Classes

So this term I am taking Sociology, Russian, Women in Media, History of the Soviet Union and Environmental Concepts.

The teacher for the Women's studies class is kinda scary and spent the first lecture warning us about all the things we shouldn't do and then re-emphasizing the point by yelling it. Looks like an interesting, easy class that calls upon my strengths as a reader and an analytical thinker.

Environmental concepts, while it contains interesting topics (climate change, pollution, water quality etc.) is boring. Very boring. I have no idea how the teacher manages to make me feel like falling asleep while she is dramatically asking us if we would give up our way of living so that someone in a third world country could have a better life.

Sociology seems decent.

History of the Soviet is really interesting. The teacher reminds me of Grandpa. If my Grandpa spoke with a Russian accent. The teacher is white haired and hilarious with a subtle, slightly stinging humor. His lectures are what remind me so much of my Grandpa. His storytelling skills are amazing. He spoke about what makes a leader "Great". In the process he gave us examples of great leaders from the past and it was all so interesting that I was just itching to write notes. I hate taking notes. But I would gladly do it for this class as I want to remember all of the super cool things he spoke of.

And to save the best for last.........

RUSSIAN!!!!!! is amazing. I love my teacher. She obviously loves to teach which makes the class so much fun. I have learned so much in my first two days of class, not only how to read Russian, but also a lot of the culture. This is already one of the best classes that I have ever taken. I cannot even explain how much fun this class is.

She somehow manages to teach without even trying. While she was introducing herself I learned some Russian. She is Russian, so she has a Russian name so when she was introducing herself she wrote her name up on the board and showed us what the different parts of her name meant. Like part of her last name is her dad's name, and how most people are called by a diminutive of their name. So awesome.

Life as a college student has been pretty good. My sleep schedule is all wacky, which is why I spent two hours of my afternoon sleeping. I have yet to do laundry, which I kinda really need to do. I have cleaned up my room though. It was getting a bit messy. The food is pretty decent and I have managed to avoid going near the dessert table. Except for today. And the weekends do not count. I think I will manage to avoid the freshman 15, thank goodness. I also got a gym membership that I am even using! It helps that I go with my friends.

Its really surprising how many people from Minnesota are here. There is a girl on my floor who is California, two people that I met today who are from England, some people from Mexico, my next door neighbor from Taiwan, a girl from Chile, and then people from lots of other places like Croatia and Finland. And then there are the guys from France that me and Heather run into everywhere. We met them the first night and I swear that either I am unconsciously stalking them or they are stalking me. Seriously. They are everywhere!!!

I really need to go do my laundry.....

I am now a College Student--- Maybe

I spent the month that I wasn't writing this blog doing lots of things. I babysat a lot (I love those girls), biked around the city waiting for it to get warmer, packed, and hung out with people. Like Hollis. A nice way to end summer, even if it did fly by and I wasn't able to go swimming cause it was too chilly.

I would call this a productive summer. Went to a new country, saw a decent amount of friends, got a tattoo, learned lots of new things. But now summer is over and here comes fall and with it comes college.

Since I was bringing so much stuff, we had to rent a minivan. I liked it and felt like a terrible person for liking this gas guzzling machine. It was so comfy and had lots of space. The ride went by quickly, even though the stop at the border took forever. I now have a pretty piece of paper saying that I can reenter Canada whenever I want.

I did not expect Canada to be hot. But it was. Today its been raining which is actually a relief from all of the heat and humidity I have had to deal with. Several days have been in the 80's. Where are the lakes???? I need to find one and jump in.

The mosquitoes are horrendous. There are bajillions. I have so many bites spread all over my body. That made the moving in process not so fun. Who wants to be carrying loads of boxes while trying not to faint in the heat, and then on top of that trying to swat away the hungry mosquitoes? No fun.

A nice surprise was my room. ITS GIANT. Its even bigger then some of the doubles that I have seen. Crazy. Its a really long and skinny room with reallyreallyreally tall ceilings and I even have a walk in closet. Nice and classy. I have soo much extra room that I really do not need. I do need to print out some more pictures or at least get some posters to put on my walls. I was not expecting this much wall space so I didn't bring much.

It was a tearful goodbye. I cried. A lot. Its no wonder when not only do I have to say goodbye to one person, but when I have both parents, a brother and a boyfriend to say goodbye to, it adds up. Sad sad.

I eventually got unpacked. It only took a couple days. Haha. But I made a friend! A super awesome friend. She is right next door to me and we met my first night here. We were both homesick and had some choice things to say about the music booming from down the hall. We eat dinner/other meals together, split groceries and lots of stuff. When she had to do a load of laundry, but did not quite have a full load, she took some of mine. And she folded it!

Through her I have been able to meet some other people. She is good friends with a third year student and he has been amazing. He took us to all of our classes before hand so we would know where they were, drove us to the grocery store, took me to the bank twice so I could open an account, and lots of other stuff. And through him we have met some RA's and other older people that are handy to know.

I have had so much fun. As soon as I got to know Heather, life became a lot easier. I am loving this college life.

I MADE IT INTO BAND!!! This is so amazing I have to say it again.

I MADE IT INTO BAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so happy. So so so so happy.

I never thought that I would be good enough to play at the college level. YAY. Whats kind of funny is that the band is at the same time and day that community band is. It will be like being back home when I would look forward to Tuesday nights from 7 to 9.

I had my first and second day of class and that went well. I can feel a lazy spell coming though so I think I will post that at some other time. I am enjoying myself greatly and am meeting lots of cool people. In case you didn't pick up on that.

To Finish

So its only been a month and two days since my last post.... and what a crazy month!

To finish off my Wales trip-

IT WAS SO AWESOME!!!!!!! I climbed a mountain. Me, my cousins and my aunt and uncle made it all the way up. We started at 1000 or so feet and went to the tip top which took 3 or so hours. The mountain, Snowdon, is the tallest in Wales. It 3000 something feet. That may not sound very big, but when you are almost at sea level its really tall.

I am so glad that I was able to experience it. The way up wasn't tooo bad. We ran into the clouds not long after we started our climb so we had no good views. That was very unfortunate because apparently the view is spectacular.

The way down was a lot harder. For the first 45 minutes or so (I had a hard time keeping track of the time) we went down this terrible steep part. Not only was it really steep, but there were a lot of loose rocks that slid out from under our feet. My younger cousin looked like a mountain goat. No matter how many times he was told to slow down and just walk, he still kept leaping down the hill. My aunt, my older cousin and I went on a much more sedate pace. A pace that led us to lose sight of my Uncle and my younger cousin. We did not have much visibility, so it looked like we were walking in a completely white world. All we could see was the rock under our feet and a few meters in front/behind us.


We walked all the way down that mountain, right to the base. While the way up was full of people, the path we took down was almost empty. Of course my aunt would trip and fall right in front of the only large group of people we saw. I got so scared, but she was okay, just a little embarrassed.

When we got closer to the base we saw some beautiful landscape. Everything was green and growing. There was a river that people were jumping into and riding the current. They would jump off the small waterfalls and just float along. I wouldn't do that, even with a helmet on like they had.

We were all sore and tired by the time we got to the bottom. Our feet had blisters and our knees ached from going constantly down hill. And our youth hostel was still a mile and a bit away. My uncle decided to go and get the car and drive back to pick up the rest of us. I offered to go with so we went off walking quickly. I got kudos for doing that.

The rest of the time passed quickly. I managed to stay awake for a good portion of both car rides. I got to see my first Welsh built castle which was super cool. It was so old! From before the 1100's.

We got back home and then it was time for me to say good bye to the boys and finish packing. My uncle said goodnight around 11, but me and my aunt stayed up late talking until 1:00. Then she went to bed, but I stayed up making a card and talking to Hollis on Skype. I slept for a half an hour and then it was time to get up!

My uncle drove me to the airport where I struggle to stay awake. I just managed it. I had such a hard time believing that I was leaving this beautiful country and going back home to Minnesota.

A few hours later, I was on the plane. And I didn't sleep for longer then a half an hour. Grr. Saw a few good movies, wrote some things and read a bit. Ate some decent plane food amazingly enough. And then all of the sudden the plane was in Minneapolis. I was home.

I collected my bags and walked out the door and I could see Hollis and my brother waiting with their back to me. They later told me that they had been trying to figure out how to surprise me. They were so busy doing that that they didn't realize that I had walked up beside them. It was my turn to surprise them!

And that was my wonderful, amazing trip to Wales. My uncle wrote up a summary of what I did each day, so I will post that later today. And I still have to let all of you guys know how college has been! Good, by the way.

I cannot wait to return to Wales. Perfect company, and awesome adventures. Of course I have to go back!