Snow + Homemade Salsa : Summit Semester Week 6

Oh, we're halfway there! We're living on prayer. And caffeinated tea.

What went down this week:

    Sunday evening/night was pretty great. After Walmart (see last blog post for the first half of Sunday's adventures!), we came home and while waiting for dinner, a girlfriend, Anna, and myself went out on the property to take some cute photos because I was dressed nice and we like taking pictures. Sunday dinner was leftover night, which is probably one of my favorite meal of the week. It's like remembering all the great food that we had over the week, and tasting it again all in one meal! It's the best. Later, I got to talk to my dad for a while (bless!) and then we watched Cinderella Man as our movie that night. If you haven't seen it, you should because it's so good! I cried so many times during the film. You should go watch it.

    Monday was normally our day off, but our professor arrived early, so we had class in Monday instead with an extended weekend. It felt like a stereotypical Monday too - just not that great. I like our professor this week, Dr. W. He's really chill and references Star Wars and Lord of the Rings during his lectures, which makes class a little more entertaining. During exercise time, I took a quick walk around the property and went hammocking with Micaela the rest of the time. We didn't really exercise our bodies much, other than our stomachs because we were laughing so hard. It was also pretty entertaining getting into our hammocks and not falling over, so you could consider that and obstacle course in of itself. After dinner, it started to snow!! Everyone started to freak out because it's October and snow isn't supposed to happen yet. But it was a magical moment. That evening, we had girls night. We had a compliment circle, where we went around the room and shared compliments to e ery individual girl. So many things were said to people that they didn't know or they needed to hear, plus there were lots of tears and laughter combined in there. It was a beautiful evening.

    Tuesday was so lovely. I woke up to frost on the ground (!!) and a desire to write letters to the people I love. Class was good, but the two guys I sat next to were both easily bored and entertained, so they started cracking jokes and doing dumb things… it helped when I was feeling the need to fall asleep. I worked again on  ink beds during work crews, which was very time consuming and tiring. After dinner, I got a package from my grandmother who sent homemade salsa to me, one of my favorite things and something we'd been discussing throughout our letters for several weeks. It lit up my day! We had small groups in the evening, which was so relaxed and fun! We went to the grocery store to get ice cream and went to eat it out by the river in town. We were freezing and laughing and it was a grand ole time. I came back home to Micaela gifting me to a milkshake from Sonic and some Nutella, which was one of the sweetest gestures (no pun intended) and something so unexpected. She's such a great friend!

    Wednesday was a wonderful day. It started out with me helping to make breakfast in the morning and an entertaining time in class discussing poetry and Princess Bride. After class and lunch, Micaela and I went hammocking some more and I took a much needed nap.  I also worked in my bucket list, which is something new I've been working on while here and for aspirations for when I return home! We had exercise time, which I spent shooting hoops (or attempting). We had some free time between exercise and dinner, so I spent it editing photos and listening to musix. Two things I thought were much needed at the time. We had chicken wings for dinner (YESS). After dinner and dish pit, I went back to my room to study more. I was interrupted by my roommate who desperately needed sleep, so I went on a walk and eventually went to bed extremely late: 9:30 (hint major sarcasm).

    Classes were pretty intense Thursday morning, but Dr. W. ended our last hour with a nice little lecture on the theology of Middle Earth (WHAAAT). It was probably one of the best lectures ever, which included Dr. W. stating that Lord of the Rings was/is “the best piece of fiction of the century, and possibly of all time”. Amen, sir! We had lunch and a girls’ meeting on what to do for guys appreciation day (not gonna say what we're doing because I might have male classmates reading this now). Apparently there's always a day during Summit Semester that's dedicated to the guys, and a day dedicated to the girls. The guys will do something special to appreciate the women, and vise versa. We're in the midst of planning that now, and I must say, it's pretty dandy! We had study and exercise time during the afternoon, so I spent it napping and playing basketball. Dinner was delicious, and I helped make more sourdough bread then got all fancied up to make some photos with girl friends before our play that evening! Dr. W. has written a play that he let's some of the students here perform at the end of his week teaching, so we enjoyed that that evening. Everyone was all dressed up and it was quite entertaining.

    Friday was a pretty great day. We had our last day of classes with Dr. W, which made a lot of us gloomy, but he did end his lectures with one on the Christianity values found in the books/movies of Narnia, which was super awesome. We had work crews that afternoon, where I was put in the kitchen and had a blast with my new best friend, Micaela (were pretty inseparable now). We washed dishes and made dough balls for calzones for dinner! It was muy deliciouso and mucho grand. Lots of laughter and fun in the kitchen, which is why I'm finding every excuse I can to be in there on a regular basis (everyone gives me a hard time, but I don't care).

    Because we had class Monday on our normal day off, we got our day off on Saturday, when we would normally have class. It threw us all off, like it's probably doing to you now as you try to understand this crazy, confusing schedule. Breakfast was optional and we were allowed to sleep in until noon if we so desired, but I was up at 7:30 when I normally am because that's how my body is wired now (also my roommate forgot to turn off her alarm and I couldn't go back to sleep after). I spent the majority of my morning studying and reading before lunch. I also got to talk to my family a good bit on the phone, which was much needed. We shared stories and updates and I even got a song out of my baby brother (so precious!). A group of us went to Walmart to get some necessities for the Grand Canyon camping trip (i.e. chocolate, deodorant). I finished up my packing before dinner and got some hammocking in too. We had leftovers for dinner once again, which is a personal favorite. We had dancing afterwards, which included line dances, waltz, two step, and swing. It was so much fun and I learned lots (also taught a bit because of homeschool dance class in high school!), but my calves were pretty weary. It was a good thing we had our movie night directly after dancing! We watched Slumdog Millionaire, which was a great film. It didn't end like I expected it to, but I loved it! I recommend it.

What I've learned this week:

    8n the past, these learning experiences have been pretty sentimental or serious, but this one is kinda quite the opposite. I found out on Thursday that there's actually a lot of consistency of our meals during the week. I think I'm the only one that didn't already know that. We have pretty obvious ones like Taco Tuesday or leftovers on Sunday. But who knew that we have potatoes in some firm every Monday night? Or we have oatmeal every Thursday morning? Apparently everybody knew this, except me. So that's what I've learned this week, and I feel pretty silly admitting it.

What's going it on next week:

    As I'm posting this (Sunday afternoon), about 25 of us are heading to the Grand Canyon! Woop woop! We'll be staying there and camping until the 17th, then driving back. It will be quite an adventure! A lot of us haven't been there before, and some of us have been in the past, but we're all pretty equally excited. Be prepared for lots of photos!

    We have alumni weekend next weekend! I don't know much about it, except that it's the weekend that any alumni from past Summit Semester years can come and hang out with is and relive their good memories of ping pong and dish pit. I'm excited to meet a lot of past students and maybe gain some new friends in the process!

    *For those wanting to know an update on Annalise and her ankle (see my Mount Sneffels blog for the backstory):

She's doing good. Se had a consultation on Tuesday and surgery on Thursday, which both went really well. The surgery was more complicated than the surgeons expected, but it was still successful. She returned to us Saturday afternoon with a new haircut (unnecessary info but info nonetheless), and seemed to be in good spirits. She's planning on staying the rest of the semester with us, which we're all pretty happy about. Please continue to be praying for her though, because she still had surgery and she's still in a lot of pain, and she's still living in conditions that aren't necessarily helpful for those with injuries, for the next six weeks.

Thanks for following along with me as I do life! Have a golden week!

Blessings,

Becca

Preview from the Sunday afternoon photoshoot!

Fun photoshoot before the Revenge of the DWEMS play!