My First Semester of College

So I've come home after my first finals, as well as my first semester at college. It was a lot different than I was expecting and, overall, was a good experience. My classes were awesome and most of the kids in my major were really nice! :D :) My teachers also all liked me, which was good :) 

People talked WAAAAAAAAY too much about s-x though :P (SO ANNOYING!). Also, some people said some weird stuff like "guys and girls can't be friends" which was SO frustrating, since I have male friends. ARGH! (also, didn't realize guys and girls were so negative about each other). And some people seem to think homeschoolers are weird -_- (and apparently people thought I can't cuss...hahahahahahahahahahahaha). And apparently, it was childish of me to say "The F word" instead of saying the actual word(sorry, but I don't go throwing the word around willy-nilly. I only say it when I'm mad or for emphasis when I'm talking about something that pissed me off) *eye roll*. (there are more things, but I won't post about them on here). 

Before we begin, I'll tell you what I'm studying for my major and minor. For my major, I'm studying acting- the focus is on theater but a lot of what I'm learning is very much applicable to TV and Film(which is what I plan on going into). For my minor, I'm going to be studying creative writing. I took five classes this semester and did well in all of them :D.

I moved into my dorm a week or so before class started. I did go home for a few days since I had a Dr. Appointment, but I did go back for Freshman Orientation. 

Here's a picture of my desk(don't worry, I moved the food into some containers). 

My hallway was "A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones" themed, which, even though I haven't read the books/watched the show, was pretty cool. My RA was pretty terrible at her job though(and the Housing department was also pretty awful). The college as a whole was awesome though.

So apparently I'm from the Targaryen family(which has Daenarys). COOL! :D

                                                                    STAR WARS! :D

                                                               Winter is Coming..........

There are a few places to eat on campus and I typically ate at my college's cafeteria. Here's my first on-campus meal.

(skip ahead briefly) My mom took these two photos of me when I came back from Labor Day.

(backtracking). Since I wanted to make sure I knew where my classes were, a few days before start of term, I went out and visited each of the places

Here's the first classroom I found(health class).

Here's the second classroom I found. I found another which I'll show later on.

The last ones I found. I had two classes here.

My new fridge and microwave :)
Freshman Orientation was a pretty good experience. It was very cheesy and annoying at first but surprisingly people respected me not wanting to play stupid games(because normally people get all mad and throw a hissy fit).
At the end, they wanted some kids to go up on a stage and do some sort of talent show and I went up there(the only on to, I believe) and sang "Let It Go" a Capella :D :D :D I apparently did a good job on it since I had several people say I did good over the next couple weeks.

Before the start of classes, they had this little thing on the weekend. It took place in the football stadium, which was a lot smaller than other football stadiums I've been to.

I got very, VERY bored at this thingy, so I sat down and took a picture of my tennis shoes. Then I left, because I wanted to watch some "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood".

Early on in the semester I found out that all theater majors who were going into the acting side of it HAD to audition for the upcoming plays. With little notice, I had to rush and memorize two monologues. I didn't get cast and while I was upset at first(had several people be nice and give me hugs since I was crying), now that I saw the play "Woyzeck" I am SO thankful I wasn't cast. The play was just horrifying and perverse and probably one of the worst stories I've ever heard. The theater group was great, don't get me wrong, but the story was just utter crap(and I had to write two reviews of it! NOOO!). Next year looks a lot more fun(MUCH better plays) and now that I have a lot more training under my belt, I hope I will get cast! :D Plus, there are some more acting opportunities next semester that I hope I get in as well.

Me at our welcome ceremony. Here's the tassel I'll hopefully get to wear on my graduation :)

Random picture of Kili I took on my computer with my phone.

One day at my college's cafeteria, we had a "disney" day where everything was decorated at "The Little Mermaid" stuff! :D They even had the movie playing in a room where we could eat dinner and watch(which I did. FUN! :D). Here's some Ariel's Hair Pasta :)

They often have fruit-water here that you can get.

Here's a Sand Dollar cookie :)

Here are some pictures I took of my campus during a walk I took.

I signed up for a Trick or Treat in my dorm. Since I said I'd help pass out candy, I was given this little pumpkin to put on my door(I drew the cute little face! :) :D). Since I didn't really have a costume, I put on my leather jacket, put my hair in a ponytail, and was Dean Winchester :)

My mom got me a couple of posters for my room. Here's my Hobbit one :)

Here's one for Paris, France. :)

Some more pictures I took during homecoming.

Part way through the semester, I got cast/wrote a skit for a little short performance thingy with the college's women's rights group. Sadly, it wasn't very feminist(basically, just a bunch of sex jokes haha :P ; mine was probably the only good thing there) and just didn't get across the message I had been hoping it would have been(plus, one girl in my scene dropped, they changed my parts, and the script had to be fixed since some people decided to completely re-write it, so there was a lot of drama there). It was good to get a little acting in, though. Also, when I asked for gluten free pizza, the person in charge got all mad at me :( Thankfully, one of the girls in my major was nice and brought me some gluten free pasta! :)

"And we're never been to Boston in the FALL!" (I've actually been to Boston in the fall, I just wanted to put that there XD).

Sandwich area decorated for fall and Halloween and Thanksgiving :)

Some pretty fall pictures I took :)

It got really cold and this was a sign they put on our door(liked the reference to Katy Perry's song "Hot N' Cold").

There was a Harry Potter club I was a member of(was sorted into Gryffindor). Here are some pictures from that.

There was a Kendo club on campus, which I joined. I ended up doing both Kendo and Katori(which is related to kendo) and both were a lot of fun. Here I am with a shinai

Look at all the shinai they gave me! XD THEY ARE ALL MIIINEE! (just kidding; one of the guys said I should take a picture and say that when I posted it XD).

One day it snowed on campus and, on the evening it started, I went out to grab some dinner(before Once Upon A Time started) and when I saw the snow I started singing "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas!" :D.

One night they had some little inflatible stuff(like a maze and a slide). So I took my camera and snapped some pics(and went through the maze- helped a dad and his son a little bit at the end).

A little cloth snowball. They had some that kids could throw around at each other and I was kicking it like I did when we played Taekwondo Baseball at my Taekwondo school.

Two of my acting classes were here.

Funny sign I found in the building where I took my math class.

Little Christmas thingy set up in the library.

A foggy, fall day on campus. Got turned around a little one night on my way back from a meeting.

My math class

One of my theater classes was in here. (I'll go through my thoughts on all my classes further on below).

Thought my hair looked cool with my jacket but since I don't take good pictures, it doesn't look as cool here.

They had a little, cute Christmas event on campus that I went to with my parents and brother(my sister couldn't come since she had work). Here are some pictures I took.

Cute little gingerbread person(smiling :) ).

We're going PENGUIN SLEDDING! :D YAY! :D

Some cool Christmas trees

The hallway I lived on in my dorm.

Last meal I had this semester at the cafeteria

Overall, I had a very good year. As I stated above, most of the kids in my major were really nice and I liked all my professors. I have several kids that talk to me during class and most of the kids have a lot of talent. I've been very impressed with the student body. Thankfully, all my professors liked me too and I think I made a good impression on everyone(the head of the theater department knows my name and that's a good thing). 

I took five classes this year and I enjoyed all of them(some more than others). I'll give a brief overview of them all below

Acting Class

Probably my favorite class of the semester. We had a pretty great group and I really learned a lot! :) I think I've really improved on my acting techniques and it was cool to learn Stanislavsky techniques, as well as do monologues(and a really great scene). I have gotten better over the years but I think going to college has already helped me tremendously. In this class, I did three monologues(one was the final) and a scene. The monologues were from The Crucible, 70 Scenes of Halloween, and A Doll's House. The scene was from "Mary Queen of Scotland" and I think this was a really great acting moment for me. My teacher even said I blew her away! :) :D(I played Mary). I had several of my classmates say that they could see me playing the role and that the girl(who was VERY good) and I did such a good job on our scene that they enjoyed the classical piece of theater(which they typically didn't care for). I also really liked my professor in this class(she taught another one of my classes too), she was great, and she even said that she thinks I could make it in the business and that I have the potential to be a really powerful/strong actor(she also wants to work with me on some stuff). Glad to have my talents confirmed by someone in the business(that's always a nice feeling) :)

Introduction to the Theater department class

This was a pretty interesting class. Our final was a performance, so that was fun, and the class itself was pretty easy. Also really liked the professor for this class and the class itself was very helpful for me in figuring out various things(like when to sign up for next semester's classes). My final was a monologue I wrote that took place after the events of The Crucible, which was a lot of fun to perform. 

First semester(of a three semester course) class on Arthur Lessac 

Arthur Lessac was a guy who did a lot of work with vocal and movement techniques that a lot of actors use. While the class may have felt tedious at times, it was a very helpful class and I've learned a lot. I have started to see how other actors use it in their work and it has helped me in my performances as well. Glad I'm taking this class(this is the same teacher as my acting one) and, of course, I had fun playing Mulan in one of our last projects! :D 

Math class

Since I'm a theater major(though I do plan on going more into Television/Film), I only have to take one math class! Hallelujah! Luckily, I got a really great class and teacher and the class was actually pretty fun(and we had pretty much NO homework! YES!) While I have gotten good at it(I had mostly A's in Algebra 2 for example), math has never been my favorite or best subject so I'm glad I got a good teacher and that we did some fun stuff. For example, we did a really long study of cryptography which I really enjoyed, as well as learned about origami, finance, geometry, and math in pop culture. My final was pretty fun as well- we got to write a paper and give a presentation on any topic we wanted and I did mine on math in science fiction :D

Health class

Not my favorite class, but still an enjoyable one for the most part. It was really easy and I made good grades with ease here(though, I did so in all my other classes too). I even helped some other people out with the class. While the subject matter was interesting, I already did know quite a bit of it, and the chapter/section on s-x was very uncomfortable(we had to watch a documentary! NOOO! I thought since I was homeschooled I had avoided that!!! *runs around screaming*) The textbook also annoyed me at times since it was sexist and made it seem like being a girl completely sucked. 

Next semester I have some cool classes coming up and while I am looking forward to them, it's nice to be done with finals and be able to focus on other things.

Onward to Christmas(and The Hobbit movie)! :D