The Home Stretch

This week has actually been a lot better than I was anticipating. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't anticipating a terrible week, but I was expecting the last week and a half of class to be a lot busier. It turns out, being done with midterms makes things so much easier. For the last 4 or 5 weeks we've had at least one big test each week, so our weekends have all been spent studying. Last Saturday, for example, I went outside like twice because I was studying all day long. But we're getting into the last stretch here, and I can't wait for the term to be over. I've really enjoyed anatomy, but it's a pretty stressful class. All we have left is a paper for humanities, our humanities final, our lab final for anatomy, and our lecture final for anatomy. But really, that's not even as bad as it sounds because our lab final is next Thursday. The last day of class is the Monday after, but we only have class on Tuesday and Thursday, so we have like 5 days to study for our finals. :) Plus, we can take our humanities final during the reading day if we want to and then all we'll have left is the anatomy lecture final, which shouldn't be too bad. It just makes such a huge difference to feel like you can actually take 10 or 15 minutes to relax at the end of the day.

I hate writing papers. I just always feel like it's a waste of time and I don't really learn much from it. Plus, I have a hard time expressing my ideas and thoughts about stuff in a organized and eloquent manner. Anyway, our paper for humanities is supposed to connect something we studied during the term with our major, religion, or a current event. Our plan was to write these on Tuesday since we didn't have school. It was Pioneer Day! Which is probably the best holiday from school because I don't feel like I have to plan something to celebrate it, so it's like an extra Saturday that week. Well, we started our papers, but then we decided that we'll have time to finish them this weekend so we just spent some time relaxing and catching up on laundry. For my paper I'm planning on writing about Galileo and how our church views the relationship between science and religion. It shouldn't be too bad to write once I get a better start into it. I'll be honest. Right now I have several quotes about science by general authorities and a thesis and jotted down ideas for a few paragraphs. gah. Papers are the worst. I'd rather give an oral presentation than write a paper any day.

Yesterday we scheduled the rest of our time in open lab to study for the final. I think we scheduled like 9 hours over the next week, so that should be good. I'm not too worried about the final, but I probably should be. It's a lot of material, but I'm so tired of studying that I'm almost to the point of not caring enough. Almost, but not quite. Our lab midterm was only a few weeks ago, and the labs since then have been easier, so it won't take too much to refresh our memories. When we got home yesterday we did all of our reading for humanities (that doesn't usually happen the night before), studied for our anatomy quiz, I worked on my application for my new major for a while, and we still had time to play a game together before getting to bed at like 10:30! It was a productive evening, but it was a really good one, too.

I'm actually starting to look forward to fall semester. I'm much more excited about my schedule for my new major than I was for the classes I was signed up for before I switched. It will be more credits (19!!), but probably not as much work. For one of my classes we get to go to different schools and work in classrooms, so that will be a nice change from my normal classes. The sad thing about fall is that for the first time since we started school, Spencer and I won't have a single class together. He's always been my study buddy, and now we'll have completely different classes. Also, we wont' see each other at all between 7am and 5 or 6pm when we head home. It's like we'll be a normal married couple. haha. My class schedule is so full, that I'll only have around 12 hours a week that I can work. It stinks, but it's what we'll have to do. Luckily, pell grants are actually paying for our tuition, so we'll be alright. It's only one semester, anyway. I do kind of feel like I'm deserting the lab though. :-/

That's pretty much all that's been going on for now. I haven't been posting as much as I'd like to, but I've been busy, and we haven't been doing much other than studying. We've been having fun though. I like taking classes with Spencer.

Deep Fried Twinkies and Chocolate Melting Cakes!

Last week for family home evening Spencer and I decided it was finally time to make these deep fried twinkies we'd been talking about for a few months. The twinkies have been sitting in our freezer. So we did. They were pretty good, but we probably will never make them again. Besides, they didn't taste anything like twinkies. Not that I'm a huge fan of twinkies anyway.

What a goof. :)

Doesn't it look so gourmet?

Then last night we had Ben and Sydney over to play games and make the chocolate melting cakes from carnival cruises. They were divine! I forgot to take pictures, though. They tasted exactly like the real deal. Here's the recipe if anyone wants it.

Ingredients:
4 servings
6 oz. Dark Chocolate
3/4 C. Butter
4 Eggs – room temperature
3/4 C. Sugar
1/4 C. Flour

Directions:

1. Melt butter and chocolate
2. Mix eggs and sugar and whisk for a few minutes. Add flour.
3. Add the egg mixture to the melted chocolate. Stir together.
4. Pour the mix in greased ramekins.
5. Bake at 390 degrees for 14 minutes. (We had to bake it for like 25 minutes, but part of that might have been the altitude. Next time I'm going to use 425 degrees)
6. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

 Basically, we could open up a dessert restaurant.

My Dress!

Okay, I promised this post like 2 months ago, so here it is! Finally. This is the dress I made with Sabrina back in May. I'm really pleased with it. :)

It was really fun to make, and I've been trying to keep working on sewing projects here and there. Right now I'm working on a baby quilt for Josh and Katy's baby girl, Carinna. And I have a couple other projects in mind. Sydney and I are going to start doing some together, so I'm pretty excited about that. Plus, I'm terrible at choosing fabrics and I feel like she'd be good at that. Someone has to help me or I'd be stuck in that store for hours staring at a roll of fabric wondering if it would look good or not. 

Christy's Great!

Last week the Ferrells were all in town for their family vacation and Christy flew in with AnnaMarie and Tyler. She stayed with us and went to tennis camp at BYU. I felt kinda bad that she had to stay with us because it was the week leading up to our anatomy lab midterm. I mean, we're always studying anyway, but add in a lab midterm and all of a sudden you find out that you actually did have time for even more studying. We were on campus until 8:30 or 9:00 each night, so we weren't very fun hosts.

Christy was a great guest though!! She happily volunteered to make us dinner each night so it would be ready when we got back from campus! We haven't eaten that well since... well, since summer term started. She made us pizza, and tacos, and cookies, and banana bread... it was great. So, Christy, you're welcome to come stay with us anytime! It sounds like she had fun at her tennis camp and we tried to spend a little time hanging out each night, but we were pretty lame. We had our lab midterm on Thursday (it ended up going really well for both of us, but we didn't over-study either) so on Thursday night we took the night off! After class got out at 8:30. We went to Ben and Sydney's to play some games and hang out. Christy beat us all at rummikub twice.

On Friday brother Ferrell took us all out to eat at Red Lobster! That was fun. Then on Saturday morning everyone came over to our apartment to hang out for a little bit before they left for the airport. We sure miss everyone already and can't wait to see those kids again. They'll be so big at Christmas time, especially Jack and Aiden. I'm glad we got to be there for their baby blessings. :-)

Catching Up

It's been a busy couple of weeks! So here's summary of what's been happening.

Last week was pretty much the same as the week before, what with all the studying for anatomy and tests and quizzes. On Thursday I skipped my humanities class to go to Laura's bridal shower. It was such a beautiful bridal shower and the ice cream bar and hot chocolate were delicious! On Friday AnnaMarie and Tyler, the kids, and Christy flew in! We went out to eat with them and then hung out at our apartment for a while. James and Miranda and Benjamin came, too. It was a nice evening. Saturday was Nate and Laura's wedding. We went to their sealing in the morning, and were going to take our anatomy midterm, but didn't get back in time. We went to the park to see AnnaMarie and Tyler for a while before they left for Aspen Grove. That night we went to the wedding reception, which was awesome! It was outside in a field with a bunch of pear trees at a reception place. The decorations were so cute and the food was awesome! They even had some dancing, so we danced like half a song. Spencer felt bad leaving Christy by herself, but he doesn't really like dancing, either... It was beautiful and we are so happy for Nate and Laura. They're so cute together and now we have another married couple to hang out with!! Wahoo!

Sunday was Jack's and Aiden's baby blessings up in Aspen Grove. It's really nice up there. I really think that it should be something we consider for the Thornock family vacation that there's been talk about in a couple years. The blessings were sweet and I'm glad we were there for them. Church was outside, which was kinda fun. Except it was hot, and it's harder to pay attention when you're outside. We stayed there for lunch and some cake with all the Ferrells and came back down to Provo. I love Sundays. I finished almost all of the baby quilt. All I have left is the hand stitching for the binding. :-) It'll be done in a few weeks. 

This week we are happy to have Christy staying with us for tennis camp! She's been fun, even though we haven't really been. Yesterday we finally took that Anatomy midterm. It went alright. Today we have an anatomy quiz, and on Thursday we have the big lab midterm for anatomy. There's so much to review for it. Christy's really great about us dropping her off at home and going back to campus to study for two or three more hours. We sure love her!

I've come to a decision about my major. I'm going to change to biology science education. If I really push it I can fit all of my classes into the next three semesters and do my student teaching winter of 2014. OR... (I really like this idea) I can spread them across 4 semesters and do my student teaching spring and summer right before medical school starts.... in China! :-) I'm going to talk to an adviser about that to get some more details, but I think it would be awesome. I guess for half of the time you teach your subject (biology for me) at an international school in English, then for the last half you teach English. You get paid for the last half and BYU covers your housing (you pay a little if you bring a spouse) and most of your food.  It sounds like a great experience. Anyway, I'm excited about this major change. Physical therapy will still be an option to me if I want to go that route, but the more I think about it, the more I think I'll enjoy teaching.

That's about it for now. I have pictures on my camera that I'll get around to uploading someday. Maybe.

Thinking

So, I've been thinking. I'm not sure where this idea came from, but I've been thinking about changing my major. Again. Oh, boy. Here's the deal. My current major is Physiology and Developmental Biology. I like it a lot. I mean, I'm not thrilled about taking o-chem and biochemistry, but I love biology and I love studying how our bodies work. They're absolutely amazing.

My career plan is to go to Physical Therapy school. PT is a good way to help people in the health field without poking anyone with needles or cutting anyone open or looking at nasty skin diseases. Plus, I just think muscles and joints are really cool and it would be fun to study. The problem with this great plan is that there is no guarantee that Spencer and I will even end up in a city that has a PT school. It all depends on where he goes for medical school. It also depends on if me going to school for another 3 years and bringing us another 60,000+ dollars of tuition debt is the right thing for us and for our future family. There are a lot of "what ifs" involved.

So I was thinking. What if I changed my major to Biological Science Education? I could still do the rest of the prerequisites for PT school and take that route if I want to, but I'd earn my teaching certificate in the process. Then I'd have a real back-up plan. If PT school didn't work out for one reason or another, I could get a job as a teacher, earning a decent salary while Spencer is in medical school. Teachers may not make a ton, but they make more than someone with just a bachelors in PD Bio does. They get pretty good benefits, too. Besides, Spencer's going to medical school, and making buckets of money isn't really the reason I'd go into PT either. PTs do make a good amount of money though.

I've thought about teaching on and off since I was in high school. I think I'd enjoy it, especially if I got to teach something more advanced than 8th grade general science. Teachers can make a real difference in kids lives, and I think I'd be good at it. I've been told I'd make a good teacher anyway. Changing my major wouldn't change my career plans. It would give me a real back up plan, but it wouldn't prevent me from doing PT school. However, it would be a fairly large shift for me. I'd have to take a bunch of education classes, and take a larger variety of science classes. I wouldn't need o-chem, biochemistry, tissue bio, or cell bio, but I'd need a geology class, biodiversity classes, and history of biology. The one class that I'd be really sad about not taking would be the human embryology class. Maybe I could still take it. I just think that embryology is fascinating, and taking a class entirely about the development of a baby would be so fun.

I don't know what I'll end up doing. I'm going to think about it for a while still. I'll figure it out. First thing is to find out if I'd be allowed to switch and if I could still be done with classes by August of 2014, because if those two things can't happen there's no point thinking about it anymore. :-)

Weekends are the Best

I know, I'm slacking a little with the blog. But, the weekdays are pretty much the same. We really don't have time to do things worth writing about during the week. On Thursday we had our lab quiz, then when we got home Thursday night (at like 9) we studied for our Anatomy lecture quiz until we couldn't keep our eyes open. Okay, until I couldn't keep my eyes open. Spencer probably was less tired than me. We took that on Friday afternoon, and Friday evening we studied frantically for our humanities midterm that we had on Saturday. It was a lot to study in one night and we should have started earlier, but it's not like we were just sitting around all week. We took that Saturday morning. I think we both did alright. I missed a couple questions about who painted this picture, and which artist did over 50 self portraits, but I think I did well on the essays. We'll see when we get it back. Now we just have more anatomy... and reading for humanities. Our Anatomy lecture midterm is this week, and our lab midterm is next week. And our second humanities midterm is next week. We're just trying to take it one day at a time.

Really, though. I wake up almost every morning reciting anatomy terms in my head and I have dreams about cadavers. Really weird dreams about cadavers. It's ridiculous. During the relief society lesson this week I got distracted by looking at all the kids/babies around in the room and wondering if they have patellas yet. You aren't born with patellas. The form because of friction in your knees. It is pretty amazing that all the muscles we're studying on the cadavers now are also in those little bodies. Anatomy is taking over my life.

And that, friends, is why weekends are the best. 

We may have spent Saturday morning taking an exam, and Saturday evening studying more anatomy terms, but it was still Saturday. Sydney and I went to the mall together after lunch and it was so much fun. I think it was my first time just hanging out with someone besides Spencer since our wedding. We do lots of stuff as couples, but it was really fun to have a girl's outing. We had to go get a gift for Laura for her bridal shower next week. I really hope that Ben and Sydney end up at the same med school as us. It would be so much fun to have her around. We're going to have to do more stuff together.

After she dropped me off back at home Spencer and I studied anatomy online. We have a course website with pictures of cadavers and with a quiz you can take. Then we made our second batch of apricot jam. We had a lot more apricots this time and they were riper than the last ones, so I think this batch might be better. The first one was pretty good though! And after that, more anatomy.

Sundays are great and this week we didn't even have to substitute for nursery! The lessons were pretty good. We've been going to a marriage and family class, and the lesson this week was on disciplining your children with love. A good thing to know, but it's a few years early for us. Oh, well. Sunday afternoon we spent some good quality time together just hanging out, and after dinner Josh and Katy came over to play some games with us. I worked on the baby quilt for a while, too. It's coming along, and I'm getting the hang of it, so the quilting is getting progressively better. Sorry we don't have any pictures again. This week will be busy, but we get a day off for the 4th and AnnaMarie, Tyler, all the kiddos, and Christy are coming out this weekend! I'm really excited to see them all!