It's Pay Day!

I love Fridays :-)  And I worked so much last weekend, I got a big check this pay period.

Life has been good lately.  I got to talk to my brother on the phone yesterday.  He sounds great.  He is so excited to graduate and move up in the ranks.  Too bad his security clearance didn't go through, so he'll have to wait around there in South Carolina until it does.  But he told me he gets his iPod and cell phone back, and he'll be allowed to use the internet and stuff.  When I called they just finished having lunch at pizza hut.  He was so excited to eat pizza!  I made sure to tell him how the soccer tournament is going since he doesn't get news on the base there.  I'm so excited to see how things go for him.  He has finally found a goal that he's excited about and is willing to work hard for.

Daniel and I started packing up our room.  I'm so overwhelmed by everything we have to pack up and get out of here.  It makes me feel better that we've made so much progress.  We sold back most of our textbooks and I got $100!  That was a nice unexpected income.  Of course, I'll spend twice that much at the end of the summer on my textbooks, but I won't think about that now.  I threw out a ton of stuff that I don't need because I'm done with 2/3 of my classes.

I took my biology test this morning.  My professor is going to email us our final grade after this test, and then we can decide if we want to take the optional final exam to try to improve our grade.  The only way I am going to take it is if I have below a B, or 88% or above which means there's a possibility for me to get an A.  But if I'm in the 80-88% range, forget it.  Assuming I'm not taking the biology final exam, all I have left is chemistry on Wednesday morning.  So I have al day today, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to study for that and pack up my stuff.  That's plenty of time so I am feeling remarkably relaxed.  

I am working 8 hours today and lots more all weekend.  That will give me plenty of time to study while I'm at the desk.  I also plan to move out of my room this weekend.  I will pack everything up and put it in Daniel's room until we can move it into the house.  Our realtor is meeting us at the house on Sunday so we can take measurements and stuff.  All of the roommates are coming that day too so we can pick rooms and all.  I'm excited to go back and see it.  I haven't been inside for about 2 weeks and at that point we weren't sure we were going to put in an offer so I didn't pay that much attention.  I think I will take a million pictures so that when we go to IKEA we can visualize where we will put everything.

Daniel and I have been discussing the possibility of getting a dog sooner than we originally planned.  He talked to Paul (our summer roommate) and he is really excited about getting a dog.  He wants us to get one fairly soon too.  And he volunteered to take care of it while we're in Europe.  So I'm working on Daniel to convince him to get the dog like as soon as we move in.  Of course we would arrange the furniture and all first, but as soon as we're settled we could go and get one.  There is a dog shelter just down the street called the Dumb Friends League.  At this point, we're planning on just going and seeing what's there.  I think that's a good plan because I know as soon as I see a puppy I'm going to fall in love with it no matter what breed it is.  It's so crazy that in a month Daniel and I will be living in our first house with our very own puppy.  We are growing up!  I even decided that this year, maybe we should send out our own Christmas cards.  I think that would be fun.

Last night was our final choir concert.  This  was the concert that we were performing with Lamont Men's Choir, and Lamont Chorale (the advanced mixed choir) with Lamont Symphony Orchestra accompanying.  Our conductor was Lawrence Golan who just happens to be the conductor for Phoenix Youth Symphony which Daniel was in his senior year of high school.  He is actually the reason Daniel applied to DU and got such a big scholarship.  He flies back and forth between Denver and Phoenix each week.  So anyways, the performance went pretty well except for one major thing.  The second movement of the piece was a solo.  A guy in chorale sang the whole thing.  In rehearsals he did fine, but in the concert he got lost and just stopped singing!  He had the music right in front of him, but he got lost anyways.  He jumped in towards the end, but missed a big chunk in the middle.  I didn't realize it at the time.  I didn't know the piece very well because I didn't sing in it.  So I just spaced out until the end and then I was preparing to sing in the next movement.  Then I saw Lawrence whisper to the soloist and then he whispered back and Lawrence brought the orchestra in again.  They performed the whole movement again!  After the concert Daniel explained to me that he got lost and everything.  Since this was the world premiere of the piece, I guess Lawrence wanted to make sure it was good.  And they were probably recording it for him too.  There was a really big audience, completely sold out.  That doesn't happen often for student groups, but the choirs and the orchestra are pretty popular.  So when you put them together, there's a large audience.  It was fun to perform for so many people and they were really supportive.

So the next five days will be spent working, studying, and packing.  On Monday Hope and Daniel and I are going to the zoo.  I also really want to see the new Pixar movie "Up" so hopefully we can fit that in somewhere.  I am optimistic that the next 5 days are going to fly by and I'll be back in Phoenix before I know it!