busy and calm

Tuesday was very nice. Since I don't have class till 12 I got to sleep in and recover from my ridiculous night of barely any sleep. I got up nice and well rested and did a bit of studying for my Humanities of Islam exam that actually started today. Knowing significant places in Islamic history on a map, not too hard. Dana came home unexpectedly from her classroom and Giselle and I went up to campus. She was kind enough to drop me off which was excellent because I was in heel. Why was I in heel might you ask? I got to go to the temple right after class! I've never gone to the temple one a week before but Giselle and are are going to make it a tradition. It was a little more crowded this time but I didn't mind at all. Just thinking and feeling closer to my Heavenly Father was great. I just stayed after baptisms and got to do some more intense scripture study this time in I Nephi as I am starting the Book of Mormon over again. It was great :) I found lots of great stuff about what it means to be willing to go and do something, can I just say I love cross references? Why I haven't ever used them before I will never know. I left and didn't go to work because I had a review for my Humanities of Islam exam. Good review but walking there and walking home in heels was killer on my feet. I got my hair cut though! Just a healthy trim but it feels wonderful.

Today was busy but a good day. Its awesome to see what a spiritual high from going to the temple can do for you. It made me calmer and it was easier to take on the day. Can I just say that I love all my classes? In American Usage we talked about sexist language and how it can distract from your writing if you don't pay attention or if you pay too much attention and it breaks up the fluidity of the sentence. We even watched a 90s tv show all about being "politically correct", very funny and it certainly made me happy to be in college. Where else can you di that and still get credit?! I attempted to get caught up on reading for my Literary Criticism class before New Testament but looks like I'll need to spend a little more time on that. New Testament was wonderful we got really deeply into the "meat" of the gospel and talked about I Corinthians 10 where Paul talks  about women and how that all comes together in the greater gospel picture. I am vey happy to be part of a Church that values women so highly and teaches such wonderful values on the family and the home. Literary Criticism was an interesting discussion as always. Althusser was a Marxist thinker so his argument had distinct holes in it but its good to get a more complete view of the world's philosophy.  After, I went and got Believing Christ and Following Christ from the bookstore (by Stephen E. Robinson) so now I have my own to study and mark up however I like :) I did some reading for my American Humanities class which was interesting but the most interesting part was class. We talked about how Conversion has followed a similar pattern for thousands of years; from Paul to Muhammad to Joseph Smith and even to little old me. I am not singular in my problems, my pain or my struggles that come with faith but the Lord is constant from eternity to eternity, there is great comfort for me in that. I went home long enough to eat something, then went to a Dance Lab for a little bit and watched my fried Chris compete, makes me miss dancing and I can't wait to try some new kinds. I went to orchestra with all of our fantastic music and loved every minute of it. A wonderful way to just get lost in the music for a few hours a week. Then came home and had a dessert party! We socialized with people form our ward and I made them all try strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar; and they liked it! I was forced to say "I told you so" multiple times throughout the evening :) People stayed over till late and I made everyone laugh because I get loopy and silly when I'm tired. No video cameras will ever be allowed near me when I am in that stage. Its been a great few days and I'll make sure that they continue for a few more.

Cheers

playing catch up

Gotta catch up from yesterday. I literally had just turned off the light and laid down with my eyes closed, when I realized I had not blogged yet that day. I put it off until today. I was far too comfortable to move at all. So lets see, what happened on Monday . . .

Well to start off, I slept in till 10. Then I got showered and comfortable and started doing my reading (which I thoroughly enjoy by the way). I read and read until Nyc (my aunt) came and took me grocery stopping. I got enough food to last me through the end of school I'm sure and came home and cooked Skillet Lasagna for the first time. And may I say, it turned out pretty outstanding :) It pays off being able to cook well :) Well at least I've been told I cook pretty well and everything's tasted good so far so I'll take that as a bonus! I also got new recipes today for homemade pancakes and waffles from Becca and am very excited to try them out. I certainly hoping they are much better then Bisquick.

Why am I always up so late? I'm always the last one in my apartment to go to sleep and thats probably not a good thing. These posts take place right around midnight every night. I want to make sure its the complete end of my day right before I go to bed, but I suppose I should start getting ready for bed a little bit earlier. Aaaaaahhhh and then I get distracted by quotes, curse my shortening attention span. I need to read more books, they boost your attention span. http://bookreviews.me.uk/rory-gilmore-reading-challenge/ I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was an excellent idea, now I just have to start reading, along with school and work and yeah, I WILL do it. No big deal.

Ok well today I got much of  my reading done and I feel like I'll be nice and prepared and caught up for my classes tomorrow. I'm also trying to use the phrase "a lot" less in my writing because I feel like I do it all the time. (I had to change it at the end of that sentence, to prove my point) I also just did research on that phrase for my Usage class and now I'm just self-conscious.

Work is better nowadays. I'm not looking over my shoulder frightened at who might be around the corner. That probably has to do with the fact that I sent the first of many letters to the MTC today. I also was looking through pictures and printing some out from last semester that just make me smile :) There is no use being sad because that's definitely not the point of this experience. I am diving into life (classes, reading, work, sleeping, socializing) head on and all I can think is, this'll be fun. "May you live all the days of your life." Johnathon Swift was a wise man, and I will take that to heart.

Much love