The world is our canvas: St. Cloud State

Today is Sunday and it's my fourth full day at St. Cloud State University. It's been a busy but totally rewarding. I'll start from the beginning.

The trip up through Iowa to Minnesota was, to say the least, tiring. I followed Mark the entire way and am proud to say that I never got lost - woo! But it was about 10:30 when we hit Rochester, MN (2 1/2 hours away from St. Cloud) and then I-94 out of Minneapolis was down to one lane of traffic due to construction - and this was around 11:30... ridic. Our arrival time at LSF (Lutheran Student Fellowship, the house where Mark lives) was 12:15. Then it was bedtime.

Thursday was early move-in day for the Husky Sports Band. My roommate and I, with her parents' and Mark's help, moved in around 9. Mark and I managed to fit my vanful of belongings into two laundry carts, so we only had to make one trip - pretty incredible. Katie and I live on the 12th floor (aka Honors floor) of the tallest dorm on campus, Sherburne Hall. We were lucky enough to get a corner room, which used to be a former lounge and is therefore two times bigger than the regular dorms. We have two huge windows, one that faces north and another that faces east. The view is AWESOME - I will post pictures of it and everything else soon, I promise. But seriously, the eastern view overlooks the Mississippi river and both windows offer a distant view of the entire city.

I've gotta say that living in the dorms again doesn't bother me one bit. Okay, I lied - it bothered me yesterday on freshman move-in day because the elevators were occupied so I had to climb 12 flights of stairs - but hopefully that will never be a huge issue any time soon. It's nice not to have to eat in the school cafeteria, too. Katie and I decided early on that we would utilize LSF's kitchen for all our meals (her boyfriend Andy also lives at LSF), and we plus Mark and Andy picked a night each week that one of us would cook dinner for everyone else. (We decided to do breakfast/lunch/weekends on our own.) Thursday was my night, so after grocery shopping, I made tacos!

Now we come to the reason for our early move-in to St. Cloud... Husky Sports Band! There's about a hundred kids part of this band, and we all spent Thursday night having a short rehearsal and getting to know one another. The Sports Band plays for a variety of activities at St. Cloud State, including football games, basketball games, and hockey games. It's a non-marching band, although we do march from the Performing Arts Center to the football field. The shows this year are Disney, Star Wars, and uh... I'll get back to you on the third one when I remember what it is. Oh, and our instructor is Mr. Tuomaala (that's too-ma-luh), and he's pretty crazy... haha, but awesome and probably the most dedicated music instructor I've ever known.

Friday was a band camp day, so from 9am-9:30pm we practiced music and worked on the pregame setup at the football stadium. It was about 85 degrees out when we practiced on the football field, but it didn't quite seem that hot - at least, the humidity wasn't that bad plus there was a breeze. Still, it seemed like everyone was dying... except for Mark and me. We were just happy it wasn't like Illinois with an added 10+ degrees for the heat index and oppressive humidity.

Yesterday was freshman move-in day, and every Sports Band member was assigned to work in a particular residence hall as a Husky Hauler from 7am - 11am. If we didn't, we would get charged $120 for the early move-in fee. It wasn't hard work - at least for me and the other two girls I was with. We didn't have anything to do from 8:15-10:30. After our shift was over, almost everyone attended the picnic that Sodexho hosted in the quad-ish area.

Last night the Sports Band played for the freshman commencement ceremony at Husky Stadium. For having such a successful band camp, our performance was a little less than stellar... to put it positively. Next week will be better anyway. Afterwards, I discovered that I was made saxophone section leader - yay!

Anyway, the past four days have been amazing. I feel completely at home at a state university - words can't describe how much I am enjoying it so far. There are some upcoming events I'm looking forward to that include classes starting, wind ensemble auditions next week, a trip to the Quarries for swimming and such, a Twins game in September that Katie, Andy, Mark and I are attending... the list goes on. There are also a few things I have that I'd like to do eventually, including visiting the Fine Arts museum and the Renaissance faire in Minneapolis and also visiting my aunt, uncle, and cousins in nearby Owatonna.

Speaking of family, there was one point last night, while we were standing on the field waiting for the commencement ceremony to begin, that I really really missed my fam... but I know I will be fine, because even if I wasn't, I have a lot of amazing people looking after me here.

And we'll close with picture time! (btw, Katie's boyfriend Andy took all these pictures - he is an amazing photographer, if you can't tell...)

Here I be marching at the commencement ceremony.