Minnesotan Adventures and Rivendell Exploits

I have been at Rivendell for a month now and so-far I've really enjoyed it. I've been kept busy from the moment I stepped unto campus! Every Monday-Thursday we have morning and afternoon class. On Friday we just have morning class. The first six weeks we study “Critical Thinking” and “Logic”. I've studied logic before, but not in the same way I'm studying it now. We've discussed subjective and objective truth, apologetics, fallacies, some philosophy, socratic logic, some theology, and metaphysics. We've read articles from authors such as: Bertrand Russel, Thomas Aquinas, Peter Kreeft, Norman Geisler, Thomas Keats, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Aristotle, Plato, J.P Moreland, and a few more that I can't remember.

We've read through Genesis during our inductive Bible study, and had our Genesis test this week. We've had a lot of homework every night, so I have definitely been kept busy.

During the weekends I've had time to do fun stuff. I went to the Mall of America, which is truly daunting. I spent 3 hours there, and didn't even get through all the stores in the East Wing... Fun fact:

the Mall of America is the size of 78 football fields!

We had a birthday party at Rivdendell for all the December-January birthdays, and the theme was “Pajama Party”. My class wanted to make a dramatic entrance so we all went out and spent hours searching for adult sized footie pajamas. It was quite entertaining to listen to Alexandra (one of my classmates) call six different stores and ask if they had 14 adult sized footie pajamas. The people on the other line usually asked her to repeat her question, and then had to transfer her to someone else. The hours spent driving around Bloomington and Minneapolis payed off when we entered the party and saw everyone's expressions at our outfits.

I'm sure all my fellow Floridians are wondering how I've been faring with the drastic weather change which I experienced when moving from Florida to Minnesota. Well, I've fared pretty well so far. There have been moments when the temperature has dropped to 12 below with the wind chill making it feel like 21 below...I remember one morning the temperature was -15 and I had to walk out of my dorm to the Administration building, as soon as I stepped outside the coldness just steeped through my layers of clothing and just chilled my bones! However, this is the warmest winter Minnesota has had in a very long time, so I'm not complaining too much. It hasn't snowed that much either, which is fine by me because I'm not a huge fan of snow. The stuff is just wet, mushy and creates a mess. I can't wear normal shoes when it snows...I prefer my Sperrys to snow-boots anyday.

You all who know me well, know that I love food. I love good home-cooked southern meals. I love meat. I love bread. I just love food in general. But, I'm not a huge fan of the cafeteria food here. The meals here don't sit well with me...literally. I'm not sure if its because they're cooked for a lot of people or if I'm just not used to not getting fresh meals...I just don't know. I do know this, the food here is not amazing. I miss all the food my family cooked back home. I also really miss Chick-fil-a. Can you believe that there is not one Chick-fila-a in all of Minnesota?! What kind of place doesn't have a Chick-fil-a?! The closest one to my location is in Omaha NB...6 ½ hours away. One word: REDICULOUS!!!!

I have been eating lot of cereal, cheezits, granola bars and bananas. I have around 3-4 bananas everyday. I think my finger-nails have really benefited from all the bananas, because they've been looking really good lately.

Some things I've noticed about the North and Northerners:

• It's so dry here. Not only does the dryness effect my skin, but also my hair... I never knew that a dry climate could effect one's hair!
• The street lights here (red, yellow, green) are on the side of the road on little poles, instead of above the street.
• It's below freezing in the Winter and super hot and humid in the summer...worst of both worlds.
• The people up here all sound different, and arent as polite as us Southerners ;)
• Boots are to Minnesotans as flip-flops are to Floridians. Try to say Minnesotans without a Minnesotan accent!
• Maybe its' because of the winter season, but a lot of the buildings here are really ugly.
• The lakes here are beautiful...even when they're covered in ice.
• There are no Krispy Kremes or Dunkin' Doughnuts here.
• The sidewalks look perfectly normal while in all actuality they are icy and slippery.

Thats all for now folks. I don't want to make my post too long...Mama P always gets on my case if it's too long.