Today, in 1820,George IV was proclaimed as Britain’s new monarch.

I awoke with little semblance of a voice, and surprisingly not to the sound of my alarm. In fact, it was fifteen minutes past the set time of my alarm. Upon, further inspection I discovered that my alarm had been set form 6:50 pm- not a.m. I got dressed as quickly as I could, but this is not such a simple task seeing as all the washers and dryers have been broken for the past three days.
I stand on the threshold and take a deep breath before plunging into the bitter cold of a winter morning. The echoes of sleep still ring in my mind, and I pacify my urge to listen more closely with the knowledge of extra sleep to come in the afternoon.
For now, I must lunch with pledgees.

It's been a week! Figurativly and litterally. Pledge week is underway, and I have gotten to the point where one day feels like it's been three. The "hard part" for me will be over soon, but this upcoming week won't be a piece of cake either. We ended up with 8 pledges and one of those has already decided the whole social club scene isn't for her so we have 7 girls. They are seven of the most amazing girls I have ever met, and I pray that they will grow together this week. Nichole Gauthier, Sarah Horton, Sarah Hedges, Katie Widdig, Katie Fisher, Tara Beth Fitzhugh,and Kelsey Hack. I am so proud of each of these girls and I'm glad they are part of Chi Rho Phi.

I realized today in church how much I miss my family. I saw a little girl standing next to her dad during the invitaion. He was holding the hymnal for her and pointing out each of the words as the song went along. It made me think of sitting in between mom and dad in church and dad using his pen to point the words to me in the hymnal "so many years ago". I kinda want to come home this next weekend, and I think I just might after the week I know this is going to be. It will be a good week, but that doesn't mean it will be easy.
Love, Rachel

*ding,ding* Week 2

So it's Sunday night, and I just go off of Lobby Duty. It has been quite a day, and this week I'm sure will follow suite. It's Women's Rush Week here at OBU and things are gonna get busy. I start off tomorrow morning at 8am and unfortunately there is no other time for me to take either my Algebra class or contemporary world so I am stuck with what I got. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to pluck up and move on. After all, there are plenty of unpleasant people we have to deal with in the real world-right?
Speaking of unpleasant...I thought I was done with my previous major. I kicked it out to the curb of minor-dom and moved on with my life. Yes? No! The play we did last semester advanced to the Regional competition in March. So I must contribute another couple of weeks to this production. The sad thing is that I probably won't be able to help out with the Winter Retreat at Lakeside because the festival and retreat are on the same weekend.
We had our first choir practice at church tonight, and we will sing in the service for the first time next Sunday morning. Of course, we had to have a discussion on whether to stay in the choir loft during the service or to move to the congregation during the offertory. It was a quite stimulating debate.
My friend Rance has the flu and no voice at the moment so please be praying for him. Hope you all have a great week! Love you!

The Idiot's Guide to Contemporary World

Alright, so today didn't go as planned or as I expected it to. I awoke to the voice of everyone's favorite oriental dorm mother shouting my name from the other side of my door. I rolled back over, seeing as I didn't have class until 12:30. Rest assured good people that I did find Mom Chu later and took care of what she needed. I got out of bed around 9:45 and proceeded to fight my curling iron, the washing machiene, and the bookstoore- not all at one, I can assure you. Modern Brit. was cut short and I got to go eat lunch, but I had forgotten my ID in the room, so a kind stranger allowed me to use his.
Nothing could have prepared me for what would happen in Contemporary World at 2 o'clock however. I walk in to the class just a few minutes prior to said time, and who is standing at the front of the class? Not Dr. Bowen my favorite Prof of all time. Instead, a person that shall remain naimless (for those of you that do attend my school and read this), and also happens to be my least favorite instructor of all time next to the dinosaur from algebra is standing at the desk in the front of the classroom.
This woman makes Mad-Eye Moody look sane okay?! It doesn't matter that the last class I had with her was called American Heratige, it should be called The Klan in America: Past, Present, and Future. In American Heritage, she assured us that the goverment was conspiring with said organization.
As my wonderful roommate pointed out, it's not to late to change my schedule.
The reason for Dr. Bowen's absence is that he has been recalled to active duty to take the place at a Fort here in Arkansas of another man going to Iraq. Dr. Bowen has already served a tour in Iraq, and he and his wife have just had the addition of a baby boy named Samuel to their family. I am thankful he doesn't have to go back to Iraq, but I can't help wanting my Proffesor back.

The first week thus far

Today was the first day of classes! I was not altogether thrilled at getting up this morning for my 8 o'clock class. Algebra and I have never got along, but the simple fact that it is at 8 o'clock makes me dislke it even more. However, because I am taking it at 8 instead of 9 I can take it with a different prof. than the dinosaur that I had last time. The hour of nine rolled around and so did Biblical Exegesis. I have that class with my Big Brother from Chi Rho Phi, Nathan Nordin!! This is the only time I have had and will have a class with him because he will graduate in May. With 10 o'clock came American Letters with Dr. Sonheim. The best part comes tomorrow when my first class isn't until 12:30 in the afternoon, AND it's my elective that I picked!! Modern Britain Since 1600! More tomorrow!
Love,
Rachel

Ice, sleet, and rain- oh my!

Well the weather is takin everything it has and throwing it at Dallas/Fort Worth. I am still here in little Azle, Texas and probably won't be returning to Arkadelphia until Tuesday at the earliest, and I need to be there today. I don't know what's going to happen in the next couple of days, but it's really frustrating.

Friends

Isn't it great when we get a fresh start with old friends. Even when we don't treat them like a friend should, and they take us back...that's really great. A friend never says "I told you" even though they might have. Thank God for amazing friends.

2007

So things are looking up in this new year. I made out alright academically last semester, well best I have yet, but this semester has to be better than last one. I miss my friends at school, but I'll miss my family once I'm there. I think being and RA will bring many new challenges and perhaps "less hours." Rush is on it's way, soon moving in will happen as well, algebra will be torturing me again, and we found a tooth when moving aunt sis's things to the new nursing home today. Mom, Granny, and I went to Cross Timbers Coffee Company for lunch and I had a tomato and cheese pianini...I think that's how you spell it. I also got a mini bunt cake for desert because it looked rather tasty. (That probably didn't help my cause much; I've started doing some exercise every night to music to help burn some extra calories.) I led the games for the youth tonight and that was about as fun as chewing sandpaper. Sure the kids had fun, but I loose my voice while their at it. Seth even got wrapped in toilet paper because we played toilet paper mummies! As I stop to think, it hits me that I didn't do much to make sure Sethy could play the games too. You would think I would have, since that is always one of my big pet peeves about our past youth ministers...well don't I feel like a great big sister at the moment. I'll have to apologize to Sethy for that, and make it up to him by getting him some ice cream. We all know how Seth loves his Blue Bell. Sunday night in church Brother Jim was talking about a friend of his that had been paralyzed by Polio when he was young, and when Jim asked him what he was going to do when he got to heaven the man replied: "Run, and run, and run, and run." Since mom and dad weren't there I was sitting next to Seth and he looks over at me and says: "I'm going to run." I love my curls-a-bugly a whole heck of a lot.