Turkey Month!

So now we are in November, which I can hardly believe because time goes by so fast at Linfield, but I also cannot wait for Thanksgiving break.  I really miss my parents and my pets, but I am still so busy I really cannot dwell on it too much.  I have now been to two swim meets, the first in Tacoma, Washington at Pacific Lutheran University and University of Puget Sound, and the second in eastern Washington at Whitman College and Whitworth University.  The meets have been a ton of fun so far, but I am exhausted.  The bus rides are really long!  But they are also lots of fun and the team is becoming like a family to me.  The meets make Sundays the designated “do homework” day, which I must say is sort of a drag, but thankfully I have been able to get everything done.  I stress out pretty easily, but I have not been too stressed, although thinking about the things I need to do in addition to homework can be overwhelming.  One of these things is a grant application.  Linfield’s new grant money for sustainability projects is a great opportunity for students, faculty, and community members that I am hoping to take advantage of with a friend from Greenfield Club.  We are planning a composting project to get a full sized compost tumbler onto campus.  I am really excited about this and cannot believe that I can be involved in something like this in just my first semester here!  Another source of some stress is January term and spring term class registration, coming this week.  Freshmen were assigned a four-year plan to fill out just to get an idea of what we will need and want to take.  It is mind-boggling, but I have managed to come up with a schedule for next semester.  Now I just have to get into the classes I want!  I know that I probably do not need to be worried about this but I am anyways and I will be until after registration.  I think Linfield does a fairly good job of guiding freshmen through the registration process, compared to a big school where we would be on our own, but I am still a little overwhelmed by it.  One of the things I have decided is frustrating about college life is that I cannot do everything I want to do.  This weekend I wanted to go to an environmental symposium at University of Oregon with Greenfield, and couple that with a visit to some friends at UO, but I was swimming.  There is just so much going on that I have to miss out on some stuff.  I really wish I could be in two or three places at once sometimes.  I guess I am just lucky that there are so many awesome opportunities!