my first day of senior year...as a commuter.

i made the decision to commute a bit later into the summer. it was brought up over a casual discussion during lunch at the olive garden with my mom, sister, and my sister's best friend. since my sister had the extra room at her house for me, i figured "why not?" it's a 15-20 minute drive to and from school, which beats the 45 minute ride from home. it also dawned upon me that i have gone home numerous weekends over the past three years at school. i admit i am a huge homebody and love being closer to my family. no matter where i go, i love to be in a more home-y setting. and i also thought of how much money we would be saving...there was no point to me living in a dorm anymore if i were to go home and visit my other friends at school every other weekend. plus i only had class four days of the week, with only one class on thursdays. that's pretty much half the week at school and half at home. i basically looked at my dorm as a place to sleep. it just didn't appeal to me as much anymore.

i put a lot of consideration into it over the next couple of days and made a big list of pro's and con's to commuting. it seemed that the pro's list was a lot larger than the con's list, which was a sign. i decided to commute.

yesterday was the first day of commuting. i woke up at the crack of 6 o'clock a.m. without the help of my alarm. I headed out at about 7:30 for my 8:30 class. I arrived at school around 8 and had no trouble finding a parking space in the commuter lot. it was sunny so i didn't have to worry about the frustration of carrying an umbrella to keep me dry. i headed to my first class and saw my friend Dillon there, who is also a commuter. my first class was Art & Myth, and was pretty awesome. it puts a lot of emphasis on creation of your own fantastical story. this class will stretch and strengthen what i already know about storytelling and creating characers from my head. after that i had seen that my friend Sarah, who is one of my best friends at school, had texted me to call her when i was free from class. she invited me over to Park River, where i lived last year. it is one of the nicer dorms on campus. i arrived to find they had replaced the old furniture with new, and their apartment looked fantastic. Sarah had a single, which had a closet bigger than any i have ever seen before....it's twice as deep as hers at home! we chatted and i helped her hang up a couple posters. we headed for lunch at Commons (which i still love). afterwards i hung out in Gengras, the student union, until my 2:55 class. yikes. i basically had to wait an hour and a half. that's one thing i know i have to get used to...waiting around for class. but new assignments will occupy my time i'm sure. i had art history, then advertising illustration. our first assignment is to create a win label with an animal on it, because apparently people are more likely to buy a wine with an animal on the label. who knew.

i then made the mistake to go home on the highway and hit 40 minutes of traffic trying to get on 91 south. bad idea at 5 o'clock. i don't mind commuting. as long as i give myself plenty of time to get to school, it won't bother me. i commuted to both my internships this summer and didn't mind at all. i know things that could potentially frustrate me are if i accidentally forgot an art supply or if the weather was terrible driving into school.

it's the better option for me though, and yesterday made me really happy with my decision :)