headlines from the last three weeks

really good mail day
I got a sweet PRINTER-COPIER. In the mail. From Mr. Lane. (Who else?) And that's not the first time it happened. I didn't ask for it, but my old one was being ridiculous and impossible. The same day, we also got a box of Pirate's Booty. It made us so happy. The only downside--how do you keep from snarfing a whole bag in one sitting? We managed to make 48 oz last two weeks. I was pretty proud.

really good fast Sunday
Our ward is doing the fast-in-the-middle-of-the-month thing, the Sunday after regional conference and general conference. We also do the break-the-fast-at-3:00 thing, which is strange to me, but it was fun and in our bishop's beautiful backyard.

how to succeed at public speaking without really trying
That title is for you, Logan. :) My French lit class consists of about 3 assigned poems to read before each class, a short quiz, and then a class member does a 10-15 min. analysis of each one, followed by commentary from the prof. (who's really cool, but that's not part of my story). The night before my presentation day, I had thoroughly read my poem (which happened to be full of confusing 16th-century religious symbolism) and written out about half my analysis. It was late, so I went to bed, fully expecting to have at least 2 hours of homework time at work the next morning like I do every Tuesday. Plenty of time to finish. (The class is right after work.) Well, this was the one morning when one of the "senior guards" decided to go Nazi on me. With a withering death glare, she forbade me to take my backpack to my usual guarding position like I've done for the last 2 years. This is at 6am when there's no one around except a few custodians. What am I supposed to do, stare at the wall for 3 hours? Well, that's pretty much what I did. I was the first to present, so I was all stressed and nervous and had to wing the second half. I think most of the class wasn't listening, but I was still miffed and a little embarrassed. It turned out okay, though. The prof said I said some good things and gave me a 91. Shoot, if that was a 91 I could've gotten a 150. The presentations since then made me feel better, too. A few were really good but the rest were...not as good.

new addiction
Fortunately for me because I have more important things to do, it hasn't tempted me this week. But one night (before an early work day, too) I stayed up until 1am exploring familysearch.org. I'm normally in bed by 10. I added a family history class at the last minute and once Dad gave me the info to start my PAF, I started filling in names and couldn't stop. Seriously. It's worse than blogging. I'm excited about this class, though (we'll see if I still feel that way after all the forthcoming assignments). I had actually never been to BYU's FH center (is that sad?) and we took a little tour of it. Census records and microfilm out the wazzoo. My teacher kind of reminds me of Dad.

a real French meal
It wasn't really, but it was served in the French house by my friend Jacqueline, with help from me, and it was dang good. Strawberry pecan salad, chicken cheese spinach lasagna (emphasis on the cheese) and yummy rolls. Two of her roommates were on our study abroad, and they're all crazy. :) In a good way. They don't speak French nearly as much as they're supposed to but it was a fun night.

fallin'
This isn't really news, because nothing happened. I was really excited for the first day of fall. It just made the day happier knowing that those 90+ temps were gone for good. We wanted to have a party, but...it was FHE night. We kind of did have a party though--our FHE group went to Cold Stone for ice cream after our very exciting lesson and get-to-know-you activity. Cheesecake ice cream + raspberries = best thing ever. Oh side note-- so our little game consisted of writing down, on 4 separated pieces of paper, our name, hometown, a like and a dislike, mixing them together, drawing from the pile and trying to guess the owner. The guy who drew my name said, "Summer white? What's that supposed to mean?"

exciting devos
...as we call campus devotionals. We've heard from Elder Robert Steuer of the Seventy, BYU religion professor Fred E. Woods about a leprosy colony in Hawaii (didn't know those were still around) and Irish tenor Ronan Tynan, who went way over. Just kept talking and talking. And sang for us twice. He was funny though. Devos are also nice because they break up my long Tuesdays and I get to see friends Jacqueline and Stephy.

oh deer
One morning when I was walking to campus early I saw some deer hanging out at the bottom of the stairs. They looked at me as if to ask what on earth I was doing there. I thought of Gilmore Girls.

temple
After not going to the temple in about 9 months (!) I'm back to going every Thursday with Kristin. Love Thursdays! Check out this cool picture we found on Google maps. That pun wasn't intentional, seriously.


lectures actually cover relevant/new material!
The first 3 weeks of my bio class have been like middle school. This is the scientific method. This is an independent variable. This is a control. Discuss with your neighbors why this is or is not a good testable hypothesis. Seriously? Now we're actually getting somewhere. Polypeptides, amino acids, phospholipids, oh my.

ward bball
My roommate Nichelle is the captain of our ward intramural basketball team, so I've gone to watch/keep score for their first two games. It's fun cheering them on. :) Natalie's math friend Abby is not in our ward but she joined the team and I finally got to meet her after hearing Natalie talk about her all the time for the past year. She's adorable. We also went to a stake activity with her and another friend Thuy. The theme was "back to school" and it was really cute. After some onstage talent they had a little contest for the most unique high school mascot. I'm pretty sure Kristin and I won even though we couldn't be heard in the very loud cafeteria. :)

old business. new business. ward business.
We all got callings! Natalie is our FHE mom (she'll be so good at that), Kristin's on the music committee (surprise surprise), Nichelle's on the service committee and I'm on the communications committee. Still not sure what that means. Ward choir and ward prayer have started up, which are both fun. I don't always feel like going to ward prayer because they do "spotlights" and drag it out, but it is a good way to get to know people. I bonded with a girl who loves Jane Austenish movies--like Wives and Daughters, Doris! She recommended one called North and South (based on a book by the same author, Elizabeth Gaskell) and sent me home with it that night. Still haven't watched it, but I'll let you know how it is. :)
We all also got hometeachers! They all came on the last Sunday of the month. If they hadn't, it would've been really sad because the bishop had them stand up in sacrament mtg and told them, "You MUST do your hometeaching." And there are about 40 guys and over 100 girls in the ward. Kristin and I, for some reason, got the same set of HTers when everyone else was assigned individually. I really like them though.

my half birthday
...was fantastic. We all went to a stake RS dinner followed by the broadcast, which was amazing of course. Then we ate muddy buddies and watched Monk. :)

mini-revolt
My other French class is not exciting literature, but very boring...composition. It's only about ten people but everyone is dead silent and the prof is just so dang boring. We have a writing assignment due about every two weeks. They're not hard, but they're time consuming because we have to take them to the writing lab to be edited (which requires an appt) and then peer edit them in class and then write a "copie finale." She also gives us grammar homework that takes forever and is not very clear about instructions or what she expects turned in when. So last time someone just straight out asked, "You know that conference is this weekend, right? So why are you giving us so much work?" She struggled with that one, then said we didn't have to take this assignment to the lab. Baby steps. :)

Forrest's reception tonight
was really nice. According to Dan, we missed all the "famous" people who left before we got there, like the guy who played the father in "The Testaments." But is was nice to see Uncle Ken and all the cousins who were there.

surprise conference tickets
I'm so excited for conference! Kristin drove to Price today to spend the weekend with relatives and Natalie will be with her family so Nichelle and I were just going to relax in the apartment and watch, but my RS pres offered me two tickets for Saturday afternoon and I took them. We're going to make a day of it.