Graduate they said. It will be fun they said.

Here are some things you should know about me presently:

1) Whenever I have to kill an insect, I wish the main theme from Skyrim would play in real life, and not just in my head.

2) I have no idea why I still use FireFox when it crashes on me constantly. I don't even have that many windows open. I have 3 tabs, FireFox. That's not even a lot. T_T

3) I still need to unpack. Which is difficult when, well, there's no where to put anything. It would probably help if I didn't have a bajillion books, but what can you do man. Sell them. Which is what I'm doing on Amazon currently.

4) There is an Asian food market 30 minutes from my house. I need to visit it in the hopes of getting somewhat authentic pre-heatable jaozi or baozi. However, because I have no money, I simply cry every night.

5) It boggles my mind when guys don't flush the toilet after they pee. I mean, you're staring at it. You are literally staring at your pee. How can you not remember to flush. It's not like the toilet requires a human sacrifice before flushing.

6) Usually, I don't ever remember my dreams. Now, I've been having some pretty trippy dreams. Like last night, I dreamt I was back at Houghton, but me and someone else (she kept morphing into each of my friends, so it was kind of confusing) found this secret passageway to another world similar to the world in Shadow of the Colossus, and met a girl with a giant pet lizard dragon (It was more lizard than it was dragon. If you had my dream you'd understand.) who was the guardian of that world, and we swore to never tell anyone about that place.

7) I wish people would quit asking me what I'm doing now. I basically sit at home in my sweatpants and a crappy t-shirt all day playing video games, watching television, drinking tea, watching K-Pop music videos, and trying to find jobs that won't kill me out of boredom.

I'm tempted to start answering their stupid question like this:

Example A
Person: So what are you doing now?
Me: I just woke up from a very long comatose state, and defeated a computer mainframe with the help of a gun that can create two portals.
Person: ...?
Me: Don't worry. Wheatley's in space now. Humanity is safe.

Example B:
Person: So how's life now that college is over?
Me: I'm now apparently a Dragonborn and recently defeated a frost troll on my way to the Greybeards.
Person: ... Really.
Me: Yea. Lydia was no help, but she's basically my pack mule and carries all the crap I find and hope to later sell. Maybe.

Example C:
Person: So have you found a job yet?
Me: I've created a crack in my wall in the hopes that the Doctor will find me. He will. HE EXISTS.

Maybe people will believe me.

I'll make them believe me.

Although to be honest I'm contemplating making Example C into a real life occurrence.

Goodbyes are the Worst

I hate saying goodbye. After commencement at Houghton College, I was stuck in this state of not knowing whether or not I should say goodbye, or just run as far as I could into the woods where I would never have to say goodbye to anyone ever again.

When I said bye to my study abroad group in China, I thought those would be the worst goodbyes I would ever have to give.

I was wrong.

There are no words I could use to describe the people I've met over the past four years, and you've all changed me in one way or another for the better, and I will miss all of you. Really.

Instead of blabbering on, I thought it'd be better to illustrate the past four years with pictures that appropriately capture my past four years at Houghton. Granted, not every moment with Houghton peoples was photographed, but these are some awesome moments / awesome people.

Sondra telling me the National Anthem was playing from my computer.

 

So freshman year, there were these girls in Lambein who made a "Hot Guy Wall", and I thought it was the stupidest thing in the world.  To retaliate, 3rd New made a "Hot Girl Wall", complete with super attractive photos of everyone who lived on our floor, as well as some of our friends.

Posing with our advent calendar we actually completely abandoned sometime after Dec. 5.

We had an alien party, and Signs may or may not have been involved.

Ryan went through a weird phase. And by that I mean he was acting like himself.

Rach and I censored the ANTM lounge reservation picture.

For said final we pulled an all nighter for, I slept 15 minutes during it,
managed to be the first one done, and still got an A.

I made an entire album on Facebook devoted to these horrible things. Blegh.

The dance party we had that resulted in us getting 2 complaints and a security guard to shut us down.

April Fool's Day freshman year. That's Rachel's bed.

I found a dead bat while cleaning, and asked Kate and Eva for a box to bury it in. Chelsea was there for moral support.

Highlander, pre-college. Agh.

: )

My friend Evan was the editor for the Drawing Board at Houghton, and I won the contest the DB had last year but unfortunately the sketches of myself (or whatever it is I would have won) were lost. So instead he creepily drew what I was wearing that Monday for a presentation in our class and decided not to tell me I was going to be the header for the Drawing Board on Thursday. I found out through Facebook, and had a major freak out moment.

I will miss this.

Last year I was always walking in on my house mates doing weird things. Here, they are working out to Richard Simmons.

This photo deserves a long caption. Here's what I wrote on Facebook:

"Funny story. So that dude, Tyler comes up and starts asking if we bought any CD's from his band, Rookie of the Year. We told him we were an hour late, and missed it. We continued to chat, Em Sach made up a handshake with him, I thumb wrestled him, and Lindsey and Em bought a CD from him. We asked him what his booking agent was, and he said he didn't know. He also told us we could check out his band's MySpace page, but he rarely visited it, but we could just go on his instead. So we got a picture with him. Well, later in the car, Emily Sacher opens up the newest CD, looks at the page with the band members, and Tyler is not there. He is not in the band. He was just a salesperson, and we felt like morons afterwards. I was up for driving back and punching his face in... but the plan didn't fall through."

  

No shave November. I believe Emma never realized I upgraded her poster of Beckham.

I drove all the way to NYC from Houghton for a concert I supposedly won a ticket for. Long story short, I was part of a mob and this is the only picture I managed to get of Matthew Bellamy.

Quidditch World Cup IV in NYC

A girl on our floor freshman year kept clogging the toilets with toilet paper. By clogging, I mean she used a roll and a half, and the toilet would be stuffed to the brim with toilet paper. We didn't understand why, and we all knew it was her. The creepy thing is, I don't think she realized SHE was doing it.

Now I'm going to go back to drowning out my sorrows with Dead Island, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect 2, Portal 2, and a bajillion other games on my PS3.

It sucks not living with your friends anymore.

Growing Old is Getting Old

When I was young, I wanted to be a number of things. Among them were a: ballerina, explorer, zookeeper, first woman President (don't ask me why, it was a weird time in my life), ballerina teacher, astronaut... etc. That is, until I read the first three Harry Potter books when I was 10. I realized that the summer before my 11th birthday I would probably be getting my owl to Hogwarts. When I didn't get it, I figured I was just going to get it the next summer, because maybe the age cutoff was weird in the wizarding world. When I didn't get it, I just figured I was a squib, because I would much rather be a squib than a muggle.

I feel like when I was younger, I had such a better grasp on what I wanted to do, and was way more motivated than I am now. It probably doesn't help that I played a massive amount of video games during highschool and had the concept of future job possibilities diluted by Final Fantasy characters and the two disc saga that is Tales of Symphonia (I played through that game. So. Many. Times.).

Now that I've almost finished college, I feel like my concept has changed even further. When I was a highschooler, I was super introverted and shy and self conscious and honestly didn't have many friends. I'm still introverted, but not in the same way.

Seeing as how I'm getting way off on a tangent here, I'm gonna go back to my MAIN point.

I'm a senior in college.

I have only a month left.

I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

But you know what? That's ok. Hopefully, if we're able to find an apartment (WHICH WE WILL.) I'll be living with two of my housemates (Kate and Chelsea. It's gonna be da bomb diggidy) next year, for who knows how long in Rochester. Although I didn't get another job I really wanted  (Wesley ServiceCorps), I also realize if this works out, I'd be super ok with that.

Planning out my life is such a drag. When things just randomly work out (which is basically every moment of my life), that's when I realize It's pointless to plan things out, and just realize things will work out eventually. I mean, a part of me sometimes wishes I could go back in time and talk to my 8 year old self, and ask her what she wants to do with her life. Eight year old Brittany would probably say something like go to the Temple of Time, find the sages, defeat Ganondorf... and you know what? That would be okay with me.

Everyone gets so freaked out about what comes next, and if we're ever gonna see each other again.

Life doesn't end when college ends. I've loved every year at Houghton for various reasons, but I also realize I don't want to spend the rest of my life here. I've grown a lot as a person since I was a freshman, and I'm thankful for that. Although I don't have any definite plans, I know things will work out. Interesting/weird life moments don't have to stop once college does. They'll keep happening.

And when college ends it's not like all your friends just die in a hole or something. I'll still talk to people. People who were important in your life don't just stop talking to you. But sometimes, you have to make the extra effort to keep in contact with those people. Which is exactly why I'm excited I at least get to (possibly. we WILL find an apartment) still continue living in Western New York.

Introverted high school Brittany probably never would have expected to be doing this after college. Eight year old me would have thought I'd be living with my best friend at the time Michelle, because I mean we sketched out a map and everything detailing where our beanbag chair would go.

I don't care that I'm not going to grad school, or have some job rescuing orphaned sea turtles or something. Everyone does something different with their life. I don't care about making a name for myself, all I care about is whether I'm happy. And I can say that right now, I'm happy about who my friends are, who introverted high school Brittany would have been too intimidated to talk to/ let alone be friends with.

I feel fairly confident about what comes after graduation, because life can only get more interesting from here on out.

Embrace Your Inner Geek/Dork/Nerd

There comes a time in every person's life... when this one question crosses his/her mind.

What in the crap do people think of me.

With that in mind, I have this backpack I bought in Beijing, China.

My friend Guiliani took this when we were in Beijing. You have every right to be jealous.

By backpack, I mean "Awesome-backpack-that-will-never-be-as-awesome-as-your-lowly-boring-backpack-that-probably-didn't-cost-you-a-measly-8-dollars-like-mine-did. Whatchya gonna do?! Nothing! Cause your backpack will never be this cool EVERRRRR."

Lately, when I'm walking about Houghton, I keep having conversations that go somewhat like this with passing students/faculty:

Nameless stranger: "Aaww your backpack is so cute?"
Me: "Oh thanks! You love Miyazaki's movies too?"
Potential new BFFL: "Who's that?"
Me: "My Neighbor Totoro? He made it. My backpack is Totoro."
Newfound Enemy: "What's a Totoro?"

And that's where the conversation ends.

I'm realizing... I'm very lucky to have found the friends I've found who do like Totoro, and other dorky things. My friend Rachel gave me a pin a week ago whose logo is from the Watchmen.

Here is visual aid for the less fortunate e.g. you.

Someone saw it and was like:

Stranger: "Cute pin!"
Me: "Oh you've seen/read the Watchmen?"
Stranger: "The what?"
Me: "The Watchmen... this isn't a normal smiley face, there's blood on it."
Yet another enemy who is now staring at me strangely: "Oh...."

I feel like, deep in the recesses of everyone's brains, they're probably thinking "You know, there's someone out there for all of us. I'm sure Brittany will find someone. Someday."

I DON'T NEED YOUR PITY. JUST BE MORE GEEKILY AWARE PEOPLE. GO WATCH AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER OR SOMETHING.

EXPAND YOUR IMAGINATION.

I hate pennies. So. Much.

Since I've been back from China... I have no idea what to write about. But my friend Emily told me I should keep talking about reverse culture shock, and things I've noticed since I've been back.

So that's what this is.

An entire post. About my hatred for pennies.

Back in China, the only change they had (that I noticed. I shouldn't just be throwing claims around. Whoops.) was a ten cent coin, a 50 cent coin, and a coin worth one yuan. It was simple. Things weren't priced weird. Everything was even. You would normally have a lot of change, but I could easily use it for the bus. There was never any of this one cent business.

Being in America. I hate pennies. I hate em I hate em I hate em. I went to the Jube (this grocery store down the road from Houghton) and the woman at the register was about to hand me all of these pennies, but before she could drop those horrible demon coins in my hand I told her she could keep them. She seemed happy... but I knew

deep down inside

she was probably filled with so much rage.












I never noticed before... but personally, the idea of a penny is so pointless. It actually costs MORE to produce them than they are worth. Yet we keep MAKING THEM. WHY. Conspiracy? Is that what this is?

Are we really that concerned about getting our money's worth? I have so many worthless pennies in my wallet (actually, I currently have three currencies in my wallet which gets super confusing. all the time.) that I'm almost tempted to throw them away.

Maybe that's what I'll do.

Everytime I get a penny... I'll throw it away.

:D

Perfect.

Or I'll just store them in a jar and take them to a bank. After three years of picking up pennies off the gross dirty ground, I will be 3 dollars richer probably. That's like, three songs on iTunes. Wow. Be jealous.

So next time you see a penny. Throw it away. Maybe we can start a trend, and the government will realize how pointless and stupid the penny is (sorry Lincoln).

Reverse Culture Shock part 二

So, it just occurred to me how horribly depressing my last blog post was, and how very little I explained about reverse culture shock. I apologize for that. In return, I will provide some examples for your enjoyment (or pain... depends on your perspective. But I don't really know why you would keep reading if this was really all that painful) about various scenarios in which I realized... I wasn't in China anymore.

Shopping
Back in Hangzhou, I honestly HATED shopping for clothes. People are constantly staring at you because you're white, and I swear shop keepers were disguising themselves as coat racks or something because they would pop out of NO where and ask me if I liked that color, or wanted another one, or they tell you how pretty it would look on you, when REALLY the only reason you even bothered to look at that shirt was because it had weird English on it and you were laughing at it. So I developed this Speedy McSpeedster way of shopping. Basically, you speed walk through the whole store, making mental notes of things. You can look at things, but not for longer than two seconds. Use these two seconds to make life altering decisions. Will this cardigan really improve your wardrobe? Will that t-shirt really be comfortable? If nothing fazes you, or you can imagine a potential future without those earmuffs, then just get the crap out of there man. Leave.

You can imagine the anxiety attack I had then when I came back to New Jersey. I really needed a pair of jeans from Kohls, and it took me a week to actually have the mental strength to go out in public. I'm not even kidding you. The thought of going out into society physically made me nauseous. But I knew I had to do it sometime. I forgot how much I loved shopping actually. No one was staring at me, and it was great. I didn't feel like people were watching my every movements, telling me I should try on what was in my hands, that they will give it to me for a good price.

Horns
I'm sure there are other countries besides China who also use their horns constantly, but in Hangzhou people were always using their horns, but just as a sort of warning to other people. It's more like a "I'm coming through watch out!" as compared to our American horns that sound more like "WHAT THE FRICK YOU ##$%@ DRIVER". I was recently honked at on my way to Houghton, but it didn't even faze me. Whatever man. I WAS IN THE RIGHT.

English
Obviously, back in China, everything is in Chinese. I had gotten used to not being able to read anything, and just trying to figure out what the place was by looking inside. Since I've been back to the states, I have this irrational fear that the signs will suddenly turn into characters, and I won't be able to read anything, and I'll be confused, and I'll have to go cry in some corner of some room and contemplate my life for all it's worth... but that's the gist of it. I thought I would be excited to see English again... but it just freaks me out. I KNOW it's only a matter of time before they morph into unreadable Chinese characters.

Asians
When we got off the plane in Chicago... it was so weird seeing so many Westerners. It was still weird for me actually after a week or so. I would catch myself unnecessarily staring at people, just because they were white. But everyone in China always stared at white people... and that was a habit I also began to take on. Now I guess I'm used to it... but I just wish I saw more Asians man. I watch K-Pop music videos (like right now. Super Junior IS playing.) just so I can see Asians. Is that creepy?... Whatevs man. I feel like I might go crazy if I just see white people all the time.

...I wonder if that's racist.

I could go more into detail, but honestly I should REALLY be working on all the homework I suddenly have (whoa! and I need to do both my jobs today!). I didn't even realize a semester could be this busy. I need Hermoine's time turner. Badly.

So have fun with your life and stuffs people! Until the next time I decide to blog... it may or may not be about China. Seeing as how I'm back in boring old America.

Reverse Culture Shock

So... it's been a while since I've posted. I would apologize. But, I sort of just came back from a FOUR MONTH trip to China... so I needed some time to think. And get over jetlag.

If there's anyone reading this who's never been to another country... don't just prepare yourself for culture shock. Be sure to prepare yourself for reverse culture shock. It exists. I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing it. I wish I wasn't, but that's life. I also wish I had thought ahead of time to prepare myself mentally for reverse culture shock, but that's also life.

The first week I spent at home, playing Borderlands and Twilight Princess wasn't just because I felt like "vegging out". I didn't want to go out into American society.

Also, I honestly don't even want to go back to school. I need at least another week. Not three more days. I plan on just driving right past Houghton straight to the North Pole. Maybe I can live amongst the polar bears.