Further Stories of Life at EMU

people surprise me. i say this because of boys...who would have guessed? boys who talk, intelligently; boys who play guitar; boys who smear food on their face just to annoy me. :) it is nice to feel like i am beginning to have friends that are guys. it is nice to be surprised that some of them are [in general] mature. it is nice to feel like here in this place i belong.


ok. that was just in my head after the morning i had. now to the real purpose of this post.
mom told me that she thinks my blog gives a great impression of what social life is like at EMU, but she doesn't know anything about my classes! this is a decided change from high school, where i would come home every day and talk without ever shutting up about AP English, Government, Anat&Phys, Music Theory, Adv. Chem...........
yeah.

so, this post is to briefly inform you all about my academic life.
Honors: is pretty sweet. My class is in general not too talkative, which makes class difficult at times. I really really like most of the people in that class. There are a few who get on my nerves, but in a room of 19 'super-smart' kids, you can imagine that there are some egos to deal with. I do not excuse myself from this...I imagine that if I talked more, people might be annoyed with me too. There is one sophmore in that class, Stewart Nofziger. He is a really interesting person to talk to. Today I shared a project that I was working on for Honors and he said "that really resonated with me." I gave a little internal shout of happiness that I have finally met a guy who thinks and talks like me!!! haha. my professor, Judy Mullet, is amazing. she goes on lots of rabbit trails but she has interesting ideas of what education and learning should look like. I have learned a lot from her. A lot of it is non-traditional learning, but it is definitely really valuable stuff.
Biology: could be better. It is hard to be motivated in this class because it seems like what we are learning is very arbitrary and random. There is not a lot of organization in the way we move from topic to topic. Hopefully it will get better soon as we are switching professors next week. Next week we are entering a new unit that is dealing with the issues of putting faith and science together. Should be interesting.
Chem: rocks. I LOVE TARA KISHBAUGH. :) :) :) The class is way too easy for me; I should have tried to test out of it. I finished my last exam in half and hour and got over 100%. But Tara makes me want to pay attention anyway. Those of you who know me well know that I REALLY struggle to pay attention to schoolwork that I feel is not interesting or worth my time. So...I think it is a testament to Tara's awesome teaching skillz that I pay attention at all in Chem.
World Religions: .... I don't even know how to describe this. It is hard because I don't know anyone in the class. It is lonely, I guess. But I love it anyway. Learning about Islam now. Maybe the best way to describe how I feel about this class is to tell a brief true-life story. I am trying to figure out what classes I am taking next semester because we have to sign up soon for classes. I asked Thia, "do you think it's creepy for me to decide to take a class just because Peter Dula is the professor?" ....Yeah. For the record, he talked to her writing class and she was just as impressed as I am by his teaching; she told me I should take the class. so - maybe I will. Meg is going to be in the class, so even though it is a 300-level, I would know someone...
Ethics: super interesting topics/very monotonous professor. I'm hoping that will improve as we move out of the "textbook" portion of class and move into reading Animal Vegetable Miracle and Sabbath Economics among other things.
um...Transitions: basically a free counseling session every Tuesday. Got to meet Ben Bergey this past Tuesday; he doesn't know it but he is one of the reasons I decided to come to EMU. When I came down for Honors Weekend they had a meal catered for us in Martin Chapel, and before the meal Ben lead us in singing "God is Great." It was in four-part harmony, and it was at this moment that I was thinking, Yes, this place is for me. I need to belong here.

I have a question for you all:
should I take Spanish 1 next semester or Elementary Arabic? I would rather take Arabic but I'm sure Spanish would be more useful. Let me know what you think.

P.S. If you want to send me package...I need some gum.