A grueling week with bits of crazy excitement interspersed...

Hi, guys! I will start with last Monday....... I went to my classes and then went to the library where I studied and worked on writing my philosophy paper. Unfortunately, I found out that I'd read the wrong chapters after having taken eight pages of notes, so I had to start over. I was up really late but finally got done!

Tuesday morning was pretty typical; I got my stuff done, did some homework. But on Wednesday I had my BOM research paper due, so I worked on that until late in the night, again. I was in the library until 2, and was very happy that all through December the library is open late.

Wednesday morning I got up at about seven and finished writing my paper. I got it done just in time to go to class! I made my way through the rest of my classes and then went home, took a lovely nap, and worked on some more homework!

Thursday morning I was craving cookie dough... so half an hour before class I made some and was a few minutes late because I had been baking. It was worth it though :) The rest of the day I worked on my politics research paper, which was due on Friday. Unfortunately, I found out that the U.S.-Japan relationship (which I was writing about) had changed dramatically in the two weeks since I'd turned in my rough draft, due to Obama's visit to Japan. So I got to write the entire paper over again! So fun. I was in the library until about 10, and my friend Michelle was there with me, working on another project. I invited her to come over for dinner and we had pork chops and salad. Yum. Then I drove her home (she lives off-campus) because it was about 12 degrees outside. I stayed up late again working on my paper, but I wasn't even near done so I went to bed without finishing. I got up early in the morning to write, and wrote all day. I didn't go to any of my classes, and my paper still wasn't done! I emailed my professor and she told me to just turn it in when I was done. So I worked on that until about 8 and then went home. I ate dinner and then went to the testing center, where I took my English grammar test. It was super-fun. Then I returned to the library and got almost all the way done. I went home and slept...

Saturday we had cleaning checks, so I did my chores while we watched HP1 on ABC. It was great. Then I worked on some other homework (what a surprise, right?). I needed to go to the gym and make up some hours for missing weight training class, so I did that, and read a book for politics while I did so. Then I went grocery shopping for a few minutes - the only problem is, the main reason I wanted to go on Saturday was to get butter. I put it in my cart, but somehow when I got home it had mysteriously disappeared. Ugh. Anyways, when I got home, Ashley and Amy and I watched Mulan! We had so much fun singing along and analyzing various elements of the plot. It was great.

Sunday morning I got up, went to my meetings (Compassionate Service Committee, Hall Council, and Hall meeting) and then went to church. It was our last testimony meeting before 16 of our guys leave to go on missions, so we had tons of those guys talk, and it was an awesome testimony meeting. My roommates and I went to RS, which was also really good, and then we left to go to the Christmas Devotional in Salt Lake. Kirsi had gotten tickets for us (don't ask me how) and everyone except Madi, who was going home for the night, went. We got pretty good seats - in the second level - so that was cool. The talks were amazing, as I'm sure you all know, and it was really cool being in the same room with the MoTab. It was kind of confusing though, because the sound from the speakers was reaching us before the actual sound from the singers... But it was great. Afterwards a couple of my roommates wanted to see ALL of the lights, which was fun at first. They were beautiful, of course - the only problem was that it was FREEZING outside and, to compound the problem, we were all wearing skirts. Brrr. So we walked around, took some pictures (sorry, my camera wasn't working, so you'll have to look on facebook to see the pics my roommates took) and looked at the lights, taking frequent stops inside the visitors centers to keep our feet from getting frostbite. On our last trip inside, I ran into Cory! It was really funny, actually. We were just walking into the visitors center and he was literally right in my path. What was really funny, though, was the look on my roommates' faces when he told us he'd have to come down to Provo and take us to lunch sometime, because they didn't understand my fast explanation that he was my cousin. Kirsi asked him whether he was related to me, and I told her that yes, he was my cousin while he jokingly told her that actually we'd been engaged and that's how we knew each other. It was hilarious. So after that encounter, we walked back to the car freezing. Amy and I couldn't feel our toes at all and there was no heat in the back so we took our shoes off and put our feet up on the center console to get heat. (In skirts - scandalous!) Kirsi's driving scared me just a little bit - 60 mph in the snow, less than a second behind the person ahead of us - but hey... we survived. That's what counts....right? So we got home, drank hot chocolate, and I finished my scripture reading for the next day and went to bed!

Monday morning I woke up, worked on finishing my politics essay, went to weight training (where I got 100% on everything, including doing 20 reps of bench press with 75 pounds!) and then came back home and got ready. I went to my classes, finished editing the essay in English, printed it out in between English and Politics, and got to the door at the same time as my professor, who knew my name! (I'm excited because she's listed as #97 in foreign policy magazine's top global thinkers http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,32, and she is amazing. Of course, she probably only knew my name because I'd emailed her about being late, which isn't quite as good, but hey...) So I turned in the essay and got through the rest of class, after which I went to the wilkinson center to send a package home :) Nothing too exciting in it, but then again I don't have a lot of exciting things at college, so.... On the way, I went to the lost and found to see if they had my scriptures yet. I'm not sure whether I wrote about this earlier, but I lost my scriptures in October, and have been checking the lost and found weekly. They finally had them!!!!!!!! I was really excited, but a little miffed because when I mentioned to the girl who got them for me that this was my kazillionth time checking, she said that she didn't know why I hadn't gotten them before, because they'd been there since October... Oh well. I have them now :) And I forgot to mention - it was snowing all day Monday and all of Sunday night. So it was icy, cold, slippery, and very snowy. I walked home in the snow after arranging a dentist appointment, and did laundry and some homework. Our FHE was cancelled, (again) and so I was working for a while. Then at 9:45 Shyler and Amy decided to go sledding with Jarom, Shyler's brother, and his roommates, and Amy and I talked for about an hour and a half. It was fun, and I'm pretty sure we're twins separated at birth... Anyways, did that and then did a little bit of homework before heading for bed.

This morning I didn't wake up to my alarm, because I've been using my cell phone (at Shyler's request) and it's not loud enough to wake me up. So I woke up late, and didn't have time to get ready and go get my H1N1 vaccine. But I went to class and made another appointment, after which I finally got the vaccine. So that's good. Then I worked on homework and went to philosophy. Afterward (remember, it's still snowy) three other kids from my class, the TA, and I were talking about band as we left. When we got outside, we discussed and had an epic snowball fight. It was awesome. Then I came back to my apartment, had a lovely frozen dinner, and now I need to write my (final!) research paper, for english. I'm so excited that I only have one more day of each class, but I think I'm going to make some fudge to give to the professors and TAs because they're awesom. Anyways, I love you all and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in A WEEK AND A HALF!!!!!!!!

Love you,

Eliza

More random amazingness and Turkey day

So, beginning last Thursday..... The day was fairly average. That night I went to our ward Enrichment meeting, where they gave us food, and then I left early to work on my paper. Thursday night I pretty much worked on my philosophy paper all night. It was a little bit ridiculous, because I was researching, reading, taking notes, writing, etc. and it just took forever! I finally finished on Friday morning and went to class. Then I went home and crashed for a while before getting up and deciding to watch a movie and eat ice cream rather than doing anything productive. It was fun :)

Saturday I went to a pancake fundraiser with Robert before coming home and working some more. Story of my life... Madi and I had an appointment with our Home Teachers at 10:30 but they didn't come. How lame. But that night I went with the Kindt cousins - all three girls - to see New Moon. It was way better than the original Twilight movie, probably due largely to the scant screen presence of Robert Pattinson, who is not a very good actor, and his replacement with Taylor Lautner, who is. Unfortunately Kristen Stewart was still playing Bella, and the only thing she does well is breathe pathetically. Oh well. :) After seeing the movie I felt like I needed to read the books again to regain my perspective on the whole Edward v. Jacob debate, because Taylor Lautner is amazing. Anyways, that was super-fun. There were a lot of couples there on dates, so more guys there than I had expected. It was really funny because the first time newly-buffed werewolf Jacob takes his shirt off (which he does frequently) a bunch of the guys wolf-whistled (hahaha pun:). But it was great to see my wonderful cousins, and the movie was just another perk.

On Sunday I got up, went to all my morning meetings, and went to church. After church, our dorm had tithing settlement, so I went to that. I found out that I can't ever drift off in sacrament meeting because Bishop Campbell always watches me, because apparently my face is really expressive. I laughed when he told me that. Anyways, after that I went home, and went to the rest of my meetings. I went over to Heidi's, where we made chicken casserole for dinner, and while I was there my visiting teachers showed up to visit their other teachee. They had not showed up at our appointment earlier, so we arranged a new one. Our ward prayer was vastly entertaining because the FHE group that was introducing its members had each of them say what movie they would live in if they had a choice. I high-fived one of the guys in my Sunday school class who said Lord of the Rings.

Monday I got up and went to my classes as usual. We didn't have FHE that night, so Kirsi, Amy, and I went to the library. It made me realize that I'm way more productive when someone knows that I'm supposed to be working and I feel like I need to actually be getting things done. But anyways... That was fun, but it was freezing outside, and Amy and I almost died walking home (because Amy is from Nevada and I'm from CA, we're not really used to the cold).

Tuesday we had our Friday classes. Most of my roommates were gone by noon, when I had to be at class. In Calculus, Professor Chamberlain had made us chocolate chip pumpkin bread, and it was delicious. In English/Philosophy, one of the guys in my class told us that he'd had to use up some of his dining card money by Thanksgiving, so he'd gone to Sugar and Spice (a pastry/sweets shop in the Cougareat) and bought up all their brownies. He gave them to us and it was amazing. Politics was the only class that we didn't get food in, but we learned a lot about demographics. That's still cool, right??... I got home and took a nap because I was tired and depressed that none of my family members were answering their phones. By the time I woke up everybody had left and I was the only one in the apartment. I decided to go grocery shopping, and had a wonderful time.

On Wednesday I had a couple of the girls on my floor over for brunch, for a Compassionate Service Committee Project. One of them was allergic to gluten, and that was the primary reason for grocery shopping on Tuesday night. I got some gluten-free waffle mix and we had waffles with frozen berries, juice, and syrup. It was rather delicious, and I believe that it helped those of us who were still in the dorms rather than with family feel a little less abandoned. That afternoon/evening I finished up my philosophy paper, but it took a long time, especially since I kept on getting distracted and procrastinating because it was a holiday. I did some math homework and other stuff, but it took all day, and I didn't get to the Woodwards' that night. And that morning I discovered that Amy and Kirsi had both left their alarm clocks on, and their door locked. Luckily they're not loud enough to wake me up, but once I was awake the beeping kind of frayed my nerves.

Thursday morning I woke up early and drove to Herriman. I ran in the turkey trot, and got a hoarse throat because it was so cold while I ran. Aidan's turkey costume was pretty amazing. When we got back to their house we ate these broccoli puff things that were delicious, along with cinnamon rolls. Yum. I discovered that my job was cleanup and pie-serving, so I didn't really have anything to do with the prep process. Instead I watched Confessions of a Shopaholic with Suzannah, Kemper, and occasionally Kelsey and Jared. We ate at 3, and it was quite delicious. I really missed Mom's cranberry sauce, though. Also, Aunt Geniel made these frozen cranberry salad things that were really yummy. We should try them. It was fun but it just wasn't the same as being at home. (Cory is not on my good list right now for not telling me he was going) However, I really appreciated being around even extended family. After dinner I helped with cleanup and then we just sat around talking for a while. I held Jared for a long time (he is super-cute, btw) and had a great time talking with cousins. Then we watched UP, and Ruth and the Rosses left. Mom called just after the movie ended and talked to Uncle Steven and Aunt Geniel but didn't even ask to talk to me! Then Aunt Geniel and Uncle Steven watched Confessions of a Shopaholic (which they hadn't seen earlier) while I did my laundry and talked to you guys on the phone. After that was done, Suz and I had a sleepover. We watched Mulan 2, and I went to bed thoroughly recompensed for a few months with not very many movies.

I woke up early and drove to Salt Lake to pick up a mini-fridge that I'd found on craigslist. It's pretty awesome, and the price was amazing. I was excited about that. When I got back to the Woodwards', they were getting ready to go to Soldier Hollow to go sledding. I realized that I needed to get back to school and write some of the papers due this week (three research papers and a take-home essay test). So I got ready, finished up my laundry, talked with you guys some more, put together some leftovers that Aunt Geniel gave me (she also gave me one of those little wonderbread sandwich holders!) and went back to the dorm. However, the dorm was completely uninspiring. I had writer's block all afternoon and didn't get much done. At 6 I went to the gym to do some make-up for missing my weight-training class, and then I went out on the town to return some stuff I'd bought earlier and buy some groceries. I am very proud to announce that although I went through Kohl's and Target, I didn't buy a single item of clothing. I got a mini Christmas tree, some fruit, yogurt, and sticky hooks (to put lights up with) at Target, and that's all. I actually made money from returning things. :) And then I video-chatted with you guys, which was amazing. It was so nice just to see everybody's faces again.

Saturday morning I got up and made cookies and pies. Here is the recipe for the cookies, from Kelsey:

1 cup flour

3 oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup (1 cube) butter or margarine

jam

Mix the first three ingredients and roll the dough into small balls. Put them on a cookie sheet and press down with your thumb to make an indent in the middle. Bake them at 350 for 10-15 minutes - they stay white, so just bake them until they are cooked through. Take them out and immediately fill the thumbprints with jam, but not too full or they will overflow. Eat them at will, and it's probably a good idea to refrigerate them if you think they'll last more than about 2 days.

Anyways, the cookies were delish. I filled them with Sister Spangler's strawberry-apricot jam. So I made banana cream pie and pumpkin pie after that (with the traditional cinnamon-sugar pie crust cookies, of course!). The banana cream pie turned out perfectly, but the pumpkin pie was so-so. I followed the directions in my cookbook, and I think next time I'm going to use the ones on the can. However, I now have some leftover pumpkin to make amazing pumpkin spice muffins with! Yay. So after I was done baking I did a little bit of homework and then I went to Ken and Kelsey's to watch the game. We were playing Utah, so it was a high-stress rivalry game. But about an hour into it, we went to in-n-out, which just opened in Provo about two weeks ago. It felt like going home, which tells you a bit about how much I went there for swim team and water polo... By the time we got back, BYU was up by 11. So we pretty much just talked/surfed the internet during the rest of the game. I had my laptop, but I didn't really get much actual work done. For those of you who don't know (shame on you!) we went into overtime scored 20-20. In their possession, Utah got a field goal, but in ours we got a touchdown, so we won 27-23! It was pretty awesome. So then I stayed at the Ross household until traffic had died down a bit, talking about China, Honduras, and Utah drivers, among other topics. Kelsey kindly drove me home (I had walked) and I did some homework/video-chatted. Then I walked over to the library to check out a book I need for one of my research papers, and it was closed! Fortunately I was talking with Marta on the phone so I just got to continue the discussion. However, walking to and from the library in just a sweatshirt and jeans when it's 30 outside is a little bit chilly. I was super-excited when Marta got a facebook, and so I had fun chatting with her on there, although I still haven't convinced her to watch a clip on youtube about a scene in New Moon that she'd asked about...

This morning I got up and got ready to go to church. We had a stakewide sacrament meeting for those of us who weren't at home. I was actually surprised at how many people were there. We didn't have enough seats, so they asked all the guys to give up their seats for the girls. I was there early, so I didn't take some guy's seat, but they were very sweet about it. We brought in a bunch of chairs and almost everybody got seated, in the end. The sacrament meeting was actually really good. One of the talks I liked most was about believing Christ, not just believing in Christ. The example the speaker used was about how he'd been interning, and roomed with a bunch of Jewish guys. They had believed in Christ, in that he'd lived and he'd been a good person, but they didn't believe Christ - they didn't realize the truth of the Atonement. So that was a really good talk. But it was kind of interesting - they had four talks and two musical presentations. Cool, but different. Anyways, walked home from Church, and since then I've been writing this and decorating my room. It's fun, as always! I'm not sure whether I'm going to be glad or not to have to share the dorm again when my roommates get home tonight. It will be less lonely-feeling, but then again I won't be able to blast my music (although some of them do that regularly anyways, I won't descend to that level...) or have a clean sink. Sigh. But what I really need to worry about is whether or not I'll be able to survive the coming week! It'll be exciting.

I love you!!! Have your phones ready late at night because I will probably be walking to and from the library a lot in the coming weeks :)

Love,

Elize

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

Crazy amazing

Hi, guys! Sorry it's been so long; life is crazy. Last week all kinds of things happened...

Monday I made pumpkin soup!! It made me super-happy. The rest of the day I pretty much just studied. I also signed up for classes that night, which I'm sure you already know having read the comments on my last blog.

Tuesday, missionary week for Heritage Halls started. We had to wear missionary clothes and go by missionary schedules. (or at least try to)... I had lunch (for freshman academy) with Dr. Gates, my english professor, and Dan, the peer mentor guy for freshman academy. They were quite impressed by my pumpkin-soup-making ability. That night I went to a zone conference for Heritage, but it was mostly about how to sign up for deferral (for the guys) so that was pretty irrelevant. Oh well. It was fun :)

Well... Wednesday was exciting, because I went to the grocery store and got some ginger. I made pumpkin spice muffins with the leftover pumpkin from my soup, and gave some of them to the girls I'm assigned to for my compassionate service calling. Thursday I dropped off the last pumpkin muffin at the testing center, with a note, for a girl on my floor who had a bunch of tests that week. Then I went to our missionary break-the-fast because we'd been fasting all day. We ate sloppy joes and funeral potatoes and then I had to run to go to the Utah Symphony concert, where I was going to meet some members of my philosophy class, because our professor had bought tickets for us. The symphony played Brahm's 10th, which was very amazing. I laughed because halfway through the concert I saw the oboist cleaning out his oboe. It was fun. Then I went home and... wait for it..... studied! So great.

Friday was pretty good, although I felt very unproductive all day. I wrote my annotated bibliography for English at about 9 (it was due at midnight) and did laundry. Great stuff.

I will tell you about Saturday through Tuesday tomorrow! But now I have to write an essay and go to bed! Love you all lots,

Eliza

Amazing laughing baby

This is fantastic. You MUST watch it:

Anyways, love you!

Eliza

Okay, Marta, hold on to your horses. You could just call me, you know.. Well, last Friday I went to homecoming with Robert and his brother and his date. It was okay, but not that exciting. Probably the two most thrilling parts of the evening were discovering how delicious fried breaded eggplant is and finding a dollar on my rearview mirror as I drove down the highway (the outside mirror). Tomorrow I will scan the pictures and hopefully get them up in a few days...

So Saturday I didn't do very much either... I hung around at home for most of the morning and then went to the library in the afternoon, where I promptly fell asleep. Then I looked up some books for my BOM paper, and stayed in the library until 11 pm, going home briefly for dinner. I finally went to bed around 1, after much partying with my roommates.

Sunday morning I got up at 6 to go to the Pre-Mission Morningside. Kirsi and I were one of a dozen or so girls from our stake, but I was surprised at the number of guys there - fewer than I would have thought. Oh well. We heard great talks from a couple of missionaries who'd gotten their calls already, as well as two members of our Stake Presidency (including Bro. Madsen, more on him later). There was also a lovely musical number with guys on the cello, the piano, and singing. When we got home, Kirsi went back to bed but I decided to stay up and do my BOM paper. That didn't work out too well. My roommates laughed at me when they came into the kitchen - apparently I was sprawled uncomfortably with my head hanging off the edge of the couch. Anyways, I got up and went to hall council/hall meeting, and then to church. We had wonderful talks, including one by my friend Charity. All of the talks were about charity. So at the beginning she had to bring up that scripture about "and if men have not charity they have nothing." We got a pretty good laugh about that one, especially when she said jokingly that she should have a date every Friday night. It was pretty amazing. On Sunday evening I got a little bit of pre-cooking done for the week - I sauteed zucchini, yellow pepper, garlic, onion, yellow squash, and mushrooms, which I used throughout the week. I had decided that I wouldn't work on my paper on Sunday, so I went to bed at 7:45.

I woke up Monday morning at 1 am. Earliest I've ever woken up in my life. I worked on my paper, going through the 13 books I'd checked out on my subject, until 11 am, when my BOM class starts. I only got 700 words written, (in spite of the fact that I missed weights training to write it) and then on my way to class when I got to the library to print it out, I realized I didn't have my ID card on me, and so couldn't print it out. Ugh. I was SOO frustrated. But the TA told me that if I emailed it to her and gave her a written draft on Wednesday, I'd only get a few points taken off. So I went to all the rest of my classes, and my day was slightly redeemed by the fact that in my international politics class, my professor (who is AMAZING - google Valerie Hudson) told the entire class about a website I'd found answering one of her questions about the way the UN works. That was nice, and I needed a little ego-booster after the bruising of that morning. Monday evening I went to Kohl's and got some new boots, a shirt (for $1.50) and some running pants. Oh, and I also bought a Christmas present for Tess :). I got a little bit of studying done that night, but not as much as I needed to.

Tuesday I got up and got ready, put some laundry in, and went to see the forum by Greg Mortensen (who wrote Three Cups of Tea). I met up with Aunt Geniel, Uncle Steven, Suzannah, Kelsey, and Jared and we went to see it. Very fun. You should totally watch it. Anyways... Oh, and it snowed on Tuesday!! I was worried about it snowing this early in the year, but it wasn't heavy snow, just little sprinkles. I went to class and had fun doing math homework for three hours. Tuesday night I finished my English paper, wrote a little more on my BOM paper, and went downstairs to finish my laundry. I folded two loads of laundry from other girls, who had had their laundry thrown out of the dryers after it was done, and hadn't come to take care of it yet. That made me feel like a good person :)

On Wednesday I actually went to my weights training class (what a novelty!) and then came home, got ready, did some more homework, and went to my four-hour block of classes. Fun, fun. We got our international politics tests back and I got a 90.5, which is okay I guess. The guy who sits next to me got 100, though - he wants to be one of Dr. Hudson's research assistants and is trying to prove himself. I would have been jealous, but we're friends so I let it go this time. I went home, studied like crazy, ate a grilled cheese sandwich with the mix I made on Sunday in it (yum) and then went to take my philosophy test. I got there at 8, and then finished except for one question at 9:55, five minutes before the testing center closes. I couldn't figure it out, but it was only worth a few points so I sighed and left. I went to the library (talking to you guys on the way) and worked until 11:45, when they started playing Thriller to get us out of the library. It made me sad that I wouldn't be going to the RS enrichment meeting on Thursday, when they would be teaching us how to dance to Thriller. Oh well. That'll have to be my Thanksgiving project. Oh, I forgot! Before I went to take my test I went to our hall party for a few minutes, where we had treats (every apartment brought some) apple cider, and a game. Everyone got a name taped to their back and had to guess, asking yes or no questions of others, who they were. I was Mulan, which made me SO excited I can't even describe it. After I left they had scary stories and learned self defense from the campus police. Sorry, mom...

So, Thursday morning I got up, worked on some more homework and stuff, and then went out to breakfast with Grandma Houghton! She had been staying with her cousin, Ann Madsen (who has been teaching at BYU for 42 years, is the wife of Truman G. Madsen, who died in June, and is the mother of the first counselor in my stake presidency), so we went to Sister Madsen's house. She had made some delicious bran muffins, which I got the recipe for, and had freshly-picked raspberries and cream, which were delicious. I had so much fun listening to Grandma and her cousin talk, about life, relatives, ancestors, etc. It was amazing. I was intimidated by the two of them! And Grandma showed me a picture of herself as a young woman (maybe around 14, but I'm not sure). She could definitely be part of our family. I just had a wonderful time overall, and it was so nice to see Grandma. (Oh, and sidenote: Grandma lived in Broadbent hall in Heritage Halls, which I walk past every day on my way to class!! I felt so connected with her!)

After spending some time at the Madsens' house, we drove to BYU and I went to class. It was kind of a letdown. Also, the homework that we'd covered on Friday, when I'd skipped class to finish working on my English paper, was due Thursday, so that was fun... But I survived. After class, I went home, made another grilled cheese, and then went to Annalisa and Vance's house! Kelsey, Jared, and Ken were also there, along with two Kindt cousins. We ate dessert, talked, and overall had a rollicking good time. Vance even de-stressed me a little bit about choosing a major. (He didn't choose his until halfway through his junior year) After that I went visiting teaching, which wasn't nearly as stressful or scary as I'd thought it would be. Then I went to the library to write the (three-page long!) outline due the next morning for my international politics class. At 10:45 I realized that my chosen topic wasn't going to work, so I quickly chose a new one, got a few books on the subject, and got to the circulation desk seconds before it closed (at 11). I wrote some more, and then left at 11:50. They played Thriller two nights in a row, which I had mixed feelings about. It's pretty cool that it was Thriller, but they're supposed to play different music every night, so...

When I got home I worked for about half an hour before I decided I was going to die if I didn't sleep. So I went to sleep on the couch (again) and woke up at 3:30. I felt very refreshed, and worked on my outline until 6:30, whereupon I took a shower and went to bed. I woke up at 10, made a delicious omelet, and got ready for the day. I got to my outline conference at the TA office at 11:30 sharp (I would have gotten 5 points off for being late). The TA, Brooke, said that my TA was very good, and that made me quite happy. I got through the rest of my classes somehow, and then came home. I quasi-studied for a bit and then went to play basketball with Heidi. It was raining by this point, but we had a fantastic time. She's taking a basketball class this semester, and I blame my losing "Around the World" and "Horse" on that fact. It was the day before Kirsi's birthday (by now it's Friday) and so our apartment got Papa John's pizza. By this point, Amy had left for Las Vegas, Shyler was at her brother's apartment, and Madi was on a date. So Ashley, Kirsi, and I had some lovely pizza with garlic sauce. Then Heidi and I went shopping for halloween costumes. We'd decided to be flappers, so we went to DI to find some crazy old-fashioned dresses. I found one, and bought it. Then we went to Target and she got a dress. We discovered how expensive this whole venture was going to be, and cringed, but continued ahead. When I got home I watched the end of a scary movie with my roommates and some of Kirsi's friends. Then Kirsi went to her house and Ashley and I attempted to learn the Charleston, by watching videos from youtube. We were not hugely successful.

Saturday morning I forgot to set my alarm, so I woke up at 10:30, and was very upset that I'd wasted my day that way. I ate cold pizza and vegetables for breakfast/lunch and then did a little bit of homework. I went to the bookstore with our RA Stephanie to buy some supplies for a birthday sign to hang on doors (I'm on the birthday committee for our hall), and then went grocery shopping. I got home, with candy for our little trick-or-treaters, at 4, and then went with Heidi to see if there was anything at the dollar store that would salvage our costumes. We couldn't find anything, so we bought some off-brand animal crackers to assuage our grief (she laughed at my use of the word assuage). We decided to make a brief appearance at our stake Halloween dance that night, in whatever costumes we could find, and then go to a movie at the dollar theater with a whatever group we could round up. While I was at home, my roommates were watching Batman returns, when Catwoman is born. I was wearing black sweats, so I decided to put on my four-inch black boots, a black v-neck sweater worn backwards, paper cut-out ears, and an eyeliner mask to become Catwoman. We went to the party (Ashley, Heidi, some other friends, and I) and it was a bit lame. It was really hot and there wasn't that much going on, but there were some cool costumes. There were tons of Waldos and Hermiones, a kissing booth, and a set of three roommates dressed as eggs - one had devil horns and a tail for a deviled egg, one had a "sunburn" around the yolk for either "fried egg" or "sunny-side up" egg, and one had a hard hat on for hard-boiled. There were tons of other clever and funny costumes, but I don't remember all of them. My BOM professor was there with his wife, and they were dressed as the straw man and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. But anyways, the party was kind of lame, so we left after about 40 minutes. We hung out at Heidi's apartment for a while and then she, two of her roommates, and I went to the dollar theater to see Ponyo, which is a very cute movie. There were a couple of guys across the aisle dressed up, and one of them was a cat. We did a chin nod to each other. That was really funny, and the movie was fun as well. When I got home I went to bed. (Oooh, that was anticlimactic. I bet you were expecting some really fun story about how we partied all night long, but we didn't :)

This morning I set my alarm for 9:30, but it didn't go off. I woke up at 11:30 (an unprecedented amount of sleep, I know) and my cell phone was nearly smirking at me. I checked the settings and it said the alarm was set for 9:30, but it hadn't gone off! I nearly killed my phone. I guess it was the DST change or something.... I missed hall meeting because of my recalcitrant cell phone, but I got to church. It was good, but I was tired because I'd slept too much and confused my body after a week of not sleeping at all. I went home between RS and Sunday School to preheat the oven to bake the artisan bread for our ward break-the-fast. (Oh, that's one thing I did last night after I got home - I prepared the dough). After Sunday School, I came home and baked the bread, then went to our ward break-the fast. There was spaghetti, salad, bread, and desserts. My bread was the only home-made stuff there, and my roommates appointed me the official bread-maker of our apartment. The dessert I got was a nutella-filled crepe. Yumm.... When we got home I started making some food for later on in this week. The main thing I did was this dish that's red potato and green cabbage. It's actually really good. While I did this we watched the CES Fireside, by President Utchdorf. I was persuaded by my roommates to stay home and watch it with them (only Shyler, Madi, and Ashley were there) and I won't be doing that again. They were talking and joking the entire time, and then sang off-key with the choir (on purpose). Ugh. But it was nice to be able to cook at the same time. Then I started on some applesauce, and went in my room to start typing this blog. Unfortunately, I forgot I'd started the applesauce so it burned. I tried to save it but it didn't work. Then Shyler's brother came over and sang for my roommates while I continued writing. (He does this regularly - they think he's amazing, but he's okay). When Amy and Kirsi got home we talked for about an hour, which was fun, and now I'm going to bed. I love you lots!

Eliza

Oh, p.s. I'm choosing classes tomorrow and I need some help deciding what to take. I'm going to take Chinese and Calculus 2, but here's the list of other stuff I'm thinking about (assuming there are any spots open still): Honors Economics Principles and Problems, Intro to English Language (so I can get started on an editing minor), Honors Geography and World Affairs, Human Biology, Human Anatomy, Honors Physical Science, Honors General Psychology, Honors Book of Mormon (pretty much for sure), Honors Current Social Problems, Civilization 2, Accounting 200, Biological Diversity: Animals, Fundamentals of Computing and Information, and General Chemistry (they're not offering Honors Chem 1 this semester, which is a bummer because I already have the books for that). I'm also thinking about taking extramural rugby, or I'll sign up for whatever P.E. class is open. Let me know what you guys think, asap! I sign up tomorrow at midnight. Love you!

Eliza

Hey family! I don't have a lot of time, but I'll give you a quick update on what's happened in the last week or so....

Wednesday the main distraction from normal routine was the Major Fair. I went there after I was done with classes and explored all the majors BYU has to offer. Unfortunately, it left me even more confused about my future than I was before. I'll tell you about some of the majors though.... One interesting field that I learned about was information systems, which is pretty much a combination of business and technology - you update business to the technological level required to run in the 21st century. I also looked at a bunch of biology majors, but I'll reserve my judgment on those until I've taken a biology class or two. I think I'm going to try to get an Editing minor, because that would provide a lot of opportunities... I also looked at some of the engineering majors, and that was exciting because Vance was at the mechanical engineering table! I asked him to tell me about mechanical engineering and he said that if something is awesome, mechanical engineers are there. So, it sounds pretty cool, but again, I don't really know enough about the field itself to make judgment yet.

My political science test was supposed to end at 10 pm on Friday, but when I looked online at the testing center on Thursday night, it said that the test ended at noon on Friday instead. So I freaked out and studied like crazy until the early hours of the morning. I got up at seven so that I could be at the testing center at 8, so I could be at class by 11. I'd sent my professor an email asking what the deal was with testing hours the previous night. Just after I finished getting dressed and was about ready to head out the door, an email popped up from a TA in the class, saying that the test really didn't end until 10. I was super-frustrated, but I went back to bed (in my clothes) and slept for a few more hours, which was nice. However, my alarm didn't go off until 10:45, so I was late. Luckily, it was an optional class that day... Oh, and in math we found out that my teacher got engaged! It was exciting, because she's pretty much amazing.

Friday evening I went to take my political science test. I felt like I did pretty well, although there were a few questions that I didn't know. I did get all the map questions right though :) Before and after the test, I was talking to mom and dad, and I'm very jealous that you guys got to go to an October party. Lucky!

Anyway... Saturday was crazy. I got up and went to BYU's lost and found sale, where I found all sorts of treasures. I got a CTR ring for $2 and a watch for $3. However, the most impressive bargain was on the TI-84 plus I bought - FOR THIRTY DOLLARS. I figured that if my calculator broke again, I would be set without having to pay $80 on ebay, and if my calculator holds together, I can sell the calculator to mom and dad for Marta next year! Perfect. That was exciting. Then I went back to my apartment and made homemade applesauce and oatmeal for breakfast (Oh, by the way, oatmeal is amazing if you put a few chocolate chips in right after you put it in the bowl, and stir it around until they're melted...). It's a lot easier to make applesauce then I thought it was, and that's really nice. It does take a long time though. So, that afternoon I studied a bit and then spent a couple of hours looking through the course catalog. I decided to write down the classes I'm interested in taking next semester so I could make a final choice. My list was two pages long. It'll take some whittling... I also looked at majors and minors. I can't decide on a major, but there's all kinds of minors I'd like to do. Maybe I'll just get five minors and my major can be Bachelor's in Jack-of-all-trades.

Saturday night my roommates Ashley, Amy, Kirsi, and I (Madi was at her brother's mission homecoming and Shyler was at her boyfriend's farewell for the weekend) went to Humor U, which is a stand-up comedy group at BYU that does clean, super-funny humor. We had a ton of fun. There were lots of comments about Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, and there were also some great jokes about BYU life - one girl said that she was composing a new type of romantic ballad. One of her proposed titles was "Break my heart and I'll break your face." That's the only one I can remember at the moment, but some of the other ones were even funnier. After the show, we walked back home and decided we wanted to go have some fun. We took a camera and went out to be crazy. First we took pictures with the Brigham Young statue. That was pretty tame, but Ashley had a hard time climbing up on the tall pedestal, which was very funny. Then came the really great part. There's this big square in between the Joseph F. Smith Building and the library, in which there are several little grassy areas with trees dividing the sidewalk. It's a major intersection. We got a newspaper recycling bin from the Joseph F. Smith Building, put Ashley inside, and placed the recycle bin next to the intersection. Amy, Kirsi, and I sat on a bench about 50 yards away from her. When people passed, we would call Ashley on her cell phone, and she would jump up from the recycle bin and scream. We got some fantastic reactions. There was jumping and screaming from everyone, but one guy was the best: he jumped, screamed like a little girl, and blew a whistle. We could barely breathe from laughing so hard and Kirsi actually fell off the bench... We walked around campus taking some more crazy pictures, and then we headed back to our apartment. It was freezing by this point, so we made hot chocolate and put chocolate chips in it. Yum....

On Sunday, we got up and went to church, then came home, ate our assorted dinners, and went to Hall Meeting. While there, I talked with Heidi about doing a Halloween party on the thirtieth (we have a stake party on Halloween). That was pretty much all that was exciting on Sunday, although we had a really good lesson in Relief Society.

Monday I went to weights training an hour early to make up for missing it on my birthday. By the end of two hours, my muscles could barely move. Oh well... I studied for my calculus exam all day, and then went at 8 to actually take the test. Strangely enough the free response questions were easier than the multiple choice - that's never happened to me before. I missed FHE unfortunately, but all they did was take family pictures, which reportedly took only 15 minutes, so not too important.

Tuesday was an exciting and long day. I went to the library in the morning, and then went to devotional, which was the opening for homecoming week. We learned all about Eugene Roberts, to whom homecoming is dedicated. He was amazing. He jump-started the slowly-dying BYU Athletics program, started the whole tradition of ballroom dancing here, began the program which would become Institute, and made Boy Scouts a part of Young Men's. Wow. I saw the BYU marching band for the first time, and it was intense. After the devotional I went to calculus, and we got out early so I got to go get free homecoming lunch in the quad! It was super-exciting. Free food has become such an amazing part of life now. After lunch, I went back to the library and looked up a ton of books for my politics paper, for which the outline is due next week. Then I went to see the TA for my philosophy class. It was my first time going in to see a TA during office hours. We talked about Sophocles and Socrates, and I was really intimidated that this is the guy who grades our tests. I will be studying extensively for my philosophy test this weekend. Anyways, after philosophy was over at 5:15, I went back to the library and then headed over to the law library to look up some books there. I got home at around nine, and I felt so intense for studying so long...

Yesterday I went to all my classes and then came home. The only thing of note that happened during that part of the day is that I forgot my laptop at home, and didn't have any paper, so I was a paper mooch all day. When I got home I did some math homework and ate dinner, and then went grocery shopping. I really enjoy price-comparing. It's super-fun. For example, I got an 11-pound pumpkin for about a dollar, and I found Jonathan apples for 25 cents a pound. Exciting. When I got home I made some easy microwave fudge (again, way easier than I'd thought it would be) because Shyler's boyfriend went to the MTC today and I wanted to make her day a little better. Then I texted Heidi to come over so we could go feed the ducks stale bread and eat fudge. We talked for a long time about school, majors, roommates, etc. Super-fun. I went home, attempted to do some more homework, got stuck, installed Skype so I could video-chat with Amy across the room, and finally went to bed.

This morning I got up, got ready, and went to the library. I did my math homework, headed to class, and came back to the library. Now I need to study some more and eat lunch, so I will talk to you later!

Love you all!!!

Eliza