Freedom, real freedom

As I write this I am a free man. Free from school, free from finals, free from work. For the next two weeks at least. This week I fought my way through four finals to finish out the school year by Wednesday. Monday morning found me at the JSB by nine o'clock for Biology, during finals week they convert the large auditorium here into an extra testing center for large section classes like American heritage, Physical science and Biology. I really dislike it thought because its pretty cramped and dark in there, and you can't have food an drink, so that really kinda kills my orange soda. But the test went well and it looks like I will escape my last science course with an A-. The rest of monday was spent completely engaged in studying for History, I met up with Elizabeth part way through as she studied for living prophets. I finally made it to the regular testing center at around four, thank goodness lines were small (it seems everyone decided to take religion monday because the lines in the Wilk were atrocious). I was abhorred to find that much of the multiple choice questions contained topics not listed on the study guide, I escaped with an 82, and can only hope my writing portion will raise that. I exited the testing center and ran for work. It was the last night with the whole crew from this semester since Allison left town Wednesday morning.

Tuesday morning was studying and then at 11 I took Pl Sc 150 in class. It was all short answer and essay, so its really impossible to know how it went, but it felt ok. Upon finishing that I began preparation for Pl Sc 200 the next day. Tuesday night Elizabeth and I went to the dollar theater for a study break and saw the Guardians of Ga'hoole.

Wednesday was my last final for the year, Pl Sc 150, it was pretty crazy to have finally finished that whole class. I walked out of the building and let loose a Dave Ramsey "FREEDOM" yell. What a beautiful feeling.

Thursday Elizabeth and I went to the temple and did baptisms and confirmations in the morning which was really nice. Most of the rest of the day was spent cleaning and packing and hanging out.

Friday morning it was off for Colorado with Gordy and Brooke. I stayed the night at Brooke's parents house in Peetz and Saturday it off to Sterling for my buddy David's wedding. Sunday it was church back in the Sterling ward.

Well folks, there's the week for ya.

FREEDOM! . . . oh, wait.

So, it was good week.The cross-fire was still raging, but somehow I made it through. Not too much exciting news to tell however.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning were swallowed by the Hist 201 secondary source analysis, which was on Medieval warfare. With small efforts here and there to start tabulating the survey results and begin that paper.

Monday before work I went to the Carl Bloch exhibit at the Museum of Art here on campus. BYU currently has on lease five of his Alter Paintings which are just fantastic as well as dozens of his smaller works and study pieces. Interestingly I was there for Pl Sc 150 on an assignment I could have done all year to analyze an art exhibit for political influence.

Tuesday I did take opportunity to attend the devotional with Elder Halstrom of the presidency of the 70.

The Hist Paper went in after our last class with Dr. Davis Wednesday afternoon and then everything turned to the survey before work. After work it was over to Hilary's for more work on the paper and briefly over to Elizabeth's and back home for more paper.

Thursday morning I was at it again and had finished everything except the appendix by the time I went to my last New Testament class. We were finishing with the Resurrection. I was sad to see this class end as it had been a very enjoyable one for me. After that it was off into the periodicals to make the appendix and proof read with Hilary. Then we printed, which ended up being no small matter, and triumphantly put out last papers in the big wooden box in the bottom of the SWKT. What a feeling of sweet freedom as I walked out of that building. That night is was off to see the Voyage of the Dawn Treader midnight showing in 3D with Liz. It was a very good movie and, I thought, a nice adaptation of the book.

Friday morning the feeling of relief was gone as if finally started settling in that finals was really coming next week. It was immediately off to a review for Hilary and I with Dr. Cooper to review statistics and most of the course for the year. Then I went to a biology review with one of the TA's.

Saturday I went to a Pl Sc 150 study group with "the Party" which is what six of us who sit by each other call ourselves(for political party incase you didn't get that). Most of the rest of the day was spent making flash cards and reviewing.

Well wish me the best of luck and all that. No matter what happens at this time next week I will be home.

For mom's pleasure here are some pix of last week at Temple Square.

The post-Thanksgiving cross-fire

Well last week, of which their is no blog post, was really the eye of the storm. I had a wonderful time at home for the holiday, it was great to be with my family again. Then it was time to return to the hurricane

Sunday last I returned back to Utah with the Schumachers in Jessie's trusty, bright blue Explorer "Dora" who braved the Wyoming snows. We were fortunate and made it through with only hitting a couple bad patches. After I had arrived home David sent me a txt asking me to check the mail for his mission call, I did and there it was, on his way home David was able to spread the word and soon our apartment was full of excited friends and family, and Texans via skype. David received a call to the California Long Beach mission, which oddly enough is a mission he once lived in and where much of his extended family resides. Sunday night late some good news came through my email from professor Cooper of Poli Sci 200, he and his family were stranded outside of Utah county by the blizzard and he had to cancel class the next morning.

So Monday another email came through saying that because of class being canceled and several TA's not being able to get back as well, our regression assignment was moved back to Wednesday at five instead of Tuesday, huzzah!, since I had accomplished nearly nothing over the break. A lot of work was done that day in between classes and work.

Tuesday was laundry day and also the Dance departments devotional. The laundry was rather boring, the devotional was amazing. My old roommate Tyler Walker is a member of the folk dance team and they really did an amazing job. Like normal New Testament was my only class on Tuesday, it is probably the only class that I am really sad is ending this semester. Hilary and I worked like crazy on the Regression assignments that afternoon until she had to go to class. I continued to work until Elizabeth got done with class and then we came home. More regression work until Jenn got here and then she and I went up to our co-worker Cassie's semi-final flag football game, on an icy turf intermural field. After leaving the game I went over to Elizabeth's.

Wednesday was busy and stressful. When trying to print my regression assignment I got onto a computer that would not connect to the internet, so that was concerning, fortunately I always aim for at least an hour early to circumvent any problems like this, and it got in on time. What a relief.

Thursday early morning Elizabeth and I went up to the temple and performed baptisms and confirmations for the dead. What a wonderful start to the day. Attention was then turned back to the Political Science in the Real World paper which was due the next day, and to designing survey questions for the last Poli Sci 200 paper. I am actually pretty excited about doing survey research and statistical analysis on it. After New Testament where we discussed the Atonement I went to Jenn's house where I met up with Melissa and continued homework and finally finished the paper. Later that night I was trying to read the art of medieval warfare so that I can finally write my last paper for History 201 when Jenn and Alli showed up toting a squeeze coupon for Costa Vida. Then it was off to Costa Vida with them and my roommates.

Friday was a good day. School and work were basically normal, except for Poli Sci 15o which was the last day of lecture for the course and we watched an old british sitcom "Yes, Minister" to learn about Bureaucracy. I met up with Gordy in the morning and got his and Brooke's all sports passes, and then met Elizabeth at the Marriot center so we could redeem all four of the passes for two tickets each to the BYU vs. Hawaii basketball game the next day in SLC. The Marriot was swarmed with small children coming out of Christmas around the world, but we made it through and got the tickets. That night Alli picked me and Jenn up from work then we grabbed Melissa and we headed up to Wyview to get Elizabeth, Casey and David, we were on another coupon claiming mission, this time to Sammy's for shakes. Once we got here we discovered Casey and David had not returned from the ward talent show, even though Liz informed me it had been done for over an hour, apparently they had got out their social butterfly wings and were going at it. Once they finally returned we headed out. Sammy's was packed and our group made our way to the end of the line and took sometime determining our shakes, once we finally made it to the front we were informed that the shake machine had just broken. So we took to Center street to find and alternative finding nothing there we held a council on the street and after some deliberation determined to go to In and Out. Which we did. Then we came back to our apartment where we had every intention of watching a christmas movie, after some deliberation and much searching through net flix we settled on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (which is of course not a christmas movie).

Saturday morning I had to hit a surprise assignment for Hist 201 on Aztec sacrifice (which you really don't want details and/or pictures on). In the afternoon Gordy and Brooke picked me and Liz up and off we went to SLC. We met up with the Johnson's at their home and then we went off to the energy solutions arena for the game which was a lot of fun (but the most fun was Aaron and Max). We then road the train to temple square(a rather short distance, but lots of fun for Aaron) and got to see the lights and of course take pictures as Nielsens do (none of which I have Mom, because I forgot my camera). And then back to Amy and Mikes for dinner, dessert and the nephews bed time. A very very fun night, after which Liz and I returned to my apartment and finished Cloudy With and Chance of Meatballs.

And here we are back at Sunday looking at the last week of school a head. I can't believe it's already here.

1 week, 2 of each class, 3 assignments, 4 days, 5 finals. BRING IT ON!

The pre thanksgiving blitz

So we knew starting out that this week was gonna be crazy. There was/is still so much to get done before leaving for home this coming Tuesday.

Monday kicked off the week like normal, arriving on campus at eight o'clock to read through an article on Belgium's political parties (which if you don't know anything about they are crazy. It was one of my favorite topics we've done all year) for Poli Sci 150. Then went to bio where I was politely reminded that there would be a test at the end of the week. Monday after noon Hilary and I began work on our statistics assignment for Pl Sc 200. From there it was off to work where I had a wonderful surprise visit from my nephews, whomeveryone know are the cutest nephews in the world.

Tuesday found us finishing the statsassignment (which incidentally was the easiest assignment all year) and turning it in. Tuesday night Elizabeth and I went to fat cats, where we had dinner at costa vida and collected our free bowling game courtesy of the BYU football team scoring over 30 points against UNLV.

Wednesday was another busy day of class and work. In the afternoon Hilary and I attended a speech on the constitution which was part of a convention being held this week. Hilary had to go for class, and I just like that kind of thing. Wednesday I began to seriously work on my next paper for Pl Sc 150 on applying comparative politics to the real world. I am using the elections in Myanmar for my event and I had found several articles from the NYT earlier which I started analyzing. The thing about all of this is that I really do like school, I find the work I do fascinating, it just tends to be stressful.

Thursday was very busy, especially for a Thursday, most of the morning was spent getting as much done on the paper as possible because immediately following New Testament I had to go to the FHSS writing lab to have my paper looked over. From the lab I shot over to the Benson building for a bio test review then bounced over to the SWKT for a statistics review with Prof. Cooper. After that I met up with Hilaryand whipped through the practice assignment, which including entering a large number of variable data into SPSS, for Friday, and then we were off to PLSA's law student panel. Which was very good, plus the part where they fed us costa vida.

Friday was test preparation amidst my classes, at three I was coming to the testing center randomly met up with David(roommate) and Megan(FHE sister) we briefly commiserated over our individual tests. Then it was off to the vending machine for my orange soda and up to the music room to take the test. I got an 89 on the multiple choice, so it wasn't too bad. From the testing center I went down the hill to the elms to visit with Jenn and Melissa. Jenn and I then went to work where we were short a person all night and had to work like crazy. After work Elizabeth came and picked me and Bekka and Bekka's friend Victoria to go to the ward roller skating activity. It was the first activity I've been to all year because of work, but since it didn't start until ten I was able to go. It was a total blast.

Saturday the morning was spent working on the biology term paper on aspartame. Then it was off to the football game with Cody. It was a cold day at Levell Edwards Stadium as the cougars took on new mexico. We were located in portal t right in the corner where BYU's tunnel is. Elizabeth joined us at the stadium after kickoff. For the only time all year Gordy and Brooke's tickets were on the same side of the stadium as mine, so at half time Elizabeth and I were able to go visit with them for a little. The cougars ended up winning 40 to 7, domination despite the refs.

Later Saturday David went to the Basketball game with Jenn and Co. afterward they all came back to our place when the cougars were dominating incredibly.

well thats it for this week. Next week: I'll be HOME!

Roomates, and bad things, come in threes

Well this week struck each member of our apartment with misfortune, one by one. My started off the earliest when I started getting sick Monday night. By Tuesday Morning things were not going well, so I stayed on campus for only a small portion of what I usually do, trying desperately to finish the Quantitative research design for Poli Sci 200. Fortunately I have wonderful friends who lent there services throughout my sickness to help me get better. Wednesday I was worse, but I couldn't miss class. In the afternoon Hilary and I finished our designs and turned them in, and I did not go to work so I could get some rest. Thursday was better but still under the weather.

Friday I was feeling better, only the cough was hanging around. I was able to go to work, which was crazy because dance sport was going on, along with like a million other events. Fortunately they had decided to keep the store open later and so other people had signed up for later shifts and they were closing, so I left at nine thirty. After I got home Elizabeth came over and we watched Wall-e, which was like the last movie I saw before going on my mission. So that was fun.

Saturday was when the rest of the disasters struck. The day was mostly uneventful Bryan(Elder Phillips) and I went to the temple in the afternoon which was very nice. In the evening we went over to Jenn's house for dinner with her and Allie, however when Casey and I arrived(on bike, in the cold) Casey discovered that he had lost his keys, hence problem number two. We had a wonderful time with them(David arrived later) and a wonderful meal and movie. It was when Casey and I arrived home before David that something was not right(David had his sisters car) when David got back he explained to us that his car had been booted at the elms and he had been fined to get it off. Not the most pleasant end to the night.

However we all look forward with longing to Thanksgiving and the joy we will have when we go home. Well folks thats it for this for this week.

Have a good one.

A short space to breathe

Well this week was a little more chill than things have been the past couple. So If your looking for something exciting this is probably not the greatest post.

Monday was a normal busy day, Casey and I have been taking a dreamweaver class(a website design program) together, and Monday we learned how to put in flash graphics and rollover menus.

Tuesday I attended an excellent devotional by Elder Costa of the presidency of the seventy about Ships being safe in the harbor but that not being what ships are made for. After a week of not having New Testament Bro. Wayment was back and we began the gospel of John. *warning: in the next sentence I will pat myself on the back, if you don't want to read this skip to the next paragraph* Before class started Bro. Wayment says how he likes to curve his exams by making the highest score in the section the total points possible, so he rights the new points possible up on the board and low and behold it was my score! So that bumped my 96% to 100%.

Tuesday night I watched a movie for extra credit in biology called Expelled, No intelligence allowed. About the debate between evolution and intelligent design. After I finished that I spent the rest of the night watching coverage of the election results.

Wednesday the sad news was that I completely forgot about dreamweaver class so I missed learning how to create hyperlinks.

Thursday Cody attempted to help me and Hilary figure out the practice assignment for Pl Sc 200 since it involved math which we are pretty poor at, thank goodness for friends. That night I attended a lecture by a BYU alum from Noter Dame on religion and politics. It was quite good.

Friday was a very busy day starting out at 6:20 in the morning when I went to the ward temple trip, a very pleasant way to start the day. Then it was off for the usual marathon of classes until work. Somewhere in between I visited Prof. Cooper to talk about the next large assignment due next week for Pl Sc 200.

Then it was off for a busy night of work. There were about 500 events going on on campus that night, not the least of which was divine comedy nest door in the varsity theater. We ended up getting cross rushed by those coming out of the first show and those going into the second right before close. We had one large angry man who did not appreciate his smoothie, but if he wanted something sugary then ordering off the Jamba light menu was probably not the best idea. Fortunately I still caught the bus. Elizabeth and Becca came over after I got home to watch a movie, and when Elizabeth said something about us going to the temple earlier I just looked at he and was like "was that today?"

Saturday was an excellent day. One of the great parts was the football game where we stomped UNLV(elder Bowman's school) 55-7, the team was looking great. Cody and I stayed through the whole thing even though a lot of people left in the third quarter. We had great seats in the south end zone(right where the new student section has been proposed for next year), where a lot of touch downs took place. I spent the afternoon looking through FBI crime reports. @ 7 Jenn and roommates, Melissa and Allie, came and picked us up and took us out bowling, which Casey dominated, he and I were the only ones to go over a hundred. It was cosmic bowling so were going to blame it on the lighting. Then we came back and watched August Rush, a fun night all things told.

Well its Sunday again and looks like a busy week a head of me. Hope you all have a great and wonderful week.

Papers, tests, piggies, ice skates and ...murder?

Well it was a full week for me here in Provo. Started out on Monday pulling together the paper on Political cleavages for my comparative politics class. Turned it in at 11 o'clock that night with an hour to spare. When I got home after work Casey said something about having lemon cake at family home evening. Well I love Megan's lemon cake so I shot a text off to mommy Daniel to see if there was any left. She answered saying that I could come and get some at the same time Selina asked me on facebook if I wanted some apple cake. Fortunately they are roommates and I was able to have both :)

Tuesday was cram day on the qualitative design for Pl Sc 200, it was due at five and since I didn't have New Testament this week, after I did laundry Hilary and I spent most of the day finishing them. What a relief it was to finally have them done. To reward myself I decided to go see Despicable Me since it was dollar night. I sent out a mass text and at first I thought there were a bunch of people coming, but gradually they flaked off until it was just me and my friend Jackie, fortunately we are the only members of the awesome club, so we just made it a club activity.

Wednesday it was back to class and work all day, trying to get in a little studying for my bio and Pl Sc 200 exams. I believe it was Wednesday that I finally did my voting but I'm not sure.

Thursday was a lot more studying during the day and then it was off to the temple with my Elders quorum. Three of us went and did baptisms which was something I haven't done in a long, long time. It was a very busy night at the Provo temple.

Friday morning on my way to the crabtree after bio I turned on the Eye of the Tiger to prepare myself for the midterm in 200. Unfortunately you cannot have orange soda in the auditorium where we have class, but I think I still did ok. Then there were more classes to go to and finally off to the testing center for Biology. This time the vending machine that sells orange soda was broken! imagine my frustration, so I got a sprite and went to work. I felt pretty good about it and got a 90% on the multiple choice, and this time I made sure I finished all the short answer, so I it should be better than the last exam. After finishing the test I ran down to Jenn's house in the elms to enlist her help in my halloween costume for work that night. We were the three little pigs and the big bad wolf, since I work with three girls I was the wolf. After work finished around 9:30 Lyndi and I had to change out of our costumes so we could go on our double date. Lyndi went with my old roommate Tyler, who picked us up from the Wilk. Then we went back to Wyview and picked up Elizabeth and then it was off to the Peaks ice arena for a wonderful ice skating time.

Saturday I allowed myself to sleep for a while to recoup from the week. We had a building halloween activity in conjuncture with building 25 around noon. Saturday night Gordy, Brooke, and I went to Erin and Sam's for a murder mystery dinner. We had a lot of fun. I ended up being the murderer. After Gordy and Brooke dropped me off I went to the Wyview halloween dance for a little bit.

And thus ends another week in the life of Ben Nielsen.

Why hello Middletown, I didn't recognize you in your BYU shirt.

Well its been one crazy busy week. Big papers to write in both poli sci classes, a test in history and one in New Testament. God must be in the testing center because I came out of History w/ an 80 on the multiple choice which isn't great but better than I expected. Most of my time has been sucked away into the qualitative research design for Poli Sci 200 which Hillary and I spent untold of hours on this week and its not done yet. Very little else happened this week, Saturday we went to an ice cream party at Jenn's and tonight Cache and I are going to home teach Kevin. In the area of academic over achievement I visited with my advisor Lori Seely to plan what I will take next semester. she has suggested that I decide on a minor, so I guess I need to think about that. Other than that not much happened. Hope everyone had a good week.

Sorry mom, no pictures.

Two movies in one week, that's some kind of record

It was a slow week at the Y, I turned in my only paper on Monday and never visited the testing center, this is probably why I had time to see two movies, which makes the record for the most movies in a week since I returned home.

here's the run down, Monday was a little crazy getting the paper in and then of course work. Disaster struck when I dropped my cell phone and the chocolate broke once more along its former crack. Fortunately it still turned on and the rest of the nice was spent looking for adhesive to make a temporary fix, it finally came in the form of packing tape supplied by my friend Gentry. Tuesday was laundry day and devotional, New Testament and home work like normal, then Tuesday evening Cyndi and I went and saw Toy Story 3 which was of course amazing, and then got ice cream from the creamery. That's movie number 1. Wednesday was uneventful school and work, my friend Bianca said at History that she might be able to find an old phone that I could use, she called me after work to let me know she had. Thursday morning it was off to the temple bright and early to do sealings which was marvelous. Then it was off on my ripstik to campus to meet Hilary to study and then meet Bianca to get the phone, thank goodness for that. I had no classes on thursday because New Testament was canceled. Thursday afternoon Selina and I went to the farmers market at the stadium on our way home. Friday was a full day of class and work after which we watched How To Train Your Dragon, which came out on video that day. It was a really good one as well, we had a bunch of people over to watch it. That's movie number 2. Saturday's big event was going to dinner at Gordy's w/ the Johnsons. I had a lot of fun playing with Aaron and Max the cutest nephews in the world. Well that's gotta be it for another week. Sorry no pictures

Home coming week and gun control

Well I'm going to try to make this a little shorter than last week. Most of my time outside of class this week was spent working on a large assignment forPoli Sci 200 finding and reading sources on gun control, a somewhat monotonous task.

The only thing I had to do in the testing center this week was a map quiz for History 201 which my friend Bianca and I studied for on Wednesday and after some searching I found a cite online which would allow me to make my own map quizzes to study, whichI then generously provided to the rest of the class. While the quiz scores have not come back yet I feel pretty confident in that.

To balance out the studying, and last weeks frantic pace this week was homecoming. Some of the highlights for me were the opening ceremonies which took the place of devotional, it included the marching band and the young ambassadors as well as several speakers;

after the opening ceremonies Hilary, Rob and I all stood in line to receive free J-dogs in Brigham Square; Tuesday night I hiked to light the Y, which is where the Y on the mountain is ringed with lights for homecoming week, with Selina and we ended up gettingleft behind by the shuttle vans so Gordy had to come rescue us from the base and take us back to campus.

Saturday was of course the football game, Cody and I had tickets behind the north endzone from which vantage point we were able to observe the improved cougars against the Aztecs. It was heartwarming to see that under Bronco's leadership we again have a defense.

I left the game, which was won by us 24-21, at half time to get everything ready for the dance that night. Rob and his friend Shay doubled with me and Selina and we went to the Discovering music through the ages dance in the Wilk ballroom, with a detour prior to that to the Angels of Philly steak shop on center street, which is owned by the son of a woman from the Widener branch where I served for six months, so the steaks were legit. The whole night was a lot of fun.

And that should put another week in the books folks, have a great one!

Politics, Bio, and General Conference

This week started out as one of the most stressful. There just wasn't going to be enough time to do everything, a test in comparative politics, a theory and hypothesis paper do in research and writing, a test in biology, and a writing assignment on early civilization writing in world history. and trying to set things up for homecoming. All this on top of the normal amount of homework in a given week. But through the grace of God who must be in the Testing Center, it turned out everything went fine.

I knew I would have to take my comparative politics test on tuesday and had no idea what to expect because my teacher is brand new just graduated from UCLA. I downloaded a flash card program to my palm pilot and franticly started studying on Monday. Dr. Preece informed us that she had removed the multiple choice section from the test, there went my only glimmer of light. Classes and studying took up all of Monday in addition to the time spent writing the poem for homecoming. Before going to work my FHE group showed up on campus going to the game center to go bowling and they had a spiritual thought with me before I ran to work. After work I ran to the library and attempted to find my way to the room where a group from my class was studying for the test, after finding them I discovered that the group wasn't getting much done and soon everyone disbanded to purse academic achievement on there own.

Tuesday morning was absorbed in studying until I rolled up to campus on my ripstik for devotional. At the Marriot I talked w/ Casey for a while at portal H where he holds down the fort as event staff, I then claimed a set of seats w/ my ripstik and backpack and waited for my friends to arrive while reviewing flash cards on the palm. After Devo I grabbed lunch w/ a couple friends, Robbie and Emily and then, after grabbing a blue book, it was off to New testament where we finished the temptations of Jesus and began the sermon on the mount. New Testament is always an interesting time. Well from the JSB I just went over to the testing center and after receiving my orange soda from the vending machine in the entry way I stood in line to face my doom. Once out of line and with the ominous document in hand I made my way upstairs to the music room. I settled down in my desk, arranged test, scratch paper, blue book and orange soda, and bowed my head in prayer. Now because it was short answer, long answer, and essay, I don't know what score I received, but as I went page by page I was relieved as concepts flowed to my mind and onto the paper. I feel very confident in the answers I gave and left a huge load in the testing center that day. Later on my companion Cache and I home taught our FHE mom Danielle outside the HFAC before she went to work. She and I also confirmed plans for the next day for how and when I would get into her apartment to get things ready for homecoming. Then there was more studying to do, this time with Bianca for History 201's map quiz. Tuesday night was spent trying to gather numbers on home teaching from my district and talking to roomates. I finally dropped into bed at about 1:00, but only after setting my trustee alarm for 6:00. 

Wednesday found me up at six and running like crazy to get ready for school, at seven I was at the creamery. The guy behind the counter greeted me and then came my question "You sell balloons here right?" He sadly shook his head, "Not anymore he responded." I felt everything falling apart. A desperate text left my phone to Danielle's telling her I was riding to Buy Low to see what I could find. the response came back before my bike was unlocked "Hurry" I was off like a shot. Arriving at the grocery store I locked my bike to a cart rack and ran inside, going up to the first cashier I again implored for balloons, I was informed that there were no helium balloons but that there were packages of balloons in isle 10. I looked quickly for what my new readjusted plan called for only to find that not only were there no packs of purple balloons, but there were no purple balloons in any pack. Tough go, I grabbed what I could get and after a run through the check out I was back on the bike to wyview. I stopped at my place and grabbed the poem and then I was down the hill to Danielle and Selina's apartment. Once Danielle had let me in the bag of balloons was open amidst a petition for tape, which I had foolishly left in Pennsylvania. Tape was produced and balloons were blown up and quickly constructed into a pyramid which was placed on the table and the folded poem displaying her name on the outside was taped too. And then we were off to the bus, barely making it on time. School and work slowly absorbed the rest of the day, and my paper got into the box on time. Smoothies were made, the last bus was caught and I dropped exhausted into the chair in the living room while David played the piano. and there on the table was a piece of paper, tapped onto it were popped balloons, artfully arranged to spell the word YES.

Thursday morning found me stabilizing my life once again at the Provo temple, this time doing a inititories with a group of brand new missionaries from the MTC. Then there was preperation for Bio, another class on the sermon on the mount. And a phone study session with my good friend from PA Ashley Gillette, who is majoring in bio. That night I went to a review with my biology TA to get more preped.

Friday was a busy day, fortunately I had found someone to cover my shift friday night so I could attend both my mission reunions that night, but before that could happen the major obstacle of a biology midterm reared its monstrous head. I went to class all day and then after getting my orange soda of course I settled down in the music room again with bowed head. I was very pleased with the way I felt about the test as I left the music room and dropped my bubble sheet of at the counter. In the lobby I located my ID on the screen and felt a huge relief as the word Awesome flashed across the screen. That evening I met up with Cody, Bryan and Sean and we headed for Highland and the Philadelphia reunion, complete with Cheese steaks! After a visit there we were off for Holiday for the HBG reunion. It was fantastic to see so many good friends again. Especially my mission presidents and there wives. 

Saturday marked the beginning of General Conference which just concluded, it was amazing and I truly enjoyed it. Saturday night the three of us went and got some frozen yogurt at a favorite place of mine and Casey's, The frozen spoon, w/ Selina and Danielle.

Sunday was excellent, breakfast and conference at Selina and Danielle's apartment w/ some of the FHE people. Two more great sessions of conference, and a lot to think about during the next six months.

Well that's it for this week, tune in next week folks.

Not the greatest game ever played

Well I've just decided to start posting short updates of my weeks, in between all that really exciting news I have.

So this week, in fact yesterday, I went to the BYU vs. Nevada football game at Levell Edwards stadium, conveniently located near my home. It was really rather disappointing although somewhat unexpected. I went with my mission  bud Cody Knudsen and, since to of our groupies decided homework was more important than football, my friend from freshman year Melanie Forbrush joined us at portal MM. It was a good time despite the cougs not being able to put it together. 

This week I received back my citation assignment in PL SC 200 scoring a 23.5 out of 25, turned in a revision of the first assignment and began assignment number four, theory and hypothesis, which promises to be a beast, but also really help me.

Speaking of which this week began(not for the first time) my positive look at school, I love school, I love learning, I love the environment here at the Y. so why then spend so much time complaining? There really is no reason. I don't want to miss out on the enjoyment there is to be had here. 

This week we finished a take home exam in New Testament, thanks to a mission and a good deal of time therein spent with Talmage this was none to difficult except for the question which asked for a phrase Jesus repeated in all four gospels. But I finally found that after some searching and I feel pretty confident about the exam. I also scored a 10/10 on the first quiz in that class.  

On Thursday night my good friend Hillary Matzdorf and I attended the Pre-law club opening social and joined the club. We received t-shirts(hurray!) and pizza(hurray! and none of this one slice to get you to come thing either) and heard from two of BYU's best stand up comedians.

Last Sunday I received a call to serve in the Elders Quorum of the 50th ward as a district leader over home teaching. This should be fun since home teaching is  one of my favorite things. 

So thats the week in rundown. Stay tuned for next week as I will be reentering the testing center for the first time to tackle PL SC 150 and Bio 100 in the same week.

Live long and prosper |\/|

Back from Black in Blue

Well folks, I returned from the PA Philly mission just about a month ago. They weren't kidding when they called it the best two years. It truly was. I have now returned to BYU, and consequently am searching once more for divine help in the testing center. It is good to be back. I've returned to Jamba, and I'm getting back into the swing of political science. I've traded in my black suit for a navy blue BYU t-shirt, which I wore while cheering the cougars to victory over Washington on Saturday.