Honestly Actually Really Truely Done
Well, this time I'm honestly actually really truely done with midterms. Almost. ;) So technically I have a midterm in my musicianship class, but it will be on dictation (transcribing onto staff paper what the prof plays on the piano), which I really can't study for, and singing, which yeah I'll probably look over the songs but that won't take much time, and it's kind of fun anyway.
This weekend was fun but it went really fast. Every Saturday till the end of the semester I'll be helping out at a Spanish religious education class. I started last week and even tho it's really good to do, both to practice Spanish and just to do something good, and even tho it's been fun...it does make my weekends short. It's from about 10-12:30 in the morning, so if I have a lot of work to do I can't really get up and get going on it in the morning, but if I don't have a lot of work I can't just lay around and enjoy it. Oh well. It's kind of required for my spanish class anyway, so that'd be a good reason to keep doing it. ;) Anyway, the rest of the weekend was lots of fun. I had a great time at the dance, I think it was my favorite ND dance so far (although the Christmas dance under the golden dome would be a close second). We had an orchestra concert on Saturday night which was good but looooong. I must be "out of shape" as compared to when we had those GTCYS marathon rehearsals/concerts last year.
Starting to think about spring break, which, seriously people, why aren't you coming home for my spring break?? Most of my friends will be either away at college or else in the middle of midterms, sigh. I'd propose that colleges time their spring breaks to coincide, but...that would probably be a bad idea. I can just imagine the general chaos that would ensue on warm beaches.
I'm also starting to have to think beyond spring break (the horror). Like Easter, for example: come home, see all my friends, go to Easter Vigil at home (yay) BUT spend 18+ hours in a car, probably with ppl I don't know, for three days at home? Or do I stay here, go to the reportedly beautiful services here, and relax BUT miss out on the time at home?? Then we have summer jobs and WYD and roommates and don't even mention next year's classes or majors. Can't believe it's almost March already.
*~Happy Birthday, Mom!!~*
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Well, my week is done! done done done done done. yay!
The good: My Spanish midterm got moved back to Monday, and I think my music theory test went well this morning. And the best: it's Friday, I'm done with all my tests except Spanish, and we have a dance tonight!
The bad: My math test was horrible. Seriously, I had no clue what to do on like 3 of the 7 problems. Luckily the whole class did badly so the prof realized that he made it too long and made it out of 100 points, not 120. This worked out well for me because I didn't think the test was really too long, just too hard, but I'll take free points from wherever I can get. Curving it like that got me from a C to an A-, so yay...?
Also I had an extra orchestra rehearsal last night.
The ugly: My physics test was supposed to be Tuesday, however after he handed out the test he realized that only half of it had copied. So we had to take the second half on Thursday, which was really annoying to have to study everything all over again.
So there you have it, the good, the bad, and the ugly of last week.
Why is it "the good, the bad, and the ugly" anyway? Anyone know? The optimist in me thinks it should be at least like "the good, the beautiful, the bad, and the ugly" to even things out, but that gets rather wordy I suppose.
Happy weekend everyone!
Prayer intentions: Terry Schiavo, Pope John Paul II (add your prayers to the spiritual bouquet
Catch-up
Sorry the posting has been slowing down, it seems like life has been picking up the pace. Yesturday I went and helped out at a spanish religious ed class, that was fun if challenging. The little kids laughed at my spanish (when I actually spoke) but it was really good for me I think, it's basically short-term immersion. That will be happening every week from here on out.
Otherwise, not much of a weekend. Saw the Second City comedy show on Friday night, they were pretty funny. Saturday was the religious ed class like I said, and then the orchestra played for Mass that night. Today Emily and Melissa and I went shopping - quality girl bonding time! :) Next week my dorm is having a dance (the theme is Masquerade Mardi Gras) so we had a fun time picking out crazy Mardi Gras jewelry and things. It's a semi-formal/formal so I'm wearing my prom dress last year (sparkles=Mardi Gras?) but I got a different necklace and Emily got some cool looking make up. And of course we took advantage of the "Sundays in Lent" rule to get a blizzard at Dairy Queen - Chocolate Extreme!
Next week looks like really not much fun. I have a math test tomorrow morning, and a Spanish quiz, a physics test on Tuesday, and a Spanish midterm and Music theory midterm on Friday. Yikes! But then next Friday is the dance so once these five days are over I can have lots of fun. Anyway...I'm really thinking I should be studying instead of posting. Catch you all later!
More random ramblings
I'm currently rather bored, waiting for a dance to start later tonight. Yes, that's right, I've been asked to a dance. It should be an interesting night anyway. The guy who asked me is more of a friend of a friend than my friend really, I haven't really spent a whole lot of time with him so this could be rather awkward. But I know he's a nice guy and all that, so the worst that can happen is I'll have a funny story to tell. This feels like a very collegiate thing to do, or maybe a freshman thing to do, going to an SYR with a guy who had to look up my phone number.
In other words, today was absolutely amazingly beautiful outside. Sunny, warm, slight breeze...ahh. I walked around the lake without a coat on, or even a sweater, it was a wonderful time. Although my friend Katie in North Dakota just kind of stole my thunder by telling me it got up to 60 degrees there. Seriously, will she always be able to top my weather stories??
Oh yes, I hope everyone is having a penitential Lent. (Penetential? Penitential? Yes, I could go look it up, but now you all can laugh at me for not knowing how to spell it). I gave up sweets and I'm trying to read through Psalms like I said on the last post. I'm also aiming to spend a little bit of time in the chapel every day, but that hasn't been so succesful.
Ash Wednesday was a good Ash Wednesday, meaning it was a hard day overall. Fasting always makes the day longer, and I also helped my rector get cacti for the chapel and set up for Mass and things, and then I watched The Passion afterwards. One of those days where my prayers were something like, "I hope you can do something with what I have to offer here, Lord, because this is really all I've got, and it ain't much." I suppose ashes and dust really aren't known for being all that impressive anyway.
Which book of the bible are you?
Courtesy of a link on
Catholic Ragemonkey : What book of the bible are you?
I'm Psalms:
You are Psalms.
Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Ragemonkey's suggestion was to try to read the book that you "are" over Lent. Hmm...40 days plus 7 Sundays equals a little more than 3 Psalms a day. It could be done - we'll see.
These are a few of my favorite things...
It's Monday.
It's foggy.
and dreary and gray and not-quite-winter-but-not-quite-spring outside.
And I'm feeling very unproductive today.
So...here (in no apparent order) are a few things that make me happy:
*Smiles
*winking
*frosted brownies at NDH
*chocolate
*new music/good music/hearing "that one" song on the radio
*songs that bring back memories
*snuggles (with my little sisters, duh)
*talking after midnight
*chick flicks
*debates
*waking up without an alarm clock (best when it's relatively early in the morning) (and by relatively I mean before 10:30 am on the weekends)
*breakfast/breakfast food
*getting real e-mails
*mail
*unintentional compliments (or intentional ones, if they're about not-surfacy things)
*making up words lol
*Eucharistic adoration and being alone in the chapel
*doing all the things on my to-do list in the time I thought it would take (you know you're a nerd when productive days make you happy)
*giggles
*Minnesota (and driving across that bridge across the St. Croix when I can finally say I'm back in MN)
*Notre Dame (and seeing the Dome from a distance)
*When the orchestra plays a piece that's hard but it actually sounds good
*Poking :)
*inside jokes
*baking cookies
*Getting dressed up (although this may depend on the shoes, lol)
*dancing
*singing
*sunny days
*walks or bike rides around the lakes
*The ND Glee Club and/or men singing in general (especially when they change the words for me, like Dad) (Of course Dad's the only guy who's ever changed the words of a song to apply to me, but hey it makes me happy)
*when people trust you enough to show you their vulnerability
*simple pleasures
*knowing that simple pleasures make me happy :)
*Fridays
*meals when the eating part takes less time than the sitting around talking part
*bonfires
*finding something in common with somebody that I didn't know we shared
*football games
*good conversations (especially when they take place in the chapel)
*watching movies on the couch with my friends
*when boys open doors for me
*IM conversations that last for way too long
*randomly feeling like its going to be a good day
*holidays
*Thinking about all my friends and family!
NY Philharmonic
Yay! I've seen the New York Philharmonic! It was a wonderful evening. So much fun to dress up and go to the performing arts center. It's a beautiful new building (for pics, see
here) and fun to mingle with the upper crust. New World Symphony was amazing - especially the 3 movement. It was incredible. The second piece was not as cool, a more modern style Bartok piece, but also very cool. Then they did two encores - one was one of Brahm's (?) Slavonic dances that I played for The Conservatory's winter concert last year. Yes, my version was a lot simpler and didn't sound nearly as awesome as when the NYPO did it, but still, i could sing along to the whole thing and even "air play" it a little, so that was pretty cool too.
It felt like we should ride back in our limo and stop for wine and cheese, but seeing as only the cheese would have been really easily and legally available to us, Chris and I had ice cream instead. Then I got back for some bonding with the girls in the dorm...honestly I've had 4 conversations about relationships in the hour since i've been back. Girls who broke up with their boyfriends, noticing cute guys in the hallway, etc., etc. These (and chick flick nights) are when single sex dorms are really fun.
Embarassing story of the night:
I was talking to Emily outside her doorway and she noticed that she needed to shave her legs, but she said that eh, it was wintertime, it didn't really matter. I commented that I agreed, and in fact "in wintertime I need advance warning of events I need to shave my legs for!" As I turned around...and saw this random guy standing there listening to us, looking at me like he was thinking "ok then, that was more than I needed to know." Turns out he was campaigning for student body president, and we then proceeded to discuss the needs of the student body, but it was a really awkward moment standing there with my last line just hanging in the air.
Tomorrow: Friday! yay!
Random Thoughts on a Wednesday Evening
Yup, halfway done with the week again. The fact that it's Wednesday evening is also a good thing because it means that Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are all done with, everything gets better from here. I mean, it's almost Thursday, which means it's almost Friday! ;) For some reason this has been a long week, maybe from getting off of the Freshman retreat with all the lack of sleep that entailed. The retreat was fun by the way, the focus was definitely more on building relationships and sharing common experiences than any super deep religious transformation, but evening prayer was still pretty good and my small group was awesome about talking about things.
Tomorrow night I'm going to hear the New York Philharmonic play here on campus. Getting tickets was rather lucky, they held a lottery and had about 1200 entries for about 800 seats. The e-mail said the event would be "black tie optional" so I have to figure out what I should wear. (Mom, guess I should have gotten one of those dresses at Dayton's. Grr.) Vote now: black formal or the dressy skirt and sweater I wore for Christmas? Try out the new Haloscan comment boxes. ;)
Mmmm, I'm sleepy. Maybe I should go to bed...what a simple solution eh? My roommate is staying up studying for a chem test tomorrow, but I know she'll be up much later than I want to be so I guess that's not really an excuse. It's funny, this is a stressful week schoolwork-wise for a lot of people, but not so much for me. 3-4 page paper due next week, a music theory worksheet, and leading the discussion in spanish class on Friday, but otherwise not a whole lot. When I do get to my week of doom - three midterms and a paper in a week - I don't know what I'll do, not having been used to, like, having tests. ;) Oh well, my patented system is to panic about a week ahead of time, which works out well because then I don't procrastinate and really have something to stress about.
I mistyped staying in the paragraph above as tayig. Don't you find it funny how taking out just a letter or two can make a word totally unrecognizable? It's just me? Ok then.
Off to bed! Goodnight all!
Pray for the Pope!
Pope John Paul II was taken to the hospital today. Please pray that God's will would continue to work through this holy man.
