Halfway Done?!

Man this semester is flying by. Which I'm pretty happy about, because the second half of this semester is going to be a lot of fun. I'm still in a little shock that the first half of this semester is already over, though.

I've had some pretty eventful stuff happen lately. Last Saturday we got up bright and early at 6 AM and headed up to Temple Square in Salt Lake to plant bulbs for the Spring. At least, that's what they told us. Instead, they sent us to the flower beds, gave us shovels, and said "Tear it up." Needless to say, I felt a little sacrilegious ripping up the flowers at the temple. But it was still a lot of fun. Way more worms and spiders than I would have liked, but fun nonetheless. Around 9:30/10, there were more people on the street, so we got a lot of weird stares. Obviously we were with a group, but what would you think if you saw a bunch of college kids ripping out the flowers at the temple? :)

It was a lot of fun though. Hard work, but fun. We were covered in mud and dirt and sweat by the end, but we had a good time. There was one guy I'd been talking to about Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and how it's such a shame that a lot of people didn't like it, and so I'm sitting there thinking, "This guy's pretty cool, he can quote the best lines from Scott Pilgrim." And then he ate a worm. And then I decided he wasn't nearly as cool as I thought he was. Okay okay, so I didn't think he wasn't cool anymore, but I was extremely grossed out. It was a pretty decent sized worm.

I also went to see Julie's baby, Karl, this week. I went over last night and got to hold him for a while. He's grown so much since the first week I saw him. I'm planning to go over tomorrow and babysit him so that she can go grocery shopping and take a nap. He's so cute!

I've also picked out my classes for next semester. There are only four required classes that I can take next semester, so I added two fun classes that I've been wanting to do, since this is probably my last chance to take classes for fun. So I'm planning to take Children's Literature, Expository Writing for El Ed Teachers, Music and Civilization 2, Physical Activities for El Ed, Food Preparation in the Home, and Flexibility. The last two are the two I'm most excited for. I've been told by many people that flexibility is their favorite class they ever took here, because you just go and stretch and then take a nap. It's designated relaxation, de-stressing time. And I've been wanting to take Food Prep for a while. On Tuesdays I'll go to class at 8AM and just cook for three hours. Sounds pretty fun to me :)

I've also managed to arrange it so that I have Fridays off again! That's the magic of having low credit classes. All of my required classes from now on are going to be 2 credits for the most part, which means they'll either meet once a week for 2 hours or twice a week for one hour--either way, I can schedule it so that I don't have Friday classes. I'm hoping I can keep up this schedule for the rest of my major. It'd be pretty nice if I could. :)

So I randomly got this free subscription to Taste of Living Magazine, don't know exactly where it came from, but it was suddenly sent to me for free, so...  I'm not complaining. But the one they sent me is the Thanksgiving edition, so of course, as I'm flipping through this magazine I'm drooling all over the place because everything involves either pumpkin or butternut squash. So I promptly went to the store and bought a ton of ingredients to make a bunch of the recipes in there. Today I made a French Silk Pie that was super easy and tastes absolutely delicious. It would have been easier if I had a hand mixer, but oh well. It was a nice workout for my weak wrist. :)

This weekend I'm planning to make pumpkin pancakes and peach barbecue chicken wings. I'm pretty excited to try those out as well.

On Saturday I'm going to a Women's Self Defense workshop with Krista and Mal, and I'm actually kind of excited for that. I'm fairly weak and not good at defending myself at all, so it'll be fun to learn some self defense techniques. I actually almost signed up for a self defense class and a martial arts class for next semester, but went with food prep and flexibility instead. Maybe one day I'll have a little room for one of those. I think they'd be fun. :)

Friday night my roommates and I are going to carve pumpkins. Mal has a subscription to a pumpkin carving pattern website, so she prints off a ton of really cool patterns for us so we can have sweet looking pumpkins. We're each doing a couple pumpkins, so this year I decided on Lock, Shock, and Barrel from the Nightmare Before Christmas, and then a Zombie Hello Kitty pattern that I thought was hilariously awesome. I have a feeling that one will turn out better than the Lock, Shock, and Barrel one, because that one is a bit more complicated. But oh well. It should be fun :)

I finished up most of my midterms this week, and now I have a week and a half break before they start up again. I'll have another three midterms I think, and then that's it for the rest of the semester. I'm excited to be done with all of them, I just wish they'd be a little more spaced out. All three of the ones I have left are in the same week. That's how these past midterms have been for me. Oh well. Gets them all done in one go, I guess. And then I have free time to bake things and clean. I've actually gotten really good about cleaning regularly. It drives me crazy when things are out of order now, so whenever I have free time I tend to just clean the apartment. It just feels nicer when everything is neat and clean. :)

And I think that's about it for now. I'm excited for this weekend and my week of no tests! :) And then in two and a half weeks, I'll go to Disney World!!!

It's Only Been a Month?!

Well, quite a bit has happened since I last posted, but at the same time, I feel like nothing has happened. Most of my time is spent doing schoolwork, so there's really not much to report there. I'm just really busy most of the time.

I have Fridays off this semester, though, so I get a three day weekend EVERY week. It's pretty sweet. :)

I've gone through my first round of midterms already, and this week is round two. When I pulled up my calendar at the beginning of this month I wanted to die. Every single week has at least one midterm, and there are several papers scattered throughout it as well. This week in particular is going to be the most brutal. Three midterms and two papers. Next week is the lightest week, so I'll have a week to recuperate and prepare for the next round of midterms the following week, but still, it's not much of a break. But as soon as I muscle my way through October, the month of November is completely free of tests. I don't think I have a single midterm scheduled for November. Plus, I'll get to go home in November, and that will be a very welcome break.

As for my life outside of school... well, two weeks ago I was pretty busy every night. We went stargazing, saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World at the dollar theater (excellent movie, by the way. I'm sad it got such poor reception, because it's the only movie I can think of that had me laughing throughout the entire thing), and... fed ducks at the duck pond. :) It was a pretty fun week.

Yesterday was pretty busy as well. After church, a guy in our ward, Taylor James Henderson III (he never introduces himself any other way), was locked out of his apartment and we had been planning to feed him dinner since he apparently had absolutely no food, so he came over to hang out till one of his roommates came back home. So he was over for a few hours and that was a lot of fun, he's a hilarious guy. Later we had a big apartment dinner, which was a lot of fun, then Mal, Krista, and I went singing at the Rehabilitation Center next to the hospital. I've never gone before, but I decided to today, and I'm glad I did. It's a lot of fun, and some of the people there are just really funny and awesome.

There is this one man, Richard, who I guess has been there for a long time, because several of the people who go every week to sing know him pretty well. He was showing us all the pictures in his room, his kids and grandkids, his wife, and then these pictures of him as a conductor of several orchestras, as a singer in a huge choir that performed in Carnegie Hall, and as a professional violinist. Apparently this guy was like, a really big deal in the music world when he was younger. So of course, those of us who had never come before were intimidated about singing in front of this music expert, but it was a lot of fun. He started conducting us and sang along with us and would tell us stories in between songs. He was a really cool guy.

Then a little bit later we had Dessert Night, which was a lot of fun. Everyone just brings dessert to a designated apartment and chats. There were a LOT of people this Sunday, probably because it was the first official one of the semester, since our ward has had trouble getting started and organized this year. But it was a lot of fun, and I met several new people.

After dessert night we watched Ghostbusters at Scott and Matt's apartment to start off the weekend Halloween movies for October. I hadn't seen that movie in ages, so it was basically like watching it for the first time.

And now after a weekend of fun, it's time to buckle down and get through this week. This week will definitely be the worst this month, but at least my tests are all slightly spread out. Every single one overlaps, but they all run a different amount of days and they're distributed evenly enough that I won't have to take more than one on any particular day this week. So that's nice, cause I can spread out my studying and focus on just one, then move on to the next.

And I think that's about it for now. Time to buckle down and hope I make it through this week alive. :)