He was totally touching my homework papers with his shoe ON PURPOSE, even though he knew it was bugging me.

Me: Daniel. Seriously. Why are you taunting me?

Dan: Why are you tauntable?

The things you find laying around the English department...

I study language stuff, and this is really funny to me.

heehee

Quick summary of my week

Monday: research proposal application due to the IRB. This is so that data that I gather for a class project this semester can be used for conference presentations or publications.
Also Monday: Arabic essay due. Not written yet. eep. So obviously I'm using my time well by blogging instead of writing it. :P
Tuesday: Meeting in the evening with the finance committee of the student gov't. We will have to 'defend' our request for funding for the symposium that is slotted to be next April, but for which we don't have any funding yet. eep! This meeting REALLY needs to go well!
Thursday: Midterm for my Middle Eastern Studies class.
Also Thursday: Leave after my midterm for a conference in a neighboring state! Two of my colleagues and I are presenting some of our research there. :) :) Unfortunately, we aren't QUITE ready to present yet, tho we are getting closer, and there is a lot of work to fit in this week to get ready for that.
Friday: Arabic test, that I'll miss because I'm at the conference, but will have to take on Monday.
The weekend: Halloween, which is HUGE in the town where I live, AND Stake conference, at which we'll be getting a new stake presidency. I'll still be out of town. :(

Oh, and I almost forgot to add that I still have just the regular homework and reading to do - 3 chapters by Tuesday, 5 articles by Wednesday, and I don't even know what I have to read for Thursday!

Um, wish me luck?? :)

Spelling counts.

I was part of a group presentation in my Arabic discussion section the other day, and I didn't freeze up and die, which was a BIG DEAL to me.

I did, however, make a typo on one of my slides. With one letter I changed the full name of the city of Mecca from "Beloved city" to "Hated city."

Yes, I am just. that. awesome.

So there's this guy... :) :)

His name's Dan, he's 27, from this town where I live now, plays rugby, and can fix anything that could possibly go wrong on a car. He's also punctual (gasp! I didn't know those people even EXISTED!!) and thinks I'm funny and likes to hear my thoughts about stuff and tell me his. :) He loves the temple and honors the priesthood, and amazes me with his insights into the scriptures and his understanding of the Atonement. We've been best friends for about 6 months and dating for a week and a half now, and I'm ridiculously happy about it. :)

Just thought you might want to know... ;)

I go back and forth...

...between being excited for classes and for what I'm going to learn this semester and TOTALLY tired of school. I know this will be a good, growing, stretching, learning, enlightening year, I just hope I have the energy to make it happen. :)

Time with family and friends the last 3 weeks was good...but never enough. I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to - blame it partly on the fact that I was DEATHLY ILL for almost HALF of my vacation time! Ok, fine, not DEATHLY ill, but ill enough that I wanted to die. :) Green stuff coming out my eyeballs, horrible sinus pressure, no voice...yeah, it was pretty awesome. :)

So I came back to school pretty excited to be back, but then not enough time to get settled into the new apartment, or life, again before school started. And I've been messing with my class schedule, so I still feel pretty unsettled. I think I decided today what classes I'm actually going to take, so that is a nice feeling, but I also feel like I'm already behind in Arabic, and I'm gonna have to bust my tail to not get behind in my other classes. The second day and already I'm worried about being behind? That ain't good, people. Maybe I worry too much, ya think? :)

On the other hand, it IS really fun to be back with my friends in this town, and to start to get my head back into this field that I enjoy and have enjoyed so much, and to start to get settled into my cute new house.

And as I flip back and forth between excitement and something close to panic I am reminded of that quote by President Hinckley where he talks about life being like an old-time railway journey - twists and turns, and only occasionally beautiful views and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick, he says, (and this is what I need to remind myself when I feel down,) (this plus "go eat something," :P ) is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.

I feel like this sums it up nicely...

"I really like....not talking to crazy people. It's pretty much my favorite."

- Dan

I don't curse.

And yet my sister says this to me:

I'm sure if you pray to God about things to repent of, He'll bring that to your remembrance.

Um, yeah. I'll get right on that. :P

Is there ANY context in which this makes sense?

"I rarely think of my legs as part of my body."

- A

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that.

"Pretty much everything in the universe is common sense to me."

- Dan

Pockets are pretty amazing. And so is this line from E.

So he didn't have any of the following with him one day a few weeks ago:

• cell phone
• keys
• wallet

And when asked why, he responded:

Because I put pants on this morning, and they weren't in them.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a reason.

Priorities

After dinner in the dorm cafeteria tonight I went to the commons room in my dorm and while I was reading your blog (yes, YOURS), the ice cream bar that I stole from the cafeteria totally melted.

So I stood over the trash can and slurped it out of its package.

Yes, I totally did.

So there ARE some fun things...

For example, today we had to write sentences using the new vocab for ch 12, and I wrote the following. The bold words are the new vocab.

My day off was great! I missed class, and I didn't learn about the death of my teacher. I was appointed to speak at her funeral.

My teacher even laughed when she read it, and that was kind of a triumph for me. :)

Also, one of the students in my class is still in high school (!!), and she's considering going to college in Scotland, and we had this big (tangential) discussion today about how people in many (most?) other countries don't take great care of their teeth, and she was kind of disgusted. Then later we were answering conversation-type questions, and another student said, in answer to one of the questions, that he ended a relationship once because the girl had Scottish teeth. :) hee hee :)

So it's not ALL totally heinous and painful. :)

My rules for the next ten days

1. Don't panic. You ARE capable of learning this stuff, and you know your mind shuts off when you panic.

2. FOCUS. On Arabic.

And that is all.

WAY more panic today, people!!

So we have two weeks left of this Arabic program, and I alternate between the following:

1) 12 days and 10 hrs until I'm with my nieces and nephews - WAHOOOOOO!!!

and

2) Oh. My. GOSH. I am going to fail in life and die. In five minutes.

See, 2 weeks in this program is HALF A SEMESTER of Arabic left to go. That's a LOT of material. And I STILL don't have a very good grasp on the material from the last two weeks, so I have LOTS of catch up and LOTS of keeping up to do.

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So...

...apparently the prayers of the internets are not effective :P ;) because my sister and her husband have decided to send their kids to public school.

HOWEVER!!!!

They bought a plane ticket - for ME! - from their town to our parents' town!! So this means that I get to drive across two states with them and their kids and then fly back across those 2 states. And lest you think this would NOT be a fun way to spend YOUR vacation, allow me to remind you that this means that instead of two days with them, I now get THREE AND A HALF!!! WOOOHOOOO!! :)

Arabic, on the other hand, is SERIOUSLY giving me the people's elbow to the face these days. I am WAY behind, and sentences that are supposed to mean something to me...don't. I'm tempted to just "survive" for the next 11.5 days of class...until I remember that that equates to more than half a semester, so I really just need to kick it into gear and catch up and keep up. Wish me luck!

Studying vocab

So I think I've mentioned that I have a lot of vocab to memorize. I haven't? Well, internets, guess what?

I HAVE A LOT OF VOCAB TO MEMORIZE.

It's a frightening amount, and I struggle to get it for every chapter. I have tried different things to help me to remember the sound and the spelling of each word, and since it's always a struggle, I have felt like those things weren't necessarily helping.

Well.

The chapter that we're currently in? I'm TOTALLY not getting the vocab down, and I realized that it's because I changed my studying a little bit. I didn't do for this chapter a technique that I have done with previous chapters, and I can tell that my grasp of this vocab is weaker because of it. So I'll do it today and hopefully I'll know the vocab in time for the test on Friday AND so that I can USE it in conversation, which really is the point of vocab anyway, eh? :)

It just reminded me that sometimes in life we don't realize how important the "little things" really are, and we don't always know how much they are helping, BUT THEY ARE. That one vocab study technique? I wasn't sure it was helping until I didn't use it for one chapter, and THEN I realized how much it helped. It makes me wonder what the "little things" are that I am doing now that are keeping me sane (or as sane as I am ;) ), and I want to make sure I don't neglect any of them. They ARE helping. :)

The stars have aligned...

...and my fingernails are ALL the same nice length AT THE SAME TIME.

I know, it's like a little miracle.

Aren't you glad you came to read my blog today?! :)

So I've come up with two analogies to explain the almost scary cheerfulness that I've been feeling since Monday morning, despite the bad news. Are you ready? Here they are:

#1 - Emotional foreclosure. :) Too much to handle, so we reset the counters.

#2 - Computer freaking out - let's reboot.

Or maybe, really, I just needed to cry and let out some of what I've been bottling up for the last 6 or 7 weeks.

Either way, I'm feeling much better, and I think I'm going to survive. :) Only 13 more days of Arabic class! :)

And on another happy note, my roommate for next year and I turned in an application for a really cute duplex!! YAY! :) I may even get to move my stuff in before I head west for family time! :)

And I talked to my sister again today, and it turns out that since Sunday they have revisited the question of continuing to home school their kids rather than send them to public school, and if they go the home school route the first day of school in the school district won't matter and they'll be at the reunions longer! I know they need to do what's best for their kids, but would it be too much to ask for the entire internet to pray that they'll decide to home school, so I can spend more time with those kids next month?? That's a valid reason to make important decisions about your kids' education and future, isn't it?? ;)

The proverbial straw

Through all the stress of this summer - the Arabic program, the personal stresses, the housing stresses, and let me again mention the Arabic program - there have been 2 things that have been keeping me going through this Arabic struggle. One of them was the family reunions at the end of the summer - one-and-a-half or two weeks with ALL my nieces and nephews. I have been holding on to that as if it would save my sanity these past weeks, and it has.

And last night I found out that one sister and her four kids will only overlap with me at the reunions for TWO DAYS. They just found out the day that school starts in their new school district, and because of that and the end date of my Arabic program, we'll only be together for two days.

TWO DAYS.

I am heartbroken.

I sat in my car last night and sobbed and sobbed and beat my steering wheel and yelled in frustration and sorrow and anger - about this HUGE disappointment, on top of everything else I have been dealing with this summer...it's just too much...and so I think that that bit of news was more than my already-beaten-down little psyche could handle - nothing else will register, and this morning I went to class more cheerful than I have been in days. I can't handle the thought of that small amount of time with them when I was looking forward - for eight months!!! - to so much more time together, so I think I am suppressing the pain and disappointment to the point that it doesn't exist or can't hurt me anymore.

Except when I think about it for more than 2 seconds. Then the tears start again.

I know life isn't supposed to be fair, but after eight months of looking forward to time with them - only TWO DAYS?! Puh-LEASE!!

It's a good thing I'll be with my other two adorable nieces and my other two fabulous sisters and my wonderful parents for longer than that - missing ALL of them would kill me for sure. I just wanted us all to be together for a while...

So Life, if you have any more disappointments or pain in store for me, could you hold off, please? Even just for a couple of months? I'm pretty much operating at capacity right now.

Getting settled in, maybe? :)

So the past few days of this Arabic program I feel like my life has settled into a pattern, and that's a nice feeling. I usually get up early and study, shower quick, grab a quick breakfast of 2 bowls of cereal with fruit and 2 glasses of orange juice :), and go to class. I study vocab on the way to lunch, eat lunch, study vocab on the way back to class. After class I usually walk some - on the bike path or just around - and sometimes call a family member to chat. Then I study / read / nap, then dinner, then studying, then bed. I've been sleeping consistently about 5-6 hrs, which is not a ton, but I'm surviving, and it IS a consistent amount of sleep each night, which I hear is good for you. And I've been consistently reading my scriptures, and spending some good time pondering and writing in my scripture journal and my regular journal, which I also hear is good for you. :)

I have had quite a few days of class recently during which I _didn't_ want to die, so that's been a nice change. :) I'm getting into the habit more of studying and learning and struggling through. Today on the way to class I was panicking a little because this is day 2 on chapter 6, and I STILL didn't have all the ch 6 vocab mastered, and I knew we'd have to actively USE it in class. And I was thinking how frustrating it is that it takes me 3-4 days to be comfortable with each new set of vocab, and yet we only spend about 2.5 days on each chapter, so I'm not comfortable with it by the time we move on to the next set. But then I had a thought that stopped me in my tracks - I DO get comfortable with each set of vocab. !!! :) :) So even if it takes me 3-4 days, it DOES happen, and so these new words ARE and WILL slowly work their way into my vocabulary. I was relieved when I realized that - I've been beating myself up that I can't absorb and assimilate this vocab as quickly as we move through it, but I DO get it eventually, and that was a very satisfying feeling. :)

I also had an AWESOME moment in class today when _I_ was right and the punk kid who is REALLY smart and always seems to be WAY ahead of the rest of us was NOT right, and he complimented me - TWICE! - on figuring out this new concept. :) That was a good feeling, and it's nice to feel like even if there ARE things that I don't catch on to as fast as him, and even if my vocabulary isn't as good as his, and even if he doesn't have to look words up to remember the short vowels, and even if he did memorize the ENTIRE chart of plurals...I am NOT an idiot, and I feel like I proved that a little bit today, to him and to me. :)