Conquered My First Marathon

I hope all is well back home. I can’t wait until I can come home and see everyone again. Only three months until then! And it will go by super fast, I’m sure. It has been a few weeks since I last updated so sorry. To tell the truth though, nothing really exciting happened since this past weekend so I knew my blog would just bore people (not saying that this won’t be boring too).

Saturday the 13th was our first home football game. On top of working 14 hours that day, I enjoyed watching the game, even though we lost miserably. We played the University of Utah and the final score was 58 to 10. That is terrible! But it was fun watching the game. With my job, we are not allowed to cheer during sporting events so a few times (when the Aggies actually did something right), I found it very hard to resist from cheering. It is a good thing that there were only a few moments that were worth cheering for. Then we played Idaho on the 20th and we won with a score of 35 to 17 I believe. Once again, I had to work but it was okay. Our record is 7-32 over the past THREE years! We stink so much!

The big news of this blog is to let the world know about my marathon. I ran my very first marathon on the 20th and enjoyed it. Well I loved it more when it was done. It ended up raining for about five to seven miles of the whole race: at the beginning and at the end. My time was 4 hours and 25 minutes. I placed 10th for my age division of 15-19 female runners. Overall, I placed 966 out of 2129 runners. Once I was done running my marathon, I had to work for seven hours, go to a play for class and then we had my roommate’s birthday party at night so it was a busy and tiring day but well worth it. My legs feel like they are about to fall off. It is terrible. I can’t walk up or down stairs without having piercing pains shoot through my legs. I am hoping that over the next week, they will recover. Because of my nervousness and excitement for the race, I only slept about 3 hours the night before so I ended up running longer than I slept, which is sort of sad.
This is me sprinting to the finish line. I was very relieved to see it!





You can barely see me in this picture. I am the one in the grey shirt right before the white finish line sign.





These are two of my roommates who came to watch and cheer me on. The other two roommates had to leave before taking the picture. Chelsea is on my left and Heather is on my right. I am proudly wearing my medal for finishing.



This is me after running. I finished about five minutes prior to this picture. I felt completely gross and could not wait until I showered.

I am getting laughed at a lot in regard to my accent. Supposedly we say our “a” differently. And the most common question I have gotten asked is “do you like cheese?” People think it is so cool to be from Wisconsin. I don’t see the glory of it all but whatever. Someone asked me the other day if it snowed in Wisconsin. I laughed hysterically and I think the person who asked the question felt stupid. I told her that it snowed more in Wisconsin than it did in Logan, Utah. They were amazed at that. I can’t believe I have been here over a month already. Time goes by when you're having fun!

Blah Week

Another week of classes has passed and I am glad to say that I survived. Nothing too eventful happened this week, which is sort of depressing.
We had our first Family Home Evening with our entire ward (church congregation) on Monday night. I am so excited to be in a community where I am able to attend those types of activities. It was a lot of fun and a great way to meet people in my ward. Pretty soon, we get assigned to our “families” and learn who our “parents” are. I’m excited for activities and lessons that we’ll have. For those who don’t know what Family Home Evenings are, they are a time set aside every week (traditionally on Monday evenings) for families to spend time together. Often, there is a scripture study/lesson, family prayer and then an activity that brings the family together. In college, since all of us are away from our families, the Church organizes the students into small “families.” There are “moms” and “dads” who organize the evenings.
On Friday night, I went to the Institute (this is a place/organization for college-aged students to take religion classes. They also host activities for students pretty much every week.) They had a Jello slide on Friday afternoon. Then at night, they had a mechanical bull and another dance and stuff. It was pretty sweet. Here are some pictures from the night. It had a big “Giddy Up/Western” theme.

This is me riding a mechanical bull!

Saturday I went to the USU women’s soccer game. I miss being able to watch athletic events and knowing the athletes. At college games/matches, I don’t know anyone so it changes how much I pay attention to the game. It would be more fun if I actually knew the people playing. But the good news is that we won! We played a team from Colorado and we won 3-0! But the sad news of the weekend is that our football team lost AGAIN. The score was 24 to 66. It is really depressing to come here and have a team that stinks at football. I honestly think the Everest Evergreens could dominate the Aggies.
And here are some more pictures of my campus, as I promised.

This is the Quad that is on campus. The University declared that they will never build upon this grassy area. It is quite nice. Often, there are people playing ultimate frisbee and other sports. And there seems to always be something interesting going on here too.

This is the institute building where I have religion class twice a week. It is also where our meetings/church service are on Sundays.

This is Old Main Building. I have one class in there. The A on top signifies Aggies. When the light is white, that means we lost at a sporting event, however when it is blue, that means we won. It is rarely blue. It will be more when Basketball starts though, I guarantee that!

Some kids on campus tried to break a world record this week. I don’t know if they broke it but I have a hunch that they did. These two kids had to teeter-totter for 100 straight hours. They had their set up (with a tent, food and all) outside one of my classes so I got to see it up front and personal. It was pretty exciting!
For those of you concerned, my ulcers are better. This week, I was able to eat a little more. And I run my marathon on September 20th (yikes, in less than two weeks!) so I am training like crazy for that. This week includes our first football game and we play University of Utah! Even though we’re guaranteed to lose, it will still be fun!

Stress, School and September

Hello to my family and friends!

The first week of college classes breezed on by and I found enjoyment in the majority of the classes I am taking this semester. My Creative Arts class, which is basically a class to learn how to appreciate the arts, is okay. We listen to a lot of classical music so I enjoy it. I have seven performances to attend over the semester, including High School Musical- the play, an opera, a string quartet and a ballet. I am looking forward to a few of the performances (not the opera!). I absolutely love sociology. It is so engaging and relative to the world I live in. I love learning about the society and seeing how different parts interact. My Biology class is super easy, at least right now. And my physics, well, I knew I would hate it going into it so nothing has changed. My only education class is good too. Our first night, we had to write a song. It's nice to be with people who share the same passion of children as I do.

Other than classes this week, I did a lot of other stuff too. I went to the doctor on Saturday. I found out that I may have ulcers or at least the start of one. So now I am on two different medications and I have this nasty green liquid to drink every day as well. The doctor assumes it is a result of stress. Wow, our family just never gets the hang of handling stress, do they? At least I am not having panic attacks or hives like other members of our family. I haven't really been able to eat a whole lot because of stress. I am lucky if I eat twice a day. But with that, I have lost five pounds over two weeks. So hopefully the medication I am on will allow me to get back to eating more! The doctor asked me how much I ate before coming out to Utah and I said "A lot. I love to eat!" So I am excited when I will be back to normal again.

This weekend was exciting because I went to Salt Lake City and Brigham Young University. My best friend from Wisconsin, Janet, goes to school at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. So for Labor Day, instead of water-skiing, I went down to Provo and Salt Lake City. We mainly went to Temple Square in Salt Lake. Jodi came with us and her grandma provided us with a home-cooked meal Sunday night. I stayed at BYU and I got to see the campus and all. Here are some pictures from the weekend. We had a blast for sure!

And some of you asked so I delivered. Ask, and you shall receive! Here are some pictures of my dorm room as well as campus.

This is our "square" room. All it has is a bunch of shelves and a big mirror.
This is our living room! Recognize the refrigerator! It has gone through about 5 college students over the past 15 years and still works!

My side of the door room. My bed is the tallest possible!
Here are some outside photos of the college:

This is Block A. The story with this is that in order to become a “True Aggie,” you must kiss someone on the block on a full moon at midnight. The school sponsors these nights every few months.

This is my dorm hall, Richards Hall. It is pretty sweet! I like it a lot!

I have more pictures but this is enough for this blog update. You will just have to come back later (bribery, perhaps?). But I miss you all and hope you all are enjoying life back home!

Address Change

So the post office here is getting annoyed with me. when they emailed me my address over the summer, they said, Richards Hall apt. 113. they don't want that anymore.

It is...
113 Richards Hall
Logan, UT 84321
I have gotten a notice from them saying this so sorry!

And Now I'm A College Student

Yikes, that still sounds weird to say. I remember back to my freshman year in high school, thinking that college would NEVER come and now it is here right before me. It feels so strange to sit in my dorm room and know that I won't come home for four months. It still feels like a vacation or a camp that lasts just a few weeks.
This past week has been tougher than I anticipated. I arrived Monday and got settled in. My main goals for the week was to meet people, find a job and get the hang of the campus. I can successfully say I accomplished two of my three goals. I found a job. I am one of six people who work at the events held on campus. Basically, I help set up, maintain and clean the sporting facilities here on campus. I had my first day on the job on Saturday and met my co-workers. They are very sarcastic, so I have a feeling that I will fit in great with them once I get warmed up. I get to work all the sporting events: football, soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc and get to watch the games for FREE! I think I will appreciate that.
I got the hang of campus for the most part. I know where all the buildings are that I have classes in so that is good. I've spent every day so far taking a run around campus. After the first week, I'm sure I will be much more confident in my ways.
I haven't met a lot of people; that is the one goal that I think I failed at. Quite honestly, there haven't been a lot of opportunities. I think everyone is in the same boat of being away from home and missing it a lot. Hopefully, once classes get under way, things will get better. My roommates are great, which helps a lot. During the week, it has been the people back home that have made the week possible to get through. I got mail, which highlighted my week and was able to talk to a few close friends and family members, which made it feel like I was back at home.
Church was today and to be honest, it was the one thing that I couldn't wait to do when I got here. It was however, quite interesting. They had us do a combined worship service with another housing community and then finally seperated us from there into two different wards. It was a lot of "Welcome and prepare to receive a calling soon." I am excited for church meetings and our bishopric seems very lively and energetic, which is great.
Well that's it for now. I don't have any pictures yet; I haven't really taken the time to do so, my bad. But next week I will definitely post some pictures of campus and all. Next weekend, I am headed off to BYU and Salt Lake City so I look forward to that and being able to see friends from Wisconsin!

The Trek Out West

So I am finally in my new home: Richards Hall 113 at Utah State University

It is so cool. The mountains are breath-taking and I don't know if they'll ever get old.

On Saturday we started the three day journey from Wausau, Wisconsin. Leaving at five am sounded fine a few weeks earlier but the morning of, and I was a little annoyed with the time.

I had to look happy so we could get started. Good thing that is the earliest morning I will have for a LONG time!

Then we headed out. Our first stop was the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. Here are some pictures from those things.

We also got to go caving near Mt. Rushmore. It was the highlight of my trip. And through this, I finally found the good in being short. Let me tell you, no one over 5 feet, 6 inches could make it through that cave. Perhaps instead of being a camp director, I should go into caving and become a professional caver (if there is such a thing). It was super cool and I learned a lot, even though I don't remember any of it anymore! Once again, here are some pictures.

And then, we finally arrived in Logan, Utah on Monday. While it was a LONG trip, it was definitely worth it. I have my dorm room somewhat set up and will continuously be organizing it throughout the semester. Classes start next Monday so I am excited for that. Other than that, I am busy cruising around Logan and trying to find my way around campus the best I can. I will see you all at Christmas!

Graduation Shin-dig

Yesterday was my last Saturday in the state of Wisconsin and I won't lie, I am not too sad about that. It was also my graduation/farewell party. It was great to see my family and friends who have been a part of my life for a long time. It was sad, however, to say goodbye to some individuals who I know I won't see again until Christmas time. Here are the few pictures I took of the whole afternoon... whoops, my bad that I didn't take more!



This is the cake that I had. As you can see, it was half Everest and half Utah State. It had a minor accident in the car but other than that, was delicious. The Utah State side was better in my opinion though!
This is the only picture I took with people in it. Whoops! This is Pat, my camp director, his son, Michael who I babysit for a lot, and Boomer (Jackie) our nature director this summer. In the background is Hollis. I will miss these people a lot and can't wait until Christmas to see them again! All in all, it was fun time with family and friends. It is weird to think it will be four months before I see them again!