From September til now

Life has been crazy busy over the past few weeks. I have been going to classes as usual, and they have all been going fine. I have had a major test in all of them except my First Year Seminar, and I didn't fail any of them :o) This past week, all of the students received the spring semester class guide, so I have been looking at different options for a schedule that I like. I'm running into some problems with having two majors, but I think I can work it all out. 

On the social front, I'm still super busy! I hang out at Saint John's in Steve's room most nights, and I get along with his roommate Jovany really well, so that's good. We do various things, sometimes homework, sometimes watch t.v., sometimes go rock climbing, typically eat dinner at the Reef, and just whatever. I like to go over there to unwind from my day, and I find that if I don't go over it's harder for me to settle into my night, and I can't go to bed as easily. There is something to be said for routine after all :o) 

Merideth and some of our other friends, Steve Rogers, Matt Milner (aka M&M), Carrie, and Mike are all belay-certified, so there is a group of us that goes rock climbing together. The belay-certified folks go every night, and Steve and I have joined them a couple of times together, and a couple of times separately. I can climb the second, third, and fourth hardest walls without problems, and I'm currently working on the double overhang wall. After we climb, we all head to the Reef for dinner, which is fun. 

I started my new job this week. I work in the admissions office here at St. Ben's, and three nights a week I go and call prospective students. They ask me questions, and I try and find out if they are still interested in coming here. It's a perfect job for someone like me, but it's not that exciting. I work six hours a week, and that's a long time on the phone!

Last week was a short week of classes for us. We finished classes on Wednesday, and then got to go home for a long weekend. Unfortunately for me, I had to get my wisdom teeth pulled out the same afternoon that classes got out, so my break wasn't especially great. It was good, however, to be at home and see my family again. I miss them more than I realize, even though I love being on my own. As to the teeth: the operation went very well, the following two days were fine, and things kind of went downhill from there. Nine days later, and I am still bleeding from my lower left gum, and my teeth are still quite sore. I have to go in tomorrow morning to get this whole thing checked out.

This weekend is Family Weekend here at CSB/SJU, so my whole family is coming up to spend the day with me tomorrow. It should be fun!

However, before that happens, I get to head home for a few hours and cheer on the Princeton football team for the 2008 Homecoming. I am catching a ride home with Brad, a sophmore friend of mine from SJU, and I believe a number of my friends from high school will also be there, so I'm pretty excited. 

That's all for now, I'll try and get on here if anything big goes down :o) Take care, and I love you all!

Beautiful

Today was an amazing tribute to God's wonderful works. When I woke up this morning, the air was crisp and the birds were singing. This kind of fall weather is absolutely wonderful! Crisp mornings into warm days into cool nights- gotta love it!

When I was walking around the two campus that I now call home today, I was struck by the beauty of them. The grass is a brilliant green and the buildings are pretty brick red. At St. John's the ponds were perfectly smooth, and the reflection was beautiful. The trees are starting to turn colors and the oranges and reds mixed with the bright greens is one of the best things to witness. While I drove over to St. John's and then walked up to my building, I took a minute to just drink it all in. 

As if that wasn't enough, as I was driving home tonight from St. Cloud State, I was driving into the sunset. The sun was a fiery orange, and the sky around it was darkening into a pretty blue. Even driving through the busy town of St. Cloud, the sunset was amazing. When I got back into St. Joe's it was even prettier.

I don't think I take enough time to just stop and take in the wonderful world that God has created for us, and today made me realize just how great it is. I have a feeling I will notice a little more from now on!

Friends

I know this is a little weird, especially to the people I'm writing about, but I thought I would write a little blurb about my new friends, so that when I refer to them in my posts, y'all aren't confused. I've made a whole bunch of new friends, Bennies and Johnnies, that I absolutely love hanging out with.

My Collegebound girls are:

Kayla Altendorf: I hang out with this chica chica a LOT. We eat breakfast together every morning, and have Theology together. I call her La La, and we always have fun together. She's up for pretty much anything, and we've been trying a lot of things together.

Merideth Erusha: AKA Merdy. Merdy and I are a lot alike. We both have the same morals, and that's a lot of help when our other friends are out partying on the weekends. We get dinner together a lot, and I honestly can't think of the last big thing that I did without her, except getting my ear pierced last weekend, and the football game this Monday. I love her!!

Amie Ernst: AKA Quirky, since she's so quirky. We don't get to see each other that much, because our schedules are not that compatible, but I really like her. She plays hockey, and I'm excited to become her number one fan. Quirky has the best laugh I've ever heard, and she's always cheerful.

Ellen Baboila: AKA Fanny!!! Fanny and I also don't get to see much of each other, but she's my "city girl" friend. I love listening to her reaction to "country life" and hearing her tell us about the city. :o) Fanny is really into politics and social work, and she is a super person.

My Collegebound boys are:

Steve Beattie: One of my favorite people here. We hang out a lot, doing anything. Monday night football, homework, ballroom dancing, watching movies, and on and on and on. We have had some great conversations, and he's one of my favorite people to talk to. (And his futon is really comfortable!!)

Steve Lubner: Another great friend. We hang out rather often, and football games on Saturdays are always fun with him. We eat lunch together a few times a week, and just kind of hang out.

Tony Lotzer: I met Tony this summer, at my TEC, and it's been fun having him around. Tony's really outgoing, and through him, I've met a lot of new people... especially girls.

My other girls are:

Kellyn Thomas: I'm just starting to get to know Kellyn, but I love hanging out with her. She is super enthusiastic about everything, and we seem to have a lot in common. Kellyn is in mine and Kayla's Theology class, and we eat breakfast with her a lot.

Anne Miller: A class buddy! Anne and I sit next to each other in French.... which neither of us really enjoy. We both want to be able to speak French better, and we both like our professor, but class is so boring. Luckily, we get along well, and that helps the time pass a little more quickly.

Sierra Swan Dooley: I met Sierra through Kayla; they were in the same orientation group. Sierra hangs out with us a lot, and she's a hoot! She can always make me laugh, and every time I see her, I run over to her and give her a huge hug.

Molly Eisenschenk: Another new friend that I absolutely love! We live on the same floor, but didn't really meet each other until we sang together at Mass the other weekend. Molly is very outgoing, and really into church, just like me :o)

Sara Formanek: Sara lives on my floor, and I talk to her more and more every day. I stop by her room, just to chat, and can spend quite a while in there. We have gone to aerobics together, and are planning on going again.

My other boys are:

Well, I don't really hang out with other guys on a regular basis. I am getting to know a bunch of them, and I love them all, (except the ones I don't, naturally) but there's not too much to say about them. I am getting to know Steve Lubner's roommate, Joe, which is rather comical, and I also met a lot of the boys on Steve Beattie's floor the other night. Ryan Maus hangs out with Kayla and Kellyn, and I find that I see him more and more now, which is cool. Noah Jeffery was in my orientation group, and we're just now starting to talk again. Otherwise, I enjoy talking to most of the guys in my classes, and I'm always up for meeting new ones.

So pretty much these are my main people. I love each and every one of them, and I am meeting more people every day. We all have our own friends that we introduce to each other, and I get to hang out with new people a lot. Hopefully these little snapshots give you a little insight to the people that I hang out with and talk about so you don't have to be like, "Merdy who??"

My Life: An Update

Another week, come and gone. It's hard to believe that I have only been here for three weeks; the time is flying! This week was more of the same: going to class and hanging out with my friends. I haven't really had a down evening yet because there's always something going on here. 

Monday night, I hung out with a bunch of guys and cheered the Vikings on to.... well, not victory, but maybe the end of the game??? :o) Even though we lost, I had a lot of fun and met a lot of new Johnnies. We had a core group of people with a lot of others drifting in and out. In the long run, we ended up having about half of us being Vikings fans, and half Packers fans. I was the only girl with a whole bunch of guys, and, as we all know, I love hanging with the guys. We've decided to make it a weekly tradition to meet up in Steve Beattie's room and watch the game. Some of my girlfriends are going to join us too, so that'll be fun.

Tuesday night, Merdy and I got a late night dinner, which was really fun. The caf is still open at 9:30!! We just kind of hung out, me eating and her just talking with me, and it was great. There's something that's just peaceful about eating so late at night, when there's hardly anyone else in the cafeteria. We have gotten dinner together after 8:00 almost every night since then, and we both really enjoy it. Sometimes, other people stop by and talk to us, but usually we just go together.

Thursday night, I attended a free ballroom dancing class. That was awesome! I have wanted to learn how to ballroom dance for a long time, and I tried to take classes last year. Unfortunately, that fell through, but I think that I'm going to have a blast this year. We just learned a few of the basic steps, and the instructors said that the longer we come, the more advanced steps we'll learn. I went with Merdy, Abby, Kellyn, and Kayla (Abby brought her boyfriend, and Kellyn also came with a boy), and we all had fun. Merdy and I danced together a lot, since the women way outnumbered the men. Next week, the Steves are (probably) coming with us, so we'll have men to dance with. Which would be good!

Friday was fun. I was done with classes at 11:00, ate lunch with Steve Lubner, and headed out to SCSU for a sectional.... since we perform next Friday already. After we got done practicing together, I hung out with Matt Alken for almost an hour, which was GREAT, since I haven't seen him since July. We had a lot of catching up to do on each other's lives. Unfortunately, he had to make it up to Camp Ripely for the weekend, and I had to get back to CSB/SJU for the cross country meet. Merdy, Quirky, and I went to cheer on four of "our" collegebound boys, especially Steve, who placed 80/140 in his very first cross country meet. And SJU won the invitational! It was a lot of fun, contrary to what most people would think of a cross country meet. After the meet, us girls checked out a couple of movies from the library, headed back to CSB and ordered some pizza. We hung out in Kayla's room until Kellyn, Hannah, and Ryan came back, and then six of us went over to SJU. Merdy and I hung out with Steve Beattie after he got off work, which was nice. We walked down to the dock, and just sat there, talking about anything and everything. Eventually we went back to his room, and watched t.v. Luckily for me, Merdy stayed awake, and made sure we made it on the last bus back to CSB. 

Today (Saturday), I got up, did some homework, and headed over to SJU for the football game. Merdy, Steve, and I got some brunch, and then Adam and Tia showed up!! It was so awesome to see my best friend again! We went to the Johnnies/UWRiver Falls game together, but Adam and Tia left at half time, since it was raining and cold. There were a bunch of us that stayed for the rest of the game though, and got soaked and had a lot of fun. Afterwards, most of the girls headed back to CSB to dry off, but I ended up falling asleep on Steve Lubner's couch until close to 7:00. We caught a bus back over to CSB and went to an illusionist. That was really, to use a word I hear a lot, intense. The guy was awesome. Wow. 

Now, I'm just hanging out in my room, watching t.v. My roommate went home for the night, since their soccer game tomorrow is near her house. Tomorrow, our volleyball team has its first match, at 11:00 pm. We'll see how that goes :o) 

Week Number Two

So this week was the first full week of classes. It was kind of weird being back in school full time again, because it's so different from the past thirteen years of my life. Sure, I have classes every day, but every other day I'm done with everything by 11:00 in the morning, and the days in between, I'm done by 2:15. And I only ever have two classes a day. How crazy! 

I still like all of my classes, but unfortunately I don't really have one that I love yet. I'm still hoping to fall in love, so we'll see. My Theology class gets more interesting every time I go. We have been discussing different viewpoints of the creation of the Bible, and my professor has so many thoughts to offer. Us students still don't talk that much, since we don't really know each other yet and of course, no one wants to be that weird kid that speaks up all the time, but slowly and surely we're all starting to open up. I've met a few of the girls in my class and I really like them, so that's great.

My French class is starting to speak more and more in French, which is wonderful, because I really want to become fluent. One of our assignments is to watch TV in French and write a review on the show. I haven't done so yet, but I'm excited to check out the on-campus French station.

Math is still going well. It's kind of my "safe" class. I have taken so much math in my building over the past five years that it's just great to be back there and in a familiar setting. I am such a nerd (ha ha) that I actually catch a bus over to SJU about a half an hour early to go and talk to one of my two professors from the past two years. It's been great catching up with them.

Finally, my FYS class. I am really interested in the novel we're reading right now, which is about an elder Indian telling his story to a middle aged white man. My FYS class is the class where I interact with other students the most. A bunch of us are on intramural volleyball teams and we have fun just talking before class.

Other than my classes, I've been keeping busy. I started Wind Ensemble out at SCSU, and it's pretty nice to be back out there. I always forget how much I love making music with other people. We perform in about two weeks for the President's Inauguration,  so that'll be fun. I still have to figure out how to enroll in flute lessons without having to pay $800 per semester. We'll have to see how that goes.

I've been hanging out with my new friends a lot, which is great. We've gone into town the past two nights, to pick up some stuff last night, and to pick up my pictures tonight. (I also got my upper ear pierced!! Yikes! I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet...) Last night we played a pick up game of sand volleyball with one of the girls in my FYS class. It was really fun, and we just kept adding random people onto the teams. We played three games, and there was a lot of laughter and joking around. I feel a lot better about playing on an intramural volleyball team now that I've had a chance to play again. Oh yeah, and I went to my first Johnnie football game today! It was really fun :o) And we won!

It's been tough getting enough sleep, which is pretty much to be expected in my first couple of weeks of school. It's hard to say no to doing things that I really want to do, but I'm working on it. I have been keeping on top of my homework and I have been working out which is great. I still need to find a time to practice regularly, but other than that things have been going well. I've been sick with sinus problems this week, which is a bummer, but I think I am starting to get over it. 

Although I love college so far, there are definitely some tough things. I am starting to really miss my family and friends. I love my new friends, don't get me wrong, but I miss my old friends too, the ones that knew all about me and loved me no matter what. It's really hard to just jump into a new pool of people that I don't really know all that well. And the whole drinking scene is really hard for me to reconcile with. I know that a lot of people do it, but I don't and won't, so it's hard for me to be okay with my new friends doing so. I've talked to my mom a lot this week, and I've also chatted with my two best friends, so that's been great. I'm really looking forward to coming home and seeing them again.

Let's see... any other new news... Oh, I'm getting my wisdom teeth taken out on October 1st. I'm nervous about this, but oddly enough excited too. I've been waiting to get this done since Adam got his taken out three summers ago. 

I think that's all for now. Leave me some comments, please!! I want to know who's reading this :o)

Church

I am so excited about church here on campus that I have to write a whole separate post about it.

Two nights ago, I experienced church at St. John's for the first time. The first cool thing about it is the time it takes place: nine o' clock on Sunday nights. This is an awesome time to go to church because it's after all of the weekend activities and it's a great way to just unwind, reflect upon the week, and get ready for the week coming up.

We have Mass in the SJU Abbey, which is a beautiful old building with stained glass windows, wooden pews and kneelers, and a neat set up. The Abbey is very large, and it's also the bell tower on campus. These bells ring every fifteen minutes, and they can be heard all across campus.

At about 8:45, my friend Steve and I were walking across campus to go to Mass with a bunch of our friends, and the crazy thing was, so were a lot of other people. There were hundreds of CSB/SJU students moving towards the church. And it struck me. All of these people are going to Mass by choice. They weren't there because their families were going or because they felt obligated to go for whatever reason. They were there because they wanted to be there. That feeling, that knowledge, was overwhelming. I am so excited to be a part of such a large youth based parish community.

Mass was Mass. Not too exciting as far as Masses go, but it was good. The music was wonderful and the homily wasn't too bad either. When it was time for Communion, we all gathered around the alter, which is a new thing for me. I've decided that I like it a lot.

After Mass, there was a lot of greeting people that we knew and just talking about stuff. All of us first years have an opportunity to participate in FYRE, which stands for First Year Retreat Experience, and I think a lot of my group of friends is planning on going to that. It's a weekend long retreat in mid-October and it's an opportunity to grow in our faith with our classmates. I'm pretty pumped about it :o)

Since the stars were beautiful by the time we left the building, a group of us decided to go down to the beach and watch them for a while. Kayla, Merideth, Tony, Steve, and I laid on the dock for a good hour, just talking and watching the skies. We've decided to make this a weekly tradition... at least until it gets really cold out.

Next Sunday, Mass is outside, and we are all super excited about that. For me, I'm just excited that I've finally found that group of people that share my faith, are my age, and aren't afraid to let it show. Our group took up almost a whole entire pew, and in the Abbey, that's really saying something. It should be a fun journey!

First Week of School

Well, last week was the first official week of school for me. Sunday night, Monday all day, Tuesday all day, and Wednesday morning were taken up by orientation. It wasn't a bad way to start off the year. A little boring, but at the same time it was nice to meet some new people and get to know our two campuses a little better. On Sunday night, we kicked off orientation by having dinner with the girls in our groups. It was a little awkward, since no one knew each other, but the food was good. Monday morning we met with our Johnnie group and then proceeded to spend the rest of the day at St. Ben's. We toured the campus and did various activities... nothing too exciting. Tuesday was essentially the same, but it took place at St. John's. During these two days we toured each campus, talked to a professor, went to a "show" on discrimination and one on drug/alcohol abuse, ate lunch together outside, took a short survey, walked some paths, played lots of birdie on a perch, and just got to know each other. Every night, we went back to our own campuses for dinner with our small group and then rejoined the boys for a dance. The dances were fun, but a little bit weird. Wednesday morning, we all went to an hour long convocation, and then started classes.

I have two classes each day, one at St. Ben's and one at St. John's. My earliest class is Theology at 8:00 on odd days, and my latest class is Math at 1:00 on even days. My schedule is very nice, especially since on odd days I get done at 11:00 for the day. So far I like all of my classes. I'm taking Theology, which is just studying the Bible, French 211, First Year Seminar, in which my topic is Power of the Individual v. Power of the State (I think. We're not really sure on that one.), and Math, which is proof writing for me this semester. My favorite class right now is FYS because we do a lot of class discussion, and the book we are reading is very interesting to me. However, I think I'm really going to love my Theology class as well. Today we discussed the Dogmatic Constitution from the second Vatican Council, and the class discussion was lively. My professor for that class is a Benedictine nun, and she has a degree in Theology. I think she's really going to make us think about things, which is really exciting. Math is math is math is math, which means I love it. To be in my "home" building taking classes again is wonderful, even though I miss my fellow UMTYMPers. I'm really excited about this course because I'm finally going to learn how to write a good proof, which is something that has been missing from my toolbox for the past five years. My last class, French, is exciting just because I am very eager to become fluent in another language.

Aside from my classes at St. Ben's, I am also enrolling in Wind Ensemble at St. Cloud State for the year and I am really excited to be back with my friends from last year making music.

As for extracurriculars, I am taking both flute and piano lessons again, joining an intramural volleyball team, taking two aerobics classes a week, and getting as much sleep as possible. Things are really busy right now, and I'm looking forward to it all calming down. On the plus side, the activities have been fun and I've been getting to hang out with my Collegebound friends a lot, which is awesome. We all eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with at least one person from the trip almost every day, and it's great to be able to do so. We're also all making new friends that continue to join our group. Some of the things we've done include going to a concert, hanging out in Regina basement, seeing Iron Man outside on the Mall, going to Valleyfair, eating together constantly, hanging out at St. John's, stargazing, and going to church. I love it!

I'm so excited about everything that's going on in my life right now, and I really can't wait to see what the next four years will bring.