Working Out

My long-time friend and I have decided to start working out. We've known each other since roughly the age of 8 months to a year. She goes to Platteville as well.

The William's Fieldhouse is a great sports area. There's a big gym that is open to everyone with a Platteville ID and the whole thing is totally free. There are workout machines and weight lifting machines and spaces to do stretches and sit ups and whatnot. I actually used to work in the Fieldhouse, in the Training Room. I quit on really short notice and they haven't spoken to me since, for which I feel really bad. I almost wish I were still working there, let me tell you. At this point I'd be getting better hours than at Wal-mart. And everyone was so nice, and it was so laidback and cool. I feel terrible about quitting on short notice. NOTE TO YOU GUYS: Never do that. It's so rude and unprofessional. Lame. :(

Cars on Campus

If you are thinking about coming to Platteville, or if you've been accepted but haven't actually come here yet, I'm sure you have a lot of questions. I know I did!! I was absolutely terrified when I was a freshman. I'd like to invite any of you to ask me any questions you'd like, and I'll be more than happy to answer them!!

In the meantime, I'm going to try to remember what questions *I* had before coming here, and address them in my blogs.

One thing I know I wondered about was whether or not to bring my car with me. My mom was kind of against it, especially since the campus offers a spot where you can sign up and collaborate with others to arrange trips home and to Wal-mart and whatnot. I guess it all depends on what you're comfortable with.

I personally am *NOT* comfortable relying on other people. At all. I find that it's a great way to get yourself totally stranded. I wouldn't want to have to collaborate a ride to Green Bay by finding someone to take me thus far and then someone else to take me thus far. I wouldn't want to have to beg my friends to take me to Wal-mart to get a new package of tampons. What if I suddenly got sick at 3 a.m.? Would I have to wake up my R.A. and get her to take me to the emergency room? What if she wasn't there? Would I have to wake up the on-call R.A., maybe some guy I've never even met?

That's just not me, so I had to convince my mom that I needed a car. And really, it was well worth it. The parking permit was about $80 for a year, I believe, (or about $40 for a traveler's permit), which may sound like a lot at first but really is very reasonable for full-time parking in student lots.

I have a friend whose dad wouldn't let her bring her car because he didn't want her to deal with the parking permit or the snow. She had an OK time because she knows a lot of people, but I'm a more private person and couldn't imagine going through all that obnoxious hassle. As for the snow, I've really never had a problem with it. You only have to move your car when it snows a lot and they issue an order for alternate side parking for a few days so that the plows can go through. After a few snows they will clear various lots and plow them as well. As long as you pay attention (there are e-mails and signs posted EVERYWHERE), it's really very easy. Parking can get very full, particularly in winter, so sometimes you have to hunt or perhaps park far away from where you are going. But I still strongly feel that bringing a car is definitely worth the little bit of hassle that you have to deal with in exchange. 

I can't imagine relying on anyone for transportation--I really need to be in control of that myself. Very well worth it!!

Thing Two

Now for my second lesson of the day.

It relates to Biology. Now, I'm sure I've mentioned before that I am totally and 100% not a math or science person. I am an English/Philosophy/Religion type of person. I want to be a writer, an artist.

There have always been two things that bother me about science classes. First of all, I don't mind telling you that I am religious. Actually spiritually Christian might be a better term, I dunno. Also see "pantheism" and "Diest." I go by Emerson's essay about nature in which he says that nature is where he finds God. All that stuff, right? I'm just telling you this so you see where I'm coming from sitting in a Bio class.

So I believe in God and I believe in science. Evolution makes sense to me. But there are some things I obviously don't believe, like that everything came from nothing. To me, that doesn't work. I don't believe that God waved a magic wand and created everything, but I don't believe that He isn't anywhere in the picture, either.

Now the second thing that bugs me about science is that I know that half of what we believe today is probably wrong. Like a few hundred years ago when everybody thought that Earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the Earth. These things were accepted as fact, and now we look at those beliefs and we laugh. We think, "how ridiculous!" But that's really what they believed, just like there are things that we really believe today.

So these two things have always turned me off about science. And I was trying to explain the former one to my friend last night while I was reading my Biology chapter for class today. This friend--we'll call him "Ryan"--is first of all a science major, and second of all one of those people who get a great kick out of contradicting everything you say just to make you mad, while pretending they just want to "debate."

There is nothing that I hate more than people who do this. It is so annoying, and I have two guy friends who do that. Ryan describes it as, "I just like to play devils advocate, stimulate debate!" But it's not a debate if you take an opposite side just to argue to be annoying, obviously.

Now in this case he really did believe what he was saying, so I'll give him credit for that. But Ryan likes to try to convince me that religion is stupid and that it's illogical of me to adhere to it, because I'm just "blindly following what I learned when I was young." In other words, he gets very insulting and condescending about it and likes to question your mental capacities. It's really quite annoying.

But he made a fatal mistake in his arguments last night, I learned today. He told me that he can prove that the world began by electric charges and all this other stuff because of this that and the other scientific information. Now what irked me about this was more the second point that I made earlier, that I know half of these theories and whatnot will be proven wrong later. So I stopped the argument before I got really mad because like I said, Ryan never concedes to anybody making any logical point, he just keeps arguing for the sake of being annoying for his own amusement.

So I was iffy about Biology. I'm not good at science and I have trouble accepting some of these things, especially since I'm no scientist and can't argue the specifics of what is right and what is probably wrong, just that history proves that a lot of it is rubbish or way off the mark. But my professor made two excellent points that set me totally at rest today, without me even having to ask her about them.

Firstly she said to us, if there is any one thing that I think you need to know, that I want you to walk away with from this class, it is this: scientific theories are NOT proven. That is impossible. They are generally accepted as true, but they are NOT proven.

She went on to explain things like "the world is flat" theory and theories about germs and things like that, that were accepted as true but that scientists later on realized were either totally incorrect, or that just weren't totally correct and need to be modified.

The second thing that she pointed out, later on, was that while there are some people who try to tell you that science is the only way to look at things, *MOST* scientists feel that science is only *ONE* of the three ways to make sense of the world around us, the other two being Religion and Art. She said that most people look at the world with a view that is blended from all three of these, and that all are important.

So it looks like Biology might be OK this year after all. It's still going to be hard and I'm definitely going to have to work hard at it, but having a teacher who seems pretty rational and who addressed these two things in her first lecture just might make it OK after all.

I know these two blogs were pretty long, but sometimes I just have a lot to say!! I want to be a writer after all, remember? :)

Thing One

Oh hello!! School has started once more and I am bubbling over with lovely things to tell you. Isn't that exciting? I just know you've been waiting for the semester to pick up again so that you can read all of my blogs. :)

So I have two things to complain about today, which I'll break up into two blogs entitled "Thing One" and "Thing Two." You know, like from The Cat in the Hat. Dr. Suess? :)

The first one really has nothing to with school. At all. But I'm going to relate it to life, so we'll be good.

OK have you seen the "Happy Cows come from California" commercials? Don't they just drive you nuts? If you're a Wisconsinite, that is. Or even just a Midwesterner. Or even just someone who hates California because they always try to steal everyone else's state motto. I mean come on, seriously. Wisconsin is the Dairy State!! California should go off and find something of its own to brag about. My mom was talking smack about California once because she said they can't find their own state slogan and they always try to steal others', like Florida's sunshine and now our milk. Stupid California. And their commercials are misleading; our farmers do NOT leave the cows out in the middle of a huge snowstorm with wolves wandering around and howling nearby. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this does not actually happen.

Now, how am I going to relate this to life? Life in general is very complicated, I'm sure I don't need to tell any of you that. And sometimes we want to steal other peoples' ideas or take their credit for ourselves. Sometimes we get really hung up on being the best at everything that we run around and try to steal others' glory and take their happiness and success away from them because we want it for ourselves. But this isn't going to give us happiness. What we really need to do is find what *WE PERSONALLY* excel at and concentrate on that. Then everyone can be happy and successful, and besides, the world works best when everyone is using their particular skills and talents to better society. Everyone is good and strong at different things for a reason: we need them all to work together.

I guess I can even relate this to school by telling you to major in/pursue something that truly interests you. Don't worry about money, or what your parents want you to be, or what your friends are doing. Don't go to a school for your boyfriend/girlfriend or because all of your friends in high school made a pact to go there. Go there because it's the right fit for *YOU*. Do what *YOU* want to do, find a career that you will *LOVE*, because there is no career that is useless. And if you're happy, a lower salary is going to be worth it. If you're stuck in a job that you don't really like because you want the money, your life will NOT be happy. Do what you LOVE, and the pieces will fit and you will find your niche in the world!!

And that is my life's lesson for today. Actually I have another one that I will put in the next blog, but still. This is a good, profound one, I think. Enjoy!! :)

Thing One

Break is ending....

I made it to bed just before 4 last night. The goal had been 2 a.m.

That's an improvement... sort of?

I had to get up at ten to eleven this morning, instead of sometime after noon. :P Alice had a vet appointment. She got a vaccination and now has clean ears and trimmed toenails. She was not very happy with me, and retreated into her favorite drawer shortly after we got home. First, of course, she had to chomp on some food to help restore her strength.

Nothing good is on TV on Saturdays. And I have to work at 5. And Scott wants me to clean the room before I leave. Tidy it up, anyway. He's at work for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long--he works at the radio station in town for the high school sport's games, which kept getting canceled lately because of the cold/snow. So he's been lounging about playing WoW while *I* keep going to work... and now he wants me to "tidy up." Men!! :P OK but I will give you this: a lot of it is my mess. Clothes... and... stuff. Books, computer stuff, etc. It's just that this isn't really my room, so it's hard to keep my things neat and organized because they don't really have a place.

PS ABC Family is awful.

Break, Next Semester

Break needs to end.

Or not.

Starting on the 20th of January, I'll start working at 7 a.m.!!!!!!!!!! Eiiiiik!!! And have night classes.

I hope I can get into a better, healthier pattern of going to bed by 11 each night and getting up early in the morning, having a long, full day, instead of what I WAS doing: working till 11 p.m., staying up till 4, waking up at 11 a.m. to rush off to my first class.....

Ugh.

Anybody have any good suggestions on how to break my late-night habit and becoming a morning person?

PS

I love how my last title sounded like a newspaper article heading. >:)

I need to start getting that together, by the way. I'm terrified! I have no idea what I'm doing!

Second Semester Starts Soon

School starts in approximately 10 days.

Next semester I'll be working mornings instead of evenings. I hope this goes well. It seems like it should, although I truly do hate waking up early.

They botched my schedule again, like they did at the beginning of last semester: not changing my availability and scheduling me when I need to be in class. At first I thought I just didn't turn in my availability fast enough, but my assistant manager says that I did. Another assistant manager has assured me that it will be fixed and that I won't be forced to work when I have school.

*WHEW*!! :) He's nice, and so is she.

~Laura~

Winterim

So it's still holiday break. I haven't been writing much during break because there's nothing really university-related going on. I'd take Winterim but I can't really afford it, so I guess I'm not. Winterim is a period of 2 weeks where you squeeze in a semester's worth of class. My boyfriend has done it before; he says it isn't too bad. Helpful to squish in some extra credits!