And it begins again

I've been back at school a little over a week now, so i'm just about settled. I'm loving living in an apartment instead of the dorm, and i'm getting along fairly well with all of my roommates. There are 8 of us total in a 4 bedroom 4 bathroom apartment. We share a common living room and a huge kitchen. I'm glad we decided to live where we are, because it's a workout to get anywhere on campus (that's a good thing :D). All of my classes are going well too, although it is still school! My two favorite classes are Computer Science and Accounting (shocker!).

My friend Jessie and I have started a practice of going over to the apartment of several of our guy friends and playing spoons almost every night after we finish our homework. It's a good way to relieve stress and get a good laugh! The many hours we spend in there make me understand why people love college so much, and also why people usually keep in contact with their friends from college more than those from high school.

Although i'm sad to not be in Cherokee anymore, i'm so happy to be back at school and back into the swing of things. I think it's going to turn out to be a great year!!

Life Gives you Lemons. Make Lemonade.

Due to the swine flu, my Spanish class trip has been moved to Costa Rica!! While I'm sad that we aren't going to Mexico, I'm rather excited about going to Costa Rica. We will be doing the same thing there: staying with host families and going to a language school near by. The excursions that we had planned for the weekend will also change, but I'm completely ok with that if it's going to prevent me from getting the flu. I leave a week from today, and I'm so excited!!!!

Exams have been going on since Wednesday, and people leave when they are done. Most of my friends won't be done till Monday (I'm here till Tuesday...), but one of my friends finishes today and is going to pack up and go home when he finishes his test. It's kinda sad that all of my friends will be in different places and we really won't see much of each other over the summer. I'm very glad to be going to Cherokee, but it's going to be really hard at first.

I've taken 2 of my exams, so now I just have a Calculus exam and a project to do for my Spanish class left. It seems like freshman year has just flown by... I was worried about my first 2 exams, but now that they are over with, I just have to wait till I can pack up and leave on Tuesday.

I'm so grateful for the friendships that I made and the times that we have had. It's been a great freshman year, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Endings and New Beginnings

I had a GREAT weekend, and it's actually been a while since I've had so much fun at school! Friday I saw 17 again which was really a pretty good movie. I went to the theater with 4 of my friends, but 3 of them decided (at the ticket booth) to go see Crank instead. My friend Kayla and I were not as easily swayed. We had planned to go see it together last weekend, but I wasn't able to go because of SummerShine orientation. It was a good thing we didn't go watch it with them though, because it turned out to be quite explicit and not that great of a movie. Since our movie started earlier, Kayla and I sat outside to wait for the other movie to finish. We weren't out there for long before Jessie joined us. She didn't like the movie at all, and didn't want to be in there for a minute longer, so she came to talk with us. After a few minutes of talking, we all realized how hungry we were and walked across the extremely sketch parking lot to Applebees. We were afraid that it would be closed considering it was almost 12pm, but they were open and we were seated. Right after we ordered we got a call from the 2 guys Jessie had left in the theater, because their movie had ended and they didn't see us and were worried about us. Sweet aren't they! We told them to just come in and sit with us. After we ate our food and had many laughs, we headed back to school to watch another movie. We started The Pacifier, but didn't get very far before curfew. We headed to our respective floors, but I wasn't really that tired, and neither was Jessie so she came to my room and we just talked for a while until we were both about ready to fall over.

On Saturday, I got up a little earlier than usual so that I could go to lunch with my older brother. He had driven to Charlotte from UNCW on Friday afternoon for the Dave Matthew Band concert and the 21st birthday of one of his best friends from high school. Since my school is right on the way, and we hadn't seen each other since Christmas, he stopped in to say hey. It was good to catch up with him, since he's staying at the beach for the summer, and I'm going to the mountains...

Wingate's "Spring Fling" was on Sunday. I'm not sure if they do something similar every year, but pretty much it was a day full of live bands and pool games. As the finale, Sister Hazel played live. They were a lot better than I was expecting, and actually sounded better live than they do on their Cd's. It was a lot of fun, even if there were a ton of drunk people all over the place... It actually made me feel like I go to a reasonably sized college. I'm not sure where all the people came from, but it was cool to see so many people in a relatively small space, since that doesn't happen very often.

Today I went to my absolute last class of freshman year. It's kinda weird to think about it...as long as I pass all my finals (hopefully that will happen...) I'm no longer a freshman, wow that sounds weird. After classes and dinner, I drove home. I needed to bring a bunch of stuff home so that I would have room in my car at the end of the semester, and my first exam isn't till Friday morning.

Oh, we found out today that we might not be able to go to Mexico because of the swine flu. It's still up in the air, but if it doesn't start to get better, chances are we aren't going to be able to go. I'd actually started getting excited about it too!

Ahh!! 1 month from today I'll be in Cherokee! I can't wait to be a SummerShine Staffer!!

Blessed a little every day

It's been quite an interesting week. I'll spare you of the details, because they are rather trivial. Basically, it's been filled with a new drama that I can't seem to escape. I am stuck in the middle of it and just want to be freed from all of it. I have never been so ready to get off campus and go home! I hopefully will be able to make it till the 20th when Becka is coming home to help me babysit!!! I'm quite excited about it, because i get to see my baby sister and hang out with Becka outside of school! And just one week after that, spring break starts!!!

Oh, so the weatherman called for about half an inch of snow flurries last night, but we ended up with probably about an inch of accumulation. The 4 inches of snow didn't really affect classes a few weeks ago, because the school was able to put down salt on the sidewalks. They must not have gotten around to it this morning, because I got a wonderful wake up call at 6:30 this morning telling me that I could turn off my alarm clock and sleep through what would normally be my 9am Calculus class. Even though I was woken up a little early, it was worth it to be able to go back to sleep till lunch time.


Here's the quad at 2 in the morning with some of the snow that accumulated over the night. It snowed a little after I took this picture from my window.

Today in Spanish we talked about our trip to Mexico, and I am so excited about it! It should be a fun trip, even if I am completely out of my element! We found out we might get to go to Mexican cooking classes, and/or salsa lessons! Hopefully I'll know a lot of Spanish before I get there, because we won't be able to speak any English.

I absolutely love my new Bible study. It's a Beth Moore study, and I'm enjoying getting to know the girls in the study, and grow closer to God by digging in His word.

I guess that's all for now...

Catching Up on Life Here

It's been quite a week since my last post. Friday was girl's night, so we ate a bunch of junk food and watched a chick flick. It was fun to be able to hang out just girls for a little while. It didn't last all night, because the boys came up to apologize for some fairly harmless pranking. Then, they helped clean Callie's room, because it was a little dusty. They were up here a little late, because there was a considerable amount of cleaning that needed to be done...
I slept in a little on Saturday, because I knew I would be up late that night. At 2 on Saturday, I left for the school's ski trip. We went to Appalachian Ski Mountain and did the night skiing there! It was so much fun to be able to ski again, because it's been a year or so since I last went with my family. Brian had a few run ins with inanimate objects....like a tree and a snow blower....but we all greatly enjoyed ourselves!
Sunday was pretty normal. I woke up at 10 and got a text from Callie, because she wanted to dry her hair in my room so she wouldn't wake up her roommate. She came in and told me that her boyfriend had surprised her and was in her room at that time. He had gotten up really early and drove to school so that he could go to church with us. We all went to Elevation as usual and went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant on the way home. After that, I came back to school and was going to start on my homework, but i got distracted (as usual) and didn't get around to it till about 11. Jessie came to my room sometime in the early afternoon and said that she was going to go to a Bible study that night, and had heard that it was going to be good. I told her that I would go with her, and found out that it was Beth Moore study when I got there! I was so excited because my mom raves about how wonderful her studies are. It has been really good so far, and I've been able to keep up with the homework for each day. I think it has already brought new life to my walk, and I can't wait to continue in the study!
Monday definitely felt like a Monday. I woke up a little late and almost was late to my first test of the semester, which would have been really bad! It was a calculus test and i wasn't nervous about it going in, but i was a little worried after i started taking it. I finished a little early and took a nap before lunch. The rest of my day was fairly normal, until our hall meeting that night. Apparently, the people that live in my building are held responsible for anything that goes wrong anywhere in the building, including the lobby and offices. They didn't blame anyone on my hall, they just told us that they wanted us to let them know if we knew any information regarding the vandalism that had happened the week before. After that, I pretty much stayed in my room and did most of the homework that I should have done over the weekend.
Tuesday was fairly busy, I worked on my homework some more, because I didn't have any classes till 1:30. We had a quiz in Spanish, but the professor looked them over and decided that she would let us do corrections on them before grading them. After dinner, I had to go to a film for my history class. It showed some graphic scenes including an Aztec sacrifice that I found particularly disgusting. Eventually, I'll have to write a paper on it, we'll see how that turns out... Not long after the movie, I had a FLY meeting. We didn't do much, just were given a few announcements and then we played some games from our childhood like Hungry Hungry Hippos, Chutes and Ladders, Ants in the Pants, and others. It was a little bit of a flashback, but a lot of fun.
Today (Wednesday) was a pretty good day. I got my Calculus test back and I had gotten an A! I was kinda surprised because i was unsure with several of my answers. I had a Psychology test after lunch, so i had a little while to do some studying for that. It was multiple choice, so hopefully I did ok. I fixed my Spanish quiz as much as i could, and the professor actually took them up today. After Spanish, i was in the mood to work out, and i had enough time before dinner to go, so Jessie and i went to go relieve a little bit of stress. We had an all girls dinner, which was nice. After dinner, I went to a Lyceum. It was a motivational speaker named Sean Stephenson who spoke about getting off our "buts" and stop giving excuses. it was a really good presentation, and the hour I spent listening to him flew by. After it was over, I went and helped Brian with some of his homework, and went to Breathe to hear one of my friends speak. He did a really good job, and I am really glad that I heard what he had to say.
Tomorrow should be interesting. I have class from 1:30 to 4 and a Spanish review after that. I'm not sure why the teacher feels like we can't review in class, but she decided that we needed an extra hour to review for our test Friday. After that, I have another Lyceum to go to that I get extra credit for. It will most likely be boring compared to the one tonight, but I can't complain about getting extra points in two of my classes! On to tomorrow...

Back into the swing

Classes started back yesterday, so I have been to all my classes. Some are interesting, and some I already know I am going to hate. My Spanish class is from 3-4 every afternoon, and i know its going to be my biggest challenge this semester. It's supposed to be a combination of Spanish 1 and 2, but I feel like we should be in Spanish 4. The very first day of class the teacher spoke a total of about 20 words in English and everything else in Spanish. I guess it's a good thing, because I'm getting better at picking out parts of what she says. Mexico is in the back of my mind every time i walk into that class. At the end of the year, my 13 person class is taking a trip to Mexico for two weeks, and we will be taking classes from Spanish speaking natives. I'm so excited, but it's going to be a long road to get there. My calculus and psychology classes should both be interesting. My psych teacher is one of the oldest teachers at the school, and he was actually a student here. He's a cute little old man and he likes to go off on little tangents. I have the same history teacher as i did last semester, but i actually have a few friends in there this time, so it shouldn't be quite as bad or boring.

Oh goodness, i realized that i didn't miss the cafe food at all! I actually miss my mom's food. I've only eaten like 5 meals in the cafeteria, and i already am tired of it. I do like being able to talk and catch up with my friends while i eat. Oh, so we walked into the cafeteria on Tuesday night, and there was a huge sign that said "DUDE WHERE'S MY TRAY?" and explained why they weren't using trays anymore. Apparently washing a tray wastes a lot of water. It's not that big of a deal to not have trays, I'm just learning how to have better balance when I'm carrying my plate and cup up to the window.

I guess that's all for now, because I've got a class at 9 tomorrow...