September 2015 Update

Lots of updates.  I'll go over what I've done this weekend, then my hopes for the future.

Yesterday, I went on our UCM retreat.  Originally, we were going to a place called Globe Creek, but there was a ton of snow yesterday, which made driving in less-traveled roads too dangerous.  So, instead of camping at a camp, we camped at a hotel.  We hung out doing some worship and watching Nooma videos.  The next day, we hiked over to the Barnes & Noble across the street.  There, I bought the first Harry Potter book in the language it was always meant to be read in: Spanish.  We did some more hanging out and worship and Nooma, then came back home.  That was my fun retreat!

Here are some pictures I've been taking (From random times and places)

Beginnings of the snowman army

More snowmen

Mega snowman

My friend Will, at the retreat, cutting a tomato vertically rather than horizontally

My friend, Zach, eating.  I kept getting blurry images and so I had to keep awkwardly taking more.

These next images are from Starvation Gulch.  For those who want to know more about what that is, copy paste this URL: https://www.uaf.edu/woodcenter/activities/traditions/starvation/

Basically, its burning pallets that have been shaped into towers or buildings.

Fires!

One group built a firetruck out of pallets.  I suppose there's an irony in a burning firetruck set ablaze by firefighters.

Burning Eye of Sauron

It burns!

The Eye of Sauron pallet pile collapsed.

You can feel the warmth far away.

DJs playing trap music loudly.

Here's the firefighters lighting that building in the back on fire.

Stack on fire

A fair amount of people.  Maybe 400ish.

View from a distance.  There were also tens in front selling food and stuff.

I've been trying to get a job.  I'd kind of rather just not have a job so I could have plenty of time for my 16 credits, my friends, as well as retaining a little bit of my sanity, but I need the income.  I'm seeing if I can continue my internship I had last semester and summer, but I don't know yet if it will work.  The professor I worked with seemed optimistic.

One reason I'm hoping for a job (in addition to offsetting the cost of flying and textbooks) is I hope to study abroad next fall.  I'm hoping to go to la Universidad de la Habana, which is a university in Cuba. I still need to earn a couple of scholarships and work out transferring credits I earn there to UAF, but I'm optimistic.

It should be an interesting experience.  I've never lived so far south, so the heat might be tough.  It might also be a challenge that there are 2.1 million people in La Habana, which is far more than any where I'll've lived in for more than two weeks.  And, of course, I won't be speaking English.  I'm hoping for something like an English tutoring job there though; that should be fitting for me.

If I were to come back for my Spring semester 2017, I could earn a double major in Linguistics and Spanish. Financially, that'll be tough.  However, I think going through with that will pay great dividends in the future.  I'm going to do my best to get that to work, and hopefully it will all go well.

UAF: Part Trois

I'm starting what should be my one and only junior semester.  In the spring, I'll be a senior, credit-wise.  If I knew as much my freshman year as I know now, next semester would be my last.  My first year I took a class I didn't need to, and dropped some classes that would have been nice to have already done. But I wasn't as durable and determined then as I am now.  I can't change my past decisions, so I'll just learn from them what to do and not to do.

It's fall here, and towards the end of it.  Some trees are nearly spent, but most still have their beautiful yellow leaves.  Here are some pictures of them:

Here's a main area a lot of students walk through.  Riding bikes is pretty common on campus.  On the right, you can see some warning tape and traffic cones.  Facilities is apparently starting more construction/repairs on the road there.  UAF is far better at starting projects than finishing them.  

The giant building in the back is called The New Engineering Building.  Its construction started prior to UAF realizing they hadn't obtained the funding to build it.  That being said, I think they managed to finish it somehow.  I don't think it has a name like the buildings around it (Brooks, Duckering, Bunnell), but maybe they're waiting for someone to make a big donation to name it after them.  I'm sure the engineering students will come up with a better name.  Maybe Neb.

I'm not sure if I just don't remember all the flowers from the beginning of the past fall semesters, but it seems like Facilities has planted a bunch of them.  They're pretty now, but they probably won't be once the freezing starts.

Chair of nails.  It probably wouldn't hurt to sit in it, but I don't really want to test that theory.  There used to also be a chair of broken glass but I was less optimistic about that one.

Landscape as viewed from the Wood Center Bus Stop.

Same as above, but with a few trees, a pickup, and a sculpture blocking the view.

Also from the same bus stop, but facing the opposite direction, towards what we call the West Ridge, where we have all our science buildings.

Fully yellow trees.

Yellow trees and some evergreens.

This is the Museum of the North in case you've never seen it.  It's a popular spot for tourists.  My friend works there, and she gets questions like "When do you guys turn on the Northern Lights?"

These trees have dispensed many of their leaves already.  In the background are the science buildings Aka Sofu and Elvey (I think).

Western part of campus.  The sun was annoying because it made the ground dark by comparison on my phone, so I had to point it away from the sun as much as I could.

On the left is the gym called the Student Recreation Center or SRC or rec center.  In the middle is the Patty Ice Center, where we have our ice rink.  I still have yet to see a UAF hockey game.  I really should go to at least one game at some point, but I'm not much of a sports person, and I don't think my friends are either.  On the right is the Patty Center where most of the courts are located.  It is there that I take my swimming class.  It's also where the basketball and racquetball courts are as well as the shooting range.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I take Introduction to Morphology and English for Second Language Teaching.  The former is a requisite of a Linguistics degree (and I want to take it anyway) and the later is an elective.  I'm using it partly because I want to, and because I have an interest in teaching ESL after graduation.  I mean to use this course to see if this aspiration is what I want or not.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I take Introduction to Swimming, Intermediate Gwich'in, and Concepts and Contemporary Applications of Mathematics.  I've never been a good swimmer, and it's something I'd like to be able to do at least well enough to save my life/ enjoy myself during pool parties.  I decided to continue Gwich'in because I enjoy it so much, though I don't know what purpose it will serve in my life yet.  My freshman year I took a stat class I thought I needed and could use, but it turned out to be redundant because I took stats in high school.  So I'm taking another math class so as to fulfill my math requirement.

As needed, I'll be working on my Spanish Composition class.  It's online.  All in all, I'm taking 16 credits this semester.  That's more than I've ever taken, but I think I can handle that much.  I'm trying to frontload this and next semester so that my last semester can be relatively easy.  I'm hoping to spend that semester abroad in maybe South America, so if I could spend as much time outside of the classroom making friends and visiting places, that'd be really awesome.

I haven't yet looked into a job yet.  I was considering emailing the professors I worked with about continuing my internship.  However, there is a person sitting in on my ESL class who does something with teaching English and said where she works is looking for volunteers and maybe people to work there.  So, tomorrow (the 8th) I'm thinking about talking to her and see if I can't get something going there.  I think getting my feet wet would be the best way to find out if this is truly my calling.  Or if I'm wrong.  God will open or shut this door as he sees fit.