Set and match.

Setting: My home computer, three and a half minutes ago.

Grades.
*Nervous wait time...what if...what if...!!*
Screen loads. Slowly.
But then:
*Rejoice!*
Seven pretty little As stare back at me, along with two Ps for my seminar classes.

Fall Semester Hours Earned: 19.00
Cumulative GPA: 4.00

Okay, so I knew it already. It's still thrilling to see it in (digital) print.

Embarrassingly, my first thought was "I must Facebook this joy!"

Activity.

I love Christmas break in college: no continuing classes means absolutely nothing to worry about. I'm doing my favorite things all the time without any repercussions:
1) Being with family
2) Being with friends
3) Reading whatever I want
4) Skiing
5) Eating
6) Playing Guitar Hero until 5 AM :-D

I've picked up a new translation of Crime and Punishment, which is fun because the new words give me a new perspective on the story. (Wow, that's ironic: I used "new" three times in that sentence.) Generally, I enjoy reading books written to be read in English, because I feel like I can analyze word choice and sentence structure without feeling like I'm making things up, like I do when I find myself admiring vocabulary in a translated novel. Knowing that the author originally combined the words he chose so carefully to produce different combinations of (essentially cultural!) connotations and denotations throws me off, and I feel like I'm missing something. I wish I were fluently bilingual, so I could read in a different language and experience the feelings the author intended. I’m using a skewed perspective, I guess, in analyzing something solely for thematic content, but it's valid, nonetheless. None of the critical essays I've read have been translated--but maybe that says more about me than it does the range of perspectives on the text. Maybe I'll bring this up in my literary criticism class next semester, which, by the way, I am thrilled to take. We're doing Heart of Darkness and As I Lay Dying, two of my favorites, as well as many short stories and novellas I don't recognize. I've passionately missed literature!

I hope my classes are challenging enough to keep me interested this semester. Last semester, I was incredibly bored--19 credits kept me busy, and I came away with straight As but only one (one!) intellectually revelatory concept (see Thermodynamics). I'll be taking 18 this semester, but I'll have anatomy with a cadaver lab (taught by the professor I work with in my lab, so I'll be favored :-D) and a micro class that reviews say is taught "way above the level of a typical intro class," so I'm psyched to take that. Basically, I'm psyched just to LEARN SOMETHING NEW, because with the exception of my chemistry class, I've been entirely intellectually stagnated. Here's to an awesome new year!

AND ALSO, IF ISRAEL DOESN'T STOP BOMBING GAZA, I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SPEND SPRING AND SUMMER TERMS IN JERUSALEM.

DEAR MIDDLE EAST, PLEASE CALM DOWN.
DEAR BYU, PLEASE DON'T CLOSE THE JERUSALEM CENTER.
THX, JESSICA.

I love Christmas break in college. No continuing classes means absolutely nothing to worry about. I'm doing my favorite things all the time without any repercussions:
1) Being with family
2) Being with friends
3) Reading whatever I want
4) Skiing
5) Eating
6) Guitar Hero :-D

I've picked up a new translation of Crime and Punishment, which is fun because the new English words give me a new perspective on the story. (Wow, that's ironic: I used "new" three times in that sentence.) Generally, I enjoy reading books written to be read in English, because I feel like I can analyze word choice and sentence structure without feeling like I'm making things up, like I do when I find myself admiring vocabulary in a translated novel. Knowing that the author originally combined the words he chose so carefully to produce different combinations of cultural connotations and denotations throws me off, and I feel like I'm missing something. I wish I were fluently bilingual, so I could read in a different language and experience the feelings the author intended. It's a skewed perspective, I guess, analyzing something solely for thematic content, but it's valid, nonetheless--none of the critical essays I've read have been translated--but maybe that says more about me than it does the range of perspectives on the text. Maybe I'll bring this up in my literary criticism class next semester, which, by the way, I am thrilled to take. We're doing Heart of Darkness and As I Lay Dying, two of my favorites, as well as many short stories and novellas I don't recognize. I've missed literature!

I hope my classes are challenging enough to keep me interested this semester. Last semester, I was incredibly bored--19 credits kept me busy, but I came away with only one (one!) intellectually revelatory concept (see Entropy). I'll be taking 18 this semester, but I'll have anatomy with a cadaver lab (taught by the professor I work with in my lab, so I'll be favored :-D) and a micro class that reviews say is taught "way above the level of a typical intro class," so I'm psyched to take that. Basically, I'm psyched just to LEARN SOMETHING NEW, because with the exception of my chemistry class, I've been entirely intellectually stagnated. Here's to an awesome new year!

AND ALSO, IF ISRAEL DOESN'T STOP BOMBING GAZA, I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SPEND SPRING AND SUMMER TERMS IN JERUSALEM. CALM DOWN, MIDDLE EAST! DON'T CLOSE THE JERUSALEM CENTER!

Tradition.

Nothing is more fun than my annual family Christmas party.

Stories buried for years always seem to resurface for our collective entertainment--everything from my teenage uncle sneaking into the local prison while his best friend filmed so they could get an "escape" scene on tape, which led to a mass town alert and a prison head count to see which prisoner had supposedly escaped, to the fact that my great grandma actually eloped on prom night at age 15--she drove out to Wendover with the boyfriend her parents hated and got married on the spot.

This is why I love history: people don't change.

Being home for Christmas is a double-edged sword. I love being with my family, but I have realized that we eat SO much--it is no wonder that I am consistently ten pounds heavier when I live at home. In college, I live on veggie Subway sandwiches and Lean Cuisine frozen dinners, with the occasional Yoplait Light or bowl of blackberries to mix things up. At home, I eat homemade chicken salad sandwiches, chips with fresh bean-and-cheese dip, my grandma's cheesecake, and my aunt's marshmallow brownies, with sugary frappe to drink and maybe a thick chocolate malt for dessert. And that's just lunch.
Oh, man--I'm really going to have to start exercising again.
I have to tell you, though--it's worth it.

Finished.

So I had this interesting dream last night.
And sometimes, smiling, I take a mental step back and think, "You know, I think I'd be happy just being with you forever."

Finals are over (and there was much rejoicing). I think I secured straight As, but the average on our chem final was 64% (I got an 80), so if that stays unweighted, I may see my first A minus. Hmm.
I'm not too worried. I know quite a few people who got in the thirty percent range, and barely anyone who did as well? as I did, so I feel fairly confident that there'll be some manipulation of the weighting scheme.

Tonight was fun. I brought a few people over to my (real) house and we ate cookie dough ice cream, made frothy hot chocolate, and watched one of those cheesy, classic ClayMation Christmas movies. :-) Altogether, a great way to end the semester.

Segundo.

Second final (calculus) >> first (chem).

Except I realized halfway through my calc final that I forgot to bubble in my first name on my chem multiple choice sheet. I bubbled in my last name and student number, though...! I'm kind of freaked out. Hopefully they will take the time to determine who I am--or else I am SCREWED. I e-mailed my TA in desperation. She says it'll probably be fine. (Probably?)

Anyway, the worst is over. Six more pages to write tonight for English. Ready...go.

Primo.

My Facebook status right now is "Jessica was intensely owned by the second redox equation. I was conjuring up imaginary protons like there was no tomorrow. :-( Maybe there won't be."
Which is exactly how my first-ever chemistry final went.
I now have a fiery dislike for the hypochlorite ion.

I hope it isn't as bad as I think it is. I have a tendency to overexaggerate when I don't feel like I knew everything on a test, because it doesn't happen all that often. To have it happen on a final is kind of freaking me out. But only kind of. Right now, I'm more tingly-post-trauma than I am depressed. And if I've calculated the grade distribution correctly, I can get an 83% and keep my A. Truthfully, I think I did better than 83%. I've never gotten less than a 93% on a chem test, and that was an outlier, so I doubt I'd fall that far on the final. I know I missed five points for sure on the free response, though (eliminating the possibility of any partial credit), which is thoroughly distressing. The one equation I couldn't do was, of course, worth the most points. Murphy's Law. Now, that's one equation I CAN illustrate.

Worst case scenario:
MC: 62.5/70 = 89.2%
FR: 31/40 = 75%
total 83.4%

I really don't think I did that badly. I really hope I didn't do that badly.

Fulfilled.

(cue Beatles): Today I woke up
Got out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head...

I dressed professionally, in a black suit jacket and pants with my hair perfectly straightened, and went off to an 8 AM meeting with my new major advisor. At 9, I hurried over to a three-hour chemistry review session with my professor and some TAs, and at 12, I grabbed a front row seat to a calculus review. For some reason, by the fifth hour of reviewing everything I'd learned in this semester for my two most intensive classes, I could no longer keep my eyes open, and I'm sure I looked ridiculous trying to take decent notes. It was like everything hit me at once, and I almost literally ran out of the room, because I was in severe need of a break. Not just any break, though--I needed sleep. NOW. But where was I going to go? I was sure the library was packed for finals, and I couldn't think of anywhere else big enough to hold me comfortably, because I was not looking for your typical curl-up-in-a-chair-for-ten-minutes sleep. I needed sprawl-out-dead-to-the-world sleep, and if I did not voluntarily reach a comatose state within the next five minutes, I knew I would probably involuntarily reach one anyway. I scanned my surroundings from the doorway of the Talmage building and spotted the JKB. A snapshot of a third floor window nook flashed across my mind, and I ran to catch up with my memory. Though the stairs would have taken thirty seconds, I waited for the elevator. At this point, I wasn't going to risk anything. Zooming out of the elevator, I saw it and almost cried. There, in a little outcropping, lay the most perfect nap couch I could have ever asked for. It was bathed in midafternoon sunlight and faced an entire wall of window. I shot out past a guy who I think might have been making his own leisurely way to the couch and absolutely CRASHED. I mean, I threw down my stuff and drove my face into the pillows, sprawling my arms and legs over the sides and zipping my eyelids shut in grateful relaxation. I entwined my fingers around the handles to my laptop case and my purse (hey, I was desperate, but that wouldn't stop me from being practical) and had just enough time to enjoy the tingling warmth released by the millions of photons bouncing off my body before I slipped into what I can only term a perfect slumber.

I awoke an hour and half later, entirely content, and now I am ready to study for finals.

Current issues.

My roommate is so incredibly NICE to me!
She just brought me a crepe with Nutella and berries and a few slices of delicious French cheese, totally out of the blue. It is absolutely delicious. I am so happy. I want to be a better person now. :-)

Today was my last day of class this semester. I'm not nostalgic or anything; I did the work and now I'm done, and it's time to study for finals. If I work at it, I think I can use these two upcoming reading days to my great advantage (well, if I can make Facebook inaccessible). I mean, logically, two days of pain and intensity is so worth my first college 4.0, which is delightfully within my reach at this point, even though I'm taking half again as many credits as most freshmen. I'll spend most of my time on chemistry and calculus, my two 'hardest' classes, but the ones I'm probably doing the best in. I can do the work, I just have to practice, and so I will. It's that simple. :-)

I have a meeting with a major advisor tomorrow morning, and then I'll grab a free bagel from the Honors Program office and head to a three-hour chem review, directly followed by a two-hour calculus review that will end just in time for me to catch the last hour of a biology review. I'll be on campus by 8:30 and be finished with review sessions by 3:00, so it isn't really like having a day off from school, but at least I won't have anything due. I'm actually kind of excited. Finals, here I come!

Surprising growth.

I shouldn't be content.

I am sitting above the terrace at the Wilkinson Center, slowly eating an English muffin with egg and cheese and mulling over all the things I have yet to do.
Three a.m. came all too early last night, and waking up just before my eight-o-clock chemistry class followed all too quickly. My hair, though, actually looks decent, and I'm in a semi-professional outfit (dark jeans, collared shirt, black dress coat) that is working pretty well for the five minutes I spent getting ready. My skin is clear, my hair is clean, my eyes are red and I am eating breakfast for probably the second time this semester. It's a miracle, and though all the work I have yet to do has not been erased, I've stuffed it in a sulcus out of sight to deal with when I feel like it, because right now, I'm okay just sitting here.

This morning was my last chemistry lecture, and after class, I went up to thank the professor that knows me pretty well by now. He said he hoped to see me in his biochemistry class junior year, and I told him to count on it. I'll be there. Not only is biochemistry fascinating (I might consider it as a major were it not for the focus on quantitative analysis--I prefer biology to chemistry), my teacher is certifiably brilliant, and his class and my writing class are the only two I think I'll miss.

My voice is still tired from last night. I spent two straight hours explicating plant and animal metabolism on the basement white board for half of my biology class. Glycolysis, decarboxylation of pyruvate, Krebs Cycle, electron transport chain, chemiosmotic phosphorylation, light reactions, photophosphorylation, Calvin Cycle...yeah. There's a lot of material, and trying to cover it all comprehensively and in-depth at 11:45 pm sapped my energy, but it was stimulating, all the same. If I can't be intellectually stimulated in biology class, I've made do by holding review sessions and simply answering questions--thanks to the questions I've been asked and to my lab work, my critical thinking skills have skyrocketed, as has my ability to think on my feet. I've had to hold my own at lab meetings where I've been grilled on specific protocol details I'm called upon to not only remember but analyze at the drop of a hat. I've defended and designed my experiments and learned to account for each variable I alter (or don't), and I've had to respond intelligently and concisely when asked questions in lab--I have to know what I have, what I need, how long things take, whether or not I can fit a project into my schedule under someone else's deadline--thinking back, I've really grown a lot, and I'm grateful for the opportunity.

I'm going to compose my application essays for the Jerusalem Center now. Wish me luck.

Yes, we can.

MAJOR: Microbiology
MINOR(s): English Teaching and Chemistry

I'm a new woman.

Integrity!

Happy Integrity Story of the Day!:
(Cue dramatic background music)

Once upon a time, there was a college freshman girl named Jessica. She worked really hard in her chemistry class, and she had the top scores in her section, but since the material was new to her, tests were still very scary events. There was a big test coming up, and Jessica was scared (as usual), so (as usual) she studied her heart out. Before she took the test, though, she heard through the grapevine that a TA had put up a test from last year as a practice test that had free response questions (and answers) identical to the test Jessica's class was taking. Jessica was very tempted to look. I mean, a TA had put it online, so it technically wouldn't be her fault for looking at it, right? However, Jessica decided that she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she essentially cheated on this test. Though the answers were a click away, Jessica never looked. Instead, she studied harder. When she went in to take the test, the free response questions were new to her, and she had to work out the answers very methodically, but she was pretty sure she had studied enough to do them correctly. The multiple choice questions were new to everyone and really quite tricky, but because she knew the material, she came out with a perfect ScanTron score. Jessica was thrilled that she did so well on the multiple choice section and is now excited to find out her grade on the free response questions. She felt she could be truly happy because she did not cheat. (Music slips into a contented piano riff, slowly fading out.)

The End.

EDIT: The free response also went well. Perfectly, in fact. My first flawless chemistry exam. How sweet it is. ♥

Minutiae.

I'm currently saturated with chemistry--I've hit my mental threshold and am fully ready for my acid/base/solubility/equilibrium test.

Things I Did Today:
* Met my chem teacher for next semester and was surprised at his relative youth. His will be an interesting and straightforward class; I was very lucky to get into it, as there is now a waiting list 40 people long for my section alone.
*Maybe-almost changed my major: microbiology's sounding more and more enticing, so I might take a Medical Parasitology class next semester to try it out. It's a 400-level class, but the prerequisites are only the bio and chem classes I'm taking/will take concurrently, so we'll see.
* Recommended a novel to my English teacher. It's one of the most well-written works of contemporary fiction I've read, initially recommended to me by my Creative Writing professor when I was studying at Cambridge. I fully encourage you to check out We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, but be warned: it isn't exactly G-rated.
*Played with a mobile spectrophotometer that looks different than the NanoSpec I use to quantify my DNA solutions, and asked my brilliant chem teacher about the physical chemistry of said DNA quantification (after class), which he was (entertainingly) excited to diagram all over the board for me.
*Set up the quickest restriction digest reaction I've ever run.
*Walked all the way to Helaman Halls at midnight, where I'd parked two days earlier, only to realize that I had no idea where my car was, so I spent a good twenty minutes wandering around in the cold until I encountered it.
*Found my two-days-lost cell phone!
*Was told that the boys in my Freshman Academy group are calling my Bath & Body Works Sensual Amber lotion "an orgasm in a bottle." I guess that's a compliment.