Summer.

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I finished all three of my remaining finals today (everything but Arabic, which I took on Monday) and wrote for so long (four and a half hours straight without stopping and then one more hour after a break) that my hand swelled up and froze into position around my mechanical pencil. Every time I tried to move my finger joints they creaked like ancient door jambs, but I finally made it and dragged myself off campus to the tune of what I hope will be a 4.0. The warmth and sunshine definitely helped; before my tests I studied sprawled out on the ledge next to the library and felt so happy I couldn't help but retain everything I read.

I'll still be hanging around campus for as much of summer term as I can, so don't celebrate yet, BYU; you haven't gotten rid of me. I'll attend the second half of my Arabic bridge class, hang out in the back of a section of Mission Prep, and try to find my way into a random history or politics class just for Arabic practice (I find trying to take notes or translating/transcribing a lecturer's comments in real time in Arabic boosts my at-speed reading-writing-oral comprehension; concentrating on spelling things right while making my letters and sentences grammatical and legible while simultaneously searching for appropriate vocabulary to match a speaker's words while listening for new information is a trip).

I came home late this evening exhausted and ready to crash, but most of the Friendship is in town and they coerced me into night swimming in the Crosbys' pool. It was probably the last time I'll see Katie before I leave on my mission (she lives in California), so I'm sad about that, but we had a nice catch-up sesh and she promised to send me lots of letters and pictures. :-) Tomorrow morning a few of us are hitting up the temple for baptisms for the dead at 7 AM, and then the rest of the day will stretch out in front of us and we will wrap ourselves in unscheduled time.

Welcome, summer. For me you'll last only a month. But I'm so glad you're finally here.
♥