Tomorrow marks the first day of my final semester at Augsburg. Crazy, no? It's a bittersweet feeling to be sure. Part of me feels like applying (a very butchered version of) frame theory to my feelings because I am a literature nerd and that is what we do.

On the innermost frame I am sad to say goodbye to this winter break. It's been outstanding--Christmas was wonderful as always. My third trip to Oregon may have been the best yet with a trip to the beach, a flight in Alex's dad's airplane, and a midnight kiss on New Year's Eve which was spent in my most favorite of Oregon dive bars. (Vogies, je t'aime!) I'll post pictures for your viewing pleasure at the bottom of this entry. However, I am also semi-excited for some of my classes--most notably, The Art, History and Science of Brewing as well as French 112. I've missed French.

On the next frame outward, I'm sorry to see my final winter break ever fade into the mounds of work that is soon to come my way. I've realized that this was most likely my last nearly full month of nothing for the rest of my life, so I honored that notion by spending the last week on my couch reading books and watching movies and doing absolutely nothing productive whatsoever. This no doubt will soon come back to haunt me as I made zero progress on my Departmental Honors Project. Whoops.

And for the final frame for the evening, I am sorry to say goodbye to yet another semester. I am swiftly running out of them and I'm not quite ready to be done. I'm excited to graduate but scared shitless, like most I'm sure, I have no idea what the hell I will be doing come May. The only thing I have figured out, which is a recent development, is that I will be moving in with Alex post graduation. Yay! The majority of me is nervous because that's a terrifying amount of commitment, but the mushy part of me, and coincidentally the part of me that is absolutely in love with him, is very excited.

So, I guess, in a nutshell I face this semester with a torn conscious--optimism and pessimism abound, but I know it is what it is. Most of the time, it's good.

Later days, let the good times roll.

And now, Oregon: The Third:

George's beach-craft plane! (and George!)

While we were at the H. family beach house in Ocean Shores, WA, Alex found this lovely doggie life jacket. (Barf!)

But then we actually made it to the beach so that was good.

Sunset on the beach! Yesssss! (I would like to note for posterity purposes that this is how our romantic evening began and it ended with a glass of wine by a warm and toasty fire! Bangarang!)

New Year's Eve!