The first few days

You know how after summer vacation ends you go into shock and denial about the realities of homework, papers, and tests?  Yeah, me too.  Here's a (probably not-so-quick) rundown on my week so far.

Monday, my first class was Spanish 105, at noon.  Before that, I went and got hired by the Political Science Department officially, and then stood in line for an hour.  But that's a different story....  My teacher is Professor Gutke, who taught Spanish at a high school in Virginia before returning to Utah and teaching at a junior college, and then transferring to BYU.  He holds the state record for most interceptions in football.  Anyways, he's a pretty funny guy.  He has four little kids who like to sing songs and talk in funny voices.  Accordingly, we had to sing John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt in Spanish today, and then conduct partner exercises in a robot voice.  Quite entertaining.  I also had to say the prayer today.  That wouldn't have been such a big deal, but hey!  It was in Spanish!  I was terrified, but somehow managed to get through it (peeking up at the board every few seconds to see the tips for giving prayers in Spanish).  Although the textbook, which cannot be resold, was $176 (kill me now!), I think I will survive the class.  I understand most of what people are saying in class, so that's a good sign... right?

My second class of the day was Physiology.  The professor is Reuben Rhees, who has been teaching at BYU since 1973.  He's a fun old guy who knows his subject very well.  Yesterday, we talked a little bit about glucose concentrations in the blood.  He asked if anyone was diabetic.  I hesitantly raised my hand.  He then told me that I would be giving a short presentation on diabetes when we got to that unit.  GREAT.  Like I know anything about the scientific aspects of my disease!  I have enjoyed the class so far, though, and the material is very interesting.  Did you know that your body produces approximately 2.5 million red blood cells per second?  Cool, huh?

After that, on Monday, I went to the class I'm TA for, Political Science 170, aka Intro to International Relations.  I felt less intimidated when I saw how many freshmen there were.  Also, the students had to hand in a little five-question, ungraded quiz when they left, just to give us an idea of where they were coming from. One of the quiz questions was "Who is the President of Russia?"  The correct answer was Dmitri Medvedev.  I saw just one quiz.  However, that one person wrote "Putin or Gorbachev - they trade off."  It made me laugh (although the reality of the system, if you exchange Medvedev's name for Gorbachev, isn't that far from this person's answer!)

The rest of Monday afternoon was spent on a crazy trip to Walmart to get binders and shampoo.  I got back in time to go to FHE, which we had as a ward at the bishop's house.  I drove with my roommates Kristin and Stacey (really, I will get to telling you about them soon!) and my FHE sisters from last year, Megan and Cherissa.  There wasn't a whole lot going on at the bishop's house (a 45 minute drive away...), but I had an enjoyable time helping to serve the root beer floats (I think the activity's committee is understaffed as yet), and talking to/meeting some new people.  Yes, mom and dad, some of them were even BOYS.  Crazy, I know.  we stayed for a few hours and then went back to our apartment.  The drive home was the best part of all: talking about Harry Potter and singing HP songs.  Sidenote: you have to see this; it's hilarious!  (Downhill people running FLEX!) When we got back, Megan gave me some English chocolate from her recent Study Abroad to Cambridge.  Yay!

Tuesday was exciting as well.  I started out with Econ 110, at 9:30.  I have Professor Kearl, who has a reputation for being the most difficult econ teacher out there.  And we're not even allowed to have computers in class!  Lame.  Oh well; I'll survive.  Another extremely overpriced textbook that can't be sold - that I may not survive.   The lecture was just introductory.  It seemed like he was in a bad mood, so I'll save an analysis on the class for later.  P.S. There are almost 700 students in the class.  Yikes!

An hour in the library, Spanish, and Physiology followed that.  I went back to my apartment so I could go close my storage unit before I was charged for September.  I got to my car and discovered an unwelcome surprise: a parking ticket!  My registration sticker wasn't up to date.  Of course, when I looked in my glove box, there was the updated sticker.  Great.  I'm going to call the Provo Police Department and ask them if they will please not give me a $30 ticket.  But I closed out my storage unit and got back just in time to go to my Irish dance class.  It looks like it will be a lot of fun, but I need to buy/borrow some shoes.  Let's just say it's a good thing I'm working!  A delicious salad and homework comprised the rest of the evening.

Today I woke up an hour early, with a low blood sugar.  I sighed to myself and made oatmeal to face the day.  Got some homework done in the am, and then went to my first class of the day: Honors Organizational Behavior.  My teacher is Kristen Bell Detienne, and she brought Twizzlers.  Duh I like her.  We talked about course aims and assignments, of course, and then we all introduced ourselves.  This was followed by a presentation on some very efficient companies, and what makes them that way.  One thing that really interested me was the cost of turnover.  Apparently it costs a lot to fire someone and hire a replacement, so companies try to maintain their employees as much as possible.  Companies who work hard to do this tend to have better profits and higher productivity.  Currently we are in a knowledge era - the sought-after commodities are not industrial or agrarian.  Instead, they are highly-trained and competent people.  Cool stuff.  We talked about our group service learning project, in which we are supposed to (in groups) volunteer somewhere in the community and apply what we've learned in class about efficiency and organizational behavior.  It will be fun.  I really enjoy this class.  Already it's making me question my planned (but undeclared) major... and it's only the first day!  We'll see how it goes.

After that I went through the usual spanish-physiology route, followed by Intro to IR.  I had my first office hours after that, from 3-5.  It was quite exciting, although the only reason people came to see me was that they'd missed the first day of class and needed a syllabus.  For the rest of the evening I'm going to study, eat dinner, go to a mandatory housing meeting, and eat popcorn with Heidi... oops, I mean... study with Heidi.  Yeah, I don't know where that came from either... :)

I'm looking forward to sleep.

<3
Eliza

P.S. Natalie, you're awesome.  Thank you for reading my blog :D  I'm so sad I didn't get to see you this summer, AND I missed you in Utah.  Maybe Christmas?

P.P.S. I love avocados, but I'm starting to think it may be time to change backgrounds again.  You know, since it is officially school time, not have-fun-in-the-kitchen-all-day time anymore.  What do you think?