Another Semester Completed!!

I have finally completed another semester, and what an interesting semester it was! This semester I was in a new apartment with one new roommate, and two old roommates. I really like this apartment situation.

I ended up only taking 12 credits this semester because I dropped my world religions class. I just couldn't get myself interested in the class once we finished up with the Catholicism section. Maybe it was because Catholicism was easy for me since I attended a Catholic school for 12 years of my life. Once we started digging into the Hinduism section, it seemed like I was learning an entire new language, and in a sense I was. The only problem being that it was a language that I didn't care to learn about. At any rate, I enjoyed my other four classes for the most part. I didn't think my teacher for my Finance class was very good at all, but I still managed to pass.

I met a lot of new friends this past semester, and that is what made my semester more enjoyable. I almost always had someone to go out with if I wanted to do something, and I went out a lot more once I met these new friends. It's a lot nicer when I go to the bars and know a lot of the people there. Last year my roommates never wanted to go to Es Tas or Outlaws, two of the Ames bars, because they didn't like the music. I, on the other hand, really like these bars, and now that I have different roommates I go to these bars a lot and I like them much better. I'm much more into the chill bars that aren't always playing rap music, where I can sit at a table and hang out with friends instead of dancing a lot. I think I've finally found my scene.

I went to Virginia to visit my little brother over Thanksgiving break. It was so nice to see him!! Unfortunately he had to work every single day that we were there, and we basically had to entertain ourselves the entire time. However, I'll take the couple of hours that I got to spend with him before he left for his deployment. He's been gone on the ship (USS Carl Vinson) for a few weeks now. I miss Noah terribly bad. We email each other back and forth, but he isn't able to respond every day. I miss being able to text him whenever I have a random thought and get a response within the hour. He isn't able to tell us where he is for safety reasons. I do know that he'll be over by Asia, and if I had to guess he'll be going by Korea because of the recent bombing. He claims to be taking lots of pictures, which makes me happy because it must mean he's getting to see some pretty neat things (at least I hope). I want this deployment to be as enjoyable as possible, especially since he has to miss Christmas two years in a row. At least last year he was able to Skype us while we opened presents so it was almost like he was there.

Even though it's almost a year away, I'm already trying to plan my next trip out to Virginia to get to see him!

Can't Wait for the Weekend

This weekend is one that I've looked forward to for at least a month!! This is the weekend that Iowa State plays UNI in football. I really don't care much about either team, but I have a great number of friends that attend UNI and plan on coming to Ames for the weekend. I hope I'm not over-estimating the number of friends that are coming, but I have a feeling that a few will back out. My roommate Mekell and I are putting in quite a bit of work to make sure my friends have a good time. We bought the tools to put together a game of polish horseshoes, and we're making all sorts of food to bring tailgating. My roommate Nathan is even letting us borrow his truck so we can have our very own tailgate. If everything goes as planned, it should be a very good weekend!!

As for the rest of my life, not much is going on. I was supposed to attend a career fair yesterday in search of an internship, but I couldn't get myself to go. I get extremely nervous just thinking about going!! I'm planning on applying to a bunch of different places very soon, and hopefully by next summer I'll have one all lined up.

My grandpa hasn't been feeling all that well lately. I think he's actually spent the past few days in the hospital :( I love my grandpa more than anything in the world, and I honestly don't know how I'd go on if something bad happened to him. He's the only grandparent I have left; I need him.

My Brother and Me

Yesterday my little brother Noah came and visited me in Ames. I'll see him again this weekend, and then possibly one more time in November before he leaves for his deployment. He's in the Navy, which means his deployment is via aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. Noah claims he doesn't know where there deployment is going to be yet. At the very least, he will be gone for 7.5 months. I HATE WHEN HE'S GONE! I like to be able to just call him up or shoot him a text whenever I'd like and receive a response within a hours or minutes. I really hate that I won't be able to skype him. Unfortunately the only form of communication that we'll really have is email, and I swear 80% of the time the internet on the ship isn't working. He'll also call and check in every once in awhile; that is if I beg him enough times to do so in my emails ;) I already know that this is how it will play out because this is his second deployment. Luckily, his first one only lasted 3 months, and at that time it seemed like forever! Noah is basically my best friend, which makes me really sad to think about him leaving.

Noah and I didn't always get along so well. Actually, we used to hate each other's guts. In grade school there many times when our mom wouldn't even allow us to be in the same room because we fought so much. In high school it started getting a little better, and by the time I was a senior and he was a sophomore we were getting pretty close. I think we both realized that our sense of humors were very similar. He gets me, and I get him. If you knew us, you'd understand how special this is, because we're not exactly normal people. I mean we do normal things, and know the difference between what's normal and what's not, but we are by no means normal. I like to think that our sense of humor is one of a kind, or I guess in our case, two of a kind.

Like I said, yesterday Noah came to Ames to visit me. Of course I was annoyed with him before he even got here because he was running an hour behind schedule. This was something that I definitely should have expected, but sometimes I think we both enjoy being mad at one another. Doesn't everybody at some point or another? Anyway, when he got here we went to Old Chicago for lunch. Lunch was great, but the food was only average. We laughed almost the entire time. We went straight from Old Chicago to the Bass Pro Shop in Altoona. Boy oh boy do I LOOOOVE the BPS!!! We wandered around that place for well over two hours. I had a few things on my list, but naturally we spent nearly $400, only $50 of it being his purchases. I'm going bow hunting this year for the first time, so there are a lot of things that I need before the season starts. However, walking through a place like that makes you think you need things a lot more than you actually do; like a camo license plate holder, for example! Anyway, I had a great time with him there because we were laughing virtually the entire time.

Later last night, we went to Perfect Games in Ames with my roommates Mekell, Brooke, and Nathan, and our frousin (friend/cousin) David and played laser tag. The teams were Noah, Nathan and myself against Mekell, Brooke, and David. Obviously we won. Noah came in 1st, I was in 2nd, and Nathan was in 3rd. We had over double their points, which meant that we were pretty cocky at the end of the night.

Overall, I had a great day yesterday (most days when I skip class is a great day)! I'm very grateful that Noah was able to come and spend the day with me. I'm learning to appreciate all of the time that I'm able to spend with all members of my family. I think it's safe to say that I was extremely blessed with the family that I was born into <3

My Very First Blog

Well, I've decided to give this whole blogging thing a go. Blogging isn't the only thing I'm giving a chance. I reactivated my twitter account; feel free to follow me @eringoldsmith. I also created a LinkedIn account. Lately anyone who is anyone has been hounding my peers and myself to create a LinkedIn account. Apparently it's pretty important in the business world, and since I'll be joining forces with the business world in about a year I had better start preparing myself now!

I'm really excited for my day tomorrow! My little brother is coming to Ames to visit. He's home on leave for the last time before his next deployment. He's back on the ship at the end of November until next summer :( It makes me really sad to know that I won't be able to just pick up the phone and call or text him whenever I want. I hate having to wait for him to call (which is usually not often) and then have a hard time hearing him because of all of the background noise from the ship. He still isn't sure where they'll be going once they leave, which I find very annoying.

Last weekend was the first weekend in a long time that my entire family has been together in the same place. I guess it's also the last time in a long time that we'll all be together. It was only for a day, but boy was it great! We had family pictures taken out at our farm and at the Dyersville Sportmans Club. I'm very anxious to get to see them! We did quite a few poses, so some of them are bound to turn out good (at least I hope!). However, trying to coordinate 10 adults, 2 children under the age of 2, and 2 dogs is quite the challenge! I'll have to post the link when the pictures are available for viewing.