Plans for Thanksgiving break

I just arrived home from Virginia Tech. The car ride was pretty long, but it went by quickly because I did my homework and listened to music pretty much the whole way home. Besides from listening to music and doing homework, I talked to the two other girls in the car. I found out that they were both juniors and that they were also both architecture majors.

I got home pretty late, so I'm typing this as quickly as possible even though it's after 5pm. My family was really excited to see me, especially my grandparents. I've seen my grandparents everyday since I was about three years old and they are both such a huge part of my life. It was sad to see how bad their health has gotten as the last 3 months have been hard on them. My grandfather can barely walk since he has bone cancer in both right and left pelvic joints. My grandmother looks fine, and if nobody told me she had cancer, I honestly wouldn't even know. But she does have cancer and it's quite aggressive. My mom told me about a month ago that my grandmom had cancer but i wasn't allowed to talk to anybody about it because my grandmom doesn't want anyone to know

Tomorrow I plan to visit my ex girlfriend up in Gettysburg College. We aren't really broken up, I guess we both wanted to try new things and meet new people. But we both realized that we can't find anyone else that's better for each other. So hopefully everything goes well when I visit there. I know it's a really small campus with not much to do except go out and party. I am really excited to see her since I haven't seen her in over 3 months. It was hard going from seeing someone every single dayin school  and over the summer to not seeing someone at all for 3 months. Being in school also makes it harder to talk to each other because our classes don't often allow us to talk for too long. And when we are out of class we are both either busy hanging out with friends or doing homework. But we are both confident that we will be able to make this work. I really want to make this work and it might sound stupid to some... but I could marry this woman.

It's weird to think about that I might have known the woman I will marry for most of my life and that I only realized how amazing she was until senior year of high school. We started way too late in terms of high school relationships. We started going out on June 1st, just 15 days before graduation. But I fell in love with her so quick and violently that I knew this was different from any other relationship I've had. We never fight, which was not the case in the other relationships I've had prior to this one.

I don't truly know who I will end up with, but I'm wishing it will be her.

So I meant to post this on friday night, but I saved it as a draft instead:(

Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving Break is going to be my first time home since I came to Tech. I'm half excited and half nervous to go back home. I'm really excited to see all my family and friends. I'm nervous to see my grandparents. Since I left, their health has gone downhill. I guess I just don't want to see the people I saw everyday in such poor condition. I saw my grandparents everyday since I moved in with them with my mom when i was three. Since my parents got divorced, my grand pop was like a father to me. Instead of sending Father's Day cards to my biological father, I would give them to my grand pop. I never really asked anybody if it was okay to send them to him, but I did it anyways.

I don't really know the girl I'm going home with for Thanksgiving break. She's a senior here at Tech and surprisingly she lives in my town. So that's a plus, but I don't know what were going to talk about the whole way home. It's an 8 hour ride and I know we can't just ideal through that. There's no way two people can stay quiet for over 8 hours. So I guess it'll be best to break the ice as quickly as possible.

I’m pretty much on the last stretch before break starts. I had 2 tests this week and they’re finally over with so I can finally relax. All I have to do is a little bit of homework so that I won’t have to worry about it next week.

Since I’m on deferred suspension I can’t go out to a party and risk getting caught being there. So all of the sudden I have a lot more free time to do homework. Being on deferred suspension made me realize how little Virginia Tech offers in partying alternatives. There’s really nothing to do that doesn’t involve drinking here. I thought there would be much more activities to do. I thought that being on deferred suspension wouldn’t suck so bad, but it really really sucks.

Random thoughts

Sooo I don’t really have any one thing in particular to talk about this week. I’m honestly just trying to get this out of the way since I woke up early today. Oh so I keep getting friend request from random people I’ve never met before.  Some of them are definitely fake, but others are real people form like Mexico, Africa or somewhere random. Like do people in other countries try to find American’s on Facebook? Is that what they do to entertain themselves? And for those lovely fake ones who only have one picture. The picture is pixelated, obviously the copy and paste method of a 2 year old. The person in the picture is usually a girl who is way too good looking to be adding random people on Facebook. So what is the point of creating a fake Facebook account? Maybe the person is trying to steal my account or something. Maybe the person who made it is really lonely and is looking to make “friends”. Maybe the person who made it is a pedophile looking for his next victim. Should I feel honored or insulted that this rapist chose me?

I went to the math emporium to take my math quiz and got a terrible grade. That doesn’t matter though because the math emporium drops the 3 lowest quiz grades. So after that I went to Kroger to get some things I needed. But of course I forget one of the more essential items on my list (tide) but I remember to pick up flavor blasted Goldfish. So at some point I either need to walk to the over priced convenient store to buy some or pay more time to get them cheaper at Kroger. Just remembered I ate at Panera yesterday, which gave me a chance to go to Kroger, but I completely blanked and forgot. Sometimes I hate being so forgetful. I really am very forgetful. Since I don’t write homework down in a planner all I can do is hope that I remember what my homework is.

So I have a really tight friend group here at Tech but like that’s it. I hangout with the same 2 guys and 3 girls everyday. Don’t get me wrong they’re awesome and I love them to death but I feel like were socially isolated. I believe we are because we are all in the Da Vinci Living and Learning Community. This means that everyone on my floor is a biological science major. I feel that if I were in a normal dorm I would be exposed to a ton of different people with different majors. The fact that my friends and I have all the same classes together stops us from branching out and meeting new people. But I have a plan to branch out. I’m going to join a bunch of different clubs so that I meet a bunch of new people and I’ll begin to make more friends outside of my major!

The "Party Positive" Policy

Every student at Virginia Tech knows the Party Positive policy. As a freshman, students are bombarded with propaganda to "party positive." Partying positive is knowing what you're drinking, how much you're drinking and how it effects you. Virginia Tech believes that to party positive a person should have no higher than a .06 Blood Alcohol Level or BAL. So what if a student under 21 is caught drinking but blows a .04? Do they get any less punishment than someone blowing a .12? No they get in the same amount of punishment. Virginia Tech seems to embrace the idea of a Party Positive culture, but they really don't. For this party positive policy to be effective, Virginia Tech needs to punish accordingly. Underage drinkers who have been caught drinking with a BAL of .06 or less, should be punished less harshly than those who have been caught drinking with a BAL of any higher than .06. I’m not saying that underage drinking, but Virginia Tech should build a culture of smart drinking. So that when people are at parties they will know what to drink and how much to drink. I think that if Virginia Tech truly embraced Tech could create a healthier drinking culture. Of course there’s always going to be people who abuse alcohol and drink until they’re throwing up. That is unavoidable and those people should be punished harshly. But if Virginia Tech has the slightest opportunity to lower the number of people getting drunk and throwing up, they should take it. Of course that would mean Virginia Tech has to say drinking is okay in moderation. For some reason that seems to be taboo. But they should remember that the drinking age was 18 once.

A New Horizon

In high school, relationships were considered fairly simple for the fact that you saw that person everyday, you weren't always busy with the hectic schedules that come along with being a college student. In high school I was in a serious relationship for about a year. We had that promise of forever, and nothing was going to get in the way of the plans that we had for our future, but everything began to change. My girlfriend and I went to separate colleges, even though it was 20 minutes apart, it was a closer distance than we had before. The first few weeks were full of excitement, telling stories about how classes were going and everything her day consisted of. It was a new experience for both of us, and it seemed like everything was falling into place, until about 2 months in. The phone calls goodnight stopped, whenever I had a bad day she did not try and make it better or even like she cared. I knew something was wrong. I kept asking if everything was okay, and she just brushed it off and changed the subject. She eventually told me that she felt like it was our time to go our separate ways, I honestly did not know what to say. All the times in high school when we couldn't take our eyes off each other, the moments where we literally laughed until we cried, late movie nights, and everything else that made that relationship like no other. I tried to remind of her of all the times we shared and it did not make a difference to her, she had made up her mind and there was nothing I can do about it. Weeks went by and I still tried to text her, but I never got a reply. I saw all these couples holding hands and having the time of their lives and I just thought about what I did wrong to make her want to go. Eventually she got up the nerve to tell me the real reason why she had changed, which involved a late night with a random hook up. I was devastated for a while, not knowing what I did not wrong to make her make the decisions she did. It took me a long time to realize I never messed up. I did everything I possibly could to show her how much I cared, I bought her flowers, I wrote her notes, I made her a get well card and got her a balloon when she wast feeling well. I realized you can always try to do the right things but sometimes it is just never enough for some people. Since the breakup, I started doing things for myself, which I had never done before and it actually was pretty nice. I started making friends and laughing in a new way. I met a pretty nice girl, who just got out of the same situation I did and we hit it off pretty well. Things are gradually getting back on track. It took me sometime to realize that everything happens for a reason, and if it is meant to be it'll find a way, if not, then you just have to learn from your mistakes and move on with your life because the world is not going to stop spinning just for you.

Free writing

I don’t really know what to blog about so I’m just going to free write for a little and hope I get somewhere. Next weekend is fall break. I was supposed to go home and see my family, but my ride fell through. I’m going to feel really left out of the loop with my friends. They all went to fairly local schools and I was the only one to go far. It’s hard to go home for fall break because I live about 8 hours away. If my mom were to pick me up, it would be a 32 hour total drive for her to pick me up and drop me back off. I would only have 1 day to enjoy the fall break. So I’ll probably have to stay at Tech. That’s not a bad thing though.

            I have to plan out a way to get back to Philadelphia from Tech. So far I mapped out how I could get to Washington D.C. Hopefully, my mom will pick me up from there, because I wouldn’t make it to Washington D.C in time to catch the bus to Philadelphia. I feel bad making my mom drive so long to pick me up. I wish I could have just brought my own car down here. It would make getting back home so much easier.

            I’m kind of nervous to go back home. A lot changed when I was here. I broke up with my girlfriend, so I can’t see her anymore. My friends are going to be with their family for an amount of the time that I’ll be back. My family has gotten a little instable after my grandfather almost passed away in June. So things are going to be a lot more different than what I left them.

I like it at college because I get to control my life almost entirely. I get to control how and what I eat. I decide when I have to be home during the week and on the weekends. I don’t have my mom texting me all the time asking where I am and what time I am going to be home. I feel like I’m free from the outside world.

That’s not totally a good thing. I feel like at college we don’t know what is going on in the world. We’re oblivious to the news. Personally, I had no clue that the government was shut down. I know other people feel the way I do. I guess I’ll have to try to see what’s going on in the world outside of Virginia Tech.

Get to know me

I guess I never really wrote an introductory blog. So I’m going to do that now because I want everyone to know background so that they can look at what I post from my shoes. My names Matt VanPelt and I’m from Springfield, Pennsylvania. Springfield is a suburb about 15 minutes south of Philadelphia. In high school I went to Philadelphia almost every weekend. I guess I made myself become a “city slicker.”

People in Philadelphia don’t care about anyone other than themselves. I guess that’s how they survive. I know that I picked up that mentality. If I see a homeless man, I don’t even think about it. I’ve been asked for money so much that it doesn’t even phase me. I guess I stopped thinking of bums as people and more like a tree that was on the same corner everyday.

            I’ve carried that mentality to Virginia Tech. I’m used to seeing a homeless person and not feeling sorry for them. My friends who are from Southern Virginia are not used to seeing a homeless person. If we ever walk by a bum, I don’t care but they really do. They get all upset that he has no money. But I know that if I gave a homeless man money its not going to help him in the long run. I know that if I gave money to every homeless man in Philadelphia I’d be homeless too.

            Where I come, from cursing is a part of normal conversation. But if I curse when I’m talking normally people from the South think I’m angry. It’s just another word in my vocabulary. I know I don’t need to say the words, but it’s just a habit that I need to break. I probably should break it, but then when I go back home, ill pick it up again. So I really don’t know if I should even try to break it. Why should I try?

It’s part of who I am and where I come from. It’s my culture and that’s something that you should never change. My culture is one where you say “wallter” instead of water. My culture is one where you say “Philadolphia” instead of Philadelphia.

Maybe I have an accent to you but you have one to me. Maybe my culture is weird to you, but yours is also weird to me.