Dance, ORCA, Dinner, Goodbye Summer

Wow... busy week, but so much fun!

I don't have much time, so I'll go for the highlights. Wednesday we started the waltz in 380. I love waltzing and am so sad we don't do Viennese waltz in the fall curriculum (I'll just have to to take 380 again in the winter :-)). In German 320 I gave a presentation about the German perspective on our elections that went pretty well, and after classes were over I picked up the 330 tests at the testing center to grade. In the evening Tanner took me to World of Dance. World of Dance, for those of you who aren't familiar with BYU dancing events, is a showcase of all the dance teams and the amazing, awesome things they do. My favorite dances were definitely the Viennese waltz by the ballroom company, the clogging team and then another one and I'm not even sure which team it was by. It was hilarious... they were all dressed in neon suits and they used exercising mats in ways I never would have imagined.

Thursday I attended an internship/study abroad fair, which has gotten me very excited about study abroad. I spoke with Professor McFarland from the German department and he told me to come see him so we could talk about getting an ORCA grant set up for me... that's where you set up a research project that correlates with you study abroad and they pay $1,500 to help you finance it. Then, if I can get a spring/summer scholarship (I think my GPA is good enough for a full tuition one) that will also go towards the trip and take care of tuition. I'm going to talk to him hopefully on Monday... we'll see what happens.

Friday I got the tests finished and handed them back (always a relief). It was odd not to have anything planned. Allyson got a call from a friend of hers from her stake at home, and he invited her to the October fest on campus. She didn't want to go alone, so I accompanied her. We got there just in time to dance the last dance... or not dance the last dance. We were both out of practice since we've discovered the superior pleasures of ballroom dancing to jumping around to music (this can still be fun too, just not as fun). When that was over we watched a movie and went to bed (late :-)).

Saturday I got lots of homework done which was good. For the evening Tanner and I had planned a double date with one of my roommates Laura and one of his friends Jason. The plan was to do a cooking duel (iron chef competition), but we ended up just working together to make a beautiful delicious meal... pasta with sauteed mushrooms, onions and sausage, a fruit platter, fresh tomatoes and mozzarella cheese with chocolate chip cookies for dessert (I had made those in advance). That was followed by a nice long game of charades. Later Tanner came back over and we took a walk to enjoy the last little bit of summer. We ran through the sprinklers, relished a thunder storm, watched the moon rise, rolled down a hill and found shapes in the clouds. Why are weekends always so short?



Today I was officially called as the Relief Society compassionate service coordinator, which means I make sure that all the girls in my ward have their needs met and if not I organize service to help them. I'm also supposed to organize some community service projects. It should be very good for me, but also a challenge.

That's all for now. Hope to hear from you soon and that you have a wonderful sabbath!

Love,
Margaret

This and That

Hello!! Hope you've had a wonderful week... I sure had a busy one...

Monday was pretty stressful, at least the beginning was. I had gotten kicked out of my German 310 blackboard quiz, so I had to go ask Professor Lund to unblock it for me. I realized I would still have to take it before 12 (that’s when it was due), that I had forgotten my books at the apartment (it’s an open book quiz) and that I’d have to redo the whole thing without help. I didn’t get a very good score because I spelled a few terms wrong, but my memory served me pretty well. Quickly I finished my remaining two errands: dropping by Professor Schultheiss’s office (she wasn’t there) and taking a current report card to the foreign language office.

Dance class was as fun as ever… we learned another fun step, and I wanted to practice it after school in the lab. Sadly the labs hadn’t started yet so I couldn’t. My first voice lesson went well, and I have several pieces to choose from to work on this semester. I’m singing in church in two weeks as well, so I have to find one pretty soon.

After dinner Jen, Tanner, Angela, Stephanie and I all piled into Jen’s VW bug to go to FHE at the stake center. Each member of the stake presidency spoke, and as the talks progressed they focused more and more on the importance of being social and dating for fun so you could eventually get married. Tanner and I laughed about it afterwards, and then he asked me out. How ironic, right?

Tuesday there was a bunch of yellow flowers in front of our door without a note. They could have been for someone else in the apartment, but I think Jonathan put them there for me. He’s the only one I could see doing something like that. They did make me smile. In the evening I hitched a ride w/ Jen who was going to study on campus and went to the social dance club. It was really good to go through all the steps again slowly, but guys were scarce and I didn’t get to practice as much as I would have liked.

Wednesday I had the most intense dance class of my life. It was a lot of fun, but I was literally dripping with sweat when we were done and I felt disgusting. There was nothing I could do about it though, because I had classes from 11 (dance) – 2 without a break (this is the case every Mon, Wed and Fri). In 320 we worked on our stupid pre-assessment test. It does have a purpose I suppose… it should help the teacher figure out what areas we need to focus on the most, but I’ve never learned all of the terminology for German grammar, so I couldn’t really answer the questions properly. I want to actually start learning the terminology instead of trying to figure out where everyone is. That evening I went to see a German film “Nirgendwo in Afrika,” but I didn’t really like it.

This is getting to long… I’ll skip to Friday. After classes I went to the library and held 2 review sessions for German 330 (their first test is tomorrow). My German was good, and I felt like I presented the material in an understandable way. I had just enough time to get ready before Tanner arrived. We drove into the canyon which was gorgeous, had a lovely picnic near bridal veil falls, then watched “Life is Beautiful” in the open air theater there. It was an excellent Italian film, one that made me want to laugh and cry all at the same time.

Saturday was full of homework… I think I’ve got almost all my homework done till Wednesday, which is good because I’ll need extra time to grade tests this week…

Love and miss you!

Margaret

I'm officially back into the swing of things... sort of :-). It was nice to have Monday as a buffer to psych up for school once again! I made chocolate chip cookies for my dinner on Wed. and Kelsey (one of my best friends from freshman year) came over to visit. We had a lot of catching up to do, and what better time to do it then while you're waiting for cookies to come out of the oven? It rained in the morning, and by the afternoon our floor was looking pretty gross with all the muddy water on the floor. Screwing up my courage I got out a bucket and found that our mops didn't work. I used a sponge instead on my hands and knees, and imagined I was Cinderella to help the work go faster. Yes, I know I'm a hopeless romantic :-)... our whole ward was at FHE and we played a game of something similar to fruit basket. Everyone in our ward is so cultured. I love it!!

With Tuesday came the overwhelming feeling that I always get at the start of a new school year. Lillian took me to her new apartment at lunch time and we commiserated together over our chaotic lives. I felt a lot better after that. I could tell my two classes were going to be good. Doctrine and Covenants with Professor Fluhman is going to be so good... he doesn't ask us to get a Manuel for the class since he wants us to spend more time actually reading the scriptures and seeking our own inspiration. He's really excited about what he's talking about, and he looks at you in the eye with an unusual intensity. Honors Civilization 201 is going to be tons of work, but fascinating. We're studying writing from the beginning till 1450 when the printing press was invented. Our topic this week was structured around an article by Hugh Nibley (a well known LDS scholar) versus a secular text. Nibley debated whether writing evolved or whether it could have been divinely inspired, while the secular text supported the evolution of writing... I hope you get the picture. It's a TON of reading though...

Wednesday morning Erin and I made our trip to the temple. It was soooo good for me to just take deep breaths and get back a more eternal perspective on what I'm trying to accomplish this year. Most of the people who were working there were familiar... it made me so happy! My classes went pretty well. I'm still a little nervous about my huge German 330 class... I'm really going to need the Lord's help to keep up with that. Dance 380 is going to be fun, but a challenge this year. Usually we just read the syllabus the first day, but this time we learned a new step right away... it's a step I still haven't quite figured out yet. German 310 (Phonetics and Pronunciation) doesn't seem like it will be to bad, just lots of busy work. German 377 was intimidating. I was definitely the youngest one of the class, and everyone was making extremely insightful comments I didn't think I was quite capable of yet... we got a ton of homework for that class too. That evening I walked back to the apartment as fast as I possibly could so I could start my chili dinner for 30. Luckily everything went smoothly... the only problem was the rice. It didn't cook properly... half was mush and the other half was crunchy. Live and learn I guess :-). The cookies were delicious of course.

Thursday was the most chaotic and emotionally draining day of the week. I went to get a haircut with Kelly in the morning at the Paul Mitchell school. The girl who cut my hair was obviously inexperienced, and she completely messed up. She went to the back and started crying. A lady came out to check it, snipped a bit here and there again, then got another lady. My hair is now the shortest it has ever been... they had to cut quite a bit to hide the mistakes. I lost five inches of hair and I was about to cry. I started the reading for Germ 377 and was baffled... it was like reading an English dictionary without the definitions to explain what the words meant, and I had 40 pages to read plus 100 more Professor Lund wanted us to skim. My world was slowly slipping out of control. I went to 377 again, and realized I wasn't ready for the class. Although I generally use correct German grammar, I don't know why it's right, so I didn't feel up to trying to explain it to people who are just learning German for the first time. I knew I needed to change something.

Friday I got to campus early to talk to Professor Kelling about switching classes. He agreed that it might be a good idea to take the grammar first. In order to have 14 credit hours for my scholarship though I needed another credit, so I'm also doing a research project for Professor Kelling where I'm gathering common German idioms or important German phrases for 3 hours/week for him. I'm not exactly sure how that's going to work.... we'll see. I felt a lot better about. I went to 320 and realized I have a lot to work on in grammar. I don't like grammar, but it's improtant to know. I've heard my professor is really strict too, so I'm a little nervous. After that I went to the reception in the Dean's office for those who had been on the Dean's list Winter semester, and enjoyed getting to know the Dean and other excellent students, not to mention eating a doughnut and some fresh fruits and veggies. I barely got back in time to get ready for my date with Jonathan. We went to subway for some sandwiches, then went to the Kimbal building to watch the Japanese film "Shall we Dance." It was different, but also interesting, espeically how they utilized silence throughout the film. Yoasis was our next stop where we had some excellent frozen yougurt with fresh fruit (I got mango), then we just looked at the stars for a while. When I got back a group of people from the FLSR decided to go walk around the temple, then we watched Aladdin... it got to be pretty late, but it was all so fun!!

Saturday Kelly saved my life by inviting me to go shopping with her and her aunt. I was getting very tired of living off of bread. I stocked up on everything and felt much better about my food situation. The rest of the day was homework, broken only by a quick trip to the Creamery with Pat, Tanner and Alex for some ice cream ;-).

We had an amazing regional conference today with Elder Uchtdorf as one of the speakers. His talk was so powerful! After dinner Kelly and I took some picnic blankets out to the lawn to nap/read scriptures, and later watched the CES fireside with Elder Holland. What a spiritual boost for the week!!!

Sooooo tired, and Monday morning starts early :-)
Love and miss you!!
Margaret