Minnesota (or "What I Did for Valentine's Day")

The past week has been okay. It's involved lots of studying; class ends next week and we've gotta cram a bunch of tests in between now and then! I really wanted to do well on Tuesday's test, so I did a LOT of studying (okay, so I may have spent all of Sunday afternoon playing Dead Island at Eli's brothers' house, but I studied the rest of the time.... okay, I set up karaoke on Monday morning, but I was super diligent about studying the rest of the day!) But I was stressed about the testing, especially since I wouldn't have much time to study for today's test since the past week was spent studying for Tuesday's test! Even worse, I only scored an 82 on Tuesday's test, and I've really been wanting to bring my score up to at least an 85 average (I was currently at 84). But instead of committing to devoting every waking minute of my time from Tuesday evening to Thursday morning studying, I decided to do something incredibly crazy instead.

Several weeks ago, Adam said he was going to a camp job fair at Crown College in Minnesota. I had made a promotional video that would be played at the fair. Here it is: 

Honestly, ever since the day he told us he had to work the job fair, I was kind of jealous. On Tuesday afternoon, when Adam found out that his wife wouldn't be able to go with him so he invited Eli instead, I was super jealous! But somehow, by the time we got home from class, I ended up packing a bag so I could go with them too.

It was a really long drive. We left a little before 6pm, and didn't get to our hotel until about 12:30. The road trip there was pretty interesting. I mean, since almost the entire trip was in the dark, there wasn't any scenery (most of the ride looks exactly like Nebraska anyway), but I enjoyed it. We stopped at BK in Fremont for burgers, listened to an audio book, and talked, especially about EMT class. Eli had studied as much as I did and also got an 82 on the test, while on the other hand Adam had done much better than us without any studying. He claims it was because we put TOO much effort into studying. The next day, I decided it was because the test was biased, as the test covered mostly OB stuff and Eli and I are the only ones in class who haven't dealt with pregnancy/childbirth. (Although Adam argued that I should naturally be better than everyone else at this sort of thing since I'm the girl, but I tried arguing back that kids weren't exactly on the radar anytime soon!) However, we did have to try Adam's tactics since we weren't able to read/study on the ride there because it was dark, or Wednesday morning because we were at Crown, or part of Wednesday evening because we were driving in the dark again. 

Anyway, back to the road trip. At our first rest stop, I found a 3-pound bag of gummy bears for $7. Adam said he'd pay me three times the cost of the bag if I could eat it all by the time we got to the hotel, and Eli even added $5 to the deal. But, I was so full from dinner (which, coincidentally, ended up being the smallest meal I ate on the trip), that I had to pass, and no gummy bears were bought or consumed. We also spent a lot of the trip making fun of the tiny roads we were on, which were supposedly "highways". Then, while driving down one of these "highways", we suddenly experienced a big BUMP as our car flew off of the paved road onto a dirt road that was closed for construction (we eventually found the unmarked detour); that was pretty weird! A few hours later, we made it safely to our destination and squeezed in a little bit of sleep before getting up, picking up some Subway breakfast, and heading over to Crown College. 

I had heard of the college before, and it's a C&MA school, but I was really surprised at how small it was! Aside from housing, the college was just one building, and everyone fit comfortably on the one set of gym bleachers! It was fun attending their "chapel" service, meeting people, and working the booth. We got a free lunch at the cafeteria, and they were making Chipotle burritos there, which were extremely filling! We had told lots of people about camp and got some prospective summer employees, so after a job well done we headed home. We stopped at Five Guys for dinner to eat some big, delicious burgers and fries, and discovered that, although I've lived in Nebraska the least out of all three of us, I knew more random things about cows. 

We got to camp around 7:30, and, although I managed to read a chapter of the textbook in the car, there was no way I would have time to read the other three chapters that would be covered in the test. There was only time for the online quizzes and filling out the study guide. I never regret a road trip, and I didn't really WANT to study more, but I thought having more study time would have been beneficial. However, I had made the right decision to go to Minnesota; I saw a new state, studied less, and got my best test score yet: 94% Woo-hoo! That bumped me up to just over an 85%, and now I only have to deal with the final and the practical next week, and then class is over! 

So in review, I spent my Valentine's Day doing absolutely nothing romantic (although that is typical of all my Valentine's Days). That day was spent going to class, taking a test, and taking a last-minute road trip to Minnesota. However, Eli and Christina and I went shopping for junk food on Friday and I bought a big pack of cookie dough, and on Sunday, I bought a heart-shaped Papa Murphy's pizza on the way back from Omaha, so I didn't miss out on the food aspect of Valentine's Day. The pizza was a little challenging to cook, though. I had to "break the heart" in order for it to fit in my pizza oven!