If you really wanted to know...

College is (so far) amazing! Granted I haven’t really had a ton of homework yet, and there have only been a week of classes, but I am having a blast!

To be honest, I dreaded college a lot more than I looked forward to it. I like to think of myself as someone who needs and likes change. However, when it actually comes time to do something completely different and be in a whole new setting, I freak out.  It isn’t so much that I am afraid of doing something new, but that everything is in unknown territory. I hate not knowing things, especially something huge: my future. Will I make friends? Will the classes be hard? Am I  going to make a fool of myself? Such silly questions I worry about. But my God is greater than all of that! He isn’t going to let me down...He hasn't yet and I don’t need to worry at all. That is what I am learning right now. I about made myself sick before coming here and I am sure my family was sick of my irritable attitude-I was so stressed! But in one week of being here I feel like this is exactly where I am supposed to be. I love my roommate, Madison; I love the people in my unit, they are so awesome and friendly and I am excited to be with them this year; and I love the professors here, they have so far been super friendly and helpful.

It's so great going to class and having the professor pray every single time. I love chapel also. I am pretty sure I get goosebumps every time we sing :)

So there you have it, if you really wanted to know how I was really feeling about college, you now know :)

Matthew 6:34

Unit 10/12 all the way! (I am in 12 :) and this is our door to get in our side of the unit)

This past week has felt a lot like camp. Everyone says that is understandable and that is just how it is at the beginning of freshman year. We have been doing SO much, and are constantly busy. It is just now beginning to go a tad bit slower. The longest amount of time in the past week (besides at night when I was sleeping) that I had time to do nothing was like three hours. Other than that, I was always going somewhere and doing activities with people. I will give you a day-to-day summary of what I have done this last week but I probably won't do that all year :) When I have classes and homework every day my life will get a lot less interesting.

Sunday, August 21st, 2011

We had our only Sunday chapel of the year today. The rest of the Sundays during the year our college wants us to get connected to other churches in the area, which is a pretty neat idea. Later in the afternoon we had our small group game show in the chapel. I think there were like 80 groups of about 12 of us. Basically, a question would come on the big screens and then in our group someone had a remote control thing and we pushed what we thought the right answer was. At the end, there were four of the top teams that had to send up one person on stage to do a legit game show type thing. Brianna (who is in my unit and my small group) went up there because we were a top team, and she ALMOST won! She was thisclose. It was pretty fun!

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

Monday morning (bright and early) the new students went to different places to meet with their academic advisors and learn more about their department. I have my advisor for my composition class too and he is pretty awesome. After that I had chapel, another freshman meeting, and then I ate lunch with a few people in my small group. In the afternoon, our unit hung out with our brother unit and we played some outdoor games, and then had dinner and went to evening chapel together. There is a fall Bible conference that was Monday-Wednesday so we had chapel in the morning and at night. Normally chapel is only every week day at 10.

Later that night we had a unit meeting with our RA where we went over some rules and talked about some things we have planned in the coming months. After that some of us went outside to sit on blankets to eat and talk :) We found this stray cat that we named Cow. (Long story short: his name is apparently Curtis and he is known as the Johnson cat because that is the dorm he hangs around). We fed him some food, and just had a fun time laughing and talking together and talking randomly to people that walked by :)

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Today was our last day before classes started. I had chapel, another freshman meeting, and lunch. The afternoon consisted of me hanging out with my small group again and doing a photo scavenger hunt. Here is one picture that we had to do:

My 'overwhelmed' face makes me look silly...oh well.

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

Today I started college for real. It was different..I forgot how bored I sometimes get when I listen to teachers talk. That is something I need to work on. I am paying for these classes now, I better pay attention! I had to do some rescheduling but in the end it all worked out :) My three MWF (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) classes I have friends in which was exciting. By friends I mean people I already knew before. There is a girl in my unit who has the same major as me and we have two classes together, and I have science with Madison. I have three classes on Tuesday, and two on Thursday. Those are the days I get to take tennis as a PE elective! That made me so happy. Except I don't know anyone in that class and they are all older..hopefully I will make friends! I need to find someone to play tennis with. I haven't played in one week and that makes me sad :(

Later today I had chapel and then went out for pizza with some people from my small group!

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

So at 3:00 in the morning we had a thunderstorm here. Now, I love thunderstorms when I am sleeping, but I heard the biggest clap of thunder I have ever heard and I was instantly awake. Madison was too. I am pretty sure the entire campus woke up at that one. We were both like 'whoa' haha. THEN not even 15 minutes later the fire alarm in only our unit (10/12) went off. In the middle of a thunderstorm...so it was raining outside. We got out of bed and opened our door and so did everyone else. We weren't really sure what to do. We just kind of assumed it wasn't a legit fire (which it wasn't of course). Anyways, we went outside on the balcony so we didn't get wet at all but it was still kind of ridiculous. The fire alarm was leaking water so we think that is why it was going off. Our RA took the batteries out and we all went back to bed!

After our little episode during the night, I had my two classes. We didn't actually play tennis today, we just went over the syllabus and then we will be starting next week. I only have it for six weeks. Madison, McKinley, and I watched a movie, I did some homework, and then we had an all-dorm meeting.

Friday, August 26th, 2011

We had an involvement fair tonight where there were a ton of organizations and churches that had booths for us to check out. After that I went with some girls from my unit to someone's house for a housewarming party type thing. And then we came back and went to watch a showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 outside on a blow-up screen which was really fun!

Saturday, August 27th, 2011

Today I got to sleep in! It was quite awesome. Some girls from my unit and I went shopping at Goodwill and Walmart for nerd clothes! I got me some suspenders :) We had a Bro/Sis volleyball tournament in the afternoon where we competed against other Bro/Sis teams and we had to dress up. We won 1 of 3 games. Volleyball just isn't my thing. Except it was a massive ball, and it was pretty light...it wasn't normal volleyball thankfully. We had dinner, and later Madison and I went with 2 other girls from our unit to her sister's dorm where we watched a movie :) It was a fun day (even if we didn't do very well at volleyball)!

My wonderful unit :)



Madison and her twin haha

McKinley, Me, and Madison. The M's :)

The whole group!

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

Today is a very chill day. I went to church with a couple of people, came back and did laundry, and updated this. I plan on doing homework too and possibly playing tennis! Maybe I will even take a nap :)

A New Journey: College!

I have decided to start a blog. Obviously, or you wouldn't be reading this! I have wanted to for awhile, but, being the procrastinator that I am, have put it off until now. I think starting a blog now is a good time since I am also starting this new phase of my life. I don't really have a specific purpose for this blog...it will for sure be helpful for family and friends because they can see what I am doing in college, and I will probably make posts about other random thoughts. I just want to write! :)



Thursday, August 18th, 2011.

This is a panoramic view of my bedroom at home. I guess it doesn't really look empty, but to me that is very empty. My closet is pretty bare too.
 

My college adventure started this morning at 5 a.m. Well, technically I loaded most of my stuff into the trailer that my roommate's family got on Wednesday. Anyways, my small car was packed with our overnight bags, food, and four people who never go on road trips. I don't mind being in a car that long, especially if I get to drive. My mom on the other hand isn't too fond of driving to far places to say the least. I thought everyone did pretty well.

I got to view the sunrise, which I enjoyed. I tried sleeping too, but that didn't work very well.


My roommate, Madison, and I were texting back and forth to see where each other was. By chance we happened to pull into the same gas station somewhere in Wisconsin. I got out of the car to stretch and then hear someone yelling "Heyyyy!" I look over and there they were with their windows rolled down and waving! It was so crazy. I took a picture.

We got to our hotel in Ohio, ate dinner there, went swimming, and went to bed exhausted at midnight Ohio time.




Friday, August 19th, 2011.

We got to Cedarville at 9:30ish in the morning and did a lot of registering stuff. We got our keys, student ID's, ate lunch in the cafeteria, unloaded and decorated our room. The president of our school actually helped us bring our stuff from our trailer up to our room! I thought he looked familiar, but (silly me/us) didn't even realize that he was our president until later. 

 Our room before.

 Our room after!

 Closet view

 I am on the top bunk :)

 My desk is the left one..I have a lot of pictures!

For dinner I ate with some people in my unit. We had this thing with our younger siblings after that and Hunter and I decorated a cork board for my room :) Our families went home after that because we had the welcome party at 9. There were inflatable things, Just Dance, Rockband, and even a mechanical bull! That was entertaining. No, I didn't participate in anything. It's okay though because I found someone else to watch people with and be entertained. When we got back to our dorm I played uno with my roommate and another girl from our unit. I skyped my friend Kelly (who is in MN) and talked to my friend Amber (also in MN) and then went to bed.


Saturday, August 20th, 2011.

Our families came and got Madison and I in the morning and brought us to good ole Walmart to pick up some food and other things we needed. We came back and I had my last meal with my family. Our president spoke to the incoming freshman and their parents and after that, it was time to say goodbye to my family. It was sad, of course, and my mom cried. I almost did, and I think my dad almost did too. Hunter will cry himself to sleep for the next couple of nights, I am sure ;)

Madison and I had dinner with some people from our unit again and then it was time to take the freshman class photo. There are about 850 of us I believe. We then met with our small groups and had different seminar things with them from 6-10. Luckily, I knew one person in my small group already because she is from my unit so I wasn't completely alone!

 I also skyped Kelly and Will, talked to Amber, and went to bed. Skype is a great invention.


I will have to write more later, I have to go be social now and not sit in my room on my computer :D