[OneWithTheMud]

Hello! Great choice of music and college! (I also love rock and I go to UM in Ann Arbor). Does the 'tigerfan' refer to the baseball team?

...And just a note, Calculus by Stewart is a really good textbook. I used it during my first three semesters at UM (Calc 1-3). Which one did you end up buying?

[tigerfan88]

Originally Posted by OneWithTheMud

Hello! Great choice of music and college! (I also love rock and I go to UM in Ann Arbor). Does the 'tigerfan' refer to the baseball team?

Thanks! And yup, I'm a Detroit Tigers fan. It's about time that team is good!

Originally Posted by OneWithTheMud

...And just a note, Calculus by Stewart is a really good textbook. I used it during my first three semesters at UM (Calc 1-3). Which one did you end up buying?

Single Variable Calculus Early Transcendentals, 6th Edition (just came out this past January). Instead of paying $150 for it new, I bought it for $60 used which I'm very pleased with. I think we use this book for Calc 1 and 2. I'm hoping it's a very student-friendly textbook.

Thanks for dropping in, btw!

[tigerfan88]

Yesterday was pretty good. I got up at 6:45 and played golf in the golf league I'm in (FJGA). We played a different course, one I hadn't played ever. It was challenging (lots of water, trees, sandtraps etc.) but not all that long. I ended up shooting a 45-44-89, which was a pleasant surprise--I didn't expect to shoot that low as I'm usually a mid-late 90s golfer. So that was nice. I ended up being medalist last week and then again this week, so that means two more medals to add to my wall.

In other news, I order a new power supply for my older desktop PC. I'm hoping it fixes my overheating problems (I'm positive those stem from the old power supply, which now doesn't work at all).

I need to go write some articles and finish up some projects. So I think I'll go do that, lol.

[tigerfan88]

The past week has kinda been tough. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but my mom and I watch my nieces and nephew 5 days a week. Lately, my sister has been working 10+ hour days. This has really exhausted us. As much as I love seeing my nieces and nephew, it can be difficult to watch them so much, especially since the baby is now 14 months, walking, running and climbing on everything. Hopefully things get better after next week when they go on vacation and we get a week off.

I should have finished up some projects this past week, but with the babysitting thing, I've just been too tired. I need to get on top of doing that now, as I want to devote more time to finishing my room and playing music before college starts.

I'm pretty happy because yesterday I was able to install a new power supply in my desktop recording PC. I had never installed a power supply before, so I was a bit anxious. It went good and now the PC doesn't overheat at all. Brilliant. That PC has become my fixer upper. I've replaced the floppy drive, hard drive, and installed more memory. Considering it's over 7 years old, it's a pretty good computer.

Tomorrow I play golf and I'm hoping to earn medalist honors again. Since this is my last year of junior golf, I'd also like to win the championship but if I don't, it's alright.

[tigerfan88]

I haven't updated in two weeks, so I guess I might as well do it. Things slowed down last week as my sister, her husband and kids went on vacation. So we had a week off from babysitting which was nice. We ended up spending much of it painting the living room and dining room, relaxing, shopping (I got some great deals at Kohls) and that's about it. I had wanted to do some recording, but that didn't work out. Oh well.

It's less than a month until I start college. I'm very nervous, but also excited for what the future holds.

I had three cavities filled today at 8AM. Yeah, that was a great way to start the day.....

Tomorrow I'll probably write some articles and finish some projects. I also need to finish a web site for my mom, and probably work on a few other web site projects for friends. I want to also order a new mic so I can start putting up some real recordings.

[tigerfan88]

I just got the tuition bill for the fall semester. $3795. Not as bad as I expected, but still a good chunk of change. After taking out a $750 loan and having some scholarship money, I have $645 to pay for. It'll be taken care of by a 3 month payment plan and work study, hopefully. I haven't the slightest clue how the Winter semester will work out. Hopefully it'll be good if I save enough money between now and then.

[tigerfan88]

Ugh! I dislike it when things are so unsettled. I start college in exactly 20 days and have no idea where I'll be working. I desperately need a work study job and I'd like to find it sooner rather than later. For sanity's sake. Prayers would definitely be appreciated. I do know that God won't allow me to go unprovided for, so He's going to give me a job somewhere doing something. I just pray He'll reveal it to me really soon so that I don't stress out so much about it. *sigh*

Today was really good. I got up at 11AM and took a shower. My mom told me that I had to get up earlier this morning (yes, 11 is considered early'ish because of the fact that I stay up late at night) but wouldn't tell me why. It was a surprise. So I dressed up (well, sorta.....) and then we went to the nearby golf course. I was surprised with an award from my junior golf association: the female 18 hole division sportsmanship award. That was definitely a complete surprise, but a very great one. I've been playing in FJGA (Flint Junior Golf Association) for 6 years now (this year was my last). It's nice to receive some recognition for what I've done there. I'm not sure what criteria they use to choose the winner of this award, but I'm guessing it has to do with persistence and overall personality. I sucked at golfing when I first began but I stuck with it and made great strides. And I've always tried to be as respectful and nice as possible to not just the supervisors, but also to the actual golfers. But that's something we all should do, right? I never did any of it to get an award. I just did it because I knew that's what I should do as a fellow human being. So, yeah, like I said, it was nice to be surprised with the award.

Speaking of FJGA, I'm waiting to hear back from them on the scholarship application I sent in. From what the head of FJGA has told my mom, I should be getting at least $500, possibly $1000 in scholarship money. That will be a total blessing to me because it means less student loans and less debt (yay!).

In other news, I am completely addicted to musicrivals.com. For those who don't know, it's basically an online music simulation game in which you create and manage a band straight to the top. http://www.musicrivals.com/game/prof...p?viewid=26452 is my band.

Today I ordered tickets to see 12 Stones (and Saliva, which I probably won't stick around to see) at the Machine Shop on August 16th. It's my first time seeing 12 Stones live and my first time at the 'Shop. The 'Shop is basically a bar/concert venue. Some people have given the 'Shop the reputation of being a "tough" place. Which, from what I've heard from people who actually go there, is not exactly true. Nonetheless, my mom thinks the 'Shop isn't the best place for an 18 year old female to go to a concert by herself, so she's going along with me. We'll see how that goes.

That is all.

[tigerfan88]

Ahh, this weekend has been pretty good. I headed up north on Friday and just got back tonight. Since there's no internet access up there, that explains my absence here.

It was nice to be up north with my family and essentially cut off from computers. I'm a very "wired" person, so I usually can't go a day without checking my email. But I have no choice when I'm up there because there's no internet access on my cellphone or on my laptop up there. Being without the technology is good, though, because it allows you to do other things.

I spent a lot of time this weekend reading a book called "Unfinished Work" by Kevin Max, which was nice because I have a habit of getting books and then not finishing them. It's not that I loathe reading, but rather that I'm too distracted by other things. So, anyway, I'm at chapter 5 of the book and I'm loving it. I can really relate to what Max says in this book and I encourage everyone to at least read the book. It's got a lot of good messages in it for Christians.

I also got to spend some time playing my acoustic guitar and a little game called Guitar Hero II. Which was, of course, really cool.

My mom and dad surprised me with a graduation party of sorts. It was small and involved just my immediate family. We had dinner at Applebee's and then had a campfire at the cabin. It was cool because I didn't expect it at all.

I also played golf. I shot a 51.

Now I'm back home and going to get back into the thick of it tomorrow. I only have 16 more days until college starts. I'm nervous and a little worried, but I'm learning to let go and hand it all over to God.

[tigerfan88]

3 more days until college! While things are still a little unsettled, I'm not too worried anymore about the financial side of things. I owe $895 currently, but after I get a $550-$750 golf scholarship, that number is reduced to somewhere between $145-$345. Not too bad for the first semester.

What did have me worried was the fact that I still have no work study job. But then God showed me that even if I don't get a job, I still have freelance writing work to fall back on. The disadvantage of this is that I'd have to pay taxes out of my own pocket and it's not a consistent, set amount of money. The advantage is that I can probably make more per month and it's flexible. I think He's leading me toward this, as I won a good project yesterday that is flexible and pays me more than I'd get in a week and a half of working down at the college. But we'll just see.

The past couple weeks, I've been focusing on getting things in order for college. I've bought all my textbooks, bought new clothes and just got back from buying supplies. All I need to do is go out and buy a box of granola bars and I'm all set for school.

I went to Cedar Point yesterday. It was awesome! I rode some of the classic rollercoasters like Magnum XL 200, Gemini, Mantis, Raptor and Millennium. My niece came along so I took her on her first real coaster--Iron Dragon. She liked it. I wanted to try Maverick, but it was an hour and 15 minute long wait and frankly, I didn't feel like it was worth it. My back is sore today, probably because of Mantis.

[tigerfan88]

Wow! Tomorrow is the day! I'm experiencing mixed emotions right now. Part of me is excited about college, while the other is sad that the summer is over and that now it's time to go back to school. I know tomorrow is going to be, well, emotional for my mother and I. I'm not really looking forward to that. But I also know that tomorrow is going to be the beginning of the rest of my life. I'm making the transition from teenager to adult, and it's both liberating and scary.

[tigerfan88]

Well, I had my first day of college today. It went OK, but I have to say, I was uber nervous when I got there and a little bit emotional this morning. But I had God with me, so that made it easier. I had some issues with finding classes. Basically because I'm kinda unfamiliar with the layout of one of the buildings. I managed to arrive at all my classes earlier, though. We really didn't do much today, although the Calc class went over a lot of Trig and other preCalc concepts. I have like 30 Calc problems to do tonight/tomorrow, ugh.

So tomorrow I have Unix, English and BASIC programming. Those should all be interesting. I'm hoping to make some friends in classes, as I know no one there. I did get to walk around campus with my friend I met on MySpace, so that was cool. I guess the making friends thing will take some time--I'm still overcoming my shyness issues.

[tigerfan88]

Well, the guy I met on MySpace and developed a good friendship with, it's over between us. He wasn't honest and we've both decided to say goodbye. It's a lesson learned and God's sign to me that it wasn't right, even though I thought it was. I'm moving on now and looking forward to whoever God does bring me.

[tigerfan88]

College is getting a lot easier for me and I'm surprised at how quickly I adjusted (Nate was right when he said it'll take about a week or so to get adjusted) to going to a school every day outside the home. I do miss homeschooling, but I'm starting to have such a blast at college that it's not something that I think about all the time. I've been talking a bit to people in my classes and I think I'm going to be able to make some good friends in time. I know that while I'm shy, I'm no different than anybody else and that I can make friends.

With that having been said, I'm going to probably join the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship group on campus. Maybe not next week when they have their first official meeting, but probably within the next few weeks. It's a small group of people, but I think it will be great to have other committed Christians to talk to on campus. It's going to be a big deal for me to join the group because of how shy I am, but I think it'll have a big benefit on me.

As for my personal life, well, I've had things come up in the past 4 or 5 days that have been incredibly tough. First my (almost) boyfriend and I broke up. He initiated it and I still feel as though he shouldn't have made such a drastic decision while I was away. But what's done is done and I'm getting over it slowly but surely. Then, my brother-in-law basically blew up at me, which was hurtful. One thing that all of this has taught me is that I need to forgive no matter how hard it is. I'm not particularly happy with these two people, but I forgive them for their mistakes, just as they hopefully forgive me for anything I've done.

I never received a work study job and, frankly, it's probably for the best. I've been working p/t as a freelance writer and it pays a decent wage. I should make enough to cover my expenses and then some. So that's definitely a blessing from God.

[RK_lover]

Hello, I'm also a former home-schooler starting college!
I'm going to community college, and so far it's been great! I hope to get a work-study sometime as well.


Keep up the journaling

[tigerfan88]

That's awesome! Homeschooling is great, isn't it? I think it really prepared me well for college academics. Even socially, I feel like it's prepared me well. I'm enjoying it so far.

How many credit hours are you taking? As for work study, ITS just called me this morning and they want to interview me for a front office position. Pretty cool, huh? Very much unexpected, too. I'm praying I get the job.