Hope

 So it has been a really long time since I last posted!  I am back at Biola and have been here for about three weeks now.  The first week was spent with me running around trying madly to add all of my classes again, because before coming back to school Biola made an error with my funding and classes. I am so thankful to be here but as a byproduct of it I had to "petition" for my classes. Petitioning is where you come to a class even though you are not in it and beg and plead the professor to sign your white and yellow paper so you can get into the classes you need to so that you can someday have a career ;) It is a bit intimidating, and some professors are not as cool about it as others but thankfully I got into all of the classes that I needed to. So my schedule is:

• Intro to Teaching on Mondays and Wednesdays from 8am-9:20am.
• Theology on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:30am-11:45am.
• California History on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:20pm-2:45pm.
• Elementary Education Art Workshop on Monday nights from 7pm-10pm.
• Physical Science on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30am-12:20pm.
  
• Physical Science Lab on Tuesdays from 2pm-5pm.

And on top of all of that:

• Special Olympics Tennis Coaching on Mondays from 4pm-7pm.
• Say Yes (tutoring an after school program in Skid Row) on Wednesdays from 2:50-6pm.
• Prayer Meeting in Riverside on Thursdays from 8pm-10pm.
• Student Ministries, currently starting to be apart of a group of students who set up different ministries such as, Torrey Conference, Missions Conference and Prayer Sessions.
• Job, currently desperately on the hunt for a job!

So I have been pretty busy! I absolutely love all of my classes and honestly could not have asked for better teachers! I am actually excited to do homework most days :) I have moved into a new dorm called Hope, and it has kind of become a theme for this semester to me.  I love my new dorm, I know the majority of the girls already and have a few friends on the other floors.  My new roommate Vanessa is junior who is an art major.  She and I have been getting along great, we have a similar sense of humor and both love Reba, so it a nice match.  The girls on my hall are amazing.  This semester many students were unable to fully pay for all of their tuition, so a few of us baked 1,400 cookies and sold them for a dollar each.  They got around $600 and the rest someone else paid for.  We are all so sick of the sight of cookies we are giving the rest away in bags to everyone and anyone. I love that I live with a group of girls who do that sort of thing.  I also love that we constantly have Christian music playing in the bathroom and that it is the kind of hall where all of the girls feel pretty much welcome to walk into anyone else's room when ever they need to.

School has been going really well.  I have been finding myself exhausted at the end of the day however. My intro to teaching class is  really good, I am learning a lot and getting super inspired to teach.  I will probably be blogging a lot on what I am learning in that class.  Theology is interesting, art workshop is really fun, we just get to color and learn how to teach art lessons to kids.  California history is pretty cool, my  teacher is from Texas and calls everyone "Ya'll".  Physical Science on the other hand is going to be a struggle! We are already getting into formulas and things that sound like another language to me. My notes go something like, " F=m/a V=the change in time/the change in mass"---and by the time I am done I have no idea what I have written all over my page.  So I will be working super hard for this class, thankfully I have about 10 people that I know in the class so we are all getting together and helping each other understand concepts and formulas. I still don't like it lol :) And physical science lab is fun just a really long process.  Our teacher is from another country so at times it is difficult to understand what she is trying to say.  For instance she said, "Okay class what are some arrows in science when measuring?" It took all of us about two minutes to realize that she meant errors! She is really sweet though and I am happy it is a small class because that way it is more one on one.  

It has been raining here for the past two days and the campus looks beautiful.  It is the most wonderful sound to hear the rain when I close my eyes at night and get to wake up to it again in morning! We just keep our window open all the time :) The picture of the flowers above I took with my phone this morning to show you all the rain.

So prayers requests: I have my first physical science exam coming up soon and so please be praying that I would do well on that and have the discipline to study and remember what I have learned.  Be praying that I will find a job! Also please be praying that I become less discouraged.  I think just with all of the studying and cleaning, running around, and valentines day coming up, its safe to say that I am discouraged.  Yesterday, I had some great quiet time with the Lord on my run and then later that day.  I called my mom to catch up and we talked about a ton of stuff.  After we talked I went in my room and just put on some music and cleaned and read and sang and played my guitar.  When I left my room to grab something I found this on the board by my door from Deanna:

It is was the encouragement that I needed and I am so thankful and feel so blessed to have such great friends who know when I just need to dance my hurt and problems away.

So just be praying for those things for me.  I miss all of you guys and love you and will add on some more pictures and stuff later.