Hey! It's me again, happy as I was yesterday, only slightly less so because it feels kind of late and I suddenly had a bunch of responsibility thrust upon me.

Not really responsibility, I guess...I'm the closest I've been to being stressed out this semester, and it's not because of academics, either!

So, I already mentioned that I'm moving in with Jessica next door, as soon as her current roommate, Tiffany, is gone. Tiffany plans to leave on Friday, which means I can't move in until Friday. Friday is also the day everyone leaves because the dorms close at 6 pm, and it's the last day of finals. So, I'm kind of running on Tiffany's schedule. I'm also kind of running on the school's schedule since the dorms close at 6.

However, since I'm getting a ride home from a girl named Kristy, I'm also running on her schedule since she's the one driving me and I owe it to her not to be difficult. She seems kind of flexible about when to leave, but I'll have to move all the stuff in my room next door (at least it's not too far away) before we leave. Which is fine. There's more to come.

Today the RD called me and told me who was moving into my room. It is not a new student - it is a girl from another dorm, who basically is in the same situation as me. She also has to move from her dorm to my room, and she also has to do it by Friday. For some reason, though, she's a little more frantic about it. She wanted to start moving in tonight, which is Wednesday! I mean, while I'm still in here! But realistically, she can't move in here until I move in next door, and I can't move in next door until Tiffany leaves, and I have to move in before Kristy decides to leave and before the dorms close.

I told Jocelyn (the girl moving into my room) that she can start moving some stuff in tomorrow, after I have a chance to study for my big test tomorrow morning and clean the room up somewhat - I mean, I thought I'd have till Friday to clean, pack, and move. This was kind of unexpected.

It's just a hassle, really, because instead of just packing up to go home and moving everything else over next door, I have to basically shove everything in my room into the smallest area so that Jocelyn can bring her stuff over and start moving in, and I have to live like that for the next two days until I can re-move it to next door!

I guess I have to give Jocelyn some grace in that the dorm she's coming from is a lot further away than next door. I mean, maybe 500 feet away. Which isn't a lot, but that's two flights of stairs to carry all of one's posessions, and it's still a lot further away than 1 foot, which is all I have to deal with.

At the same time, it's kind of exciting. I always like packing to go home and I always want to start doing it days earlier than I have to. This is kind of like packing to go home, except it's three in one - packing so Jocelyn can have space for her stuff, packing to move next door, and packing to go home. Goody.

I think I've been repeating myself a lot, but the purpose of the repetition was to give you a sense of how I feel right now. Not quite "stressed out" - as I tell my mom, I would be the last person to know if I was ever stresesd out. I'm just kind of excited and I view the situation as sort of ridiculous and silly and impossible. I'm laughing. Maybe it just seems funnier to me.

It's nice having something to do - pack, I mean. Finals week is so boring this semester. I mean, I have some hard ones, but it's like...write a paper, done. Write another paper, done. Study for a test, done. Present a project, done. Things are ending so fast. I'm not going to spend needless time studying or perfecting papers that are already as good as they're going to get. What do I do in my spare time? Play computer games! But now I can pack, and feel like I'm doing something useful instead of feeling guilty for wasting time.

Hey! I got my final essay back today. I got an A! I thought I might but I wasn't sure the prof would like my topic. I was looking at my grade and Christy asked me what I was looking at. I told her I'd just gotten an A on my essay. She said "that's great; who's your prof?" I told her "Schaak" and she looked at me like I was nuts - "You got an A on a Schaak essay? Even my smart friends don't get A's on Schaak essays!" Of course, that boosted my ego a lot more than is healthy for it.

I don't think I'm all that wonderful at writing papers - I am always just really careful to apply what I've learned, and to follow the instructions to the letter. It's always puzzling to me when someone submits a 1 page paper when the assignment was 3-5 pages, and then they can't believe they got a D. Dr. Schaak is very clear on exactly what we're supposed to write about, and how, and what he'll be looking for when he grades. Also, several times I've showed him a paper before it was done because I didn't know if it would work for the assignment. He told me what was wrong with it, and he offered suggestions - I didn't do his suggestions usually because it seemed to me he was coming from the wrong side to be offering suggestions. But I took to heart what was wrong with it, and I fixed it, and I never failed to receive a good grade.

I don't think there's much to writing papers! Just follow the instructions. If you don't know what to write about, just set a timer and write for ten minutes, and poof - you'll have the first few paragraphs! Worrying about a paper doesn't really help it.

I don't think I'm specifically "amazingly talented" in writing, or anything - I rarely finish any of the "bestseller novel" ideas I get! I just know the simple, easy way to write papers. As I laid out above.

I should write a book on writing papers! Or a booklet for college students. Or even high school students.

I remember a horrible writing class I took as part of a homeschool group. It was more like a "timed handwritten essay" class. We were given a sheet of paper and 40 minutes to write a standard five paragraph essay about whatever was on the sheet of paper. Once we got "compare and contrast nuclear and coal power plants." Ummm...? Hello, we're a bunch of homeschooled tenth grade geeks who are not particular experts in the field of energy.

We were graded on handwriting, so basically we'd write a super fast rough draft for half an hour and then copy it down on a nicer sheet of paper. Didn't finish fast enough? Too bad.

Class periods were spent on things like "how to use an internet search engine for research." "Now, remember, class, first it's 'www.google.com,' and in the bar where you can type things, you might put something like "franklin d. roosevelt.' The links that come up might look confusing at first, but just go from top to bottom until you find what you're looking for...are you writing this down?"

I haven't heard anything from becca since last night. I think she has the flu but she strongly disagrees (sorry, I've been doing class evaluations all week so I tend to say "strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree, strongly agree, and unavaliable" constantly.) She thinks she got chow mein food poisoning and the reason her mom didn't get the poisoning from eating the same chow mein was because she was on antibiotics or something. I didn't really hear everything she said over the phone - I NEVER hear everything she says over the phone because 1) she mumbles, 2) it's a cell phone that's already staticky, 3) she talks fast, 4) her family makes a lot of noise in the background, 5) she has a difficult to understand voice, 6) she says things that don't make sense anyway, and 7) she rarely repeats herself when I say "what?" because she figures what she had said wasn't really worth repeating. I wonder how many times she's insulted me without my knowing.

In any case, on Friday night I'm going over to her house to watch movies! What are we going to watch? Extended Return of the King? Are we going to see Spongebob or are we going to wait to see if I can make any more money babysitting so that I can actually pay for a ticket? Are we going to rent Better Off Dead? How about The Swan Princess? Or Mulan? I want to watch a Disney movie! Except, Swan Princess isn't Disney, as I recall...I remember Kaitie being like "NO AMBER YOU'RE WRONG IT ISN'T DISNEY" so I don't think it's Disney.

I even got my mom's permission! I was like "Mom, when I come home, after I eat dinner can I go over to becca's?" She started laughing her head off. Then she goes, "Uh, Amber, you're in college. You can do whatever you want." I told her I was afraid Dad would be mad because I 'wasn't spending time with the family' like he's always harping on. She said, "Oh." and paused for a while. In other words, she acknowledged this fact. But then she said, "He can't really stop you, and I want you to have all the fun you can while you're home. Please, go hang out with your friends! With my blessing!" And she started laughing again.

Oh, I love my mom. And I love Kaitie and becca and I CAN'T WAIT TO GO HOME! AAAAA!!!!!!

-Amber