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This represents what I feel like right now...



Model credit to Laura Ebeling.

I cannot concentrate on homework anymore, so this is the next best, semi-productive alternative.

In two and a half weeks I will be an official Junior in college with roughly 5 semesters until graduation. It's coming to the halfway point in my college career. Oh mane Mr. Muldowney! I don't feel mature enough for this to be true. The consensus is that life is good stuff. So much has happened this semester; I haven't even been able to record it all in the multiple journals I've filled up. But as a rough recap...here are ten crucial points from my experience at BYU during Winter Semester 2011, not in order of importance or chronology:

1. I attended a mostly authentic, slightly "Mormonized," Seder meal with my Shoah (Holocaust) class and partook of the strongest horseradish I have ever had. My throat and stomach didn't stop burning until the next day. On a scale of 1 - 10, it was 11.

2. I mastered the passive voice in German, which enabled me (with luck) to take the German Proficiency Exam and do well enough to get into GERM 302, rather than the more popular placement for 202 students, 301. One less class to take!

3. Being made a lead design assistant has been a great experience, wonder of wonders. The new project has not been too difficult to pick up and my team is full of awesome, patient people.

4. Mild insomnia has become the second greatest bane of my existence, the first being laziness, and it has not helped me too much in the health department. But both of these "plagues" are resolvable with action and time, so I'm not too concerned about them lasting forever.

5. I watched the first two sessions of General Conference and cannot wait for Sunday's sessions.

6. Laura and I had what may be our last photo shoot. We're getting so old these days (I mean, I'm practically not a teenager anymore), and she is going to be to be putting in her mission papers at the end of April with the hope of leaving in August.

We make an awesome duo.



As much as we've talked about her going on a mission, it didn't hit me until we were eating dinner the other night and I suggested we take a class together next fall...

aaah bitter sweet



7. Jamie visited Provo to inspect BYU's music program. It was a rather pleasant surprise to have him show up at my door that Friday evening.

8. Participating in the English Student Advisory Council was cool, on top of not being super time consuming. We only had a couple of meetings. It was nice to voice my opinions (however uninformed) and my concerns. Plus knowing that our comments were making a difference was nice.

9. I got to watch the Martha Graham Dance Company perform at BYU, thanks to the generosity of my roommate. It was amazingly amazing.

10. It's almost over.

And after reviewing the wonderfulness of life, I think I'm revived enough to get some more homework done.