oddly enough

It is the last day of 2007. A fairly ordinary year, I'd say.

During the course of the year I....

- finished freshman year in one piece.
- got roped into being an emotional, sideburn be-decked Spanish dude for a Shakespeare play.
- went to the mountains and rode bareback.
- finished half of sophomore year in one piece.
- drank coffee.
- watched my friends become engaged.
- watched my friends get married.
- watched my computer die.
- watched my cell phone die. Twice.
- read way too many fat books.
- ate lunch at Costco.

Let us mourn the passing of the year.

merry *cachoo* christmas *sniff, sniff*

And so it is Christmas. And I've been sneezing up a storm with the cold that thought about coming during finals and thankfully held off until I was safely on break.

Christmas break involves sleeping, being out with the horses, eating way too much, and going to parties where you run into people people who knew you when you were knee high to a grasshopper, know everything about you, and you have to pretend you know who they are and not let on that you are frantically searching your brain for their identity. Usually comes out ok, but every so often you leave a conversation still wondering who on earth that was. Perhaps a long lost relative.

Of course there is the unwrapping of the gifts. I think the funniest gift I got was the single cup coffee maker. (Subtle hint to stop spending all my money at Bucer's?) You may ask, so, why is that amusing? Because I'm the only major coffee drinker in our family, then contrast with the fact that once I swore that I would never drink the stuff. I hated even the smell of the the brown brew. NSA does strange things to a person.

And Christmas is also time for cutting hair. I love short hair, but I tried to grow mine out this past summer. I really, truly did. I told a friend to sit on me whenever I thought about cutting it and when I got a trim, it was a TRIM, one to just keep it looking nice. But alas. I couldn't keep it up. This break it came off - from longer than I've had it in three years to a short, layered bob that makes me very happy. Picture pending, perhaps.

i'm dreaming of a broooooown christmas

It tried snowing this afternoon, but since this is the Tri-Cities and we don't know what snow is around here, it confused itself and became sleet. My big plans for riding were null and void at that point, so I went home after cleaning my share of the stalls.

Being back home means getting to hang out at the barn nearly every day (when I'm not doing homework....) Happiness prevails quite muchly. So nice to be back in the saddle, breaking an honest sweat and getting physically tired out by something other than too much reading.

life without a laptop

Is a sad life indeed. Mine said "beezoop" and hasn't said anything since. Hopefully whatever went wrong can be remedied before going back to school. I need that thing! Gaaaa!

Update: Thankfully, though it said "beezoop" and tried to die, the laptop's problem has been mended. Thank. Goodness. I had a frightening picture of having to shell out non-existent dollars for a computer with Windows Vista that I didn't want but had to get out of sheer desperation. Not something I wanted on top of still feeling like I've been hit by a freight train named Finals.

once upon a time

I was a newly minted sophomore, wearing my robe for the first time, looking ahead with eager anticipation to long nights, packed days, tons of studying and being with fabulous people and great friends. I just rediscovered one of my favorite pictures from convocation:


Yours truly with Melissa Dow. We aren't newly minted anymore.

freedom........!

If you don't look at the pile of homework I have to do over break (our teachers don't know what "break" means - perhaps they should be supplied with dictionaries), I am now done with finals. Yes, ladies and gents, I am halfway through my sophomore year, reputably the toughest year at NSA. Rumor has it that life really doesn't get any easier, that we actually simply get used to the load, but still. I'm halfway through.

I love my robe.

finals, round two

I'm currently knee deep in finals. More like neck deep, but let's stay positive, shall we? My robe is ready and waiting for History this afternoon. There is something out of the ordinary about taking an oral final wearing a long black robe. It lends an aura of scholarlyness, it makes you think that you SHOULD REALLY KNOW THIS STUFF and if you don't, you'll study your tail off so that you will. I think that's why they gave them to us.....

geek out

Last week I completely geeked out and became the stereotypical NSA student. I had four major deadlines so I put on my SCUBA gear and dove in, not coming up for real air until everything was finished. This required the complete lack of any social life and and functioning on 5 - 6 hours of sleep a night, a real doozy for me, a true sleep enthusiast.

Despite the lack of sleep, that was one amazing week. I finished stage 2 of a three part completely fascinating hermeneutics project on the book of Ruth for Theology, wrote a Theology presentation on an article decrying the patriarchal implications of the traditional views of Christology, wrote a History oral presentation about Sulla, an influential Roman dictator, as well as editing and polishing the History term paper. And I loved every second of every crammed minute.

To finish off an amazing week was an amazing Thursday voice lesson, possibly the best I've had so far. Which was a touch sad considering the next evening I crashed. The entire weekend I slept. And slept. And slept. This week has been me trying to recover from last week. Thank goodness for music: today's voice lesson had Bray wondering what happened to last week. It went well, but I was fogged over and loopy. By the end however I was slowly emerging from my stupor and now I'm back at the books with a vengeance.

My roommate once again has to deal with my renewed enthusiasm. "This is sooooo cool. Did you know that Alexander the Great was deterred from sacking Jerusalem when he heard about Daniel's prophecy foreshadowing his campaigns?" "Ewww..... this battle had so many casualties that the river was dammed with bodies and the water was red with blood." "Hmmm. I think I may have discovered how that chiasm in Ruth works - check out this typology....."