Cool Times, School Times.

Hello Friends-
I am just having the best time up at college my sophomore year...so I thought I'd let everyone in on my secrets to happiness....
I've been here about a month now (I swear, time flies.) and I'm loving seriously every minute of it. Living in the dorms was such a different experience than being off campus in apartment housing. I felt like all I met last year were freshman and plenty of "special" people...This year so far I'm having a lot better luck meeting older people. I'm lovin it.
I am positively stoked for my program. I LOVE it. My classes are awesome and so are all of my professors. I'm taking strictly int. design classes this semester so I don't have any generals to bore me. It's great!
I'm living in apartments called Oakridge. There is 25 buildings with 28 people in each...it's HUGE. It's very social too. We have a pool, hot tub, and volleyball courts. There will always be a group of people out in those. The ward this year is HUGE and I love it. An awesome bishopric and lots of way neat people. I had connections with my stake pres. so therefore I had a stake calling within the first week of being up here. Whoo! Stake Institute Representative...so it's my job to encourage enrollment, being on an LDSSA board, and attend 7 o clock sunday meetings once a month. (AT least it will wake me up early before my 1:15 PM church...it's the worst time!!)
My two room mates this year are quite a bit older than me- Deborah (25) Whitney (23) We are all quite different but it's been a good experience so far. It's interesting to live with people who you are very different from.
SO FAR: There's been tons of fun things going on- on campus, off campus, hockey games, foot ball games (I don't really enjoy those). There was the annual movie night on the QUAD. They played IronMan and hundreds of people showed up with blankets and even couches. They had projected it onto this massive jumbotron/balloon lookin thing. I got a boot on my mom's car for parking in a lot where I didn't have a permit (70 bucks to get it off :P). I have been to a tradition called "pasta sunday" where these girls host everyone at their house once a month or so to have some sort of pasta together. It was great fun. I met the president of student activities up here and wow he was cool! It was quite the social event. I went bowling with some people that went to Peru this summer with me..It was so great to talk with them and reminisce together. I LOVE talking about Peru and who better to do it with than people that were actually there with you. Even if nothing is planned there's always something to do...that's why I love it up here. I know it's Logan..but oh man the people are awesome up here. For example: One night me and my friend Andrea headed up to the quad where a bunch of people were playing glow in the dark frisbee (teams sepearted by different color glowstick bracelets). We joined in for a while and then played sardines with a diff. group of people. We ended up putting a bunch of blankets down and layed out on the grass talking. Eating out in Logan is quite the experience, there are so many yummy places that are unique only to here. Me, Katie, and Andrea went to this place called Blackstone (fine seafood, steak, pasta) and so delicious it was.
One Sunday we headed over to somebody's house for a "Cajun BBQ" it was so delicious. We ate crawdads ( I had to have the boys wrip the thing apart to get the meat out! gross ) , shrimp, cajun rice, cornbread, home made root beer. It was great. I love these events that people put on so that I'm not always having to cook for myself (Which I am not good at yet).
My Bishop has facebook...yep. Believe it. He has all the people in the ward added as friends and he uses it as a tool to contact people. He's keepin up with the times, I tell you what.
I had a horrible experience hot tubbing one night: We got locked inside the pool and therefore had to jump the fence. I am not agile at all. I'm a big clumsy oaf...SO...I perched on top of the fence scared for my life...barefoot. I took a leap of faith and landed barefoot, both heels, on a metal divider between the grass and bark. ouch!!! I deeply bruised both heels and sliced one of them open. IT was not a good experience. A bunch of my buddies came and helped me clean it out...one of the guys is a med student. It was pretty nasty I must admit. I had to walk around on tiptoe the next few days.
Those same boys who came to help with my foot are a big group of friends who went to Skyview and were born and raised in logan. There's a ton of them and they've all been friends forever. They've started this tradition called "Within Reason Tour". Once a week we go out to lunch somewhere/anywhere that is within reason (<10$). Way fun. Cool Guys. Last weekend we did a big "Tie-Dying" party which was way cool. I made a sweet purple/pink tie-dye shirt. Love it. Earlier that night we went to the hockey game (We killed the U...FINALLY in SOMETHING!)...and ate at La Beau's (Yes, they have one here and it was started the same time as the one in Bear Lake! Who would've thought).
OK...here's a good one...
I came home last weekend on saturday to come pick up a bunch of decorations for my apartment and go to a wedding shower. The plan was to come back to logan on sunday but I ended up driving back to logan late saturday with a couple friends. I saw a bunch of my friends from last year at this wedding shower...i love reunions. My friend Tiff had the cutest dog ever. It was a mix between a shitzu, pug, and jack russell terrier. I loved it. I went shopping at Gateway with my friends Alex and Logan...from there we ate at Training Table where Alex's twin bro. Chris/his girlfriend Ginger met up with us. We all went back to the house and yes...we watched teh Aunt Melinda show. (I just keep recruiting them)...They all roared with laughter..as usual and I loved seeing some new reactions to it. THey were all like YOUR AUNT SHOULD PUT THIS ON YOUTUBE!!! Of course. Too bad I left the two beastie boy music videos in Orem at Riley's, or I would've shown those too. I'm such a fan. They helped me pack up all my deco's and we headed back to Logan.

There was a true aggie night this last week...We decided to go and check it out. No plans or intentions of gettin up on that A block. We danced like fools in front of the speakers they had there and then all stood together and discussed how trashy true aggie night has gotten. It's like a contest of who can get away with the nastiest kiss..yuck! I think the novelty of it has worn off...it's a big thing for freshmen that's for sure. But hey...it's a huge social event...and a way rad tradition.

I'm loving it up here...seriously. I'm an avid support of USU. It's under rated- I think. I am loving just dating lots of different people, hangin out with all different sorts, and of course loving my interior design classes. We do things in the middle of the week when we can, and there's already been quite a few late nights/long afternoons spent in the studio working on different projects...
Last night we had a movie night where we watched Gladiator. We did at this kid's house named "Booke". It was literally a castle. Inside and Out. Me and Andrea (int. design majors together) ran around the house checking out every little detail. It was so interesting. In the living room there is a huge part of the floor made out of glass which looks down onto his Dad's Asten Martin. WHOA....It was quite the house. Probaby multiple millions of dollars. Good times...

I'm taking a spinning class...and it kicks my butt! It's the BEST workout...but oh man it is brutal. Sitting on that hard seat for an hour is enough to make you cry let alone every muscle in pain. I love it. Gotta.

Secrets To My Happiness.
1. Good Friends
I have met a ton of new people this semester that I just love. It's so great to find someone who you click with and then do everything with that person. There's a couple girls in my Int. Design program that I've been spending at ton of time with.
2. Church
Being a member in a ward is an immediate in to tons of new friends/ activities. I love it
3. Institute
I'm taking two institute classes that i LOVE. Bro Jacobs and Bro Maughan. They have teh BEST stories, are such smart guys, and invite the best spirit. I love it.
4. Awesome Professors
Enough said.
5. Being Outgoing
It's so fun to meet new people and just be open to everyone. My goal is to meet every person in the ward...You can never have too many friends.

Inspiring

The Rocket Summer is one of my all time favorite bands...
Bryce Avary leads them out and he is the most amazing blonde haired, blue eyed artist I've ever known.
His song "Do You Feel" is all about the problems in the world that we all want to help solve..somehow...but don't know what we can do.
My good friend Kelly put this link up on her blog for the new video that just came out.

Definitely worth seeing...

ch-ch- check it out!

http://www.friendsorenemies.com/web/foe/users/therocketsummer/