Ready for spring

Yesterday was my last free day before spring classes start (sad day! although spring classes will be awesome, too.) Lots of good things happened:

• After much deliberating and shirking and dragging my feet, I finally signed a housing contract for fall - in the very same apartment I lived in last year - hehe. I liked it there. It was admittedly less fun to arrange considering I'll be starting over fresh with new roommates (since all the old ones have abandoned me for marriage or missions... growl) :D but hey, it will be a great adventure!
• Sewing success! This makes me happy beyond words, considering the epic Skirt Disaster or Apron Pocket Disaster or Pile of Unfinished Projects disaster. But, I am happy to report, the swimsuit top is now unique, attractive, and most of all, MODEST (hooray) and not to mention, the straps are the same width and length and the seams are straight (mostly) so I call that success!
• National Treasure 2. Other than Harry Potter, what better way to spend your last free afternoon than watching Ben and Abigail discover a giant golden city buried deep beneath Mount Rushmore? Seriously. Nothing tops it.
  
• And finally, library books! For all the free time I probably won't have :)

Good day. I'm ready for spring. Too bad there was a blizzard this morning...

Confessions of an obsessed muggle...

I am secretly obsessed with these...
Okay, well, it's not really a secret. AT ALL. I'm completely obsessed. I just finished reading the entire series for the seventh or eighth time yesterday. And THESE came in the mail yesterday to complete my movie collection!
I have 7.15.2011 circled in red on my calendar - the day the final movie is released. It all ends then!

It was the best of times...

I am officially more than halfway done with my college education. It's rather a crazy thought. I took my last final, sold back a textbook, and walked away from winter 2011. Strange how time passes, dragging tediously on, yet in a flash it's over. The sheer number of words I've typed in the last four months is staggering, the things I've done, people I've met, experiences I've had... okay, enough silliness, WINTER SEMESTER IS OVER!!!!! HOORAY!!!! hehe :)

Still, though, with the excitement comes a twinge of nervous fright for the future - because suddenly life is flying forward at breakneck speed, and there's no stopping it, no backing up, no reverse, no rewind, no re-doing of missed moments. Sometimes in a quiet moment my thoughts catch me off guard, the sudden lurch of fear that I'm wasting time, that I'm missing the fullness of happiness and success that could be mine. I panic a moment and zoom through a mental checklist to make sure I'm still focused on the essentials. Living day to day, it's a big deal, waking, breathing, feeling, experiencing all the joy and beauty that this life has to offer.

But when a bird tweets happily outside my window, the smell of rain or of freshly-mown grass, a carpet of snow covering the ground, or even just the warmth of the sun on my face, I pause for a moment on my quest for success and perfection and think, now this, this is heaven. Life is a sweet, sweet thing.

Viva la Vida.

Distracting myself...

I got this off my friend's blog. Make sure your volume is up (no worries, it's just music).

http://seawitchery.tumblr.com/post/4070384205/i-started-out-clicking-strategically-and-by-the

Day Zero: #31

I realize it's months after the fact, but I crossed another Day Zero goal off my list while in Spain. Our hotel in the Canary Islands had a beautiful swimming pool, and one sunny afternoon Melanie and Carina tried to teach me how to swim (properly). I have this thing about accidentally inhaling half the pool when I try to swim, but I gave it my best shot, so, even though I'm not much better than I was before, I think I'll count it. Hey, I can get around just fine - earlier that day we had gone down to the beach with McKay and swum out into the ocean, out to the end of the rocks that extended out into the bay. I don't know how deep the water was... I don't really want to know... but I didn't drown, so we're going to call the swimming goal good and cross it off the list. :)

Decision...

One the one hand: Friends, cold apartment, possible ants, and a full year contract to have to sell part of.

On the other hand: Strangers, probably warm apartment, probably no ants, and not having to sell the contract, barring life changes.

So. Is living with people who are already sort of my friends worth it? How the heck to decide?

Folk dance feeling

It happened on the last dance, the one from Macedonia (I think) where everyone holds hands and sings from their hearts. And suddenly I looked around at all the people in the big, long line, the strangers on either side of me, the PAC and SPAC and WDS and 10Wilk Pirates and 8Wilk and 2RB and my own teammates from 9Wilk Laloemileelo, and I just wanted to hug all of them. There's a special feeling that comes from dancing for two hours in a hot, sweaty room, where you can't even understand the words to the songs, and your legs hurt, and there's a long line for the drinking fountain, but you dance hard, and you dance from your heart. There's something special about that, something you can't quite put into words. It's like family, even though you don't even know everyone's names or anything about them. For a minute all the team cliques broke, and we were all folk dancers, all celebrating our chance to share feelings in our hearts through dance. It was the most beautiful moment, and it left a warm feeling in my heart that just won't go away.

I'm so blessed to be a member of the International Folk Dance Ensemble. This has been one of the most amazing experiences of my time in college, and I'm so so glad I have four more semesters to enjoy it even more!

Viva la vida... and don't forget to DANCE!