I had pretty much forgotten I had this blog until one day recently, when I saw an e-mail in my inbox, with the subject line saying something about the impending expiration of the domain name.

A lot has happened in the almost five months since I’ve last written anything here, and I’m not quite sure where to begin.
Right now, the spring semester is beginning to wind down, and I have my last tests of the semester (before finals) this week, I think. There are two weeks left in my semester, plus a few days until my final exams. I haven’t worked as hard as I should this semester, and at this point I’m ready for the semester to be over and done with so I can focus on starting (and succeeding in) new classes.

In addition to my lackluster academic performance, I’ve also been working about 32 hours a week for the last couple of months, and I’ve had a couple of car accidents. Thankfully, nobody was injured, but I’m sure the wrecks are (or have been, or will be) reflected in my car insurance costs somehow.

Briefly:
The first weekend of February, I took a brief road trip to see some college friends. After staying up late Saturday night, and meeting them for brunch Sunday morning, I started driving home early Sunday afternoon. As I drove south, I encountered snow as I drove into a large city, and after navigating traffic in said city, and other wrecks, I was probably driving too fast, and while trying to change lanes and pass someone (I think), I went off the road and hit the median barrier in the middle of the highway shortly after leaving said city. I was physically unhurt, mentally shaken, nobody else was involved, and cursing my own stupidity. Other than a couple of state troopers who checked to make sure I was okay and a guy in an army uniform who offered me a drink or a cigarette, I think I spent about an hour in my car on the side of the road before a guy roughly my age (early-mid 20s) with a pickup truck and chain offered to pull me back onto the road for $20. He pulled me back onto the road without too much trouble, and I managed to drive a little bit further before I had to pull over. My car wouldn’t travel any further, because (as it turned out) my transmission line had been broken, and my front bumper had been torn off. I called a tow truck, who pulled my car to a local body shop and (after I made a couple phone calls and made arrangements) dropped me off at a friend’s apartment, where I spent Sunday night and most of Monday before my roommate came and picked me up after he got off work Monday evening. I hated feeling like I was imposing on my friend’s hospitality, but I didn’t mind watching the Olympics and talking to her, so that could have been worse. According to the car shop, it was going to cost $3000 something to fix the car, and since it was a 1999 Ford Taurus with 136 thousand miles on it (and therefore worth maybe about $1000), it wouldn’t have been worth fixing all of the damage.
Going a week without a car wasn’t fun, but eventually my parents brought another car down for me.

Just over a month later, on St. Patrick’s Day, I was in a hurry and worried about running late on the first day back from spring break, so I didn’t clean enough of the frost off my windshield and ended up hitting another car at the stoplight right outside my apartment complex’s parking lot. My airbag deployed, and again, luckily nobody was injured (other than the car I was driving getting a dented hood, and the Ford Mustang in front of me), but then I was worried about having to go to traffic court (once the police officer gave me a ticket). After that, I had no interest in continuing with my day as scheduled, so I returned to my apartment.
I drove that car around for a couple more weeks until (about a month ago) my parents brought down another car and the car I had been driving was taken away because the insurance company decided to total it out. (2006 Chevrolet HHR, worth about $7000, estimated about $5000 to fix, plus whatever needed fixed under the hood)

Basically, I’ve been sort of in the used car market for almost two months now, though I’ve really only gotten semi-serious about thinking what I want in roughly the last week. As with the current state of the semester, at this point (and I’ve been here for a while) I’m ready to find a car and start making payments so I don’t have to worry about deciding what I want or trying not to wreck the car I’m driving now. Since it’s spring, though, I shouldn’t have to worry about snow, ice, frost, or anything worse than wind, rain, or hail. Even then, driving in rain is different than driving through snow, ice, or any other form of frozen water.

That seems as good of a place as any to leave this entry. I have a couple of tests I should probably go study for, even if I’d rather play Crusader Kings II all night.