I've been wanting to write for awhile...

but I just couldn't find the words to say.  Let's see if I can catch all the thoughts floating around in my head for a minute and put them into words.  I think I need to go all the way back to saturday.  That was the big day for springfest.  I spent the morning in the room just relaxing since I was not feeling the best last week.  But then Laura and Emily got me out of the room and we went to Ferrell for their activities which included henna.  I let them talk me into getting a small butterfly on my foot.  While there I saw Joey and he told me that Julie and Rube were going to be there soon.  It was exciting have it actually confirmed that they were on their way and not just seeing facebook status about being excited to come to bc.  So they did come, eventually, finally around dinner time and we had lots of fun catching up with Julie, Rube, and Rube's facebook official girlfriend Kayla.  After dinner I observed as others enjoyed the various inflatables set up for our amusement.  Then it was time for a little tour of campus and back to the inflatables.  Our second trip had the added entertainment factor of Rube ripping his pants.  But the fun didn't stop there.  There was an irish band giving a concert in the bishop fink parking lot but they really weren't that exciting so we changed for the cooler evening weather and soon headed over to the focus dance party.  That was really a lot of fun and we were there for hours just dancing the night away.  Sorry Rube and Kayla who were very tired and just wanted to be back on campus asleep, but we had to take advantage of there actually being something to do other than sitting around playing cards or watching movies or something like that.

Once we got back from the dance it was time to watch the beatification of JPII.  It was pretty cool.  Really late, or early maybe, and we were super tired but I think it was worth it to see the picture unveiled and the million people there at the vatican cheering and crying and celebrating the life of this holy man.  After that though it was definitely time for bed and we slept long enough to barely make it to brunch before spending an afternoon "studying" Well actually the others pretended to study while I went to the last mental prayer and interior life talk of the semester.  I have really enjoyed these talks and even though I have not been able to consistently apply what I have learned to my life, I hope that someday I can say that I have.  I can already say that the times when I have done some mental prayer and meditation type stuff I definitely could tell the difference in my life.  I was happier and more at peace with myself and everything going on around me.  I want so badly to know that feeling all the time, but let's face it, that's easier said than done.

I would have like to go to mass with the archbishop sunday morning but that was incompatible with my decision to stay up to watch the beatification.  So I went to 8pm as usual and it was still really nice.  The choir sang two songs that I love and get stuck in my head frequently, one because I have it in my itunes and listen to it regularly and the other...well I never know why so it was nice to have the excuse of having heard it recently.  These songs are christ is risen and let all mortal flesh keep silence respectively. Love!  And then we got Blessed John Paul II medal holy cards - legit!  And to round off the night Laura needed to watch the little mermaid so Emily came over and watched that with us.

Monday and Tuesday were my last day of classes as a freshman.  Wow.  Where did the time go?  The last days were definitely good days though.  World civ and bio were really short as the professors just let us ask questions about the final.  Then in psychoed we watched the last movie and voted on the illegitimate oscar...and team cafe won!  That's me by the way.  Our group and the movie we created won the illegitimate oscar and our photos will hang on the wall of that classroom all of next semester.  Epic!  To make the day even better, we got our in class essays back in logic and nature and I think I got the highest praise I have ever seen this professor give.  All of this might come off as a little proud, but I don't mean to be the bad kind.  It just made my day to have her write that she enjoyed reading my essay.  It's always really exciting to get an A on something in that class because I thought I would have a tough time with it.  And even though I never really like going to the class, I appreciate the effort that my professor took to organize the way she presented the material in a way that really made sense.  And even though she was kind of awkward and unfunny I think she really tried to give everyone the best chance of succeeding in the class.  Her criticism of papers and such were not always very nice, but it was helpful and I love that she was willing to take the time to read over drafts of our papers before we turned them in for real.  Well that was me possibly being the first to have something good to say about logic and nature.

Now tuesday being my last bio lab meant it was time for the bio lab exam.  I think I did ok on the multiple choice though there were way more fruit questions than I thought there would be.  I may be from Illinois and have lived in a town full of random cornfields my entire life but that doesn't mean that I know how to classify it under a specific fruit or nut category.  We also had to label rat parts and bones on a skeleton made of real human bones that hangs in the lab.  I was ok with the rat except for the male reproductive parts...I just really didn't know what a couple of the things were.  And then as far as the skeleton goes, I'm pretty sure I mixed up the radius and the ulna which makes me mad.  And I'm second guessing myself on whether the foot bones that were labeled were actually the tarsals like I thought or if they might have been metatarsals.  Oh well.  Then that afternoon in spanish we got our papers back.  I did ok.  But not as well as I would have liked.  And looking over the corrections she made, if I would have spent more time on it I probably could have caught a lot of the mistakes.  Oh well.  She hadn't finished grading all of the papers yet so she let us go after she passed them back and Lynette and Ean and I celebrated by walking to snowball.  It was a beautiful day and ice cream is always delicious, especially coming from snowball, one of atchison's hidden treasures.  It was a great day for desserts because at dinner that night there were cookies and they were actually soft!  After dinner Emily and I practiced talking in spanish.  I love my spanish major friends.

But then it was time to study...well other people studied anyway.  I've recently been giving lectures on the evils of studying too much.  My personal belief is that the number of hours studied and the amount of information you will be able to recall on an exam make an exponential graph.  At first, even studying a short time, you gain a whole lot of knowledge, but after awhile the amount of information you are retaining just sort of evens out and you reach a point where you are not really making much progress anymore.  So don't freak out about it.  Just relax and feel confident that you know the information.  It is completely unnecessary to study for 5 hours every day for a week leading up to one exam in one particular class.  That might be a slight exaggeration, but I feel like there are people who spend soooo much time studying.  I really don't think I'm smarter than them.  All I do is pay attention in class and take good notes.  I'm not going to lie, I have a good memory, but I don't think people that don't have as good of a memory need to make up for it by adding a dozen hours of study time.  I have never been and will never be one of those people that spends an entire day in the library with a collection of study guides.  If that's what works for you I don't mean to put you down but sometimes it gives me a headache to think about the amount that some people feel they need to study.  I don't mean to be pompous either.  There are times when I know I should have studied more, and I recognize that my classes are not nearly as difficult as some others.  I thank God that most things academic seem to come pretty easy for me and I pray for those that need to take some extra time in the library through the intercession of St. Joseph of Cupertino and St. Thomas Aquinas.

I told you I had a lot to say didn't I?

This morning I had my spanish final which I think went well.  She has essay exams but I don't think she really likes reading them because she never wants more than 2, 4-8 sentence paragraphs.  And this time she told us she only wanted a paragraph and a half...so 12 sentences at most?  Entonces, my essays are not very in depth, but I think that's ok.  Grab and go for lunch and called my mom and now here I am.  Hopefully will be motivated to study logic and nature.  Not likely.  But I don't really have a choice.  So I will study.  Eventually.

I read a really awesome passage from Rediscovering Catholicism last night.  I'm sure I've said that before because every part of that book is really awesome.  At least the first 60 or 70 pages that I've read were.  But I think my thoughts on that will require their own post.  I'm still thinking on it.  And this is plenty of reading for one day.  I definitely made up for the handful of days without posting.

update**** I'm also listening to Josh Groban right now and am so excited to see him in concert the 20somethingth of may!  And ¡Feliz cinco de mayo a todos! Especialmente mi amiga Julia