Whew! Well, the first full week of school is done! So far, everything is going very well. I didn't have to audition at all this year because I'm a returning member of women's choir and I didn't have to audition into the musical program. It is fantastic! I'm taking voice from a lady named Mandi Barrus (no relation to any of the Barrus folk from home. Insert sigh of relief.) who is a member of the adjunct faculty here. At first I was really upset that I wasn't going to be studying with an actual professor but then I remembered that I'm going to be an adjunct faculty member at some point in my life and I'm a little bit more sympathetic. Anyway, this semester I get to have a private hour long lesson (which I'm pretty excited about!) and learn 4 songs for juries. I picked up the recording of my fall jury today from Brother Olson...yeah. You could tell that it was my weakest song, but I guess that if I can pull a 98 jury score on my worst song, then I can live with the recording. Music theory is going pretty well. I LOVE my teacher Bro. Moore. He is so personable and willing to help and things are coming fairly easily. It is so much better that theory with Sis. Hopkins. My Ed 200 teacher is fantastic as well. Joyce Anderson is from Las Vegas (born and raised) and taught in the Vegas school district for about 30 or so years. She has taught Elementary Ed, Special Ed, worked in administration and in home intervention. Her goal is to basically reform education by providing quality educators with a sense of professionalism. I am so excited for her class. It has been interesting to discuss the new "Race to the Top" policy in the US and compared it to a fireside Pres. Eyring spoke at when it was announced that BYUI would become a 4 year school. In this fireside, Pres. Eyring basically said that students from this university will learn how to accomplish many goals and advancements while working on a frugal budget. It really interesting that we are all going out into education, one of the institutions suffering the most from budget cuts, and we have been promised that we will work well on restricted budgets.

Anyway, that enough of school. Let me introduce all of my roommates. You already know Kendra who was my roommate last fall. Yes, she is living with me again and causing all of the constant giggle fits and spontaneous smiles that she did last semester and more. Karina might be new to some of you. She was my FHE sister last semester. She's from Cypress, CA, a second semester freshman, and is studying architecture. She is one of the funniest people I have ever met and has fantastic fashion sense. Basically, she's one of my best friends. Amanda is new. She is 21 and a transfer from BYU-Hawaii. She is beautiful, blond, tan, and one of the sweetest people ever. She is finishing up her associates here and then transferring back to Hawaii. She originally comes from a little town in Colorado between Colorado Springs and Denver. Kelley is another roommate from Billings, Montana. She knows Jon and Aaron Light as well as Kenny Aycock who were our FHE brothers last fall as well. Kelley is really nice but a little bit too in to guys. Not nearly as into guys as Megan is though. Megan is from PA, a vocal performance major, and a fantastic singer. She is in like 3 of my classes but I must brag, I am much better at written theory than she is. HAHA! Megan is really sweet but also a little bit boy crazy. Michelle is one of my favorite roommates. She from Virginia but moved to Centerville Utah with her family about 2 years ago. Michelle is extremely caring and very compassionate. She is a Special Ed major like Kendra but used to be a choral ed major. She will do well with Special Education. Let's see, who am I forgetting...oh, Atsuko is from Japan. She's 28ish and studying IT. She is so funny especially with American culture. It is really funny to listen to her complain about other Asian countries (like Korea or China) or about how wimpy Japanese boys are. Its great! And finally, we come to the Laurens. Lauren F. is from Arizona, part Native American, and very social. She is so much fun to talk to. I think that she is going into social work. I don't know where Lauren M is from but she is so awesome. She isn't LDS but is one of the sweetest people I have ever known. Also, she has a really amazing tattoo of an elephant on her ankle. And that pretty much covers all of my roommates.

Last night we had a movie night as an apt. and invited a few friends only those few friends turned into about 50 people. Yep. We had over 50 people in out house and it was really hard to get some of them to leave. It was so much fun though. I had a chance to get to know a bunch of people from the ward as well as get to know the girls from downstairs pretty well. We all watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs which, though strange, was a lot of fun to watch with a bunch of people. We had such a mess afterwards though. I pretty much spent and hour doing dishes today. Yep. Joe came over to help me clean the kitchen though, which I greatly appreciated.

Well, my roommates have been introduced to both An Education and The Brothers Bloom. I am extremely proud of their new found knowledge! I'm was really surprised by how much they liked the movies as well. Really, it was fantastic. I'm still working to convert Kendra to the ways of Doctor Who but...well, the first episode she saw was the first Martha episode (the one where the hospital was sent up to the moon) and it is definitely not the best introduction for potential admirers. I only have Season 1 with me right now so I need to decide whether to show her the Christopher Eccleston Doctor or David Tennant. I'm leaning towards either The Unquiet Dead, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances or The Girl in the Fireplace. Speaking of Doctor Who, I cannot wait for the new episode tonight! I am terrified of yet in love with the Weeping Angels. Really, they are so scary! And I can't wait to see what happens to Amy. I'm thinking that Amy will have to penetrate the angel's mind since it entered her's in in The Girl in the Fireplace a comment is made that "a door once opened can be stepped through in either direction." (all in reference to the mind) so I think that Amy will have to step through that door to save the Doctor, River Song (who I personally believe is in league with The Master; or was), and everyone else who is with them.

Well, Jordan told me about his mission call to Lima, Peru. I am so excited for him! I really can see him serving down there and I told him that he has to send me pictures of the height difference between him and the people he serves. It is still so weird to see everyone leaving but I realized that in about 4 months Josh Wood and Brant Cook will have been out for a year. Time goes by so quickly. I haven't had a chance to find the Rexburg Post Office so I haven't sent a letter to Josh for quite some time. Hopefully this Saturday I'll be able to go find it.

Well, I don't know how much more to write without boring you so I'll stop now. I think that the plans for tonight are to go to The Box and tomorrow we're going to go to IF. I really want to spend some time cleaning the floors in here though. Really, if anyone has a good remedy for dirty wood floors, please let us know. I've never had hard wood flooring so I don't know what I need to do to get it completely clean. In the past, they've allowed girls to clean it with just water and I don't think that it pulled up all of the grease, etc. that may have gotten on the floor. I found a bottle of Pine Sol but it isn't recommended for wood flooring. I guess that I'll have to spend some time on the Internet tonight to figure out just what exactly to use or how to clean it. I also think that we're going to invest in a swifter mop for the house so that the floors get deep cleaned more often. Well, I really must go now. I think that I've spent enough time changing my template and typing this up than I should. Sorry about any malfunctions or ugly colors with the template. I don't have time to go through it an recolor it to my personal preference. :)

I have finally entered the land of Rexburg...again. I'm living at 60 West 2nd South in a cute little house called Abbington. I've taken pictures but left the cable in one of my totes which is on the top shelf of my closet which I cannot reach without assistance. So! You'll get pictures later. The move went well. A lot of people are moving today and on Monday so there wasn't really a rush or anything like that. A girl named Michelle just moved in about 5 minutes ago (I know, because Kendra and me helped her carry in all of her stuff) and is rooming with Atsuko (who is from Japan. pronounced Uh-ts-ko) in the back bedroom. Atsuko's English is REALLY good. She did two years at the LDS Business College and I think she did a year at BYU-Provo before transferring up here. She's 25 (I think) and a fairly recent convert. She was baptized about 5 years ago. Karina is moving in tonight around 7 (she has to drive up from California) and those are all of the roommates that I know so far. I'm guessing that the girls who live downstairs will be moving in on Monday because all of their stuff is here, just no girls.

Right now Kendra is registering for classes. Poor child. She had her schedule all worked out but she keeps changing it and...well a lot of classes are full right now. I mean, we start school on Tuesday. Choir auditions are also on Monday and Tuesday and I'm sort of nervous. I need to find some time today to go over to the Snow building and get some practice time in. I was looking at all of the Course Requirements (basically a syllabus) for my classes and my piano class currently requires 5 hours of practice a week for an A. I really dislike how some of the classes operate with the credit requirements. Because of the credit caps here a lot of classes have to limit the class time you have or how often you come to class so the teachers make that up by making you get together in groups outside of class. My science, music theory, and piano class all require this. Piano and voice also requires practice time outside of class. (5 hours a weeks for piano and 90 minutes per/day/6 days a week for voice.) I'm starting to wonder if I am going to have time for a job! Other than those few issues, everything is going well. I finished my final essay for institute last night and am about a third of the way done with the paper that I have to write for them. I don't think that I'll get it finished today, but hopefully tomorrow afternoon I will.

This next part is for Mom specifically. I don't want to hear any complaints about having sacrament meeting last because my current ward has to do that so that everyone can fit into the building we meet in. Yep. So Relief Society will be at 9 AM and Sacrament starts around 10:30 or 11. Its sort of different because the 1st and 2nd councilors of the bishopric are college kids, not older men who are called in. I've never been in a single's ward like that. I'm kind of excited for church tomorrow. Its always fun to start in a new ward and meet new people. Kendra and I met a few of the guys in our ward last night at a party. They were alright. There are a few apartments from Snow View (a female housing complex) and then Sun Rise (the guys apartments) are in our ward as well as Abbington East and a few girls from the house next door. There's already a better mix than the last ward. Kensington had about 2 girl apartments for every 1 of the guys. According to Stacy, our manager, this ward has much better balance.

I love being in an actual house! It isn't perfect by any means, but it is adorable and comfy. It makes a lot of old house sounds...the floor by our bed creaks a lot when you walk around and the front door sticks a bit...well a lot. That prevents crazy people from breaking in though, right? It is just such a nice feeling right now to be sitting at a table in the front room and having lots of space. And Kendra just informed me that she has succeeded in the task of making final revisions to her schedule. She has 7:45 classes though and last semester most of her's started around 10...so...not to be pessimistic, but I'm betting she changes the schedule again. I love Kendra! I really do. I think that I'm going to become really good friends with Michelle as well. Michelle and Kendra found out that they had Hist/Phil of Ed together last year and were the same group for one of their projects. Michelle in a Special Ed major like Kendra and she used to be a Music Ed major. So pretty much we have a lot in common already. I'm excited.

Well, I'm going to stop typing right now and go on a walk with Kendra. There is this really creepy poster on the wall that stares right at the table we are typing at and...yeah, we're going to leave. I have a picture of the poster and I'll post it as soon as I find my chord.