Routine

....I actually have one! I know, crazy! Today's post is all about "that hum-drum" life, because I'm too lazy to finish the Slovakia post right now.

For the weekdays, general routine:

I set my alarm for 6:45, and snooze it about five times before I actually get up around 7:25. Then I take a shower, and either eat a quick breakfast and stop in at church real quick before class, or I stop in at church first and then eat breakfast. I had an even better schedule when they had 7:30 Mass for a couple weeks in September! But alas, alack, they have that no longer, to the woe and misery of many people.

After lunch, I don’t have a set plan for what to do until 5:30 supper – I either do school, go to the Spar, or piddle. After supper, I either do school, go to the Spar, or, piddle. At 5:30, they have Rosary in the church, so I usually go to that.

Anyways, I have two classes each day – one at 8:40 which ends at 10:10, then another one at 10:20-11:50.
In all of these classes, we’re supposed to get a little break during the class itself, but only Dr. Hass in Western Civilization II actually gives us a decent break. He doesn't give us on in Medieval World because that’s his specialty and he loves talking about it. Cassidy I think just forgets to give us breaks, and MacNamara technically gives us a break, but it is a three minute break that is strictly enforced, so there’s not really a whole lot you can do with it. These classes are divided into A days (usually Monday and Wednesday) and B days (usually Tuesday and Thursday), so I’ll just go through the days of the week to give you the general outline.

Monday: morning routine. History of Civilization II class with Dr. Hass first – we technically have a ten minute break between the first and second class, but he usually goes over time, so I have just enough time to get to Philosophy of the Human Person class. I’m okay that he goes over, because I don’t do anything during the little break anyways aside from sit in class and wait for it to begin. 

After Philosophy class, I go back to the room and piddle for half hour until lunch begins at 12:30.

Tuesday: morning routine. Medieval World class with Dr. Hass, then Christian Marriage with Professor Cassidy. I have these classes with Krista, which was why I liked them most at the beginning of the semester – I could actually talk to someone between breaks. But now I actually like my A day classes themselves better than B days, plus there are a couple people I can talk to anyways.
After class, I go to noon Mass and try to sit in the back. Fr. Shell said if Mass is so distracting for me, then I should just close my eyes during Mass, so I sit in the back so no one thinks I’m ignoring them. After Mass, it’s the Mass rush to the Mensa for lunch and it’s super crowded and depending on what mood I’m in, it can either be tiring to have to sit with other people, or just kind of like “hm, whatever.”

Wednesday: morning routine. A day classes. Lunch. At 2, I have Holy Hour.

Thursday: morning routine. B day classes. In Medieval World, half the class comes at the normal time, and the other half comes later. I come at the usual time, and we have “discussion”, which is where we put all our chairs in a circle, ask Dr. Hass questions, and he answers them. We don’t actually really discuss anything. I wish we could use this plan with philosophy, because we have so many people in it and I’d rather discuss it more. Oh well, ce la vie! Enjoy your crown! Mass. Lunch.
At 2, I go to the Newtons for Ministry to Moms until 3:30. I don’t really have a routine of what I do with them, as it depends on what kids are at home. Mrs. Newton is trying to have me teach Allie (youngest) and Hannah May (second youngest) Latin, but it's kind of a laugh so far - the girls get really distracted by the little mouse that "teaches" Latin in the book Mrs. Newton gave me to use. 

The rest of the weekend is totally up for grabs!

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

...just another blog post! I like to keep everyone on their toes about when I'll post. ;)

The morning got off to a nice start with 7:30 Mass by the bishops. A lot of bishops and priests came in a couple weeks back for a short LCI program to help them learn better English, and they've been offering Mass at 7:30 consistently, which has been AWESOME. However, now they're all going back to their parishes, which makes this morning probably the last Mass of theirs I'll have attended.
Major bummer.
After Mass, I talked with Mrs. Newton, because I was scheduled to do Ministry to Mom's today, but I was (still am) getting over the sore throat thing and didn't want to infect the girls. Mrs. Newton was really funny, and told me I was still quite welcome to come (she seemed especially eager), because the girls being around sick people "toughens them up".

We had our Medieval History small group discussion session today, which was interesting enough. I wrote a letter to Polly Wolly the first half of it, and asked lots and lots of super intelligent questions during the second half!

Then we had Christian Marriage, and John, I didn't play any games on the computer! Instead, when I got bored because someone got Cassidy off topic, I tried drawing him. Because he wouldn't stay still, I drew my reflection from the laptop screen, which sounds rather egotistical, but it was actually kinda interesting - I've never tried drawing my most loverly face before.

I regret to inform you that despite my great drawing skills, I was not able to catch all the refined and elegant features my face possesses.

Once class was over, I piddled around till the Mensa opened (half hour later), ate lunch, then went back to the room and, you guessed it, NAPPED!

After my short but lovely nap, I walked over to the Newton's. Mrs. Newton was pretty much running out the door when I arrived, and managed to give me some rushed instructions on what to do with Allie (the youngest), as all the other girls were gone and she had somewhere to go.

I spent the next hour and a half reading to Allie - I'm really surprised I didn't lose my voice.
Some of those stories we read were kinda strange - one was about a soldier cuts off the head of an apparently harmless old witch so he can get her tinder box, and eventually uses this tinderbox to buy himself a lot of stuff, fake friends and eventually the prettiest princess ever. And apparently that's totally fine in this magical world.

Anyways, after dragging Allie off the couch to play outside with the next girl who came in for MM's, I sent some letters, and began working on my philosophy paper.

Ugh.

Writing papers is agony enough as it's torture having to organize my jumbled thoughts and put them on paper. But writing about philosophy? Way worse. My thoughts are ten times more jumbled when it comes to philosophy, so we'll see how this comes along.
I have so many papers to write this semester. It's so sad. I miss my Comm. classes where I just made stuff.

Then I had a dinner by myself, because Krista didn't need supper, and I'm sick and don't feel very peopley.

When I finished eating, I started having a mini panic attack about my first midterm, choosing my history paper topics, and my philosophy paper, so I stopped in at the church to calm down.

I don't know if this is a regular thing they do (if it is, I wish I had learned about it earlier!), but the bishops and priests were having Rosary and then Benediction. I only got in for the tail end of it, but it was really nice.

After that, I decided to begin the inevitable, and study for my history midterm. I went to this spot (I'll add a picture later) near the Bibliotek.
It's my favorite studying spot so far because it's not too far away from the room so that it takes too long to get to, but it's also not too close to people. As Goldilocks would say, "it's jussstttt right!"

After that nice study session, I went to the laundry room to put my clothes in the dryer.
At first, I was the only person in there, but by the time I had pulled out a shirt, smelled it, and remarked "ew, this does NOT smell good", another person had entered and started their laundry. I look over, and there was my philosophy teacher, smiling;
"Hi Clare."
I just have impeccable timing.

Anyways, I asked him what he was doing in the dorm laundry room, to which he responded he doesn't have a maid to do his laundry, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume he doesn't have a washing machine in his apartment or wherever he lives. That seems kinda weird since he's a professor, but still, it was funny seeing him NOT in a suit.
His version of dressing comfortable was a nice t-shirt, nice pants and nice shoes.
Sheesh, Europeans - they can't even relax without being fashionable.

I put the clothes through another cycle with lots of nice smelling stuff and when I checked on the load fifteen minutes ago, it smelled deeeeelightful!
Tomorrow, assuming I'm not sick, I go on the Mariazell hike. It's about seven hours of hiking, all which I will walk in flip flops because, yep, I forgot sneakers.

It's either going to be a really painful day or a really fun day.