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...

This has been a pretty average week so far, the only difference being the weather. I feel like I am in paradise. True, this is probably the result of global warming, but it still feels pretty nice. Yesterday my friends and I took a blanket out to the lawn and read (homework unfortunately) for several hours. Since I usually hate this time of year, I am really enjoying this change. My midterms have stretched out for about 4 weeks, and they are finally done, which is a wonderful feeling. Now I have two weeks to get ready for finals! That's the thing about the quarter system. It is nice because you only have a class for about 11 weeks, but at the same time, you have a ton of tests in a short amount of time. This is especially true in a class with two midterms and a final, where you have a major test every few weeks. With all this testing, I am starting to get ready for spring break, even though it is over three weeks away. I will have gone this whole quarter without going home, which makes the prospect even more exciting!

Arizona

Two of my friends and I went to Arizona last Wednesday and got back on Sunday. My grandparents have a place there so we decided to take a little time off of school and just hang out for a few days. Thursday was really nice, we laid by the pool all day and went out to dinner that night. Friday was rainy, so we went to an art fair and just watched movies and Saturday was really nice again, so we were outside all day and went to a fun hamburger place for dinner. Of course none of us started our homework until Sunday when we got home, late at night and I ended up getting the flu that day so it was hard to concentrate on anything. Overall it was a great break from classes, and now we only have a couple weeks until spring break, and after that just about a month and a half until summer!