Sick

I have waited for fall for the past couple of months. I couldn't wait for it to arrive, I love this time of year. Now it is finally here, the weather has finally changed, it is no longer triple digits and it even has a nice breeze. Now what do I get in return for this beautiful weather... A COLD! Only one week into the actual fall weather and I am already sick. It's irronic that last week I got a flu shot in hopes of avoiding that this winter and a couple of days later I get a cold. I am taking lots of vitamin C in hopes that I will boost my immune system and knock this cold out fast. I have a very demanding school schedule and cannot afford to miss any of my classes! I slept for over 10 hours last night, have been up for roughly 2 hours, and already feel like I need to go back to sleep! This needs to go away now! I HATE BEING SICK, especially during the school year!!!

What's New

A new semester has started and it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun and a lot of hard work! I am taking 16 units this semester; 3 interior design classes (yay!) 2 of them are lecture classes and 1 is a studio class where I will be learning drafting and how to make models.
I am really excited for that class! Then I am also taking a math class and Ancient Greece as my ancient civilizations course for general ed. I am also taking a creative aerobics course which I hope will help me get into better shape. The first week went well and I hope the semester continues in this manner. There is this club on campus called Pr.Int.S (Professional Interior Design Students) it is the only Interior Design club on campus and my friend and I are going to go to their meeting on Wednesday and join. It sounds like a really good opportunity, the club does a lot of functions with the local design community so it is an excellent way to network and make contacts, they also do things for Habitat for Humanity so I can do some community service which is always good, and its also just a chance to meet some people and hopefully make some more friends!

Summer was nice and relaxing, it was so nice to actually have a break for once and not be working a full time job, probably the last time for many years to come that I could just enjoy my summer and have a good time with friends and family so I definitely took full advantage of it! I started out the summer with an art class that I took both for fun and to improve my drawing skills. I really enjoyed the class and produced so drawings that I am very pleased with.

I also was able to keep in touch with my creative side by baking and decorating lots of cakes, I think I made 8 cakes over the break.




It is always fun to do stuff like that. I am excited my mom and I are going to be taking another cake decorating class in October so I will learn some more skills to improve my work even more. This time the class will be focusing on Fondant and Gumpaste, both of which I do not have a lot of experience so I am certainly looking forward to the different techniques we will be learning! Looks like the cakes I bake this holiday season will be even prettier than last year!!!! I know that is still a few months away, but I am just so excited for the fall season and then all the holidays! It is my favorite time of the year and it is almost here!!!

Yesterday I went to Old Sac with a couple of friends and their baby and we spent most of the day there. It was a lot of fun, they had "Gold Rush Days" going on so there were reinactments and horse drawn wagans and they made it look like it would have when Old Sac was all of Sacramento. We just walked around and looked in the shops and had a good time. It only her second time going there and the first time she said was kinda a dud and they didn't stay too long so this time she actually got to experience it!

Home Stretch

I am in what is the end of the home stretch for the semester. I cannot believe it has gone by this fast! I have already had all of my final exams for my classes, and this week I will be turning in my final two projects. I just cannot believe it is over. Yesterday and today my mom and I went searching for materials I need for my Visual Basics class. We went to so many stores, and had the hardest time finding this one type of paper I needed. My teacher is requiring us to make a final portfolio for the class that is made up of all our projects from the semester. We are allowed to make refinements where ever we want and then have to mount them all to card-stock, over lay each page with a piece of translucent vellum, write a description of each individual project on the vellum, then take all of this and get it bound. I am going to take mine to Kinkos since it is just around the corner from my house. Finally we found the vellum after looking at about 6 stores and eventually driving into Sac to an art supply store. Now I just need to finish mounting all of the projects so that I can take it to Kinkos tomorrow. I am excited to be finishing up the semester but also a little stressed because I only have 2 days left until both my projects have to be done.

I am signed up for my Writing Proficiency Exam and am set to take it bright and early at 8 am on May 30th. I signed up to take the workshop, hopefully that will help me. I consider myself a strong writer when I put the needed time into it, but I have not taken any English classes in 3 years and could use a brush up on the rules of grammar etc. I hope I can pass this on the first try because they have changed the writing requirement to graduate and this will be the last time this particular exam is offered. If I do not pass it i will have to take a writing course now and then take a different exam and then take a writing intensive course after, I do not want to have to do all of that, I will still have to take the writing intensive course, but do not want to waste my precious time taking any extra courses if I can pass this test. Wish me luck!

I am all set for next semester. I am taking 16 units... 3 Interior design classes, an ancient civilizations class... Ancient Greece!, a math class, and an aerobics class. I have accepted my student loan so that will pay for my tuition plus I accepted a little extra so that I can buy the computer programs we use regularly instead of always having to go to the computer lab to do my homework. I also might be purchasing a new computer... we shall see about that one. I am also planning on taking a summer course at the community college down the road from me. I plan to take a drawing class to help me with my basic sketching skills. Well time to get back to the homework.... need to get that done so the fun can begin lol.

Snowballing

Man how time flies... only five weeks left in the semester and things have been going pretty good at school. I have had lots of homework every week but have managed to keep up. Now, unfortunately, I am starting to feel the usual stress of the end of the semester. On top of the regular homework assignments I have 3 classes that require some sort of final project and they are not small projects. It is definitely going to be time consuming and a lot of work and since I don't have any of the programs we use on my computer I anticipate having to spend hours in the computer labs at school trying to finish all the work! not look forward to that too much! On the bright side I talked to both academic and major advisers today to make sure i am on track for the next two semesters. I only have 3 more lower division classes for my major and 5 more general ed classes to take ! i will be able to have all that done by the end of next spring semester, which is perfect because that means that in fall '10 I will be able to start my upper division for interior design (providing I get accepted into the major) and I will be able to focus solely on that and not have to do any more GE!!! I am very excited about this news and it was a huge stress lifted off my shoulders to talk to the counselors and make sure everything would work out right!!!

Tragic

Sunday afternoon, 3 young people lost their lives and 1 is in critical condition. The driver was a girl that I did cheerleading with, we were not close but it is still so sad! One of the people who died left behind 2 young children, that will now have to grow up without their father. The other one that died was only 17. She still had her whole life to live. And the one that is in critical condition (or possibly dead now, I have heard both and even read both in different online newspapers) he is only 16. I cannot imagine what that family is going through. To lose 2 possibly 3 of your children in 1 day would be absolutely horrible! I remember how scared I was when my dad called me and told me Bradley and Jordan had been in an accident and were being med flighted to Modesto. I was at cheerleading practice and just wanted to leave and head down there asap. Then again how i felt when my dad got in his accident and was in ICU for a week. I just cannot imagine how horrible it would be to multiply that by 3 then add to it that they are you children! I hope I never have to go through something like that!

Has it been that long already?

I cannot believe this is the 5th week of the semester already! If time keeps flying like this I will no doubt have my degree in no time! Tomorrow I have my first midterms for two of my classes. Excited? Not so much. My one class should be no problem, a lot of the information in review for me from a computer class I took at Delta. But the other class... that is my interior design class, and the grade is based solely on 3 tests and an essay! And to top that off, the class is a lecture only class so it is a lot of information to take in and a lot of memorization of slides. On the bright side that test is the first one so I can just get it done and out of the way. Well I guess I'd better stop procrastinating and go study!

So....

I am having a difficult time getting myself back into church. After being inactive for the past few years it is very difficult for me to find the "will power" to start going back again. I know I want to, I know I need to, it is just so hard to actually start again. I keep telling myself this week I will go, but the week comes and goes and I still have not went. I hate this, while I was working on Sundays and could not go, I really wanted to go and even talked to my boss to try to figure out ways that might make it possible, but in the end she said no. Now that I have nothing stopping me why is it so hard for me to actually take the step and go?! I think on of the hardest things for me is that I do not really know anyone. I hate going to church ALONE when I know no one, I though once I started institute I would meet some people and feel a little more comfortable starting church, but I still do not know anyone, that is one thing I HATE about being so shy!!! On the up side I am going to institute so that is a start, but it is still not church. I have to say I do love my institute class though. My teacher is so enthusiastic and I love how after we read a section of scriptures he "rewords" it or tells a little story of his own and it really makes everything clear to me. Often times I have a hard time understanding what I am reading in the scriptures so having him tell it in his own words really helps me, and the fact that he is so excited about it makes me excited too! I have never read any of the scriptures all the way through on my own. Most of what I have read was in seminary when I was in high school and my Book of Mormon reader when I was a child, and though I remember some of the stories and lessons I really want to read them for myself. I love to read and I read all these books all the time so I thought to myself this is the next thing I am going to read! That is my goal for myself, I want to finish at least one of the scriptures by the end of the year. I'm not sure which one I should start with though, I think the New Testament because I love the stories in it but I'm not sure. Please any advice about trying to become active again or on where to start with the reading is greatly appreciated.