DoGL and other cool stuff

As always, it has been a long time since my last post. Sorry.

Anyway… Every spring at my school, there’s an event called the Day of Gracious Living. They send out an email to faculty, staff, and students the night before and tell us that there are no classes the next day. It’s pretty amazing. And then they have shuttles going to the beach in South Haven all day. DoGL was on Friday, and it was fantastic. We went to the beach and just chilled for most of the day. It was very relaxing and much needed.

Mouse, Jax, and Cait.

Me and Mouse.

This past weekend, I went home for a day. I went to Picnic Pops at Pioneer and saw the symphony orchestra play. They were pretty good, but I don’t think they were as good as when I was there. It’s probably just because of the conductor change though. It must be hard for the new conductor to live up to the Quigs. She seemed promising, though. We’ll see what happens. Quigley was there, and we talked for a little while. I miss her and I miss high school orchestra. But the KCCO is pretty sweet as well, especially with Andrew as our conductor this year. He kind of reminds me of Quigs.

I also went to see A Streetcar Named Desire at Pioneer. It was an interesting choice for a high school play, but I think they did a pretty good job.

After that, I made a key lime pie for the cake auction at church (with significant help from my bro– thanks!). And then on Sunday, I went to church and then the cake auction. My pie only went for $40, but most things didn’t go for much this year. My parents bought Jamie’s raspberry ganoche, and Andrew’s 7-layer chocolate cake, both of which are fantastic. Yummy.

There’s nothing else too interesting to report, really. It’s ninth week and I will be done with school in about two weeks. Yay! I cannot wait for the summer.

Ben Folds and other cool stuff

Wow, it’s been a long time since I updated. Over Easter weekend, I went back to Ann Arbor and went to the Ben Folds concert! It was amazing, as always. He’s the greatest. I liked his opener, too, and I bought his CD. I got it in the mail today, along with yet another Ben Folds CD. w00t.

Jamie and me.

Also, I got an A- on my first abnormal psych test. Sweet. And classes are going pretty well in general so far, so that’s good.

Last weekend, I went to a couple parties, which was fun.

 

Me, Mouse, Cait, Jax.

Candid shot: Milan, me, Kevin, Jamie.

And yeah, that’s pretty much it, I guess. I have another abnormal psych test on Friday, and the rest of this week will be crazy with studying.

Spring quarter

So spring break is over and I have one more quarter left in my sophomore year. Over break, I didn’t do too much; I mostly just relaxed around home, and I hung out with people who I hadn’t seen in a while. Now it’s the start of spring quarter, which is possibly my hardest quarter yet at college, mainly because of abnormal psych. Here is my schedule:

Monday
10:00-11:35 Abnormal Psychology
11:50-1:05 Applied Statistics
4:15-5:15 Ballroom Dance
7:00-9:30 Orchestra

Tuesday
8:30-10:20 International Business

Wednesday
10:00-11:35 Abnormal Psychology
11:50-1:05 Applied Statistics
4:15-5:15 Ballroom Dance

Thursday
8:30-10:20 International Business
12:30-2:00 Abnormal Lab

Friday
10:00-10:40 Abnormal Psychology
11:50-1:05 Applied Statistics

In addition, Liz and I are attempting to start a workout routine which we hope to do thrice a week. And also, eventually my quintet will start up again, although we want to wait for a few weeks before we start, just because everyone is so busy. I guess we’ll have to consult with our teacher on that one… And I should also be working a couple nights a week, but my boss hasn’t told us anything about the schedule yet.

Exam week.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. Really warm and sunny and beautiful and perfect. And of course, final exams had to be the same week. Meh. But despite exams, Liz and I found a couple hours to go outside and study on a blanket outside FAB. It was a good idea in theory, but, as you could probably guess, not much studying actually got done. But it was nice anyway. I wish I had taken some pictures.

I had my Ethology exam today, so I am now done with that forever… thank God. Tomorrow is French (before which I have to also write a one-page composition… luckily it is almost done), and then Thursday is Christian Theology. And then HOME. I can’t wait.

Tenth week…

Not too much interesting stuff has been going on lately. I wrote a critique on a scientific article about Common Loons for my ethology class. Except apparently I wrote it on the wrong article. I’m a genius. So I had to work with my professor on improving/expanding on it before my presentation because the article I researched was really craptastic. I rock. I did the presentation today, and I’m not sure how it went. I think that it ended up being significantly shorter than it was supposed to be. At this point, I’m just glad that it’s done.

Next week is finals week, and for now I pretty much just have to deal with studying for those, as well as a one-page French composition. Should be fun…

Budapest!

So. It’s official. I have been accepted to study abroad and will be studying cognitive science at Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary from late August to early February. Yay!

8th week…

It’s hard to believe this quarter is almost over. It’s been going pretty fast. Then again, we do have a whole other quarter left before summer.

A couple weeks ago, I spent the weekend at Kevin’s condo, which is about an hour away from school. It was a really nice place, and it was nice to get out of town for a little bit. We cooked dinners for each other (Kevin and Brendan the first night; Jamie, Liz, and I the second night) and we went sledding on cafeteria trays. Fun stuff.

Me, Brendan, Liz, Kevin, and Jamie.

 Last weekend, I went home despite the fact that my parents weren’t there.  I pretty much just sat in the house and relaxed and stuff, nothing too exciting.  I hung out with Liz, Brendan, and Mike a little bit and we, of course, went to Bubble Island.

That is all.

Keepin’ it Classy.

This past weekend, Liz’s brother Mike came into town, and came to Monte Carlo with Liz, Brendan and I. It was at the Radisson this year due to renovations of Hicks Center, so we had to take a shuttle bus downtown to get there. Walking to the bus in the snow, wearing our dresses and sandals was quite the adventure. Monte Carlo itself was not very much fun, but I had a good time regardless.

Liz, Mike and I at Monte Carlo.

 

Me and Liz at Monte Carlo.

 

Mike, Liz, Brendan and I after Monte Carlo, on the shuttle bus. I’m getting good at taking one-handed pictures!

 

Me and Liz in her room after Monte Carlo.

Yesterday was pretty interesting. I woke up at around 7:45 and went into the bathroom only to find that the lights wouldn’t turn on and that the power was out. At around that time, Liz called me and asked if I thought there would be class. I doubted it, but I got onto someone’s wireless from a neighboring street, and tried to check my email for information. I didn’t find any. We decided to go to breakfast as planned and we assumed that we’d find out there whether or not classes were cancelled. I got dressed and put my contacts in and everything, and then I poked my head out the door to see if anyone else knew what was going on. Nikki, my RA, told me that there wouldn’t be class all day. So we had a free day! I changed back into my PJs and took my contacts out and went back to bed, only to wake up several hours later at 3PM. Wow. That’s impressive. Then, my French lab for today was cancelled because yesteday’s labs didn’t meet. So basically I had a four day weekend! Nice.

In My Father’s Den

On Sunday night, Mouse and I watched In My Father’s Den, which is a movie I bought from Amazon UK.  I had to switch the region code on my computer (you can only do so four times), but it was totally worth it.  It was quite possibly the best movie I’ve ever seen.  I can’t really explain what it’s about though.  Everyone just needs to see it for themselves.

That is all.

Fourth week…

Yesterday I had three midterms. Lots and lots of fun! I started out with the French one, which I didn’t find too bad except for the oral comprehension part. I hope I did okay… Then I had the ethology one, which seemed fairly easy. It was mostly conceptual, which was good because I hadn’t memorized a lot of the vocab and stuff. And then I had the Christian theology one, which was by far the hardest. I studied for many hours for that test, so I hope it went decently. Bleh. Oh well, as Schmeichel says, “It is done.”

Today in ethology lab, we tested aggression in male betta fish, which was pretty cool. A bit more interesting than crickets and termites, anyway. We put two bettas in a tank together at the end, which was pretty cruel for the poor little guys, but it was also cool.  Liz and I were lab partners, and our fish was like the most badass fish out of all of them. It also bit off part of the other fish’s fin in the duel. Sweet.