To me, its difficult to believe that it has been close to a month since my last post. I guess I will start back the week following my semester ending. I have never been so elated to have the semester be complete and looking forward to this summer kicking off right. I was able to spend the week of the 16th of June being active with my best friends, going hiking back in the canyons here in Pasadena, and playing football on my schools campus field. It really was nice! Saturday the 19th of June I decided to leave about 8am and hit the road in my car to drive back to Nashville.
Ill fill you in on why I chose to do that-there were 3 great reasons so no chastising me for making the 2000 mile drive! My first reason ended up being the information I found out regarding the whole "moving to California" rules that they impose on vehicles coming to the state. Im trying not to get myself in trouble but I will be honest. From what I have learned, after you move to the state you are given 10 days to go to the DMV to register your car and pay for new tags-drivers license-taxes that the state wants to charge you for and I never did that because in all honesty, I had figured that since I am just a student and not really considering staying in the state after graduation, I did not think that I needed to go through the licensing monkey dance. I of course was wrong and found out that registering my vehicle is somewhere north of 400 bucks for me for everything.....ouch California.....you really are broke.
Needless to say my other two reasons were merely choices, one being-and I know this sounds crazy......but I really wanted to drive by myself back across the country. There was something so self-fulfilling and independent about driving for hours on end, music blaring and singing along and looking out to see the sights. Second being I wanted to renew my license here in TN cause as opposed to paying 400+ in CA. I was gonna pay fifty bucks in Nashville. Thats a WIN.
Well I made the big trek across the country and did just fine, Charlie my car did good too. He was a trooper in El Paso, TX where the temperature at 9pm was 104ยบ F! I was able to stop in Dallas, TX to see my good friend Kristen and her boyfriend, met them for a late lunch but we laughed about the heat and my silly drive home that evening. I got in at around 3am to Nashville and my mother was up waiting. I slept until about noon-ish the next day and I went to wash my car and then Mom and I went shopping. Picked up some new shoes!
So if you're keeping track, I didnt want to pay for all the California expenses so I drove my car home and made it in 2.5 days on Highway 10!
That Tuesday I drove back down to my previous job that I had before my move at Honda and was able to see all of my great friends there, I ended up having a summer job opportunity present itself and I took it!
Well, with all great news does come bad. In this case, just sad-bad. That thursday, on my way home from work, I was in my car driving towards Nashville and when I was getting off at the exit that goes towards my parents, a driver in front of me came to a complete stop at a yield sign when there was no traffic. I did hit her, and in all honesty, she was unfamiliar with the area so she didnt know to keep rolling in this particular situation. For those that want the location it was Highway 65 headed north towards Nashville at the Old Hickory Boulevard Exit in South Nashville. Anyway, I hit her, so well in fact that the estimator from the insurance company had to call me personally to ask how I was. Then she told me the number. $6,680.00 in damages, to my car.
So there you have it. Please drive safe. :(
Since then, I have been placed into a rental, and not a good one. I cant complain, Im alive and I have a job and Im going to school to be a Car Designer. This is merely a life lesson and a test of my patience and faith. I have been God smacked. The weekend following the wreck I also went to go pick up my grandmother that I have mentioned before here up in Louisville, KY from my aunt who was able to have her come stay up in Lafayette, IN. It was so great going and picking her up and laughing and talking the whole way home. I missed her greatly.
Also In lighter news I have officially signed up for my FALL 2010 SEMESTER!!!!
Class Schedule---------
Advanced Rendering
Advanced Product Design
Intro to Lettering and Type
Intro to Digital Tools(basically learning to utilize Adobe CS)
WOOO!!!
Spring 2011 is on the horizon and it smells like Art Center at Night!
Im so thankful to have this support from not only you, the reader, or a friend of mine who reads this, or family or whoever because sometimes we do need that boost of reassurance or just a "Im proud of you" every once in awhile to make it all feel and sound right.
I hope your JULY 4th went well. Mine was great and I had quite possibly the best one ever. Thank you to my best Nashville friends.
My great friend in California is about to move to England this August. Hopefully he will have a blog that we can all check on too! (Ill try to talk him into it otherwise!)
I want to be a Car Designer and I am getting one step closer. Love Love Love. I hope you are having a great summer. Keep positive and I will hopefully update this with any projects that I was hoping to work on this summer soon too!
-B
