Finals week, fall 2010: Success!

Listening To: "If It's Love" by Train

I think it's safe to say that this finals week was the best yet. The exams weren't exactly my favorite, but I think all the fun stuff in between more than made up for it!

On the 3rd, after a much-needed roomie date to Rembrandt's...

Roommate, coffee, good conversation... Yes.

...I went to see Conrad Anker speak in Chatt. He's led several climbing expeditions, including some to Everest and Antarctica. Pretty sweet. I was originally supposed to go with Mike, but since he had to work, Kristi came along instead. I'm really glad--I've been needing some time with her anyway! After that was over, we walked around downtown a little. We ended up going into this organic grocery store called Greenlife and discovered they had a little café-type thing inside where they sold GELATO. Best. Discovery. Ever. Who cares if it was below freezing outside? Gelato is worth it.

Mango-pineapple gelato. Sooo good.

We always manage to have a good adventure!

The next night, I went with Mike to DJ a middle school dance. That was pretty fun--boyfriend, music, and getting to watch a bunch of kids act ridiculous. Sounds good to me! After we finished there, we went back to his place where a bunch of our friends were finishing up a Christmas/Hanukkah party, so it was fun to hang out with them for awhile.

Next up: Gingerbread houses! Kristi & Jaynese invited Mike, Jon, Will, Chris, and me over for dinner, followed by building and decorating gingerbread houses. I haven't done that in forever, so that was definitely a lot of fun!

This picture is my life.

Our house collapsed :(

The finished product!

After cleaning up, we went to Jon's place to hang out. We had already made plans to stay up all night and go watch the sunrise. We were all pretty exhausted though, so around 3:30am, we all crashed in Jon's living room for an hour. Around 4:45am, Mike, Kristi, Chris, and I headed up to Chilhowee. It was freezing (19 degrees, plus lots of wind), but this made it all worth it:

Good morning, world!

Seriously, most gorgeous sunrise ever. Check out more pictures here, here, and here. I wish I had the motivation to go see more sunrises because I like them just as much as sunsets. I just hate the early morning factor!

After sleeping for a few hours, a group of us went to Chatt for dinner and a movie. We went to Chili's to eat, and then ended up going to see The Town at the dollar theater (I love $1 Wednesdays!). This wasn't really my choice, as I'm not a fan of going to see movies like that without knowing what the heck to expect, but I survived it. It was pretty intense, but a good movie as far as storyline goes.

Friday, I spent the day running errands with Mike, going with him to DJ the Taekwondo awards ceremony/Christmas party (side note: I skipped rank!! I'm officially a level 2 green belt, which is pretty exciting for me. Totally wasn't expecting that), and then going out to Applebee's, courtesy of my parents (they gave him a gift card for his birthday). All in all, definitely a good day.

Saturday was Jaynese's graduation (I'll try to add pictures later, when I get them). So crazy--I can't believe that'll be me in just 3 semesters! Scary thought! After that, going out to eat (again), taking a short nap, and packing, Darren and I headed back to Georgia for break, which is where I am now. 4 weeks of being at home... We'll see how that goes!

Bookstores and adventures!

Listening To: "All I Have" by Mat Kearney
(For whatever reason, I've been semi-obsessed with his music lately. I like his style and I like his lyrics. His album City of Black & White is my favorite at the moment. Good stuff.)

I love bookstores. I could stay in them for hours on end and not ever get bored. I've done this twice within the past week, and still don't feel like I was in there long enough. I get so inspired in them--I like and am interested in so many different things and there just isn't enough time to get to all of it! Every time I go, I have to restrain myself from buying out the whole store. (My bank account does not share my love for bookstores. Heh.)

A couple of days ago, I had to go to Barnes & Noble to get a book for my psych classes before my trip. This resulted in my spending a good amount of time in the psychology section. The book I had to buy was Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I'm pretty sure I would have bought it anyway, even if it wasn't required. It's basically about his experiences in a concentration camp during WW2 and then he kind of talks about it from a psychological standpoint. Very interesting. (I've always been fascinated by the Holocaust. The fact that I'll be visiting Dachau on my trip was a major selling point for me! Speaking of Dachau, I'll be there in two weeks! Yessss.)

Anyway, after wandering throughout the store, I found the children's section. Best. Section. Ever. I absolutely love kids' books, especially the classics (i.e. Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, stuff like that). I discovered a copy of A Little Princess and absolutely had to buy it. I had never read it, but always wanted to. It is sooo good. I love stuff like that. I also found The Magic Treehouse series that I LOVED when I was a little kid. I read those books countless times in second grade. They are what first inspired me to visit the Amazon Rainforest (it's still very high on my list of places I want to visit). They tended to make me feel like I've been feeling today: dying to go on some sort of adventure!

Reason I've been feeling that way today: I spent the afternoon sitting in the floor at Books-A-Million reading this:

I would've bought it if it hadn't cost $25. Pretty much every single thing in this book looks awesome and I want to do all of them. Well, almost all of them (I could probably do without going to Antarctica, as cool as it would be to say I've done that. Not high on the list). But for real, that is the kind of stuff I am dying to do. There are so many things that I want to try--I just haven't had the chance to (yet!). Seriously, that's pretty much the only reason I would want to have a high-paying job: to travel and do awesome stuff like that (I kind of hate the fact that every sport I would actually really enjoy are the ones that are ridiculously expensive to do). Sigh.

My other find of the day wasn't all that spectacular, but it did make me really happy to see. I was in the travel section (one of my favorites) and picked up a book about Tennessee. They had a section about the Cherokee National Forest, including a short mention of Chilhowee--picture included. The picture (not the one to the right--that one is mine) just so happened to be from the Sugarloaf overlook, which is my absolute favorite place to watch the sun set. Kristi, Mike, Jon, and I were up there a couple of weeks ago, just before the semester ended. I think it was one of the best nights I had all semester long--maybe even all year. Definitely one of my favorite memories. That fact just made finding the picture even better, because it was of the picnic table that Kristi did her homework on that night, and you could see the rock that Mike and I sat on to watch the sunset in the background. Ahhh, good times.

Edit (05/24/10): I didn't really want to write a whole new post just for this, but this picture is awesome (click to make it bigger--it looks better):

Credit

How cool is that?! I just wanted to share. :)