May 29, 2007

Oh, what a fun day. Woke up this morning early to study for my Israeli final (MNE1). Ophir (the teacher) had given us several pages of a study guide, so after the Galilee prep last night, we had taken it, assigned 1-2 terms per person, and set aside four computers in the lab—solely to put definitions to the terms on Google Docs. I love Google Docs. How else in the world could a group of 88 students put together a study guide of over 100 terms in only one hour—from assigning out the questions to printing it out? It was amazing.

Lauren, Kathryn, Theresa and I—as roommates—sat down together and studied terms all morning. We took them up to breakfast with us and studied some more up there. Then we returned to our rooms and kept studying until time for the final. Well all held our breath—not confident that we knew nearly enough to help us pass, let alone how much we would remember for the test. We're all to the point, however, that if we pass, we will be thrilled. :) The test started. I was shocked at how much I remembered and how well I felt I did on the test. The worst part about this test, though, was the set up. Multiple choice questions—there could be more than one right answer. Let's say there were 5 answers. Anywhere from 1-5 of them were correct. And he never told you how many. Most of them only had 1 right answer. But every here and there there were 3 or 4 right answers. Argh. Those'uns you have to be sure that you know what you're talking about. It was scary.

He set aside 1 hour of the two hour block to take the final—figuring that most of us would take about that long. The look on his face as people started handing him tests back after 20 minutes was comical. (Ok, his facial expressions in general are comical. He's got a way of expressing his emotions beautifully.) After 25 minutes, he gotten over the shock as I handed him my test. He told us, however, to be sure to be back at 9. I went down to my room and finished my map for MNE2, then headed back up at 9. We all figured we'd spend the last hour talking about the test or how he could do better next time or something. Oh no. We spent the last hour in class. :D haha! He just couldn't bring himself to waste that hour. But it was good, because he spent that hour answering our questions about Judaism. Mostly clothing questions—why do people dress like they do.

The other day we were out at a site, and someone whose battery had died, or camera had broken, asked me take a picture for them with my camera. I agreed and took it. I've done this several times. Suddenly, I realized that there is no way that I'm going to be able to remember who to give what pictures to. This is a fear for most everyone, actually. How best to share pictures? I had a brilliant idea and made a decision. I opened up my file browser and started looking through every picture I've taken thus far. Then I started making a folder for every person in my group. Then, using good old copy and paste, I started putting a copy of my pictures into the folder of everyone that was inside the picture. I figure at some point, probably towards the end of the semester, I'll go around and give everyone their pictures. I think that's rather nice and generous of me, don't you think? hehe. ;) Actually, it's a little selfish. I'm kind of hoping that if I do this for other people, they'll do the same for me. Hopefully, I'll get some more pictures of me out this—since I really struggle getting myself in pictures. I just love to take pictures of other people! Oh, and of scenery. I have lots of those, too. :) Now... why do I bring this up in the middle of finals? Well, during my last hour of Ophir's class—after the final—I sat there and worked on moving pictures. It's a great mindless task. I can copy and paste without much thought (until I can't remember names or get faces confused and have to ask someone next to me) and still listen to whatever the teacher has to say. It's become a life saver when I'm falling asleep in class. :)

We had a 3 hour break between MNE1 and MNE2 finals. Problem is, at least a half hour of that is at lunch... and I hadn't started studying at all. Who knew that someone else had made up a study guide for this final? I didn't... but apparently Lauren did. So we sat in silence for awhile, going over the study guide and answering questions by ourselves, then we got together and drilled it into our heads—even at lunch. Feeling highly inadequate, we all dragged ourselves to class. I have contented myself by realizing that this simply is going to be my worst grade. Once again, the final surprised me by being easier than I expected. There were only 10 (short essay) questions on the closed book portion. I feel I had relatively good answers for all but 1 of them. The last question I honestly had no idea about. So I started blankly at it for awhile, then proceeded to make a bunch of stuff up. It was one of those educated guesses, really. It's either sort of on the money, or waaaaay off base. Ehhh.... Onto the open book section.

Let's go back to 10th grade Biology. Do you remember being given homework of "Define this term" and all you did was open up the glossary and copy the definition from there? Pure busy work, right? Welcome to the open book section of the final. It was at least 3 pages long, and each definition was a full paragraph that was long enough to send my hand into seizure-like cramps. When it wasn't definitions, it was What happened in this year? Which was answered by another paragraph in the timeline section. The last 5 or so questions were my favorites, as they could be answered with numbers and dates, also copied straight from the text. Pretty sure we'll all do well on that section, although it was highly unfulfilling and felt nothing like a final.

4.5 hours until Old Testament final. Including time for dinner. I hadn't finished reading the assigned chapters, so I went straight down to read. (There's a question on the test: "Have you done 100% of the assigned reading? If no, what percentage did you complete?" I wanted so badly to be able to answer "Yes" to that question. I wasn't too far behind, so I read until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more. Then I slept for a half hour or so, then I read until I was done. Just in time for Lindsay to come in—wanting to study with me. :D (She is among the cutest girls. I love studying with her.) So we studied for a half hour, went up to dinner, and studied through dinner. She's a lot smarter than she thinks she is. She feels so inadequate at the OT tests, but she remembers it quite well. I think she simply doesn't give herself enough credit. It was fun to study with her, and she helped me remember things, too. We studied until 7. The final officially started at 7:30, but Bro. Merrill told us he'd be there and ready at 7 if anyone wanted to come in early. By that point, I realized that anything I didn't know, I wasn't going to learn in the next half hour, so I just went in. By 7:30, I was walking back out. It's kind of weird walking out of a final as other people are walking in. Especially since they're people I often study with, so they were asking me last minute questions. It was so hard not to say things like, "You're not going to need to know that, don't worry about it." Instead, I just answered their questions about people, and showed them notes from what I studied. ~sigh. Oh well, I know at least 40% of what I told them was applicable to the test. :)

We were supposed to grade the tests that night so we'd all know how we did before Galilee, but Bro. Merrill used the wrong key to start grading. After all of us were missing the first 18 or so questions, he realized something was wrong. :D Needless to say, he didn't get the tests graded... Sometime during Galilee he says... Instead of helping to grade, I ran down to Abdul's with Theresa and a few other people to buy food for the snack bar. I worked snack bar last night. We went through over 32 ice cream bars in 25 minutes. It was ridiculous. We would have gone through more, but we had sold out. It's pure craziness. I guess we need to stock up on more at a time. Problem is, we only have so much money to buy new stock. So, we went down to buy ice cream. I half expected we'd sell out again since everyone was so glad to be done with 3 classes and the crazy day of finals. I forgot to take into account that, with no homework, everyone would want to go out. Which most of the group did. We didn't have a bad night at all, considering. I wasn't supposed to work snack bar tonight, but everyone scheduled had gone out on the town, and I love working snack bar anyway. So I worked. Like normal, it was great fun. Matt has moved his post from heckling customer to trying to talk me into cheap product while behind the counter. He figures that if he works at the snack bar, he is entitled to discounts. I disagree. I don't get discounts and I work more than anyone. Not only behind the counter, but I also count money every night. But, he's persistent. I have to admit—he works hard for the few shekels he ends up saving every night. (I told him that I wrote about him in another blog. He loved it. So I'm laughing right now as I write about him again. We'll see if he ends up reading it on his own... Matt... whenever you get around to reading this post, let me know. I want to know how long it takes you. :D)

I was going to go to bed early. I wanted to do everything in my power to keep from getting carsick on this bus ride—since we were taking the same road that I was fine through last time, but everyone else complained about. As I got ready for bed, however, my next door neighbors pulled me into a water fight out on the balcony. It started out innocent enough. Well, as innocent as dropping cups full of water onto unsuspecting victims can be. See, the Center is 8 levels, but it is built along the side of a hill, so the levels aren't directly on top of each other. Rather, it looks like a giant staircase or a massive split level. Also, with nothing directly above the halls going down to the bedrooms, it made it possible to have open air hallways. So, you have a normal hallway for awhile, until you reach two bedroom doors. Then the ceiling is open, and there is a tree and flowers planted in the middle of the hallway. It's really neat, actually. I kind of wish that I had a bedroom in the hall, simply so I could open my door and see a tree. But it's fun to be in the lobby, too. Anyway, every bedroom also has a balcony. Every two bedrooms share a balcony. Turns out, the balconies overlook the open ceiling of the hall below. I am on the third level. The second level doesn't have any occupants except for the Heyes'—one of the service couples. It does, however, house the laundry room. With Galilee the next day, everyone was doing laundry, and would walk right under where we stood on our balcony. Had they looked up, they could have seen us quite easily. Too bad for them, no one ever thinks to look up. So, as people walked under, we threw water down at them. (Now, before all the housekeepers get mad at us for throwing water into a hallway, let's look at this logically. The hall had no ceiling. When it rains, it rains directly into the hallway. I have brought my clean, dry laundry out of the laundry room, having to run through periodic spots of rainfall whenever I pass an open ceiling. These floors are made to get wet.)

The best shot was at Eli. He walked past and 3 full glasses of water hit him square on the head. I mean, can you imagine? You're walking along, minding your business, when out of the the blue colored sky, CRASH, BAM, alkazam, water comes pouring down your head. hehehe. Hiding safely under the hall ceiling just past us, he yelled up a warning, "Revenge comes fast and severely!" Within 3 minutes, water balloons were flying from his balcony (which is just one down from us, separated by only a rose garden) directly to us. Screaming, as girls do, we fled back into my neighbor's apartment. It was war. We had people go over and hide in the rose bed next to their room, throwing cups of water whenever they poked their heads out. (My favorite was when Spencer stuck his head out at the very bottom. Ashley heard the door slide open, so she turned to throw her water, but saw no one at eye level. She happened to look down and see a face on the ground, so she dropped the water right on his head. They had people go back downstairs and throw water up at us. The water came up, Collyn saw it coming and moved backwards, but she ran into someone else. By then, she thought the attack was over, so she simply rebounded off the person and looked back over the balcony, just in time to get another cup full of water right in the face. I think she ended up being the most drenched of all of us. From then on, we had people standing in the flower garden, looking into the window right there, to see who was going up and down the stairs. By this point, we knew that Cookie (aka Derek) was on the laundry room side of the hall and would have to pass by us. So, at this point, we had one person outside the boys' sliding door, one guarding the window, and at least two leaning over the balcony—waiting for Cookie. Randomly, we still got pelted with water balloons. This really befuddled us. Where were they coming from? Turns out, they had gone to the floor above and were throwing them down from the patio up there! Finally, Cookie came back. There are two open ceiling areas between the laundry room and the stairs. We heard footsteps. We got ready. We heard running. We laughed because he ran through the wrong area. More footsteps, then more running as he ran underneath us. Two glasses of water flew down. We're pretty sure we mostly missed, but it turned out ok anyway. We had covered the floor with enough water by this point, that running through is not a good idea. Right after we realized we probably missed, we heard a screech "Oh crap!" hehehe. After awhile, we finally gave up and went back to packing.

We had clean checks the next day, and I had agreed to wash windows. We tried to use towels last time, with no success. This time, I had a stroke of genius. I ran up to a public bathroom to grab paper towels! The computer lab was open. It was too tempting. I got online. I didn't realize what time it was until Jessica got online and chastised me for being up so late. Goodness! It was 1:30 am! So much for getting lots of sleep. I went straight to bed.