Oops!

Wow! Im sorry it's been so long since my last post! I can't believe how crazy its been...

Well, as promised, I will tell you all about Halloween:

We went to state street, and it was incredible!! (no pun intended... I was dressed as an incredible... ) There were sooooo many people out! There were tons of different crazy and cool costumes... tetris blocks that ran around and then pieced themselves together, green army men (the kind little kids have), a giant skeleton, Frieda Kahlo... it was amazing!! I think my friends and I are going to have to get more creatice next year and do a cool group costume... we're thinking StarWars... There were also a bunch of cool concerts on State street that we went to, they were awesome! Actually, that was the first time I'd ever been to a concert... and it was crazy!! I can't believe how squished together people were... wow! But it was really fun! There were cops everywhere and drunk people everywhere, but still, it was great fun and really exciting!!

Hmmm.... so the next weekend Patrick came to visit, which was a lot of fun... and then last weekend was Parents Weekend, so my parents came here. That was a lot of fun too! We toured the state capitol, and saw Monona Terrace (which is on the Lake on the other side of Madison...it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright -neat!), went to Target, and had a couple of delicious dinners together! Sooo much better than dining hall food...

Lets see... I spent this weekend hanging out in the dorm, we had some movie nights and got a lot of studying done...

This Morning!!! This morning I went on a trip through my residence hall to the Deer Park Buddhist Center... it was SO cool!!!! You can see the temple as you're driving up towards it, its incredible! It looks like the ones you would find in Tibet (at least thats what they told us, and I believe them, it looked pretty real to me)We got there and got a mini tour of the grounds, and got to see a little shrine. The Dalai llama actually came to the Temple and performed the ceremony designating the area as sacred ground... Sooooo cool!! Going inside was like stepping into a movie. You had to take off your shoes and there were huge, absolutely gorgeous statues in the front, with paintings and cloth art around the walls. We sat on cushions on the floor, and we got to participate in the "Teachings". They did all sorts of chants that were all in Tibetan (luckily, we had translations)... it was SOooooooo neat!!!

Again, I apologize for taking so long to update you all! But I'm coming home today, via bus, and I will most likely see you in person over this weekend! Yay! I am so excited to come home and see everyone... But for those of you I don't see....
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Turkey Day!
Martha

Just another week

Wow, I can't believe its the end of another week!
I had my last midterm yesterday!! Yay! I'm so happy I'm done with those... at least for awhile... I took the test in my English class, and I think I did pretty well on it... lets hope so! When we get a few hours of sunshine, the campus is looking absolutely beautiful! It really gets you into the fall spirit... all you need is some apple cider and a pair of slippers and you're set! Its great!

Halloween officially began today. Im probably not going to do anything crazy tonight, but tomorow night I am going to the infamous Freakfest on State street. Im really excited for it because I have absolutely no idea what to expect! I'm going to be reusing my Incredibles costume this year, but Im excited about it anyways... Oooh, I did learn one thing a few days ago. I guess most people get two costumes for Halloween here, one for Friday and one for Saturday....oops! Oh well, something tells me that I'll be able to get by with just one costume...and I will be sure to post some pictures and report on the weekends festivities...

Anyways... what else is going on around here? Ooh! Barack Obama is coming here next week to speak about education!!! They haven't really givenout a lot of information about when and where, so I have no idea if I would even be able to get tickets... but if I could.... that would be so cool!!!! Oh! They have finished demolishing the building outside my dorm window!! Yay! Im not sure how much more work they're going to have to do to create the "green space" that's supposed to go in there, but hopefully not alot! Im just excited to have some peace and quiet in the mornings...

Well, that's all for now! I will most definitely fill you in on the legendary Madison Halloween weekend... Wish me luck with... well... with whatever this weekend brings...hopefully only good things... Im sure it will be great, and I know that it will make for some interesting stories!

Happy Halloween Everyone!!

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain...
I've never been to Seattle, but I bet this is what it's like. We seem to be stuck in a perpetual rain cloud; there is constant precipitation falling from the sky in some way shape or form... Today its really misty... just wet enough to be a hassle... It's terribly yucky... But, when we have nice days... ther're amazing!!! Campus is sooooo beautiful in the fall, I'm thinking that I'll have to take some pictures.... There is still lots of good news to report!

Last weekend, I went home. It was soooooo nice to be back in the 612... I got to see my family, and friends.... It was great!!! I wish I could have gone to the Saurkraut bagging party, but I had to take the greyhound back home.... I hear its delicious though, and I can't wait to try some!! I have a feeling that the scent of saurkraut eminating from my dorm room will make me very popular indeed...
I am nearly done with all my midterms! Hooray! All I have left is an English test next week, and then I'm home free!! I did very well on my anthropology midterm, but I'm still waiting to find out about Spanish and that massive Global Cultures paper... Keep your fingers crossed!

Last night I went to a screening of the documentery "For the Bible Tells Me So". It was about homosexuality and religion, and it followed these different Christian families (including the Gepharts) as their kids came out, and then there was a discussion afterwards... It was reeeeeeally interesting to learn about!!
Tonight we are celebrating all of the September and October birthdays on our floor, and then we are having a floor pumpkin carving party! Im super excited about this.... but it wont be the same without you Gary!! I don't really have any big weekend plans, except catching up on some studying and reading in anthropology... Oh, and cleaning my room! Its crazy how much junk I have lying around my half... I swear its morphing into its own organism and multiplying...

Thats all for now! I hope you all had a great week!

Hooray!

So these last few days have been wild!!! Holy Cow!

Badgers beat Minnesota! Woohoo!!! (sorry Patsy, Don and Nancy...)
Then the Twins win on Sunday....
Then the Vikings beat the Packers on Tuesday! (sorry Chris...)
And finally, something we can all celebrate... the Twins win tonight!!!!!! YES!!!!! It was soooooo exciting to see tonights game especially... I was too afraid to watch the Vikings/Packers game because I would be in the minority and there was a lot of emotion in that game... But I did watch tonights game. Oh. My. Gosh. I wish I could have measured my blood pressure... I was so nervous!!! Wow. Just thinking about it makes me tense again.... But we won!! Yay!

I am just so excited about everything right now. Badgers won. Vikings won. Twins won. My exams will be done on Thursday.... Everything is going great... knock on wood... : )

Have a great week everyone!

Busy Busy Busy!

Oh Wow! There has been so much going on since my last blog post....

Last weekend (the weekend 0f the 19th) my lovely boyfriend Patrick came down from the University of St. Thomas to visit me. It was a ton of fun, and it was cool to pretend like I was a total pro at navigating State Street.....lets see.... what else happened?
I had my first ever college test last Friday, in Spanish.... Yikes!!! But I am happy to report that I received an 83, so a B! Yay! I am really excited about that....

Ooh! Saturday: HUGE day! Yes. I am proud to say that I went to my first ever Badger football game. It was great!! I cannot believe how many people there were, it was just a sea of red....We were playing Michigan State, which I learned is kind of our rival... and I am happy to say... we won!! But I will also say, we aren't very sportsman-like.... There were organized swearing cheers (which was pretty impressive, I must admit...), and the few Michigan State fans who were there were basically getting harassed....I felt so bad for them! But I guess that was the risk they took wearing green to Camp Randall.... other than that though, it was GREAT!!!! There is so much energy, and everyone is pumped for the game.... Haha, there were a few fraternities on the road that goes to the stadium... So after the game they were partying.... but it was not your basic party. They had tubes going from the balcony that you could drink beer out of.... it was wild!!! And the greatest part was that there was this old guy who participated in this fascinating activity.... it was shocking!

I think my favorite part of the game was the "5th Quarter". After the game, the band comes out and plays all sorts of different songs, and you get to do the cheers, and there are a ton of people who stay.... it was soooo much fun!! I still dont know all of the cheers and songs, but I am happy to report that I am much better than I was....

Sunday was very exciting also! I was payed a visit by my Cousin Byrd (Kathy Berdan for those of you who dont know her). She was visiting with friends in Madison and we got to go out to a delicious breakfast together! It was a lot of fun!! Yay! On Tuesday, I was also visited by my delightful cousin, Alison. We went out to dinner at a cool restaurant right by the state capital building.... That was also sooo much fun!! Man, I must say, I really lucked out these past couple of weeks....

So this week and next week are filled with Midterms for most people. Until now, I was under the impression that midterms were taken during the middle of the term. Well, don't be deceived by the name like I was, cause they aren't! I have learned the new college definiton:

midterm - noun, any large college test that takes place during the semester and is not considered to be a "final exam".

Lucky for me, I only have one midterm in Anthropology, and thats not until next Thursday... But I do also have a take home exam in Global Cultures. We have to write a paper answering a whole bunch of questions... its supposed to be approximately 8 pages. 8. E I G H T. Holy Cow! Thats long!! But I learned today that it doesn't actually have to be like a paper-paper, we are supposed to "throw everything our highschool English teachers told us out the window" and just answer the questions. This is really great news, but I can't help feeling like those AP and honors English classes were for nothing... oh well, Im sure they'll still come in handy sometime!

I think that's all for now, hopefully it won't be so long before my next post... I hope everyone had a great week! Tomorrow's Friday! Yay!!

***Shout out to my mom and dad in France: send me a postcard! :)

Just Another Update

This past weekend was by far my most eventful one yet. On friday night, I went to dinner with some other people on my floor. After dessert on State Street, we headed back to the dorm. Then a smaller group of us went out to go stargazing...on top of the agriculture building. It was so cool! There is this weird stairase behind the building that is used for who knows what, and at the top of it there is a ladder that you can climb up to get on the roof! I felt like such a rule breaker going up there... The sad thing was that it was kind of cloudy so we didn't really see the stars anyways. But that's ok! It was still really fun...

After that we went back to the dorm again. And somehow, people got it in their heads that we should all go jump in the lake. At 10:30 at night. For those of you who don't know this about me, I am a total wuss when it comes to getting in cold water, it takes me at least ten minutes just to get in a pool. But, I was feeling very college-y and spontaneous by this time of night, so I decided to go for it. And naturally, as everyone else ran and jumped off the dock, I chickened out. So sad. But the house fellow from my dorm wouldn't take no for an answer, and eventually I ended up jumping in.

I saw my life flash before my eyes. It was soooooo cold, but luckily it actually didn't take that long to get used to. It was cool (no pun intended) because if you swam out just a little ways, and you could the capital building all lit up, which made everything totally worth it. However, the problem with swimming out a little ways is that you are then required to swim back to the dock. This proved to be much harder than anticipated because I am fairly certain that my muscles were freezing up and I was on the way to losing all feeling in my legs... Where are all those Fairfax pool lifegaurds when you need them? Even though I was only in the water for like 15 minutes, it was a really cool experience and totally worth the freezing cold-oh my gosh I might have hypothermia sensation...

My delightful parents were kind enough to come to Madison for the day on Saturday. They took me out to lunch (off campus!) and, of course, we made a trip to Target. I realized that this little outing was the first time I had been in a car since I'd moved into the dorm...crazy! But anyways, we had a lot of fun, and it was nice to see them before they abandon me to go on their European adventure...

On Monday, Marsha and I welcomed two new room mates into our humble dorm room. I bought a rabbits foot fern and an African violet at the plant sale on campus. I'm still looking for names though, so that we can be Marsha, Martha, Marvel Ann (like from The Trouble With Angels!) and...? Any ideas?

Overall, this week has been pretty standard. Even my Thursday classes weren't that bad...Except for English... I mean who really cares that much about Ezra Pound? (who until recently, I thought was a girl. He was definitely a man. A man named Ezra. Poor guy...)

So that's about it for now, I hope everyone is having a great week! And if you're not, don't worry, it's almost over! :)

Martha

Another week over...

TGIF
My goodness, it has been one heck of a week! And it was only four days! Ah! What on earth am I going to do when we actually have a five day week??? I shudder to think about it...

Anyways, it was a very successful week here at Madison (which I recently heard that some people refer to as "U Dub"...which is different... but whatever floats your boat I guess...). So I had my first Global Cultures lecture on Wednesday, and it was really interesting! The professor (who is an adorable old man who can actually speak surprisingly fast) talked about our concept of ownership,and how it developed and how it causes a lot of conflict in the world (his example was the Suez Canal...) It was really interesting! I think it was definitely my favorite class of the week.

Wednesday evening proved to be extremely eventful. I started the evening with an information session about a bible study group on campus (which I wasn't really that interested because I only ended up there by giving my email address to the church on campus...), but it actually seemed like the meetings could be really interesting. So I think I'll go to the first session to see what it's like...

From there, I went to the Study Abroad Fair that was going on at the student union. There were so many cool places to go! It really makes me excited to study abroad, but I still have no idea where... I am definitely open to suggestions!

Then from there I went to the Student Organizations Fair. It. Was. HUGE. I cannot possibly describe how large it was.... It was at the Kohl Center, which is where the basketball team plays (I think it's roughly the size of the Target Center... but I'm not entirely sure...). But all around the outside ring (where the concession stands are) there were tables set up for different student organizations...and this was on two different levels!!!! They even gave out maps so you would know where the different clubs were located. It was sooooo crazy, and I must admit, a little bit overwhelming...
AND I found out later that there were only (only??) 300 clubs that were at that fair. There are actually 700 different clubs on campus. 700. 700?? What? I didn't even see half of them!!?? I am still in shock. But the fair was definitely successful, and I came home with fliers up the wazoo... I am probably most excited to (hopefully) join the Quidditch club on campus. I have this vision of me in a stadium full of people shouting "Kelash is our King"...

Thursday was just long and exhausting because I have a lot of classes then, but today I was finished by noon! Woohoo! Now I am off to take a free class at the (weird name alert!) "Natatorium" (I think its like a YMCA type thing for students). So yeah! I'm going to go learn some yoga! Uncle Mike will be so proud...

I hope you had a great week, and an even better weekend! : )

Martha

One week down...how many more to go?

It's Friday!!! Yay!





So, my classes started on wednesday, and there has been a change in the schedule. It turns out that philosophy is just not for me... but that's ok! I have now switched into "Introduction to Global Cultures". I missed the first lecture on Wednesday, but I went to the discussion class yesterday and I think it will be a really interesting class! Yay!





As far as I can tell, having only 3 days of class, I think that English (aka Intro to Modern American Literature) will be my hardest class. There is SOOOO much reading, it's ridiculous!! But all my classes seem like they will be really interesting, which is good news... And I just bought my 2 Spanish books for a nonrefundable 128 dollars, so that class had better be interesting.





Continuing my mother's tradition, here is a picture of me on my first day of class... Awwwww! :)

So I think overall, my first week of school went pretty well. Yay! However, I have found that whenever I leave for class, I seem to come home with more homework... It's a really bizarre thing, but I'm hoping it's just a phase...

Yesterday they had a little interest group fair thing for my dorm. I signed up for 4 "B.I.G.s" (Bradley Interest Groups), but I'm not sure that I'll be able to stay in all of them... I'm currently signed up for:

Knitting Club, Movie Nights, Jane Austen Book club (I doubt that I'll have time to read more books on top of all my English readings, but I'm currently reading Sense and Sensibility, so it seemed appropriate) and E.P.I.C. ...

Extreme Poptart Interest Club... which is funny, because I don't even really like poptarts... mom and dad never bought them for us... but I hear you get free poptarts... and who knows? Maybe it'll a ignite a poptart-loving flame in me that I never knew I had...

That's all for now! Tonight I'm going to a screening of "Meet Me In St. Louis". Who knew that the cinema group on campus had such good taste? I know that my presence at this event will make my father proud...

Intro to Madison Life

Hello all!
So I have decided to create this blog in an effort to keep all of you friends and family updated without having to send you guys all the same thing a bunch of different times. I've never done this kind of thing before, so bear with me as I try to get the hang of it...

We moved in on the 27th, and in general, that went pretty smooth. The parents left in the afternoon, :( , and took their wallets with them...just kidding mom and dad! ; ) My room mate's name is Marsha. Yes. Martha and Marsha. Somebody has a sense of humor over in housing... But anyways, Masha is from Indonesia, so its quite a big change for her. She is very nice, and I think we will get along great.

I have met alot of the other people on my floor, and a bunch of people from the neighboring dorm too. Everyone is very friendly. And speaking of dorms, mine is a little bit unusual. I'm in the Bradley Learning Community. Part of this program means that there are "peer mentors" who are sophmores that lived here last year. They help to run the round table discussion class that is a part of the program. So, that being said, I think the best way to describe this living situation is: summer camp.
It's crazy! The peer mentors are just like counselors, we play games and do activities, we even have matching t-shirts. Yes, it is camp. It's a lot of fun, but I'm excited for classes to start so that I can get into a routine again.

The classes I'm taking are:
Spanish (I tested into 4th semester Spanish, we'll have to wait and see how that goes...yikes!)
Philosophy
General Anthropology
American Literature since 1900 (Ugh, I had to buy 9 books for this class, 9!!)
Roundtable Discussion (the one that's a part of my dorm)

Classes start on Wednesday... keep your fingers crossed for me!

My mailing address is:

Martha Kelash
326 Elsom Bradley
1900 Willow Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1176

I think that's all for now...
I'll keep you posted! Have a great day!

Martha