Here are some photos from the Holiday Banquet!
Term I finished well, hard work does pay off. Sleeping pays off too from what I learned from experience. So it was finals week and the night before my last final, and all I had to do was study for one more night. After my Comparative Final that evening I went to dinner where my friends and I exchanged our gifts and went back to my room to attempt to study. Christmas movies were on TV and I decided just to watch one to relax while studying. Next thing I knew it was 7:00am the next morning and my exam was in 2 hours. I woke up with the pencil still in my hand and books right on top of me...I hadn't moved in over 9 hours!! With realizing what time it was I got ready for the day and crammed. In the end I received one of my highest test grades in that class on the that final, so sleeping sometimes really is better than staying up late to study! I'm just glad I woke up in time!
The next day I made my way home with a stop at my Nonna's house. As soon as I entered my Nonna's house they were just sitting down to eat some home made linguini. It was epic timing. After dinner we ate some traditional Italian cookies my cousin and my cousin's wife made with my Nonna. They were delicious: filled with fig spread/raisins and topped with icing. Stuffed from the meal we decorated some more cookies and I drove home. Once home I caught up on sleep! It was great! Surprisingly there was very little snow in Elmira, so when I got home to the snow covered ground I was very excited. For one week I helped prepare things for the holidays and visited with my family. My Mom decided that I worked myself to be given the name "little elf" just to give you an idea of what I had been up to, although my brother says I am much to tall. Oh well...guess I'll have to choose another profession.
We celebrated Christmas Eve at my house with as many fish to eat as we could, not all seven, but we did pretty well. I did cut the calamari (squid) for the sauce a little large, but it went over really well! The next day we made it to two more houses, ate a ton and opened a few gifts. My little cousin Adam was the cutest. He is 3 years old and loves cars. Kids have the coolest toys these days. One of his gifts was a little couch that turns into a bed with a sleeping bag, Cars (Disney movie) logo on it of course.
It is nice to be home to spend time with family and friends! Although I do miss my friends from school I plan on meeting up with a few of them on a little road trip and with some who graduated a few years ago! Aside from all that I felt motivated today to purchase my texts books online for Term II. It's hard to believe this will be my last time buying books for school at Elmira! Yikes...where does the time go! Ciao!
