YYyyyyaaaaaaayyyy!!!!!

I finished 3/4 of my grad school apps yesterday! Yay! Now it's all left to Johns Hopkins University. They're my #1, so I'm going to take my time and try to get through it nice and easy and bulk it up super awesome like, so it sounds super great and they'll want me!

Last night was Paul's Christmas concert. Just one more of those left. Wow. Most of Matt's friends showed up, which I thought was amusing because they're all in high school now. Then we stopped by Grammom's for some tasty Dairy Queen ice cream (since it's tradition). haha.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!!!!!

YAY! I'M GOING HOME TONIGHT!!!! YAAAAAAAAY! I just hope the snow storm holds off until after we get home.... oh, hurry up and get back here, Eric...

WEBKINZ!

haha, yay! Denise bought me a webkinz! It's a squirrel and I named him Tobi! tehe. Paper done, time for some webkinz fun!!!!

HAHAHA. AHAHA. HAHA. HA.

So...that maniacal laughter can only mean one thing: I have beaten my Hebrew final and have 3 extra hours to work on my final archaeology paper before taking it to the writing center. YES! I stomped that final into the ground! It was actually super easy and I was out of there in 45 minutes. I was a little worried at first, when I was half-way through the last page. I was afraid I'd missed something terribly difficult, until someone handed in their test. But even then most of the class was like, "YOU'RE ALREADY DONE?!" I only had 4 more sentences to translate, so I felt much better that someone else was going through it just as fast as I was. I wanted to get out as early as possible to get more time to work on my paper and ended up getting out super fast!

So now I write as much as I can until 9, go to the writing center, grab some late night snacks from the caf, then finish up the paper. Tomorrow I hand it in and then Heather and I are having lunch with Pam to get some pointers on grad school apps and what to say in a statement of purpose. Then I have to take Stuart to the garage to get his car looked at before he goes home (poor old Volvo). Then it's just singing my German song over and over with Heather, some last-minute grading for Bib Arch to get some last minute cash, and finishing the last little bit of my anthropology reading for my final on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning is rushing through that lame anthro final then more singing with Heather to practice for the "final". Then Thursday afternoon is performing in front of the class and hearing everyone else's recitations. Heather and I are singing Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart's poem "Die Forelle", put to music by Franz Schubert. It's so cute, listen to it! It's super easy to find a translation of it, but it's about a little trout who's swimming along and is just being his cute little fishy self when an evil fisherman comes along and tries to fish him for dinner. The fish is smarter than the fisherman thinks and escapes him, but the fisherman is cunning and muddies up the water so the fish can't see and he catches the fish and takes it home to eat for dinner. The author who's watching all this happen gets super upset at the end and the music is sad, too. Schubert's piano music matches it PERFECTLY, it sounds just like a flowing river.

Anyway, I'm going to get to my paper now, but I just wanted to share how excited I am that I finished my Hebrew final super early. >.<

Thanksgiving and my last week of classes! woot!

Thanksgiving was really nice. The family came over and I got to see everyone again. And eat SEVERELY delicious food. And I made the pies!!! I'm so proud of myself. :D Then Friday I went to Atlantic City with my momma to see the Transiberian Orchestra. We also went gambling. YES! It was a lot of fun...except for the $12 martinis that were uber gross... but the show was awesome! Crazy laser lights and strobe lights and flashy lights and flames and smoke and fake snow! It was so cool. But I never worked on any of my stuff, so Sunday I woke up at 6:30am with a minor panic attack realizing how much work I had to do. YIKES!

But my last week became increasingly easier as time went by! I was really panicing at first. All day Sunday I just worked on some homework to get things out of the way to really get going this week. When I got back to Lyco, this girl emailed me back about where to get information on Maya ceramics. I got to work surfing around for useful articles and found TONS. Thank God!!! As I read, I started to get ideas for my paper and presentation and began feeling much better. Then I read an email from Dr. Cagle about our German homework for the rest of the week and started panicing again.

Last night was a bit rough, senate meetings, getting bins to start paper recycling in time for finals. Then Heather mentioned something about our German essay being due Friday instead of Thursday. I looked it up and sure enough, I had read wrong! We got to our classes today (archaeology and german) only to learn that Dr. Gaber is a very understanding professor! She told us that she talked with some other professors and realized the huge amounts of work they were giving to their students for the week and that some of us were in some of their classes. So she told us that we didn't have to turn in our papers until the time of our scheduled final to give us some more time to work on them, especially since we don't have a final - just the paper. YES! Then we got to German and he told us that since he's also making us memorize a poem for Thursday AND a quiz AND the paper, that he was going to push the paper back to finals week and make the quiz a take-home. YAY! Now I have more time to focus on getting through all my research thoroughly and a head start on the take-home portion of my Hebrew final.

But that's all for now because I must turn in some much over-due grading for Dr. Knauth and turn in some receipts in hopes of getting reimbursement from the school! woop woop!

Woo! Picture Update!

Alright, I got some pictures from Halloween and my trip to New York to see Chicago! Uh...I forgot my camera in the car for any pictures from the Decemberists concert. Nuts.

So, we were getting the boys ready for their night out for Halloween and we ended up making this terrorist costume! It was sooo funny. hahahaha.

The next night I went to Julia's apartment in Philly for her Halloween party! yay! Kimmie is Wednesday Adams (her boyfriend Scott dressed up at Pugsley. haha), Laura is a hatless witch, Cassie is a black cat, and I am Tina Fey acting as Sarah Palin! hahaha.

Julia was a Bumble Bee!!

"And for all you Joe-Sixpacks out there...Maverick." ;)

Julia and her apartment-mates thought it would be cool and set the mood if they played scary movies on their projector. Turns out the only place they could have it projected was on the ceiling. Worked out awesome though! It was sooo cool!

Then came the GRE in Harrisburg, the Decemberists concert in Philly with Denise and Cassie, and New York City to see Chicago with Denise and Melissa!

Friday started out all nerve racking because of the GRE. Denise came with me because immediately after we were heading right to Philadelphia for the Decemberists concert with Cassie! And Denise's dad works at the Department of Agriculture, so she just chilled with her poppa for the 3 1/2 hours I was taking the test. It went...ok. Each section I think is out of 800. I got 460 on Verbal and 540 on Quantitative. booo. I don't know how my writing samples went yet. They get graded by a panel. Though I do have to say, my in-class writings that I have to do with Pam Gaber in my Archaeology Theory & Methods course TOTALLY prepped me for those writing samples! I think I kicked ass on them. Oh yea. I would have gotten out probably 30 minutes earlier, but it had me write another essay for some study. But it said that every month, they choose a couple people who's essays...did something special and they get like $200. Only reason I wasn't upset about writing it. haha.

So we set off for Philly around 4:30. Traffic wasn't too bad. Got to Cassie's, got on 422, and immediately hit traffic. YAY! Though it wasn't too bad. We followed the directions and then had to start thinking about parking. Luckily, as soon as I said, "ok...parking..." some guy was screaming at cars that parking for the concert was "this way". At every block following was another person shouting at people in their cars as to where to park and yelling at each other to stop sending cars their way. The guy who pointed me to my spot was freaking out at me because I apparently wasn't parking fast enough. I was the last one in the lot! Anyways, that was amusing.

The concert was AWESOME! It was in the Electric Factory, which I had never been to before, and when we got in, there was a HUGE neon sign of Ben Franklin. It all made sense: Philadelphia, Ben Franklin, electricity = Electric Factory in Philly. Yep. haha. And the concert was the single most hippie thing I've ever done. haha, we were swaying and singing songs about politics and peace and no more bombs.

We dropped Cassie back off afterwards and Denise and I headed back up to Lyco to get ready for the New York City trip to see Chicago! Bus left at 7am. We got back at 4am. I showered and had enough time left over to sleep for an hour! woot! We attempted to sleep on the bus, but I failed a bit. Oh wells.

We arrived with two hours before the show, so we decided to go walk around Time Square for a bit. Of course, we had to stop at our favorite place in NYC: The M&M Store!

It changed around a bit since we were there last year. There was a Saturday Night Fever M&M.

Melissa danced with him. haha.

This one freaked Meliss out, though, because there was a giant pigeon (she has a fear of pigeons).

This is her cowering in fear...

Then we saw a sign there for Shrek the Musical! We toootally want to go see it!

Yea! Times Square!!!! I've been there...10 times? And this is my first picture. haha. How sad.

The Naked Cowboy was there!!!!!!!! hahahahahaha.

Woooo! Chicago!!!

It was sooo good. A lot of laughing.

Then Christian and Janna wanted to go down to 5th Ave, and we were like, Hey why not? We haven't been down there because it's just a bunch of expensive shops, but we were like, whatevs, let's just go see it. We realized that to get there, we crossed over Times Square and saw Radio City Music Hall! With it's Christmas Tree! haha, cool!

Christian and Janna...

Yea! Me and Denise! man, it rained so hard earlier in the day. We were so wet...

We continued on our way...over 6th...yep, next is 5th. Nope. Next is...

Rockefeller Plaza?!?! No way!!!!!!!!!! We'd NEVER been there! NBC Studios...the ice skating rink...

Yea! THE ice skating rink! Where they painted all the states for the election! It's actually really small...

So. Many. People.

And that weird naked gold statue...it was really pretty.

So then we got to 5th Ave. and we were sick of being cold and wet. Denise wanted to look for F.A.O. Schwartz Toy Store. She knew it was somewhere on 5th Ave, but we didn't know exactly where. So we set off in one direction...never found it. But we DID find a Barnes & Nobles! So we decided to get coffee and read some books to warm up. We ended up spending the rest of our time there...yep. We're a bunch of nerds. That means you too, Melissa! Don't deny it! We know you were looking at Martial Arts books to figure out the styles used in Tekkon 5!!! haha.

So then we walked back to the meeting place for the bus. We decided to walk on the other side of Rockefeller Plaza and found THIS:

ZOMG IT'S THE LOVE SCULPTURE!!!! It was on sale for like...$12,000 or something...probably more...

And that's the conclusion of my weekend. Now I must go back to workings! *sigh*

Almost...there...

Well...half my worries are over for the week. I finished reading that book and wrote my paper...late, but I did it! Then I found out that I didn't have to write a paper for my colloquium presentation! It was just the presentation! woot! So that was actually almost easy. Now it's just the GRE tomorrow. *nervous*

But AFTER the GRE is going to be lots of fun! Though very tiring. But that's ok. I go right from Harrisburg with Denise to Philly, with a brief stop to pick up Cassie! Then it's the Decemberists, baby!!!! wooooo! wooooo!!!! And then immediately after that, it's back to Lycoming to get on the bus at 7am to go to NYC! Let's see, I'll be passed out for the ride up, and the ride back is always a passout, too, because you've been walking around New York for hours. Denise, Melissa, and I are bringing (well...Melissa has to make them) sandwiches so we don't have to spend money while we're there (which is great for me and Melissa...who don't have any money...). We were thinking about finding a spot in Central Park to take a nap, but it's too far from the theatre district, and we'd just end up walking down there only to turn around again to make it in time to see the play. So I have no idea what we're gonna do. Maybe find a matress store and just sleep. hahaha.

Then we get back late, go to bed, and get up on Sunday for....omg, I can't remember what I have to do on Sunday. I need to schedule an extra belly dance lesson...and I'm tutoring later in the evening...but I feel like I had to do something at like 2pm. Bill Dever is giving a speach at a local synagogue about Archaeology and the Bible...but I've heard that so many times and it's $5 to get in and I just don't feel like spending $5 to listen to something I've already heard about like 5 times, even if it does support the local synagogue. But I feel like there was something else I had to do! Man, I hope I remember.

Man I can't wait for next week. It's going to be so easy. Except that make-up quiz I have to take on Monday. Oh wells. I'm just waiting for 5pm tomorrow. That's when all the hard stuff is done and insane fun can begin. *sigh* ok, I'm going to read a book.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!!!!!

Yay! We're hoooome!!! I'm so happy! We got home around 7:15pm, immediately ate a deliciously yummy dinner of dad's chicken man chicken recipe, perogies, and Caesar salad, the dressing for it had quite a bite. yum! It's so nice to be home.

Pet the dog for a while, found my Fatty. He was pretty excited to see me. I watched a bit of The Last of the Mohicans with the family...mom and dad went to bed pretty early, but Matt and Paul stayed up a bit longer. Then I went to bed before them! haha.

Now I'm just cruisin' around the internet, listening to Paul bang away on his drum pad and watching the dog find every last piece of dog food that missed her bowl when Eric dumped her food in. lol.

Tomorrow morning we're going to Gmom's house! We'll be talking about Hawaii and Maddy's wedding, but I'll get to see the rest of the my family then! yay! Then I'm going to Julia's with Kimmie, Scott, Cassie, and Laura for Julia's Halloween bash! Yay!!!!! That's going to be so much fun!!!!

However, while I'm home, I have to do some work. I have to work on my research for my paper. I have it all, I hope, but now I have to work through all of it. And finish reading a book. Stupid book. Well, anyways, guess that's everything. I'm going to get things rollin' now. The boys took off from school to stay home with us today! Yay! So we're going to enjoy all our time together. :D Yay!!!!

Camping!

Wow, been a while. Well, I've been pretty busy the past couple weeks, mostly preparing for the LEAF's camping trip this weekend. But I started rereading the Harry Potter series! It's a nice way to unclog my brain; it's an easy read and a familiar story, so it really is very relaxing. Better than sitting away in front of a TV or on the computer.

This week is Long Weekend! Yay! I get to go home on Thursday!!! But it's going to be a horrible week, and so will be the week after. >:( This week I have to fix up a paper, read 100p for Archaeology on Tuesday, finish a book and write a 5p paper on it for Wednesday, and memorize a poem in German and possibly also write another paper for Archaeology for Thursday. I also have to collect the remaining research for my archaeology colloquium presentation for Nov. 6, so I have to work on reading all that research over Long Weekend. Then I have to write about 10 pages on it and make a 15 minute presentation for Thursday. Friday is my GRE in Harrisburg, which I have yet to prepare for, Friday night is the concert in Philly with Cassie (yay!), and Saturday morning Denise, Melissa, and I are leaving at 7am to go on Lyco's semesterly trip to NYC for a Broadway show. I'm going to be so beat. Luckily, though, there are only 4 weeks after Long Weekend before finals. Then I get 4 whole weeks off for Christmas break! Yay! They're going to be killer because I have to also finish applying for grad schools by Dec 1. *rips out hair* Thank God I got my $400 refund check from the school. That's all going to fund all those application fees! $75 for Johns Hopkins and $70 each for UCLA, University of Michigan, and UPenn. And there goes all of my refund check! Yay!!!! Thank God I have a campus job, or else I'd be so poor. $25 a week isn't so bad when all you need to spend that on is some grocery shopping and the occassional 6-pack.

But anyways, I'm giving myself a panic attack. This weekend was both fun and a complete disaster. We set our LEAF Camping Trip for this weekend at Hickory Run State Park Campground. Everything was all set up, forms filled out, and everything paid for. At 5pm Denise and I went out to the pre-set meeting place (Acedemic Center Parking lot) for Enterprise to drop off our two rental mini-vans (we had 20 people going on the trip...). We waited and waited and waited for about 20 minutes and called Melissa to have her call Enterprise to see what the hold up was. Meanwhile, Eric and Jordan arrived with a bunch of camping gear. They said that most people were already waiting in the AC with their stuff and were wondering what was going on. Melissa calls back saying that Enterprise claimed to have already dropped off two mini-vans at 3:30pm and gave them to someone named Denise, but never bothered to check their drivers licence to make sure. We were livid. We had 20 people waiting to go camping (we were already planning on setting up in the dark) but only a sedan and a small SUV (our other modes of transport) to take them all in and hold all the camping gear. We went through an hour and a half long ordeal of figuring out what went wrong.

If Denise or I had been on the phone with Enterprise, there would have been a lot of yelling. Luckily, Melissa was calling, and she never gets aggressive. Turns out there was another group on campus who had asked Enterprise for two mini-vans for the weekend, and they thought it was the same group (WHAAAAT?!?!?!). Though they still would have gipt someone because they would have had double the money. Seems that they weren't willing to let people know that and were very willing to keep every penny of that. Finally, after much aggrevation, they said they would provide us with a mini-van and two cars and would give us a partial refund. Damn straight. They're just lucky we had enough people 21 or over to put names on the cars. So we didn't get to the campground until 9pm to set up our 4 campsites. Though that went pretty fast.

The forecast for the weekend started as snow, then just changed to really really cold and rain. Oh well, we decided to go for it anyways. Some rain isn't too bad when camping as long as you keep everything away from the sides of the tent. We woke up early Saturday with a steady rain coming down and we put up one of the tarps so we had a dry place for cooking. Two tents claimed minor flooding: the girls in the one had everything up against the walls of the tent (guess we forgot to mention that bit to everyone, oops), but Eric and Jordan actually had some flooding. However, their tent fly wasn't actually for that tent, so the rain came right in from the top. The other 3 tents were dry. So we thought we'd just squeeze Eric and Jordan into other tents and do some emptying of the other tent. It seemed pretty fixable for our second night.

The rain kept going in and out, slowing down, picking up, really coming down, almost stopping competely. It wasn't too bad, we could do it. We forgot a few things for cooking, so Denise and Jordan decided that after breakfast they would go find a supply store while everyone else went out hiking. Even though it rained, it was really pretty. In fact, I thought the rain was quite pleasant. Except that then we realized we had a defective mini-van. The trunk door was in permanent lock position and we couldn't get it to close, no matter what we tried. We ended up having to tying closed. Stupid Enterprise. I'm never renting from them ever again. Eric didn't want to go hiking, so he provided transport and then turfing in the rental car. haha. Seriously.

After a peanut butter and jelly lunch with apples and bananas, we decided to see what had come of Denise and Jordan's exploration and decide what to do from there. The rain started to come down a little harder but we thought it would still be ok. Denise and Jordan said they'd get dinner started early (seeing as it took us like 2 to 3 hours to cook breakfast for everyone) while we went to go see the Boulder Fields! As we drove, it rained harder and harder and harder, until we finally got to the Boulder Fields and actually could barely see out our windshield. My car became very worried and we were debating going back and suggesting that we should pack up and leave after dinner. Rain came down harder and harder as we trecked back and a few times we swore we saw lightning. When we got back to the sites, all the people who stayed behind were no where to be seen. So we sat in the van for a bit deciding who would go out and check the tents to see if they were taking shelter.

Turns out they took shelter in the cars. Jordan and Denise came up and I immediately rolled down my window and said, "I think we should leave." Jordan had called one of his friends to check the weather and it called for torential downpours and thunderstorms. That clinched it. We were all already a little wet from our hikes, so we took off the driest of our clothes and left them in the cars while we ran out into a complete downpour. I was soaked to the bone with puddles in my shoes in 30 minutes. We didn't even bother putting tents in bags, we just rolled and threw them into cars. It was qutie amusing, actually. When the cars were packed, we all drove back half naked (because we didn't have time to check which bags were whose to get dry clothes), barely seeing the road and hydroplaning. Luckily everyone was in very good spirits still.

It made for a very interesting weekend. But we were all very glad to come back early. We felt bad about coming back too late for everyone to have dinner in the caf, so we cooked what we were originally making at Denise and Melissa's apartment for everyone, made some posters for a speaker event this week, worked on puzzles, and watched Constantine on TV. Everyone agreed that this was much nicer. haha. And it also meant that everyone got to sleep in this morning instead of packing up a campsite.

But now I'm going to work on my piles of homework. I just wanted to update since I haven't done that in a while and I had quite an adventurful weekend. haha. Now, work time...

Procrastination...

Yep, don't feel like doing work just yet. So I'll update about the Homecoming events we had at Lycoming! Student Programs set up a campus-wide game of tag for the week for people who signed up. I didn't but Denise and Melissa did. It was super amusing. They recieved the name of another person who signed up and had to find them on campus. There were some rules: they couldn't tag the person while they're in class, studying, or in their room. Which meant only while they're walking around campus. Melissa was bugging out all day on Monday, and especially that night when the Volleyball Tournament was scheduled between clubs. LEAF almost passed the first round, which is better than we usually do! We lost by ONE POINT! Usually we only get to maybe 10 points, but we got to 19! Woo! haha. We found Denise's person while we were there! woop woop! Go Denise!

Tuesday was the Obstacle Course. Denise had tagged her second victim that day, but she was tagged as soon as we got to the event. Nuts, poor Denise. This made Melissa bug out even more, jumping at everything that moved. The obstacle course involved individual participants running through the course and they were timed. Whoever had the fastest time won. Melissa decided to go for the slowest time. It was really amusing to watch. Then when she was nearing the end, the Student Senate Treasurer stood at the end like he was waiting for her to get out. We thought he was going to repremand her or something for not taking it seriously. Then he climbed into the end of the course and we were all like, "What is Robert doing?!" Then we saw Melissa jump like 10ft in the air and try to climb back up the slide. She failed. Turns out Robert had Melissa as his victim. She was so upset because she never even got to tag her first victim and was tagged out on the second day.

We didn't do anything for the Wednesday event, and we missed the event on Thursday, but last night (Friday) there were fireworks! We went down to get the little finger foods and saw some really good fireworks on the quad. Afterwards we went back to Denise and Melissa's room where a bunch of us sat around watching You Don't Mess with the Zohan (funny movie, especially for anyone who's ever been to Israel! So true!) and waited for Mackara to come! yay Mackara! She was our RA freshman year, and she really made the year so amazing for all of us. We were by far the best freshman floor, oh yea! haha. She finally arrived at 11pm and we immediately headed to Denny's for some late night fun. There were 11 of us, I felt really bad for the waitress. Especially because another large group came in right after us. They put us all in the back room. haha.

Well, that was my week, and I guess it's time I start on my homework. Or at least get some research out of the way for my colloquium paper. That's due in a little less than 4 weeks...oops. The presentation has to be 15 to 30 minutes long? Which I'm assuming is a 10-15 page paper? Which is perfect because then I can use it as a writing sample for my applications! Yay!

I also realized that my presentation is Nov 6th, my GRE is Nov 7th, and then the night of the 7th I'm going to see The Decemberists with Cassie in Philly. My GRE is in Harrisburg! AAAARG! Hey, I wonder if it's free to change the location of the GRE...it's $25 to change the date. It's probably not free. Nuts. Oh well, time for work!

FRIDAAAAY!!

So it's finally Friday. Yay! Man, this year is actually flying, and I don't really like that. I have too much that I have to do this semester for it to be going by so fast. I have to get research for my colloquium presentation, take my GRE, and apply to graduate schools while maintaining my awesome GPA so that I can actually get into these grad schools. RAWR!

But I talked with Dr. Gaber this week about grad schools. At colloquium last week Dr. Dever pretty much told us all that we were completely screwed for jobs because we chose archaeology as our majors. Gee, thanks. So every senior archaeology student had a heart attack and flocked to Gaber and Dever after colloquium to figure out our futures. Turns out I might actually be quite set because my meeting with Gaber went extremely well. Gaber and Dever said that the only way to get into anything in archaeology and make any kind of money is to 1) marry a rich person (haha); 2) get a PhD in either languages, art history, or anthropology; 3) get the PhD at an AMERICAN graduate school; 4) you MUST know French and German, and Greek and Latin or Greek and Hebrew; 5) forget about trying to head your own dig in Israel; 6) work towards a teaching degree. Well, I was hoping to accomplish most of that anyways!

But I've always wanted to learn as many languages as I could. I am on the highest level of German that Lyco offers, I took enough French in high school that if I were to do a refresher I think I could at least maintain a reading comprehension of it, I took as much Greek as Lyco offers plus some, and I'm taking Hebrew right now. CHECK! I also have an anthropology minor. I guess I should give up hoping to study in Israel. At least for my first PhD. HAHAHA! Yea... And I want to be a professor anyways. Yay!

Gaber sat with me and said that pretty much I should try for Johns Hopkins University's Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department. She said it's the best place in the States for a Near Eastern Languages degree. Following is UCLA and University of Michigan. I told her I was also looking at UPenn; she said they don't have a very strong program anymore and that they should be my "back-up school". UPenn, a back-up school...it's Ivy League! But, she said, I have an amazing GPA (3.81), I have most of the background stuff covered, I have dig experience (and supervisor experience, nonetheless!), and I'm doing very well in here class, which means I can write well...or at least can think like a grad student. She also said that I can expect a killer recommendation from her. Gaber also knows the department head at Johns Hopkins very well! woop! I have an in! My only worry is the GRE because I've never done very well with standardized testing. She said all I can do is do the practice problems and take it twice. But really they look at everything, so I think it'll be all ok if my GRE is just ok. I really want Johns Hopkins, though. It's in Baltimore! I like Baltimore! And I really really REALLY don't want to go to LA. Too big and too far away. But I won't put it out of my mind. But she said my deciding factor will be my Financial Aid. UCLA won't give me as much money as Johns Hopkins would because it's government funded and private universities are much better at giving out money to their grad students.

I also sent an email to Steve Ortiz about my summer dilemma. I want to go to Maddy's wedding but it's during the first weekend of the dig. I looked at all options and pretty much I just have to decide between one or the other. If I go to Hawaii, then I need to come up with my own money for my plane ticket. I don't think that's going to happen. But I don't want to miss it. :( Anyways, I told Steve about it and he said, "What does Hawaii have to offer? Blue water, white sandy beaches, dark Polynesian men. And Israel: blue locus sheets, brown dirt... No comparison!" haha. At least he has a good sense of humor. But he told me in underline and bold "We want you back". So I really have no idea. I also have to start searching for some kind of summer job, too. *sigh* Oh wells.

Well, I must get moving this morning. Lots of stuff to do.

Pictures from schooool! Erm...the cabin!

Yay! Picture time! First, a brief update. And I'm serious when I say "brief". Thank God it's Thursday!!!! I love Thursday. It means it's almost Friday and all my hard work for classes is FINISHED! Wednesday nights are usually hell, though, so when I wake up in the morning, I feel so much better. Even if it is at 7am.

Eric printed me out an absentee ballot! Denise stopped in his room the other night to drop off his vacuum (because we all share it), and she had him print one out for her. She told me to have him print one out for me, too, but she warned that I might have to promise him that I'd be writing in Ron Paul. haha. So I asked him if he could print one out for me and he said, "Nope." Then I said, "I'm considering writing in Ron Paul." Then he said, "Alright." I met him in one of his classrooms to get it from him and as he was handing it to me he said, "Now you HAVE to write in Ron Paul. If you don't, I will rip up your ballot. I'm serious. Ron Paul." hahaha. But I really have no idea who I want to vote for.

Anywho, here are the pictures from the cabin weekend!!!

Our mode of transportation: Jordan's Jeep Wrangler!

Everyone was already starting to get a little annoyed with my picture taking...

Our faithful driver...

Man, we were "packed in like sardines", according to one commentator's opinion (lol, Cassie!)

Yay! We made it! It was dark! And rainy!

I stole some pictures from Denise. This is one of them...

I found a dead bat inside. It was still stuck to the wall. And stiff. And tiny!

We used oil lamps! Pretty!

Next morning was picture taking time, since it was sort of bright out. Here's the outside of the cabin...

And from the back...

And on the inside...

There was a ring game! Since the only electricity was by gas generator, this was pretty much our online form of entertainment besides reading...

A better view of the inside...

The loft...

Denise played the game, too!

Eric fetching water for the toilet! Again, no electricity and no running water. It was awesome.

The view first thing the next morning...

Not sure why I was making this face, but I was looking through National Geographic Magazines!

Um...again...don't know what's with my weird faces or who was taking these pictures...

It started to clear up a little, so I went out to take more pictures with Denise.

A bird house! tehe...

Hi, Denise!

Proof that Eric does his homework! Look at him being all studious. And Melissa's reading a National Geographic. "'P-a-l-e-o-n-t-o-l-o-g-y'...hey Al, that's what you do, right?" Oh my God, Melissa, REALLY?! hahaha.

Oooo, creepy forest!!!

Then it cleared up even more and the decision was made to get ready to go for a hike! ...After breakfast!

So while Jordan cooked breakfast, I took some more pictures!

Denise made fun of me for taking close-up nature pictures. :(

But I was damned serious about it...

Nah, it was fun...

Some of my work. This is a close up on moss!

And an abandoned snail shell!

And holly!

And mountains of moss!

Meanwhile, back inside, Eric continued laboriously to do homework! Melissa was considering playing the drums...

A brief time to let our yummy breakfast settle before our walk.

Filling up the buckets for the toilet...with water.

Yea! Lookit me go!

Haha, a little wooden sword Jordan made when he was a kid. He never goes on a walk in the woods without it...

Yay! We're finally off!!!!

It was wet...and rainy...

I got in touch with my inner tree hugger.

And got a little dirty and wet.

Melissa ran out into this clearing. Then Jordan said that he saw a bear once in there and it freaked Melissa out.

Jordan had to reassure her that the bears wouldn't come her...

I wanted a pretty pictures of the clearing, too..



Then we came across another small clearing...dun dun dun. It was Jordan's uncle's cabin! And there was a swing!!!!

Then Melissa went first on the swing!!!

Yay! Melissa swinging!!!

Then it was my turn! Eric pulled me too fast... :(

Then I got to try to pull Eric. Um. It didn't work.



Watch my feeble attempt here.

So Jordan had to take over.

He also failed.

Oh, who's turn is it now?

Jordan's!

Watch out for the treeeee!!!!

Hahaha, Melissa fell trying to sit on the swing then.

Eric found a really old looking shotgun in Jordan's uncle's cabin!

We headed off again. And I began playing "Find Alli".

ooooh, where am I??

I tried to get a pretty picture of the spider web, but Eric got in the way. And he also threatened to destroy it.

Denise got a good picture of it, though.

We came out to a farmer's field. It was pretty.

He had a tree stand.

Here's a flower.

Eric wandered off, but he came back.

Jordan gave me birch to chew on!

Yummy!!!!

We found porcupine needles, too! Man, that thing really got something...

It was all over the place.

We kept some.

Then we found a funny sign...

THEN WE PLAYED RISK!!! OUR FAVORITE GAME!!!!

Jordan was white and conquered Europe. ha.

Eric was blue and conquered the Americas.

I was green and got most of African plus the Middle East and Afghanistan. I was screwed. And lost. Quickly.

Denise was read and built up her armies in Australia, Indonesia, and Madagascar, eventually conquering everyone completely and thoroughly without remorse.

Eric was really angry that was a better dice roller than he is.

Denise began her attack and swept through Africa. Here is my last stand. Pitiful.

Much to Eric's extreme, irate, and overly exaggerated competitive spirit, Denise swept South America right out from under his nose.

Then she turned on Europe. Eric then turned on his alliance with Jordan and swept through Europe to stop Denise at her own game.

Poor Jordan, with his alliance broken, he barely stood a chance. At least he put up a better fight than I did, though.

Eric's last stand in Japan. He wasn't going down without a full out brawl. But Denise eventually conquered. Eric was sooo angry. It was hysterical.

Then Jordan cooked us dinner!

Yummy chicken!!!

Melissa accidentally got her hair in the chicken juice. It was funny. She was embarrassed.

Ah, dinner by oil lamp light...

After dinner, we settled in for some general lying around and reading.

Or homework.

Or general boredom. And when Jordan and Eric are bored in the woods, what's the most fun thing for them to do?

Why make a fire of course! Yes, it rained all weekend long and everything was soaking wet. But Jordan taught us all an amazing thing. Birch bark has so much oils in it that it will even burn when wet! woop woop!

And burn it did!

S'mores for everyone!!!!!

Then Jordan got sleepy. But we weren't! We wanted to...um...not sleep!

Wake up Jordan!!!!!!!!

Alright, so...can't think of anything to do, so I read some more of my homework.

Melissa and Eric had a Foosball competition.

It was pretty intense.

Then everyone was still bored. And you know what Eric and Jordan decided to do this time? It has something to do with that incense bottle. And a match.

Blow on it a little to get it going...

Lots of smoke...

BAM! FIREWORKS!

Or I guess they're called bottle rockets?

And that was that. The next morning we ate some cereal, cleaned up, and went back to school. It was a fun weekend. Next update shall be from Oktoberfest! Which is what we did this weekend!!! yay!!!