Fire Alarms and Whatnot

Life has been flying for us in Rexburg.  Today Zak went with me to pick up my cap & gown & other graduation things.  I can't believe that I will soon be done with school in a few short weeks!  Of course, I can't wait--each class is a slow, annoying torture at this point.  It's hard to stay motivated, but I want to go out with a pretty decent finish. 

S E V E N T E E N  M O R E  D A Y S ! ! !

We have also had an excessive amount of fire alarms this past week and a half.  Like, 4 of them.  The only other time it had happened was in November, around 11 P.M. where it was cold and I had just gotten out of the shower and was thoroughly frozen.  Last week there was an alarm in the afternoon, which wasn't bad because it was delightful outside.  Another alarm occurred a few days later.  But last night was the worst.

12:40 A.M. the loud alarm goes off, and I immediately wake up.  Zak is a pretty hard sleeper and didn't wake up until I patted his arm.  Grumbling, we put on clothes, grabbed our phones and keys and walked outside.  We waited about 5 minutes outside until the police, ambulance and fire department showed up.  I am not the happiest person when I first wake up, and I'm especially not pleasant after being awoken to a stupid fire alarm and my neighbors all feel it is THAT important to laugh, giggle and yell at 1 in the morning.  Plus, I was cold.  I guess there was some small fire or something, because after 10 minutes, when we went back inside, the complex smelled a bit like smoke.  I know fires aren't planned, but seriously--who was cooking or so inattentive that a fire was started so late at night?  Really??  And today it's gone off multiple times in the last hour, but we were told they were all tests.

Let's just say we are thoroughly ready to be out of this place.

Also, I have started to do Pilates; my doctor asked if I was doing anything like that at my first appointment, but then I found this great little book at the D.I. for $0.50, so I figured I'd give it a shot.  So far, I've been slowly working on the warm-up and introductory exercises.  I haven't seen a whole lot of improvement so far, but I have noticed my abs or legs slowly strengthening again.  And it usually calms me down and helps me sleep.  My back pain varies every day; I went in for another appointment last Friday to get my prescription renewed.  I have been doing everything right-the exercises, starting Pilates, having Zak massage the pain, taking the pills, sleeping with a pillow between my legs at night-but I was still in pain.  Luckily, as I've continued the exercises and cohering Zak to give me massages every other day or so, my back is doing better, slowly.  The doctor recommended physical therapy, but I don't think it'd work into my schedule or that my back is at that point yet.  Hopefully I can get into better habits and be successful with all these exercises, etc.

It is also starting to get very nice around here, 80% of the time.  It's usually in the 40s or 50s with sunshine, but sometimes it..snows...Blah.  On Sunday Zak and I went on a 4-mile, 1 and a half hour walk around town.  It was beautiful outside and we walked down to the nature park that I've never really been to.  It was nice to walk with Zak in the sunshine and talk about everything.  Luckily, just as we were nearing home, the sky turned for the worse, so we chose the best time to go out, it seems.

Tomorrow I am being forced to go to Provo, UT on a field trip for my American Humanities class.  We are going to the BYU museum of Art, which I wouldn't mind, but the teacher is making such a big deal out of the assignments PLUS I was just down there on another field trip last semester and I hate driving down there.  But I should hopefully be able to see some of my best friends, Amy and Anne, while on lunch break or something!  So there is that to look forward to, plus I have a fun friend in my class and we are bringing movies in hopes that the suburbans we ride in will have DVD players.  Although yesterday my teacher was talking about how he'd rather us not bring our ipods, etc.  Yeah..no.  There is minimal to see on the 4 and a half hour trip to Provo, UT and we are leaving at 6 A.M. and I don't want to really interact with some of the people in our class.  Whatever, my teacher is kind of ridiculous, if you read my previous post.  Hopefully it'll be an Ok day, especially if I get to see my friends.

That is about it; we are trying to get Zak's financial aid and everything ironed out with U of I; it's been more of a pain than we hoped.  Zak's past employers at Horkley's never got him his W2 and when he inquired about it, we were told it'd be sent to our apartment.  It turns out that it was sent to the store and Zak wasn't called about it; he went in today and they had it.  UGHHHHHHHHh.  They are just so incompetent and it's always frustrated me, but now it's worse.  I can't believe how poorly they've treated this situation.  But, we only have one more form to complete, so hopefully next week it'll all be sorted out.  My school work is actually lessening, which is strange.  I got my capstone paper finished, but I need to format it, etc.  Should be fine.  Oh, the fire alarm went off again for 30 seconds.  Gotta love it.