In Conclusion...

Here is the first picture I ever put on one of my blogs,
I'm nine months pregnant and still skinnier now 

In two days I will be 36 weeks or nine months pregnant and in two days I will be officially done with my second year of college. This semester has honestly been the scariest semester of my entire life. I went into this semester with a lot of people disappointed with me and my decisions and a lot of people doubting I would make it to this final week. Not only do I have to do well for my future but there's going to be a little girl in a month (hopefully less) that I have to be successful for as well. It's been a long semester and I am excited to spend my summer break with my daughter and get my life started.

One thing I was so concerned with when I was entering college was like falling in love and settling down for the rest of my life and 2 years later I'm still awkward and not really sure how relationships and love works and I haven't made much progress. For sure one thing I've learned in college is college  boys usually sit next to the girls with less clothes and not the girl who whispers all of the answers under her breathe and refuses to raise her hand. So I am very sorry to everyone that after two years this is the only "relationship" advice I can give you: Don't read my previous sentence and think that in order to get a boys attention you'll need to wear less clothes because college boys aren't that worth it anyway. They all smell weird anyway.

And this is just my great grandma and I (Delilah's
GREAT GREAT grandma), this picture is
here just because I'm obsessed with her.

Secondly I've learned to never take shit from people. As a young adult in our society I, like my peers, get looked down a lot simply because of my age and supposed "inexperience". One solid example is the way people react to me being 19 and pregnant, they immediately think I'm irresponsible and basically an idiot. I have to politely defend myself constantly because yes I made one questionable decision but I am also a 19 year old who lives in a 2 bedroom condo by herself who pays her own bills and supports herself and has a financially stable life set for her daughter while also going to school on time and making a name for herself. And I have to conclude with "what were YOU doing when you were 19?". Many people underestimate the power we as young adults have and all that we  can do and I want anyone who ever reads this to know that they can do anything and amount to anything they set their mind to. And thats super cliche but it's honestly the truth because if anyone would have told me two years ago the kind of person I would end being today I would have laughed. 

I just thought this was funny, my last
conclusion cat picture

Those aren't the only things I have learned in the last two years but it's two things I would always keep in mind. SBCC has provided with so much life experience and has helped me grow so much as a student and as a human being. I wouldn't change anything about the last two years of my life here and I cannot wait to come back in the fall as an official mom and work on taking my education to the next (university) level. SBCC has provided me with the best opportunities through blogging, tutors, and wonderful professors. 

XOXO

Ashley

P.S. If you ever miss me you can read old blogs from the Fall 2014 semester, Spring 2015 semester and this semester. If you want to follow my life after this and see baby pics then you can do that here.

Hiatus

I took a short(ish) break from blogging and most of civilization, my friend count went from 3 to 2 in the last month because I've been so MIA. I'm alive and well again and a teeny bit behind in school and work from my bed rest. I know that being on bed rest sounds like I had plenty of time to do homework and blog and get things done but unfortunately when you have an untreatable stomach virus along with a very active baby not a lot of moving or eating can get done. 

Since I last spoke or typed to all of you my stomach finally popped out and I look like an actual pregnant person. Just yesterday my doctor told me to "cool it on the eating", I may have gone a bit overboard once I was allowed to eat food again. Little does my doctor know that I have zero self control and a very cool baby shower being thrown this weekend. An update on the pregnancy is that my baby is not taking after me and she is huge and almost as long as I was when I was born. She'll be hitting seventeen inches within the next week and I was born at eighteen. I will be 33 weeks tomorrow (8 months), so I have seven more weeks of accidentally peeing my pants at work. 

School wise I wish I didn't get so behind from being sick but I'm caught up for the most part and so far it looks like I'm going to finish up the semester before Delilah decides to be released into the world. This is the second time I've had an online class and I've officially learned my lesson and will stay away from those. Online classes weren't meant for people who constantly forget everything. If I was more organized and grown up I would for sure ace online classes but sadly I'm slightly immature and a huge mess so they haven't worked out for me. If the last three sentences made you relate to me in any sort of way then please don't take online classes either, it probably won't work out. Aside from the discouragement if you are like me but you are very sure you'll be able to handle work online then try one class in the fall and see how you do.

Mercy doesn't want to be a big sister

I promise I won't be disappearing again any time soon so please look out for something in the next couple of days. Until next time!

XOXO

Ashley

P.S. I am so obsessed with my maternity photos so sorry you'll probably be seeing more of them.

Monkeying Around

Pre-Zoo Selfie

This last week I outdid myself. I worked 52 hours, aced a midterm, and finished my zoo project for anthropology. After coming home at the end of it all Sunday I crashed, well until I had to wake up for work the next morning at 3 am. Besides that one of the less stressful days of my week was the day I went to the zoo. I called my brother in law since he's been home with the kids and invited him to come along. My sister decided to invite herself along last minute so the five of us went to go study the monkeys.

I think every anthropology class ever does this project, my sister goes to CSUCI and she did almost the same exact project a couple of semesters though. It's like an universal anthropology standard to study primates. We had to study different aspects including locomotion, social interactions, resting, etc but none of the primates were doing anything. Like we spent three hours watching them sit there and stare at us. Most of the things I was supposed to be studying were unobservable, and it made me feel like I wasn't doing the project correctly. We were supposed to do three 20 minute observations, I started with the gorilla and all I saw was the first 30 minutes was him lazily groom his shoulder for like 5 minutes and the rest was just sitting and occasionally turn him head. The other gorilla was sleeping the entire time so I didn't get much from him either. Fun fact about the gorilla they pee for a reallllllyyyyyy long time. 

Besides my useless observations I had a lot of fun with my nephews looking at the other animals. My nephew Dj, whom I share many pictures of on here, hung out with me the entire time. My stomach gets in the way of everything and I get more tired than usual so it was hard to hold him as much as I usually would. He kept asking me a million questions and had a lot of fun looking at the animals. Spending time with him at the zoo made me excited to get to do those kind of things with my own daughter someday. 

Update: I went in for my 6 month checkup and I have gained no more than the 1.5 pounds I gained in January and the baby is perfect. She kicks all the time but never lets anyone besides me, the cats and sometimes my mom feel her. You can read my last blog post here and until next time!

XOXO

Ashley

P.S. I think I'm done with cats, this little fox was so cute!

I Chased a Guy

I did something a couple weeks ago, and I don't know whether it's beneficial to me or not but I chased my philosophy teacher across the bridge. I think I scared him because he kept looking back at me with a weird expression on his face but he didn't say anything. But since I have a human inside of me, I wasn't exactly running after him. I was more waddling as fast as I could to keep up with him. This shouldn't come as surprising behavior since I do strange things all the time. I thought I was going to be late for class but I ran into him on the bridge, he was talking to another student and since he probably didn't recognize me since I never speak I wasn't surprised that he ignored me. He's a tall guy so he naturally is quicker than me, I stared at him the entire walk to class because I was so intent on keeping up with him and he looked a bit frightened. I would be frightened too if a tiny pregnant girl was staring at me and waddling behind me for ten minutes. I decided that I had creeped him out enough and went in a different door than him but I still sat in the second row and continued to stare at him (academically speaking) for another hour. Either he thinks I'm stalking him OR he thinks I was trying to ease drop on his academic conversation, which I did.

In honor of leap year

Now this all happened the day before I ended in the hospital, before anyone freaks out I'm okay and my baby is okay. I'm just sore and tired and that's not really anything new. I just had some pressure and pain that I had never experienced before and all the results were inconclusive so they sent me home. They ruled some stuff out and told me to basically get over it unless it gets worse. Academically this put me behind a day and I have since caught up and even managed to ace a psychology test after missing our final lecture on the test material. 

I am not an organized adult, I am generally organized but the whole adult part doesn't really fit in. Something I am learning and will hopefully be good at by the time my daughter is born is balance. Right now my life is nowhere near balanced. I procrastinate homework to catch up on sleep and then try to leave work as quickly as possible at the end of the week to catch up on homework I put off to sleep Mon-Thurs. The most social time I get is hanging out with my mom and of course my cats. 

Everyone needs a cat picture to destress their lives

Generally speaking I think that balance is something all college students deal with, some more than others. And if anyone reads this and has some tips on balancing my life, you can comment and let me know; my pregnancy app says I need to be more open to advice and suggestions so please let me know!! You can read my last blog post here and until next time!

XOXO 

Ashley

Library 101

I'm turning into one of those people

Anyone at SBCC has probably taken this class or its equivalent (English 120). If you haven't take either of these then you most likely will before you graduate or transfer. I'm taking this class because I didn't pass it my first semester while in English 110. Library 101 is one unit course that lasts six weeks. It mainly focuses on information research and how we can apply these skills in real life and in the classroom.

I would consider myself a good researcher already but this class has helped me develop these skills further. One thing I could NOT do before was a works cited. I would literally skip it in high school and make sure the written portion of my grade was high enough to make up for these lost points. Obviously this is unavoidable in college. A great resource that I use for citations is Purdue OWL, it can help you write the correct citation in the correct format for literally everything. I learned about this website my first semester and I've lived by it, I always double check my citations with the help of this site. This is probably the most helpful thing I've gotten out of this class.

She likes to judge me from afar

Honestly this class can be tedious but it's only six weeks long and it really benefits you in the long run. It gives you the information you'll need later in college and it's better to learn now than to struggle later. I wish it was a on campus class just because I personally do better in the classroom but the cool thing is all the librarians are experts on this stuff so if you ever get stuck there's people there and ready to help you.

Don't procrastinate like I did, this isn't a class you should have to take twice. 

Update: I just hit 6 months and I just really want to sleep. You can read my previous blog post here and until next time!

XOXO

Ashley

Life Skills

I taught myself something new today and I am very proud of myself. This newfound skill is shaking and feeding myself a baby bottle pop with one hand and typing and continuing my work with the other. Nothing says professional adult like a bright blue mouth.  It's been rough the last few months teaching myself how to eat properly while working. I enjoy eating so much that I have walked around work trying to get from one place to another eating a bowl of cereal because I didn't want to stop eating. My bosses have walked in on more than cereal though, I get caught with tacos, BLT's, various Mexican food, and other random things I snag off the shelves.

The hardest part about my class times  being so close together is that I don't have enough time to eat as much as I want to. I run into the cafeterias at the busiest times and I usually eat my food in line while waiting to pay. I was embarrassed the first time but I'm so used to it now. The only thing that gets me through it is "well my pants are already unbuttoned I can't get any lower than that". Hopefully that doesn't get me arrested or something, no one has noticed that part yet. 

Another inconvenience is that I can't eat in my classes because of the type of classrooms I am in. In previous semesters I could get away with it because my teachers were more lenient. I tried eating in my Anthropology class the other day and I missed the whole concept of p^2+2pq+q^2=1 and there are parts on my homework the I have been staring at since Thursday. If anyone has tips on this part of Anthro 101 then plleeeasseee tell me. I've obviously learned my lesson on not paying more attention to donuts than lectures. 

Update: I'm on week 23 (6 months on Tuesday!!!) and I feel like she's moving all the time. Anyone who has seen me in real life knows that I'm pretty small vertically but my daughter is surprising long and larger than she is supposed to be so that should be interesting in 14 years when she outgrows me. 

Always watching, always judging

I am almost finished with my Library 101 class and I'm going to cover it next week so please look out for that. You can read my latest blog here and until next time!

XOXO

Ashley

My First D

I took my first Psychology test today, and I for sure got at least a D on it. I definitely didn't fail but I know that I didn't do as well as I could have. The test was based on chapters one, two, and three but I feel like it weighed heavily on chapter three. That just so happen to be the chapter I didn't understand, brain anatomy and functions just isn't my forté. I'm hoping that with more studying and work with the tutor I can improve in this class because doing well is really important to me. There are quite a few of extra credit opportunities available and one of them happens to be this Thursday in the CLRC. It's a note taking strategies workshop. Although I think I'm good at taking notes already, I think there is always room for improvement. I think it would be a great workshop to stop by so if anyone is on campus Thursday at 1 p.m. you should stop by. 

Now that I'm in week 4 I've started to get into a homework/sleep routine. I try to go to sleep as close to 7pm as possible. But sometimes work takes a long time to finish and I don't get home until 8 or 9 so homework has to come before sleep. No matter what time I go to sleep I wake up exhausted because I'm always so uncomfortable. I'm just waiting to get so exhausted that I'll be in a dead sleep and actually get a full nights rest. 

Balancing work and school is definitely a challenge

and it's sometimes harder than it needs to be especially with tests and projects. If you like a challenge then I would definitely go for it, but I would recommend a part time job that doesn't interfere with school. My job doesn't necessarily interfere but I do have at least 40 hours of work a week that I have to keep up with too. Work and school is a topic I've kept consistent in my blogs so I hope that my experiences with it can help you guys out too.

Now onto the serious business, it's almost time for baseball. I am so excited to have the privilege of delivering a baseball season baby. I can't wait to take her to Dodger games and show her baseball butts from the beginning of her time. I think it could be something we bond over together and I hope it's that thing that will always keep us close. Fun Fact: If I were to have had a boy he would have been named after Zack Greinke and Adrian Gonzalez. Although it is a girl, I still refer to her as baby Greinke because I think Zack and Adrian can play a duel role as her father.

Now that you know how weirdly into baseball players I am, I'm just going to stop here and if you want to read my latest blog post you can do so here and until next time!

XOXO 

Ashley

P.S. I know you're all dying to see one of my famous cat pictures but special circumstances have led to this weeks end photo being my nephew Dj whom I know most of you are familiar with. So here's the cute face of my pride and joy for the world to enjoy.