Winter Break

Christmas is over, and New Year's is almost here! I'll be in Alaska until Monday, when I will return to Bozeman a week before school starts.

It's been an interesting break, but now that I've been here about a week and a half I am getting used to my Alaska life again. Actually, it's not too different from my Bozeman life in that I try to go snowboarding as much as possible (I live in Anchorage, about a 45 minute drive away from Alyeska Resort). I have found that the longer I am away at college, the weirder it is to come back to my Alaskan life, but after a while I am used to it again and it's as fun as it used to be. And now I know who my real friends are, while some people I don't see much anymore. Also, I find myself spending a lot more time with my family than usual because I don't get to see them much, either.

I've been up to Alyeska five times so far and hope to get a few more days in before I leave. New Year's is tomorrow and I'm planning on celebrating at a friend's house, so I'm excited about that. I've also been walking my dogs almost daily, which is fun (my mom bought a dog when my older sister left for college, and recently bought another one to replace me. empty nest syndrome?).

A random side note: I noticed someone commented my blog a couple weeks ago and said they had visited MSU recently and were thinking about going into nursing. I have no way of replying to that person's page so hopefully they read this. We have a really good nursing program of about 800 students (making it the seventh largest program in the nation), and the students spend their first two years of school at the MSU campus in Bozeman and then are transferred to one of our satellite schools in Kalispell, Missoula, Great Falls, or Billings. A few people do get to stay in Bozeman, but only about 16 because our hospital isn't very big!

Anyway, I hope everybody is having a good holiday season; happy new year!

Recreational Reading

I'm back in Alaska for a couple of weeks, and it's nice to finally be able to relax! All of the free time is a novelty. My sister gave me a book to read over the break called "A Life at Work" by Thomas Moore. As an English major (and a college student in general), I usually only have time to read what is required of me, if I even manage that. This book is actually really good, and applicable to any aspiring college student, college student, or person in any stage of life. It's about how to "discover what you were born to do."

There are inspirational quotes at the beginning of each chapter. At the beginning of Chapter 4, I read this:

"Leonardo advised aspiring artists to discover the pictures to be found in cracks in walls; Chinese sages were conceived as their mothers stepped into the footprints of unicorns; all of us make up our lives out of the cracks in the walls of our past memories and the unicorn footprints of our future."

Lynda Sexson

I gasped when I read this. I have mentioned before that my favorite professor this semester was Dr. Michael Sexson. For one of our class periods, he did not come to class at all but instead had a guest speaker run the class. The guest speaker was, in fact, his wife, Lynda Sexson. And it was the same Lynda Sexson quoted above, in this renowned book I am reading. Crazy!

Some Google-ing has revealed that the quote is from a book called "Ordinarily Sacred" by Sexson. And it is indeed the same Sexson. She is a history/humanities professor at MSU, and is as wise as or wiser than her husband. My classmates and I always wondered how their dinner conversations went. Probably, they would be over our heads.

The longer I am in college, the more I find connections between my life and the world around me. It's great.

And I would recommend "A Life at Work," if you're looking for something to read and/or are lost in life.

I might check out "Ordinarily Sacred," too.

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?