Fall - floating, hovering, trembling

Another week of somewhat consistent stresses is already over again! Time is falling as fast as the leaves... speaking of leaves, we had an awesome activity Monday evening with our FHE group. The original plan was to make a pile of leaves for jumping in, but we only got as far as the pile before it turned into a giant leaf war. I hadn't laughed/had so much fun in a while. It was especially amusing when I started a private war with Dan, which involved attempts to cream each other with leaves. It wasn't very fun to get them in my mouth, but it was all in good fun and I would do it again any day...

Tuesday I forgot to bring my temple recommend again (this was the second time this semester) on my weekly excursion up the hill, which frustrated me at first, but was really a blessing in the end since it gave me some extra time for personal study and some time to talk with my Mom who I hadn't talked to in FOREVER. Devotional (actually it was a forum this week, but I don't usually distinguish between the two) w/Laura was good, as always... the speaker spoke on his book "Three cups of Tea" about striving for world peace by promoting education. It helped me to resolve anew to go forth out of college to do good/try to make the world a better place. I cooked my meal for 30 people later that day, which involved baking about six casseroles, making two salads and two cakes, but I had my amazing cooking group to help, and everything was done on time. That's always a relief!

Wednesday afternoon I was supposed to film my teaching, so that I could let people in my pedagogy class critique it on Thursday. Laura agreed to help me with this, so she brought her camera and sat in the back of my German 202 class while I gave one of my worst lessons ever. Frustrated that it hadn't gone the way I would have liked, I asked her to bring the footage with her the next day so I could edit it before class. Thursday morning came, and the look in her eyes told me something was wrong. My mouth dropped in horror when I heard the fatal words "I deleted it, Margaret!" I panicked a little after that, but decided I should still try and get it done. I re-planned my class so I could talk a little bit about grammar, found a tripod, and set up the camera in the back of the classroom for a second try. Luckily the lesson ran better than my first attempt. As soon as the bell rang I grabbed the camera and sped off to class, then I skipped around in my 37 min. long video to give them a taste of what I had done. I was so relieved to have it overwith...!!!

I spent the weekend with Ben as usual, and as usual the time flew at an alarming speed. Friday evening we did some homework, went to Olive Gardens, then did some more homework. Friday night the FLSR fire alarm went off twice -- once at 2 am an once at 3am, which caused me to disable my alarm clock for the next morning. It felt so good to sleep enough for once. Saturday I met up with my dance partner Tyler to work on some waltz, then met Ben in the physics lab to do some more hw. Hours later we made dinner and caramel apples together, then we did some more homework. Noticing a common pattern there ;)? Even though it doesn't sound to exciting, I really enjoyed the time with Ben, even if it was just doing hw... a lot of hw...

Early this morning I attended a RS training meeting, went to church, then in the evening enjoyed Elder Uchtdorf's CES fireside on the questions of life that centered around finding out who we really are, and recognizing our eternal worth and potential. I can't wait to read it again!

I'll close with a short poem I wrote for German 377...

Fall
Crisp and golden
floating, hovering, trembling
A saddening sweet anticipation
Parting.