Dear family, sorry for the delay.....

You know that cheesy scene in Twilight when Edward tells Bella "You are my life now," in a very dramatic way? That's pretty much what I say to my laptop every day... So, let me start at last Saturday. In the morning, I made some poppyseed muffins and then went with Heidi, her friend Emily (who goes to Snow college), and my friend Michelle from Freshman Academy, to hike Stuart Falls. It was way fun. At one point, we were crossing through this burned-out section that looked kind of like Mordor, from Lord of the Rings. I pretended to be Frodo running from the Orcs, and Heidi understood without any discussion. New best friend. She pretended to be Sam, and we escaped the eye of Sauron :) That was the really geeky part. When we got to the top, we had to hustle down to the bottom of the hill because Michelle and I were going to volunteer for our philosophy class. Less than 100 yards from the car, Emily tripped and skinned both knees. Luckily, Heidi had a first-aid kit in the car, and I was a professional rescuer. That was fun... So then Michelle and I (with some other kids in our philosophy class who I picked up) went to our professor's house (Dr. Siebach) and audited his CDs to prove to BYU that he hadn't sold any of the ones he'd bought on grant... Then I came home and went grocery shopping, which is pretty much my favorite thing.

Sunday was pretty uneventful. Monday I took my Book of Mormon test, and barely got an A. Then I went to the ward talent show, which had some very good acts. If I went into a discussion of them, I could continue writing for an hour, so suffice it to say that it was fun. On Tuesday I studied. Wednesday I got up early, went to the weight room an hour early, so I could leave an hour early, and then took my philosophy test. Oh joy. The timing was great though; I got out just before BOM started, and I got to class on time! On Thursday I wrote the rough draft of my policy paper, which was due on Friday. I was up late and early, and didn't even finish! Luckily the TA, Ken, emailed all of us whose rough drafts were due and who hadn't turned them in, and said that if we emailed him what we had then, and brought the paper version on Monday, we wouldn't have any deductions taken for lateness. New favorite TA. Friday afternoon I was in the library for five hours straight studying for my politics test, which I went and took at 8. I finished at ten and headed home, exhausted and frustrated. Luckily, Sister Richardson had sent me a letter, which made my day. I pretty much fell into bed.

Saturday morning I was supposed to leave my apartment at 9:45 to pick up some people in my philosophy class for another service project - raking for widows in Dr. Siebach's ward. I woke up at 10 because I'd accidentally set my alarm for 8 pm rather than 8 am (because my cell phone decides am or pm based on what time I set it, and I actually set it before midnight for the first time all week and forgot to change it...). So I called the people I was supposed to pick up and then rushed to get out the door. There was snow on the ground and my car, so I had to sweep that off as well. I picked my passengers up and we got to Siebach's at 10:30. We went and raked and had a riotous good time, after which we went back to the Siebachs' and had hot chocolate and bagels. Then I drove everyone home, went home myself to really get ready for the day, and went back to finish the auditing of the week before. There were only four of us in that group, and we sorted through those CDs like masters. At 7, we were almost done and Siebach ordered pizza. We ate, did a little bit more, and then left. At 9, I met Heidi at the Richard's building, where we played basketball. We had tons of fun but were a little disappointed that no one around seemed to want to play a game of pick-up basketball. However, we played lots of basketball games and then went back to Gates Hall to watch A Knight's Tale with her roommates. (Oh, and I should mention that during this all Kirsi, Amy, and Ashley were at Kirsi's house, so only Madi and Shyler and I were home). It was a very funny movie and I rather enjoyed it. I think that we should watch it at Christmas time (after Harry Potter VI of course).

Sunday morning I realized that I'd left my laptop at the Siebachs' house, because we'd used our laptops to look up the Amazon barcodes for the CDs we were auditing. I drove over there but they were already at church. I nearly had a nervous breakdown from not having my laptop, which is what prompted my message at the beginning of this post. But I got ready, went to my meetings, and went to church. Afterward, I got a call from Dr. Siebach (I'd left a note on their door asking them to call me and tell me when I could come back and pick it up) and I finally got my laptop back. Sigh of relief. That night I had a wonderful time cooking for the week ahead and going to a few more meetings. Then at midnight I started working on my politics rough draft again, because I hadn't finished it on Friday. I went to bed late, or should I say early, and Monday morning I got up early again to finish writing.

I finally finished just in time to go to my English class, and then to politics. I turned it in, which was another relief. Then I went home, studied, and went to dinner at the Cannon Center with Heidi (she has a Cannon Center block of meals card, but doesn't like going there alone. I'd told her, somewhat jokingly, that she should just take me, and she did!) We ate way too much food, met some nice people, and then hurried over to FHE, which was a ward indexing party. Unfortunately, no one there was helping us ignorant few figure out what to do, so we left early. I got home at 8-ish and decided to get ready for our cleaning check, which was at 9:30. I'd initially thought that I would just do it later in the week, even though my roommates were doing it then, because I had a math test that I needed to have done by Tuesday. But I decided to just buckle down and get it done, and I did all my jobs, excellently, in an hour and a half. I had to clean the shower, vacuum and dust my room, clean the dishwasher, and wipe down the hallway. It was a deep-cleaning check, but I got my job done well! At 9:30 when our R.A. Stephanie came to check, while everyone else got called to do at least one job more thoroughly, I only had to dust the chairs in my room, which I'd forgotten to do :) Not that I am a way better cleaner than everybody else, but I had fairly easy jobs and I finished them quickly(AND I''m a way better cleaner. Jk, jk... or am I?). After that I stayed up working on other homework. I also made some cupcakes for the girl we were serving this week for compassionate service (we were going to drop them off with a note at the testing center, b/c she had a test that day). I made chocolate fudge brownies from the box, and the used a chocolate icing recipe to make a kind of molten chocolate sauce to go on them. I distributed them to the four girls I'm assigned to for compassionate service, and also took one to Heidi to thank her for dinner at the Cannon. I finished some more homework and finally went to bed.

Tuesday morning I got up and studied for my math test. I went to my classes, but during Philosophy I realized I'd bought volume III of a book we're studying instead of volume II! (We had just finished volume I). I said something about it and Dr. Siebach lent me a copy because I'd helped out on Saturday (So you thought service on Saturday was a bad idea, mom? Saving $50 says it wasn't ;). Then I did some more homework and studied like a madwoman. I went home for a few minutes to eat, and found I had gotten a card from Aunt Mary and my Thanksgiving package from Grandma. They made me very happy, and now I can't wait for Thanksgiving night. I went in to take my test at 7:30, which left me barely enough time to finish by 10. I walked home with a guy who had been taking the same test, and we discussed Calculus, classes, and life in general. That was the only bright note about the math test... So after I got home I went grocery shopping late at night. When I got home I finished my BOM homework and went to bed.

This morning I got up and went to class. My classes today were intense, but I finally got through them. Afterwards, I decided to go donate blood at a blood drive on campus. They have much better snacks at the Red Cross than they do at Delta Blood Bank, and I have to admit that I have a package of shortbread cookies stored in my backpack now that weren't there before... While I was at the blood drive, I saw Paige Wagner, who had been my girls' camp BFF for a few years, and whom I hadn't seen in ages! it was fun, but a little bit awkward. Then I walked to the library, where I promptly fell asleep, and then walked home to eat dinner (I had a chicken-corn quesadilla with broccoli on the side. Yummy). I then walked back to the library, which is where I am now! And since I'm here, I should probably do a little bit of studying, so I'm off. I love you all lots!!!

Eliza