OK, I'm bored (watching Dirty Dancing for the 100th time, if that says anything) so you guys get to listen to me ramble.

Against my better judgment, I just signed up for Netflix. I know I'm always on about how I don't have any free time, but I've actually started doing a lot of my studying in the middle of the day (one day a week I have a 4 hour gap between classes, one day I have 3 hours, and one day I don't have class till 2 but I go in at 10 and sit in the library and work, because that's when my roommate has class and I'd rather do that than take the bus.) So I've spent a couple hours rating movies and adding things to my queue. Anybody seen anything really good lately? That's out on DVD already, that is.

So, things are going pretty good for me. I don't have any huge complaints, there's the usual crap that comes along with having a roommate, but I figure by now I've had time to discover all the little annoyances and there's nothing I can't deal with. I wouldn't go so far as to say I've made any really good friends yet, but there's a least a group of people that I think I'm getting there with. Part of the problem is that we really only have time to hang out on Friday and sometimes Saturday nights. Last night we had a cookout and sat around and asked questions out of this stupid book (of course they were mostly about sex), but as it turns out we really did get to know each other a little better because of it.

One thing that I really hate is that I have to keep asking people for rides. I CAN take the bus to class, but I have to get up like an hour and a half earlier, and like with the grocery store, I could walk it, but it'd be a couple miles and I wouldn't be able to carry much home so I'd have to go constantly. The biggest thing is that it does sort of impede the whole making-friends process. It's hard to call someone and say "You want to go to the movies? Great, you have to drive." I feel like someone's little sister, just tagging along everywhere. There's no way I can get a car, though, at least not anytime soon.

The weirdest thing is that I sort of miss my parents. I was so glad to get away from them when I went off to college, and I lived away from them for 5 years and never really looked back, and then I spent this past summer with them and got used to being around them again. Don't get me wrong, my mom still annoys the hell out of me and I'm glad I don't live there full time, but I do wish they lived a little nearer so that I could at least visit for Thanksgiving. They did a lot for me this summer and there's no way I'd be here right now if they hadn't helped me out so much. I also feel like I rediscovered some people just in time to move away from them again. I really got to know my uncle, who was always sort of estranged from my mother until a couple years ago, my brother (who is much older than me and I was never close to) moved at least temporarily back to WV and we vistited him a few times, and I started hanging out with an old friend who I'd known since I was 9 or so. Sometimes I think that if I'd known the whole breakup/moving away from PA thing was going to happen, I would've gone to law school in WV, and then sometimes I think I must be crazy for thinking that. But, what's done is done, and I do like it here.

Well I actually did have a rant planned about something I watched on the news, but this thing is already long enough so I'll save that for next time.

Val