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