Home

Its funny. Whenever I am at college, I love it and am not moping around missing home. I am absolutely in love with my school. At the same time though, I love to be home. With only a few days before heading back to school, I have no urgent desire to return yet. I am totally enjoying myself doing nothing. However, as soon as I go back, I know I will be glad to be there with my friends. Its a great feeling, knowing that I love my school. Last year there was always that fear that maybe I would make the wrong choice and go to a school that I would hate. That I would dread returning to school after breaks and vacations. Thankfully, it is not that way at all. Although I might not want to go back yet, I know that as soon as I reach the campus, I will be happy to be at college and with my friends. Plus, I am positive that this quarter is going to be better academically. I am taking two history classes, which, history being my major, should be fine. I am waitlisted for an easy math class (much better than last quarter's precalc) and am taking a philosophy class again. Compared to last quarter, it should be relatively easy.

Spring Break

I am now done with finals and in the middle of my Spring Break. Yay! It is such a wonderful feeling knowing that that last test is over and you get to go home without any classes to worry about. It has been so nice to catch up with my friends and family while I'm at home. Also, the weather is so much nicer since the last time I left. Some exciting news I got is that one of my friends is going to go to my school next year. I'm so excited! Not only can I give her advice, but I can have her and some friends over for dinner, like some older girls did for me earlier this year. Like at Christmas vacation, I am once again enjoying being able to completely relax. The dorms are great, but there is not much time to yourself. Also, it has been wonderful to catch up on laundry (especially since the machine is right down the hall, not down two flights of stairs). But, despite this advantage, I am still looking forward to Spring Quarter, my new classes, and seeing my friends again.

This Coming Week

So finals are almost here. I absolutely can't wait. I made the mistake of taking all general ed classes this quarter. It seemed like a good idea at the time; just getting a bunch of bad classes out of the way. Wrong. It has just made this quarter much more stressful. It was an amazing feeling when I walked out of my math class for the last time. Except for the final of course. As much as I know I need to study for the coming week, I am having a hard time getting myself to. I have three friends coming up this weekend, which is just going to make it harder. Luckily, most of my finals are later in the week. And after that, spring break. It might only be ten days, but I am so excited. I just can't wait for a break from classes and stress. So yesterday, to start my early weekend, I went to farmer's market and then took part in a bridge-making contest. It was interesting to say the least. My friend is an RA in the engineering dorm, so she put on the bridge event for her residents. Three of us friends decided to join in, and made a marshmallow bridge. Needless to say, it was pretty sad compared to the engineering students' bridges. Tonight, I'm going to go see one of my friends perform in a concert, go get cake at an ideal coffee shop downtown, and then come back and watch a few hours of Friends.

Housing

All year, although enjoying dorm life, I have been looking forward to finding housing for next year. I have three wonderful roommates and live in a wonderful town, so what could possibly go wrong. Well, this week I have discovered the problem. I always pictured all four of us magically agreeing on one house/apartment/townhouse. Instead, we are seeing that all of us have different requirements. One of us wants to be close to downtown while the other wants to be close to campus. Some want the place to look clean, others want it to be around other college students (two things that are not very compatible). This means that the four of us are starting to get frustrated with each other, and we have only been looking for a week! The only upside to this is that if our group survives this, we can probably survive anything :) It is fun looking at all the places though. I am so glad that my school, unlike some others, only provides housing for freshmen. I don't think I could do another year living in the dorms. Don't get me wrong, this has been a great experience, just not one that I would do a second time.
So that has been my week. Thinking, worrying, and talking about housing. I am getting pretty ready for spring break when I can take a break from everything!

Housing

For the majority of my freshman year, I have been dreaming about when my friends and I could move out of the dorms and get our own apartment or house. Its not like I don't enjoy the dorms; I wouldn't trade this year for anything. You are constantly surrounded by a group of people going through the same point in their lives as you are. Yet that is also why it will by nice to live somewhere else; you are not surrounded by people 24-7. So, probably two months ago, the three friends that I will room with and I decided that it was time to start planning next year. We really had our hearts set on the new on-campus apartments being opened this coming year, but the lottery system was against us. Now, we are in the position that the majority of the freshmen class is in: finding a house or apartment before everyone else does. Pressure's on. However, for all the stress that will undoubtedly go into finding a house for next year, it is all very exciting. Living in a house with three great girls. Sounds pretty great. So, today we are going to look at our first one. I have no idea where to even start. What questions do I ask? What is a good price? I guess I'll just learn as I go.

Scheduling

One of the most stressful things I have had to deal with this quarter is planning my next schedule. My previous experiences doing this had not been that bad. My registration times were fairly early and I had a ton of general education classes I still needed to take. This time though I was one of the last people to register. I also needed certain classes so that when I come back to school in the fall I will be able to take some upper division courses. So after many stressful hours of huddling over the computer trying to make something work, it was my time to register. Thankfully, I was able to get the classes I needed, which will free up a lot of things in the fall. The only problem is that I have a lot of hard classes. I am taking a plant biology course, with six hours of lab each week (quite a downer), another precalc class, Western Civilization, and Logic and Argumentative Writing. The highlight of my schedule is that my biology professor is rumored to look a lot like Matt Damon, which should make the lectures a little more interesting :) I also realized that two of my friends are in the class with me, which is exciting and really random. So despite the fact that I had a horrible registration time and will be stuck in six hours of lab each week, I am still happy with my schedule and looking forward to next quarter.

Almost Done!

It seems so strange to think about, but I have about a week and a half until spring break, and after that there's onl a month and a half until school's done for the year! This year has gone by soo incredibly fast, I can't believe it. I can't wait until summer, because then I'll be home, won't have to do any school work etc, but I know I'm going to miss it here like crazy. My friends and I already have talked about taking a road trip back here to stay with one of my friends and hang out for a weekend.
Well last week wasn't too exciting, but I did realize why I felt like I hadn't been doing anything so far this semester. Three out of my five classes are huge lecture halls, unlike last semester where I only had one. So in those classes, you generally don't get assigned homework, your grade is just based solely on about four tests throughout the semester. The only test that I've taken so far was a Psychology test and I got a C on it; not too happy about that. As of now I'm majoring in Psychology and I have to get a 2.5 GPA in all my Psych classes before I apply to the school and last semester I got a C overall, so it would really help if I got a B or higher this semester, so I have to do a lot better on my next one.

My Weekend

So, my weekend has been quite eventful so far. I ended the week with what I thought would be a fun night of line-dancing. One of the popular night clubs in town opens their doors for minors on Thursday nights and has line-dancing. I had been hearing about it for a few months and my friends and I finally decided it was time to go. Just as we got out of the car though, my sister (who was driving) announced to the group that she had locked her keys in the car. With the AAA card. So, we didn't really end up going line-dancing. Instead we waited for an hour as we sorted out how to get AAA without our card and them waiting for AAA to come and save us from the cold parking lot. Surprisingly though, it was actually not that bad. The four of us that went ended up just talking and telling jokes for the hour. It made me realize how its the little things that really add up to building friendships and creating a memorable first year (I know, I know, cliche). Today, one of the Christian groups on campus that I belong to, Campus Crusade, had a service day. A group of about twenty of us went to a senior center and helped with landscaping. Now, I'm not really a big outdoorsy person, so I wasn't looking at this as something that was going to be exceedingly fun. Yet again though, I was proven wrong. It was just so nice being able to meet more people in Campus Crusade and begin to feel like a true part of the group. Now however, I do have to start focusing and get some homework done...