Changing directions

So ya know how this blog usually details all the fun little things that happen to me? Well, that will probably be changing a little bit at least so that I can use this to fulfill a requirement for my mission prep class :D

Hopefully that gets you readers as glad as I am, because it gives me an excuse to write on here at least 3 times each week! That means you'll get updates incredibly often, and you'll probably actually get some insights and things I've learned since I gotta find something else to start writing about if I'm going to be posting that often or y'all would get incredibly bored with my life story.

So for now I'll give y'all the good old rundown of what's been happening since my last post all those many months ago. I'll make it brief:

October: Video games, being social, working, baking, and such took up the vast majority of my time and my priorities started to slowly shift away from class and more towards having fun since I wasn't liking my classes.

November: Boy was I looking forward to that break, more so because of the lack of homework that had to be turned in than anything since I wasn't able to go home. It was definitely an interesting month as I saw my motivation wane and my desire to achieve fall into a pit and never climb back out.

December: Wow. This month was probably the craziest month I'd experienced yet here at college, filled with tons of sadness, grief, fun, tests, and insanity that I can't even begin to capture it in this brief paragraph. But! I got to go home halfway through the month and that was absolutely spectacular. I was super happy to be able to catch up with so much awesome family that is still down in Florida, and I even got my wisdom teeth out and lived to tell the tale!

And now I'm back to January! Magical isn't it? I just find it crazy that yet another semester and set of classes here at BYU has started once more. This semester I'm taking a whole new slew of classes, so here's the list including my pre-semester reaction to each:

1. Differential Equations [Meh. another pure math class... wahoo time for super repetitive homework and no fun in class]
2. Into to Chemistry Part 2 (112) [ Ah, so it begins anew - my fight with chemistry will never end will it? Perhaps I'll like this half more than the first half... I never was a huge fan of the microscopic anyway]
3. Into to Computer Programming [Wahoo! A 3 credit class that I can take for fun to actually have a marketable skill! Totally down with that - definitely looking forward to this class the most]
4. Bio 100 [meh, it's a GE so i might as well get it over with]
5. Mission Prep with Brother Wilcox [This class will probably be my second favorite as it's the most applicable to me now... what with getting started on my papers and getting ready to go and all]
6. University Chorale [Wahoo! I got into a choir class! This will hopefully be one of the more fun classes I take and relieve stress instead of adding it]
7. TWO Tennis Classes?!?!? [Scratch that. I'm most excited for these two classes, but sadly they don't start until March.]
8. RHA class [Well... I don't really have a pre-semester vibe for this class since I was just convinced and worked out how I could do it tonight]

In case you missed that... I'm taking 18 credits in a total of 9 classes, 9 credits of which I'm really looking forward to and the rest I hope to be as excited about once I actually start class.

In other news, I switched back to my summer apartment to room again with Master M (the awesome RA I was rooming with summer term). So, if ya wanna send me mail or anything (always appreciate it - you might even get a shoutout on my blog and on facebook!) my address is once again 1938 N 40 W #68 Provo, UT 84604.

Anyway, this post looks long enough to me for now, I'll probably write another one later tonight if I get bored that actually talks about the start of this semester from when I got back to Utah until whenever I'm writing it. After that though, I'll have to start incorporating random things that I learn and encounter throughout that seem interesting.

'Til Next Time,

Jordan Nielson

Highlights

Well, I'm going to continue with the highlight reel of the last few weeks, starting on September 24th (since that's where the previous post ended) and going until hopefully today October 19th. Anyway, If you're curious what I've been up to for the month before this post make sure to check out the two posts before it since I also published those today... which I guess I could have waited... but I really wanted to get them out there and not have to worry about it.

Anyway, the first highlight from this time period is the afternoon of Saturday September 29th. I went on a mini-date with one of my friends to get some frozen yogurt, which tastes surprisingly like soft-serve ice cream... especially if you put some toppings on it like m&ms and chocolate chips. I had cake batter flavor... which was pretty darn delicious... and well worth the $3 or so that I paid to get some for the both of us. Anyway, I only consider it a mini date because  it lasted about an hour and pretty much consisted of walking to get the yogurt (and talking on the way), getting and eating the yogurt, and walking back home (and talking all the while about various things). I promised her I would take her on a real date soon enough... and the plan is for it to be tomorrow. I kinda hope she doesn't read this until then... but it doesn't really matter if she knows what I'm planning or not. It's an afternoon date - We're starting at like 12:30pm, and we're gonna go on a picnic type of thing with some hopefully tasty rolls (cinnamon and regular), pulled chicken (I would do pork but I don't have any...) to go on the rolls, baby carrots, and some Guarana Antartica to drink.

Then we're gonna go watch a movie at the dollar theater, Ice Age: Continental Drift to be precise (one of the few movies she hasn't seen that is currently in the dollar theater). After the movie, we're gonna go walk up to campus and see if the roof of the JFSB is open and if so go on it and chat for a bit. I'll of course have some cookies and cinnamon rolls still for us to snack on, and some bottles of water as well. We'll head back home after that since she has some activity to go to that evening. [There will soon enough be a post about how the date actually goes and what we actually end up doing... you'll see it soon enough :P ]

The next highlight I've had was pretty much an entire week long... It was midterms week! I ended up doing pretty well on all of my midterms (I at least didn't fail any of them...) and considering I had tests in 5/6 classes in one week... that's not too shabby. During the week I usually relieved my stress by baking... so I made about 4 batches of cookies that week for various reasons :P

Another Highlight was on October 7th, 2012... which was a very great day. My friend happened to have an extra ticket to the last session of conference and asked me to go... of course I said yes without a second thought. So I finished work the night before, and got about 4 hours of sleep in order to wake up early enough in order to be ready to go at 8:30am for the entire day. So I got ready, and we drove up to Salt Lake City incredibly early in the morning... there was like no traffic because it was Sunday and it was pretty early. Once we got up there we ended up watching the first session in the North Visitor's Center on Temple Square in a sweet auditorium. It was incredibly awesome to be in a room full of people all eagerly listening to the words of our church leaders, and it was a great session. After that session we headed back to the car to eat the lunch we had packed, and then headed up to the conference center. We got to our seats about an hour and fifteen minutes prior to the session starting, so I read some chapters in the New Testament and looked around the conference center. It is a sweet place! Everything is super beautiful and well crafted even down to the seats being incredibly comfortable and actually spaced enough apart to not be painful to sit in. Once the Prophet walked in everyone stood  at the same time, it was a sweet thing to be a part of. Then the actual session was incredibly spiritual and awesome. Overall, it was an experience that I'll definitely remember for quite a while.

My next highlight I'm gonna type about is my friend Mike opening his mission call. It was incredibly awesome to be there for someone to open it (it was the first one of my friends I was actually able to go to the opening of his call). So his family was about 15 minutes late, and the entire time there was an air of nervous energy throughout the room as everyone talked about random things. Once he actually opened the call, there was a great spirit of confirmation that it was indeed a call from the Lord. It was pretty awesome.

That's all the highlights up until now... If you want a more detailed listing of my dealings... well too bad :P Unless you're part of my family, then feel free to call me :D

'Til Next Time!
Jordan Nielson

Awesome church experiences, Incredible Date, and more!

Well, I'm still eons behind where I would like to be for today... considering it's already October 19th and I'm only up to about September 9th... So, In order to catch up I'm just going to go through my calender for the last month and a half and hit the highlights. I'm just gonna go in chronological order, not in order of highlightness - so don't think just because something is first or last it was better than something else... just when it happened! Also, I'm not going to post anymore insights from my D&C class... I figure I'll just post them on a separate page on this and throw a link up to it once I get it done (which shouldn't be hard since I already have all of them typed out... just want to put there here). Let us begin!

First on the list of highlights happened on September 12th, sometime in the afternoon. My good friend Lydia and I went on an adventure to Buy-Low (kinda like publix but less awesome) to acquire some limes to try making these smoothies that she found a recipe for. It turned out the smoothie was basically lime juice, vanilla ice cream, and ice, and for those who are huge fans of lime you could also put half a lime in the bottom of the cup. They were actually quite tasty, and that's all for that highlight.

Next on the ever-increasing list is stake conference, which happened that weekend (September 15th and 16th). It started out with the adult session at 2pm on Saturday, which was down at the UVU institute building, and was pretty awesome! The highlight from that was definitely my stake president calling his wife up to the podium to speak with him while they talked to us about marriage. It was kind of entertaining, because I had never seen a church speaker call someone from the audience to join them at the podium so it was certainly an experience. Of course, I also have some spiritually centered notes on what was said, but I don't really feel like posting those up here... If you want them email me? Anyway, later that night I of course had work (since it was a saturday) until midnight. I only bring that up because stake priesthood was at 7am on Sunday morning. Yes. 7AM. Like earlier than I usually wake up 7AM. So I got up at that insane time (5:30am) after going to bed shortly after midnight and it was TOTALLY WORTH IT! From the notes I have, the feelings I remember, and the fact that I was able to get to regional conference early enough to get a boss seat, it was way worth getting up that early. Later that day (not really... pretty much right after it) there was a regional conference for all of Utah Valley. It was totally incredible, as the concluding (kind of like a keynote) speaker was Elder Dallin H. Oaks (of the 12) who I got to be IN THE SAME ROOM AS. It totally blew my mind. I had never considered being within 200 feet of an apostle, let alone being able to hear him speak! So regional conference was totally awesome, there were a couple great speakers in addition to Elder Oaks, which made it even better! Topics that were spoken about included temples, family history, who   we are (children of God), integrity, optimism, founding ourselves upon Christ, missionary work (even in an area where the majority of people are members), marriage, being single in a regular ward, the direction finders (liahonas) we have, the basic principles of the gospel (article of faith #4), and even planning! Elder Oaks made a comment to the effect of "I cannot remember a conference where it was so inspired, varied, and important." My favorite part of the conference was definitely when Elder Oaks made an analogy relating being single in a conventional ward to a new member of a stargazing club. He pointed out that single members lack a spouse, much like new members of the club lack jackets - and so life is uncomfortable and awkward for the person who can't relate to the things being discussed and you end up a bit cold.

The next highlight, interesting enough, was later that day at the Wyview Office Desk Attendant Potluck we had. I was able to make dessert which ended up being a cake (which I foolishly didn't take a picture of) that had different sections of different kinds. It included plain vanilla, marble, funfetti, and funfetti marble. Anyway, my incredible co-workers made awesome stuff as well including Chicken Black Bean Salsa, Sitcky Rice, Some kind of fancy crockpot thing that you put on rice and tasted delicious, corn, orange salad, and some regular green salad. It was a super fun thing to be able to go to, and it ended up that not much cake was eaten because of the volume of other delicious food that was there to be had.

The next semi-highlight was forum on Tuesday. It wasn't a devotional, mainly because the topic wasn't spiritual at all, but it was still incredibly awesome and informative. The speaker was a judge on the circuit for D.C. and he discussed "The Hard Work of Understanding the Constitution" which I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on how difficult it was to really get what the constitution says. But, he made me realize it was even harder than my old Young Men's President (who was totally awesome) had beat into my skull.

The next highlight spanned a couple days, and was the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Career Fair. A couple days before the fair I went to get my volunteer's vest, but they weren't available yet. So, I asked the person organizing it if I would be able to help her at all in preparation for it, and I ended up being allowed to move boxes of gifts for recruiters for her. This was a super awesome chance I got, and I only got it because I took the initiative (and I still believe I was prompted by the spirit to ask) I got the chance to volunteer a ton of hours for the career fair, including the 3.5 I spent moving boxes the day before the actual fair. The day of the fair I was able to volunteer for a grand total of about 7 hours spanning random time intervals (interspersed with classes) from 7am until about 4pm. It was super awesome to be able to see all those companies out there, and it really opened my eyes to how many options there were for people that excel in their major regardless of what it is.

Anyway, the next highlight came a little while later on the 21st of September. It was my first date of fall semester, and it was pretty awesome. The Tuesday before, I had asked one of my co-worker's roommates out as part of a challenge given to me by on the RAs. So, I baked her some cookies (sugar cookies to be precise) and walked over to her apartment and asked her. Anyway, then came Friday and I decided to bake a pizza for our date. I must admit... it was pretty tasty, and I actually took a picture of it! After we ate a bit, we walked up to the Planetarium on campus for the planetarium show. It was pretty sweet, and reminded me of how much I enjoy looking at the stars and trying to figure out how on earth they came up with those constellations. After the show, we walked back to my apartment and ate a delicious giant cookie/brownie thing (also have a picture of that). That was pretty much the end of the date... or at least it was for all y'all.

      

My next highlight, and final one for this post (which I just realized is actually kind of long...) was the Brigham City Temple Dedication Broadcast. It was super awesome to be a part of, and I can't wait until I actually find a way to get to a dedication in person (that's on my bucket list). So there were a few things that happened that were incredible to be a part of... but a tad sacred to just post on a blog for anyone to read that happens upon it.

'Til I finish the next post,
Jordan Nielson

Falling behind

So in my last post I got to Saturday September 1st, which means I'm still a good month and a half or so behind... so this might end up being a marathon post since I don't really have much else to do tonight that absolutely needs to be done.

Anyway, it's Sunday September 2nd, 2012, which was a very interesting day for a few reasons. To start off, it was Fast Sunday, which meant that I didn't want to eat anything in the morning, or for lunch, so it was good that a few interesting things happened that day. To start off my day I woke up super late... like 20 minutes after church starts late. Luckily, there's four wards in my church building, so I was able to make it to Sunday School and Priesthood for my ward, then attend another ward's sacrament meeting. Anyway, after I finished sitting through one and a half testimony meetings, and the Sunday School and Priesthood meetings, I went home and it was about 3pm before I finally was done with church meetings, largely due to the fact that I was ridiculously tired the night before. So I took a nap, went to ward prayer, and then headed to bed since I had work in the morning.

So it's now Monday morning, and it is a reasonably good Monday for two reasons. First, we don't have class since it's labor day. Then second, I was able to cover one of my co-worker's shifts that morning and got to experience opening the office for the first time. Sadly, after work the day headed downhill pretty fast. I took a nap, and really didn't do very much else of note that day, aside from homework, but it was still nice to not have class.

Then came Tuesday, which was a slightly more exciting day. For one, I actually had classes today which is almost always a good thing, especially since it was the second week of classes and therefore most of them were pretty set in who would be there. Since most classes were set, we got groups in my Chemical Engineering class, which was pretty awesome since my group is made up of 7 super awesome people who all live in Wyview. Later that day we got to get together, back at Wyview  in order to complete our group assignment that was to be due on Thursday. Anyway, because I have to do it for class anyway, I kinda like putting cool insights I had from D&C on here, if nothing else because I really like that class and find it incredibly interesting. So, for today (the 4th of September) my insight was regarding how our church is a church that believes and does miracles, every day, and that whenever I put off a chance to exercise my priesthood authority and power, that's basically me living below the potential I have to be the best I can be. So that's the D&C related thought for today, it is related to sections 2, 3, 7, and 10 so if you're curious read up on them :D

Moving on, Tuesday night wasn't too exciting - just went to work and entertained questions while working on homework - and as typical of nights I work went to bed sometime after midnight. Then came Wednesday, which was a reasonably good day. From what I can remember there was nothing exceedingly terrible that happened, and I got an excuse to make a cake. The excuse was that it was the birthday of one of the hall advisors, and it just so happened to be the one who was my hall advisor for summer term. So I made a super tasty chocolate chocolate chip cookie cake (picture below this paragraph). But, sadly for those of us trying to surprise her, she wasn't home until waaay late that night (like 11:30pm), so we just had to leave the stuff outside her door and didn't actually get to see her reaction to it :(

After Wednesday of course comes Thursday, which was a pretty routine day so far as I can recall. Nothing really extraordinary happened, but I did have d&c again and therefore have another insight to share. Anyway, after Thursday came Friday which wasn't too busy except for a chance to make some lasagna (which is like my favorite food). Of course I've also been having to work on an ever-increasing list of homework that needs to be done each day, as my classes finally get in a rhythm  with what work they expect to be done. So it is finally the weekend again, which is always wonderful as that usually means I can do pretty much whatever since I don't have homework due during this time. So I ended up skyping my wonderful aunt for a little while, working a bit, and going to church.

Sunday was an especially exciting day as it was the birthday of my boss at work so a few Resident Assistants and I decorated the office for her to see on Monday. I also got to go ward prayer, which was interesting as we filled out spotlight forms. Another cool thing that happened was I got a calling - from over the pulpit (kind of) - to be an assistant ward clerk. So I got to spend some time learning all that cool stuff, and got set apart which was a really awesome experience. So I'm not really going in order for this day, but there was also a super awesome CES devotional given by Elder Holland that day and I got to make some Chicken Parmigiana for some of my friends right before it. And... since I'm still over a month behind, I'm gonna throw this post up and then write a new one!

Til I finish the next post,
Jordan Nielson

Playing the "Catch-up" Game

Well... We're about 3 weeks into fall semester, and it seems like I'm already playing Catch-up... but only with the blog! It's hard work to keep up with all the busy work I get from six classes... much more difficult than the measly three I had summer term.

Anyway, Moving on with the story started last post (which you should go read if you hadn't, there's a chance you might have missed it). In my last post, I detailed my exciting experiences of meeting my new roommates and going to church for the first time in my fall ward in addition to my first day of fall classes. But! The real fun began the second day of classes, when I had 3 other classes I hadn't had the first day, and I also had chemistry again. So, on Tuesdays and Thursday I start my day at the wonderful time of 9am with a chance to study the Gospels in the New Testament. The first day of class was fairly routine, as my professor spent most of the class discussing the syllabus and his 200+ page packet of awesomeness. After New Testament I headed down the hall to chemistry where we spent most of class discussing some early atomic theories. Ya know, like Thompson's, Rutherford's, and a couple others? Meh. They're not that important since we have the nuclear model that we use now, but it's still cool to know where that came from though. After chemistry I wandered around for an hour hoping to run across someone I knew, which ended up not happening and I eventually made my way to my Intro to Chemical Engineering class that starts at noon. That class looks to be a ton of fun, as most of the busy work actually has some application and it looks like we're going to be put into groups for a few of the assignments. After Chemical Engineering I headed back to the Benson Building (which was where my morning classes were) for D&C (part 1) which happened to be my first class that actually had someone I knew already in it that I knew about. Anyway, my teacher for D&C - Professor Brooks - seems to be super awesome. About halfway through the first class meeting we got to the material - the Introduction to the Doctrine and Covenants - which I had actually never really read to thoroughly before and it struck me how specific it was. In class we also discussed a bit about the sheer volume of revelation that Joseph Smith had, including how section 76 (the one that includes the information about the kingdoms of glory - good stuff, you should read it) could have been at least 100 times longer that it is. Anyway, after D&C got out, I went home and chilled for a little while. I did some homework, but there wasn't too much due or assigned yet, so my day wasn't very exciting. I went to work from 8 until midnight as usual for a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, and not much exciting happened there either.

Then it was Wednesday already, and it turned out that classes aren't as exciting the second day. Though a few notable things did happen... Foremost I came across some people I had met summer term in my chemistry class, which was super exciting because we have that class basically everyday so it's definitely a good thing to know a few people suffering through it with me. Another cool thing that happened is my math Professor, Dr. Barrus, informed me that he was perfectly fine if I turned in homework before it was due (which I figured he would be), and I proceeded to give him the homework up through the next week. It was definitely a good feeling to be rid of that monster, and not have to worry too much about it as I had a nice little cushion to work with as I progressed further on the homework. The last interesting thing that happened on Wednesday, though it was kind of a sad thing, was that I found out we have chemistry homework that's online. I didn't plan on it, so the $30 to access it was a little annoying, but I guess I should have seen it coming since I had been doing online physics homework for the past year, but I guess I thought chemistry was above such menial tasks... It's not.

The real excitement on Wednesday started sometime after classes finished, at the Ward Opening Social. It was held at this absolutely Gorgeous park down the road a little ways next to the Provo River. When I got there, we were in the process of playing some sort of ice-breaker, as usual, and it turned out to be the exceedingly drab one where you have to find someone who has done a certain thing or has a certain trait to fill each line on a list. It turned out that whomever made the list figured there would be at least one Canadian in our ward there... but there wasn't so the game ended up being a semi-bust. It was still a little fun, and I was one of the few people who had traveled more than 1000 miles to get to BYU (fun fact: My current address to my place back in Florida is about a 2300 mile drive depending on which route you take - SOOOO glad we flew). After the game they unleashed us on the food, which was super duper tasty. They fed us J-Dawgs, which for those of you who have never heard of them it's basically a large Hot Dog made of beef or polish meat (both of which are incredibly tasty) and covered in this super tasty sauce (called J-Dawg sauce... original right?) along with your choice of condiments on top. There's a slightly funny, and kind of awesome, story about who I ended up sitting with... it ended up being a couple people from my Home Evening group, but due to the incredibly large amount of people I had seen in the 2 days since, I did not recall them in the slightest. So, we sat there making pleasant conversation for about an hour before we realized it... crazy right? After the social I went home and worked on a bit of homework before heading to bed.

Insert comment from today (September 15th now...):
Holy cow... I just noticed how much text I wrote for a mere 48 hours... I might have to cut down on that if I'm ever going to make it through the 2 weeks I'm behind. Oh well, if I get tired then I'll stop, I'm running on about 5 hours of sleep right now, though I did take a nap for about an hour earlier today, so I guess I'll be heading to bed eventually.
Close Comment.

Then came Thursday, which was actually more exciting than Tuesday (hard to believe right?), or at least it was in my view. My day started out with an awesome discussion in New Testament about the different religious sects (of Judaism) around at the time of Christ, mostly the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and what their different views are. My professor, Brother Parker, made an interesting simile relating them to our day, with the Pharisees being more like the Protestants of today, due to their belief in the oral tradition more so than the authority, while the Sadducees are like Catholics due to their emphasis on authority. After that wonderful discussion I spent an hour vegging in chemistry while they discussed the wondrous topic of Stoichiometry (which doesn't seem to be a word in a usual English dictionary...) that I had drilled into my brain like none else in AP chem (Thanks Mr. Campbell!). So after chem I had to run to the shuttle and head back to Wyview for an awesome staff meeting, where I got to meet a co-worker I hadn't met yet since she works in the mornings when I have class. Anyway, so at staff meeting we had a quiz on the RA's, and I got all of them except one because I couldn't remember the RA for building 4's last name... otherwise I got all of them, which was more than almost everyone else that was there (I think my boss got them all... but she didn't tell us). After staff meeting I got a ride back to campus so I could make my noon chemical engineering class, which turned out to have someone that is also in my chemistry class, and that I happened to meet summer term. Anyway after ChemE I headed over to D&C which is quickly becoming one of my favorite classes. Today we got to talk about the six purposes of the Doctrine and Covenants which are:

1. Voice of warning
2. Message is clear that we have a responsibility to take that voice of warning to the world
3. Part of our responsibility is to prepare ourselves and the world for the second coming
4. Purpose of bearing witness that joseph smith was a prophet of god
5. Witness that the book of Mormon is true
6. Identify that the church of Jesus christ of latter-day saints is the only true and living church on the face of the earth

While discussing this Brother Brooks brought up a quote from President Hunter, which I really liked, from the January 1994 New Era. He said "As children of God we must seek to dispel fear from among people. A timid, fearing people cannot do their work well, and they cannot do God’s work at all. Latter-day Saints have a divinely assigned mission to fulfill which simply must not be dissipated in fear and anxiety." I find this to be an interesting quote, largely because of the truthfulness of it, but also because it gives us motivation to lessen the fear in ourselves and others in order to move God's work forward.

Fast forward a few hours to about 4pm when I got a text from my Bishop asking if I could meet with him at 6:20 that night. Of course I said yes, and so began the hours of anticipating what purpose the Bishop could need to see me for. I asked around a little bit and found that usually if things like that happen you get a calling fairly soon after that. So, I went into the interview not really knowing what to expect, and it turned out to basically be a worthiness interview which he appears to do with most everyone the first month or so of the ward (Fast forward 2.5 weeks and I get a calling to be an assistant ward clerk, funny story about that later though). So after the interview I left feeling a little perplexed about why I was called in since it didn't seem to be anything of urgent need, since I already have a limited-use temple recommend, and I didn't get a calling, so I chatted a little bit with one of my co-workers who seemed utterly convinced I would be an elder's quorum president, which I didn't end up becoming. Work that night was fairly routine, not many people came in so I got to get a bit of homework done, and I chatted with some RAs for a little while.

Insert Another comment from today:
It seems like I'm spewing a novel for this post.... if you were to copy this into a real word processor, it would already be 2-3 pages long and I've only covered .. so if you would like me to keep the posts shorter and more frequent (I'm thinking most days in fall semester might end up like Wednesday, with not much happening but usually at least one noteworthy thing) please vote in the poll at the bottom. So I'm gonna keep moving on this post... because I wanted to at least get through Saturday, and I'm just barely through Thursday.
Close Comment.

Then came Friday, my first day of ChemLab. It was certainly an interesting experience, and it was definitely an interesting day with it starting out in leadership at 8am (which is always interesting, if only because it's at 8am and nobody is quite awake yet). Anyway, the exciting part started after calc ended and I wandered over to the chemistry computer lab and found a mass of people there. It turns out that the virtual chem lab they were having us do for this week was having some serious issues, and people weren't able to access it or it wouldn't load on the computers for various reasons. So, for some people it took over three hours, while I was lucky and once I started it only took about an hour and a half. After I finished with that, I went home and to celebrate finishing the first week of fall semester had a Merlin Marathon (I mentioned more about the show in a previous post) and finished up what was left to watch on Netflix. Sadly though there's 4 seasons already done, and they're filming a 5th, but only the first 3 are on Netflix so it looks like I'll be waiting a while yet before I can keep watching.

After Friday of course came Saturday, which seems to have not been too noteworthy as there isn't anything on my calendar except for work. So I'm pretty sure what ended up happening is I woke sometime in the morning, realized I didn't have anything to do so I fiddled around on facebook a bit, then went back to sleep for a few hours. After I got up the second time I baked some cookies and ate some food, then it was time for a non-exciting day at work.

That finishes up that week, so I guess I'll end this forever long post.

'Til Next Time,
Jordan Nielson

Oh hey... It's fall already?

Preface: So... because I want to get at least something published tonight, and I could probably type on for another few paragraphs about the next few days I figure I'll make 3 different posts about the time since I last posted, the first being this one that covers from when my roommates moved in to Monday night ( a period of about 5 days).


Well... It's been about a month since I last posted on here, and there's been quite a bit happening, so I might have to cut this post into two parts depending on how I'm feeling and if I actually check the length before posting it. Anyway, it would seem that Fall is already upon us here at BYU and we've finished two weeks of classes already. But before that, I figure I should start way back when with my roommates already getting here at the beginning of the semester.

So, way back on like the 22nd of August, my first roommate moved in. I didn't know him before he got here, but he's pretty awesome. He plays guitar, likes to play some of the same computer games I do, and happens to be from Utah. He, like most freshman, actually went to New Student Orientation, although he liked it probably about as much as I would have if I had gone. Anyway, so the first couple days were kind of interesting, but we didn't yet have our other roommate here. So, a few days later when the roommate that I met summer term got back from home, the party really started. The one I met summer term also plays guitar, also likes some of the same computer games I do (albeit they like different ones), and is overall just a pretty cool guy. So, it looks like we're going to have a great semester cooped up here in north wyview.

Moving on... it ended up that we have 9am church, which is kind of a stretch for my roommates as they both like staying up rather late, and a bit challenging for me since I don't get home from work on Saturdays until a little bit after midnight. But it ended up that one of my roommates, who is from Utah, went to his home ward with his family, so it was just me and one other roommate. We ended up being a couple minutes late, which wasn't a big deal, and church was pretty good otherwise. Sadly (kind of) there were no good stories like the first Sunday of Summer, so we're just going to move on. After church, I went home and made some cookies, which were super tasty, and my roommates got their first taste of what it's like to live with me (at least since I got out here and started baking a bunch). Then that evening, some friends from home and I all got together and ate a super tasty dinner. It was in one of the girls' apartments in the new Heritage Halls buildings which was kind of nice, but it made me realize all the more how much I like being in Wyview. For example... I definitely prefer knowing most of my building fairly well instead of just knowing the 5 other people I room with. Another thing is I've gotten used to not having a dishwasher, so it isn't a very big issue that I don't have one. Anyway, so dinner was a blast and it was super awesome to see all those people from back home that I hadn't seen in 2 months (side note: it's the 13th of september and I haven't seen any of them since... sadness :( close side note). Moving on, that night we had our first ward prayer for these new wards, and ours is at 8pm in the 4 rooms that we usually use for Priesthood meeting on Sundays so it was exceedingly tight to get the entire ward in there for 20 minutes. That pretty much sums up my first Sunday in fall semester, so I guess it's time to talk about classes.

Monday morning came bright and early, especially since my classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays start at 8am. My first class is my Foundations of Global Leadership class, which I'm still not entirely sure what it is actually supposed to be about, I just kind of go with the flow on that one. It looks like it's going to be a blast though, as the first day we got to play a song as a class with Kazoos. After that I go to multi-variable calculus at 9am, which would probably be more interesting if I hadn't already taken most of the class material at Valencia during spring semester but I need to take it again since at Valencia we never got around to the fundamental vector integral theorems (like Green's and Stokes') so I kind of wish to learn about those. Finally comes chemistry (111 honors for those who care which one) at 10am. Chemistry looks like it should be a ton of fun, as the first day my professor found an excuse to use a flamethrower to blow up balloons filled with different gases which was pretty spectacular. After classes I took the shuttle home, and chilled out for a little bit. I did some math homework, and since I already know the material I went ahead and did all the homework that was due through Friday. Anyway, after I got tired of math I watched my favorite show on Netflix, which is called "The Adventures of Merlin" (if you want to find it on Netflix you can just search merlin). There's three seasons of it on Netflix, and during the break between semesters I discovered it and watched the first season and a couple episodes of the second one. So today I watched a couple episodes of that before it was time to head off to Home Evening - Entire ward style. As typical of BYU wards on the first monday that the ward exists, we have the entire ward gather together for a social thing on Monday evening called Home Evening where they assign apartments into home evening groups and generally have some sort of ice breaker for us to do while providing dinner for us. My home evening group ended up consisting of my apartment, another guys' apartment, and 2 girl apartments, for a total of six guys and seven girls. Sadly enough there will usually only be around 4 or 5 guys there as at least one of my two roommates are usually working monday nights when we have home evening.

Anyway,
'Til Next Time,
Jordan Nielson