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...