Super Fat Tuesday

Today is Super Tuesday, and it is Fat Tuesday--a day full of election ballots and Mardi Gras festivities. I am really, really, really, really, really, really, really hoping that Mitt Romney beats McCain today in all of the states holding primaries--especially California. I don't like John McCain one bit--he is a bad Republican. He is actually a Democrat in Republican clothing. Mitt, on the other hand, is totally cool. All of my liberal compadres here in C-town are pulling for McCain because they know that if he's elected as President, it would pretty much be like having one of their own in office. Tonight when we have our weekly meeting and as the election results come in, I'm going to be the only one rooting for Romney, but I don't mind. In fact, I think I'll wear my Mitt for President shirt again tonight.

The weather here has been nasty to the max. Last night at about midnight, some crazy thunderstorms blew through and lasted for two or three hours. There was so much lightning and thunder--it made it impossible to sleep. Today the rain is steadily pouring down outside, and then tonight we're supposed to get more wild storms again. The weather people keep talking about the possiblity of tornadoes, so we'll see what happens. This is definitely strange February weather. Well, I'm off to do some homework.

New First Presidency

I was happy to hear that the new First Presidency was announced today: President Monson as the Prophet, with President Eyring and President Uchtdorf. I forgot to say when I posted something earlier today that yesterday was a nice day to reflect on the life of President Hinckley. I was not able to watch his funeral on Saturday, but I've been able to pick up bits and pieces of it online. During sacrament meeting on Sunday, this cute older lady in our ward named Thelma bore her testimony. She is a convert to the Church, and she talked about when she got to meet President Hinckley at the Nauvoo Temple dedication. She said that she was standing outside the temple and he came over to shake her hand. He said to her, "And what is your name, Sister?" She said that when he took her hand, her mind went completely blank, and she couldn't speak or remember her name :-) She said that she was able to say that she was from Charleston, Illinois, and President Hinckley said, "Yes, but what is your name?" She said that she could not remember it, and all she could get out was, "I believe it's Bernedette." :-) It was such a cute story. President Hinckley will be greatly, greatly missed.

Things are getting a little crazy here in Illinois. The fog is so thick outside, and there is a "dense fog advisory" in effect until midnight. Then, tomorrow it's gonna get all wacky. Even though it doesn't feel like it outside, it's 57 degrees right now, and tomorrow a cold front will be coming in. When the two temperature fronts collide, it will not be pretty. The weather people are saying that there will be an outbreak of severe thunderstorms tomorrow, and the threat of tornadoes is very high. Weather.com says that "some storms may be severe" here tomorrow, and I learned in Mississippi that when they say that, they're ususally right. Oh well, maybe our weekly meeting will get cancelled again tomorrow! :-)

Super Monday

Today is Super Monday--the day between Super Bowl Sunday and Super Tuesday. Hooray for the Super Bowl yesterday!! That was so cool that the Giants won--and that play when Eli Manning almost got sacked but then got away and threw it to the guy who caught it on his head was TOTALLY AWESOME!! I am wearing my Mitt Romney for President shirt today for Super Monday because I believe that tomorrow can and will be a super day for him. All of my classmates enjoyed scoffing at me this morning and telling me that McCain will dominate tomorrow, but I told them that would only happen in their little liberal dream worlds. :-)

This past weekend was so much fun! Greg came to Charleston on Saturday so that we could go celebrate his birthday in St. Louis (his birthday wasn't until today, but because of school and work, we knew that the weekend would be a better time to do stuff). Here you can see a picture of Greg's Hershey's fudge birthday cake I made for him, as wel as a picture of us in St. Louis. Greg and I avoided the downtown St. Louis area because the city was celebrating Mardi Gras that day, and though it probably wasn't the magnitude of the New Orleans festivities, I'm sure it was still wild. So, we spent the day on the outskirts of the city. We had lunch at this fun place called Blueberry Hill which is famous for its hamburgers and its collections of sports, music, and pop culture memorbilia. I then surprised Greg by taking him to the St. Louis Science Center and Plantearium--because he loves astronomy, and it would have been too expensive to send him on a trip to space. We learned all about why Pluto isn't a planet anymore (poor Pluto!), and saw a lot of neat exhibits. We then drove back to C-town and before Greg went back up to Sullivan for the night, we went over to the Stowell's to try out their new Wii game system. The kids had been wanting us to come play it with them, and we had a great time. Although, my ego was completely shattered when I was beat at tennis by four-year-old Soren.

Yesterday Greg and I went to church, then we headed up to Athens for a Super Bowl party at his boss Rich's house. All of Greg's Athens friends and co-workers are so very nice, and we had a great time with them. The weather was not so cool, however. It was really, really nice in St. Louis on Saturday--in fact I even took my coat off for part of the day. And it was supposed to be nice yesterday too, but when Greg and I stopped at his house to pick up the dessert he made for the party, it started to thunder outside. I was very confused as I looked out and saw lightning everywhere with what looked like snow falling from the sky. Turns out it was hailing out there, and then the wind started to blow. So, it was hailing like crazy, thundering and lightninging everywhere, and the hail was blowing horizontally. Then Greg told me about "cold funnels" which are like tornadoes but they can happen in the winter. This freaked me out, and I was sure we were going to get hit by one, but luckily we didn't. We had a great time at the party.

Today it is very, very foggy outside. I wish that Dr. Barnhart would declare a "fog day" and cancel class tonight :-)

Frozen February

February has certainly gotten off to a cold and snowy start here in C-town, Illinois, as it sounds like it has back in Utah too! It was wonderful to have a free day today when I could sleep in and get everything done here at the apartment that I've needed to do for the last few weeks. It was also really nice that I didn't have to be anywhere today--because the snow kept coming all night, and we ended up with about eight inches outside. I decided to venture over to Wal Mart for a minute earlier today, but I found that this time I had to enter my car from the passenger side because the snow drift on the driver's side was too high :-) Luckily Stryder drives well in snow, so we made it there and back safely. Other than the quick trip out, I've just been doing homework, cleaning, writing book reports, writing paper proposals, doing finances, vacuuming, and cooking veggies to go with Aly's pasta this evening. I have a whole heap of work due on Monday, so I've been trying to get most of it out-of-the-way so that I can have a fun weekend with Greg. Tomorrow we'll be going to St. Louis to celebrate his birthday (but we'll have to watch out for the Mardi Gras crowd--supposedly there is going to be a big parade tomorrow), and then on Sunday after church I'll go up to Athens with him for a Super Bowl party at the home of his boss.

One of the assignments that is due on Monday is a paper proposal for Dr. Barnhart's 19th Century Social and Cultural History in America Class. He has assigned us to write a 20-page research paper on a topic of our choice, but it seems a little overwhelming with all of the other 20-page research papers we have to write this semester! So, I am taking the advice of many of my past teachers who have said that in grad. school you have to find ways to double-dip--in other words, find ways to make assignments count for more than one class. Back in the day when I was in Dr. Richard's American Slavery class at BYU, I wrote a paper (which I thought was really good) about an abolitionist named Elijah Lovejoy who was killed in Illinois in 1837. It just so happens that one of the topics we're discussing in Dr. Barnhart's class is the abolitionist movement, and so I think I'm going to adapt and add to my Elijah Lovejoy paper for this class. I figure that when you write a 28-page paper for something, you might as well use it for something else too :-) Elijah Lovejoy is going to save me--if it weren't for the paper about him, I don't think I would survive this semester!

Movie Star

I am going to be a movie star. But, before that happens, Charleston needs to thaw-out! Winter blew in this afternoon. It snowed a few inches, and the wind has been blowing really hard all evening, so the snow drifts are piling up. Aly and I had to go get some things at Wal Mart this evening, and as we were driving over there it looked like we were driving in the clouds becaue the snow on the road was very whispy--it was kind of a weird sensation. I also went over to Institute class this evening, but I am planning to stay inside for the rest of the night and all day tomorrow. Thankfully I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, so I can stay out of the snow and get stuff done here. It's supposed to clear up tomorrow afternoon, so the weather should be good for Saturday when Greg and I are planning to go to St. Louis to celebrate his birthday. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I accidentally said "St. Louis" in a conversation with him tonight--my bad! So, what remains the surprise now is where we will be going once we actually get to St. Louis--I'm not going to give that one away.

About being a movie star . . . . Well, Mr. Riccio decided that we didn't have enough to do, so we should enter an Apple I-Movie competition that is being held here on campus (I think there is money involved for the winner, so that is a good thing). Luckily he's letting us incorporate the movie into one of our class assignments, so it's not a completely frivolous idea. Catherine, Sarah, and Kristen are in charge of the movie, and they e-mailed everybody the script this evening. Since I have become somewhat of the class clown (because I live by the truth that if you don't laugh, you'll cry), I get to be the funny one in the movie. Unfortunately the entire movie will only be 3-5 minutes, so my time in the spotlight will be very short :-)

Today in between classes, I fell asleep on the floor in the middle of the graduate lab. I was actually quite comfortable, but it was pretty cold in there, so Catherine covered me up with her coat. When I woke up, Alisha was sleeping on the floor next to me :-) I guess we sleep whenever (and wherever) we can! Thursday is my funny school day with classes from Dr. Barnhart and Mr. Riccio. Today Dr. Barnhart spent the entire archives class talking about Guatemala. Maybe he should be the funny one in the movie!