Approximately One Month Later

Approximately one month since my last post, much has happened. To begin with, the Marleys were dead. Oh wait, nevermind. That's the Christmas Carol. To begin with, we had thoroughly stuffed ourselves with homemade goodness from Thursday until leaving on Sunday. Kenneth made an amazing stuffing, with yams, sage, guyere cheese, and lots of bread of course. Adam made a tasty cranberry apple pie, I even tried my hand at pumpkin pie and wheat rolls from scratch for the first time. It was a lovely break, and though I didn't get as much accomplished as I had hoped, I was able to make some progress in my books and papers and such. Grad school applications have been postponed until...now.

We arrived back at school with two and a half weeks left in the quarter. One week, then dead week, then three days of finals (Or in my case, one morning). Festivities were in grand form those last two and a half weeks. French club had several exciting events, such as fondue and film night where we made our own (cheese) fondue and fresh bread, played games, and watched the movie Up. A small group of us recently went caroling and sang carols in French, which was quite cold, but fun.

Other exciting events from the last of the quarter included a girls day out Sarah and I had. Stephen was coming to visit the next day, so we thought it would be perfect to go get manicures for the first time. It was a lovely day and fun to be spoiled. We felt a bit like invalids at the end when our nails were still wet and we were trying to pay and put our coats back on, but it was so worth it when our boys said our nails and we looked beautiful :)

The Christmas Concert was a time consuming event amidst the flurry of activity in dead week. Over two hours worth of rehearsal Thursday night, and two concerts on Friday night. The musicians were exhausted by the time Sabbath was over, but the concerts went well for the most part and were thoroughly enjoyed by the crowds that came. In the spirit of the season, not only did the Music Department and French Club spread their Christmas tidings, but we students had our own ways of displaying our seasonal spirit. Upon our return from Thanksgiving break, Jon, Katelyn (his sister) , and I displayed decorations throughout both our apartments. Between those two weeks, we also blasted the Christmas music and watched the Christmas classics, such as The Muppet Christmas Carol, A Charlie Brown Christmas, the Polar Express, A Christmas Story, and the classic cartoons Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. We also made gingerbread houses! Another first! It was kind of amusing and disastrous. This wasn't just one big house, this was a series of five small homes of various kinds to form a village of sorts. Jon and I picked the Holiday Chalet to build, and though we didn't get too extravagant with our decor, we claimed it as our own. When one doesn't have a flag to stake their claim, initials work well. This was all in an effort to relieve us and distract us from our stress from upcoming finals and term papers.

Speaking of which, those obligations were not completely ignored in lieu of festivities. I had a couple of French papers, including a book report over Hemingway's A Moveable Feast (en francais), my Research Writing paper, AND... the unforgettable, unignorable senior history paper. The rough draft, or approximately the first 20 pages, were due the Friday of dead week. Luckily I had been working on it off and on throughout the week and was not in need of an all-nighter Thursday night to write 20 pages (like some people). It was finished in beautiful form and with much relief. While turning it in, I talked with other history seniors and we all were doing the "How many pages did you get? 22? oh... I only got 21." "How many footnotes did you end up with?" "Which font did you use?" I heard several sad stories, including my favorite. Two guys had worked on theirs all night at one of their houses, and at one point in the night, about 3 or 4 AM I believe, one of the guys, who is writing his paper on Italian immigrants in New York, turns to the other and says, "What else did Italians do?" the other guy thinks a minute and replies, "I dunno...were they bakers?" "Yeah ! I bet they were bakers ! " (as he types it into his paper) Oh I love being a history major. (But I also love being a French major. the other day Sarah made crepes for class. Then one girls spoke up that crepes go great with coffee. That decided it. We grabbed our nutella crepes in one hand and all wandered down the street to the coffee shop where we had class with crepes and coffee. La vie est toujours belle). While Jon had numerous finals in classes such as W. Civ., Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Early Church History, and Crisis Ministry, I on the other hand was done by 11:00 Monday morning after our W. Civ final. Which he had cut out the essay for, leaving only 10 terms to define and explain. Which I got 100% on. Perfect end to a perfect quarter. But wait...


After the stress and panic from finals, we took a bit of a break and Tuesday night went out to the symphony ! We dressed to the nines and reveled in the sounds of Mozart and local artists. Being an usher has its benefits though, and since we didn't have to pay for tickets, we didn't feel too bad skipping out at intermission to get some much needed food. Jon took us to this little hole in the wall French restaurant downtown, which was amazing! The food was incredible, and the waiter and Jon even spoke french with me ! What a legendary night. And THAT was the just about the perfect end to a perfect quarter.