Roommates and dates

Hello, all! This week has been tough but good. Quick rundown, coming right up!

On Monday my FHE was planned by one of the other apartments in our FHE group. They sent out fliers telling us to come in black/army gear. All of the girls just showed up in black pants and dark sweatshirts, but the guys went all out. One of them wore camo borrowed from a guy who's actually in the military, two wore camo shirts, and all of them had black and green facepaint and fake facial hair. So we got there and got facepaint (although the girls only got eyeliner lines on our cheeks, lame!) before having a spiritual thought, on the Armies of Helaman of course. Then we got plastic tubes and marshmallows and marched up to Deseret Tower Fields. Yes, we had a marshmallow war. It was awesome. My Canadian friend Jasmine and I teamed up, and we said we were Victor and Wolverine because we were shooting back-to-back and we're Canadian. It was pretty great. Obviously we won.

On Tuesday I made zucchini bread and orange melt-in-your-mouth cookies. The cookies were for a Relief Society activity where we doorbell-ditched the other Relief Society in our ward, in Fugal. Unfortunately the entire apartment was supposed to make them and I was the only one who took the initiative. Then Madi came, asked me which plate was for the activity, took them and left. Kirsi went with her, but at least she acknowledged that I'd made them. Then Ashley and Shyler ate a bunch, so there weren't enough left to take them to my visiting teachees, as I'd hoped to do. Urgh. I left the pan, spatula, and glaze bowl out because I wasn't about to clean up from what they'd taken advantage of. They were there for two days before I finally cleaned them up. And someone left half a cookie on the plate so she wouldn't have to clean it. It made me rather upset with my roommates, but there's not a lot I can do about their lack of initiative and common courtesy.....

I was up that night until 3 am writing a polisci paper, which I still didn't finish. The next morning I got up, went to my classes, worked on my paper until 4:45, then printed it out and turned it in with three minutes to spare. I went to a group study room in the library and studied chemistry for an hour before Majid, a guy I was interviewing for an intro to Islam paper, came and I interviewed him. He was really nice, and the interview was actually quite fun and educational. He left at about 7:15, at which point I resumed studying chemistry. I finished reading through my notes for the section, wrote an index card's worth of information, and then went to the testing center to take my test! Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that the test was comprehensive, and so it was a little bit exciting, but by the time I finished at 10, I was too tired to care.

Thursday was amazing!!! I got up and went to chemistry, and then walked to the library with this guy from my class named Blaine. On the way over I asked him to the group date for Friday. It was a bit empowering :) Then I went to the gym and worked out for a while before going to basketball. Bball was kinda lame because now we're playing for tournament spots in the class, so none of the guys pass the ball to the girls anymore... Oh well. I got done with that and ran home to get ready. JulieAnn Personius (my high school water polo coach) came to visit me! It was so wonderful. She got here at around noon, and I took her on a tour around campus while we caught up. The weather was beautiful - about fifty degrees! Then we went to lunch at Zupa's, which is this wonderful little soup/salad/sandwich place. We were there for about an hour and a half, just talking. When we left, it was snowing. Oh Utah weather... Then we went back to my apartment, where JulieAnn looked up an old friend of hers who she visited on the way back to Salt Lake. It was sad to see her go but the care package I got from home brightened me up! Mom sent me elderberry syrup, applesauce, a mini-loaf of bread, delish oatmeal cookies, pound cake, gum, clovers, and a Sonora II recipe book with all of the delicious ward activity dishes from the past ten years!!! Whoo! So exciting. So for the rest of Thursday I ate good food from home, did (some) homework, and then went to my next door neighbor's Thirsty Thursday party, where we drank soda, ate cookies, and played spoons. Awesome.

Friday I went to my classes, did homework, and then went back to my apartment. Heidi and I ran over at 4:30 to get tickets for the Honors Symposium, where our Late Summer Honors Professor, Dr. Gong, will be speaking. It was the last day they were on sale for a reduced price, but when we got there they were sold out!! We got on the waiting list, so hopefully we get in :( Then we went back and I started cleaning up my apartment for the group date. I put away all the dirty dishes my roommates had left in the sink (ugh) except for Madi's egg dish, from Monday. I talked to the others, and they agreed that she didn't clean any of her dishes so we should wrap this one up and put it on her desk. That was slightly satisfying. But anyways, not to be vindictive... I cleaned up the kitchen and then decided to use up my artisan bread dough from almost two weeks ago for a pizza for our party! So I rolled out the dough just before Heidi and Katheryn came over to help me set up. We brought an extra couch in and set up apples to apples, after which Katheryn left to wait for her date while Heidi and I stayed at my apartment. Blaine came at about 8:05, and we talked for about half an hour (the three of us...) before Heidi's blind date Derek showed up. Then we started playing apples to apples. It was pretty fun, but probably a little awkward for poor Derek, who didn't know any of us. Then at 9 Katheryn and her date Chris finally showed up, because he'd been taking a test. We continued playing apples to apples, eating cheesecake and pizza, and talking until about 9:45, at which point we made popcorn and settled down to watch the Bourne Identity. It was a pretty good movie, with lots of action and fun ambiguity. I enjoyed it. We got done just before the midnight curfew, so we analyzed the movie for a few minutes and then booted the boys out. I got a parting hug and am now wondering if Blaine will ask me out... we'll see. Dad probably hopes he won't, because he's an RM... :)

On Saturday I got up late and Heidi and I went to the gym to do some weights. We went from there to the International Cinema on campus, where they show free movies every week. We watched Slumdog Millionaire, which was very good even when watched from the floor (because there weren't enough seats for all the people there). Then I went home and did some homework until it was time to leave on my date at 6:40. I went with Ben Smith from my Late Summer Honors class, and we attended BYU's Hunger Banquet. At the hunger banquet, 10% of the people are randomly assigned to sit at tables and have a gourmet catered meal, 20% sit on chairs eating hot dogs, chips, and soda, and the other 70% sit on the floor eating rice and beans with tortillas and a plastic bag full of water (no utensils). We were on the floor, which was actually pretty fun. There were Indian dancers, people chanting the Hare Krishna, and a keynote speaker from Paraguay. Afterwards we looked at the artwork and then didn't really know what to do, so we went back to my apartment and made chocolate-cinnamon bars. They were DELICIOUS! And it was pretty fun because it had been hard to talk at the hunger banquet (noisy and surrounded by people) plus the whole friendship-date thing was different for me. But we had a great time talking while making cookies, and they were amazing. I sent him home with a plate of them and then greeted each of my roommates as they arrived home from their various activities. I went to bed at midnight, which was a minor miracle :)

Today I woke up just in time to go to a Compassionate Service meeting, and then I went visiting teaching. I've discovered it works much better if I assign Shyler to either schedule or give the lesson. Today I gave the lesson and we got our visiting teaching on the first Sunday of the month for the second month in a row! (Oh, and last week our relief society had 100% visiting teaching!) Then I went to hall meeting, after which Amy taught me a more effective method for curling very straight hair. We went to church, where I was promptly asked to give a talk two weeks from now. Unfortunately, I'm going to be in Las Vegas that weekend, but I told Brother Frederico that I'd be very willing to give a talk any other week. I felt really bad about it, though. Anyways, church was great, as always, and I'm really excited because our Relief Society is doing a service activity on Tuesday where we're going into Maeser (the guy's hall in our ward) and cleaning their kitchens. It could be a bit scary, though. During church, I'd asked my roommates whether they wanted to have crepes for dinner with me. Madi was going to be gone, of course (she pretty much doesn't live here anymore), and Shyler and Ashley already had dinner planned, although they said they'd love to try some. Kirsi and Amy accepted my invitation, but when we got home they just made their own dinner. By this point I was already in the middle of making a huge, full batch of crepes. The blender wasn't working (I found out later that the blade was just jammed because the last person to use it hadn't cleaned it thoroughly), so I asked Madi if I could use hers. She wouldn't let me. Apparently I'm just not trustworthy enough to touch her precious kitchen appliances. She also locks her closet and doesn't talk to any of us anymore... I hope she enjoys a social life and friends at home. So anyways, I knocked on doors until I found a blender to borrow, and then I got them finished just as Amy and Kirsi swept out the door to go to the devotional (which, again, they hadn't invited me to go with them to - that wouldn't bother me except that they'd completely blown off the effort I put into making crepes). By this point I was just a little bit irked with my roommates. But surprisingly, Shyler, Ashley, and I had a good time watching the devotional at home, although they polished off half a jar of my Nutella in the meantime. I finished making all of the crepes and put the leftovers in my fridge. Then I went to ward prayer, went to a compassionate service committee meeting, and came home. Now I am going to bed so I can have a lovely day tomorrow following a wonderful night of adequate sleep. Love you guys!

<3
Eliza

P.S. Any tips on roommates? Leave them in the comments.

P.P.S. I realized that in one weekend I doubled the number of guys I've gone on dates with! Pretty impressive, eh? Well, a bit depressing if you think on what that means about my previous dating habits, but oh well... it's improving. :)