! In sunny CA, however, they say it’s been nothing but sunshine and 75 degree weather.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love my cold weather. I just don’t think Christmas would be the same without the cold weather and the occasional ‘wintery mix.’ The weather channel says the snow should hold off on Christmas Eve, but like everyone else on the east coast, I’m hoping for a white Christmas.

Over the past couple of weeks, my friends and I have taken the holiday opportunity to have several ugly Christmas sweater parties. When I was at school, we had two and when I came home, my friends from UNCC said they were having one too. Luckily, I have plenty of tacky Christmas gear stashed away so I don’t have to go out shopping each time.

The sweater party at UNCC was fun because I got to see a lot of my high school friends and catch up with them. It’s hard to believe that we’re all turning 20 this year if not already and it’s been a whole 2 years since we graduated high school together! We’re growing up so fast…

Erika and I celebrating a tacky Christmas

As the new semester approaches, so does a new career path. Throughout high school, I knew I always loved biology and learning about the human body. Since I also always loved sports, I thought finding a career that involved both anatomy and sports would be my ideal job. However, after 3 grueling semesters and talking to my parents about what is really important to me, I have decided to change my major. As of next semester, I will no longer be a Health and Wellness major, but instead will be a Communications major with a focus in Journalism.

I have always done well in my English classes and I would much rather be writing a paper than figuring out some mathematical equation. I start some of my major classes next semester so I’m really excited to find out if this is actually what I want to do. Hopefully I’m making the right choice!

Stop. Take a deep breath. Do you smell that? It’s the smell of homemade sugar cookies, freshly cut Christmas trees, and crisp winter air. Oh yeah, it’s also the smell of no homework for the next month!!

I have successfully completed 4 out of 5 of my final exams. The only thing standing between me and break is my First Aid & CPR exam tomorrow. I’m moving out of my dorm room next semester and moving into the on campus apartments (University Commons) so I’m really excited about that. However, that also means that with exam time wearing down, I have to move everything out of my dorm room and into the apartments. Talk about hard work!

Once I get everything done I’ll make sure to post some pictures. Hope you guys are all enjoying this beautiful Decemeber day

This past week, I have been working tediously on a paper for my honors Brit Lit class. The assignment was to take two authors we have discussed over the course of the semester, and compare and contrast several of their works. Finally done with the paper, I can honestly say this was the hardest assignment I have ever had to write in my life.

I was thinking about it last night, and I think I know why this was such a hard paper for me to write. Unlike high school, in college the professor decides how many grades are given in each class. Some professors hand out homework and administer frequent quizzes and/or papers in order to even out the grading, while others will give you a test and a paper and call it a day. Unfortunately, my Brit Lit professor is keen to the latter of the two.

Over the course of the entire semester, we’ve had three grades – one of them being this paper. The first two grades were tests we took over the reading material. I’ve never been particularly good at reading Shakespeare, and there is nothing I detest more than having to read over “thee’s” and “thou’s.” Taking these things into account, I feel like taking the honors section of Brit Lit was probably not the best decision I’ve ever made. Hindsight really is 20/20, I suppose.

I didn’t do nearly as well as I would have liked to on the tests, and so when the term paper was assigned I knew I had to dominate it. The combination of my overall hatred of the old English language and knowing this had to be an insane paper, I think I put way too much pressure on myself. Two weeks ago I wrote a 10 page paper in 4 hours, and the other day it took me 8 hours to write 5 pages of this paper.

The English department at the Webb has been generous enough to supply a student-staffed writing center for students to take their papers and have them edited by English majors and graduate assistants. For the first time in my 3 semesters here, I ventured down to the writing center, swallowed my pride, and allowed someone to obliterate my paper if they wanted to. Fortunately, this was  not the case, and my writing assistant smiled the whole time and gave me several helpful suggestions. Needless to say – 9 pages later – that I’m fairly certain there is nothing left to be discussed… hopefully.

So with the paper finally done, I can finally focus on my 5 finals next week. Ugh… just saying ‘5 finals’ makes me want to crawl in a hole and die. It’s a good thing all things are possible through Christ!

Phew!! Anatomy & Physiology I lab practical is officially over and done with . As relieved as I am, I can’t help but think about the lecture final looming over my head now. My final anatomy exam isn’t until next Wednesday, so I’m afraid the dark cloud will be looming for a while.

I got out of my lab practical today at 3pm and I came across the street to our local coffee shop in Boiling Springs called Broad River Coffee Company to start on a paper for Honors British Literature. It’s amazing how packed this place gets the closer we get to exam time. People I’ve never seen in my life come crawling out with stacks of books surrounding their tired and worn out bodies.

During the week before exams and the week of exams, the entire atmosphere of the campus changes. The dorms are quiter, the caf more empty, and the library comes to life. Everyone is getting excited about going home for an entire month and not having a lick of homework to do during that time. That’s probably my favorite thing about Christmas break. We take exams before break, so come my last exam, I won’t have to open another book for at least 30 days.

Sadly enough, however, I have a feeling I’m going to crack open my anatomy book a few times just to stay familiar with some of the harder terms so I’m not killing myself come time for Anatomy & Physiology II next semester. I say this now, and I really, really like to think its true… but it probably isn’t. I’ll take my book home, but it’ll most likey be placed in a corner to collect dust. They don’t call it Christmas break just for kicks and giggles. It’s supposed to be an actual break. Let’s hope I remember what that feels like.