Back to School

Hello!

Yes, I know it's been a while since I've written. Ah well. I'm back at school now, all moved into my apartment. I have a new roommate named Sarah, and she's really nice. She's a junior this year, and she was in the ward this past spring/summer, so she already knows a bunch of people in our ward.

We're in the 63rd ward now, in the 2nd stake. It's different being in a regular student ward. Today was our first Sunday in there. We didn't really get a chance to meet many people since it WAS a Sunday and, well, there was class. :P I only really met one person, some guy sitting next to me during relief society/priesthood (they were combined today), named Aaron who is studying Economics and Japanese. I was just excited about the Japanese part. :P

I really like our new apartment. There's so much more space than last year, we have a LIVING ROOM for once, and we've got an extra freezer, which has come in handy because we've now had two birthdays and have used that freezer for ice cream and ice cream cakes. :P It's feeling much homier than last year, mainly because of the living room. :P And we also have a lot of pictures and artwork up, so that helps make it feel more like a home. :P The AWESOME TV also helps A LOT. :) We've made good use of it already (thanks Mom and Dad). Everyone loves my chair and I rarely get to sit in it now because someone else will claim it first. :P Mack also brought another couch that's really comfy, so now we've got three couches and a chair. LOTS of seating in our living room. :) And surprisingly enough, we managed to fit everything in there.

It's been REALLY hot here. It's just miserable to go outside, so we spend a lot of time just lying around the apartment in shorts and tank tops with all the windows open to get a little bit of a breeze. We keep our windows open all night and in the morning, which is proving to be a problem with SOUND at night and early in the morning, because our windows all open up into the back parking lot of a thai restaurant and a bookstore/frozen yogurt shop. So every night, there are a bunch of guys being super loud down there, and in the morning, some guy who works at the bookstore pulls his truck up and blasts music while he's inside the building. So we're woken up by loud music every morning. Whoopee. We're hoping it doesn't continue forever.

Classes start tomorrow, something NONE of us are happy about. I'm dreading most of my classes, just because I've got stuff like Biology... Modern American Usage Linguistics (aka Grammer. blech.), British Literary History... yeah. Not too fun. The only classes I'm really looking forward to are my Makeup 1 class, New Testament (I have the same professor that I had last semester, and he's awesome), and Print Publishing. Books for this year were murder... I had to spend over $300 dollars this year, which I think is more than I spent last year on books for each semester. I ended up buying a couple off amazon and from the bookstore next door because they were like, $20 cheaper, so I have to return some of my books. I was looking through my Stage Makeup book though, and it looks so cool! I'm really excited for this class. Hopefully it turns out to be really good. I'm expecting it will be, the only thing I'm not too happy about is the time. I have it from 4 pm to 6:30. So... late class. My schedule this year leaves much to be desired, seeing as I end around 6:30/7 every day except Friday. But oh well. Not much I can do about it. A lot of my classes were only offered at one time, so... I didn't have much choice.

Julie and Alan were married last Tuesday, and she looked positively beautiful in her dress. We were waiting for them outside the temple, and they were radiating with happiness. I don't think I've seen two happier people. Even the other couples coming out before them didn't look as happy. The reception was small and cute--perfect for what they were wanting. They came out of the temple around 2ish, and the reception was at 7, so we had a lot of time to wander around Salt Lake City. We spent most of our time at the Gateway, making fools of ourselves in the old train station or whatever it was. It's completely empty and super big, and the tiniest sound echoes. And it also happens to remind us of Anastasia, so we were twirling in circles and singing Once Upon a December. We're pretty sure that the security guards watching the cameras turned on the music in there to shut us up and make us leave. :P

We've been living like the poor college students we are, eating as little as possible to make the food last longer and spending next to nothing. Once we all paid for our books and saw our bank accounts drop dismally low we were all like: That's IT. We're not buying ANYTHING ELSE. :) Mal was able to get hired at the McDonald's here though (she worked at one in Minnesota over the summer), so she has a job. And I was doing some job searching, and one day I was sitting there and was like. Alright. Today I WILL find myself a job! And after searching and searching for hours for a job on campus that worked with my class schedule and finding nothing but football game food hawker openings, I got an email from my old supervisor for my LCC tutoring, asking if I would like to continue tutoring this semester because the University of Hong Kong decided to continue the program this year. So I promptly replied: YES I WANT THE JOB! So. I now have a job. That I didn't have to apply for, I don't have to go through the screening process for, and that I have to do little work for. Whoohoo! So I've got my old job back, it's high paying and little work, and PERFECT! So I'm just waiting until I can get my first paycheck and slowly start seeing my bank account rise again after that huge hit it took from books. :P

And... I just discovered that I have to spend about another $100 because I added my print publishing class AFTER I bought my other books, so now I have to buy some computer programs and stuff. Blech. Yeah. I can't wait for my first paycheck. :P

But I'm pretty much set on food for like... months. So... I guess that means I don't have to spend very much money in that department. :P

Well, I think that's about all for now. I'll update again later once more happens and I actually have something to say. :P