Shannon

First Day!

Hey!

    What a day! My day was a lot more busy than I had anticipated, but that's okay because it makes things more interesting. I had the usual Dignitas at noon. We had a speaker come in and talk about the "Dramatic Dialogues" that we saw last week. I have mixed feelings about it all. We talked about it last week in class and I think talking about it again this week was sort of over-kill. Apparently it's best to talk about such things often, though, according to the speaker. So that was that.

    I started working in the admissions office today after Dignitas. I basically got trained-in for two hours. There was a lot of information to absorb and data entry is actually more complicated than you would think. But I'm sure it's just one of those things that take getting used to. I think I'm going to like it. :)

    I went for a run with Becca after that. It always feels good to run. :) I'm going home tomorrow! I'm really excited! I think I'll go for a nice long run this weekend. It will be really nice to go home again. I don't know why I'm so anxious to go home because it's only been three weeks. It just feels like a really long time to me.

    I have the usual Friday classes tomorrow (biology and calculus). We have our group quiz tomorrow in biology...unless my professor forgets again. Haha. I'm going to work an hour in admissions again tomorrow at 10:30am. It should be fun to try and do everything on my own. I'm kind of excited for some reason. :) Then I have calculus and afterwards I'll be done for the week! Hooray!

    I need to go and catch up on my biology reading now and then it's time for bed. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Out for now...

Shannon :)

It's All a Blur...

Hi everyone!

    Well, the week is more than halfway done. It's definitely moving faster than last week. Who would have thought a short week (only 4 days of classes) could last so long? I'm just glad this week is moving along at a faster pace. Today sort of flew by. Now that I'm trying to remeber what I did, it's hard to think of everything because it's a blur.

    I had  biology this morning and we were supposed to have a quiz. Dr. Scherer forgot, though, so now we're taking it on Friday. It sounds like it's going to be pretty easy, since we get to work in groups and use our notes. That sounds good to me. :)

     After biology, I met with Joel (my boss, I guess) to talk about working the other half of my blogging job. I will be working in the admissions office performing tasks such as entering data and stuffing envelopes. Fun, huh? I think so! I start tomorrow. I'm going to work two hours on Tuesdays, two on Thursdays, and one on Fridays. I'm excited to make more $$.

    I had a quiz in calculus today. I think it went well. I compared answers after class with Karissa and Kyle (cross country teammates) and we seemed to have the same answers. That's always a good thing.

    I rushed to band after that. We spent most of the rehearsal practicing a piece that I'm not so fond of. It was only our second time playing it, so I suppose it will get better. We have to sing at the beginning and end...except it's more of a chant. It's...ummm...interesting, to say the least. My stand partner, Brittany, and I made it fun though. She's pretty hilarious, so we usually have a good time no matter what. I can't remember what we were laughing at, ourselves probably. We weren't really in tune with each other. So that was fun. :)

    I ate supper with Kalie tonight. When we were walking back to the suite, we saw that Annie had written on her white board that we were having a wing activity tonight. Our wing (hallway) met around 7:00 and went to see "Mr. CSS". It's like a pageant for guys. It's supposed to be funny. I didn't think it was all that great. It was pretty funny, but it was kind of unorganized. The new Mr. CSS is Ian from Scotland. He played the bagpipes for his talent. That was cool.

    Now I'm back in the suite trying to work on my Dignitas assignment. I'm really confused. I have to know all about the Power Law and what it has to do with homelessness and a bunch of other stuff. So I have a lot of figuring out to do. I don't have class until noon tomorrow, so that's good. I might need the time. I better get going, though.

Out for now...

Shannon :)

It's a Pink Day

Hello!

    I hope you all had a great Tuesday. Mine went pretty well. I had biology lab this morning and that was fine. Then I spent some time studying biology and calculus. I have a quiz in each of those classes tomorrow. It was a little hard to get myself to sit down and study today. I think there were just too many distractions. I feel like I know enough in order to do well on those quizzes, though, so hopefully I do.

    I had my first private clarinet lesson this afternoon. It was really fun. :) My band director, Marianne, is a clarinet player and it's really nice to have lessons with someone that knows a lot about my instrument. All of my past band directors were percussionists and my last one was a tuba player. They didn't know a whole lot about clarinets. Haha. :) I've already learned ways to improve my tone today. I think these lessons are going to be great! Marianne asked me if I'm interested in playing at the Lent church service. I said I was, so I'll probably be playing a solo at it. It should be fun. I also joined a clarinet ensemble. I think it will be more of a trio, though. We're going to practice after band rehearsal on Mondays. I'm excited! I've always loved clarinet ensembles! 

    I had supper with Haley and Karissa (two of my cross country teammates) and two of Karissa's friends. It was fun to talk to them again. Haley was celebrating her birthday because it was over Christmas break, so she wasn't here for it. So she planned a little birthday supper in the Greenview. Mary, Pat, and Annie (also teammates) were there but had to leave early to get to a class.

    So I've just been trying to study tonight. It's been somewhat productive. I need to start working on my Dignitas assignment. The work never ends. I better get on it.

    Oh- by the way, just in case you were wondering, the title of this blog is "It's a Pink Day" only because I couldn't think of a better title. I guess I'm glad my font color is pink, since it's my favorite color. My day wasn't pink or anything...I don't know how that would work. Haha. :)

Out for now...

Shannon :)

Just One of Those Days

Hey!

    I hope you all had wonderful weekends. Mine was pretty good but it went way too fast, of course. I didn't do a whole lot of school-related stuff, which is okay, because I really didn't have much to do. I basically relaxed.

    Laura and I went to a movie Saturday night. We saw "Unborn" and it was really freaky. When we checked the movie times online it said it was at 10:00pm. However, an hour or so later, we went back online to check how long the movie was, just out of curiosity, and saw that they moved the 10:00 time to 9:25. By that time it was 9:10. So we hurried as fast as we could to get everything together and ready and we ended up making it with time to spare. :) It was really funny because as we were running to Laura's car from her apartment, she totally slipped on the ice. She's kind of clutsy so I wasn't surprised, but it was just really funny. She was limping for a little while. Haha. :) I didn't do much the rest of the weekend. I cleaned on Sunday and did some homework. It was pretty boring.

    Today was sort of a dumb day for me. I just did a lot of dumb things that I don't usually do. I'm blonde, so I guess I could say I had a few blonde moments. Haha. One of those moments occurred when I took a nap this afternoon. I set my alarm for 2:30 so I could get up in time for calculus. Well...calculus starts at 2:15. Luckily Becca woke me up at 2:00 so I wasn't late or anything. Wow. Then I almost forgot my clarinet so I had to run back and get it.  Then, to top it off,  I almost walked right past our calculus room. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn't really awake. So yeah, it was just one of those "dumb" days.

    I went to a pre-med club meeting tonight. We had Doc C as our guest speaker and he talked about being a pre-med student. It was really interesting to hear it from his perspective because he was on the deciding committee at the UMD medical school. He has a lot of great advice and information. I'm really glad I went.

    I have biology lab at 8:00 tomorrow morning and my first clarinet lesson at 3:00. I'm excited, but a little nervous because I don't know what to expect. It should be great. I better get to bed, though, because I don't want to risk being tired again and having another one of those days.

Out for now...

Shannon :)

It's All Good Now

Hey!

    I'm very excited to inform you that I got all of the signatures today that I needed in order to fix my schedule!!! All of my classes are finally in order and I have fifteen credits! I'm taking private clarinet lessons starting Tuesday and Beginning Spanish IV starting after spring break. So now my schedule is as follows: MWF- biology, calculus, band (only MW), and Spanish (2nd half of semester); T- biology lab and clarinet lesson; R- Dignitas. :)

    I just had Dignitas today. It took the entire hour and forty minutes, unfortunately, but that's okay because we get out pretty early most days. We discussed the dramatic dialogues from Tuesday and did a couple activities to make us get more comfortable talking about ourselves to other people. It was kind of weird because we had to talk about accomplishments or experiences that we're proud of and what we did in order for them to happen. It was awkward, but I suppose that was the whole point of doing it. My Dignitas class is all about researching careers and preparing for them, so this activity was meant to prepare us for interviews and such when you have to talk about yourselft. My professor explained that you have to be humble, but also be able to discuss your accomplishments openly. Interesting, huh? 

    I feel like I didn't get a whole lot done today, however, I got my schedule changes taken care of and that's a huge task by itself. I studied biology for about an hour tonight, so that was good. We have a quiz on Wednesday and a test the week after. I also have a calculus quiz on Wednesday. I'll be doing a lot of studying this weekend.

    I've been so tired today and it took me a while to figure out why. Well, the fire alarms went off at 2:30 this morning. I was in such a deep sleep that when I heard them I thought my alarm clock was going off and it was time to get up. Nope. We had to march outside into the cold and by the time we could go back in I was fully awake. It took me the longest time to fall back asleep and it seemed like once I did,  it really was time to get up. Apparently some guys in the dorms burnt a pizza. Who makes pizza at that time? I think they should learn how to go to bed...or just learn how to cook.

    Yeah, so that's why I'm tired. I'm going to go read and then sleep...hopefully I won't hear any alarms until 8:30. Haha. :)

Out for now...

Shannon :)

Flustered

Hello!

    So it's been a pretty hectic day...I feel quite flustered. I had biology this morning and that was fine. Then I spent way too long trying to hunt down the professor who is teaching the Spanish class I want to get into, but my search failed. She must be one busy lady because she's never in her office. I resorted to e-mailing her and haven't heard back yet. Hopefully she'll write back to me tomorrow morning so I can get her to sign my slip. Then I can have my advisor sign it and I can finally hand it in. I have until Monday to get it in but I hope it doesn't take that long. It would be nice if I got it taken care of before the weekend. Can you tell why I'm flustered?

    After all of that, I finished up my dignitas assignment. It was really long. I had to answer seven questions, but each question had about three or four questions within it. My answers ended up filling three and a half pages (typed and single spaced!). The questions were about a film we watched called "Waging a Living", which is about four individuals who are all accepting some sort of assistance from the government (such as food stamps, medicaid, and the like). I'm guessing most of the people in my class won't have such long answers. I just have some strong opinions on that topic...like some people really shouldn't need it. Well, that's enough about that. :)

    Calculus was interesting. Although it's all review from algebra right now, I really like what we're doing. I just like having a class with numbers because there's usually only one way to get the answers and the material isn't broad and overwhelming like some of my classes...biology. I shouldn't complain, because so far, this semester of biology is going really well. We're not learning a tremendous amount of information at one time and it's moving at a better pace.

    After calculus I had band. I really like the music we're playing this semester, so I think I'll actually want to practice it. I need to practice it, too, because there are some tricky pieces. I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the practice rooms, especially since I will need to practice an hour a day for my private lessons. I better go and read some biology and then go to bed. I get to sleep in tomorrow because dignitas is at noon. It's my only class too!

Out for now...

Shannon :)

It Feels Like a Monday

Hey everybody!

    It feels like a Monday...ick. Tuesdays are supposed to be my easy days. Not this week. I had my biology lab early this morning at 8:00. We did a lab involving population genetics. It would have been fine if our group wouldn't have messed up our tables, because then it took us longer than it should have to fix them. It all ended well, though.

    After that I did some biology homework problems and studied. I took care of some scholarship stuff and figured some stuff out. I had lunch with Laura in the Greenview. The food wasn't so bad today.

    I found out that I need to take two more credits this semester in order to keep one of my state grants, so I searched and searched for a two credit class. I've basically spent my whole day figuring this dilemma out. I decided I'm going to take private clarinet lessons every Tuesday at 3:00pm. I think it will be really fun, especially since it will force me to practice my clarinet more, which I love doing. I also found another class I want to take, Spanish. I took four years of it in high school and I've really missed not having it this year. So I'm hoping I'll be able to drop my introductory biochemistry class (I was told I don't really need to take it) and then I'll add spanish to my course load. It will be great if it all works out. :)

    Becca and I went for a run this afternoon. It felt great to run off some of my stress and frustration with my class/credit situation. Tonight all Dignitas classes are required to go see a presentation in Mitchell called "Dramatic Dialogues". I'm not sure what it's about but I hope it's interesting. I'm so tired... I just want to go to bed.

Out for now...

Shannon :)

A Day With My Sis

Hi everyone!

    It's been a great weekend so far! I'm happy to have a long weekend because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. Laura and I spent last night and today together. We had a lot of fun like always. Becca and Kalie went home this weekend.

    Yesterday was a  pretty good Friday. I had biology, chemistry, and calculus. It was nice not having band after those three classes because it just makes the day way too long. My calculus professor is absolutely hilarious! He's always cracking jokes. He told us that mathematicians don't really die, they just lose some of their functions. Haha! I really like that class so far.

    Laura and I watched Tommy Boy and ate macaroni and cheese last night. That movie is very funny...in a dumb sort of way. :) We just sort of chilled the rest of the night. I finished reading the book The Last Lecture. It was very good. It had a lot of good advice. It was interesting because it was written by a guy with pancreatic cancer, which also made it sad. It was a pretty fast read.

    Today Laura and I went to the sidewalk sales at the mall. It wasn't so great, but she insisted on going. I got a new book from Barnes and Noble. It's called Stiff. Apparently it's a humerous book about what actually happens to our bodies after we die. That sounds gross but I've heard from several people that it's really good. It was kind of funny because when I was at the cash register buying it, the cashier lady said, "Wow, that's a gruesome cover" (it has the feet of a dead body showing with a tag on the big toe that says the title "Stiff"). Anyway, I laughed because, yeah it looks kind of gross, but my laugh came out like an evil cackle. I thought it was funny, but she must have thought I was a little bit on the crazy side.

    So after that we went to see the movie "Marley and Me". It was so good...but so sad! I'm pretty sure almost everyone in the theatre was crying at the end. I've read the book, so I knew what to expect but I couldn't hold back my tears. :( I'm not usually a fan of movies if I've read the book first, but it was really well-made and almost exactly like the book. As a dog-lover myself, I would recommend it to any other dog-lovers or anyone in general.

    Well, I suppose I better get going. Enjoy the weekend!

Out for now...

Shannon :)

    

A Day With My Sis

Hi everyone!

    It's been a great weekend so far! I'm happy to have a long weekend because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. Laura and I spent last night and today together. We had a lot of fun like always. Becca and Kalie went home this weekend.

    Yesterday was a  pretty good Friday. I had biology, chemistry, and calculus. It was nice not having band after those three classes because it just makes the day way too long. My calculus professor is absolutely hilarious! He's always cracking jokes. He told us that mathematicians don't really die, they just lose some of their functions. Haha! I really like that class so far.

    Laura and I watched Tommy Boy and ate macaroni and cheese last night. That movie is very funny...in a dumb sort of way. :) We just sort of chilled the rest of the night. I finished reading the book The Last Lecture. It was very good. It had a lot of good advice. It was interesting because it was written by a guy with pancreatic cancer, which also made it sad. It was a pretty fast read.

    Today Laura and I went to the sidewalk sales at the mall. It wasn't so great, but she insisted on going. I got a new book from Barnes and Noble. It's called Stiff. Apparently it's a humerous book about what actually happens to our bodies after we die. That sounds gross but I've heard from several people that it's really good. It was kind of funny because when I was at the cash register buying it, the cashier lady said, "Wow, that's a gruesome cover" (it has the feet of a dead body showing with a tag on the big toe that says the title "Stiff"). Anyway, I laughed because, yeah it looks kind of gross, but my laugh came out like an evil cackle. I thought it was funny, but she must have thought I was a little bit on the crazy side.

    So after that we went to see the movie "Marley and Me". It was so good...but so sad! I'm pretty sure almost everyone in the theatre was crying at the end. I've read the book, so I knew what to expect but I couldn't hold back my tears. :( I'm not usually a fan of movies if I've read the book first, but it was really well-made and almost exactly like the book. As a dog-lover myself, I would recommend it to any other dog-lovers or anyone in general.

    Well, I suppose I better get going. Enjoy the weekend!

Out for now...

Shannon :)

    

What a Week

Hello!

    Wow, this week has gone pretty fast! It's already Friday tomorrow! :) I hope you've all had a great week. I think I'm going to like this semester. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are definitely jam-packed, but I think I can handle it considering I only have one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I love having those two days to do homework, study, and sleep in... :)

    Yesterday wasn't as bad as Monday. It was busy but I knew what to expect and therefore made adjustments so that things ran more smoothly. I figured out that it works best to put my clarinet in my backpack and bring it to chemistry. Then I can go right to calculus from there and then run to band after that. It's a little chaotic trying to get to band on time, but we usually don't start right away. Besides, it's not so bad having to run to class when it's this cold outside. It keeps you warm.

    I had dignitas at noon today. I think that class is going to be a lot more work this semester than last. I suppose that's okay since I have more time. After dignitas Becca, Kalie, and I went to the Wellness Center again to workout. That was fun...especially since I didn't eat a burrito for lunch. Hahaha! We did Core 9 as well. My abs are a little sore but I love the burn!

    After we got back from working out, I went over to Laura's for supper. Then I came back because I had a cross country meeting at 7:15. It was fun to see all of my teammates again! I missed them. So, that was my day. I'm not really looking forward to another busy day tomorrow, but at least it's the weekend, right? Have a wonderful Friday!

Out for now...

Shannon :)