Spring Break is here! AAAaaaaaa!!!!! I’m excited. I’m happy. I’M STAYING UP TILL 3 A.M.!!!

It’s been crazy. I had six tests this week. Count them. Six. And most of them required studying.

To start of the week was chemistry. I struggled all weekend with homework trying to balance a double replacement chemical equation, but it just wouldn’t work no matter how I (and whoever I could get to help me) tried. Finally, I just added some oxygen on the right side, which seemed to work. Before class I asked one of the girls waiting outside what she had. She had down 1 and 4 on each side, and it worked! I couldn’t believe it was that simple. She couldn’t explain to me how she’d gotten it, however, since Dr. Gerdom helped her. I quickly changed my answer and went in to take the test. I finished it in 40 minutes, which I thought was really good considering it took me about the whole hour last time. I went back and worked on this one single replacement equation that I couldn’t seem to get (that’s because I was putting anions together. Duh.). I got the homework back on Wednesday; everything was okay. I got the test today; a 98! Out of 111 points, I made a bunch of mistakes, most of them stupid stuff, but he counted the 98 points I got right as the score. I’m happy. I may just be able to pull an A out of this class after all.

One of the things I’m doing to help matters was to go to make up lab today. I usually have English at 1 when the lab started, but Dr. Allums let me take the test during my free hour at 11 instead. Because my lab partner and I didn’t turn in our lab reports the first day (we were unaware that we were supposed to since he had already graded them in class) and our lab reports for the second lab got lost (not our fault), we have to do BOTH make up labs, of which today’s was the first. It was fairly complex. I was there till 4:30 and probably the last person to leave the classroom building with everyone leaving for spring break. It was kind of fun, though, to mix chemicals and stuff to see what my unknown solution had in it. While we were working, for some reason Dr. Gerdom held up a square shaped bottle and said, “So Joanna, is that Zima stuff any good?”

“Yeah,” I said. Everyone in the room gasped. You don’t talk about stuff like that on a Baptist campus. At least not in front of everyone. “Well,” I qualified, “I mean for an alcoholic beverage.”

Later while he was helping one of the students find a missing solution, Dr. Gerdom exclaimed, “Why, there it is. This person’s been hoarding it because it tastes so good.”

“Like Zima,” I added loud enough for the people around me to hear. One girl involuntarily broke out laughing.

Tuesday was our President’s Day holiday. I know, President’s Day comes a week before on most colanders, but at the University of Mobile it coincidentally falls on Fat Tuesday, the day before Lent when everyone gets drunk and goes to parades for Mardi Gras. Nothing is open on Fat Tuesday. Not even the hospital operating room is open, except for emergencies. All the schools are out Monday, Tuesday, and Ash Wednesday. A Baptist college like the University of Mobile would never celebrate Mardi Gras. Instead we name it after the school president, President Magnoli’s Day.

On Wednesday a few people were walking around with gray crosses on their foreheads. I had a religion test. I studied pretty hard for it. He gives us the questions (some of which we choose from), but then our professor expects us to write an essay recreating the notes we took in class. I memorized a bunch of stuff, even making an acronym for the different ideas on the unforgivable sin. I wrote fast and finished in the 50 minutes he gave us. Well, I thought I had finished. In reality, I misread one portion as saying “answer one of two” when it actually said “answer two.”
Just because all the other sections had been that way, I assumed this one would be too. I got the test back today. Everything else was okay, and I got the bonus, so my score was 95. Not bad at all.

Thursday I had two tests: philosophy and Russian history. Philosophy was on Harold Kushner’s book Who Needs God? He also wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People. His book that we read should have been called Who Needs Religion? because that’s what he was stressing. As a rather liberal Jewish rabbi he has a lot of good things to say but comes at it from the wrong premise. He says that religion is good because it helps us. I say that, because we need help, we need God. The test wasn’t too hard. I hope. But as a philosophy teacher, Dr. Mashburn gives credit for almost everything, so I’m not worried.

Following directly after that was our Russian history midterm. We only have this, our final, and class participation to determine the grade, so I was a bit nervous. But once I picked up my pencil and started writing an essay on the October revolution and the civil war following it, the story flowed on for almost three pages of notebook paper. Hopefully, she’ll like what I wrote for the essay and all the questions. I didn’t have a clue for the bonus (three contributors to the Silver Age), so I just made up some names. She said spelling didn’t count, so maybe I came close.

Today was fairly straight forward. First was my sociology test. I’m afraid I put down the correct answers according to my teacher instead of putting down what was true in a couple of places, but that’s the way it is. I just don’t feel that invigorated engaging in debate at 9 in the morning.

Later today was the aforementioned English test. Easy.

Along with tests, this week has also been filled with visiting with guests. The Bennetts are old friends of ours from Columbus, Georgia where we lived before we moved to Colorado and then here. Cliff Bennett, the father, was our pastor for a while before we moved. He and my dad are close friends as are the moms. They have four kids: Andrew 18, Jenifer 15, Stephen 13, and Jeanetta 7. We all get along pretty good. Andrew and I usually hang out while Stephanie and Jenifer goof off and Benjamin and Stephen get into trouble. Jeanetta goes around annoying people. Andrew and I stayed up till 3 on Monday night (since I didn’t have to go to school the next day) watching Tombstone and Schindler’s List. Andrew had to go back early and take the G.E.D. on Thursday (since he homeschools). Coincidentally, Stephanie took her G.E.D. today (Friday). Andrew wants to do physical therapy and get the Air Force ROTC to pay for it down here at the University of Southern Alabama, which has the best physical therapy department in the area. That’d be neat having him around. Nathan talked Jenifer into coming out to Colorado with us this spring and helping out with camp. I’m still trying to convince people around here to attend Summit.

My grandmother is scheduled to leave the hospital and come live with us this coming Tuesday. A lot of changes are in store for us. Ben has moved out of his room and into the living room. We’re going to have to make the bathrooms handicapped accessible and put ramps to the doors. My mom won’t be able to travel anywhere until my grandmother leaves or something, so she won’t be coming out this summer for the Christian Bookseller’s Convention in Denver and stuff. My grandmother will probably want to move back some place in Richmond, Virginia at some point because that is where all her friends are.

Stephanie’s birthday is tomorrow. She’s 18, no longer a minor.

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