Why didn't anyone tell me that?! Part 2

When I left off last time, I promised my next post would include some more insight into things I wish I'd have known coming into PLNU. I think I'll include that at the end of today's post, so if you are really excited about that part, feel free to skip down.

This weekend has been exhausting, but really fun at the same time. On Thursday night, my roommate's band , Family Wagon, played a show at a place in Ocean Beach called Dream Street Lounge. It was a great time and the band got to play a longer set of about 45 minutes. Once again, I left my camera at home all weekend (it's been giving me problems so it's not really worth the effort of bringing along). But I did manage to snap some questionably legible shots with my iPhone. Here's one of the Dream Street show:

Friday night we had a bonfire for some of the guys and girls in our Flex Apartments. It took place down on Shelter Island. Ocean Beach and Shelter Island are both located less than 5 minutes away from campus, which is super convenient. Alas, iPhones do not yet include a flash, and it was pretty dark on Shelter, so no photo from this experience. But it looked something like this:
Saturday came early. I woke up at 7 in the a.m. to help my roommate fix some breakfast for my previously-mentioned friend Blake Nelson (see first blog) and the cast of his movie. Then at 8:15 I left with my Student Ministries group to City Heights for a project called Face Lift. We painted, planted, potted, and panted for about 5 hours. It was fulfilling, but incredibly exhausting. My work included shoveling concrete into a dumpster, digging holes and planting, and my personal favorite, digging out ridiculous things from the bamboo abyss. We literally spent almost two hours digging out mattresses, a shopping cart, and much more from a spider-covered bamboo forest. Apparently some homeless people had been living there some time ago. This task was much more challenging than I had anticipated, and also left me resembling a human Oreo. At the end of the day, everyone came together and all the groups were given awards for their hard work:

Then last night, we had a fall festival on campus called Samedi Gras. I didn't have the energy to go to most of it, but I came for the end, when Family Wagon played yet again (this time in masks!)

So that was my weekend! Now, as promised, a second bit of advice for those of you coming into PLNU:

If you're taking a class your first semester and you're doing very poorly, you can DROP the class.

Here's a little secret: there are some professors at this school who experienced students have learned to avoid. The honest truth is that 9 out of 10 professors at Loma are awesome, or at the very least show a deep care for their students. But there are a limited number of professors that people who have been at PLNU for a while tend to avoid. And since you're a freshman and you have no choice in the matter, guess what? There's a chance you might end up with one of these professors your first semester. I did.

I took a class with a professor who liked things done a particular way – in other words, she was really picky. If you were one second late to class, you were tardy, no exceptions, and the class was at 7:30. By the halfway point of the class I realized I wasn’t doing well, but I didn’t know at the time about my option to drop the class. So I received a poor grade that ended up costing me a scholarship :(

So please remember that this option is at your disposal. Use it only in an emergency situation, but if one does arise, don't hesitate to drop the class and take it again later with a different professor.

That's all for now! Hope you all have a spooktacular Halloween!