Well, firstly let me welcome you to my blog. My name's David, and I'm a freshman at the University of Northern Iowa. I have a double major in instrumental music education and choral/general music education. The purpose of this blog is to give me a way to chronicle my times at college, and just a little fun thing for me because I felt like it today.

So. Today (Wednesday the 20th, even though technically it is Thursday already) was my fifth day on campus. It's already starting to feel like my new home, which is a good thing, because that's exactly what I wanted. I've been so accepted by the drumline, the PMB, and everyone I've happened to meet these past few days. Marching band is a blast, and it's so much better than high school already. We get so much done, and yet the environment is so laid back. I can barely understand it, coming from a high school where discipline was sometimes quite lacking during rehearsals, and it took us weeks to put a show together. Here, we put an entire show on the field, playing and marching, in two days. Forty-eight hours of band camp, and drill and music are already together for the halftime show. It just blows my mind to see.

People here are so much fun as well. I love the freedom one has at college to hang out on one's own terms and not the terms of someone else. For instance, a friend of mine from high school who also attends school here and I were up until 2 in the morning a couple of nights ago, just talking and walking back and forth between our dorms. She and I had never really had the opportunity to talk before, but we had several very interesting and enlightening conversations, and discovered that although in some aspects, we have greatly differing views, we think almost identically in many others. She hadn't been allowed to socialize as much outside of school in high school as some other kids, so to get this opportunity now really shows me what college is all about: letting us "young adults" really start to earn the "adult" part of that, and to enjoy the living daylights out of that process.

I do miss some things about home, though. Well, not home as in my house, but home as in that contented, I-belong-here, comfy-armchair-in-front-of-a-warm-fire feeling. For me, that feeling occurs when I'm with my wonderful girlfriend. She and I have been dating for more than two years now, and it has been and continues to be an amazing relationship. It has been hard being away from her. She and I got the opportunity to spend the entire summer together, and that was all I could ever dream of and more. She and I live an hour and a half drive apart, so we were used to being apart before this summer, I guess. We still didn't like it, but we'd never known what it was like to really, truly be together for an extended period of time. Now, however, we've known that. And we can't have it again until next summer, as I am here and she returned to her school, which is still quite far away from here. I miss her so much. Today during band practice it just hit me really hard at one point, and I nearly began to cry. It is hard, but I know that with God's help we'll get through okay, better than okay, great, actually.

I've been through many beginnings the last few days. Some have been easy and fun, and some difficult and sad. They are all important, and they're all part of my life. I really do look forward to all the other beginnings that are coming to my life soon, the start of classes, the beginning of "normalcy" in college. I guess this blog entry is a beginning too, come to think of it.

If you've read this all, congratulations. I don't know why you're here or how you came here (I would assume my Facebook, but who knows), but welcome. Feel free to comment as you like, and come back often, I'll try to keep this current. Thank you.