The darkness, the death, the fury.

To be honest, I took class because my parents want me to become a pharmacist and I wanted to show them that I would at least try out chemistry before telling them I don’t want to be a pharmacist.  I could have taken the course for a while and dropped it, but I continued on because I am not used to quitting at class work.  It was a dark and terrible time for me… especially since the lectures met at 8:30 am in the winter and the homework was always long and arduous, but I pushed through and came out with a 3.5 in the course.

Swedish 101.  Ah, I remember this class!  The good times in Thomson hall with about 20 other students... all of us without a clue what we were getting ourselves into.  And, Peter Leonard.  What a great guy. 

Peter: "Hej, jag heter Peter.  Vad heter du?"
Class: [general silence...]
Peter: (again) "Hej, jag heter Peter.  Vad heter du?"
Class: [less confused general silence...]

and that's where it all began.

Marching band my freshman year.  How can I describe this...

It was so different than what I had been used to in high school.  Both high schools I went to were corps-style marching bands.  Not a traditional high-stepping band.  I was totally turned off by the fact the Husky Band is traditional style, but I joined anyhow...mostly because I knew I would be working with Dave Reeves, the God of drumming. 

These were good times though.  Difficult, stressful... long hours, long rehearsals, etc., but nonetheless, good times. 

Some of my closest friendships bloomed out of Husky Band, so I'm really glad I joined.

You'd think, if you know me now, that this would have been the class that triggered my interest in majoring in linguistics... but it wasn't, really.  I took this course because it sounded interesting and it surely was, but no -- this wasn't the trigger.

Wow, so this class.  This one really kicked my butt.  I came to realize that I am not really good at looking at a flat drawing of something 3D and knowing what it looks like in real life.  It was really fun doing 3D modelling on the computer though.  I made a few really cool models.  One was a music stand, and the other was a kitchen pan.

The point is that this class sounded interesting, it was interesting (and difficult), and I stuck with it even though I wasn't very good.