Winter Semester

It was a rude awakening to go back to my dorm a week ago after 3 weeks at home, but it was necessary. Without a doubt my favorite gift was a UTA buss pass (thanks, Mom!): instead of walking up the huge hill to the temple on Monday mornings, I can catch the 5:30 AM bus; instead of biking to school in single digits, I can take the 8:30 bus; instead of worrying about if my bike will get wet in the snow, I only have to worry about if I'll make it to the bus stop on time.
My classes this semester are Mission Prep (by Professor Bott--he's an AMAZING professor, and it's thanks to Jasmine I got in--thanks, Jasmine!), Book of Mormon (by Stanley Johnson, apparently he was our old stake president), Accounting 200 (which is actually interesting right now), Statistics 221 (which is also interesting. I really like this class), University Chorale, and a couple of elementary I SYS classes covering Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint. Overall it'll be a challenging but good semester, and I'm encouraged by the fact that I like alot of the classes required for my major, hopefully it means I'm on the right direction (right now I'm planning on majoring in either Information Systems or Accounting; and in those two majors I have the option of taking an accelerated 5-year program where I can earn my bachelor's and my masters).
My roommates are the same, except that Christian has moved to an apartment two doors down. So right now, I'm alone in my room. While I'll admit this is nice--I can play the music I want and turn off all the lights when I go to bed--I'm sort of lonely. I haven't had my own room since I was about 5 or so.
My goals for this semester is to get good grades, try and exercise everyday (ha! We'll see how that goes...), try to actually be social (. . . .), be happy, and try to become better spiritually as well. We'll see how all this goes.
In my first accouting class, the professor (Norm Nemrow is his name; he made a fortune and retired at age 30 but felt useless, so he offered to teach at BYU for free) told us an interesting insight: he said that when he went to BYU he was sure that eventually BYU would have to switch to a system used by Notre Dame--BYU is funded by tithes, but Notre Dame is funded by separate contributions. Professor Nemrow was sure this would be the case, since he couldn't see why tithing paid by a widow with 2 children in Peru (he used this example) should go to subsidizing tuition for students (or, in my lucky case, paying all of it [and then some!] ). However, since the Presidents of the Church keep reaffirming their commitment to BYU, he has decided that BYU must be a very important part of furthering God's kingdom. He encouraged us to make the most of our time here and immerse ourselves in the BYU experience. This applies to any church institution, and when I thought about it, it's really lucky that all of us had the chance to attend at least some college, at pretty cheap levels (tuition at most places is at least above $5,000 a semester), so close to home, in a spiritual environment. Man, I love this place.