Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year?

Yes. I know that Stanleycakes may have titled her post in this fashion first, but I had dibs! I don't even think I have ever heard her listen to Fallout Boy. Oh well. On to the post.

I wish I could do this more. But I really don't have the time.

My sophomore year of college is over. It's so hard to believe. So...let's take some time to reflect upon what has happened this year: the ups, the downs, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I remember moving in like it was yesterday. Nothing too exciting happened. My mom helped me move in and stayed in the shittiest hotel in Cleveland.

I think the first significant thing that happened after I moved in was that I got a job. I went up to the Lonestar in North Olmsted and applied and got the job. Server. If you read my blog you already know that.

I also changed my major from Biology to Chemistry. I am going to be a high school chemistry teacher. Eventually.

I think that the most emotional thing that happened is something that I never even worry about now. In the fall of 2009, my father and the woman he is with, Teresa, had a fight and she kicked him out. He was homeless for a few days. I mentioned it to Kathy, his ex-wife and she told her kids. Her daughter, Amber, posted a comment on Teresa's myspace totally ripping her a new one for kicking my father out. Well, by the time that Teresa got the comment, she and my father were back together and things were fine (as fine as they are for those two. I will blog about their dysfunctional relationship later). Needless to say, she was extremely angry and my father was angry that I had told someone else what had happened. He called me up yelling and said: "I love you Sha-Ray, but I am not going to let you ruin my happiness." I don't remember what he said, but he threatened to disown me. Then, it was a big deal. Now, it's not.

That same day, Andy was in an accident on his way home. He was fine, but it was really scary.

Thanksgiving break was amazing. Read my post on it if you want to know about it.

My chemistry prof found out he had cancer and is now well on his way to beating it.

Christmas break was spent at my mom's house in Alabama. Nothing to exciting happened there. I had a good Christmas.

Spring break: Florida with Stanleycakes. (check out her blog, link above) That was really fun.

Easter and Andy's house. Fun event. Had Polish food that was terrible for you. Nothing too exciting happened there.

I spent a lot of time with Amanda (Stanleycakes). We got really close and I am glad. I don't know what I would do without her. She went through a LOT of ups and downs over the year. But that is her story to tell, not mine.

Andy. He is amazing. I love him more than anything. I don't want to sound all cliche and say that we got closer over the year, because we obviously did. I feel like we have been together a lot longer than a year and a half. I am planning to write a blog about the two of us later.

And that's pretty much all that happened. It was not a very eventful year. I feel like I got closer to some, and that I drifted away from others.

It was a good year, as far as I am concerned. :)

Before I start this blog I would like to give a big thank-you to The Wifeyfor re-designing my blog layout. I love it. It is gorgeous.

My last two weeks have been Hell. Well, maybe not Hell. But it was no tiptoe through the tulips. Friday, May 7th, I moved out of my dorm and said goodbye to my boyfriend for the summer. Or so I thought. I spent all of my time in Geneva making up for lost time with some old friends. I finally get back to Kathy's place at about 8ish. I get a message from Andy a little later saying that his father was really sick. Not more than 15 minutes later, he told me that his father had died and he asked me to come to Pennsylvania to be there for him.

Hardest trip of my life.

I spend the last two weeks with Andy and his family, helping them get through their hard time and helping out wherever I could.

Andy's father was a wonderful man and he touched countless peoples' lives. He will be forever missed.

I had a lot of people telling me what a great person I was for going and being with the family in their time of need. I did not even realize that it was an act of kindness; I was needed there, there was never any question of whether or not I would be there.

I know this is kind of choppy; I made the trip from Pennsylvania to Alabama today and I am really tired. I just wanted to post a quick update as to what I have been up to and why I have been absent for two weeks and why the promised "Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year" blog hasn't been posted yet. It is a work in progress.

Also-I am not comfortable blogging about Andy's father in detail yet. I have a lot of good stories to tell; I want to do Dr. Betts justice when I blog about him. He was a great man and he deserves the best recognition possible, not a winged post done on 6 hours of sleep and 11 hours of nonstop driving.

More is yet to come, stick around and see

A flashback: Freshman year

It is very inconceivable for me that I am almost done with my first year of college. Where did the time go? Somehow, all within the last year, I have graduated high school and almost completed my first year of college. And, oh what things have happened in between!


I guess the first "turning point" if you could call it that would be when I actually left home and went to college. College is not what I expected it to be at all. It seems really, very easy compared to what you see on TV. I mean easy by the actual transition from living at home. The classes are much more difficult than high school classes. For the first time in my entire life, I have to study. Luckily, my first semester was super easy, and I have only struggled a bit my second. My hardest classes appear to be Biology and LAS, I cant seem to bring up those C's. lol. Its not for lack of trying, though.


It's not the actual school work part of school that has affected me most, though. It's the people I have met. Although I do not have any college friendships that I could compare to those from high school, I have met some pretty amazing people here. I know that if I ever have any problem, I have people I can go to, and I hope that people feel comfortable coming to me with their problems. It also helps to know the people in your classes when it is somehow 2 days before an exam and you have no idea where to start studying.


An even bigger addition to my life would be my boyfriend, Andy, whom I met the very first week of classes here at B-W. It's a very funny story actually, and looking back now, I cannot believe that we actually got together. That sounds bad. Maybe I should explain the circumstances of our introduction.

My roommate and I wanted to go outside and shoot basketball. I'm not very good at it, but it's something that relieves stress and something that I love to do. We also had another friend, who we met while wandering around campus orientation weekend, who was going to shoot around with us. So there we were, vividly engrossed in our game of horse when I notice this older-looking guy walking toward the basketball courts. He had a basketball, and appeared to be an upperclassmen, so my first thought was "Great, I hope he doesn't think we are going to give up the court for him just because we are freshmen." Well, he ended up joining our game of horse and proceeded to completely own everyone else playing. Lucky me, the one who has never played basketball before gets to go after the basketball player. =/ Anyway, the entire time he played all he did was make fun of the way I played, the movies I had and hadn't seen, and pretty much anything else that came up in conversation. All the while, I am thinking, "wow, how can this guy be such an asshole?" A little later, the other guy we were with had to leave, and it was just me, Andy and my roommate. We were just standing around talking about high school, movies, music, pretty much anything, and Andy was still sliding in insulting remarks about me wherever he could fit them. Finally, I was able to find a movie that I had seen that he never had, Nothing to Lose. My roommate happened to have that movie in our room, so, I don't know if you would call it spite, or fate, or whatever, I invited Andy up to watch the movie. (Let it be known, that at this point in time, I wasn't even interested enough to remember his name. I seriously had to keep glancing at his ID to remember it...pathetic, I know.) Anyway, we watched the movie and then parted ways afterward, with the plans to meet up at the same time the next day, for basketball.

Well, the next day, after classes and whatnot, it was collectively decided by my roommate and I that we should do our laundry. Because of the lack of available machines, our laundry time ran over into "basketball time," and we ended up not being able to meet Andy for basketball, and my roommate and I were going to a Greek cookout (free food), so I invited Andy along. To make a long story short(er), I ended up helping him with his laundry and afterwards we got coffee and went down to the lake to talk. Somehow, we ended up talking about absolutely everything and pretty much anything and stayed out until 3am. (I later realized that the only one who was negatively affected by this was me. He didn't have class until 2. Lucky bastard.) Things after that are a bit fuzzy, but thats how it all started. Oh, and obviously the asshole first impression was some sort of ploy that I still don't understand. Apparently, all guys stand by the whole "Nice guys finish last" thing. oh well. It worked out for the best because I am now much happer than I have ever been with any other person.

The other really big thing that happened this year was my father and my step mother splitting up. It was inevietable, I see this now. but nevertheless, it was extremely surprising. Especially since I found out in the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. How strange it was to hear my stepmother yell the words "Fine, just go back to your whore in Cleveland." Wow. Shocker right there. Maybe I should explain...
So there I was, sitting, waiting for our plane to get there. I was excitedly talking on the phone with my one of my best friends, telling her how excited I was to be getting to go to Puerto Rico, for the sun, the sand, the views, it all seemed like it was too good to be true. Well, just like in a book, as soon as those thoughts went through my mind, my step mother stormed over and said "Let's go, we're going back to Cleveland." I was like, "haha, very funny," but then I saw how much they were arguing. (I am still on the phone) Then there was that pivotal moment where "Fine, just go back to your whore in Cleveland." I hung up my phone and instantly called my boyfriend, obviously freaking out. I filled him in on everything, crying. I ended up staying the night in the Dallas/Fort Worth terminal, it was one of the longest nights of my life. The next morning, I got back on the plane and came back to Cleveland.

Now, things are pretty tense between my dad and my step-mother. Therefore, it makes things tense for me. I feel like I am out of place, constantly. I am going back down to Alabama this summer and staying with my mother. I am going to continue to go to school in Cleveland. I don't know what the future holds for me, but I know that I do not regret things from my past. My past experiences make me who I am today, and I get stronger with every one that doesn't bring me down.