Reprieved!

The bad news first: I was late for my first class, missed two out of ten in our morning quiz, missed breakfast, and was sleepy all day.

Now the good news: I don't have any tests, papers, quizzes, or writing assignments for the rest of the week! I think that deserves a moment of silence. Or thunderous applause. Or at least, its own paragraph.

So, after getting to bed at 3 am, I was lucky to wake up today at 8, with an entire hour to finish the writing assignment I wasn't quite able to get through last night. Mom drove me to school, I printed up my assignment, raced to class, and spent most of it leafing through the pages of my mostly unmarked copy of All the Pretty Horses trying to remember where I read what and who said what. Don't get the wrong idea - I did read ALL of the book, but it was about two weeks ago, and I still have a hard time marking my books up, especially my new books. On the upside, I got a quiz back with 15/10 on the first book we read, Last Buckaroo :)

After class, I was planning to go work on my Civil War prospectus (proposal for a research paper), but found myself heading up to the Marriott Center while I read The Meadow by James Galvin. I got there just in time to hear the tale end of a choir piece which sounded really fabulous. The speaker was Kim B. Clark, a General Authority who Mom says is the current president of Brigham Young University Idaho. He gave a nice talk about pride and avoiding it (we got into a big argument about it over family dinner, coincidentally - all of us are apparently too proud to let anyone else have the last word in any debate). I tried to pay attention but found my mind wandering a lot, thinking about all the things I had to do that day, and that week, and how I would ever get through them all.

After Devotional, I ate lunch and finished collecting my sources for the prospectus, which I then printed up. I did my Civil War reading - oddly, I have no problem marking up my by now well-battered copy of Lincoln and Civil War America - and headed off to class, which was fantastic as usual except for a most annoying buzzing sound that tortured our ears throughout the 4 or 5 minute clip from the Ken Burns documentary our teacher showed us about the battle of Shiloh. After class, I was pleasantly surprised to get a reading quiz - one which I had particularly been unhappy with - back with a check mark on it, meaning I got full points. It was, however, accompanied by the abrupt and cutting remark "borderline on Lee," which, I fear, severely devalues my reputation as an honorable Southerner. (But in my defense, he gave us only about 4 minutes to write paragraph-length responses about Lee AND Lincoln - so really, what examples do you think spring to mind first?)

After Civil War class, I went straight home. I haven't been home before dark in a LONG TIME, and it was definitely nice. I intended to get some work done, but I was really too tired to do anything besides read some more in my exciting library book and fall asleep. Then it was time for dinner. Then I helped walk our dog Teddy, just to enjoy the cool, windy weather, and then I watched "Amazing Grace." It was a good film and I enjoyed it a lot, particularly since my mind has been on these issues of late. I didn't find it as realistically and emotionally compelling as "A Man for All Seasons," (which we watched in film class last Wednesday) but it's still well worth watching.

Well, I'm off to bed to catch up on sleep and get ready for a busy day tomorrow. I have a lot of reading to do for my Emerson and film classes and grading to do for my Humanities classes and writing to do for all my classes. Oh, and I haven't washed my hair since Saturday. Uh...yeah. Perhaps I'd better...yeah.