November has been an exceedingly busy month! I had a huge project, registration for classes, and swim meets every weekend. When all was done, I was more than ready for Thanksgiving break! I had a large group project for Human Ecology, presenting on the October fieldtrip and research about water and sewage on a local level. While I thought my topic was interesting, I also thought eight people was too many to have in a group. All of us had different and busy schedules, and we had a lot of trouble finding time when even a few of us could meet outside of class. Group projects really stress me out, and this was no exception. This was the biggest group project, worth a large portion of my grade in the class, that I have had at Linfield. The presentation ended up going well after we finally got all our powerpoint slides together, and I was extremely glad it was over!
The day after my presentation was my time slot for registration for Jan term and spring term. I had a great deal of difficulty once again in making my schedule. I have always been lucky in not having a problem getting in to classes, because I brought in 30 credits from AP classes in high school. This means I register before a lot of other sophomores. However, every single semester I have had classes I want or need that are at the exact same times! It is very frustrating and I think it is one of the drawbacks of a school as small as Linfield, because there is only one section offered of most classes. Some classes are only offered one semester out of the year, or even every other year. I had to reconstruct my schedule entirely about three times, since I did not realize ENVS 101, Human Ecology (now I am in 102, also Human Ecology), has a lab that takes up a large chunk of Tuesday. I will take a religion class about pilgrimages during Jan term that I am very excited about. In the spring, I will take ENVS 101, Spanish 360 (Topics in Hispanic civilization), a SOAN class on urban dwelling, and public speaking.
Some exciting news of the month is that I will officially be going to Costa Rica in the fall! I can’t wait! I had a bunch of passport photos taken over break for various identifications requiring official photos. An exciting event was the midnight premiere of Harry Potter! A group of my friends and I saw it at a cinema in Salem, which was a lot of fun. We had three home meets over two weekends, against College of Idaho, PLU, and UPS. The weekend before Thanksgiving we traveled to PLU in Tacoma for the Northwest Invitational, which was a pretty good meet, although I was really ready to go home! It was convenient because I left for home straight from the meet, which is not far at all. Thankfully everyone made it home safely before the blizzard-like snowstorm hit Monday and Tuesday! Seattle was a mess, but it was fun to be at home. I got to spend time with my cousin and uncle from Spokane, my parents, and my pets! Now it’s time for three weeks of hard work and exams before Christmas break! My roommate and I are both huge fans of Christmas music so it has been playing continuously since we returned!