The End of Another Semester

Finals are over, and another semester has come to an end. This semester I was (un)lucky enough to have a final on Friday at 2:00, so I got to stick around for the entire week. My only other final during finals week was on Tuesday at 8:00 am, so I was almost out of school mode until Friday morning, when I last-minute studied for my last exam.

The end of a semester is an interesting time, because people finally start to connect after getting to know each other in classes throughout the semester, and then it's over. But it's always exciting to look forward to the next semester, when we can do it all over again—more awkward class periods await, until the same cycle repeats itself.

I had a great semester and managed to pull all A's. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm happy about it. It's a relief to be free for a few weeks so I can forget everything I learned.

But hopefully not.

Random picture: a rainbow over Miller Dining Hall. I took it last spring from my dorm room in Roskie.

The Junior One Acts

Last night I went to The Junior One Acts at the Black Box Theatre in the Visual Communications Building (VCB) on campus.

The Junior One Acts consisted of six short one-act plays (about 20 minutes each) that were all written, directed, produced, and performed by students. All of the sets were also hand-made by students. Basically, it was an entirely student-run production and it was pretty cool. The Black Box Theatre is basically a room with seating on three sides and a curtain on the other. The stage is in the middle of the room, creating an interactive experience for the audience and actors/actresses. The theatre is all black, so there is no limitations on how the set can look.

I had never been to a production in the Black Box Theatre, but I was impressed. All of the students involved were in the MTA 374 class, nicknamed "Studio 374." The plays were all funny and entertaining, the props and the sets were excellent, and the acting was good. My favorites were the play called "Helter Skelter," about two serial killers who live together and their domestic arguments over keeping a clean house, and the play called "Rusty Pipes" about Mario and Luigi of the Mario Brothers, 30 years after their fame has faded away. The body parts in "Helter Skelter" were amusingly life-like and the Mario pipe (the signature green pipe used to transport places) was life-sized and looked like the real thing—and it actually worked!

Overall I was impressed, and I look forward to checking out more events at the Black Box Theatre in the future.

Last day of classes!

Today was my last day of classes for the semester. Now all I have to look forward to is a take-home final due Tuesday and two finals next week, one on Tuesday and one on Friday. I was lucky enough to configure my schedule so I don't have any classes on Fridays, which has been really nice this semester. I took 17 credits this semester; I wouldn't recommend taking any more than that. I had four classes that were only on Tuesday and Thursday, and one class (Spanish) that was Monday through Thursday. This made for very hectic Tuesdays and Thursdays, especially because I also worked those nights, so although it was nice having more free time on the other days, I don't think I would do it again.

My two favorite classes this semester were Biblical Foundations of Literature and Spanish 101. I went into Biblical Foundations of Literature not knowing what to expect, but the professor, Dr. Michael Sexson, was one of the best teachers I have ever had. He taught us not only how to think about the Bible from a critical, literary perspective (and by critical, I mean objectively), but also how to think in general and many useful life lessons. One of my favorite things about his class was that everyone was required to keep a blog related to the class. This sounds a little strange, and I thought it was at first, but it allowed for everyone to get to know each other through writing and comment on whatever they found interesting. Dr. Sexson would read some of the blogs in class and we discussed them, so it was overall a great forum of ideas and communication. If you're interested, my blog address is http://karenwilsonak.blogspot.com/. Our last day of class today was almost sad, because we have finally come together as a class. We spent the last few weeks doing presentations, first group presentations we had about half of the semester to work on, and then individual term paper presentations. Our group presentations related to certain books of the Bible, and our term papers could basically be about whatever we wanted related to the class.

Spanish 101 was a really fun class, and I also really liked the professor, Sally Sanchez. She made it really fun and was encouraging and positive. I have never taken Spanish before, but now I think I'm going to double major in both English and Spanish Teaching. If I actually do this, I have a lot of college ahead of me!

Overall, it was a fun semester and I continued to meet new people and expand my knowledge. I'm glad I'll have a break soon, but I'm still looking forward to next semester.

First day at Big Sky

Today I went snowboarding at Big Sky for the first time this year. It was $20 pass day for everyone, but I actually have a season pass so I picked that up and it was free for me (not really, I have a long way to go until I pay it off).

This is a picture of Big Sky - the big peak is Lone Peak. I didn't take this picture, I found it online (apparently it's from somebody's vacation home, I want to live there) because the Bluetooth on my phone won't send the pictures I took today.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun today. They have only opened about a third of their terrain so far, but it's plenty of room to have fun and it wasn't that crowded, either. That's one of the things I like about Big Sky - it's never that crowded, even on the weekends. Especially riding the singles line, there is barely a wait to get on the most highly trafficked lift, and at most other lifts there is no line at all.

My least favorite thing about Big Sky is how rocky it is. Considering that the mountain is entirely rock with not too much vegetation, this makes sense. However, it is never enjoyable to ride over what looks like nice white snow and suddenly crunch over several jagged rocks. Since it is still early in the season, this definitely happened to me several times today, and I felt bad for the base of my snowboard. But, when more snow accumulates this won't be a problem.

Like I said, today was a lot of fun and tomorrow I'm hoping to go to Bridger. I'm really glad the snowboarding season is here - I need something to keep me outside.

Back in Bozeman

So, it's back to reality and I'm back in good old Bozeman. I returned Monday from a long Thanksgiving break and I have to say I have never been so happy to be back. In my last blog, I listed the perks of being home—mostly having to do with monetary mooching.

Now that I'm back, Bozeman feels more home-y than ever. I love the lifestyle here; Anchorage is a pretty big city, which means lots of driving around and less spur-of-the-moment activities. Let me list the reasons I love Bozeman:

•I can walk from my house to class in 15 minutes.

•I can walk from my house to work in 10 minutes (the joys of working on campus, ha ha).

•I only have to drive when I'm feeling lazy or going on a fun venture.

•I have my own house, so I don't have to worry about bothering my mom or adhering to her rules.

•Rent for said house is absurdly cheap (compared to Anchorage, at least).

•There are always many social opportunities to choose from.

•All of my friends live within a 1.5-mile radius (only because I'm on the edge of the circle, otherwise they'd all be much closer).

•I feel like I am doing something with my life.

To elaborate on the last point, in Bozeman I have a purpose—school. It keeps me busy and motivated, it's social, it's NOT required (so I'm doing this because I want to? what a novel idea!), and it opens up many opportunities, in both the short and long term. Maybe I'm weird, but I like being busy and when I'm in school that's never a problem. And, it makes my free time that much more fun!

Basically, I love Bozeman. Who doesn't?

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year I have been fortunate enough to return to my homeland of Alaska for the Thanksgiving holiday. I have definitely enjoyed being back. The perks include:

•Free food

•Free transportation (I'm not filling up that gas tank!)

•Getting to see old friends

•Getting to see my family (Mom, sister, and dogs)

•Having some free time to think without being in a time crunch

•Free shopping trips (Let's go shopping!)

•Enjoying Alaska's great outdoors

It's nice to come home and not have to completely support myself. However, I'm looking forward to going back to Bozeman. I have realized that as time goes on, I feel more connected with Bozeman than Alaska. I have been warned of this phenomenon by my older sister, but I thought since last year I came back and everything felt the same as when I left that would continue to happen. This is not so. I'm okay with it, though. I love Bozeman and I think since I am committed to going to school for a few more years it would be good to settle in Bozeman even when there's not school.

Either way, I can't deny I like all the perks of visiting home. For instance: I just had a great, free, family Thanksgiving dinner.

I'm thankful.

'Tis the season

...of group projects.

In the past two weeks I have have two group projects due, and a third one is due after Thanksgiving, so at one point I was juggling three group projects at once. I've definitely been feeling the pressure of the semester coming to a close, which means that we're all supposed to have learned enough in our classes to complete large and arduous assignments. I have never had so many group projects at once, and one of them involved five people and another involved six, which made it almost impossible to figure out a time everyone could meet. However, I'm pretty much done with those now, which is a huge relief. For the project due after Thanksgiving, we made a movie, which is about 20 minutes long and tells the story of the Book of Acts (from the Bible; it's for my Biblical Foundations of Literature class). I'm pretty excited about that; it's definitely the longest movie I've ever made. I helped one of my partners put it all together last Wednesday, and it's still in the final editing process. Hopefully, when it's all done we can upload it onto YouTube or something and I can post it on here.

Another group assignment I had was to design "the ideal school for teens." It was for my Lifespan of Human Development class and was supposed to be a partner assignment, but I ended up in a group of three. We decided to make a little booklet describing our school, and I thought the cover was the most entertaining, so here it is:

This is a picture of how it looks on my computer, because I didn't end up with the hard copy after it got graded. But, I can assure you the booklet was very legit and we got a high score.

While I am relieved to be pretty much done with group projects, there is still a lot to do before the semester ends...mainly writing a term paper for my Biblical class and studying for finals. It's nice to have Thanksgiving break coming up, but I plan to spend a lot of it studying. (Key words: plan to.)