Starting the Second Round

The second round of school. Year number two, I suppose you could say, but there's always a complicated answer to that question. Thus, this is the second round of EMU. Almost a second start, I would say, because of the fact that there is a whole new major in mind, with beautiful opportunities and options. I can't wait! There are upsides and downsides to each new circumstance.
I have chosen Social Work as the major for me. There are so many opportunities and a variety of awesome options right out of college, and I'm so excited for them! The downside, of course, is that the extra science classes I took last fall are now electives, unless I pursue some sort of science minor. I was thinking about still doing a music minor, but I still want to graduate early (oh the competitive heart of mine). So at this point, I'm just focusing on social work, and I'm hoping to take some fun classes like Rock climbing, and drawing or painting at some point, because I deserve to let that art out of my soul. For this semester, I have my watercolor paints (and I FINALLY have a blue!!!) and my sketch pad, so I should be all set, when it comes to things that I need for art outage. Of course there is a piano here, and I'm hoping that living her longer term will produce some sweet inspiration from those keys.
it has been recommended that I recycle some of my songs. Or work them out, so that they aren't all rough drafts, which they are. Many times, the piano part changes with each round of playing, mostly because I improvise the chords and that's just what I do. Some of the songs, though deserve their own unique piano part. I think I can do that. And then I can record.
I just finished up two weeks of glorious loveliness with Zach. He got to come to my house a couple days earlier than planned last week, and then stayed with my family all the way through Thursday, when we left to go to his house, and now I am in Harrisonburg. We did so many things. We went walking and running with my mother, father, and Rocket. We made Engle cookie bars (made into bars by Zach. I was content with cookies), and pizza Hazlett style--on the big wooden cutting board, with a serve yourself attitude. We made bread together, and many smoothies. We spent hours cutting up green beans, blanching these and also tomatoes, which we peeled, and picante sauce. We improvised from my mother's original recipe of chili. And all that was just in the kitchen! Well, that was mostly what we did, besides going to Sarah's house and picking raspberries with her for a little while. We spent a lot of time watching movies that we hadn't seen before that were quite interesting-- The Hudsucker Proxy, Signs, The Sixth Sense, Donnie Darko, and also some that one of us had already seen--Dumber and Dumber. That was very important.
What I enjoyed most about our time together were the conversations that we were able to have. We talked about important things that haven't been able to be discussed for a year, and we started getting to know one another again. We had a few arguments, several ending with me screaming on the floor. . . because he grabbed my foot, pinned it in between his arm and side, and was tickling it without remorse. A couple times my knee popped out of place. . . and then right back in, because I was kicking frantically. We all learn our limits one way or another.
Zach started challenging me mentally with these logic puzzles (he calls them "red herrings") where he would say a sentence, which could be the last sentence of a story, and then I would have to figure out why it happened. These drove me up the wall, but for Zach, we wouldn't do anything else until I figured it out. He looked up Red Herring games on the internet, and found this one that was really challenging that we couldn't get past level eleven on. . .
Zach also went to the zoo with Mom and me, and then met Kristen and her family (she was moving into her apartment in Toledo while we were there).
We drove to his home in Millersburg after I had an epic eye appointment with Dr. Darnell. We went to the Dandelion Seed Company, what you could call a showing of the arts, when we got there. It was a lot of fun, though I was tired from driving, and needed to eat some protein. I enjoyed the music and readings that were shared by everyone there, and realized how nice it would be if there was something like that for me to be a part of here so that I could regularly get feedback for my music.
Now it's time to go to sleep, or move into my room, or something. My eyes are tired, and so is my body. Driving seven and a half hours in one day by yourself can do that to you.