Late Night Excursion

Last night, Peter, Cassie (one of my roommates), and I took an exciting trip to Chicago at 11 p.m. Cassie's boyfriend flew into the Chicago Midway Airport and we went to pick him up. Originally, Cassie and I were the only ones planning to go. However, we got a lot of snow last night and neither of us felt comfortable enough driving through it, in the dark, to a place we had never been. Peter volunteered to drive us if he could find someone to fill in for him at the computer lab. After calling several people, he finally found someone who was willing to work till 2 a.m.
For a while, we didn't think Zion's plane would even come in because rumor had it that the Chicago airport was closed. But he called around 10 p.m. and said that he was just boarding his flight from Las Vegas to Chicago and his plane would arrive as scheduled. So, after loading some emergency supplies into the car and testing the car's abilities in the snow in the Steve & Barry's parking lot, we headed onto I-80/I-90W. It's ridiculous how much it costs to travel to Chicago via toll roads! The roads ended up not being bad after we got onto some main roads. We made it to the airport safely and without getting lost at all! It was pretty amazing, especially since I was giving directions! We only waited about forty minutes for Zion's plane to come in, and his luggage followed about fifteen minutes later.
As we were leaving the parking garage, we realized that none of us had printed directions off for the return trip home. Things would have been fine had we noticed the direction we were traveling. But, we didn't. We ended up traveling north for about half an hour before we realized where we were headed. We didn't really want to backtrack, so we used the GPS on Peter's phone to find the nearest ramp onto I-94. Turns out we weren't very far from it. The ride back seemed much longer than the one to Chicago. Probably because we were all so tired. Cassie and I ended up falling asleep for part of the trip. But our night owl boyfriends didn't seem to have any trouble staying awake and alert. I guess that's a good thing.
We pulled up to Peter's dorm a little after 5 a.m. By the time Cassie and I got into bed, it was 5:30. Peter, Cassie, and I only slept for about 5 hours. Cassie could have slept in, but she's crazy and likes to get up and run in the mornings. Peter had to give a campus tour at 11 a.m. and I had a final at noon, so both of us got up out of necessity. Zion, on the other hand, didn't get up till 4 p.m. But I guess he was the one who traveled all day; plus, he only got about an hour of sleep the night before.
Although I'm pretty tired, I'm happy to be done with all of my finals and another semester of college. This semester has gone by far faster than any of the others. It's a bit scary to realize just how quickly time does go by.

Someone decided to grace the campus with toilet paper last night. They did a terrific job, except they missed the buildings. Too bad for them that they are now cleaning it all up.

Spontaneity

Peter and I decided to surprise his mom by driving out to Ohio Monday night for the elementary school Christmas program she was directing. My roommate let us borrow her car, on the condition that it comes back in one piece. So, we pooled together our resources, threw our dirty laundry in the backseat, popped in a CD, and hit the road. We made it to the school about twenty minutes before the program began. Mrs. Metzger was definitely surprised to see us! She did a wonderful job coordinating and leading the program. About halfway through, I realized how much work it must take to prepare something like that. What a daunting task - not only all the rehearsing, but also preparing all the costumes and simultaneously directing/corralling five grades! Needless to say, I was amazed. After the program, I met a few of Peter's old teachers, the principal, and the guidance counselor. I also saw part of the school building itself, including the outside of the old in-school detention center :P On our way back to Peter's house, we drove through the park and looked at the Christmas light display. Rumor has it the display wasn't as good this year as in the past. But I still liked it just fine. We drove back to school this morning, just in time for me to find out that I didn't actually have the quiz I was told I would have.

Completely changing the topic ...

This semester has flown by! I can't believe that I'm in my last week already. All of my major projects have been turned in and I taught my last lesson and turned in my last paper today. Finals start this Thursday and go through next Wednesday (at least for me). I'm looking forward to next semester, although with five education classes, I know I will be writing lesson plans like you wouldn't believe. One major change for next year is my place of residence ... I decided about a month ago to see if it would be possible for me to move into a dorm on campus. There are perks about living somewhat off campus, but when it's cold and snowing, the misery of walking to class far outweighs any benefits that might exist. It turns out two of my friends are going overseas next semester, so their room will be vacant. I will be moving into it with another girl on campus who is a freshman. I'm very excited! We visited our future room tonight and decided on furniture layout. Things look promising.

Gram ventured out in the cold for my Bethel Chamber Orchestra concert.

Probably the closest to normal family picture we got out of 24 pictures.

Mom said I didn't have very many family pictures on here, which is why I posted these. I guess I can't help taking pictures of little kids! After all, they are extremely cute.

Thanksgiving break

fun in the snow

Peter and I decided to play outside in the snow on Saturday. His mom and dad brought us some snow clothes when they came for his jazz/percussion concert the night before. We had a lot of fun! And there would be more pictures, except I kind of lost my camera in the snow for a while. Luckily we found it, but I had to take it in the house and let it dry, so I couldn't take any fun outside pictures. We ended up being outside for several hours.

This is turning out to be a very long week for me. It's only Tuesday and I'm already wishing it were over! I think the relaxing, stress free weekend at home spoiled me ....

Bethel's Got Talent

Last night, one of my friends and I played a violin duet in Bethel's annual talent show. It was kind of a random experience ... last week, we were walking back to our lockers after quartet practice when we passed the room where auditions were being held. The judges called to us from the room, asking if we would like to audition. We were like, "no, it's ok." However, by the time we actually reached our lockers, we decided it might be fun to audition, just for fun (at that time, we had no intention of actually making the cut, let alone performing on stage). So we dug through some duets, walked back to the audition room, and sight read the piece. It had to have been the ugliest thing I've ever heard. We played fine and were together the entire time, it was just ugly. Anyway, we both got emails the next day telling us what time we needed to show up for the Talent Show. We kind of got excited about it and decided to perform. Monday morning (the show was Monday night), we decided it might be a good idea to come up with a performance piece. That's right, we procrastinated. Surprise! It didn't take us too long to find a piece that sounded decent and was easy to play. We also decided to add a little variety to our performance by beginning with an awful rendition of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.' You know, let the audience think we were awful before breaking out into glorious music (don't take that last part too seriously). Well, it turns out that we were voted into the top four by the judges. The audience then voted for its favorite act, leaving us in second place! We were fairly excited ... mostly because the second place prize was $50. I wish it was always that easy to gain $25 ....

First sighting of snow

That's right ... snow ... in October ... it can't be true ... but alas, it is.

Red River Gorge

I spent Fall Break in Kentucky at the Red River Gorge with Breagan, Jasmine, Sarah K. and Kevin. We did a lot of exploring and bouldering and a little bit of actual rock climbing. The weekend passed by far too quickly. We're hoping to go back next summer for an entire week. There's so much to do! We only covered about a 2-mile radius in a forest that is hundreds of acres. The posts below show a few of the pictures from the trip.

Red River Gorge - Friday night

There was a creek behind our camping site. Jasmine and I decided to take a dip in it late Saturday night. It was pretty chilly.

Our neighbors. We thought that meetup.com was some sort of dating site, but it seems to just be a place where people can meet other people, not necessarily with romantic interests in mind. But, it was still pretty funny to listen to them talk.

We went on a late night excursion for firewood.

Listening to see if anyone was coming down the road.

The "I've got firewood" dance.

At last, a huge fire!

Red River Gorge - Saturday morning

Starting the day off right with coffee ...

and chocolate chip pancakes and bacon!

We easily conquered our first obstacle of the day.

Jasmine and I played the face game while Kevin stood victoriously on the rock.

We found a climbing wall that Breagan, Kevin, and Jasmine wanted to try. Turns out it was harder than it looked.

Kevin sliced his finger while climbing.

Kevin was nice and gave Jasmine a little boost.

Harnessing up.

Red River Gorge - after lunch...

Kevin decided to scoot down a random hole we found on the side of a hill. Initially, we really didn't know where the thing led. But it turns out there was another hole on the other side of a huge boulder a little ways down the hill.

Saturday afternoon, we decided this cliff should be our next big adventure.

We made it up to the far left corner of the cliff.

Because not all of us are as monkey-like as Breagan, he fashioned a rope ladder so we could all scramble up a section of the cliff.

Kevin misused the rope ... just a little bit.

After getting over the initial overhang, we had to traverse up a leaf covered slope. The rope helped a lot! Especially on the way down ... in the dark.

It's hard to see, but the rope attached to a tree and went down the hill. This picture shows the actual slope of the hill.

Top of the rope.

When we got to the top, Breagan decided to hang over the edge a little.

It was high.

Jasmine must have gotten bored up there or something because she started taking some crazy self portraits.

Kevin. Chillin.

We got to see part of the sunset from on top of the cliff. It was very pretty.

Our crazy 'family' photo.

Album cover 'family' photo.