48 days.

This is for all of you non-faceboook-checkers out there (which I'm sure everyone checks facebook) to let you know that I got my flight moved up 2 weeks! VUW put out their finals "timetable" online yesterday and my final is like the 3rd day out of the 3 week final schedule. We initially booked my flight to be on the day after the last day of finals, not knowing that the exam period was so long (I'm used to like 5 days at A&M), but after realizing my final was on October 28, my dad figured out a way to get him home earlier! So get excited because I get home November 2!!

On an equally positive note, the past few days have been wonderful. I have felt so content in the Lord, and have really enjoyed just being in the Word and having fellowship with sweet friends here. The weather has been absolutely beautiful, and Emma and I spent like 3 hours last night after a bland dinner of "wedges" (thick potatoes) and rice, after refusing to eat chicken legs (bone-in, bleeckkk) that were literally the color of grey-ish brown sand or lamb pot pie (trust me, cafeteria lamb is no bueno), updating ourselves on US pop culture, eating grapefruits, watching music videos, and "studying". Okay, we really did get some studying done. And lots of laughing. You know, the kind that you should have everyday? That kind. Oh, and I just got a package of my favorite cookies (about 200 thumb-sized cookie-cutter cookies that are usually only made at Christmas time) from my sweet Granny.

A few things I'm going to do when I get home (I had my whole Geology class to think about this this morning):

1. "Run, jump, and spin-around hug" with Colin.
2. Take a bath. A looonnnggg bath.
3. Leave the door wide open while I go to the bathroom.
4. Open the fridge, close the fridge. Open the fridge, close the fridge. I HAVE A FRIDGE!!
5. Cook something. For like the next month.
6. Wash my clothes so they smell like home.
7. Go buy something with American money.
8. Stay up all night with my roommates talking and having bowl problems because of the over-indulgence in Jason's Deli ice cream which is an inevitable occurence at our reunion.
9. Have a glass of wine with my parents and just talking.
10. Take my seeestterrr to Jamba Juice.
11. Drive on the right side of the road. (I'm going to need supervision the first time this is attempted).
12. Read a newspaper in American English.
13. Lay on the floor (even though it may have dog hair on it).
14. Watch Martha Stewart with my Leeshie and dance to Keith Urban with Doodlebug and Sissy.
15. Chew on ice in my drinks.
16. Jump in the pool. I don't care if it is November.
17. Let my newly 16 year old brother drive my around!

...more to come later. This was all I could come up with in the short time I was daydreaming.

Random NZ fact of the day:
There are shells on the top of the Southern Alps - the Apline fault in NZ. All of the water in the world could not reach the heights of these, therefore, evidencing the fact that these are part of a orogenic belt where there was continental growth.

See, I WAS listening in Geology class. I am a good multi-tasker.