The Azusa Pacific Blog

San Francisco Art Trip for High Sierra!

Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t blogged in two weeks! I have so much catching up to do with you guys, and so much to tell you all! As everyone keeps saying again and again, college is super busy and time flies by so fast. I feel like it was just last week when I flew on a plane from Virginia to California to start college, when in reality, I’m already almost done with my first semester.

A couple weeks ago, me and the rest of the students here went to San Francisco for an Art trip, where we visited numerous museums and cathedrals. We visited the New St. Mary’s cathedral, Old St. Mary’s cathedral, the Mission Delores Basilica, the Grace Cathedral, the Legion of Honors museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the De Young Museum. It was so amazing!!! When I walked inside each of the cathedrals, I could feel God’s presence and aura all around me. We also took part in a Catholic mass, and that was pretty cool, too. The museums were all extraordinary. I saw art pieces of modern artists and famous ones like Picasso and Chigall(sp?).

Navigating the New APU Libraries Web Site

If you’re a veteran library user, you may have noticed a few changes to the University Libraries site this fall, thanks to the fabulous web developers in the Office of University Relations. Here in the APU Libraries, our mission is to help you find the resources you need to be successful in your research. We think our re-designed web site is a huge step forward in that mission.

With the re-design, we’ve streamlined the look and feel of the site, made it easier to get important information, offered you more ways to connect with the University Libraries, and introduced several new research tools. Our overall goal was to make it faster and easier for you to get the books, articles, media, and library information you need.

APU All Access Weekends Are My Favorite :)

If you are even considering coming to APU, I would highly encourage coming to an APU All Access campus preview. I love APU All Access. I love it so much that I went to two of them and now host students who come. :)

I went to my first APU All Access my junior year. My best friend and I had wanted to go to APU for years. Jana’s Dad is an alumni of the college so she had been here for Homecoming many a few times but want to experience APU as a student. I had never been to APU and was hoping it would live up to Jana’s stories and what I’d heard from others.

Putting God First again

I never really realized how addicted to pleasing everyone I actually was. I love being involved, I love doing awesome work, I love compliments, and I love name drops like when people say “Oh, Staphon did that.” (in a positive way of course.) And so, I try to do things like this as much as I can.

But of course, when you agree to do all of these things, agree to be Super, yet, you don’t have any actual Super Powers, it is easy to burn yourself out.

I hate using that word ever since Jonny Liu informed us that to be burned out is taboo, if you are doing the will of God, he will give you energy and you will never be burned out. So when I was on the verge of throwing a fit and crying in an alley in the rain, very movie frustration scene like, I realized that I must be out of alignment with what God wanted me to do. I thought through all of my priorities and I knew that there was nothing in my list that wasn’t supposed to be there, I was doing the Will of God, but it was just not working out as well as it should have.

Crazy Busy Day :)

Packed day of class, service, alpha, and fun :)

When I refer to today, I mean Tuesday the 3^rd :) I always write my blogs late at night and don’t have time to spell-check or see if they even make any sense. So there is usually at least a day delay.

Today has been a crazy day… but a really great day too. Here busy day

Slept in until 10:45 because my 8:05 Run/Walk/Jog class was canceled. This was an excellent start to the day. Not that it’s a bad class, but “Run-Run” as we like to call it doesn’t really motivate me at 8:05 in the morning. It’s a good class for avoiding the dreaded ‘freshman 15’ but it seems so early. I honestly am not sure how I went to class that early 3 days a week last year. Oh right, I went to sleep before 2. But that is my personal preference… Not everyone stays up so late. I just haven’t slept before midnight in at least a year.

Halloween Adventures at High Sierra!!!

HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!!!!!! Halloween was a couple days ago, but I didn’t get a chance to blog since it was so busy!!(In a good way, of course)

Well, I woke up on Halloween pretty late, around 11 AM. I got some lunch, and then I had to get ready for Halloween Badmitten Doubles! You basically pair up with a partner, dress up as a famous couple, and then you play Badmitten against another team, and the winning couple wins a prize. It was so fun! I paired up with my good friend Naomi, and I dressed up as Barney(haha), and she dressed up as a little Kindergartner. It was single elimination with about 10 or more teams, and unfortunately, we lost our first game against our professors, Dave Williams and Rob Simpson. Here are some pictures from Halloween Badmitten!

Attack of the Pirates

Wow has it been a rough couple of weeks. I do apologize for my lack of play by play, but one of the key things I have learned here at APU is how to set priorities, and for the last couple of weeks, getting my school work done and planning for this huge Halloween event has taken over the top spots.

Halloween, at APU? Yes, well, as you know, Halloween is a key environment for college aged kids of the drinking age to go out and party. Well, as we are a dry campus, we felt there needed to be something on campus for students to do to bring them the fun and candy of Halloween AND take away the temptation with a great Alcohol free environment. Thus! we set up a dual Carnival between University Park and University Village (two living area’s on campus.

APU Professor Reports on the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Twenty Years Later

One of the exciting things about my job here at APU is sharing the stories of what our faculty are doing inside and outside the classroom. One of those professors is Jim Willis, who is currently on sabbatical and reporting from Berlin, Germany on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

halloween and homework.

So today is Halloween, and I’m writing a paper. I’ve never been super into Halloween after about age 10, but it’s been great to see carved pumpkins and some ridiculous antics around campus. Last night a few of my friends dressed up like old people and there were trick-or-treaters in the Mods (a sophomore living area), so I thought that was funny.

Right now, I’m trying to gear back up for another challenging week ahead. Sometimes it is hard staying focused with all these events around, but it has taught me a lot about self-control. Though, right now, I’m really distracted by quite a few things, including my plans to study abroad next year, starting at High Sierra, and then possibly on to Australia. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to go to Israel this summer, but I’m so excited about studying in High Sierra… it’s ridiculous. Hah. I’m also distracted, in a good way, by thinking about the things I learned this week.

HOMECOMING WEEKEND= Best Weekend Ever!!!!!

Hey there readers, J.P here again! It’s about 11:00 PM right now, and I just came back from the APU Men’s Soccer game against Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, California, which is only about an hour away from the High Sierra campus, which is in Bass Lake for those who don’t already know. Our soccer guys did amazing and we won 2-0!!!

The crowd was obviously full of Fresno students, but me and the other 7-9 High Sierra students still did some APU cheers like “You wish you were a Cougar! Azu!! Za!!! Azu!!! Za!!!” We got a couple of stares from the Fresno students, but we didn’t care. We love our college!