I am back in Provo and loving it here. I have fallen in love with the mountains and trees and just in time for the most beautiful season of the year. The trees are changing and the weather is perfect and all I wish is that I had more time to be outside in it. But I have managed to get to the mountains a couple of times in the past month. I hiked Timp at midnight the first weekend I was home. Some of my friends from the Chemistry department organized it but I invited my friends Laura and Kate. Kate left a couple of days later for Jerusalem so it was wonderful to be with her before she left. Apparently hiking Timp at midnight the weekend before school starts is the thing to do because I ran into a bunch of people I knew up on top at sunrise.
That weekend I also moved into my new apartment. I moved out of Monticello into a new complex, Victoria Place II. I have fantastic roommates and I love our little apartment.
School has started and is keeping me really busy. I just found out that I got a research grant which is really exciting but it means I need to start working more. I'm doing research in an atmospheric chemistry lab studying gas phase kinetics. I am really excited to get working on this project even though I still don't really know what I'm doing.
Even though school is crazy, I'm still finding time to go outside occasionally. A couple of weekends ago, my roommate Jenny and our friend Brian went up to American Fork Canyon and hiked to Silver Lake. It was beautiful up there and it was so nice to be in the mountains and away from school for awhile.
Last weekend, I went with my roommates Alison and Jenny and our friend Ben to Provo Canyon to go rock climbing. I had never gone climbing outside before and I loved it. I regret not going before now.
Jenny and I
Me at the top.So even though school is trying to take over most of my life, I'm not letting it win completely. I've loved seeing my family since I've been back, especially meeting my new nephew Evan. He's a cute little kid and I am so excited to live close enough to see him. I've also joined a Chemistry ultimate frisbee intramural team. We have 7 professors on the team and our team name is the Deprotonators. We even have awesome t-shirts that are the envy of the whole chemistry department (or at least we like to think so).
Okay so maybe that's just more evidence that school is taking over my life. Oh well. I'm enjoying it.
