BIOLOGY

Miss me?  I know it's been a while but unfortunately it's going to have to be a while longer.  I'm currently enrolled in an Independent Study Biology course from BYU.  It's incredibly hard and although I've been enrolled for a year, I haven't really done much.  I am now FINALLY halfway through but it's all due on July 20.  Therefore, while taking care of my 18 month old and dealing with this incredibly active fetus inside of my body, the only other thing I can concentrate on is biology!

It's super duper fun.  Woopee!  But hey, at least I got a 90% on my first test and an 80% on my second test.  Those are just the multiple choice scores, I don't have the scores of my short answer portions.  But all I have to do is pass!  Wish me luck.

3.51

Wow. I am writing this post to congratulate myself. :) I got a 3.51 at BYU this past semester (winter semester from January-April). Okay, to some this may not seem too amazing...especially to those of you with the last name "Morgan" because we all know that Spencer was a "steely-eyed-missile-man" many semesters in a row (meaning he got a 4.0), but considering my past performance at BYU, that's pretty dang good. My last semester at BYU before transferring and going to the U, I got a 1.98. Yes, I typed that correctly...therefore I was on academic warning status. Anyway, I am no longer on warning and I am pretty dang proud of that.

My lowest grade this semester was a B- in Critical Inquiry & Research Methods. Okay...SERIOUSLY, just read the title of the class and you'll understand why I got a B-. My goodness! And, no, that was not an elective. :) It's mandatory for my major although I really don't know why; I really hated that class. I got an A- in both Marriage & Family and Parenting & Child Guidance. I must say, I thought my parenting class would be awesome, and I actually did learn a lot but seriously, I think it was quite possibly the most boring class I have ever had to endure. The teacher just has one of those voices I guess. Lastly, I got an A in my UPPER DIVISION Persuasive Writing class. It was a tough class with tons of papers due, but I absolutely loved it and actually learned a lot!

Anyway, considering that I was pregnant and working and going to school and felt like CRAP, I think I did pretty good and just thought I'd say so myself. :) Actually, I think those grades would've been good for NOT being pregnant and working, so under the circumstances I am very very happy with how I did!

Anywhere but here...

You Belong in Paris

Stylish and expressive, you were meant for Paris. The art, the fashion, the wine! Whether you're enjoying the cafe life or a beautiful park... You'll love living in the most chic place on earth.

What City Do You Belong In?

Minus the wine and the fact that from what I know French people generally tend to be ornery and rude, I guess it sounds pretty accurate. Right now I think I belong anywhere but here. I'm not particularly enjoying my classes this semester. I guess I'm just stressed. My psychiatrist says I use that word too much...he's right on the money with that one. Mike wonders what the heck we're paying him for though because anyone how knows me could've said that! :) My one saving grace right now (other than an amazing husband and practically perfect step-son) is the fact that I have two classes with one of my 3 best friends in the whole world, Megan Jensen. We get to spend a lot of time in and out of class together on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I am loving it! Who knew college could be so much more fun with a friend! So thanks to Meg for being my saving grace this semester!

"Exams Must Come"

by Sweet Indigo

Comfy duvet,

What am I waking for
It's a new day,
but I must sleep some more...
Another lecture

That I did not attend
Do it next year,

That's what I pretend...

I will fail, my friends
Exams must come, Exams must come
I'll face it with a groan
I don't want to go home
Bring on exams

Ooh, stay up all night, and barely write
I really have to fight to carry on
Bring on exams, Bring on exams
Exams, exams must come...

Just in case you couldn't tell by the title and lyrics, it is currently finals week at BYU. AHHH! I found these lyrics online and just had to include them! I have 4 big finals this week and I have taken 2 so far. I took my New Testament exam which was a killer and I was the most nervous about that one of all of them. I studied a lot and got an 84%. When I was taking it I felt I was doing better than that, but still 84% is amazingly good for me especially with that class. I also took my Introduction to Family Processes class and got a 90% which I was pretty dang happy about I must say. I was actually disappointed when I first saw the score, but I am happy with it now. :)

Tomorrow (or today actually seeing as how it is after midnight) I will be taking the Strengthening Marriage and Family exam and also my Statistics exam. I am worried. I need to study for stats some more before I'm ready but as far as Marr and Fam goes, I really don't even know what to study. The other day my really smart friend took it and got a freaking 67%. I am NOT looking forward to that exam. It is 100 questions. Who the heck asks 100 questions on Strengthening Marriage and Family??! I mean really! It's pathetic. The guy who taught it was a really cool guy and as a person I really liked him. But as a teacher for that particular topic, I've gotta say it, he sucked! Okay, seriously though, he usually teaches recreation classes and biking and stuff and I felt like we were in a "family recreation" class or something because that is ALL he talked about. Our exam is open notes, but that doesn't help at all because he never covered anything we needed to know in class! Even if we wrote down everything verbatim from what he said in class, they still wouldn't help! Oh well, WISH ME LUCK!

Also, tomorrow is our preschool Christmas program. Yeah, talk about a STRESSFUL WEEK! I am excited for the program and I am so glad that I have Leslie there to help me with everything (our classes are combining for it), but I actually think I like doing the programs better on my own. Because then I can decide stuff. Leslie asked me to choreograph the actions to the songs and so I did and my kids love them and are sooo cute but I found out today that we might just have to do whatever Leslie's class does. It's totally fine, I'm just a little bummed. However, Leslie has been SOOO great because she has arranged all the props, etc and seeing as how I've had my hands a little full with finals, etc. she's pretty much been handling everything.

Anyway, tomorrow is a big day, so everyone pray for my successes tomorrow. :)

"Ute Fight Song"

We're up to snuff, we never bluff,
we're game for any fuss.
No other gang of college men
dare meet us in a muss.
So fill your lungs and sing it out
and shout it to the sky,
We'll fight for dear old crimson
for a Utah Man am I!
Ki-yi! (GO UTES!)

I think that I have been officially revoked of my "Morgan" name. Today (just like last year but for some reason they had no problem with it last year...) Mike and I went over to the Morgans' house to watch the UTAH vs. BYU game. The Utes pretty much slaughtered the poor Cougars and I was cheering my head off. Little Spencer was too and I will admit the things he was saying may have been a little more annoying. This may have resulted in a revoking of his name too...although I think they see he is young and formidable so they may decide to keep him. :) Mike got completely P.O.ed 3/4th of the way through the game when he got a text message from his friend Ian saying "Max Hall for Utes' defensive player of the game!"

Anyway, I am very glad to have FINALLY won one of these rivalry games in our marriage.

I went to BYU today to take a test (ugh...I hate Saturday tests...) and was decked out in my Ute attire. Surprisingly not a SINGLE person said a word about it (I got a few looks and laughs but nothing else) until I got to the guy who hands out the bubble sheets and he said "Yeah! Go Utes!" Lol!

I will now proceed to remove the Cougar fight song from our website but unfortunately Playlist.com (where I get my music for the site) doesn't have the Utah fight song! LAME! Oh well.

GO RUNNIN' UTES!

P.S. I just looked again on playlist.com and they do have the Utah fight song. So I put it on, however, it has some crazy long intro. :p But eventually it gets to the song. Mike if you are reading this, you had your fight song playing for a LONG time on here, so lets be fair...I am sure you can cope with this for a little while! (He really almost never reads this so chances are he'll never notice!)

Cougar Fight Song

I cannot believe that I've only had one comment on the Cougar Fight Song that plays whenever anyone accesses our blog! And I'm surprised that that one comment took so long to come!

First of all if you know me, you know I am not one to have the Cougar Fight Song blairing on my blog page. I've grown up a Ute through and through. And yes, for those of you who are wondering, I will be clad in the color RED this weekend for the BYU-UTAH game! And that is also what our son Spencer will be wearing. I've been purposely keeping him from taking home (to his mom's house) his Utah flag football jersey so that he could wear it for the game. :)

Although I am a Ute sports fan, I do support BYU in sports and I am currently attending college there. I have a BYU sweatshirt, etc which I'll wear any day, UNLESS OF COURSE THEY ARE PLAYING THE U.

Some of the members in my wonderful family are crazy about the whole BYU-UTAH thing and get a little upset by even the mention BYU. Others just get upset by a POSITIVE mention of BYU. For them, this song has been playing on our blog. :) Of course it was Mike (my BYU-through-and-through husband) who suggested the idea and got me to put it on. We were just going to keep it there for a few days til we heard about it from my family, but no one said anything and we kept it.

The fight song will soon be taken off of our blog and I just thought I'd draw all of your attention to it before it leaves. :) I am a cougar, and I am proud to be a cougar. I do love BYU. There are OF COURSE things that bother me about BYU and ways in which I think it is a CRAZY school! But it is great. I love the atmosphere, and the morals behind what keeps it going. I am very glad I am attending that school and know there is nowhere else on earth where I could be having those same experiences. I love the religious aspect of my classes and how it strengthens my testimony. It is however not for everyone. In my heart though, I will always be a UTE, and no matter what our families do to change that, my fight song will forever be...

UTAH MAN SIR, A UTAH MAN AM I!
A UTAH MAN SIR, AND WILL BE TIL I DIE!
KI YI!

"Beauty School Drop-Out:"

by Frankie Avalon

Baby get moving (Baby get movin),
Why keep your feeble hopes alive?
What are you proving (What are you provin)?
You've got the dream but not the drive.

For those of you who were wondering, I did drop my interiors class. I was debating it and then went onto www.ratemyprofessors.com to see what others have said. By the way, that website is an absolute heaven-sent for college-goers. If you haven't already, you've GOT to check it out! Anyway, I just thought I'd give you all a glimpse of what was said on that site:

4/19/08	INTHFL	1	1	2	3				DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS FROM HER! It would have been a very interesting class had it been a different professor. She is ridiculously picky and her tests are the dumbest ever, all fill in the blank. She gives you a paper with 100 blank lines and you do the rest. The material is interesting, but she will ruin it for you. Take it, but not from her
4/17/08	HFL102	2	2	3	4				also, if you spell a word wrong on the test, she marks the whole answer wrong, even if its the right word. ridiculous.
4/17/08	HFL102	2	2	2	4				I hated this calss more than anything in the world. all you do is memorize every type of chair or building in the universe and sit through hours of slides. i learned nothing.
8/21/07	HFL102	2	1	3	4				Julee is strict and not very caring or kind. She doesn't like interuptions or too many questions. You hardly learn anything about Interior Design-- just architectural history :( Tests are fill in the blank-- terrible.

Anyway, if any of you are still wondering why I dropped the course, you need to read those comments again...it's pretty self-explanatory. I am still considering taking the course another semester but of course by another professor. I've heard that the one man that teaches the course is absolutely awesome so I may see if I can get into the course taught by him.

"Back 2 School"

by Adam Sandler

Ohhhhhhh

Back to school

Back to school

To prove to Dad

That I'm not a fool

If you couldn't tell what the occasion was from the above title and song, I started back in school on Tuesday. I haven't been in school for over two years and even then I only went a semester and had taken a year off before that also. So anyway, it's been a while since I've been in school!

I chose the above "song" for the introduction because of the last little bit, "To prove to Dad that I'm not a fool." In as much as I want to LEARN and to have a degree I think a lot of the reason I went back to school is because I knew it was what was expected of me from my Dad. The day I called him to tell him I was going back to school I was expecting him to be excited and proud of me. Instead he very seriously stated, "Well it's about time. I knew you'd come to your senses sometime I'd just hoped it would happen sooner rather than later." That was pretty much the end of the conversation. And now here I am back in school.

I am only taking classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays which is really nice but because of that my classes go from 8AM to 6:15PM! It's pretty intense. I'm taking 14 credit hours this semester. These are the 5 classes I'm taking:

1: Strengthening Marriage and Family

2: The New Testament

3: Introduction to Family Processes

4: Principles of Statistics

5: Introduction to Interiors

My 1st class (Strengthening Marr and Fam) is good. The in-class stuff isn't all that great but the books are really (surprisingly) interesting (as I have never before found myself EVER wanting to read a text book, this is a new found thing for me). It is odd though because at BYU they have 2 marriage and family courses, one which is a religion course and one that is not. I am currently taking the one that is not considered a religion course however both of our texts for the course are based solely around "The Family: A Proclamation to the World."

My New Testament class is fine however I am dreading it because I hate being graded on how well I know my religion. The fact of the matter is that what I truly hate is being told that in some areas I really struggle to know all the details. I think that of the 3 religion courses that I've taken from BYU (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The New Testament) I will most definitely struggle the most with The New Testament. But the professor seems really good and I am hoping that I will learn a lot even if a perfect score is not something I will be likely to receive even with fervent studying.

I really enjoy my third class, Introduction to Family Processes. The professor seems cool and very to the point about things. He KNOWS (first hand) that ALL families have issues and he's not afraid to discuss them. He is quite cynical which I actually like. On the first day I made a comment about something and stated that I am a step-parent. He looked aghast and asked, "You married a divorced man??! Is it OKAY to marry a divorced man?" In a situation in which many people would've been terribly offended, I was excited that he was going to be a teacher that would not be afraid to dig into such issues.

I am hoping that I will do well in my statistics class. I took AP Stats as junior in high school and can honestly say that it was one of my top 2 favorite classes I took in high school. I did very well on it but I also enjoyed the class material in and of itself. I am hoping that this class will be a similar experience. In this class I have come to realize the truth behind my mom's old statement about how the kids on the front row get better grades. In a class of 900 sometimes it might be hard to get over looked or even distracted but I've realized that it is an entirely different experience to the people who sit on the front row. I've taken one class in this auditorium before and ALWAYS sat on the back row and if not, at least in the back 5 rows. This year I am front and center. Everything seems so much more interesting and I don't get distracted. I actually enjoy the classes! It's amazing! So, note to current and future college-goers: SIT ON THE FRONT ROW. I know it sounds totally nerdy, but it'll make all the difference. PLUS, there is so much more leg room and your backpack doesn't have to be crammed under your feet. SUCH COMFORT! It's truly amazing! ;)

My fifth and final class I am not so sure about. The professor seems to be a real stickler and I cannot decide yet if I really like her or really don't. She won't bend on anything and the class doesn't seem like it's going to be as fun-loving as I had hoped. I am really considering dropping it. Hmm...come to think of it maybe I should look it up right now and see if I'd still have enough hours...well I looked and I'm not so sure so I guess I'll hang onto it for now. The 15th is the last add-drop date with no penalty so I guess that's my deadline to decide. Mike wants me to drop it because he thinks it's just too much for me right now and because the professor is so...oh I don't know of any kind words to describe it so I won't. But I think the materials would be interesting to know! I like interior design. :)

Well I am doubting that anyone has even read to this point of the post because this is turning out more like a personal journal than a post for others to read, but thanks for sticking with me! :)