March 16

 

Welcome to Paradise!!

We got to the hotel that we're staying at today, and it's a super nice place!

The food is unfortunately expensive, but at least it tastes good!

As I promised myself, I've already tried some seafood. The first thing I tried was some grilled shrimp with some kind of mango something dipping sauce, and it was really good.

I can finally eat a shrimp without gagging, that's nice!

Anyway, that was my lunch... We got to the hotel around 1:00 and probably got down to the beach at around 2 and started laying out.

It was really warm here today, but it was also really windy...

So that made for an interesting first day at the beach experience! The sand whipped around in the air if you tried to lay out in an actual cabana, so we ended up over near one of the pools instead.

I've already gotten some good reading done, by the way. My kindle is my best friend when it comes to vacations. I literally read the entire time I laid out until we ate some food.

Speaking of food, here's seafood item number two for the day!

"Crab crusted grouper" ... it was delicious. I'm a big fan of crab generally speaking (that's always been my one seafood exception thanks to Malone's sushi!), but this was even better than I expected.

Plus the grouper part was really good too. Yum. I'm definitely about to gain some serious weight on this vacation.

March 15

Officially in Florida!!

We left this morning at 4 am and got to Hannah's aunt's house by about 4 pm, which was awesome since we got to enjoy the good weather before the day was over.

I didn't get a lot of actual sleep last night, but I got a good nap in the car and I'm feeling pretty good.

Anyway, these pictures are from a walk around this lake in Hannah's aunt's neighborhood that we went on right after dinner.

Dinner was 100% awesome, by the way. I think I ate my body weight in food tonight, and I have a feeling that's a trend that will probably continue throughout this trip.

Paleo isn't going to be a thing in Florida, that's for sure.

Too many delicious things like Key Lime Pie to be eaten!

Speaking of food, I'm planning on trying a lot of seafood while I'm down here. I've been totally against seafood since I was a kid and had a few bad experiences with it.

Life lesson: never feed a kid cold, soggy, once frozen shrimp as their first time ever eating it...

It has the potential to scar them for life as they just remember how disgusting it was whenever they think about eating any kind of seafood. I know this from experience.

Anyway, that's all I really have to say right now.

This last picture here is my favorite from today I think though. I took all three of these with my iPhone (laziness due to too much food and too little sleep).

I really like how the trees and sun were completely reflected by the random puddle we stumbled across.

Well, here's to Florida and relaxing as much as humanly possible!

(Not to mention getting a nice little sun tan)

March 14

HAPPY 55th BIRTHDAY TO MY DAD!!

Also, Spring Break has finally arrived!!!

Obviously, today is a very exciting day... After classes today, I went back to my dorm, finished packing up my car, and headed home.

I stopped by Root-a-Bakers bakery in Morehead to get my dad some cookies as a birthday present first though. They have the best iced sugar cookies you've ever tasted!

I think he appreciated them, too... Then after his delicious birthday dinner and cake and such, I headed down to the nail salon near my house and got myself a pedicure.

I still had some Calculus homework that was due by midnight at that point, but I figured I should still have enough time to get it done before packing and leaving at 4am.


Unfortunately I semi-underestimated how long it would take me to finish the section that was due tonight, and after a nice and relaxing half an hour or so getting my toes done and reading a book, I had to stress again.

See, I had unwisely left packing until the very last minute, and ended up only getting about an hour and a half of sleep.

March 13

Midterms are finally over!!!

Today, after at least 5 hours of studying this morning (again), I took my last midterm, and I think I did okay on it.

Not fantastic, but okay. I at least got the majority of the points for every question, so with a curve I may even end up with an A on the exam overall.

Unfortunately I ended up missing Chemistry today because of studying, and I didn't realize my Chem teacher had such a strict attendance policy, so I lost a few points for it.

At least I think the Calc test went well.. Anyway, after my test, I was done for the day since we had morning practice today, so Kameron and I decided to go on another adventure in this good weather.

We climbed up Lockegee and then went to Bdubs and ate some tasty food. It was really fun!

Oh and in case you were wondering, my quad has been hurting me lately, so this morning after practice our trainer had me do stem and ice it... and I studied as the machine messed with my muscle.

On the bright side, we don't have any more practices until after Spring Break, so it started hurting at a convenient time since it'll get plenty of rest over the break.

March 12

So. Much. Studying.

As I studied for Geography this morning from about 5 until 10, I realized that I didn't know pretty much any of the material.

So I taught myself the past month's worth of lectures (thank goodness he posts his powerpoints on blackboard!), and by the time I took the test I actually felt pretty prepared!

I think I definitely got an A on it even, which is crazy considering how overwhelmed I felt at first.

Tomorrow will be my final midterm of the week... let's hope it turns well. I'm a little burnt out right now, but I need an A on it to raise my Calculus 3 grade.

I just really want a 4.0 overall this year! Here goes nothing...

March 11

Long days don't always have to be bad days...

Today was a mixture of good and bad, really.

Totally a typical Tuesday at times, but not too terrible.

First, I woke up at around 4 am to study for Chemistry... This was the exam that I was most worried about because I have around an 85% in that class, and I'm just not good at it.

So, I woke up, made myself an omlette, and then literally studied from then until class... which wasn't until 10:20.

Luckily, I think it paid off.

I'm not sure if I got an A on the test, but I at least got a solid high B, and there's a possibility that I even got an A.

I have a very strange brain, and for some reason I can cram and entire month worth of material into my brain if I study for 6 hours straight...

Unfortunately, getting up that early and stressing/studying that much tends to affect how well I perform on the soccer field, and although I didn't play terribly today it was rough.



Everyone is a little stressed right now, and by the time practice was over I'd been yelled at so much I was close to a mental breakdown.

So, how did I cope?

Well first I was going to play some extra pickup soccer with some of the club soccer boys (since that's one of my favorite things to do), but then I realized as I sat there that I was WAY too dead for that.

Plus it was another gorgeous day, and Cave Run Lake is so close to our campus...


SO! My friend Kameron and I decided to go fishing.

We unfortunately did not catch anything, although I didn't really expect to... I was too lazy to buy worms so we just used a couple of little lures that I had.

I'm more of a stick a worm on a hook, toss it in the water and wait kind of fisherman... lures are too much work.

Still, it was fun, and we stayed and watched the sunset.

The sky was ridiculously clear (as you can see in the picture of Kam), so as the sun went down it was pretty, but the pictures didn't come out as good since there weren't any clouds to refract the rays and make all sorts of colors.

Being at the lake was a much needed break today regardless... I've got two more midterms and then I can call this week over!

My exam tomorrow is Geography, by the way, and I already have a solid A in there (hence why I let myself relax for a few hours after practice and went to the lake).

Still, I want to get an A on the midterm so I can keep my solid A, so I'm sure I'll be waking up ridiculously early once again tomorrow to study.

Everybody has there own study methods, and the most successful students are those who figure out what works for them...

My method just happens to be procrastination combined with extremely long periods of straight studying.


AKA frequent early morning cram sessions...

How I don't just give up after an hour or two is a mystery to me.

Anyway, after the lake and after we got back on campus, I started getting REALLY hungry, and I really wasn't in the mood to cook something (it had already been a long day).

So, I slipped up. I ate the absolutely delicious pretzels and queso seen below, and it was great.

Not great for my body, but it was great.

Before that though, I had a very typical Tuesday type moment when I just casually went to the drink machine to get some water, and as I got ice, I managed to break the ice part, and ice would not stop flowing out of it.


It took three buckets before it was done, plus all that was left in the catching part you can see above... and I'm assuming it only stopped because all of the ice came out.

Also, I was at Wingspan alone, and everyone saw me struggling with the avalanche of ice cubes...

So yes, today was definitely a Tuesday, and my superstition that Tuesdays are the worst day of the week continues!

March 10

Today was a gorgeous day in Morehead.

I realize the picture of the clouds doesn't necessarily show just how awesome of a day it was, but I just liked the way they looked.

I started my day off Paleo, as you can see by the strawberries and walnuts I ate for breakfast.

I didn't have enough time to cook anything for myself and I was out of sausage, but luckily I still had a little bit to eat.

I have a pretty tough week this week though, and I have a feeling I'll probably slip up at some point. Midterms tend to kill me.

On the bright side, I found this quote today, and I think it's appropriate...

Tayler and I also ran today, and I'm really liking what eating Paleo, D1 soccer workouts, and extra running is doing to my body.

I'm feeling pretty good, just very stressed... I've got 4 midterms in 4 days, and two of them are extremely important for me if I want to get A's in those classes (Chemistry and Calc 3)...

Wish me luck!