Junior Year!

The past week has been exciting and wonderful which I think is a great start to my junior year of college. Just over a week ago Jeremy got home from is European summer which he loved but he was very glad to come home. Below is a video that David took at the airport when we picked him up.

I made Jeremy a welcome home cake. It was two layers, the top being triple chocolate cake and the bottom being chocolate chip cookie. Of course David helped me decorate it with the Indiana Jones figure running away from the stone ball and we came up with the idea of making him jump over the Atlantic ocean to come home and get away from the stone ball.



David and I also decorated Jeremy's house with streamers and balloons, which he enjoyed. After getting him at the airport we met up with a lot of our friends and two of our former teachers at Purple Cow because Jeremy desperately wanted a good American burger. You will notice in the picture below, that besides David trying to eat my head, that Jeremy and I are wearing matching shirts. At the beginning of the summer when he was in Germany, Jeremy sent me a package from ThinkGeek.com that he told me I wasn't allowed to open until the day before he got home. The package included the heart shirt in the picture but the geeky thing about them is that they have battery pack at the bottom of it and a wire that goes up under the shirt to the hearts. If Jeremy and I got too far apart from each other only 2 and a half of the hearts lit up but when we were close together all 6 hearts lit up. It was very cute and geeky and I loved it.



Jeremy and I spent a few days together and then I helped him move back into his dorm in Conway. That same day he gave a speech to the Rising Juniors about being a PA (what they call a TA at UCA) to freshman honors courses. He was nervous and felt unprepared but in all honesty without being biased he was the best of the three speakers and I enjoyed hearing him speak and so did the juniors. I could tell by how they laughed at his jokes. Here is a picture of him speaking.


The next day I drove up to Fayetteville to try to get the rest of the things done on my to do list for a party. On Saturday we had a house party/back-to-school party at my apartment. Several theater majors showed up but I spent most of my evening with Jeremy (who drove up earlier that day), another couple named Aaron and Stephanie, David, his girlfriend Jordan, and Jordan's sister Erin. After some of the theater people left the seven of us wound up playing a dice game called Farkel which was fun and Jordan won. Below is a picture before the game of (left to right) Stephanie, Aaron and Jeremy chatting in the living room.

One of the best things I got done on my to do list before the party was my headboard. I designed and built it as my final project in my metal working class this past spring. But I finished painting it the day before the party. David was nice enough to be Mr. Atlas again and helped me get it into my room since it is made completely out of steel. One of the things Jeremy got me in Europe was a few ladybug magnets which I stuck to my headboard to make it look like they are on the vines.


Besides my headboard I painted the tv stand in the living room so it is no longer lime green with white hardware, it is now black with silver hardware. Jeremy also helped me put up a new light fixture over our kitchen table which looks a lot nicer then the old one we had and I was lucky enough to get the new one for free.

Today I had my first three classes which included Jogging, Technical Direction, and Music Lecture. My jogging class I think is really going to be helpful in getting me on a better exercise routine the only bad part is then having to walk up a huge hill to get to my next class immediately after it. Music Lecture will be a pretty easier course but in class size it has 220 students in it. I can't imagine actually having to lecture to that many people. Luckily as a theater professor that is very unlikely to happen. In a few hours I have a meeting with my professor for my Voice for Musical Theatre class, which I am looking forward to. It is basically a private lesson 1 hour a week but I have never taken a voice class so I am excited to see how much my singing will improve. I only have one class tomorrow which is Costume Design.
Both of my theater classes which are my hardest classes this fall not only include undergraduates but graduate students as well. I am finally past the point of taking just my basic courses in both my gen. ed. and theater major and now I can also start taking classes that I want to take. I am also thinking about adding a history minor since I only need to take 5 more history classes to have the minor. I think the gen. ed. and the history minor have actually helped keep me sane in my studies. It has made me more well rounded but it also keeps me from getting sick of theater which is what I spend most of my college life doing.

My boss who is the Technical Director and my Costume Design professor are sort of playing tug of war with me. I still don't know whether I will be working in the scene shop like I was last year or working in the costume shop because that is where my design professor would like me to be. I will find out this week but if I work in the costume shop it will only be this fall semester and then I will go back to working in the scene shop. Being able to put that I have worked in a costume shop on my resume will look good and show my versatility.

I guess that is all for now. I will try to poke David and get him to tell you all about his first few days of being a college freshman. I'll write again soon.

Love,
Lauren