Weekend! I prefer the weekend! Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh!

So, here I am, all by my lonesome self. Stef and Kelsey have been in California since Tuesday, and I’ve been left to fend for myself. Stef left me a list of dinner ideas so that I wouldn’t starve, but I haven’t really had an appetite. That and I caught the oven on fire when I did try cooking. No, I’m really not that bad of a cook. There was some turkey juice (or something) on the bottom of the oven, and when I tried cooking the goop caught on fire and I had to scramble to put it out with some flour. Cereal for dinner + basketball a few times a week = lots of weight loss while Stef is gone.

It really sucks being away from Stef and Kelsey. I've been able to keep myself moderately busy, though. Up until yesterday, I worked, studied for finals (somewhat), and worked on a DVD for Rory. Finals went pretty well. We had to use an annotated bibliography that we had created a week earlier to write a 20 paragraph essay. Luckily, I overachieved during the annotated bibliography assignment and already had the paper ready, just not organized. I put the information into logical groups and had 21 paragraphs. From there, all I had to do was hand write my already completed final in class. I was the first to finish (by what seemed like a lot), and I'm pretty confident that I got 100% on it (giving me an A in the class).

After finishing, I had a two hour break before work, so I decided to take a crack at the math exemption exam. My major doesn't require anything other than pre-college math, and I had some study materials at home that I was going to use to prepare. Since I was already at school and it would only cost my 10 bucks to try the test (which I could take again next semester if I bombed), I headed over to the testing center and sat down with the test. It was an eye-opening experience, for sure. I only remember half of the material at first. As I completed more and more, certain principles slowly came back to me. I needed a 70% to pass the test and avoid having to take math: I got a 70%. So, now I've just got my tech writing class and my American Heritage independent study course to finish next semester. Then I'm done. Done with school. At least until grad school. Maybe.

Rory went around with a camera and had people share their testimonies, and I extracted the video and brought it back home with the hopes of making a DVD out of it. I used Photoshop to create menus, with Van Gogh's Starry Night as the background (which I felt was unobtrusive to the theme). I fiddled with Adobe Audition to make a 30-second looping clip of Baptism by Michael Dowdle on acoustic guitar, which plays in the menus. I used Premier Pro to edit the video and add lighting, since most of the recordings were done at night. I imported the DVD menu and the finished video into Adobe Encore and created chapter points at the beginning of each speaker's clip. I arranged the workflow so that it all worked together and with the buttons on a standard DVD player remote. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I feel pretty confident about making my own DVDs with the Adobe Production Studio. The one area I'd like to explore is mastering. I'd like to be able to get rid of background noise and amplify the volume of the voices. If I ever get a digital video camera, I'll make it a point to use microphones for any video projects I have. It'd also be nice to learn how to get the best lighting. Maybe I'll get a DV Camera before we go to Japan so that I can have projects there. I'm sure the fam would love to see some good footage from wherever it is that we live.

I often wonder what kinds of things I could have studied. Graphic design, computer programming... Honestly, I think there are a ton of things that I could have done. I don't know if I'd want to do those full-time, though. There's something nice about just being able to do all sorts of cool things, whether I get paid for them or not. I don't regret studying linguistics at all; I know that things will work out. I've got a lot of opportunities for growth, and that's all I can ask for. As long as there are things to learn and job opportunities on the horizon, I can't complain. I've had a lot of success at the bank, so I know that with my Japanese (once we get back) and Spanish experience, I could get a really good job.

When I turned in my paper, my teacher asked me if I was interested in studying Mayan languages. She suggested that I go to grad school if I was interested in Guatemalan langauges. If I do, I know where to go for a letter of recommendation.

Guys' night

Jeremy and Tom Roderick came over Tuesday night and we had a guys’ night until about 1:30. We kicked the night off with some Halo 2, with Tom and Jeremy pretty much abusing me at will. The problem with that game is that everybody else has played it more. Even though I’m pretty good at controlling my guy and aiming, everybody else knows how to navigate through the maps and find the overshields. When we turned overshields off and allowed rocket launchers, I held my own.

After Halo, we popped in FIFA 2007 and played some soccer. As fun as that game is, it might just be the most difficult sports game I’ve ever played. The control is easy enough, but the computer is so amazingly hard to defeat. They scored in the 90th minute to beat us three or four games in a row. It didn’t help that Tom kept forgetting that you couldn’t slide tackle at will. By the end of each game, I think we were two or three players down from all the yellow and red cards we got.

Frustrated at the impossibility of FIFA, popped in NHL 2K7 and turned off penalties, icing, and fatigue. Then we proceeded to open-ice check anyone and anything that got in our way. We had a jolly good time thrashing the computer.

Back!

We're back from California, and it's cold! They mentioned on the plane that it was 28 degrees, and when we stepped outside, it really hit us. There was a bit of snow on the ground in some parts, but for the most part it was just cold. We went to bed on Friday, and when we woke up, the whole town was covered in snow. It's freezing!

This is Kelsey's first real experience with the snow. It was cold and snowy when she was born, but she didn't go outside for a couple of months. She seems to react fine to the cold, but she hasn't yet gotten snow in her hands.

Finals are coming up soon, so I'm going to disappear for a couple of weeks. I'm so excited for the semester to end and for Christmas to come. We had a blast spending time with family in California and look forward to seeing everybody again soon. While we were out there, Dad gave us the laptop that I'm typing this on. It has some issues with an intermittent display, but I've made a temporary fix.

Time to watch the Christmas devotional!