it's friday. i love fridays. i haven't talked to my family since...i think last weekend. my schedule has been so crazy lately. i leave in the morning and never make it back to the apartment before 4pm, if i even come back before dinner. my brain is a little fried, too; i actually scheduled three dinners dates on wednesday, and almost scheduled a fourth but had a vague feeling that i might have already planned something. oh boy. i'm just getting used to the dieting and the calorie counting for my body comp class. i love the workouts, and the sleep isn't a problem, but this diet is something else. it's totally good for me, especially because i'm one of those always on the go sorts of people who just grab something easy and run. that's not going to work for the rest of my life, so i might as well get used to that now. i don't know if i'll go so far as to use this food scale for the rest of my life, but at least it gives people something to talk about in the cafeteria! =] gorrell said he'd help me make more meal plans this weekend. i've only had time to think out one complete plan, so yes, i've been eating pretty much the same thing for five days now. it's kind of sad.

i should go. i believe that we're having another settlers tourney tonight. this could well become a weekly thing. now, if only i could win!

ohhhhh, it's already been a long week. and it's only halfway over.

today i awoke to a beautifully white world. i guess it wasn't beautiful for everyone, since i heard that over one hundred flights were canceled at o'hare. you'd think that chicago would be used to this weather!!

still lots of reading to do. when will it end???

well, it's been a crazy week. i'm pooped. i reached today and just didn't want to do anything but be in my quiet apartment, chilling after the chaos. it was only a four day week, but it seemed sooo long. and i have a lot to do this weekend still. one problem is that i joined a class on tuesday, which meant that i had missed the first two classes, and i was already two hundred pages of reading behind.

but the week definitely had its little joys as well. i saw an old friend who tried to surprise a bunch of us in the mid-west. (he'll remain nameless in case he's still on his surprising spree!) i finally got a HARMONICA, after years of wanting to try it out, as a surprise belated christmas gift (thanks kevin!!). i have a settlers rematch to look forward to tomorrow evening (joel is going down this time) and nothing planned for tomorrow except my homework. hopefully i'll be able to truly focus.

sophia is gone tonight so i'm trying to clean the perpetual mess that i've made of our room. she puts up with a lot. i don't know where everything comes from!! now i think i need to go to sleep. it's midnight, and i'm still pooped.

i am sore.

i'm back! snow camp was great. we were in rural indiana, next to a beautiful lake and surrounded by trees and fields. the wheaton group spent a lot of time together, and i believe that a new settlers rivalry has emerged from this weekend. i saw some old friends, including beth, whom i've not seen since graduation!

now i have volumes and volumes of reading to do.

hi friends. i'm back at college and trying to type quietly (if that's possible) because sophia is still asleep. it's 7:30am and i've only been awake for an hour. i got back on sunday, went to sleep at 7:30pm, and subsequently woke up at 4am on Monday. I did have to take a "nap" yesterday from 6-9pm, but managed to get back up until midnight. so i believe that i'm on the road to healing. yes, if i can defeat jet lag, so can you, my friends. so can you.

it's strange being back. everything is starting up very quickly, and my friends and i are definitely beyond the stage of being really super excited to be back at college and away from the family, which was more prevalent i think in the underclass dorm. now we're all pretty much honest with each other and just say that we miss our families and don't always feel like there's a purpose to being here and away from them.

i am excited about my classes. between the beginning and the end of my nap yesterday i pretty much decided to drop one of my classes. it would be interesting, but it's totally for fun, and i just don't think that i can swing 18 hours and four straight classes three days a week. but now i've got to try to sell one of the books to somebody, because i don't think that it's returnable.

i have almost five hours until my first class. what to do?

writing from turkey. it's crazy being here. i realized that i've missed being in a "non-western" country. it has been awhile since i've seen anything other than american, germany, etc. i'm seeing some old friends and feeling very old, surrounded by tons of younger children and actually IN CHARGE of a room of them! it's a new feeling.

we leave for germany early early early friday morning. as in, we have to be at the airport by 4:45am, and it takes half an hour to get there, and that's just ugly. i go home on sunday. it's surreal. i'm not sure that i'm prepared for this.

hi, folks.

today we drove several hours down to Jungfrau in Interlocken, Switzerland. it was SO BEAUTIFUL. we weren't able to take the cog train up the mountain, for time reasons and also because they jacked the price up sky high. but just to be surrounded by those snow-covered mountains, frozen waterfalls, and german chalets...i'd love to return when it's green. that must be incredible.

it's snowing again. i love snow. I hope that it snows and snows and snows. and then snows some more. i still haven't gone sledding...but i HAVE schooled dad in settlers. hahaha (evil, sinister laugh). tomorrow is the last day of the year! that means that i start a new journal on sunday! and that i'm going to mr. kent's for what i expect to be an incredible, i'm-going-to-talk-about-this-for-the-rest-of-my-life partay with the alumni!

holy COW. only three more days left until 2006!!

today we got buckets and buckets of snow. and it's still snowing! so we might get buckets more. tomorrow morning rachel and i are going to go sledding. everyone is invited. today i went to lorrach for the first time, and that was fun. i went glasses shopping with dad, which is always an adventure. the sales clerks probably get a kick out of us, arguing over which frames we think look good/bad. i think i'm turning european. i had roasted chestnuts for the first time EVER. and dad and i got our hair cut in kandern. the girl who cut mine had really short brown hair with a large shock of purplish red in the front. kind of scary for someone who is entrusting her hair into the hands of someone who doesn't even speak english, but, thankfully, there was a pretty happy ending to this adventure. and now i don't quite look like orlando bloom in lord of the rings (which is who my dear sister said i resembled a few days ago).

if you haven't seen the real life version of cat in the hat, you should. i thought it was absolutely hilarious.