New Beginnings

(Maggie’s updates will be rated R16, just to be one the safe side!)

Hey, there!

Look out boys, here comes Maggie ManEater (that’s what my ‘friends’ call me. They’re all just jealous because their boyfriends preferred me!)! Seriously though, there’s bound to be lots of my favourite things (boys!) here at college, which will give me something to do, and it’ll give all the sad little gossips something to do as well! That way, everyone wins, except for a few petty, jealous girls. Oh, yes, I am definitely looking forward to this!

That there is Jerome, or maybe Jeremy, whatever, anyway, I think he’ll be my first conquest. First though, I have to save my money so I can move out of this crummy dorm, there’s just no privacy here at all! The college gives out grants if you do well in the exams, so I’m keeping my fingers, and toes, crossed that my professors will be susceptable to my charms, because I hate doing assignments. It would be nice if a bag of money fell on my head, too! Anyway, I decided to major in Art, and then I took myself off to bed.

When I got up this morning, I made sure that everyone else was up too, before I walked to the bathroom. I wish you could have been there! You should have seen there faces! Now, all the guys whistle when I walk past! That is truly a great, great start to my college life. Now, I just need money to rent a house, and the conquests can begin! My mother would definitely not approve, which is one of the reasons I’m doing this. She thinks she’s so much better than everyone else, this’ll show her exactly what I think of her and her prudery!

(Allrighty, my first ever Romance sim is underway!
We have:
Family
Popularity
Fortune

So if you could all vote on what you would like the next
one to be. You can vote more than once, but only if you
change your mind about your first choice, and voting
closes on the 15th!)

Yes, Katie, a mechanical shark (I didn’t know he was mechanical at the time, I was only five after all) named Bruce, who played the shark in JAWS. Wonderful movie, that, and it was the first scary (well, I was scared) movie I ever saw. As for where I am, I’m in wonderfully tiny New Zealand!

Adi and I decided the other night that our house doesn’t look as a Mayoral Residence should, so we moved into Ma’s old house (which still hasn’t been sold on the account that people have seen two transparent elderly people wandering around inside) while the builders did their work. They were amazingly quick, and now our house looks like it should.

That, of course, is only the outside, bit it sure looks a lot nicer than it used to, doesn’t it? Adi and I think it does, and so do the sproglets (the kids, in other words). Sagaxus and Shogg are pleased to be out of the nursery (the old house just didn’t have the room for the extra bedroom), and they don’t seem to mind sharing a room. Katie, of course, has her own room. It cost quite a bit of money, as you can probably imagine, bit we think it was worth it.

And now, if you’ll kindly wipe your feet, I’ll give you the grand tour!

Nothing special there, just the Mayoral Kitchen/Dining Room, which were going to be seperate, but then we figured ‘Why bother?’. It isn’t much, but it’s a lot nicer than the old one.

Here we have the Mayoral Lounge, where the Mayor (naturally), his wife, and the sproglets relax after a hard day by tuning into the Cartoon Network for ‘What’s New, Scooby Doo?’, ‘Ed, Edd and Eddy’, and ‘The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy’.

This is the room where the Mayor’s (me) wonderfully mischievious twin boys, Sagaxus and Shogg, retire for the night, where they, no doubt, dream up new ways to cause utter chaos, and new ways to give their teachers a few more grey hairs.

This is Katie’s room, full of everything a little girl could want (well, almost. She wants a pony, but her mother said ‘Absolutely not’). I don’t venture into Katie’s room very often, it’s a little too, um, girly.

Adi insisted upon the awful flowery wallpaper for our room. Me, I’m not into flowers all that much, they’re all icky and romantic, and all that mushy stuff! Nah, I’m kidding. The wallpaper is okay, and I even helped to pick it.

Well, that’s it from me today, Adi wants me to clean the windows!

(I’m really proud of that house, I think it may be the best one I’ve ever built! The cartoon ‘The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy’ is called, I believe, ‘The Adventures of Grim and Evil’ in the USA. Or so I heard. Katie, my heart goes out to you. Falling in love with a Sim is kinda sad (I shouldn’t talk, I had a crush on a shark when I was five). Don’t ya just love moving, Mandie? Better you than me!)

Wow, I made it!

Who would have thought that the poor boy with no parents could have made it this far? I think I’ve done incredibly well considering the circumstances, better than I could have possibly thought. I also feel that I’ve grown, physically and mentally. In fact, there’s only two things I have trouble with: talking to females, and starting a conversation. I can take part in conversations now, but I never know how to start one. I’m sure I’ll get better at that as time goes by (to use a cliche). It’s not really a big deal, anyway. The line of work I plan on getting into won’t rely much on conversation. At least, I don’t think it does. Knowing how to keep your mouth shut is pretty much a part of the job description.

As you can see from this photo, I’m able to, what’s that phrase, hang-out, and have fun with my fellow dorm-dwellers now without any major problems, and I’ve even managed to win a few games, which was rather gratifying, mostly because I never was any good at chess. I always got beaten back at the orphanage. Actually, I lost every game I ever played back there: chess, checkers, darts, tag, hide-and-seek, you name it, I lost it. ‘Never Win Finn’ was one of my nicknames, but I’m glad I’ve outgrown it. It’s just not dignified anymore. It’s just a shame I overcame my shyness right before graduation.

Still, I made it through college without any major problems, and now I’m ready to move into my own house, get a job, pay my bills, cook all my own meals and… you know, it’s a shame I couldn’t have stayed in college forever. It’ll be just my luck to burn my new house to the ground while I’m cooking my first dinner there, or something, or maybe I’ll flood the place, or maybe…

What am I saying? None of that sort of thing is going to happen! I’m just being paranoid, aren’t I?

Anyway, I must dash, the cab is outside, honking itself stupid!

(The new victim will be … … … drumroll please … … … Romance! Heh, I’ve never played one of those before…I will still be continuing with Finn as well, at least until my Ole Buddy Grim comes for him.)

There hasn’t been a whole lot happening around here at the moment so I thought I’d just prattle on a bit about what everyone has been getting up to (you still remember me, right?). Which isn’t very exciting, but what can ya do about it, right? The family has been going through a bit of a boring patch lately. Anyway, I think I’ll start with Amby for once.

So, what has been happening at Amby’s lately? Well, not a lot, to tell you the truth. She’s been promoted to Business Tycoon, which means she gets to ride in a helicopter, too, and Chandler’s been promoted to Dinosaur Cloner, where he reckons he’s staying until he retires. As for young Dollar (or Dolly, as everyone calls her), she’s taken a big liking to mini-golf.

Nothing has been happening over at Alkanet’s either, although Alkanet got promoted to Visionary (but that happened a while ago), and MC and Scarum still get on like a house on fire.

Now, had that been Amby and I when we were kids, we would have been fighting like cats and dogs! And, just for the record, I never started any of those fights! Anyway, while they’re kids were horsing around, Alkanet and Blake took a few moments to relax.

Hah, relax! I’ve forgotten the meaning of that particular word! Still, Alkanet and Blake haven’t got mischievious twins to disturn their peace and quiet.

I swear, those boys of mine are getting worse!

They’re both in trouble for telling the teacher that their Uncle Chandler’s cow plant ate their homework at the moment, but, funnily enough, the teacher didn’t believe a word of it (she did give them points for originality, however. I guess it gets boring after a while, hearing the same old excuses!).

Adi has, thank goodness, gone sour on the idea of ten kids. I get worn out just playing with Katie and her brothers! Ten of them would probably kill me!

Abe out!

(Okay, since there was one vote each for Romance, Family and Fortune, I’ll roll a dice. 1 or 4 will be Romance, 2 and 5 will be Family, and 3 or 6 will be Fortune. Oh, and Katie, that dog is kind of cute!)

Uh, hello.

Um, I haven’t got a lot of time today, mostly because I’ve just come from my last Sophomore final, and I have a lot of studying to do for Junior year, which, as you can probably imagine, is a lot harder. I think that if I manage to get through it all without having a nervous breakdown, well, I’ll be able to endure anything on this Earth!

I have been learning a lot of different things since arriving here at college, though, and not all of them from my Professors. I’ve learnt another way of relaxing other than making and remaking my bed, amazingly.

I never thought that just lying on my bed, reading or daydreaming, could be relaxing, but it is, it really is.

I can actually sit in the cafetaria when I have my meals now, instead of taking a plate back to the desk in my room, and I don’t get at all bothered if some of my fellow dorm-dwellers happen to be there at the same time. I haven’t yet mastered the art of joining in with their conversations, but at least I’ve made a start.

I had a visit from the people who own, and run, the orphanage yesterday, but they didn’t stay very long, only about an hour, so the three of us sort of just sat there, none of us really knowing what to say to one another. I’m still not really sure what the purpose of their visit was, I mean, if they were hoping to get a donation for the orphanage, they were out of luck. I would have given them one if I could have afforded it, but I couldn’t. Tuition, and all the other fees take most of my money. I could, of course, get a small part-time job, but it would be too much on top of all my assignments, classes, and assorted other things that take up most of my time. Of course, I could be wrong about why they visited, but why else would they come? They don’t usually make a habit out of visiting people that were formerly in their care, if you know what I’m saying. But, then again, if they wanted money, they would have stated it right away, and not sat there looking awkward.

Well, I suppose I should shuffle off to class now.

(Okey-dokey. My next victim, erm, Sim, will be a Romance sim, although I haven’t finished with Mr Galedeep, not by a long shot!)

Um, I hope you won’t think I’m weird, but I have a small confession to make:

When I’m nervous, I find that the only thing that can make me relax is making, and remaking, my bed. And, uh, I was nervous this morning, mostly because of my upcoming exam. I was almost positive I was going to fail, and I couldn’t even eat my breakfast for fear I was going to throw up, my stomach was churning so much. One of my fellow dorm-dwellers tried to get me to have a game of chess, but I wasn’t able to settle down to it at all, so in the end I gave up. In a way, it was a blessing that I had to leave for the exam not long after that. I believe that if I had to have waited any longer, I wouldn’t have been able to go at all.

I was a bit ashamed of myself for all that worrying when I passed with flying colors, as the saying goes, and got myself on the Dean’s List, which was a real surprise.

I didn’t have much time to celebrate my good fortune, however. I only had enough time to grab some lunch before starting into studying for Sophomore year, which, from what I’ve experienced so far, is proving to be a lot harder than Freshman year! Still, that’s to be expected, I suppose. My new classes are at 7pm now, which is proving a little difficult to adjust to, as it doesn’t finish until 10pm, and I’m used to going to bed at 9:30pm, which was an orphanage rule, and I still get up at the usual orphanage time of 5am. Heck, I need to get up early to keep up with all my studies (and to get a shower before all the hot water is gone).

So, I’ve made it through my first year of college without any major hitches, and I’m hoping that my second year will be just the same, even if the work is a little more difficult than it was. Cross your fingers for me, will you?

(Yep, this boy is really starting to grow on me! Who else can have a whopping 2 points in the Shy/Outgoing trait, and still want to be a Criminal Mastermind?)

(Well, here’s the first part of my ‘Boredom Buster’ tales. They’re set in a completely different neighbourhood than the Mellons, just in case I get nasty glitches. I hate those. I’m going to try and create one sim for every aspiration except ‘Pleasure’, and the characters, protagonists, or heroes, whatever ya wanna call ‘em, are going to be named after my favourite book characters. Right, that’s enough of my prattling, so let me introduce the first, Knowledge extraordinaire Mr Finbar Galedeep.)

Um, hi? (You’ll have to excuse him, he’s a little shy.)

Uh, my name is Finbar Galedeep, and I’m here at Sim State University, majoring in Psychology.

Um, that picture of me is, uh, one of the ones they took for my, um, student I.D. when I first got here. And, um, what a struggle it was to get here! I, uh, don’t remember my parents at all, and the people who run the orphanage couldn’t exactly afford to send every one of us boys to college. Every year, the, um, five who had done the best at school were given small scholarships, and the rest jusy had to, uh, make their own way in the world once they turned eighteen. This year, I was one of the lucky ones.

I was lucky enough to get a room in one of the smallest dorms here, which was a blessing. I don’t really deal with people all that well, and I prefer my own company. Actually, I don’t really know how to deal with people, mostly because you have to trust them, even just a little bit, and trusting isn’t something I do well. Maybe it has something to do with living all but the first two years of my life in an orphanage.

I’m actually a little nervous about how things will turn out up here, because I have my Freshman Finals coming up tomorrow morning. I really don’t want to fail, because I won’t be just poor, I’ll be unqualified as well, which is incredibly worrying. Also, I won’t get my Housing Grant if I fail. I don’t want to be on Academic Probation, and living under a tree, or a bridge, or some place worse than that, I don’t think I’d be strong enough to handle it, and I don’t even want to think about what it would be like trying to do my assignments under those conditions! I’m probably being just a little bit irrational about this whole thing, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to go back to having nothing to call my own but my name.

(Well, young Mr Galedeep is a bit of a worry-wart, isn’t he? Still, he seems cool. He’s named after a sea otter from ‘The Bellmaker’, one of Brian Jacques’ ‘Redwall’ books, in case anyone is interested. Now, loyal readers, do you have any ideas on what Aspiration my next victim, er, I mean Sim, should take? Also, I’ve mastered ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from ‘Titanic’ (silly, sappy movie, but great Special Effects), read ‘Lonesome Dove’ (all 945 pages of it) six times since I got it, and managed to get my hands on, and watch, the six-hour (I kid you not) mini-series version on DVD! Aren’t I clever (and a tad sarcastic)?)

I’m sorry, I just can’t face Abe and his family right now, I’m a little bored with them. I’ve been staring at this rotten computer screen for days trying to think of something, anything, to write about them, and I keep coming up blank. I’m thinking that I might make some new Sims, and tell a few individual stories for a while. Would that bother anyone?