Getting into the semester..

So... It's been a while since I wrote and I don't particularly want to go over every excruciating detail this late at night, so instead I will give you some of the highlights of the last two weeks and tell you about each of my classes/teachers in detail.

Last week was the second week of school. Amy was back on her feet and Shyler had recovered a little from her niece's death. I started realizing how intense my classes were going to be, especially as I had to write a 1000-word personal statement for political inquiry due on Wednesday! We had a fun FHE for once, so that was nice. On Friday I went in to the dentist's office to get some fillings and a crown. It was the best dental experience of my life! They gave me laughing gas, then one anesthetic shot before all the others (5!), and played a movie that I could watch lying down, as it was above my head. Fantastic. That afternoon, I baked some cookies and went on a trip with Heidi. We went to Draper first, where we couldn't find any of the places we'd been planning to visit except for the Temple. So we walked around the temple and went to a pet store, where we had fun playing with a random puppy. Then we explored Ikea. I kind of wanted to live there :) After our Ikea trip, we went to Aunt Geniel's house, where we were going to stay. She made us this AMAZING pork burrito thing. (BTW, Mom, what pork do you buy for pulled pork?) After dinner we had fun watching Pirates of the Caribbean with the Woodwards and read before sleeping.

Saturday morning we got up, had another fantastic meal - waffles with fried apples and caramel sauce - and got ready to go for the day. We went up to Salt Lake and had lunch with Heidi's brother Derek and his friend. Mediterranean food is really good, for the record. Then we went to the planetarium at the gateway, but decided not to pay $6 to watch the show. So Heidi and I went (bargain) shopping. We shopped at Banana Republic, where we each got shirts for under five dollars ($2.20, woot!). It was late afternoon by this point, so we decided to go back to the Woodward's for dinner before going to Sandy to see a movie at the Imax there. It turned out that the show we wanted to see was at 9:50, so we finally got to the theater and saw Avatar in 3-d IMAX!!! It was amazing :) If I'd been prone to motion sickness... Well, it was great. We got back to the Woodwards and watched the rest of Prince Caspian, which we'd started before leaving to the theater.

Sunday morning we woke up late, and all the Woodwards were gone. We were a little confused because they hadn't left any notes, but we cleaned up our area, took care of the sheets and everything, and called just before we left. We had a lot of fun there and the Woodwards were wonderful! It was great.

We went to church, and the rest of the day was wonderful. Monday was also pretty good, but very homework-y. The rest of the week was a little stressful (including another paper due for political inquiry) but Wednesday was CRAZY!!! Just as I was leaving Intro to Islam, I got an email from Professor Hudson, and I GOT HIRED TO BE HER TA!!!!!!! So exciting. I got home with cold teeth because I'd been grinning during the entire walk. When I got back to my apartment I made pizza (on Tuesday I made hamburgers) and then took Madi to the ER because we thought she had an appendicitis. I stayed up late waiting to hear the diagnosis (her mom met her there and stayed with her) and found out she had an ovarian cyst and some other weird thing. She went home and has been there ever since. But the rest of the week was fairly routine, although I scored four shots in basketball on Thursday and went to the temple on Friday, which was amazing :) Saturday I had a cleaning check, went to Ihop with the roomies, and then just did homework for the rest of the day.

So, now on to the class analysis.

On Mondays and Wednesdays at 9:00 I have Isaiah, with Sister Madsen. It's awesome. I'll read a chapter for class and not get much out of it, and then show up at class and take a page of notes on one verse. It's awesome :) And the teacher is, of course, amazing.

At 10, I have intermediate swimming. I'm in lane 2 now. Class would be pretty intense except for the fact that we only swim for 35 minutes. Then I have 20 minutes to get changed and ready, walk up the stairs to the JFSB, and go into my next class...

...which is Political Inquiry! It's hard, because we have a paper and an assignment due every week, but the things we've learned so far are SOO cool. We've been going over writing - grammar and style. I've learned so much that it's ridiculous (although you can't tell by how I write this blog). It's super-cool. There are two guys from my ward and one girl from my freshman academy in the class, and so it's nice to know some people, but I really enjoy the class just for the learning. (Oh, and my teacher is Professor Christensen and my TA is Jon Walton, just for future reference)

Chemistry is my next class, with lectures on MWF at 3 and lab (with a TA) on TTh at 8. It's so stupid! We have to watch lectures online and read chapters from the book before class every day, and then we go over lame things in class every day - review of what we learned from the other stuff. In lab we just have to show up and do a worksheet based on the online assignments we have due the night before. The repetition is mind-numbing, although without it the class wouldn't be so bad. But as it is, so so so lame that I can't even discuss it. Whatever.

At 5 on Mondays and Wednesday I have Intro to Islam, from Professor Schulthies. She's awesome, and very enthusiastic. The subject-matter is very interesting, and I really appreciated Grandpa sending me a copy of the Qur'an to use. The people in that class are almost all in my political inquiry class as well, so it's just a little party! And last week we had to do a reading by an author with the last name Aslan. It made me happy. Also last week, we had to write an in-class essay on the similarities between Muhammad and Joseph Smith, which was really quite cool.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I start the day with Chem. lab, as discussed above. My TA was hired last-minute and doesn't really know what's going on, and my lab partner doesn't care. Ugh. Whatever.

My other consistent TTh class is basketball, at 10. My teacher is a grad student in Physiology who has never played basketball in his life. But the class is still fun because it's a game! There are only a few girls, but that's okay because I'm taller than all of the girls anyway, so it's more of a challenge to play with the guys. Speaking of height, my team this week had the two tallest guys and me, the tallest girl. I won't say it happened all because of height, but we dominated.

Tuesday night I have Great Works in Art, which is a really cool class thus far, although I haven't done all the reading yet, so most of my participation has been in-class. Professor Wescott teaches, and she's really cool. I enjoy her attention to detail and you can tell that she loves the subject, which always makes it better. This one is my only honors class this semester, a big change from last semester. We've been learning mostly about Greek and Roman statues and architecture so far.

My last class is at 7:20 - Isys 101. However, attendance is not mandatory - you just have to do the work online and get it turned in on time. So I don't really go to class, and even on the first day, when attendance was mandatory, I didn't see the professor who is supposedly teaching the class. However, it isn't that hard so I'm not too worried.

That is a summary of all of my classes (9!). The schedule is a little full, and I may die, but I enjoy most of my classes, so it's all good.

Now on to the really exciting news: I think I may have found a major!!! Well, two actually. I am tentatively going to double-major in Political Science and some emphasis of Management. To get a major in PoliSci I will only need 43 units after this semester, and 62 for management, although there should be some overlap... I may or may not do a minor or two - hopefully I will, even if that requires doing a spring or summer term :(

So sum-up of all the most exciting news from the past week:

1. I got the job of TA for Professor Hudson!!! It's going to be awesome. Oh, and the other new TA is the guy who I sat next to every day in class last semester. It'll be nice to know someone...

2. I've decided on a tentative major!

3. I haven't mentioned this yet but my RA, Stephanie, got engaged this week! Yay for her!

That's all pretty amazing.

Now here are some things I got today from RS and Sunday school that are very cool to ponder:

1. The difference between countenance and appearance, and which one we should (and do) base our confidence on.

2. Spiritual death (separation of our spirit and God) versus physical death (separation of spirit and body). Our spirits and bodies constitute one discrete being, so what does that say about our spirits and God? Maybe we constitute one discrete being too - a family :) And just as our bodies are part of us, God is part of us too. (P.S. in case you were wondering, I'm not making absolute statements that I believe this, but speculation about the comparison of physical and spiritual death)

3. Sin v. Transgression - from what was said in our Sunday School class, it looks like sin is something inherently wrong, while transgression is breaking a formally-made law. (I won't get into the philosophical implications of this - talked enough about it in class last semester :)

Just a few things I found interesting at church today and thought were worth writing down. Hope you like them.

Anyways, I love you all and hope everything is going wonderfully!!

<3

Eliza