Merry Christmas!

Frohe Weihnachten!

I had a nice day with my husband and my parents. The sister, her husband, and the niece and nephew were here for a few hours, too. I got to play 'camping' with Anna and hold the Davin boy a bit. Nice, nice day.

Silver Bells

WOOHOO!!! Unbelievable! Hard to imagine that EMU's graduate programs are easier than UM's undergrad programs, but it's true. My first all-A college semester! 4.0! I'm excited. I was expecting no better than an A- in one class, and another class was completely up in the air. But it turned out great! Happiness.

Sunday was both nice and productive. First, I got about half of the apartment cleaned. Then, Nidhal and I went to Cabela's. Nidhal fell in love with it. I think we were in the store for over two and a half hours. While there, we tried out an elk burger and a bison burger. The bison tasted especially unique. Right before we left, Nidhal got to play with a handgun, which really made his day. At 10:30pm, Nidhal had a soccer game, which they lost. The first half was really good though. Then we had to stop at Meijer so I could get brown sugar for the chocolate chip cookies that I wanted to make. So around 12:30am, I started making cookies (delicious), and then at 1:30am, we finished watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. ...a nice day.

Now I'm watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and I have plans to watch Frosty the Snowman and one about Santa Claus.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

I love vacation! Guilt-free laziness! It's wonderful!

Now that classes, exams, and papers are done, I have a bunch of time to actually get stuff done. Yesterday, I did the mound of dishes, two loads of laundry (out of five), got my parking permit for next semester, returned my nine books to the library, checked out a book for next semester, bought a Christmas present for my dad, got some groceries, started making couscous for dinner, and wrapped some Christmas presents. Today has been also somewhat productive. There was some cleaning and such, but mostly I've just been watching movies. So far I've watched Secondhand Lions, A Town Without Christmas, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, and The Three Gifts. ...The tree, the snowman, and five candles are lit... very cozy.

My newly opened Dr. Pepper is strangely flat.

I love Christmas.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

THE SEMESTER IS OVER! I took my last exam tonight and then went out for a celebratory hamburger with my class. The exam wasn't overly easy, but I don't think I did bad. Also, I got my final paper back from another class and the professor had nothing, absolutely nothing, bad or critical to say. Not even "constructive criticism". Nothing. She wrote "interesting!" on the paper twice and that was all. :) I was pleased. Now I'm excited to be lazy without guilt and also to clean the apartment and do some laundry (yes, it's been that long since I've cleaned up that I'm actually excited about it).

I want to make cookies! There are some interesting recipes on the Food Network website, and I've found a few that I want to try.

...And there are some idiots yelling outside.

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

The apartment became more Christmasy today. Yay, Christmas!

Nidhal seems to be getting better. I took him to the doctor yesterday, and he was given medicine even though the doctor did no tests to see what the sickness was. Yesterday evening, he was feeling 100 times better than he was feeling yesterday morning. And today he was feeling at least as good if not better.

My paper is coming along. I have about 14 pages and I need at least 15. But one whole page is a picture, so I don't know if that will count. The paper is crap though. It's basically me talking out of my butt about something that I really know nothing about. Oh well. I just want it to be done. Fertig und vorbei. (I miss speaking German).

We have some Orange Spice hand soap in the bathroom, and it smells really good. ...and that would be the random comment of the evening.

I watched three movies this evening: License to Wed, The Christmas Shoes, and The Christmas Hope. The first one was definitely the worst of the three. ...Watching all those movies was not conducive to getting my paper written... or maybe it was, because I wrote a lot of stuff while watching the second and third movies. Anyway, it's 2:52 A.M. Good night. Gute Nacht.

Es ist ein Ros entsprungen

...I'm sitting in my living room with only the glow from the mini Christmas tree and the snowman to light up my furiously typing fingers...

Nidhal is sick. He has a bad sore throat and an off and on fever. It looks like it might be getting better, but we'll still try and go to the doctor tomorrow.

The semester is coming to an end. I have one 15-page paper and two exams left. So far in my end of the semester countdown, I have completed one exam, one 12-page paper, one final homework assignment, one handout, one poster, two presentations, and one project. My first presentation was on Wednesday and it was not pleasant. I really had no idea what I was talking about. Unfortunately, what I was talking about is also the topic for my yet to be written 15-page paper due on Wednesday the 16th. My second presentation was on Thursday, and for that presentation I needed the aforementioned poster and handout. This presentation went much much better because I actually knew what I was talking about (it was the topic of my 12-page paper). I even had fun making my little presentation, and one professor from the French department was very interested and even made a helpful little CD for me.

Nidhal and I watched Hannibal tonight. We both thoroughly enjoy the Hannibal Lecter movies. We just need to get Hannibal Rising and we'll have a complete collection. And speaking of movies, I sent a little hint email to my mother telling her to buy me the new Harry Potter DVD with digital copy for Christmas. Hopefully she gets the very obvious hint ("Mother, here is a link to Amazon for the DVD that I want you to get me for Christmas").

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

Instead of doing my incredible amount of writing, I am watching a movie on TV and browsing the internet. I am so lazy. Or maybe I've just been pushed over the edge... I've gone from incredibly stressed to insanely apathetic. So... I have one 12-15 page paper to finish (I have 10ish pages), one 15-20 page paper to write, a NEW 4 page project to do, homework for my syntax class, and two final exams yet do to. The new project was sprung on us yesterday by the sadistic professor. I am so unbelievably mad at her. It's the last week of classes and she decides that that would be a good time to assign a project. HELLO?!?!? Ugh, I am so displeased with the situation. And I made that known on my official review of her.

In other less depressing news, Christmas is coming! I put up the tree at my parents and the little tree in our apartment. We also have a light-up snowman by the door, various little decorations, and many candles. :)

And my nephew was born the day before Thanksgiving! He was 21 inches long and over 8 lbs. And he is cute! Nidhal and I got to visit him on Sunday. Such a little guy! Anna, also cute, was as energetic as ever.

Over Thanksgiving, we went to my grandparents' house in the thumb. That was a great time, as usual. I wish, though, that everyone wouldn't leave so early. When I was a kid, everyone would leave on Sunday. But now, we're lucky if we have any of Saturday to hang out.

In addition, my aunt wrote a book! I read it over Thanksgiving weekend, and I must say, it is pretty good. It definitely won't appeal to everyone, but most books don't anyway. I hope she gets it published.

Nidhal got his TOEFL scores back. His scores for the speaking, listening, and writing were GREAT! His reading score, however, was not ideal. But that was because of the idiot screaming the whole time. Stupid, stupid people. He got an 83 overall (which is enough to get you into the M.A. for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages program at EMU without having to take any ESL classes)... just imagine how well he would have done if he would not have been disturbed during the reading section.