Ufta, back in the grind. It's been a crazy week, between reading St. Augustine's Confessions (almost constantly) for CC, getting back on track with my other classes, preparing for Advent/Christmas Vespers with the Kantorei, giving a Spanish 204 presentation on the Galapagos Islands, and writing a monstrously unwieldy CC paper. This weekend has been relatively relaxed, though, campared to many that I have had. And next week is the last week of classes before finals...!! And then CHRISTMAS BREAK!!!! I need 3-week, no homework break. But, I must focus on my work for now. This last week will be a big part of cementing my GPA for my first semester.

Here's a picture of me (I don't really have any pictures like that on this blog), very tired:

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In response to Nicole Stephens's comment, thanks for the thoughts! However, I'm afraid that I have no idea who you are. Should I?

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I'm sorry that I'm about a day late on this, but the weekend was crazy.

Throughout the week, as we began to shift into review mode in classes, I became more and more excited for finals week. Finally -- a week without barely any scheduling aside from four exams, two of which would be easy, in two days. Also, I looked forward to the weekend, when I'd be able to make a trip back home for about a day and a half to see the annual Madrigal Dinner and be with friends and family.

As it turned out, the Madrigal Dinner was great this year, especially the acting (and the food!!), and I had a good (albeit occaisonally awkward) visit with friends afterwards. The next day, I got up for the church service at 11:00, then helped with the hanging of the greens at church, then joined my family in picking out and cutting the Christmas tree and bringing it home, saw my brother Sam's piano recital, and went out to eat with my family at Clementine's. After all of that, I was driven back to Valpo, and hunkered down to study some Spanish and Music Theory for my exams the next day. Since this is last week's entry, I won't say how those exams went yet. But hopefully the limited amount of study that I managed helped.

Here's a picture of the big sculpture outside of Mueller Hall, after undergoing a lovely Yuletide transformation:

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And a close-up, since I was so excited when I saw this:

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And, just because it's so horrible, here's a picture of the state of my room when I left for Michigan on Saturday:

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Sorry that this is being posted sort of late, but since I've been home I've had dial-up Internet which doesn't allow me to upload photos, so now I've found a place where I can access wireless and I'm back in business.

The last week of the semester was wonderful. Finals were not difficult, with the exception of Spanish 204, which I knew would be difficult. I pulled a B+ in the class, though, so I'm happy. Music Theory, Musicianship, and CC were easy, as expected. It was funny, finals week was my least stressful week since before this semester (with the exception of Thanksgiving Break)! My birthday was on Tuesday, and my family came and visited, which was really nice. Both of my sets of grandparents gave me gift cards for Barnes & Noble, so now I have a ton of reading to do! It's all pleasure reading, though, so I'm excited about it. My new books include "Ordinary Men," by Browning, "Lolita," by Nabokov, "Don Quixote," "The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe," "The Complete Short Stories of William Faulkner," and "Anna Karenina," to name some of the ones I'm most excited about.

Here is a picture of a rainbow that I saw on Thursday, seeming to rise right out of the Center for the Arts:

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Until later,
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YAY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!

And that's all I have to say about that. Tuesday was my dad's birthday, which was fun (it was a big one, although I'm probably not at liberty to say how old he was, exactly). I've been lying back a lot, reading some, and enjoying my new CD's that I received for my birthday. On Christmas Eve, we had our traditional Swedish Dipididon meal and opened presents, which always is a good time. My friend Katie from Mt. Pleasant, MI also visited earlier in the week, which was a good time, but other than that, there isn't much to report.

Here's a picture of Katie when she was over:

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Out,
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