First Week at UGA: TGI FRIDAY

This picture is very appropriate of how I felt as I left my last class on Friday afternoon. It was not a bad feeling, more like an overwhelming feeling, and not in a bad way. I love my classes and am looking forward to continuing them, but the weekend is ALWAYS nice.

The only classes I had Friday were Math from 12:20-1:10pm and English from 3:35-4:25PM (the times are so weird, and since high school I'm still trying to figure out why). I did some work the could hours between those classes, and then after, my dad and little sister met me at the student center to see some artwork on one of the walls done by a guy my dad knows. From campus we went to a pizza place in Athens called Stevi B's. After filling ourselves up on an assortment of pizzas at the buffet (and when I mean assortment I mean that they serve any pizza you want them to make, from taco pizza to macaroni and cheese pizza to blueberry pie pizza for dessert), we headed to the movie theater for a cheap show (Athens has a "dollar theater" that shows movies for $2.00 a person). We saw "Night at the Museum 2." Besides one or two cuss words and a few kisses, it's an excellent family film, hilarious and I think almost better than the first.

So, that's my first week of college. From memories and food, to glorified God and cars being towed, you have heard it all. There are so many more days of college that I have left (especially since I am a Chemistry major and will be pursuing med-school in 4 years), so continue following my blog as I try to keep my life interesting enough to blog about.

5 days down, a whole lot more to go...

First Week at UGA: Towing THURSDAY

10:00am. I leave the house and travel down to campus via my black honda accord which I am absolute IN LOVE with! With absolutely no place to park I once again settle for a "visitor's parking" place at a nearby apartment complex (same place as yesterday). I then proceed to walk up Baldwin street and then down Sanford Drive, turning in to the Miller Learning Center before walking past the football stadium. I sit myself on a bench outside of room 148 as I wait for my anthropology class to begin. Two girls come and sit next to me, and I can't help but overhear their conversation. One of the girls is talking about the class she just got out of, a woman's studies class, and she is speaking very highly of her new understanding of being a woman while also discussing her favoritism of feminism (I smile silently to myself as I am very much against the feminist movement). Her friend next to her pulls out a small book from her backpack entitled "Human Evolution," and their conversation slowly moves towards the reading of that book. As I hear their conversation continue, I am able to put two and two together and realize that they are both waiting for the same anthropology class that I am, and that reading this "Human Evolution" book is the first assignment of the course. "OH NO! What have I gotten myself into."

I enter the room, introduce myself to the professor and the TA, grap a syllabus, and settle for a seat in the middle left side. More students slowly trickle in, the room slowly fills up to about 150 people. Before beginning the class, the professor asks for a show of hands of all the freshman in the room; my hand goes up along with only about 4 or 5 others. Even though the class is "Intro to Anthropology," most of the people there are older than I. The professor started by talking about our place, as humans, in time and space. He proceeded to draw on the board a timeline of the beginning of the word starting 5 billion years ago. As a Bible believing Christian, I take the account of Genesis more literally in that I believe in a young earth, that God created that earth and that He took six 24-hour days to do so. I believe the earth is between 8,000 and 10,000 years old. So, because of all this, I do not believe anything that my teacher is saying when he says that vertebrates evolved around 3 billion years ago, and then humans somewhere around 500 million years ago and so on. However, I am still frantically taking notes and drawing down everything bit I can of the timeline. I have started reading the Human Evolution book and find it fascinating and very interesting, even though my point of view is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. If anything, this class is going to help me think about where the "other side" comes from as far as the beginning of the world. Before the class was over the professor told us to write and essay about our views on this timeline. I am always looking for ways to talk about God around campus, and this essay was yet another way for me to do so. I am very excited about this class and can't wait until Tuesday morning when I get to go to it again. I do ask for your prayers in this that if I ever get a chance to challenge something in class that I will able to do it with love and respect but at the same time speaking truth!

After class was over I walked back to the place where my car is parked, technically illegally parked, only to find it not there. Yes, it had been towed, as the title of this blog says. I call my mom and to make a very long story short, my dad came and picked me up, we drove to get my car, and had to pay $125 to get it back (the place gave me a free t-shirt though) and I've actually already worn it. The quick summary of that might make it seem like it was no big deal, but in reality, it was HUGE to me. I was bawling and was actually really scared. My dad said it's just another experience of my college days to tell about. Now, I don't have to worry about a parking spot because I was able to purchase one for the whole semester for a very reasonable price. And guess where there parking spot is...in the very same apartment complex that I got towed from. Except this time I have spot 104 in the back and a sticker on my car to make it legal. No more parking worries!

After getting my car back and cleaning up my make-up from crying so much, I went back to campus, parked in my own spot, and studied for a few hours at the student center. I went to Chemistry class that night, and afterwards, went and played glow-in-the-dark ultimate frisbee at the intramural fields at UGA with The Connection group. My team didn't win, we actually lost miserably, but I did launch a scoring throw as well as make a few good catches. It rained that night, and that's when I ended up wearing my free towing shirt. I got home later that night and washed off my dirty, grassy feet because I played barefoot. I was really glad to climb into bed that night.

4 days down, 1 to go...

First Week at UGA: Worship WEDNESDAY

Wednesday looked very similar to Monday with one difference: no Greek class. My anthropology class took place on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so today consisted of Math, Freshman Seminar (the class about C.S. Lewis), and English. All of this ended around 4:30. I walked back to my car (today it was parked in a "visitor's parking" place in a apartment complex just 1/2 a mile from my last class, thankfully it didn't get towed) and headed to Jittery Joe's a Five Points for some iced coffee and a bit of homework doing (it's only been in the last year that I've started drinking coffee; I hated it before, and now I love it).

I realized this day that even though I love technology, the computer, internet, phone, all of that, I really prefer the traditional way of doing homework, with pencil and paper. At UGA, and I'm sure many other big universities, most assignments are being done online now. Oh sure, you can use pen and paper to do your work, but you enter all your answers and submit your homework through a program online. The reason I don't like this is because I can get the right answer on paper, but when I try to enter it into the computer, it can say it's wrong. The key is to enter it in the exact way that the program wants you to enter it, and figuring out what way that is can be tricky. I hope I don't have this problem when it comes to my first quiz on Wednesday (those and tests are also done online).

I sat in Jittery Joe's for a few hours, doing math homework, slurping my iced coffee and doing a little reading, until it was time to head to The Connection. At UGA, there are many Christian campus ministries that I've heard good things about, so for this month I've decided to "ministry hop" until I find one that I want to commit to. The Connection is one such ministry that is connected to a local Baptist church in the area. The people that night were very friendly, and I really enjoyed the speaking! Next Wednesday night I will attend Wesley ministry, with the Methodist Church (an IMPACT360 alumnus from the first class is on the leadership team at this ministry). So, in case you didn't know, there are actually two IMPACT360 alumni at UGA, me, a freshman, and Abby D, who is a senior this year and graduating in May.

3 days down, 2 to go...

First Week at UGA: Taco TUESDAY

My first Tuesday at UGA began by meeting a few friends for lunch. At 11:45am, I walked into Barberitos, a southwestern grille and cantina, at 5 points in Athens and was greeted by friendly faces. One of those faces was a fellow IMPACT360 alumnus, Zak Ellison. As was tradition on every Tuesday at IMPACT, Zak wore a plain gray shirt with the word "Tuesday" spray painted on it. Not one to break tradition, Zak, once again, wore his "Tuesday shirt" this day! He said, and I quote, "in a world of uncertainties, it's nice to have a constant." Zak, who is from Athens, is attending Columbia International University (CIU), in South Carolina, this fall.

One of the things that IMPACT likes to see happen is for their students to spread all over the globe. The class of 2009, my class, is doing a great job at that. With Zak at CIU is Mark Barrett. He and Zak were roommates at IMPACT360. We have two alumni that are going to Liberty University, Emily Rettig, from Maryland and Cameron Ford, a Missionary Kid from Ukraine. Bekah Babb, also a Missionary Kid from Ukraine will be attending Taylor University. My roommate, Morgan Reynolds (Sharpsburg, GA), will be at Lee University in TN. From the class of 2009 there are three students attending the Kings College in NYC, Corinne Cordasco (Virginia), Tiffany Owens (NC), and Bethany Pickett (TX). Also joining those three in NY are two alumni from the class of 2008. Brittany Shadburne (TX) will be attending Berry College in Rome, GA. Ashely Culpepper (Hamilton, GA) will be at Moody Bible Institute. Her roommate, Katlynne Shields (KY), will be at Union University, along with Josh Whitson (McDonough, GA). Amanda Sanderson will be staying in her home state of TX the rest of this year and will be joining the Navy next year. Catherine Olson (IA), Ali Erickson (Hamilton, GA), Katie Hamrick (FL), Bekah Hagan (AZ), and Nathan Cook (Marietta, GA) will be staying in their home states as well for college this year. Alex Berner (Tyrone, GA) will be attending College of the Ozarks in Missouri, and I, of course, am at UGA! As for our Student Living and Learning folks, Brian and Bethany...they got married!!! I was honored to attend their wedding in June, and a few weeks ago, they moved into their apartment in Marietta, GA. Brian will be working at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta while Bethany attends graduate school.

Now that you have the 411 on my IMPACT class of 2009, how about my second day at college. After lunch was over, I studied for a while before my Greek class at 2:30. I once again had trouble finding a place to park. Today's spot: a small neighborhood off of Baxter street where many other cars were parked, so I assumed it would be okay; I took the last spot. After Greek, a friend from church who is also in my Greek class, invited me back to her dorm room. Once I arrived in Church Hall, her dorm, we both dropped Greek and added different classes. Why?, you might ask. Well, we got a second look at the work load and decided that it was going to be too much for us to handle our freshman year and with all the other classes we were taking. We both decided to take it at a later time when we could devote more time to it. The class that replaced it for me: Intro to Athropology. I will talk about that class on Thursday.

6:30pm. I enter a HUGE auditorium where at least 300 people are seated. This is my Chemistry class. I'm excited because I loved Chemistry, but I also know it's going to be hard work. At 7:00 there are still 45 minutes left of class. The professor is already finished with all the syllabus explanation, and he begins to lecture. Even though I haven't had any science since my junior year in high school (at least 2 years ago), all the stuff about molecules, atoms, elements moles and joules starts slowly coming back to me.

It's 8:17pm. I walk in the door, hungry, sweaty, and tired. First a bowl of cereal, then a nice hot shower, and I'm in bed.

2 days down, 3 to go...

First Week at UGA: Memory MONDAY

Before I start talking about classes and my day on the 17th of August, let me mention a little thing I went to before school even started: a PARTY! It's called "Phi Slam." (www.phislam.com) Phi Slam is a privately owned and operated fraternity (Phi Sigma Lambda). A group for about 7 guys lives in this fraternity and about 2-3 times a year they put on a party that is open to any student that wants to attend. These parties are alcohol free and are an alternative for students, particularly freshman, who want to avoid the college drinking scene. Friday night, August 14th was the back-to-school pig roast. And they did just that...roast an entire pig. There was barbeque, chips, pickles, and to drink...gatorade! Just looking around, I would have to say that there were at least 500 students, most of them freshman. I met so many people that night, and I was very encouraged by the number of professing Christians that were there. I went home so excited because even though this is a liberal, secular college, there are still people, my age, that are hungry for and seeking after the Lord!

This is the first part of a 5 part blog entry that will capture all my experiences during the first week of UGA. So begins, Monday!

As I left the house to go to down to the UGA campus, my mom said "you're a little bullpup." Even though as soon as you go through orientation at UGA they give you the title of a "Bulldawg" (that is correct spelling in Athens), I feel so young and inexperienced at college life, "bullpup" is a more correct title for me, for now.

Monday afternoon at 12:20 marked the beginning of my college career. It was very appropriate that my first class turned out Math, my favorite subject. Because I have not had any math since my junior year in high school (a grand total of 2 1/2 years ago), I scored very low on the math placement test. The result, being placed in pre-calculus. But after 3 days of it this week, it is starting to come back to me.

After journeying from Hardman Hall, the Air Force ROTC building where my math class is located on Soule Street , I walk down DW Brooks Drive where it deadends into the Chemistry building, the place I will be spending most of my time in the next 4 years because I am a Chemistry major. However, at this particular time, 1:25pm, I am not attending a Chemistry class. Until 2:15pm, I will be sitting in a small conference room with 15 other students in a freshman seminar entitled "C.S. Lewis: Science and Scientism." This class explors C.S. Lewis's views on Science by reading his book That Hideous Strength, the third book in his space trilogy. Being a big C.S. Lewis fan, I did a paper on him in my freshman year of high school and am already thinking about studying abroad at Oxford where he studied and taught, this will most likely be my favorite class of this semester!
2:15. I take a right out of the Computational Chemistry building and start walking down Cedar Street. I eventually turn right onto Sanford Drive, the street that is home to the ever popular Sanford Stadium where the Bulldawgs play "between the hedges." Memories of earlier days start flooding through my mind. Like how, in Wisconsin, every Saturday when there was a Georgia football game on TV, my mom would be playing all the Georgia fight songs on the kitchen cd player as she mopped the floor or cleaned up the breakfast dishes. Although I was annoyed then, thinking my mother was insane for being so obsessed about GA football, I am now greatful for those songs being forcefully carved into my memory. Now, when I attend my first GA football game, I will being able to sing and cheer along. As I look down onto the field (I am not the only freshman doing so), I see the workers cutting the grass, cleaning the bleachers, and testing the lights. Again, it takes me back to high school when my mom and I walked around campus one game day trying to get tickets from those that were selling them (it's hard, by the way). Games are usually sold out! The thought never crossed my mind that 4 years later I would be walking the same route as a student and passing by that famous place every day on the way to my classes. God certainly has a sense of humor!

Sanford Drive takes me right to the entrance of Park Hall, where the English and Classics Department is located. It's 2:30 and time for Greek 1001 to begin. I have wanted to learn Greek for a while, mostly for the ability to be able to read the New Testament. First assigment of my college days, memorize the Greek alphabet, pronunciation and letters, both capital and lowercase. It took me almost two hours that night to do so, but now, I can drive down the streets of Athens and know what each fraternity and sorority are called just by a little glance!

At 3:10pm I go, no where. The next and last class I have on Monday is English Composition in the same building. After walking all over campus from class to class, I am glad to have 15 minutes to just sit outside the classroom. I have really begun to enjoy writing, which is probably one of the reasons I started this blog. Academically, IMPACT was mostly reading and writing, and I'm hoping that doing it a lot this past year helps me in this course. This class was also the first place I was able to talk about God outloud so far this day, the rest of the day I hope I was speaking through my actions.

4:25pm. My day ends with a mile walk down Lumpkin to 5 points and a little up Milledge to a neighborhood where my car is parked (I haven't yet received a parking permit). As I think about all that's taken place in the last 4 hours, I am a tiny bit overwhelmed. I hate the first day of any class because the dreaded syllabus is handed out. My "achiever" mind thinks "I have to do this all right now," completely forgetting that the semester doesn't end 'til mid-December. "Oh wait, no, I have 4 months; take it one day at a time."

Time management is going to be a big thing to get a grasp of this year. I am not working a job this semester, and I am being very careful to what I commit to doing as far as activities, groups and clubs go. I will save that 'til Spring, after I get used to what being a college student is going to be like.

1 day down, 4 more to go...

Is it August already?

Looking back on the time since IMPACT ended, time seems to have gone by really fast. But also looking back I know there were those days and weeks that seemed to just drag on and on. This summer I worked full-time as a Nursing Assistant at a nursing home just 1/2 a mile up the road from our new house (pictured below), which by the way, I love! I worked night shift (11pm-7am) at this place. So, working those hours, you can imagine that I had to sleep during the day, which proved to be very difficult for me. I have been tired a lot this summer. The job has been hard, but I learned so much. I made a new friend and was able to buy a car (pictured above) and pay for my first semester of college all by myself with the money I made. One of the things this job taught me was that I am definitely not ready for the full-time working world. In time I believe I will be, but I think I'm going to stay in school for at least six years to avoid it as much as I can. (hehe) As of today, I am done working there full-time for the summer. I have decided to not work very much during the first semester of college. School comes first, and I want to get used to my schedule before I commit to doing to much.



Speaking of school, I as of this week, I am an official University of Georgia student! I have the ID to prove it! I had freshman orientation Monday and Tuesday and while those two days were spent hearing about stuff I already knew about, I walked around campus realizing this is where I will spend the next four years of my life. I fell in love! The campus is absolutely wonderful, and the more time I spend in Athens, the more I love it! I registered for classes on Tuesday and in addition to taking some core freshman classes, math, english, chemistry, I will be taking a freshman seminar about the plants of the Bible as well as beginning my study of classical Greek! Classes start August 17th!

I have two more weeks before classes start. This week is going to a real summer consisting of getting some stuff done before school begins, like buying books, getting my car completely fixeds up, and relaxing by the pool. A beautiful tan, here I come. A week from tomorrow I leave to go back to the IMPACT campus in Pine Mountain, GA for an IMPACT alumni reunion. I am so excited to see my fellow IMPACT students, from my class and the past two classes. What a perfect way to the end the summer and begin a new chapter in our lives!