Whats Been Going On?

No I have not vanished from the world as you know it. In fact I have been quite good actually. The little summer that I was able to enjoy is quickly ending. In a mere three or four days I will be moving back into VCU. This time, though, I will be in the West Grace Street Honors Housing. If I remember, I was so glad last semester to get placed in this building rather than Cabaniss. Because Cabaniss is a bus ride away from where all of my classes are at it was a hassle. West Grace Housing is located on the Monroe Park Campus, which is where all of my classes are all held. So it was more advantageous to be placed in a room on this campus rather than the other one. However, neither place are where I would ideally want to stay as I would prefer to be in the Upperclassman apartments which is just one street away from West Grace Street.

My summer has been filled with great joy, suspense, sadness, and even promise. Starting with the saddest part is the fact that several members of my church, Fourth Baptist Church passed away this year. Several deacons and deaconesses, a members husband, and other people seemed to vanish this summer. I was not able to go to any of their funerals, which I wish I had. They were all so influential and inspiring but I guess as a song says "everything changes".

I was able to experience moderate joy this summer in being able to finally purchase a Nintendo Wii as well as be able to spend some time with a few friends while I was at VCU. When I came home I was also able to go out to eat with Phylicia, which is always a good part with coming home. I do get to spend time with her. I was almost able to spend time with DeAnna, Lakiesha, and Jeff but things didnt go as planned for her birthday as I was not able to to attend the fun on the beach.

The most disappointing thing about this summer was the fact that I seemed to spend an excessive amount of money that I had received from a stipend. Originally I was only going to spend about 500$ on a Nintendo Wii and a TV, but I went a little bit excessive. I used a majority of the funds on eating out and cooking. This was quite expensive because cooking required a great deal of materials. Eating out was as I seemed to realize quite cheaper. I also spent some money on shoes because the shoes I had started to feel quite uncomfortable. A bit more of the funds was used on miscellaneous things such as books (3) and DVD's (about 10), games (4), shoes (2, converse and adidas), crocs (2, the most regrettable purchase), and a gift for a friend. Much of the spending issue came with the problem that the stuff came from online, for example because I couldn't find a Wii in the store I had to pay 100$ more for it online. The TV was actually on sale and in my range, I bought three games, which was acceptable. I shouldn't have bought the crocs, though they are great to wear around in the room. The shoes were most needed and the DVD's I could live without. If anything, I shouldn't have got big eyed with the amount of money and just stayed with buying the games, the shoes, and the TV and food, this would have gave me an acceptable range of only spending about 500-700$.

The second disappointing thing and perhaps most suspenseful was the fact that I was not able to gather enough funds to pay for college. None of my one time only scholarships were able to be renewed. I was able to get the Toyota Community Scholars Scholarship renewed though (about $2500) and the VCU Deans Scholarship one renewed ($3950). The rest of the remaining cost of school has to come out of the pockets of either me or my parents. We went through the path of getting a loan, however with the fact that I am not able to have any credit (not only do you have to have established it through paying bills, but you have to make at least $1500 a month) and the fact that my dad has been through some financial hardship in the past (medical costs and house costs when my mother was sick), we weren't able to get those loans. There is one last place that we are trying and if we dont get that then we will have to pay out of our pockets. Essentially though, in 2009 we will be able to get one. What this means is that my year is going to spent applying for as many scholarships as possible. For a partial amount of time I was considering not going back to school, but because this would result in the lose of my scholarships this wouldn't have been a wise decision.

There are a few promising things that I am going to be keeping a watch out for this year. I do hope to apply to get into yet another summer program for science this year. I hope that I really do make it, I dont know which one yet but I am going to keep an eye out for one. I am also doing great things in the field of collecting past shows on DVD. Because I have stopped and been able to overcome my addiction to buying video games at random (there are only three I want and I have been able to really keep track of my purchases so I have enough for them because they are spread apart by a month at least) I am now going to focus on trying to get tv shows that I want on DVD. I was able to get Ducktales and Xiaolin Showdown this past school year using my many Barnes and Noble Discounts. This summer I was able to get Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends and Ben 10. I also was able to search online and discover that they are coming out with the final part to the Ducktales Collection, Ben 10 second season is coming out, and Yu-Gi-Oh is being released. I would try to get Tale Spin and others but I have to save money so I wont go too far into this buying craze. Get Ducktales is the first priority and that is only 30$ in November, Yu-Gi-Oh can wait a while because there are parts of the seasons missing and I have to wait for Amazon to lower the price.

This upcoming year should really be quite enjoyable. I am going to make it my next best goal to really keep this updated as well. If not daily maybe at least once a week. I move into VCU on Saturday August 18th, hopefully everything works out well.