Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

Well, even though its break I guess I shouldn't get out of the habit of writing. I hope you've had a very wonderful enjoyable Christmas! Its been so nice to just "relax" for a while, even though its relaxing in Ebeling terms. That means I'm been busy doing innumerable things, but they're fun. Aside from the traditional Christmas activates (shepherd's meal on the floor on Christmas Eve, singing carols, Christmas dinner etc) I've been shopping several times, ice skating, touring Longwood gardens and caroling in the pouring rain; I've read several novels, seen several movies, seen the Renoir exhibit at the art museum and the Wanamaker organ (one of the largest in the world) in Macy's. I've eaten some Chinese food, fed a meal to the homeless at the homeless shelter, gotten my final grade for physics (which I was ECSTATIC about) ... and the list could go on.

Yet, there are so many things I still haven't gotten around to, like preparing some German lessons, reading some German literature to prepare for my Goethe class, seeing old high school friends, making an apple pie... and this list could go on forever as well. I'll just make the best of the time I have left and enjoy every minute of it!

Hope to hear from you soon!!!!!

Merry Christmas and a happy 2008!!

Love,

Margaret

FINALS WEEK IS OVER!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

So I was stuck in the Baltimore airport for 4 hours and decided to write my weekly email. Good thing I did, because I haven't had much time to catch up here at home. Right after I got picked up from the airport on Saturday afternoon we went to Longwood Gardens with my cousins, so I was up for over 24 hours. Today after church (and a short nap for me), we went caroling in
the pouring rain. I was went from my waist down despite the umbrella. To cheer us all up we went to the ward social at the Hinkley's house which was great, but I'm still tired. Anyway, here's the email:

So I’m sitting at the Baltimore airport, and I’ll be here for a few more hours since my flight from LA to Baltimore was delayed (apparently someone got sick on the plane and it took them an hour to clean everything up). I suppose it’s the perfect opportunity to write my weekly letter and remind myself of the many blessings I’ve received throughout this week. It was finals week. Need I say more?? Monday I took German and student development. The student development final took me about five minutes and the German final took me only an hour. It was the first multiple choice final I have taken so far in college, and proved to be a nice way to start
off finals week by boosting my confidence. Tuesday night I had my calculus final, and I spent all day going over my notes, paging through the text book, looking over previous final exams and
praying hard. I’m sure I haven’t failed to mention that my calculus professor wasn’t very good, despite his ten years of math education research. My professor wrote a third of our final, and the other 2/3 were a department final. 7pm the tests were handed out. It wasn’t quite as bad as I
thought it would be, but I really have no idea. I could have bombed it or done alright, and I won’t find out till Jan. 4th.
Wednesday morning I got up at 5am to go to the temple with Erin and Cami like we always do. We were the first ones there, so we were done in half an hour, record time for the Provo temple. I had decided to take physics in the late afternoon. It wasn’t a scheduled exam, so I could decide when I was ready to take it. I studied what Professor Turley recommended that we study
(the old exams and homework problems) all morning and half the afternoon
before I gathered up my courage to go take the test. This one wasn’t half as bad as I expected – the problems were taken almost directly from the material I had just studied with minor alterations. Although it took me 3 hours, I felt really good about it. It was such a
relief to have my 2 worst finals over with. After dinner I got together with some of the girls in freshman academy to study for our Book of Mormon final. My confidence began to wane a bit as I reviewed for the third time or so the massive packets we were given to study, but eventually I could barely keep my eyes open. Despite my thorough exhaustion I couldn’t sleep, which didn’t help matters much.
Early Thursday morning I did some more studying with Natalie before we went to take the final, which was scheduled for 11am. The stack of finals was alarmingly large. Professor Terry assured us it wouldn’t take us the whole three hours we were given to take the exam. With that comforting assurance we were allowed to begin. Much to my surprise I was one of the last to hand in the exam which had taken me only an hour to complete. Shaking Professor Terry’s hand, I left the classroom and felt my soul escape the bonds of anxiety and fly to taste sweet freedom.
Natalie had some Christmas shopping to do, so I accompanied her to several stores and looked for some gifts myself. That evening to celebrate, we watched a movie, built a snow man, made snow angels, and exchanged gifts a 3am. My roommates were so kind to me – I got an Aeropostale gift card, a gift card for a nice shoe store (it hadn’t come yet, so I can’t remember
which store it was for), a necklace with a mustard seed and an inscription about faith, and one of Erin’s beautiful warm hats.

Friday I walked my classes for next semester, stopped by the bookstore to get my German books to read on the plane, and a few other things. Erin drove her cousin and me to the airport. While I was waiting some random guy comes up and talks to me. Apparently he spent the last 1 1/2 years in rehab in Utah and was going home. He told me, among other things, I looked like a
good girl, but that I should never do drugs and alcohol like he did. Admittedly after over an hour of this it got slightly uncomfortable, so I was glad to escape.
On the plane I sat next to a freshman girl who also lived in Helaman halls and did a freshman academy program. What a coincidence, right? In LA my plane was delayed an hour because someone had apparently gotten sick all over. It took the crew an hour to clean everything up. Sadly, that one hour delay was just enough to make me miss my flight in Baltimore by about 5
minutes. The next flight that wasn't completely full was in four hours. I was so so so dead tired during that time; it seemed like one of the longest waits of my life. Finally I did get to Philadelphia and met my sister. My luggage had been misplaced somehow, so we had to go find it. Miraculously we were able to find it and go spend the rest of the day in
Longwood Gardens. I have no idea why I didn't fall over from exhaustion, but somehow I was okay. My bed was the softest thing in the world after the dorm beds, so I enjoyed that.

Anyway, I'm home now safe and sound,
Love and miss you all!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Margaret

Finals week is coming...

I think I'll try and keep this brief, since it is finals week and I'm really tired and stressed out.
Let's just stick to the highlights:
Monday we had the dance final which went alright, although not as well as I hoped. After some ballroom games we got to learn some new swing steps. Refreshments were provided, and everyone enjoyed my chocolate caramel brownies. It was kind of sad - the first of my classes that was over forever.
Wednesday was one of the most hectic days ever. It was the last day of German. After class I asked Professor Kelling if I could come up and talk to him quickly. The only time he could fit me into his schedule was 11:30, the same time as my voice lesson ended. Not seeing any other option I agreed. Leaving voice 5 minutes early I literally ran with a bulging back pack all the way across campus to the dorms, grabbed my stuff and ran all the way back. Lillian was waiting for me. Completely out of breath we stopped in the hall so Lillian could sign the card I had made. Plate of home made muffins and brownies in hand we knocked on Professor Kelling's door, sang "Stille Nacht" and gave him the baked goods with the card on top. The spirit of Christmas was almost palpable in the room as he accepted our gift and thanked us. I was so happy.
Wednesday afternoon Erin and I went dress shopping. Erin was looking for something for the Helaman halls winter invitational that was going to be Thursday. I came along and had fun trying on tons of dresses, but didn't find anything. Erin, on the other hand, found a blue dress with black polka dots that was absolutely adorable. Thursday evening came. I didn't have a date and wasn't going to go, but Erin persuaded me to come. I borrowed one of her dresses which I had to pin in the back, but it was still pretty. It wasn't to bad. The whole ceiling of the cannon center was covered in lights, there was a cookie frosting booth and a refreshment table with a huge chocolate fountain. We got in line for carriage rides, but they stopped just as it was our turn. We took some fun pictures, talked and danced.
The rest of my life right now has been studying since finals are this week. I CAN'T WAIT FOR FRIDAY TO COME AROUND WHEN FINALS WILL BE OVER AND I'LL BE FLYING HOME!! For those of you in Philadelphia, we've got to hang out soon when I come back!!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Love,
Margaret

I CAN'T WAIT TILL CHRISTMAS!!

Hope you're doing well and having a great pre-Christmas season! Here's the weekly update:

Monday was one of the greatest days ever, even though it was a Monday. After German Professor Kelling came up to talk to me. He explained he was teaching 2 seminar courses next semester and wasn't going to take a German 330 section, but that the department had decided to add an extra section because the demand for the course was so high. He had agreed to take the additional German 330 section if he could have help. To my utter astonishment he asked me if I would like to be that help - and not just grading help. I would even be teaching some of the time!!!! I'm so excited! I accepted of course. This means I'll have an EXTREMELY busy schedule next semester, but I can't pass up this once in a lifetime opportunity! In math we got our tests back for the second time (they had to be regraded because the graders didn't grade them the same) and I got bumped up 15 points, a whole letter grade!! Later in dance class we learned the polka, which is hysterically fun. During dance I got to dance with our ward choir director and he asked if I would like to sing a solo for choir! I don't think I've ever had such a good Monday.

Tuesday we had our usual German study group, after which I went to take the exam. I felt really good about it, and hopefully I'll get it back tomorrow and find out for sure. In the evening I went to see the first half of Rachel's orchestra concert, which was amazing. Although I was barely on time I was able to meet Robyn, Granny and the kids and watch. It was simply beautiful, and I left uplifted and ready to conquer the mountain of homework that was waiting for me.

We got really lucky and the Physics exam got pushed back 2 days because the Professor hadn't been able to finish writing it in time. After physics Kelsey, Cami, Natalie and I went to ask Professor Turley some questions. While we were talking Natalie slipped on one of the stairs in the classroom, fell and started sobbing. She said her foot hurt really bad and she couldn't get up or stop crying. Professor Turley called the EMTs and Kelsey and I went to the vending machine to get some ice cream sandwiches to put on it (that's the closest thing to ice we could get to). The EMTs came, wrapped the foot in ice, and helped her down the stairs. Her brother came to pick her up and take her to the student health center while Kelsey, Cami and I carried her things and finished the physics lab that was due; we were all scared her foot was broken. Hours later I opened the door to find Natalie there on crutches with a foot brace. We wouldn't know for sure weather it was broken until the radiologist looked at the x-rays, but it probably wasn't. Turned out it was just a bad sprain, but they said it would take as long for it to heal as a break. It was really painful for her too.

Professor Turley said Natalie shouldn't worry about taking the exam yet if she couldn't. We were going to take the calculus test the next day though since Professor Speiser said if Natalie's foot wasn't broken or fractured she'd have to take it before Friday. Getting up to the testing center wasn't as bad as it could have been; Conner drove us up to campus, but even the fairly short walk from the car to the testing center was really painful. She got bruises on her hands from the crutches, despite her gloves. It was pouring rain when the test was over. Somehow she was able to hobble down to a street where her brother could pick her up. All I could do was try and encourage her, watching her struggle. We made it down somehow; she went to a piano concert with her family and I watched a movie with Cami before I started studying for physics which I was planning to take as soon as the testing center opened on Saturday morning.

I got that awful physics test done (finally), and then it was time to have fun. Our whole ward was getting in 2 huge buses to see temple square and the Joseph Smith movie in Salt Lake City. Erin was going to go to a concert afterwards with her parents, so she needed to take her own car. Chris and I decided to keep her company. The movie was great as always, and we took some fun pictures in the Joseph Smith building before we left.

Temple square is beautiful when it is covered in snow, and the spirit of Christmas was exuding from everything. We gazed at the life sized nativity scene, explored the conference center and tabernacle as far as we were able and walked around the temple itself. The beauty of it all was magnified twenty times when the lights turned on. My camera stayed out the rest of the time trying to capture the beauty of it all. Naturally it was insufficient, but I have some poor impressions that I can put up on the blog if you'd like. After narrowly avoiding getting stuck, we did get back safely with the bus. Back at the dorms Kelsey Cami and I made sugar cookies and watched a movie - so much good plain fun!

Anyway, finals are not this week but the next week, which I can hardly believe. Can't wait to see you all at Christmas (hopefully!!).
Love,
Margaret

Thanksgiving is amazing

Tuesday finally came, and the last class was over. Firmly resolved, I started on some homework that wouldn't be due in a while but that I wanted to get out of the way. Long term stuff like a couple of religion papers and German papers. After some good hard work I packed my few things and headed across campus. Lillian had told me she would meet me at the duck pond, and I had never been there before. Luckily I had no trouble finding it, and I think its become one of my favorite spots on campus. There was a thin layer of ice on the pond, which surprised me.

Lillian picked me up and we made some chocolate caramel brownies and watched Sissi, the movie about the Austrian Empress, in German. As if that wasn't enough, we decided to go with a few of Lillian's friends to see Bourne Ultimatum in the dollar theater. I loved handing the lady at the desk a dollar and getting a quarter and a ticket to a movie in return... it was great! Slightly dizzy from the shaky camera work in the movie and from sitting pretty close to the front, we squeezed back into the mini van and decided to watch another chick flick when we got home. In short, everything was pretty much amazing. The brownies with vanilla ice cream were absolutely superb! Finally after a long talk, we both fell asleep.

Wednesday morning came quickly but cheerfully with homemade French toast. After a final hug I walked back across campus so I could pack my bags and be ready for Aunt Robyn when she came to pick me up. I was just plain happy the whole way there, and Granny and my cousins Felicia, Nathaniel and Robert had lunch all ready when we arrived. You never learn to appreciate homemade food till you are deprived of it for a long period of time. Everything was delicious, but the sleepover was catching up to me. I got to take a nap, which was great. It probably went to long, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Spaghetti and meat balls with garlic bread for dinner - need I say more? Quite satisfied, Rachel and I practiced "For the Beauty of the Earth", the John Rutter version, which we were preparing to sing in church with Heather and her family. For some reason I was tired early, and retired to a warm cozy bed and a good book. I LOVE BREAKS!!!

My alarm woke me, and groaning slightly I put on some warm clothes and headed upstairs. Robyn, Rachel, Nathaniel, his scooter and I piled into the car. There was coldness. Earliness. Brightness. There were People. A very long straight road. Yes, before I knew it we had all started Draper UT's annual 5k race. There was a layer of ice on the water cups that were set up on tables on the side of the road, but soon it wasn't noticeable since we were running. All stages of life were represented. There were strollers with crying children, energetic five and six year olds, teens, young adults, and middle aged folks, even a few who were over the hill. I actually enjoyed it more than I thought, and I knew it would help me appreciate Thanksgiving dinner.

Dressed in Sunday best with slightly growling stomachs we all arrived at Danny and Esther's house (an older couple, good friends of Aunt Robyn's), arms laden with at least half the feast. What a feast it was! Turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mushrooms, green bean casserole, corn, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and fresh homemade rolls. HOMEMADE EVERYTHING!!!(Can you tell I'm obsessed?)!!!!

The magnificent feast was followed by music (a sing-along of old Broadway favorites, a number by Rachel on her violin, and a short song from me), which was followed by the most intense game of PIG in the history of mankind. PIG is a lot like spoons, except you have pennies to grab instead of spoons. The pennies are in the middle of the table, and each person has 4 cards. At the dealers signal everyone takes a card and passes it in one direction to their neighbor. This continues until one person gets four of a kind; when they do they take a penny. As soon as the first penny is touched, everyone tries to get a penny. Sadly, there is always one person who doesn't get a penny. That poor penniless person gets a letter, first P then I then G. The second they're a PIG they're out and must be ignored by the other players. If the other players respond to them in any way they get a letter.

Certain I wouldn't last long (the only time I had played spoons before was at HE and I was out within the first round) I snatched my pennies and minded my own business. Players had to be ignored eventually. Before I knew it it was down to the old PIG champion Danny and little inexperienced me. Shaking with anticipation I played 4 rounds.... and by some miracle..... I tricked him....... and won the game. Toffee squares and cherry pie are good rewards for a game well played. Admittedly, I was a little sad there was no apple pie (that's my favorite), but everything was still delicious.

Beautiful smells accosted me as I entered the kitchen on Friday morning. Golden, HOMEMADE, WARM pancakes were just screaming to be eaten. Enthusiastically, I obliged. After a nice chat with my family at home, I set out to give Granny a quick tutorial on how to use the computer. It probably would have gone better if I hadn't been constantly interrupted by Nathanial's interjections, but in the end I was able to show her how to change the font, the font color, how to use the copy and paste functions and other useful things.

Black Friday = shopping day. Nathaniel persuaded his mom to let us go, so we went to Best Buy and Barnes and Nobles. Didn't really find anything, which is always a little depressing, but we had a wonderful dinner of Thanksgiving leftovers to make up for it. Rachel lent me one of her C.S. Lewis books to read, called "Till We Have Faces", which is pretty graphic, but extremely well written and just plain amazing literature.

Granny, Robyn, Rachel and I talked a lot about politics after dinner, and I decided to bake some chocolate chip cookies. There is definitely an art to it. They must be just golden brown, soft and chewy. Constant regulation is necessary to obtain the pinnacle of perfection. They were enjoyed with some milk, especially by the children.

Laundry is one of those things that just never goes away. After putting in a few loads I packed my scattered belongings. Soon we all hustled into the car to go see a Christmas barbershop music concert. There was a huge barbershop choir, then a few quartets, one of which had placed 12th in the international barbershop competition (yes, there is such a thing). They were all good. As soon as we left the theater Nathaniel ran up to us and yelled "BYU WON! BYU WON!" Granny was so excited, still wiping tears from her eyes from the concert.

Hugs goodbye, then a long drive to Aunt Heather's house where we unloaded our laundry baskets and suitcases and rehearsed "For the Beauty of the Earth" with the pianist. I just love that song; I could feel its power seeping through the room, especially when I stood right next to the piano. After rehearsal we preformed it once for an older man who had come to visit from Heather's ward. Each of my cousins preformed a talent, and Rachel and I were persuaded to do likewise. To top it all off, there was a warm carrot cake with cinnamon syrup and vanilla ice cream waiting for us.

Sunday morning bright and early we went to church to sing one last time. The song went well, and now I'm back in the dorms, waiting for Monday to start....

Hope you all had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving!

Love,

Margaret

Thanksgiving is almost here!

Tuesday we had a devotional by President Monson, which I saw in person at the Marriott center, which I naturally enjoyed very much. Later in the day I went with Lillian to watch the movie Sophie Scholl. It was in German of course, and had me crying at the end. It was a touching, inspiring film about Sophie and her brother Hans, who are part of the resistance organization "the white rose" and get caught distributing anti-Nazism pamphlets at the university. They are sentenced to death, but are willing to die bravely for their country. I think so often we just see the horrible things that people in Germany have done, like Hitler and his devastation, and forget about the real heroes that arose as a result of his oppression. Although it was an excellent movie, it left me about 30 min. to finish my physics homework. Luckily Natalie helped me, and I was able to hand it in on time.
Wednesday morning Natalie and I got up at 5:00am to get ready to go to the temple. This is a new weekly thing that we're doing as a ward: 2 temple trips a week, one at 5:30am on Wednesday mornings, one on Thursday afternoons. It was freezing cold, so I was glad we were all able to fit in Erin's car. There were more people there than I expected, but we were able to get through in about an hours time. It was a great boost to my day to have the spirit of the temple in it, and I hope I will be able to keep it up as the semester goes on. Later I had an awesome voice lesson... my teacher thinks I'm really making progress, which is always a good thing. Around 7:15 Kelsey and I went to go see BYU's production of The Seagull by Anton Chekhov (we got free tickets through Freshmen Academy). I had learned about the play in AP English last year, so when I saw it preformed it helped me pull everything together and appreciate it better. There is some amazing symbolism in the play, but it's rather depressing, not the best choice for when you're feeling down. It discusses the life of an artist and how it differs from the lives around it; I was able to draw some parallels to my German class because we've been discussing Goethe and other great German authors, and they had a lot of the same ideas that Chekhov portrays.
Thursday I was able to accomplish a lot homework wise, and then at 12pm I registered for classes for next semester. I still don't have everything I want/need to take on my schedule, but I hope if I check back often enough I'll be able to get in.
Friday was a relief. Erin, Carly (a friend of Erin's from home) and I went to see the Mr. Heritage competition in the evening which was very amusing. There was everything from ribbon dancing to fiddling, magic tricks and singing. We went to visit another friend of Erin's and Carly's who lives at Heritage, and finally we left, got a pizza, watched a movie and talked for a long time.
Saturday was amazing. First we had this video scavenger hunt floor date with another guys' floor. I had a camera with video capabilities, so I became one of the group leaders. We ran all around campus trying to complete all of the tasks within an hour. It involved being a PDA police, proposing to a complete stranger, a wheelbarrow race, singing "I'm a little Teapot" in the middle of Brigham square, starting a fight and other fun things like that. I have all of our videos on facebook if you're curious: http://hs.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=7321641018, some of them are quite hilarious. That evening I went with Kara and Johnathan Northrup and another friend of Kara's on a date to see the musical "Once on this Island". It was really well done, except for the fact that the main character gets turned into a tree at the end. The music and everything else was great, and so was the Costa Vida taco I had afterwards. To put the cherry on top I watched Star Wars VI with Kelsey and Cami before I went to bed.

Yep, that's pretty much my life right now, hope you're doing well and that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Love,

Margaret

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....
 I'm still alive, which I consider quite an accomplishment for this
week... tis a tale of thrilling adventure, miracles and other such things,
so lend me your ears!
Monday was our last dance class before Dancesport, so we practiced a lot of
cha cha, but we also learned a little waltz which was fun. I talked to Jon
and we decided to meet Tuesday evening at the social dance club meeting to
practice for the competition. Tuesday evening after a Book of Mormon review
session with Cami, Kelsy and Natalie I headed up to the WSC to meet Jon.
Practice went pretty well, and we decided to meet one more time on Thursday
to practice. When I got back from practice I decided to do some more
studying just to make sure I really knew what I was doing. It was 1:30 am
when I finally shut my notebook on Tuesday night to get some sleep before
the ordeal.
 Wed morning was the BOM test...  I think it went alright; didn't go as
well as my last one though. After German I was talking to Lillian when I
realized that I had voice lessons and was already a few minutes late.
Panting I arrived and we had a nice lesson... my favorite piece right now is
"Romance"; the music is gorgeous (Debussy is pretty much the best composer
ever). After our usual two hour session of calculus I sat through an extra
hour of review by Dr. Speiser for the test. It wasn't particularly helpful,
but it could have been worse. That evening Erin persuaded me to take a
studying break to go see the Mr. Helaman Halls competition... it was amusing
to see some guys make idiots of themselves on stage and I had needed a
sanity break.
  Thursday right after Physics I met for a German study group in the
library. It was definitely a tender mercy of the Lord that our physics
homework wasn't due till Friday instead of the usual Thursday, because I
wouldn't have had time to do it. Johnathan asked if he could join Lillian
and I in our review session and we agreed. Well, he's a really fun guy but
he gets sidetracked a lot. It took us four hours to review 2 chapters, and
we didn't go into the usual depth that Lillian and I are accustomed.
Johnathan hasn't ever lived in Germany and doesn't have enough vocabulary to
understand everything in the text perfectly, although he can get the general
gist of it all, so we had to spend lots of time explaining what certain
words meant. I thought I was about to go crazy when I was done, but I had to
take the test right then so that I would be done it time to meet Jon at
7:30.
 Sadly, I'm pretty sure this test was the worst one so far for German,
probably because our review wasn't that great and I was kind of under stress
to get it done. Needless to say, the questions were much more particular
this time than they have been in the past, so all I can do now is hope and
pray. As soon as I left the testing center I power walked to the dorms (on
the opposite side of campus), grabbed a PBJ and left for the WSC. There
weren't any empty rooms for us to use, so we went to the basement of his
dorm to practice. It was trickier without music, but we still did pretty
well and I thought we would at least be able to make it past the first round
of the competition.
 Friday after German I had a good talk with Lillian, probably much longer
then it should have been, and we decided to get together on the Tuesday
before Thanksgiving break, have a sleepover and watch Sissi, my favorite
German movie of all time and high on my favorite movies in general list, and
lots of good things to eat and time to talk. I'm so excited!! Mentally
psyching myself I went to meet Natalie in the ESC (Eyring Science Center) to
work on physics with her. The problems were pretty tricky, but I think we
figured out the first two. Professor Turley saw us and stopped by to tell us
the homework wouldn't be due till Monday, another tender mercy because we
needed time to study for calculus.
 We sat there reviewing derivative formulas and all of the other formulas,
then at 2pm we went to the WSC to meet our TA Sara for a review session.
Well, she never showed up, so we studied on our own as best we could, went
to the math lab and asked some questions, then went to the testing center to
take the test. It really could have gone either way. I'm pretty sure I
completely messed up on one problem and the problems are worth 20 points
each. I'll get partial credit, but I'm not sure how much. Anyway, I was just
so relieved to get out of the testing center and be done with tests for a
little while. Sipping a cup of hot coco I watched a movie and went to bed.
 6:00am is early... I don't understand how I got up at 5am every morning
before. Trying to be as quiet as possible so I didn't wake Natalie up I put
on my red dress and a little make up, found my shoes and straightened my
hair, grabbed a cinnamon roll from the vending machine and headed up to
campus. No one is really around that early in the morning on Saturdays I've
discovered. Jon was a little late, apparently he heard his alarm then turned
it off and went back to sleep, only to wake up and see he had about 8
minutes to get ready. We practiced one last time. I found out that 250
couples were competing in the 180 cha cha competition, and started to worry.
We were near the end of the line - number 703. Finally after waiting in line
for what seemed like forever our heat took the floor.
 "Exude confidence and happiness" I reminded myself. We both smiled a lot
and danced and had fun. The judges would walk around writing things on their
clip boards. We made sure to do our best moves - cross body leads and the
chase for example. At the end, we both took a light bow and joined the crowd
of tightly packed people waiting for the results. The waiting was the worst
part. The sheet got put up. Jon, taller than almost everyone else in the
crowd read it. The magic words came: "We made it!!" I gave a little shriek
of joy and we got in line again. We danced a second time. Again we waited.
We made it to the next round. The shriek of joy was louder this time. After
the fourth call back I was ecstatic. Finally, we were dancing for the 6th
time There were about 50 other couples. If we made the cut, we would be in
the quarter finals. But we didn't. We were so close! I was pretty
disappointed. It had been our goal to make it to the quarter finals, but at
least we got really close and I had sooooo much fun in the process. It just
made me want to go and start practicing some more.
 It was probably a good thing we didn't make it to the quarter finals
though, because I had sooooo much homework to do. I worked from about 12
till 8:30pm, lots of German and some physics and calculus. Lauren, the girl
from across the hall, went with me to see the last parts of dancesport: the
Latin junior competition, a professionals showcase and the adult's final
competition with a mix of Latin and standard. Everyone was incredible, but
the junior competitors impressed me the most. They were kids about 10-12
years old, and I found their performance more compelling than the adults'.
The vibes of their dance radiated throughout the room. Every move was
precise, perfectly in rhythm, and beautiful. I could hardly take my eyes off
of them. I have a few short video clips of them that are pretty much
amazing.
Anyway, that would bring you up to date.
Miss and love you all so much, and thank you for your letters and support!
Margaret