See Ya Next Year!!!

Today is the final Friday at SBCC! It sounds cheesy, but times flies...really fast, even when you think it's going by so slow. This year has been a journey (like every year of mine), but it was an oh so special one. I final reached my dream of coming back to California after a decade of wanting to. A decade is a long time for someone so young! That's how much I wanted this though. It's not the only dream of mine and my story is definitely not finished yet, so I really hope to have the opportunity to share with you more of my life next year! I'm pretty confident I won't get sick and much and have to go through toooooooo many surgeries next year ;) Haha. Well, I gotta get packing to fly back to Virginia for my wisdom teeth removal and to Illinois to see my best friend graduate. I'll be back for Summer Session II if any of you will be around! If not, I'll see ya next year and have a GREAT SUMMER!

Sincerely signing off, Yours truly,

Angela Rose Bickmann

PS: Here is a video I put together of my entire year here, enjoy! :)

Goodbye Freshman Year!

Today was my last day of of Spring semester! I can finally say I conquered freshman year of college and boy was it a journey (to be written about in my next final blog).

This week is crazy busy and about to get even busier! Today I finished my last final out of the four I had to do and I changed my mailing address (for now). Then I went to the DMV because I got a weird letter in the mail about my car, so that was just another thing to do! Tomorrow and Friday I will be constantly packing. I might be meeting a future suite-mate for next year. It's funny because I haven't met her yet and she lives at Tropicana Gardens as well. I also need to try to turn in my California residency papers to SBCC's admissions office before I leave. It would save A LOT of money when I can be considered "in-state". Saturday I will be moving out of Trop and staying with family until I fly Tuesday to Virginia and then Wednesday get my wisdom teeth out. Following a little over a week later flying to Illinois to see my best friend, Allie,  who is a senior in high school graduate because she came to my graduation a year ago. Time flies! After my visit in Illinois for two weeks I will fly back to California and move into my new place mid/end of June. If you didn't know, I will be taking the second semester of summer session to get an English class out of the way and to possibly find a job. Yes, I will still be living in Isla Vista.

To everyone stressed out about finals, just be glad you're not in this position anymore. This is my friend Allie who I mentioned above who is also in the picture above. As we were facetiming, she was trying to apply for college. It was so funny to me because she didn't know half the questions on the application (like how I used to be) and was asking her parent what it meant. And then there's me...wearing the Santa Barbara City College shirt judging her for it haha :) #illneverbeafreshmanagain

Roomie Sleepover!

 I am now welcoming you one last time to the girls in 236! Our sleepover only consisted of us and a couple of our close friends. A few people tried to come to our room and a few wanted us to leave and go out with them, but we stuck together. This was the last weekend night and we wanted to spend it together! We took our mattresses from our bedrooms and put them all on the living room floor. The night consisted of a lot of typical sleepover stuff, "college-girl style". It was a special time for only my roommates and I to share, so I'm going to leave it at that. However, I will tell you I've never felt closer to them. I wish they were my roommates at the beginning of the year and that we had this sleepover sooner. Sometimes me being in a single made it more difficult to bond with them because I was in a separate room, as they all lived in the same rooms and were together the whole year. That doesn't matter anymore because I can tell you that even though we will mostly all be living in different places, I will for sure hit them up next semester when they are back! They've reminded me of something that I tend to forget a few times....What's the point of surviving if you aren't living? By that I mean, I've come all this way going through tough times and now it's time to enjoy life to the fullest and be myself and in control of my happiness. I lost this train of thought throughout a lot of this year because I was stuck in survival mode with all the sicknesses, emotional distresses, and also the pain and surgery I had to do.  That's why I'm a little worried for my upcoming wisdom teeth removal May 20th in Virginia. It's coming up close and finals are upon us, all while having to pack and move. I don't want to get off track again, but I guess I gotta hop on that train and get back off. I'll never forget this wild ride I've had with my roommates, what a great way to end my first year here!

California Girls

What do you know, I convinced someone to go to SBCC! That someone is my silly, future roomie Sarah (aka: Sil Bil). We became friends in elementary school when I lived in Iowa. We bonded because we had gone through similar things and because of our love for California. Many of our conversations consisted of us talking about coming here together to visit one day. And here we are! Our reality is bigger than we dreamed it'd be, and we're talking of living together next year. She already applied and got accepted to SBCC and also applied for my apartment. I told her it wasn't easy and it can be really stressful to move from so far away, but it'll be worth it in the end. I'll be so lucky to have her as my friend and future roomie because neither of us take advantage of California's beauty. Finally I'll have someone here who understands how hard I've worked to come to this point. Also a friend who wants to celebrate that with me. OH! And someone to sing my heart out to country music with :D We will have so many adventures and I can't wait to explore them!!! Sometimes dreams are bigger than you dreamed they'd be. 

Best Wax Museum Masterpiece
(even better than bae Channing Tatum)

Reppin' SBCC

The Campus Store located in the SBCC Bookstore was having a SALE! It was called the "Spring Sidewalk Sale". Right outside the bookstore on May 5th and earlier today May 6th, they had apparel up to 40% off! Sorry that I'm letting you know after it already happened, but I didn't know about it. Also I was only on West Campus yesterday and this store is located on the main East Campus. I was so intrigued by it I missed lunch and just made it to my next class haha. I have to say, wearing school apparel for a college definitely makes me feel more like a college girl. It's a different feeling that being in high school for sure. Can't believe this year is almost over! Study hard my fellow Vaqueros!

My Bitter Sweet Procrastination

They say not to procrastinate. They say you'll feel better just getting it done....Well I did. I finally got a haircut after putting it off for the entire school year! Those of you who know me know that I've been trying to grow out my hair for years. In fact, just 4 years ago I had lost my full head of hair.

On a happy note, my hair is longer than it's ever been my entire life! It's always scary going to a new hair stylist, but I've had to do it many times before. I just did the smart college girl thing to do and Yelped places for reviews. I walked in to Hair Select (Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara) and the hair dresser was shocked at how healthy my hair was. I had no split ends. I wasn't used to hearing this because before I lost it, my hair was always unhealthy. Now however, I don't dye it and I rarely ever apply heat to it. Growing my hair back after chemo was a new start to a new scalp. My hair was baby soft because it really was "baby hair". Yesterday I got the last 1.5 inches off left of baby hair and I actually feel better! I used to hate getting haircuts, but this time it actually feels good. My hair dresser actually had me stand up out of my hair to cut it because it was that long!

The best part about my long hair is knowing it is ready to donate whenever I decided I'm ready to. I felt very self-fulfilled to hear those words. I was going to donate by hair before I lost it, but it was too unhealthy. Now i can, but I'll probably just wait till the day I decided I want shorter hair again to donate it. So for now, I'm going to enjoy my long, healthy hair :)