This is going to be my work station for the next week: a folding card table in my living room, with my dog for company (he's on the right side, on the couch). That's right - it's finals week at the University of Georgia. It doesn't actually start until Monday, but I have lots of studying to do before then. In light of this, I apologize if I don't post until sometime next week. I'll try to, but I'll be really busy.

Also, I cleaned out my closet today of clothes that I'm planning on taking to Plato's Closet and hopefully sell back. I know they won't take everything, but I have about 5 bags worth of stuff. Even if they just take some of it, I'd be grateful!

According to my fortune cookie, a dark haired woman will give me a present soon. I wonder who it will be... and what I'll get! Hopefully the cupcake I found in the fridge that my mom brought home for me doesn't count =]

This is all that is left of my stupid German workbook for my stupid pointless stupid German class. Can we tell I'm a bit frustrated? I had a lot of German homework to do today... I've been working on it since roughly 1 PM today, on and off, and I'm finally done, completely, with the workbook. I have to say, it was quite therapeutic to rip it to shreds =]

Now I'm off to read my last assigned book for Western Civ... also about Germany.

FML.

Gobstoppers and Smart Water: the midnight snack of the ever vigilant college student.

Today was the last chapter of Xi Delta for the year. We had the swearing in of the officers and all that, so I am now officially the historian and assistant pledge educator! I have a lot of ideas for both positions, so I think I'll really enjoy both of them.

In other news... drum roll please... I am done with anything and everything about Bertolt Brecht, Martin Heideggar, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche.... FOREVER!!

I feel like doing a happy dance... if only I knew how to do one.

Lastly, there is this stupid gnat/fly thing that is tormenting me. I have no idea how it got in here - I'm on the 7th floor and while our window is open, it has a screen on it that has not previously allowed for bugs. If I had better ninja-like skills, I could catch it. However, I am not that talented, so it just keeps landing on my head, computer screen, and foot.

Damn flies.

Sunday was day number eleventy-one! Just like Bilbo Baggins's big birthday celebration in the beginning on the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.

Yes, I know I'm a giant nerd. =]

Sunday was a day full of Xi Delta stuff - officer training and street clean ups. Then I did a lot of homework. And I mean a lot.

What is most significant is my dorm room. The roommate and I took our beds down. See it? I can actually touch the floor... with my feet... and not because I'd managed to fall out of it! And... I'm sitting in my bed. On the internet. Because now my cord reaches here! On the downside, we have no TV, fridge, etc, that made the room nice.

And did I mention how boiling hot it is in here?

I've been a bad, bad blogger... I'm so sorry for my disappearance in the past week. Busy as usual! So since it's bee so long, I'll just group the days together with a picture or two, that way this won't be a novel instead of a post.

Days 102-104





Last weekend was Sister Retreat with my sorority, so we rented out this huge house up in the mountains. We spent the weekend laying out by the pool, lounging in the hot tub, eating huge amounts of sugar, and basically just getting some relaxing time away from Athens and school work. I managed to sunburn my legs to a nice lobster-ish color, even after putting SPF 30 on them, but I think it was definitely worth it! Sunday I went home (my house is on the way back to Athens), and my parents and I went to see State of Play (very good movie) and out to eat at Chili's.

Days 105-107





Monday through Wednesday was Initiation Week for the new Xi Delta sisters. They went through several different ceremony/ritual/tradition-like things. Monday was a lot less involved - only for older sisters, so I was exempt. Tuesday was Inspector Xi Delta, which is a scavenger hunt around campus (but we can't call it a scavenger hunt, because apparently that's hazing) that ended in a really long drive to the middle of no where, also known as the roommate's house for a cook out and marshmallow roasting. Wednesday was the family dinner (big sisters and little sisters), but my family adopted three others who didn't have little sisters this semester. We had a picnic in a park, with sandwiches, pigs in a blanket (which I made in the dorm kitchen... fun), chips and dip, and those really tasty bumblebee cupcakes! Later on that night was the inititation ceremony. We have 4 new sisters!

Day 108



Thursday I went to a hibachi grill called Inoko for a friend's birthday. This was our group!

Day 109





Friday was a pretty awesome day too. Miranda and I went to the 2009 Yaarab Shrine Circus and Carnival. My dad is a member of the Shriners, so he got us in for free =]

Day 110



Today the roommate and I moved partially out of our dorms! We had to de-loft our beds (take them down from being up high), meaning the futon, fridge, microwave, etc that was under the bed had to go. I took the opportunity to move out the things I'm not currently using as well. Only two weeks left until I'm out of the dorm for good! Later, my mom and I went to Olive Garden for a celebratory lunch where I had this awesome lemon cream cake =]

Thursday was the last day of Hell Week - I had to take my last test (German) and do my presentation (German Culture). It's like an elephant has been lifted off of my shoulders...

But on to more important things. I FINALLY have a check card! Previously, I only had an ATM card. I could use it some places, but only when I was able to put my PIN number in (I couldn't run it as credit). Consequently, I always had to have cash or just charge it to my credit card. Not good. But, since they're the best thing to use overseas, I got to order one. This is the first time I used it - the roommate and I went to dinner at Chili's with one of our Xi Delta friends. And man, did it feel good =]

Today is Day 100! I can't believe it's been 100 days since I started - it doesn't seem like it's been nearly that long. So... yay!

The pictures were my attempt at creating a panoramic view of North Campus. I sat here today for about an hour in the shade reading. When I finished my book, I still had another half hour before class, so I decided to take advantage of the most amazingly cushy grass known to man and lay in the sun for a while. Twenty minutes later, I got up and went to class. Fast forward to 7 PM. I went to the bathroom. While there, I noticed... I'm sunburned. I sat in the grass for twenty minutes in 68 degree weather, and I got sunburned. DAMN ENGLISH SKIN!

And I just accidentally scratched it.

Ouch.

Tuesday: I turned in my last paper of the semester! It's so nice to have it over with.

Other than that, the only thing of significance that I did was try crepes for the first time. This is the S'Mores crepe from Pauley's Crepe Bar, made with Nutella, marshmallows, and graham crackers. It was pretty much amazing.

This was my lunch for the day. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich (strawberry, of course) with cheddar Sun Chips and some of the best hot chocolate I've ever had (since it was freezing in the library for some reason).

Also... I'm done with my Latin American history paper! It was my last one for the semester.

The only other thing of import I did today was register for classes. I'm really happy with my schedule. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I'll be taking African History since 1800, German 3, and Intro to Religion, and I'll go from 9 AM to 3:20 PM. It's a long day, but I'll get over it. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I'll be taking Intro to British Culture (an upper level English course) and Environmental Issues, a really easy science class which is like ecology but without a lab, and I'll go from 9:30 to 12:05. That's right, 12:05. I'll be done at noon!!! Unfortunately, the catch to that is that there's only 15 minutes between those classes... and they're way more than 15 minutes apart. One is in North Campus, and the other is in South. So I'll be late... pretty much every day. But noon! I just couldn't resist.

This is how, at the moment, showers must be taken in my household. Or at least, that's how it was yesterday. I'm not too sure about today.

Saturday night, I noticed that the faucet in my bathtub wouldn't turn off completely. It wasn't just dripping, it was a steady trickle of water that I just couldn't get to stop. My dad looked at it and said it was just a problem with the washers (whatever those are), and would only take 15 minutes to fix. In order to fix it, he had to turn the water to the house off. A half hour later, he was still working on it. It hasn't been worked on since we built the house, 15 years ago, so some things have rusted together. Apparently, when he was using a wrench to twist something off, that something had rusted to two copper pipes, and the wrench twisted those pipes. So... he couldn't turn the water back on.

You don't realize what all you need water for until you don't have it. Toilets, laundry, dish washers, brushing your teeth, showering... So we hauled buckets from the hot water heater (which still had 50 gallons of water in it), and used buckets and a watering can to bathe.

Other than that, Easter was good. We didn't end up going to church, since none of us could shower, and Dad was working on the plumbing. We did have honey-baked ham, though, and I made peach cobbler - from scratch - and it was actually not only edible, but really good!

Saturday was a busy day, for a day I usually spend being lazy around the house. We got up for breakfast, as per usual, then my mom and I cleaned up and went to the Mall of Georgia for a much-needed day of shopping. I didn't really get much, since I don't have a ton of money at the moment, but I found a pair of sandals to go with one of the dresses I bought with my grandmother, as well as a tank top and a bathing suit coverup, as seen above.

We were originally going to go buy a vacuum cleaner as well... but that didn't happen. Way too much effort.

While I worked on [yet another] paper, my parents cooked dinner - steak!

So maybe it wasn't that busy... but it sure seemed like it.

I turned in my Nazi paper today. It felt really good to get it over, with I have to say. In between classes, I had lunch at this really good place similar to Subway called Which Wich?, then went to Logic, went to a dining hall with the roommate, then back to the dorm to pack and leave.



The drive was boring. That's all you see, the whole way. Fields. Cows. Trees. The occasional cop. Yay.



When I got home, I decided to tackle the daunting task of unpacking 10 boxes of books, alphabetizing them, and putting them back on the shelf. I have somewhere between 350 and 400, I believe, and it took forever. I didn't actually get to put them back on the shelves, since there was some really bad weather in the South today. The tornado siren went off, so Mom and I went into a hallway, the only place with no windows, with pillow, shoes, blankets, a flash light, and the dog, along with our weather alert system to wait it out. We did get hail and some pretty wicked lightning, but missed all the other bad stuff. It's still raining (or monsooning) outside, but at least it's not a tornado!

This is the bench I sat on Thursday while reading in North Campus. See that? It says Class of 1885 - I sat on a bench that's over 120 years old!

I had two out of my three classes cancelled today! Both German and German Culture =] Meaning, I got up at 9, but didn't have class until 3:30. I wasn't really sleepy, so I decided to actually do something. To start, I switched into my new wallet, where I found a $25 gift certificate for American Eagle lurking in the back of my old wallet. Then I went to breakfast at IHOP with a friend, since I had the time. After dropping her off, I ran a couple of errands at the bank, then went shopping! I didn't find anything that I wanted, sadly, at American Eagle or Macy's, both of which I have gift cards for. Instead, I bought a black camisole from Express, something I've been desperately needing. I actually have 3, but none of them fit right, one is too short, one is too big, and one is too short and too wide. This one, however, fits perfectly.

Later, after class, I went out with the roommate to a vegetarian place called The Grit, since she was hungry and I was bored. I had a bowl of Scotch Broth, that I actually really liked.

It was finally warm again today! Well... warmish. Better than yesterday, at the very least. I got a good review back from my TA about my paper on Nazi Germany, so I'm pretty confident that I'll get an A. Other than that.. I guess today was kind of a lonely day. I spent all of it, with the exception of time during class, by myself. Sometimes that's nice, but with the weather I wanted to go out and so something... but instead, I spent about 4 hours reading for my next paper, so at least I was productive. I even went to the trouble of doing my nails, something they were in desperate need of. At the moment, I'm really hungry, but we have practically no food in the room, I don't want to spend the money on delivery, and I'm not walking all the way to Snelling (the 24 hour dining hall) at 11 o'clock at night by myself. So I'll just be hungry. Maybe I'll just go to sleep so I can ignore it.

Sorry for the lack of new posts within the last week - I've been really busy and tired =[



Friday was the last free day before I started writing my paper, so I took advantage of it and of the beautiful weather by having lunch with a friend and treating myself to a slight shopping splurge. I took some of the money my grandmother gave me for Oxford and decided to hit the Coach store. They had some amazing sales - the purse [not pictured] was originally $350, but I got it for $169! The wallet was my favorite purchase though, because I've needed a checkbook-sized wallet for a really long time. Currently, my checkbook just floats around in my purse. It was originally $228, but I got it for the bargain price of $90! Retail therapy is a great way to end a busy week.

Saturday



Starting Saturday, I moved into Nazi Germany. At 12:30, I sat down in our overstuffed arm chair and began reading. At 7:30ish, I was finally done. I swear I think I know everything there is to know about lives of Jewish and non-Nazi citizens during the 30s and World War II. Gotta love Western Civ... and writing papers.

Because of this, I was suddenly in the mood to watch Schindler's List. I'd seen it before, but wanted to see it again. Because of several sex scenes and other nudity, I specifically waited until my parents had gone to bed, not because I'm not allowed to watch it, but because it's just awkward to watch that with your parents. Thirty minutes in, my dad gets back up and says he can't sleep. So I sit there, in utter silence, for almost three hours, going through several sex scenes and one scene with a lot of naked running Jews (with lots of floppy, bouncing bits)... with my father.

If you haven't seen it, you should watch it. It's very graphic, and extremely sad, but definitely worth it.

Sunday

No picture because all I did all day was write my paper and read some more. I did drive back to Athens and contemplate what I would do if I won a million dollars, and I ate at Ru Sans, a Japanese place, with some friends. But then there was mostly more writing.

Monday



Monday was class and more writing. We also had formal chapter (we had to dress up), after which several sisters and I went, again, to Ru Sans, because it's really cheap and very good. I came back and finally (!) finished my paper, sent it to my TA, and went to bed. It was also ridiculously cold outside, so wearing a dress for formal chapter meant I was a wee bit chilly.

Tuesday



This is my uber warm UGA hoodie (sorry for the bad picture quality). I thought it would be sufficient in keeping me nice and toasty today, but oh, was I wrong. Because today in Athens, Ga, on April 7th, at roughly 12:30 pm, it snowed. WTF?? I don't understand... Georgia is where people move to in order to get away from the snowy states. So where am I supposed to go? Guess I'm moving to Panama...

This describes my night pretty well: I came back from class and crashed for probably about three hours. It was completely unintentional! I managed to make it to the last half hour or so of my Phi Alpha Delta meeting, but I missed the beginning. I came back and started reading The Associate by John Grisham, for my book club. Then I started to want a milkshake, so my twin and I drove downtown to Ben and Jerry's for a cake batter milkshake. It was quite good.

I've also started to rethink the hamster idea. Instead, I'm thinking bunny. I know they say rabbits are mean, but then that's what they say about hamsters too. And bunnies are bigger, so I could actually hold and play with it... but I'm not sure. I have a pretty good feeling that it would be a lot more to take care of. I'll have to do some research on it. Regardless of what I get, it's name will most definitely still be Gizmo.

Also, did you know that the purse rental thing from the Sex and the City movie is real? BagBorrowOrSteal.com. I've been nosing around it for about a half hour, and I'm actually considering it. Prada or Gucci in Oxford? Hmm... I like this idea. I like it a lot =]

Wednesday was rainy, just like the rest of the week. It wasn't a bad day of classes. I got a good grade on my Logic test and talked to my Western Civ TA about the B+ I got on my last paper. I agreed with everything he'd written, but I got some pointers on how to improve for the paper I get to write this weekend.

Then the roommate and I went to a really good, fairly cheap Chinese buffet for dinner, then to Target.

After errands, we went to a Ghost Tour through the historical North Campus at UGA put on by the Athens Historical Society. That's what the picture's from - it's a "ghost" hung next to the Arch. I think the ghost looks like it hung itself... which I don't believe is actually possible for a ghost. I learned there's a hanging story behind the staircase that leads nowhere I stumbled upon earlier this semester, and that there is apparently a Voodoo priestess buried under the statue in The Founders Garden.

Maybe I'll see the blood that seeps from under the statue one day... but I doubt it.

=]

Random picture of me and my dad at Disney World a really long time ago.

Tuesday was another regular day. Went to class, learned some stuff, etc. There were two small things of interest: group discussion with my German Culture professor on how to find Freud in reality TV for our presentation on Freud. Should be interesting. And I went to trivia at Loco's.

That's about it. Exciting, yes?