it is finished.

Finals are over! At last. Which is not to say that this semester is actually over yet; look at my desk for one:

I honestly don't know how I'm getting anything done here.
All I know is that I don't want to clean up that mess, let alone
start packing up all the rest of my stuff. Wah.

Despite the fact that I have really been longing for finals to to be over it's kind of sad now, because with finals over that means that I actually have to get to those things that are important to do, but not super pressing, like figuring out if I have everything I need for Nepal, making sure I have a ride to the airport, packing all of my stuff, etc. Darn. Also, my friends (all two or three of them, hah) are starting to leave! So it's a bit of a bummer deal, but part of me knows that it's time for a break. It's always good to be exposed to the real world or even environments that you haven't been exposed to in a while--in my case, home. It'll be strange being around little kids all the time and having to tell people where I'm doing and for what purpose beforehand.

Here's two semester's in retrospect:

• I went on a couple of dates. Yes, it surprised me too.
• I became a certified open water scuba diver!
• I lived in a blanket fort for a month with four other girls. (Yes, it was awesome.)
• I have gotten less sleep and done more work on a daily basis than ever before.
• I finally learned how to properly play the organ. And I played in master class. It was kind of a big deal for me.
• I gained some weight. In case you were interested in knowing.
• I learned about how stuff burns! Research jobs are awesome. 
• I am currently preparing to get one of the lowest grades of my entire academic career. Which is not to say that it's bad, but it's still quite momentous for me. 
• I went to general conference in the conference center. Awesome.
• I took a total of 38 credits of classes. Probably not one of the wisest decisions I have ever made. But I survived honorably I believe, thank goodness.
• I met so many amazing people who I am going to miss dearly this summer! *sobs*

finals crazy

So this finals week has been crazy in a lot of ways... and in a lot of ways I don't think I necessarily expected it to be. 

I'm just going to start from the beginning. At 5:16am on Monday morning I woke up, bundled up, and headed to the temple. About 8:30 I was back at my apartment, and by 9:47 I was trudging through the snow with my fire cupcakes (unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures) for my writing final. Because the final was a presentation, and mine was about fire. It's totally related. 

Anyways. So I get to campus, practice my writing presentation, head over to my writing final and only slightly freak out that I'm in the wrong place or showing up at the wrong time (showing up a half an hour early will do that to you), only to be saved by my classmates who 1. showed up in the same place as me. Hurrah! and 2. were kind enough to lend me a thumb drive to put my powerpoint on because mine broke...

After the final, there were still a lot of cupcakes left over, especially between my cupcakes and this other girl's. So, she had the brilliant idea of going to the testing center and handing them out! She had to go back to her dorm, but I went over and gave people cupcakes! I was kind of surprised how many people said they didn't want one, but hey. Free choice. It made me really happy though, because I know how I would feel if someone gave me a free cupcake on the terrible week with tons of tests. I like to think that may have initiated something of a trickle down effect, where because I did this one nice thing others will be inspired to pass that kind act along to others. If not, it was still worth it. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm still three years old. But really,
trampoline man is really awesome and I promise
 he will bring you lots of happiness.

So on Tuesday (yesterday) I had a 7am final, so I set my alarm and put it on my desk so I'll be forced to get out of bed to turn it off and thus will wake up. False. Completely false. I wake up at 9:06 in the am and freak out when I see that there's sun pouring through the blinds... because that's not supposed to happen at 5:30 in the morning. At 9:09am I'm out the door and rushing to campus to take my final that began over two hours ago. Luckily, my professor had mercy, and I was able to take my organ final (which ended up being fairly short so I didn't have to feel too stressed about time) and pass off my repertoire piece (Bach's Fugue in G!).

Then after taking my physics test, I headed home and pretty much from 3:30pm to 12:34am I studied for my stats final, with maybe two hours of break time. And I'm really glad I did because I'm sure if I didn't go through practice problems and all that good stuff I would probably still be taking that final right now, trying to figure out what the formulas mean. This final was at 7am too, and I woke up for it! And ended up being twenty minutes early too. Miraculous.

How cute are they! I am so excited.

Well, it's Wednesday now, which means that I only have two finals left, one this afternoon and one tomorrow, and then tomorrow afternoon I get to see my family! They're all coming out here for my sister's wedding and I am super excited to see them.

oh glorious day

I just want to start off by saying that this week (so far) has been way less stressful than I was expecting it to be. I took two tests today, and I got a brownie after the first one! Also my organic chemistry test was... easier than my Book of Mormon test! I might actually have to start transferring some of the effort I spend in organic chemistry to other classes (such as everything other than organic chemistry basically...).

I don't really have anything else to say, so I will post some pictures from France!

Eiffel tower at night = gorgeous

Creeper picture! Thus, no head. It's funny,
you won't really find people wearing shorts in France...

I kinda really, really want to play a  real pipe organ.
 Especially one like this.

   

fuzzy acorns!

     I have... not posted in forever. This week hasn't even been that crazy, I guess I just haven't really felt I have had anything worthwhile to post about. I won't bore you with the drab details of my week, but here are some highlights...

It got cooler! It's not anymore, but there were a good two or three days of sweatshirt weather, and some rain that will give you the chills. But whatever. I was super grateful for it because it seems like whenever everything points towards a good rainstorm, it doesn't happen. I still haven't used my umbrella yet though...

It was like this for at least a day before there was some actual rain.

Also, there are cool fuzzy acorns here! They're everywhere. Everywhere. I'll go to sit down in the grass and eat some food or whatever, and there'll be acorns, right where I want to sit!

That'd be them!

What else... I went to an instrumental concert! I was fed dinner three times this week, which you can really only fully appreciate as a college student. I sat up in a tree with other engineering/math/science-y people until past one last night. One of the library books I will swear I renewed was not, and now I have five dollars of fines because they charge a dollar a day and they don't e-mail you saying it's overdue until five days after. That's pretty sneaky of them. It also kinda sucks... But at least it was just one book I suppose, and not, say, five...

I have three tests this upcoming week! Don't let that sneaky exclamation mark fool you. I am only putting on a brave face, and really I am crying inside. Especially since one of them is for organic chemistry. I think so far I have been keeping up pretty well with problems in the books and so forth, but just because I think I'm ready doesn't really mean that I'm necessarily going to do well... AHHHHH. Let this week be over already, please.

Despite the moments when I feel overwhelmed by how much I have to do and don't know how everything will be accomplished, somehow I always find that somehow, everything does work out. I miss New Jersey, my family and everyone else I was close to back home quite a bit, but overall I'm happy here. I can't believe that this semester is already about a third of the way over. Crazy!