When I decided to spend a semester up in Alaska, I was told about the different stages that a person would go through while on exchange. The honeymoon stage where everything is great. The hostility stage. The home sick stage. And then the happiness stage. I wasn't super worried about that because I've been up here a bunch of times and I would be with family. No home sickness for me. What I didn't expect was how much I would miss USC. In case y'all didn't know, there are no Chick-fil-A's up in Alaska. No Chick-fil-A. No Moe's. No Poke. If I want to go to Target or Kohl's, I have to make the 6-hour drive to Anchorage. We lack what I consider "basic necessities." But back to my point. I miss USC and all that it offers. I miss walking around campus and seeing the new restaurants in Russell. I miss going to football games and Five Points. I miss being surrounded by people that I know even if we don't hang out. Like just seeing a familiar face in class is a luxury that I don't have up here, and I miss it. I miss seeing my criminal justice teachers face-to-face and listening to all the crazy stories they have to tell. I miss my friends. I miss the horseshoe. It's rough. That all just kind of hit me this week and it really sucked. I'm very happy and thankful to be up here, but I do miss South Carolina. Also, if I were in South Carolina right now, it would probably be warm. I might even be able to wear shorts. I still have at least another month, if not two months, before I can even think about wearing shorts. It's still 20-30 degrees up here. I don't have to wear my huge poofy jacket, but I do still need to wear a jacket. Here is my obligatory comment on my classes: meh. I'm still fairly behind in my work because of my work schedule (which has finally straightened out, at least for this week). I'm hoping to play catch up this week. I have two exams that I have to take tomorrow or Monday. Guess who's not prepared? Me! But I plan on changing that. I did turn in an assignment super late but the teacher thought my paper was so wonderful that he didn't mark off the full amount of points that he should have. He wants to use my paper as an example of what to do for the assignment for next semesters students. Very interesting. I was surprised. Back to my work schedule, I am in the bakery all this week, which is super awesome and my sleep schedule should sort itself out. I no longer have to switch between leaving at 1 am, leaving at 6 am, or leaving at 8 am to get to work. I just leave at 1 am. The shift is actually scheduled to be a 2 am - 8 am shift, but it takes me a while to make the cinnamon rolls, so I go in an hour early. My manager has said that he doesn't care what time I come in, as long as everything gets done. I like that. It's nice. I can basically do what I need to do whichever way works best for me and no one can tell me otherwise. I don't have a manager standing over my shoulder. This morning I actually got done baking and cleaning before ANY of the managers even came in. It would be nice if I could stay in the bakery. We will see how that goes. They are still training new counter people, so I'm not sure if I am going to be asked to step in and fill in some of the blanks on the schedule since the new people aren't fully trained yet. I hope not but whatever. I have two days off this week and plan to use them to sleep, get homework done, and do my volunteer stuff for Capstone. Capstone is a program that I am in at USC, and each semester we have to do some community service and some form of personal challenge. In the past, my challenges have been donate blood, stick to a diet, and regularly exercise. This semester, I was going to go skiing, but that fell through. I might put "try a new job that I don't qualify for" as my challenge. I have no previous baking skills aside from baking cookies at home, so I really didn't meet the qualifications for my bakery position. For my community service, I have helped sort trash from the stadium and helped incoming students move into their dorms during move-in week. This semester I will be volunteering with a non-profit organization that benefits veterans. My uncle's fiancée works there and said she has a list of things that I could come in and do to help out. So that is my plan for this week. Let's hope it all goes well. I will talk to y'all next week!
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AuthorStudent at the University of South Carolina studying criminal justice, French, and psychology. Archives
August 2019
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