Current Location: Bed - Dorm Room - Greencastle - Indiana

To update from last weekend's scary incident, we now have a restraining order against that guy (Olivia's Ex) that protects me, Olivia, and her parents. So all is well and we haven't been bothered since.

Finals are fast approaching... and that means I will soon be going home for the first time! Yay! But, before I celebrate that I must study like crazy for Calculus II and Computer Science I. My art final critique is over, and was disappointing. Even though I tried my hardest and spent many hours in the Peeler Art Center, my grade dropped from a B+ at midterms to a B. My final paintings were these three:







I'm still proud of them no matter what my professor says. I think I've improved a ton. Glass is very hard for me to paint.

Anyways, since then I have been studying mostly Calculus. I've had time to slip in a few fun things too though including attending a excellent acapella choir concert put on by a group on campus called DePauwcapella. Pretty clever name, eh? They sang such good songs too, like Every Breath you Take by The Police and The Way by ... Semisonic? There were a few Christmas one too. Anajah sang All I Want For Christmas is You gorgeously. It was just so good. I teared up a little when they sang Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas because I started thinking about everyone back home. I requested For the Longest Time by Billy Joel from Cameron who's in the choir, so maybe they will sing that one at the next concert. Fingers crossed!

I also got a piercing randomly on Friday night. Olivia had decided to get her nipples pierced (oh I do not know why she did it!) and I was going for emotional support but then I figured I mine as well get something while we were there. So I googled ear piercings and found the one I wanted which is called a rook piercing. Little did I know that rook piercings actually hurt more than nipple piercings. Ouch! It did hurt and still does a little but I like it a lot.






So that is what I've been up to recently. Can't wait to see everyone back in home sweet Homer!

Current Location: Green Chair - College Street - Greencastle - Indiana

Wow, it's been a very interesting weekend for me. Starting with Friday, I went rockclimbing with our rockclimbing club here at DePauw. I had gone once before but this time was even more fun cause I already knew how to belay and was a little bit better at climbing. My climbing partner and fellow rockclimbing goddess Lindi was there too. Together we make a formidible team. We had a ton of fun trying out the harder climbs, and kind of failing.

After we drove back I ended up just staying with all the super cool Lucy 3 people that went climbing. We watched Batman Begins and chilled. I got a bunch of hugs and life was good. Except for the fact that I got a rejection letter from this one program I interviewed for called ITAP. Very sad, definitely wanted into that. I won't stop trying yet though.

Saturday then began, and I figured I'd be doing homework and stuff to get ready for finals.... but INSTEAD I ended up going to Walmart with a couple people and we bought a game called Guitar Hero II, two controllers for it, a memory card and a playstation 2. :D Ooops. Probably shouldn't have done that right before finals week! It's a really fun game though and we had been going to Walmart just to play the one on display for hours. Now we don't even have to leave C-Street for massive entertainment!

So then I played that for awhile, before going to the basketball game. We won, oh yeah! Not really an exciting game though. Meh, whatever, winning is all that matters anyways.

That night I went to a rugby party at a university owned house nearby. It was great to see all the girls again since it's been about a month since our last game. My friends from Lucy 3 showed up too and it was just another good night. I got back to the dorm around 4 am and went to sleep, still sad about ITAP but happy about everything else in my life.

I was awakened around 5 or 6 am by knocking on my door. I figured it was Olivia locked out but when I answered it I was staring at some guy. He asked for Olivia and where she was and I told him I didn't know but I'd tell her he stopped by. I closed the door and thought he would just leave but the next morning I woke to Cameron and Charlie telling me that our big screen TV in the lounge had been stolen. Oh crap. Must have been him. A laptop had also been stolen, a glass table top was found smashed in the parking lot and a half full bottle of brandy was left in the common room. Yeah, not good at all.

We ended up finding the TV stuck in and under some pine trees by the parking lot out back. It was a little damaged on the outside and the power cord was pulled out but we got it back in safely. It could have been a lot worse. Olivia finally came back and I talked to her about what happened. We got public safety here and told the officer what happened and its all going to be fine. I am fine and Olivia is fine and C-Street is exciting for once. :)

Current Location: Floor - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

Oh geez, I guess it's been awhile! Sorry for being the lame out of touch person that I am, but that's just me! Lot's of stuff has happened since that last sickness/last rugby game/last post. Rugby is now over, but we had a couple sweet games and went to the boy's Keg Game versus Wabash College. The Keg Game was amazing, I had no idea school rivalries could be so intense! Wabash is our rival school and at first I thought the t-shirts we made were a little bit too mean ("Wabash gets no": *picture of a kitty cat*). I mean, they are super funny since Wabash is all-guys, but still, pretty mean right? Well no way, once I stepped off our bus to the game our shirts were all of a sudden quite tame. We were greeting with a huge crowd chanting obscenities at us. Terrifying!! They even spray painted big red W's on the back of our RENTED buses. We lost the game, but I'm almost glad because I think if we had won the crowd of Wabash supporters would have just brawled us to death. DePauw was definitely outnumbered! Next year it will be at home as will the Monon Bell football game (which we also lost) so it should be more fun. Maybe we'll win too!

So I've been painting more too... this is what I've got so far.... almost done with the semester!!



Landscape outside, just some planted trees on campus. Kinda boring and I don't really like the colors.



My favorite painting so far. It's a copy of Monet, but I don't care. It kinda feels like my own painting. I really wanted to paint the ocean since there's no way I would be able to otherwise (we always have to paint from life in Kingsley's class) and I really miss it so, yeah.



Another outside landscape, from life this time. It was just starting to be fall, and the leaves really did look all red and awkward on that one side of the tree. I like the sunflowers I painted in the garden but I'm not sure if you can see them.



Blah, second self-portrait. I think it looks more like me than the other one but less like a person. It's still really flat too, just like the other one. I'd like to work on this one more to get it ready for my final critique but I'm not sure if I'll have time or not.



Last landscape. I painted this outside too but not too long ago so it was freezing. Not too happy with this one, but it is what it is.



Pumpkins! For Halloween! Even Kingsley got in the spirit for this holiday, too bad I was in Indy at the time visiting Homer people that were in town. I painted these as they began to rot which was kind of fun in a weird way. I really like the inside of the pumpkin, it was fun to detail.



Taa-daa! My first ever nude model painting! Oh my gosh it was so awkward. For one, it was my first nude model experience. Secondly, it was a male model. Third, I knew the guy!! He's in my computer science class, which surprise surprise, meets right after painting. Forth, as you can see by the painting, it felt like he was looking at me the whole time. AWKWARD! But I made it through and I'm quite happy with my painting. The feet and legs are my favorite part... along with their corresponding shadows on the cloth.



And this is the first of my three painting series that will be my painting final. It is unfinished (don't worry!) and looks a lot better now since I worked on it for about three hours today. Tyrone my fish is crappy model compared to Ross since he is hyperactive and never sits still but it is much less awkward to paint him. :)

So that is all for now. I'm heading out with my cousin Chris tomorrow at nine-ish to spend Thanksgiving with family in Wheaton, IL. Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend! I'm thankful there is you!

P.S. Here's some of me too!

Current Location: Couch - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

Ugh, I am sick. Sicker than before probably cause it hit me on a Monday... so I had the whole week in front of me. Luckily I do not have much homework to finish for Friday and I only have an hour of class til the weekend. I kind of took today off to recooperate (hopefully!) so all I've done all day is finish my landscape copy painting and lie on this couch and watch movies. I'm going to have to get up soon because the title menu for Coyote Ugly is on repeat and I've run out of food/drink. Guess now is the time...

Fall is on its way, the leaves are already turning beautiful...

P.S. Don't worry parents, I am taking my vitamins.

Current Location: New and Improved Dorm Room - Greencastle - Indiana

My second rugby game was this weekend at Indiana University... which is in Bloomington... which is 45 minutes driving from DePauw. Not bad at all, I'm kind of enjoying the fact that everything is so close here that "roadtrips" are generally under an hour. I'm sure I'm getting spoiled though and that once I'm back home I won't ever want to go on fun travel adventures. I know I will want to drive though, because I miss my Landcruiser a lot. I definitely can't handle the highways here yet... but maybe eventually I'll get those city girl skills.

Anyways, the game. We got there and it started to rain. It was windy too and then some thunder and lightning started to go as we were warming up. Fortunately I did not have to start because I was quite frightened of what this team was going to be like. We later found out that it was mostly their B team, which makes sense since IU is about twenty times the size of DePauw. They were still pretty much beating us, except in the beginning when we had a breakaway for a try.

Once we hit the second half I was completely soaked and shivering on the sidelines. That's when I got to sub in for our outside center of the back line, Banta. She's a beast on the field, I hope to be like her someday. :) Anyways, so I changed into a nice muddy pair of rugby shorts and a soaked jersey and ran out on the field to face these IU girls. I actually didn't get to do a single bit of offensive play, but I made up for it with defense. My favorite tackle was on a kickoff to IU. The ball had gone to a girl that was pretty much in front of me so I just started sprinting. She kind of fumbled the ball a little when she caught it so she really didn't get much forward movement in at all before I just plowed into her. It felt really good. The other tackles ...not so much. I got the wind knocked out of me a couple times, which is not fun at all. Especially in pouring down rain and with cleats that are full of water that feel like they are going to fly off my feet when I run.

The best/worst part of the match came when there was about ten minutes left of play time. In the scrum a few IU girls had been complaining about high tackling and other stuff and kept yelling obscenities at us. After one of these little outbursts, something happened and two IU girls ended up rolling around and throwing punches at one of our girls. The ref took a bit to break it up and had the two teams separate to opposite sides. We were all just kind of staring around trying to figure out what was going on. Our girl had a cut above her eye that was bleeding pretty profusely and she was on the ground with a couple other DePauw players who were trying to clean her up and check to make sure she was okay. It was about at this point that one of our captains Lauren told us to pack up and that we were going home without finishing the game.

I must say it was rather exciting to be a part of this little brawl. We grabbed all of our stuff and were just walking to our cars when the two IU captains stopped us and apologized about those girls. Lauren handled it really well by saying if IU ever wanted to play us again, those girls would not be allowed to participate... basically we walked out of there with pride. My car of girls ended up going to lunch in our soaking and muddy rugby uniforms once we got back to DePauw... and although I was freezing the whole time it was worth it to feel part of a badass rugby team. The shower I took afterwards is now the best shower I have ever had.... EVER!

All in all, it was a learning experience and I hope to have a bit more confidence in our next game which I think is against Earlham. I'll definitely let you know how that goes...

Current Location: Chair - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

So here we are... the progress I have made in oil-painting while at DePauw.



This is the first painting we did on the very first day. Just straight up black and white.





We did these by ourselves. Basically we had to paint styrafoam objects in a box with colored sides and show how the light reflects on them.




And here it is! The dreaded box painting. Ugh...way too much of my life has been wasted on this thing.




Ahh, finally something that is not a box. I really liked the blueish green vase thing... definitely not a box.




This is a copy of Vincent VanGogh's self portrait.




And this is my self portrait.

Hope you like them...

Current Location: Green Chair - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

Goodness it has been quite awhile since my last post. I hope everything is going wonderful in your lives out there, and I definitely want to hear all about it so e-mail, write, whatever often.

As for me... life has been interesting. Kind of up and down for a little while. There has been a big upswing in my art class as we have stopped painting cardboard boxes and have moved on to much more exciting and beautiful things. I believe my painting skills have improved but I guess I'll have to post some pictures and you can decide for yourself.

Computer Science has been excellent as well, even with the threatening exam in the near future. I actually finished the two hour lab assigned in 45 minutes...which made my day since I got an hour and fifteen minutes of napping before rugby.

This last weekend was fantastic. I'm sure the fact that my math test was over, for better or worse, made the whole weekend that much better. Friday night was spent with my roommate Olivia at my first party on campus. It actually reminded me a lot of parties at home, except it was inside and there was no bonfire. The people though, the people definitely seemed similar to those from home. I really liked getting out of C-Street for a while and meeting some new friends. We had a lot of fun that night, took a million pictures and stayed up until 4.

Staying up 'til 4 was not a good idea when I had to wake up three hours later and drive to Indy with the rugby teams. The girls didn't actually have a game but we were there to support the guys through their three or four games. It was so hot out though, and because I'm an idiot I had to have worn jeans. Basically I just sprawled out on the field and tried to move as little as possible. I got a little sunburnt that day, but also had the pleasure (ugh!) of seeing a Zulu run in action. Basically, if a guy scores his first try (kind of like a touchdown) he has to run around the field completely naked. Yeah.... that was very funny and a little disturbing.

After the games we ended up at Irish Fest in downtown Indy. It's a lot like Concert on the Lawn back home but with an Irish theme instead of Woodstock. The girls and guys rugby teams ended up bonding pretty well there so hopefully we can be closer than those teams of the past. It was really fun scrimmaging with them at practice so I'm hoping that will happen more often too.

So that is all for now... I'm sad that our Mariner boys didn't beat SoHi, but there's still a shot for state so if you are in the Homer vicinity, cheer extra loud at the games for me!

Current Location: Dorm Room - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

It was the first football game of the season for DePauw today... vs. Anderson University. And we won! Yay, go team! It was a pretty good game, not super exciting but not dull either. I don't even remember the final score but it was something like 23 to 13.

Although it was very sad to be watching from somewhere other than the sidelines... I did enjoy playing in the Tiger Pep Band. Now pep band is not cool like it was in Homer, I can definitely tell we are viewed as a crazy bunch by the rest of DePauw U. But since I'm not exactly going for popularity or anything, I had a great time singing Hey, Baby and doing other crazy cheers.

I'm pretty much exhausted right now since I stayed up late last night learning to play Eucher. It's a card game that seems to have its roots in Indiana, and I was forced into a game of it. I actually ended up winning with my teammate so it must have something to do with luck too cause I know I don't have skills. :) Anyways, I am probably going to lie down for a bit... maybe finally catch up on my sleep!

Current Location: Desk - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

Yes! Just got the results back on that math quiz I almost slept through completely.... ten out of ten!! Yeah! I have learned that taking math quizzes ten minutes after you've woken up is horrible because everything seems to make perfect sense. Cosine is the same as sine, isn't it? Sure! 4 squared equals 8, right? Sure! I am never going to do that to myself again... never!

Wow, I just realized I did not write about that quiz at all yet. Basically Friday morning me and Olivia slept through our alarm clocks and ended up waking up at 10:08am... and we both have classes as 10:10. Mass confusion erupted and I ended up running out of our room a minute later, still very much asleep. I had planned to study for this quiz for an hour or so before it...but that plan obviously failed. So I walk into the dead quiet classroom about five minutes late and my professor just smiles at me and hands me the quiz. I really have no idea how this worked out but all the questions seemed really easy.... much too easy.

Anyways, lesson learned. I will not turn off my alarm and decide to remain in bed for any amount of time. I will study for math quizzes the night before. I will get more sleep, period.

Hope all is well with you guys. There is a strep throat epidemic running amok on campus and I woke up feeling sick, but other than that I'm doing great down here in the crossroads of America!

Current Location: Dorm Room - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

This weekend began with a relaxing Friday with friends. We had an enjoyable rugby practice in which we ran through some plays to prepare for our first game against Ball State on Saturday. It was much better weather than our previous practice on Thursday which ended with absolutely pouring rain. Anyways... It was pretty quiet in C-Street since about half the dorm went home for the weekend, so we watched Moulin Rouge that night and ate Ben and Jerry's... definitely a productive evening.

The next day was exciting. All the girls piled into five cars and headed out to Muncie.... about two hours away. I was incredibly nervous for most of the ride and once we got to the playing field I was questioning my decision to try out for rugby. The girls at Ball State were mostly bigger than us and the few opportunities I got to tackle somebody, I kind of screwed up. With the first two periods combined, I had the ball for maybe two seconds and one step forward before I getting laid out. All in all I felt pretty unfulfilled when I was sitting out for the third period. I really felt like I could have done a lot better.



Luckily I got another chance. Unluckily, it was because one of our players broke her wrist. Still, I got to play for another ten minutes. I was trying to be really fearless out there to prove that I really could tackle, and it worked! I got probably four good tackles in which made the whole day worth it. I didn't get a cool black eye like I wanted, but I did get a really sweet bruise on my left arm that looks like a butterfly.



Yeah, I was probably flexing here... :)

I was exhausted the rest of the day and pretty sore so I didn't enjoy the social after wards too much, especially since I was an awkward freshman with a bunch of people I didn't know. I just chilled on the couch and watched a few football games with my rugby friends Gabby and Laura.



I really didn't have time to do anything else this weekend except sleep, watch Wedding Crashers, eat, sleep, do homework, finish my oil painting, check my mail, watch an insane Bruce Lee film, eat more and sleep more. Mail was definitely the highlight of the weekend though, thank you Mom for sending the cleats and mouth guard...though I ended up borrowing some cleats from Kevin and bought a cheap guard from Walmart. And thanks Christi for the wonderful Homer update! I miss all of you guys and Homer so much!!



(My study group! Rob, Kari, Kate and Masha!)

Current Location: Couch - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

As promised...


This is my first year seminar group on our first day of orientation. The basic idea was to get us to do as many ridiculous ice breakers and team-oriented games as possible. Kind of like summer camp. It really felt as if we had reverted back to third grade, especially with this game... the human knot.


This is Kevin and Charlie (Chaz), a pair of roomies from College Street the residence hall I live in. Kevin's a soccer player and is generally the slave driver of our jogging group. Charlie is really funny and insists on calling me Juneau.


This is from our adventure in East Campus. This building was supposed to be locked but for unknown reasons it was completely open for us. Will played Phantom of the Opera for us on the piano there which was pretty creepy. We also explored the attic of this place which was even creepier. Especially since gigantic 3 inch diameter spiders could have jumped on us at any moment!


These two guys, Rob and Matt, are part of College Street as well as our impromptu jogging group. We were at Kevin's soccer game in this photo... the one where we lost 3-1. Depressing but Homer was never too excellent at soccer anyways, so I guess some things never change for me.


Here's a pretty brick building. We have such a traditional style campus here... with the brick, the trees, the people under the trees studying. Oh yeah, we've got it all.

I'm off to go play with puppies at the Community Service fair (and maybe sign up for some service hours too), then to the play tryouts to see if they need backstage help, and then *maybe* a jog. I'm sure I'll fit in homework somewhere. Maybe... ;P

Current Location: Dorm Room - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

My fish finally has a name... Tyrone Jahquil or TJ for short. He's lived through three days now and the traumatic fish bowl cleaning experience without eating any food. What an amazing fish. :)




Math wasn't too bad. The quiz was only three questions long and I think I might have done pretty good. I guess I'll have to see. Umm...... I went to rugby practice. That was interesting. I'm pretty much terrible at holding on to the ball...and throwing it. Sorry Dad, I guess I didn't inherit your skills. I'd like to hear some more about what position you played and any other rugby stories you might have. I'm going to keep at it for a little while to see if I get any better. Who knows, maybe I'll be the rucking master! Or the "insert rugby term here" queen!

I am kind of tired since I watched the Monday night football game with Kari. Green Bay vs. Cincinnati. The Bengals pretty much dominated the field. I guess I didn't really care at all until everyone in the dorm commented on how much the Packers suck. Kari's a Packers fan so I decided to stick it out with her. But yes, I'm tired and I have to get up somewhat early for my art class. Goodnight all!

Current Location: Dorm Room - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

It's been a pretty long weekend for me here in college. Olivia left to visit her boyfriend in Bloomington which meant I had the whole room to myself for a couple days. It was kind of lonely though...empty...quiet. Not good for people who are homesick so I kept myself busy doing other things. Saturday morning started out with the first year community service plunge. I was signed up for Habitat for Humanity so I went with a few people to build a deck for an almost finished house. My hammering skills were a bit rusty and there were gigantic spiders lurking about (almost three inches across!) but it was still fun especially since it started raining heavily right when we nailed the last board in.

After that I had to scoot over to the Lilly Center for Tiger Pep Band practice. I think this was the most interesting part of the whole weekend as it had been many months since I last looked at my clarinet. Sadly they do not have Livin' on a Prayer or The Horse or Anchors Away (duh!) which are all my favorite pep band songs....but they did have a couple new snappy ones that I could kind of bash my way through and...drumroll please... Hey Baby! That's a good one.

After putting away all the percussion equipment, I headed over to the soccer field to watch a scrimmage. We lost 3-1 which was kind of disappointing, but it's early in the season...a lot could happen. I'm pretty sure I ate lunch after that.... then went for a jog with my good C-street friends Rob, Kevin and Matt. Big mistake! I'm not in shape at all right now and I was dying at the end. I went today too though and felt a little better. Granted we did run slower and not as far, but it's a step. No freshman fifteen for me!

Today was mostly for studying as I kind of ignored my books all day Saturday. Nothing too interesting except that I found out I got an A on my first paper!! Yeah!

Oh no! I completely forgot about Friday in which the most exciting thing happened for the whole entire weekend. I bought a FISH!!! At Walmart! He is the cutest ugly thing you have ever seen....black with enormous bug eyes that stick way out. He is still just "Fish" to me because I'm afraid he's going to die soon...I haven't seen him eat any of the food I've put in. The other fish a girl bought at the same time as me died just today so I'm even more freaked out. Hers was a beta too, cost about four dollars more than my little dollar-eighty-eight guy. By tomorrow night, if he is still alive, Fish will be renamed.

It is raining heavily outside right now. When it started of course I had to go run around a bit. I regretted it soon after when I stepped back into our arctic AC dorm. Brrr.... Tomorrow will be interesting as it supposed to keep pouring and I have no umbrella. Apparently it's an essential piece of equipment for living in Greencastle. I must not have gotten that memo.

Well, my first math quiz is tomorrow morning so I better get some sleep tonight. No crazy frat parties for me! Goodnight, and remember to keep in touch!

P.S. More pictures to come!

Current Location: Green Chair - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

Ahahahah! I just won Risk! YES! The world is mine to control forever... everyone must listen to Ozone constantly while doing the Numa Numa dance and Odwallas will be 10 cents each! And in college at DePauw the only classes offered will be PB & J: Science or Mystery? and Failing at Life 101. And the whole world will be one continent that will be named Alaska Rocks! (exclamation mark included). Except for New Zealand which will now be known as Middle Earth.

And now to my studies...

Current Location: Ottoman - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

I just learned how to play Risk. It's very fun. ted is cool. ted should rule the world. go ted. woot!

That was Ted, he's from C-Street too. We're having good times here in the Lounge. Our hall meeting was earlier where we pretty much decided nothing except that the guys on the second floor have to have at least a towel with them in the hallway. Not neccessarily on them though. The RAs should have been more specific, these guys are tricky.

I can't believe I'm still in this Risk game. It's been going for hours and I was almost positive I'd be out in the first two minutes. I've got an alliance with Kevin though and we have North AND South America. America ..... yeah! You know the rest...

I'm sure you don't want a play by play of this very interesting game, so I'll continue on with something else. I didn't actually go swimming because the guys swim team was having an unofficial practice. I didn't really feel like diving in their with a bunch of scary upperclassmen awesome swimmers so I just went back to tanning.....and writing my essay. It's called Technology: Friend or Foe. I'm going for the foe route and talking about nature. Something like that.

I have to concentrate on my strategy now. Don't worry, if I fail out of college from playing too much Risk... I can always get a job as a general.....or president.

Current Location: Sunny Lawn - Outside - Greencastle - Indiana

Currently I am outside on the lawn enjoying some lovely sun with my two friends Olivia and Tim. The first day of classes went allright, I can tell that Wednesdays are going to be my worst days though. Well...unless my art professor is a real piece of work. I've heard from some people that he's a really amazing artist, but expects a lot out of his students. Being a non-art major I don't know how he'll deal with me in his class. I have that Tuesdays and Thursdays for a couple hours in the morning. Tomorrow I will know.

My math class was decent. I believe I will be able to understand our professor if I pay attention and listen carefully which I'm sure will help me understand the math better. This first lesson he taught is still kind of hazy in my mind so I'll have to go over my notes again tonight and see if I can understand derivatives of inverse functions.

Also tonight I have to write my first paper for this college. Exciting! I feel like I have a lot of homework to do right now especially when the professor says it's due by the end of the week, but then again I always forget I have a lot more free time and a lot less classes. I think I'm going to head over to the pool now to ch-ch-check it out now that I'm all hot and sweaty. :)

Current Location: Desk - Dorm Room - Greencastle - Indiana

First day of school.

Roommate Olivia is up now, she has some sort of acute bronchitis so she took some NyQuil last night that hasn't really worn off yet. Thank goodness that's not me. I need to be as alert as I can right now what with Calculus being my very first college class ever. My teacher's name is Rahim something I can't spell too so you can probably already tell that I'm going to have to pay close attention or risk not understanding anything. Ten minutes to class....I better go.

Current Location: Big Green Chair - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

Life in Greencastle, Indiana has been pretty good lately. We went to downtown Greencastle with our mentors groups to explore a few places we might need to find later on. My favorite was Goodwill (a thrift store) where I bought a fish bowl, a Revere ware cooking pan, and an Indiana University baseball cap. The cap is brand new and even has "Hoosier" on the back of it. Yay! I'm a real Indiana-ian now. I got the pan just because we have a nice kitchen in C-Street, but very few cooking utensils. I plan on making pancakes in it eventually. And finally the fish bowl because I don't think it was an accident that I wandered into the fish aisle when me, Austin and Chris were at Walmart two nights ago. It was fate.

I changed a course around in my schedule since I didn't like the sound of "Human Cultures" and thought it would probably be a slight waste of a class period. Instead I'm taking Calc II with another person from C-street. It will probably be kind of hard but overall it will be good to keep the math thing going from last year. I think I'll forget everything from the past six years if I don't take math for a semester. The full list of my classes is :

CSC 121B Computer Science I (has a lab too)
ART 153 Painting I
CSC 197C First Year Seminar - Seduced by Machine?
MATH 152A Calculus II

Doesn't look like much there but my first class starts in about an hour so I guess I'll see pretty soon. The professors and mentors have spent a lot of orientation telling us how hard the classes are going to be and how much we're going to have to study in order to even comprehend the possibility of getting an A. I think all the first years are a little bit terrified right now.

It's time to go wake up my roommate and clean up the messes that are growing in my areas of the dorm.

Current Location: Couch - C-Street - Greencastle - Indiana

Hello all! I'm finally here in lovely Greencastle, Indiana, looking out on a gorgeous sunny day on campus. I've been moved in for two days now and I've settled pretty good. I really like my residence which is College Street Hall, especially since it has big comfy couches in two different lounges and a full kitchen for...whatever! It has a great setup and great people that make up for the slightly smaller rooms. Not to worry though, I even like my dorm room which I am sharing with Olivia Lobdell from Indianapolis, IN. We bunked the beds and moved the desks and dressers around with her parents help the first day and got everything else unpacked before that night. It's a very cozy, homey kind of place which will be great because all I plan on doing there is sleeping. This hall just has such nice common rooms that everyone just chills out here. Much more comfortable.

Orientation has been interesting so far. I met my mentor group yesterday and spent nine hours with them! Nine! After many ice breakers and games led by our student mentors Sarah and Michelle we knew eachother pretty well. It's good to have a few friends outside of College Street. It's a better group than most and it seems we'll all get along just fine for this first semester. I took placement tests as a part of orientation this morning, Spanish and Calculus and somehow tested out of the first semester of spanish. I was very surprised, but happy too since this means I only have to take one semester of spanish to complete my requirements. I haven't gotten my Calculus results yet....I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.

All that school business aside, these first few days have been really good with moving in, meeting people, getting used to more responsibilities, eating differently...all that good stuff. I'm sure I'll have much more stuff to talk about later on so I'll keep using this journal thing and hopefully that will work for everyone. Hope everyone is doing awesome in Homer town! Keep me updated on any essential news!