Midterms haven't killed me yet..

Midterms have hit with a vengeance.

I have gone to the library more this past week than I have in the first 2.5 years of undergrad combined. I'd always heard great things about the library - like how it helps you to focus and that you get things done a lot faster without all of the distractions - and who knew? It was all true. I polished off my six-page sociology paper in two and a half hours last night. Granted, I was using the keyboard as a pillow by the time I typed in the last sentence, but I got it done. And hopefully the 11 paragraphs were written eloquently enough to mask the resounding urge I had to write I DON'T EFFING CARE. It's especially bad being in a capstone class with graduating seniors.

Speaking of which, my capstone group had a presentation on Monday on ethics in journalism and our discussion will continue tomorrow. I spent both Saturday and Sunday with the guys in my group and came back to the library on Sunday night to tweak my portion of the presentation. I ran into Nick, one of the guys in my group there, and we finalized some of the slides. I left the library before 12, got home and had just crawled into bed and laid my head on the pillow when my phone rang. I rest my cell phone on the corkboard-like box springs at the end of my bed, and the ringing and vibrating of my phone on that surface is very startling. Nick was on the phone, telling me that I had forgotten to send him pictures for my slides. "I sent them to you a couple of hours ago, Nick," I said, patiently. "Check your e-mail." He's like, "Okay, let me look." He looked and he found them. We hung up, and I drifted off to sleep. I could just see Mark Ruffalo entering the haze of my dream for the second consecutive night when my phone rang again. I yanked off my sleep mask and squinted at the clock. It was 1:37 a.m. "Hewllawo?" I garbled. "Hey, what's up!" Nick. "Not too much, Nick... just um... err.. sleeping!" "Oh, you're sleeping? I'm sorry!" That's when I noticed that his voice sounded weird, and he was whispering. "Nick... are you still in the library?" I asked. "Yeah," he said. "I haven't done my case study yet, and I'm really tired, and I just don't know what to do..." And I was like, "NICK! GO HOME!"

Good thing we just had our presentation at 9 a.m. that morning!! But I think it went really well. We decided to dress up and we looked really snazzy, and our professor said we did a really good job at the end. I hope tomorrow goes just as well. We had a 2.5 hour group powwow at the Heidelberg tonight and managed to tear apart our case studies over a couple of pitchers of beer. I was really hesitant about working with three guys because boys are notoriously lazy, but we've had a lot of fun doing this and they definitely did NOT slack off like I was expecting. Way to overcome stereotypes, boys.

I'm not sure how much of my spring break I'm going home for. I signed up to work 5 extra copy desk shifts (8 hours each), with a 1 percentage point raise in my grade per shift. I think that might be a bit of an overkill, especially since I think I did very well on my midterm and I do fine on the copy desk. I just feel like I need to make up for my dismal quiz scores. Why are you sucking up your editing quizzes, Ashley? That's a great question, and let me tell you why they're destroying me. Our quizzes cover the entire week of news. Anything in the Missourian - news and sports - are fair game. We pick two letters from the AP stylebook and anything under those letters are fair game, too. We have to correct sentences. Let me give you a few examples --

According to a deal between the MU and KU athletics departments, where will the two teams play their annual matchup game in 2007 and 2008?
I answered Kansas City. Which is the city where the two teams will play - BUT NOT THE STADIUM. The correct answer is Arrowhead Stadium. WRONG.

The assets of a Columbia-based agency were frozen in 2004 as it was suspected of providing financial support to a group that provides funds to terrorists. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court upheld the freeze on the assets. Name the Columbia group involved in this case.
I answered the Islamic Relief Nonprofit Organization. The correct answer was the Islamic American Relief Agency. WRONG!

Kudos go to Kris Kringle for using kleenex.
The correct answer is 'Kudos GOES to KRISS Kringle for using KLEENEX (capital K), or tissues.' I actually got that one right.

This is why I am so anal in case you were wondering. I have nightmares about false ranges and because of/due to, thanks to Maggie and copy editing.

I need to stop pretending I mind. I really love it.

That's all. Is anyone else LOVING SPRING?!!! 77 degrees today!