April Rose: A new phase of my life....college!

Hello everyone, I am here at college and loving it! This blog post will have more details on what has been going on in my life. As I said in the previous post, we really enjoyed our vacation to California, we flew back on a Tuesday and I moved to college on Sunday! We came back and there was busy activity going on in the McNulty's house. I went shopping all day Thursday, packed most of Friday and Saturday night and left early Sunday morning to get to Southern's registration. Honestly, I was nervous and not completely happy about my summer getting cut short but I knew that I needed to get college hours done out of the way at Smart Start. On Sunday afternoon, July 28 I moved into my dorm room and met my roommate, Christine Reynolds for the first time! It was actually pretty neat how we met. I came into the girl's dorm lobby and told the girl at the front desk who I was, Christine was in the girls dorm mail room and heard me say," McNulty", and she came running out with her Mom and sister and we met for the first time. I am so thankful to have a godly roommate. I really prayed that God would lead me to the right one and Christine and I starting e-mailing and knew we had a lot in common. It took me most of Sunday afternoon and evening to get moved into my room, and figure out where to put all of my little things but by Sunday night at 9 or 10 I was settled!
Monday....
Our first day of college! We went to breakfast in cafeteria bright and early at 7:00. Afterwards, we walked to class. I took Life and Teachings from Dr. Jud Lake. The class has been such a blessing to me, we have studied in detail about Jesus life, the history behind each Gospel writer and read 48 chapters out of the Desire of Ages and the Gospels. It's been intense, but it was a good class to transition into college. During the days of the week, we had all of these convocation meetings and orientation we were required to go to for credit. Christine was not with me my first weekend, but I was making new friends. I spent my first weekend with my suitemates, who are really nice. We went to the Collegedale University church, and honestly none of us were impressed. They are starting a new student led service and the music is not great! The traditional service is at 10:15, so if I have to go to Collegedale church that is the service I would go to. At collegedale, I really don't feel that my prescence makes an impact and no one would know that I was even there. For lunch, Aunt Elizabeth invited me to her house and it made me feel at home to go to her house my first weekend. On Saturday evening, I had a lot of fun with my suitemates. We made spaghetti in our kitchenette down the hall, and went shopping at Wal-mart 5 minutes away.

Second week of college!
Sunday was a little long for me, I was a little lonely but I met up with my Highland friend, Kendra and we walked most of the Greenway that leads to Ooltewah and starts in Collegedale under the railroad tracks. Christine came back on Monday. On Tuesday we had a major fair in the dining hall to see what all of the departments on campus have to offer. I went to the nursing one, and there were so many girls interested in what the nursing professors had to say. The second week was usual with making new friends, having embarassing moments, and loving college life!
We decided we wanted to go to the North River church on Sabbath. We called up the Reynolds and they drove us there. It's a good little drive, 30 minutes away on the other side of Chattanooga near the walking bridge. I really like the church it's traditional, conservative, a lot of young people, and I feel like I am apart of a small church family. We ate lunch with a good friend ours,Debbie Beihl and afterwards went to the nearby neighborhoods and conducted health surveys. On Sabbath evening, as the sunset went down Debbie took us on a walk doing the loop around Collegedale academy and the student park. When Sabbath was over we had a fun talk in our dorm room. Christine and I don't have cars down here, so we are dependent on other people. We assumed that Debbie had a car. So we were talking, and thought maybe we could go to the mall in Hamilton place. Debbie went back to her room to get her purse, and we all got to the girl's dorm lobby and discovered no one had a car! It was so funny!! We were laughing so hard. So we went exploring around campus and found a skunk, spiderweb, and listened to the bugs chirping in the woods. We had fun anyways!

3rd week...
By the third week, we were well into our college routine.On Sunday, we studied hard for our class and decided that we should take pictures of our college experience. So Christine and I did our summer photoshoot around campus, and I think you'll enjoy the pictures below.At the end of the week we celebrated the completion of our week of classes by eating ice cream with Laurel at the window overlooking campus. Then, on Friday Christine and I went to Olive Garden with her Aunt Sally which was a treat! Afterwards we walked around the mall for two hours. On Sabbath, Christine went to North River and I went with a couple of friends from Highland to the Chattanooga First church. I really like that church too, it has high quality music with an organist, men's choir, and we sang several hymns. Sabbath afternoon was relaxing for me, I took a nap, visited with a couple of girlfriends and made some phone calls to my family.
4th week....
We slept in and felt great on Sunday morning! Laurel had Christine, Josee (our suitemate), and I over to her house for a pancake breakfast. It was so delicious! We had fresh peaches, nuts, maple syrup, and bagels to go along with it. The rest of the day I did my laundry, talked to Mom, and then studied and wrote a paper. We went to the gym and went swimming for an hour with Christine, Laurel, and Josee. On Monday and Tuesday I had my last classes of my Life and Teachings of Jesus.On Monday night, we had a orientation meeting and Christine and I are tired of dating tips! They like to advertise marriage down here. They also had refreshments outside of popcorn and slushies and packets on how to succeed in college. There were bubbles in the packet, and when Christine and I returned to our room we blew bubbles at each other. On Wednesday, I turned 19! I will write about my birthday on the next post. On Thursday, I stayed around Southern to do errands, and finalize classes. Then, on Friday I rode back with a couple of Highland friends and happily returned to my home in the afternoon!
I am thankful and feel that is a privilege to be at Southern Adventist University. I love living here.I know that the Lord has led me to be at Southern, and I am excited about the rest of the school year!