Thursday, February 9, 2012

Alright alright! I am posting! PS I love Madison, WI



First: look at how gorgeous Madison is?! Then appreciate how awesome people in Madison are. That little figure is a guy is wind surfing on a frozen lake. Thanks. Now to business. I'm a procrastinating, lazy, distracted ADD kind of a gal so let's just cut me some slack eh?
I hate posting after a long time of not posting (which is every time I blog) because I never know where to begin. ughhh ok here we go. "Please fasten your seat belts".

This semester is even better than last I LOVE my classes. I am taking three art histroy courses which are incredible. One is a survey course of Ancient art to the Renaissance, a Renaissance course covering from Donatello to Da Vinci, and my fav a German art history course covering 1900-WWII. It is beyond incredible. I love my professors! They are so intelligent, and get so excited when students have interest in their field of work. Since Art History majors are few and far between the professors become tight with students in the major. Another thing that I am loving about school is that I am FINALLY making friends! Yes over a year after living in Madison, and I am fraternizing with my fellow schoolmates. It makes living here so much better and it makes me love my major even more having a small group of pals that are in all your classes. It is kinda like high school again! UW Madison is a pretty huge campus too so it is nice to see people you recognize, and not be a just little dot in a sea of students.
This is my view everyday. In the basement of the art museum only glimpsing to what the light of day may be like. I love it.

I am also taking a women's health and their bodies course which is to say the least interesting. Let's just say I would be experiencing a WHOLE different course if I took this same class in Utah. It is very eye opening, sometimes jaw dropping, and makes me giggle at inappropriate times. It is good for me though I am learning things about my anatomy that I had no clue about. Like do you know what the pouch of Douglas is? I didn't either. I am also learning about social issues that are very interesting. Granted they are heavily biased in the ultra feminist side of the world, but it is good to be around different ideologies. Don't worry guys I am not going to become a man hating feminist activist...but I might gain new opinions towards certain issues after this semester. I have an awesome coloring project that I could share from one of my discussion sessions for the class while learning anatomy, but my in-laws might read this, and I don't want to be naughty ;) -Kiersten you know what I am talking about!

In November I had my schedule for this semester all lined up and perfect to work with my work schedule and the rest of my life. My fifth course was French 101. Which I was soooo excited for! My goal in life is to learn French, and then live in France/Switzerland for the rest of my days. This 101 class was the start of making my dream a reality. How amazing would it be? *scenario-Art History Graduate (like Kate Middleton woot!) I speak french, get a job at some quaint art gallery in France and ride my bike everywhere I go with a basket filled with fresh picked flowers and blackberries. I go to the cafe for some coffee...er "herbal tea?" to read some intellectual book while the children are at tennis lessons....end scenario* Well this track was rudely disrupted by a less than enjoyable professor (a quiz on three pages of a worksheet to have memorized on the 2nd day of class? Which I was not allowed to take because class started at 2:25 and I arrived to a locked door at 2:26? Then was never let into class after the quiz so I missed a whole lecture? You get my point.), and the realization that I didn't really "need" to take French to graduate.

So I dropped it :( but I still had to take a class. You see since I transferred to UW Madison they require that I take a certain amount of credits at their university and a certain number has to be in the intermediate/advance level and in the college of letters and sciences. So three days into school I had to scramble to find a class that fit those requirements and fit my already packed schedule. Found what seemed to be the perfect substitute. A Film Theory course. The catch? It is only one day a week.- Hey that's great!- more or less. It is only on Wednesday nights from 6:30-9pm...and I am young women's 1st counselor. When is young women's? Oh ya Wednesdays nights at 7.

So after working that all out I am no longer in Young Women's and I am a Ward Missionary "assistant". Gotta love those types of callings lol. Actually I am excited for it. Being in the "mission field" I know I will have many opportunities to be a missionary for the church.

Now that my school is all explained. Let's talk aboout Joey's school situation. He is working at CUNA Mutual right now until July and then he is off to grad school for an MBA in health care administration (at least that is our plan) He has taken the GMAT and applied to a bunch of schools. Yes he applied to U of U, but I don't think we will go there. As much as I would love to be around friends and family the University really isn't the best option out there. We are hoping to get into a better school, and so far what is at the top of the list is Vanderbilt or Rice University. Joey had an interview on Tuesday at Vanderbilt. I didn't get to go, but he liked the campus and the interview went really well he said. I am super excited for next week because I get to go with him to Houston for his interview at Rice! Houston has a couple good art museums so I am giddy with joy to check them out. My professor is even letting me do my research project on an artwork at the museum there. Love it!

Between the two schools I am leaning towards Rice which I never thought I would say. I have for the longest time NEVER wanted to be a Texan. I still don't, but I have really good feeling about Texas, and after researching Houston it actually is a really cool city! Warm weather sounds amazing too. It will be nice to be only a few hours from family too. Because of the number of museums in Houston I might even be able to score a job at one after graduating! I won't get too excited about one place though because we have no clue where our lives will be taking us next.

This is such a fun time in our lives right now waiting for our next adventure. It is sort of sad that we will be leaving Wisconsin soon. Which brings up another touchy subject. Joey goes to school this fall, but I don't graduate until after next fall semester. I am NOT transferring schools again! We decided that I will stay behind to finish up my undergrad finally and catch up with him in December. It is going to be so hard living away from my sweetheart! I have no idea where I am going to live, but it won't be where we are now. I can't justify paying the rent that we are for just me..and maybe Ethel (the cat) -we haven't figured out where she is going yet. Gertie will go with Joey though (they are inseperable). It will be really hard. I don't even want to think about it. However it will be worth it. I am so excited to finish school, and hopefully this will end up being an amazing experience that just draws us closer together.

This is our lives in a nut shell right now. I am just trying to stay afloat of my mountains of reading, keeping the house clean, working out more than once a week (bleh/embarrassing) and gradually selling the majority of our possessions. We want to not need to move much to wherever we go, and just start new. So enlightening I know! Don't judge my blog's brown paper sack like appearance. Someday it will be cutsie and adorable. I need you guys to coach me to make it cute and to get pictures on here without taking 5hrs to figure it out. Consider these Platers Updated.-cheesy sign off i know