Fourteenth week of college and Thanksgiving! 11/25/12

I was very sad that I chose not to go home for Thanksgiving this year but I was fortunate enough to go home with my friend Chelsey to her house in Harvey, ND. I know now that I will not make that mistake again of going home for this holiday. I was "adopted" by the Marchand family for the weekend and had such a great time. They were so kind and friendly which made me feel very welcome and happy to be apart of their family. We had our Thanksgiving "supper" Thursday evening with one-half of their family and then another Thanksgiving lunch with the other half of the family on Saturday. Both meals were amazing and there were a few dishes I had never tried before which I really enjoyed as well. I had deer for the first time and I would have never noticed the difference between deer and beef if someone wouldn't have told me. When I asked how they purchased the deer....they explained how it was a deer they had killed. That was kind of startling for me to hear because I have never eaten or been in a situation like that where I was eating a meal that was killed and prepared without the help of others. But either way the meal was delicious. (I still had turkey and all the other standard Thanksgiving meals on top of the exotic ones too)

Harvey, ND

As for the town itself, it was nothing like I have ever lived in/experienced before. The total population of the town was only about 1800, smaller than my whole high school, and a little....old fashioned?  It's not that they didn't know about all the current technology but that it just simply hasn't been introduced greatly in this town.  I'll give an example; the use of checks is still very big there and using my debit card in the movie theater was not possible. I can't remember the last time I wasn't able to use a debit card to make a purchase but I guess I did live in So Cal my whole life....I'm so used to how everything flows there that I don't realize there are plenty of other places in the country that don't all live the same way as I do. (did?)

Going to the movie theater was so enjoyable and it was the smallest theater I had ever seen. Only one theater, with one movie showing, one time a day, on the weekends. (If that makes sense) They also only got digital projection this last year which I thought was an interesting fact as well. 

Lastly, it was awesome walking around town with the family and noticing that everyone knew each other. The environment was so much friendlier and you could easily get stuck in a store for 30 minutes just because you start talking with someone that you know. How often does that happen back home? Maybe once in awhile you see someone you know at a store but for the most part you get in and get out and move on with your day.

I went a little backwards this week starting with Thanksgiving first...but it was the most recent and I didn't want to forget to talk about any of the interesting events that had gone on over the weekend. Last week of school went very fast, only having two days of classes then showing up to my one class on Wednesday to have about 7 people in the class of about 50. However, I did get some good news in my math class when my professor mentioned to me that there was a mistake with my test and I actually got a 92% instead of an 82, so that boosts my grade up to an 86 and I can't decide if I want to try really hard to get that A or just settle with my B. :P  Let me know what I should do! 

Hope you all enjoy the pictures and had as an amazing of a Thanksgiving as I did. We are just about on a two week countdown (17 days to go) before I am back in YL. Can't wait to see my family and friends.

Cameron

My whole drive to/from Harvey. Nothing but flatland.

A few fun phrases that people use and like to say down in Harvey:

**"Neck of the woods"

      Ex: You don't see much of this down in your "neck of the woods" do you?

      Ex: We will have to come down and visit your "neck of the woods" sometime.

The one street in town with a majority of the stores.

**Order of meals for the day

     -Breakfast

     -Lunch/Dinner

     -Supper 

**There is a siren that goes off EVERY DAY at 12 PM and 6PM. When I asked what the meaning of the siren was, I was given the answer "it lets everyone know that it is time for lunch(12pm) or supper (6pm)" 

Thirteenth week of college! 11/16/12

Not very exciting of a week. My roommate Devin and I can't believe it is already Friday again and how fast weeks come and go. As much as I like the weekends, I kind of want them to go by fast as well so that it gets me closer to coming home!!

Next week is only a three day week so that will go by just as fast, and then only 3 weeks after that!  I am not coming home for Thanksgiving, but I am fortunately able to go home with another friend, Chelsey, who lives up here in ND so I can still have an enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner. What I am most excited for is being able to make my Aunt Debby's WONDERFUL Orange Delight fruit salad. (I don't know the exact name?) I know I will never be able to make it as amazing as she does but it still reminds me of her and how she used to make it for all of us on Thanksgiving. :) Miss you Debby!

I also applied for classes this week, and got everything I wanted when I wanted!! No Friday classes and only one class on Monday and Wednesdays. It won't be an easy schedule but because of my availability on Monday and Wednesday it will give me plenty of time to get my homework done for all the classes on Tuesday and Thursday. I also start up flying again next semester and continue to improve in my flying skills. Hopefully I will be able to juggle work, school, and flying all at the same time and still have fun too.




Weather this week was amazing. Clear skies and little wind but because of how cold it is here already...the snow/ice stays! I tried to go for a run this week in the morning, however, with it being only about 15 degrees outside it made it rather difficult. By the end of my run, I had a massive brain freeze/headache and my hands were completely numb.  Lesson learned, no early morning runs until the Spring!





26 days until I come home. Under one month!! Fun week overall and I can't wait to see everyone soon!

Until next week,

Cameron

Eleventh/Kansas City/Twelfth week of college! 11/2-11/10

Finally able to sit down and write about my last two weeks! I wasn't able to get my week 11 blog in last weekend because I was in Kansas City and then Monday started a VERY busy week, so this blog will be filled with awesome times and lots of pictures!!

I will first talk about last week and then move into talking about this week.  Last week (Halloween week) was a blast! There weren't too many Halloween parties actually occurring on the 31st but there were a lot the weekend before! I didn't really have anything to wear but my roommate Ryan and I just kind of threw stuff together that we both had to look like homeless people!  That night was a lot of fun and it led into a great week of school! All that week, I was finishing my homework early and having plenty of extra time to do whatever I wanted to. I had also taken another math test which I did very well on, leaving me with a solid B coming into the last test and final exam.

As last Friday rolled around, I began packing and getting ready to head off to Kansas City for the weekend with Pike. That Thursday night, I was up late knowing that I would have a 10 hour drive ahead of me and that we were leaving Friday morning at 4. I decided to not sleep much so I could do that while on the road. The drive down wasn't even that bad. A lot of laughing and having a great time with several guys I have gotten to know very well. We arrived in Kansas City around 4 and it pretty much led straight into wearing my suit for hours on end.

So that Friday afternoon consisted of many speakers and learning a lot more about Pike. As the evening and late night rolled around, we all decided to roam around and cause mayhem in the streets of Kansas City! Taking pictures with legos and seeing questionable billboards up around the city were only a few of the exciting adventures we encountered. Being in Kansas City also gave me my first experience at using 4G on my phone!! It was so nice being able to move quickly on the internet and not have to worry about my connection being slow!  Friday night finally ended around 2 in the morning which wasn't a good thing because we had to be up at 8 the next morning to start our whole day over again.


Saturday consisted of mostly the same events. My suit went on at 8 in the morning and didn't come off until 9 o'clock at night.  I definitely need to get used to wearing a suit for that many hours, because I was very uncomfortable for most of the day. During those 13 hours of wearing a suit, there was just a lot of listening to speakers and several meetings, however, the fun adventures luckily began shortly after I took my suit off that night. The meals that were served to us weren't amazing but were definitely decent. I learned how to "formally" eat food and have the proper table manners when eating this way. I had to eat my chicken breast with a fork and knife and was unable to just pick it up with my hands and munch away.  It made it a lot more difficult to get all of the meat off the bone and towards the end, my plate looked like a huge massacre of chicken. But overall, I would say it definitely makes eating food look nicer and more proper, however, I wouldn't want to do that on a regular basis.

As the weekend came to a close, our 12 hour drive home was even more enjoyable than the ride down. We stopped at many places which helped contribute to our slightly longer drive, but it was definitely worth it. It was my first time ever going to Hooters, firing off fireworks in the middle of no where, and seeing nothing but fields for hundreds of miles! It was a weekend to remember and I will have plenty of pictures and memories to remind me of it forever.

Now comes this week......and all I can say is.......LONG!  I got home Sunday evening around 11, having done no homework for my classes on Monday, and trying to prepare for initiation which occurred all this last week as well.  I ended up being awake until like 2 or 3 in the morning giving me about 5 hours of sleep and waking up to a very busy Monday. I went through all of my classes on Monday, stressing about getting my work done for my next class, trying to mentally preparing myself for initiation, and also figuring out when I was going to have time to go in and speak with someone from my new job (i will talk about that in further down).  Luckily I got through that day but the rest of the week just led to more stressing and a lot of laziness and putting my school work off.

Initiation was......interesting. Like SO many others have said before, "It's the most fun you will NEVER want to experience again" and they all are completely right when they say that.  I will simply leave it at that, and long story short....I am officially a PIKE! Such a great feeling of accomplishment going through these last 8 weeks and finally being done and able to relax for a little while.  I look forward to the years ahead of me and the memories I will gain from it.  Sorry I am unable to share more about how my week was, but some things are meant to be kept secret ;)

FINALLY, I will just briefly mention the new job I got last week! I applied for a position at the dining center on campus, and was given a job without even hardly trying. The interview was easy, the people are nice, and I'm sure it will be a very chill job and it is only a minute and a half walk from my room!  I can't wait to start bringing in some cash flow to start slowly paying off debts and being able to go out and spend money again!

Hopefully I didn't upset anyone too much with my lack of posts these past two weeks. It is finally calming back down here and I will be back on track this next Friday with my weekly blogs. :)  Four weeks and two days until I come home!!!

Miss everyone so much!

Cameron


Oh, AND MORE SNOW!

Not me but just showing the snow! My suite-mate Tyler!

Tenth week of college! 10/26/12

This was probably the best week of being up here so far. It went by just as fast as usual, and it was filled with good times and doing all of my school work! 

For the last couple of weeks, I have been starting to slack in some of my classes. Coming into this week, however, I knew that I needed to start focusing again and completing all of my work. And that is exactly what I did. I finished all my math homework on time, and even went to the tutor this week to get help with some lessons I have been struggling with. I had my second math exam today which I feel very good about as well. I have never felt so satisfied with completing all of my homework and actually turning down going to the movies and hanging out with people to study and get all my work done for my classes. I think I finally realize that sacrificing time with friends now only allows me more time to have a blast later when I have everything done! 

Next weekend I go out of town to Kansas City with Pike! I am very excited about that and being able to get to know a lot more guys from, hopefully, my soon-to-be fraternity. I haven't been initiated yet but so far I am loving it and can't wait for that time to come!

Weather was very chilly this week. It rained on Tuesday and Wednesday and then the last two days have had high temps of about 35 degrees. The wind chill brings those temperatures down to about 22 degrees as you can see for yourself :)  But I'm NOT complaining! Maybe there are some few, occasional, no-big-deal moments that I want to be in warmer weather, but then I put another jacket on and it's all good! And I realize I'm much happier than being in 81 degree weather as we approach November!

As I said above, it was a very stressful week trying to catch up with my homework and getting everything done for my classes. But thanks to so many friends back home, they made my week so much more enjoyable. I had posted on Facebook how I missed my friends and can't wait for winter break, and long story short, it lead to an amazing conversation with a lot of people I really miss. And it put me in such a great mood I was laughing and getting such a kick out of what people were saying. I was actually sitting in class and read a message from my wonderful friend/brother/dad Paul Carnegie and I starting laughing and smiling and people were turning around looking at me wondering what I was watching. But there was nothing I could show people because it was simply one message that only I would understand.  Times like those really make me miss all my friends more but gets me excited for winter break! Which is in 47 days by the way...

 

Now because of all of my focusing on classes and getting my work done, I wasn't able to take a lot of pictures this week. :P However, next week will be much more relaxed and I will have time to enjoy the BEAUTIFUL weather around me and take a lot more pictures. Since I know all of you are jealous that you can't experience the FLAT land and 40 degree weather. :)

Overall a fantastic week, and I can't wait for many more like this! Very happy with how my blog turned out this week as well. :) 7 weeks till I come home!

Love and miss you all!

Cameron

Ninth week of college! 10/21/12

Little delayed for this week....it has just been a very busy/lazy? weekend. I'm sorry to upset the THOUSANDS of people that read my blog every week :P  I will try not to let it happen again. I have been really busy with Pike and doing a lot of activities with them this weekend. 

Well....like I said above.....I was pretty lazy this last week which I need to get under control. (As you can tell by my late blog :(   I made sure to sit down and just power through all the homework I had for next week and I started figuring out the classes I want to take next semester. It's only about 3 weeks until I register for spring semester classes and as of right now....it looks like it is going to be a busy semester. 19 credits is the plan right now and after having Friday classes this semester...I want to try to not have classes on Friday ever again. But most likely because of my possibly busy schedule, I will probably end up having a class or two. 

Just another fast week as usual. Devin, my roommate, joined an intramural ice hockey team and that makes me want to look into the Lacrosse team here too. I miss playing lacrosse so much and I think by Devin joining a team, it will motivate me to find something to do as well. I have also started looking for a job. As more time goes on, the savings I have in the bank continue to diminish and there are some expensive items I have been looking at getting but I just don't have money to pay for them. So I have been applying to some places (pet stores in specific) hoping to start getting some income again. For those who don't know, I worked at a pet supply store for a year and a half and loved it. I want to try to work at a place that is similar to where I worked before just because of how enjoyable it was. I will make sure to let everyone know where I end up once I am offered a job.

It rained three days this past week and it looks like there are a few more days this next week of possible rain too! The high temperature on Friday is supposed to be 35 degrees! Definitely excited for that.

That's pretty much all I have for this past week. I go out of town to Kansas City with my fraternity in two weekends which I am very excited about but I will make sure to still write a blog of that week!

I also haven't taken any pictures since last week but I will upload several next week!

Sorry for the very basic, simple, boring blog....I will make up for it next week!

Cameron

 

Eighth week of college! 10/12/12

For this week I will just get straight to the questions I have been asked because I've talked about the weather and how fast the week goes by too many times. 

I have never really mentioned the typical class sizes or the environment type in my past blogs. To answer that  question, with exception to my lecture hall classes, all the other ones are only about 20-30 students. And my lecture hall classes are at most 100 students, so even then it isn't that bad. I am able to talk and get to know my professors a lot better in my smaller classes which is definitely a benefit. It feels similar to high school in a sense that because of the smaller classes, they are able to remember my name and I actually have conversations without having to remind them of my name every time. 

The learning environment in both type of classes is pretty much the same. In my lecture halls, I sit more towards the front because it is hard to hear what my professors are saying if I am in the back. By sitting closer it allows me to focus more and understand what he/she may be talking about. And since I am such an overachieving student I love sitting in the front anyways :p

I have mentioned it before but just to say it again now that I am halfway through my first semester, (crazy right?!) all my professors are wonderful! Most of them keep there office hours pretty open (although I haven't taken advantage of them yet) and are always there to help. 

Another question that was brought up is how the campus life is, and for the most part it is pretty laid back.  Walking to classes, eating food, hanging out in my room, whatever it may be it seems like everyone is just doing there own thing, especially walking to classes. I also haven't seen many people very angry up here. But maybe that is because they don't have time to and everyone just wants to hurry and get to class and get out of the 30 degree weather. But not me! :)

There are many group organizations that I have seen around campus but I haven't joined any yet. It seems like there are a lot of just general clubs; recycling, republican, christian, etc. and not so much the random wild clubs that I have heard about in various colleges. But who knows I'm sure some of them are out there I just need to look harder. 

Lastly, one last question I was asked was if there are many student events/activities such as concerts, dances, movies, etc. I know that the school has "late night" activities almost every weekend however I have only been to one of those events and it was one of my first weekends up here. Usually they have bingo, movie night, or other types of activities that can involve a lot of people. All of this takes place in our "Union" which is like our main building that has almost anything you can ask for.

All the above questions were from my wonderful Aunt Debby and Uncle Paul. Thanks for giving me topics to talk about because coming into this week I didn't think I had much to talk about :)

As weeks go on...this may become shorter and shorter....I just don't have much to talk about anymore! Help me out with that!

Cameron

Thought this was a cool picture. 

First hockey game of the season!

Seventh week of college! 10/5/12

Only the first weekend in October and we have had our first snow! I loved waking up to about 4 inches on the ground! Since it is still October the snow doesn't stay long but I hear that this is a promising sign to a very cold winter. I promised I would never complain about this wonderful weather and as of right now it's going great! People look at me crazy when I stand outside taking pictures and talking about how I LOVE the snow! All they say is that I am in for a big surprise when winter actually shows up.
I know my Aunt Erin and Uncle Loren got hit with some themselves over in Montana so it should be exciting for them too!

It is amazing how the weather can drastically change as well. When I got back on Monday it was 80 degrees, and on Tuesday it was in the mid to high 70's. But as Wednesday and Thursday came around, the temperature had dropped 40 degrees. The high for Thursday was 36 and today it hasn't gotten above 35 degrees. Not to mention there have been 30+ mph winds that beat on your face while walking to class. The weekend is supposed to bring clear skies though and all the snow should be melted away by the end of the weekend. However, the high temps for the weekend are only about 55 degrees so it will still be cool.


Thanks to my wonderful Aunt Debby and Uncle Paul, they gave me another interesting topic to talk about.....the prices of everything up here.  I haven't really ever talked about the pricing of stuff but it definitely is a big change from California. I heard today about the dramatic increase in gas prices in Cali....I guess it doesn't really affect me because I haven't been driving around but the prices here are still significantly lower than the prices back home. I think the local gas station is about $3.75 a gallon? Definitely a lot cheaper and prices seem to be pretty stable.

As for food, most restaurants and grocery stores seem to have the same price for meals, drinks, etc. So for the food side of it I think it is pretty standard compared to back home.  The BIG change that I see and hear about are the prices of parking/speeding tickets. Nothing close to how ridiculous the fines are at home. I overheard a girl talking on the phone in front of me while walking to class one day and she was talking to her mom and upset about how she received a $20 parking ticket for parking in the red zone. When I heard that I just about busted up laughing. The one parking ticket I have ever got was for that reason, and the cop that wrote me up slapped me with a wonderful $110 ticket.  So like I said before, that is the one BIG price difference I see between the two states.

Just another fast week as usual. My first math exam I got an 85% on so I was very happy about that! As far as I know, all my grades should be A's with maybe 1 or 2 B's but I am definitely doing much better (so far) than when I was in high school and for the past 6 years of my life. It feels good to actually get homework done early and not procrastinate. This week I got a little lazy but I blame the snow for that :)

Hope everyone is enjoying the 90 degree weather still back home, I know I'm NOT! And all my wonderful family that is everywhere else in the country, hopefully it isn't too bad wherever it may be.

Stay in touch :)


Cameron

Just another picture of the snow!

North Dakota.....told you it was flat ;)