Days Are Changing

Fall 2028 - Pine State University, Arcadia, North Carolina
Lucas Craig is 22, Baine Austin is 20, Violet Craig is 19, Kat Gates is 19

Her first semester at Pine State University hasn't exactly been easy. Kat Gates is majoring in Science & Medicine, with a focus on the medical aspect.

But majoring in Science & Medicine means that her path crosses with her ex-boyfriend Baine Austin quite a bit.

They both use the same lab at the school to work on their projects for class. Which means they can end up in the room at the same time.

Baine is still dating Violet Craig, who is now also a freshman at PSU.

She's majoring in communications, with a focus on politics. She gives a lot of speeches for one of her classes.

Violet doesn't mind at all. She has no fear of public speaking.

Violet and Baine are enjoying every moment of living on campus in dorms that are only a few feet from each other and far away from their parents.

Their dormmates soon learned to zone out and not notice what the two of them are doing.

It didn't take long before Violet and Baine found a place to have some fun.

Violet still loves to torment Kat any chance she gets.

“So are you seeing anybody?” Violet asks her. “Or do you still have your virginity?”

Why couldn’t this school have more than one dorm for the girls? Kat hates seeing Violet each day, and hates seeing Baine with her, already knowing that they’ve been sleeping together.

“That’s none of your business,” Kat tells her. “You’re not my mother.”

“Just trying to help you out,” Violet says. “I can help you out with the dating world if I need to.” She stands and looks over her shoulder. “Come on, Baine. I’ve still got half an hour before my next class starts.”

Baine stands and glances back at Kat. “See you in the lab,” he says.

Kat let out a long sigh. Maybe she should have gone to school out of the country.

Kat tries to spend little time around Violet and Baine. She plays games with other students around.

She doesn’t always play with success.

“I’m bored,” Violet tells Baine. “Let’s go out somewhere.”

“Can’t,” Baine says. “I gotta study for the test tomorrow.”

Violet gasps, pretending to be shocked. “You actually want to study? Baine Austin is trying to pass a test?”

Baine scowls. “What is that supposed to mean?”

She shrugs. “You’ve changed since coming out here. You never wanted to study in high school.”

“Maybe I actually grew up,” he tells her.

Baine does study for his classes. Kat sees him in the library a lot, focused on a computer screen.

He probably doesn’t even see her come in, but she still hides away from him.

“What do you do to avoid old girlfriends?” Kat asks.

He shrugs. “Wouldn’t know. Haven’t ever dated much.”

She studies more in her room than in public places.

Violet still tries to come after her

“Baine is all over me every chance he gets,” she tells Kat. “Not that I mind...”

“Is there a reason you need to tell me this?” Kat asks.

“I thought we were friends and could talk about our sex lives.”

“We’ve never been friends,” Kat tells her. She gets up from the table, ignoring Violet’s smirk behind her.

Lucas Craig is now married to Andrea, the woman he had a surprise baby with a couple years ago. He tries to get some naps between classes to help him out with school, work, and family.

He plays chess with Kat between classes sometimes.

“I think your cousin just wants to make me miserable,” she tells him.

“That’s who Violet is,” he says. “Checkmate.”

Lucas sets the pieces all in place again while Kat sighs and looks away. “Does she plan to do this for the next four years?”

“Maybe she’ll focus on school at some point. Playing again?”

The days aren’t all bad. She walks around town, enjoying the fall air and look of the trees changing color of their leaves. PSU is on the outskirts of one side of Arcadia, and an hour and a half from her family in Pine Hollow. It’s like being in another world.

The days are changing, she knows she soon will have change into something warmer. But she’s enjoying her time out in the last of fall.

Kat reminds herself to enjoy this time of her life. Her parents have told her that everything will change after college and so she knows she has to take time to remind herself that.

Arcadia is like a different world than Pine Hollow and it sets her up for the adventure she wants in her life.

And she calls her mom every chance she gets. Chelsea loves hearing from her daughter. Kat realizes now how much she misses being with her family. She drives back to Pine Hollow some weekends to spend time with them.

Violet won’t admit it, but she is a little bit jealous of Kat. Kat can easily drive home to her family, but Violet’s family is across the country so she’ll be spending each semester far away from them. It is nice to have her own freedom, but deep down she misses them more than she’ll admit.

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I didn’t really intend for this semester to be focused on Kat, but it ended up that way! Pine State University is created from the Magnolia Promenade neighborhood, and the Magnolia University lots created by symphonysims in the TS4 downloads gallery. There are some dormies I put in too, but only one showed up in the pictures with Kat, lol. They’ll probably get kicked out after this year anyway because next year I have some of the other teens headed to college! 

If you're not familiar with Kat and Baine's history, they dated for a little while as teens and then broke up so that Baine could date Violet.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I'll grade them while in college, so I don't have any grades listed in this update! But no one is failing right now!

Funny pictures from this update:

 Father Winter showed up when I went back to take some bio pictures.

 
This dormie was not happy with what he'd gotten last year for Christmas!

A visitor to the dorm decides to head outside naked.

And then takes a shower in the rain.