Home for Christmas

Back by popular demand... lol! I have been getting some calls by very irritated fans that I have not updated my blog lately. Well... at least I had fans. (lol) I have to relay my homecoming story to you now.

My last final was on Monday. That night I went to another Regent 1st year student's house for a Christmas party and good food. I had been thinking I might not get home till Thursday or Friday, and told my family so. Our house definitely needed cleaning after a week and a half of studying straight. This was Tuesday mornings job. I decided to pack and start heading home a day early. Cleaning was a chore, but I got er done and got on the road. I was a little worried with my car making it home, but Kate (my car) she did fine.

I pulled my first surprise by stopping in at my favorite overnight stay in Reston, Schwartz & Moughon's Motel 2. Well, at first the surprise was on me because when I stopped in nobody was home but Tyco (the cat). So, I went to McDonald's, got a salad (i was feeling healthy) and talked with my buddy Matt in GA for a while. When I did get back to Matt's, I found him sitting in front of his computer in his PJs. He thought it was Joel at first. It is always good to catch up with old friends. I hadn't heard from Schwartz in a while. He was still in the middle of finals himself with one left. We chatted for a while, and got in a game of Acquire before calling it a night. It was good to see him.

The next day I spent some time with Justin and Jeremy in Alexandria. I ended up making a purchase while I was there too. (have to talk about that later) I ended up leaving DC about 3:45 p.m., but it took forever to get around DC. I ended up catching a good Italian dinner in Winchester with a friend, which allowed time for the roads to clear a little.

I ended up getting on the road about 7:30 p.m. I was sooo excited to be heading home, the time went by so quick. It was a great opportunity to listen to music and reflect on all the Lord has done for me in the past year. The trip went quickly. Now, my family was still not expecting me till Thursday or Friday. As far as they knew I was running around in DC. My Dad had called me earlier that day and told me that a big ice storm was gonna hit the next day. They had no idea I was gonna be home that night. :) When I hit Seilensgrove, I stopped into the Wal-Mart and picked up some flowers for my Mother (her favorite daiseys and roses). I pulled into the driveway unnoticed and called the home phone. Hannah picked up, and I asked to talk to Mom. It didnt' take her five minutes to begin getting on my case about not getting home with that big storm coming in the next day. Then she said, "You should be home! I wish you were walking through the door right now!" LOL, well that is my cue, I thought to myself. Boy were they surprised!! Everyone was sitting in the livingroom but Dad. They had me stand in the closet and Mom sent Dad there to get her a sweater. He laughed and swore he wasn't surprised to see me, but I think he was. I always love coming home and surprising my family. Brandon should be home sometime tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing him. It is sooo good to be home.

Yes, I did survive finals

Hello there. Yes, it is me... Unbelievable, huh? I finished finals and all in all I think they went well.

(Pause now for President's address to the nation from the Oval Office - Live on TV! ...okay, I am back. Great speech! Stay strong Bush!)

I will not know for sure until I get my grades back sometime after Christmas. I don't feel like I failed any of my classes, so that is good. How well did they go... time will tell. Thankfully all my finals were split up by at least one day, which made it easier to focus on each subject. I ended up joining a study group with some of my roommates and friends, in which one would get up and kind of lecture as we followed along with our outlines. We came up with many acronyms to remember the many points for the tests. It was fun. We usually would get up about 5:30 a.m. on the morning of the test and meet at IHOP for breakfast to do some last minute studying. All our tests started at 9 a.m. Most of the tests were a combination of essay and multiple choice. We were able to use our laptops for the essay portion, which I really enjoyed. The professors love it too, because they don't have to decipher any student's handwriting. I think the worst of all my finals was Contracts because of the hard multiple choice questions which are similar to the MultiState Bar questions. Perhaps my best test was Torts, which was our last test. It was pretty straight forward. I still believe the hardest test I ever had to take was Paul Bonicelli's Comparative Politics at Patrick Henry College.

Now I have a few weeks off. Classes start up again on Jan. 5th. Then I get to do it all over again. God was very good. One semester under my belt. Five more to go. It can be done.