As promised...

...I am going to blog about the school trip I got back from three days ago.

So, on Monday morning, I chose to sleep in until 7:28. It was awesome. I got up, threw the stuff I was going to take into my backpack, and then loaded my stuff, my mom's stuff, and my sister's stuff into the van (our van was the larger of the two vehicles that we took, and it had 7/9 seats taken). So I also ended up being one of the three people who loaded basically everything into the van and then arranged it in a way that would be most comfortable for those of us who would be sitting in it.

One of the mom's (one of the ones who wasn't going on the trip) came by and dropped off cookies, lollipops, and sour candy (the last being totally awesome, btw). Which I promptly stashed in my backpack (I doled it out later, but in small increments :D).

Anyway, we had a mostly uneventful trip there (some four or five hours long), throughout which I had next-to-no leg room, and we listened to one of my friends' iPod through a portable speaker. Then, shortly before we got there, it started snowing. It was miserable, especially because my shoes don't fit me anymore (I just got new ones today), so I hadn't taken them with me, just sandals. And it was snowing. I thought at first that I was totally done for, if it was going to be snowing the whole time, but it all melted the second day.

We had a really big treasure hunt that we had to set up for the second day, with the guys vs the girls, so it was four versus six (though we found out later that the moms were actually helping them out, so it was actually four versus ten). Anyway, each team had to draw a map of the ranch where we were staying, as detailed and proportional as we could, and then hide two clues and a final prize. Each team gave the other a clue to lead them to one of the other two, which led the next, etc.

Anyway, that's how it ended up that at 11 o'clock on Tuesday night I was past my knees in a really cold stream hiding a banana under a bridge. The air temperature was somewhere a little below freezing, because the non-flowing water was ice. I disguised it as walking the dog. It was actually a little freaky, because the sky was clouded over, so there was no starlight/moonlight, and since this was a ranch, the only light came from the buildings on the ranch, and they didn't reach that far. So whenever my friend flicked the flashlight beam away from the path in front of us (which he did on a regular basis when he was looking behind us or something), we were literally plunged into absolute darkness. We were halfway to the bridge when I told him that those who had gone horse riding that day had seen fresh (as in, from that day) bear tracks. We went a little faster after that. Still, it was totally awesome. I waded out into the middle of the stream, while he held the flashlight so I could see what I was doing. I hid the banana a little less than a meter towards the middle of the bridge, on a part of the metal frame that had been bent down. Then we went back.

Right after I changed out of my now-soaking jeans, we decided that we might as well hide one of the other clues that night, too, while the girls weren't watching. So my friend and I once again went outside and hid our second clue under a rusted metal wagon-bed in front of the stables.

In the morning, we hid the last clue, made it back before the girls were up, and then we all ate breakfast. At 7:15, we scattered to go find the clues and stuff. The girls first one was really easy to find, but it took ten minutes to walk to it, and it was also around 20 meters out of bounds. The second one, according to the instructions, required us to walk 496 hockey-stick-lengths WE. Which is "West-East." Naturally, we got totally confused over that, until it was decided that they probably meant NNE (North, North-east) and had just run the Ns together so that they looked like a W. Anyway, we followed those instructions, but then we were supposed to take "the path to the left. Not to the right, not to the middle, or anything else. To the left." Well, we were walking on the side of the road (and the road was one of the boundaries). We were walking on the right side of the road. Going to the left would take us out of bounds, and the only place on that side that we could walk on was the railroad tracks, which would be infinitely not-cool. So we decided to go with our instinct and the assumption that, despite their insistance otherwise, the girls had gotten their directions mixed up. Well, we were right. After ten minutes of walking, we found the pole that the directions, once corrected, led us to. Unfortunately, there was no clue there. So we split up and found it on a small signpost (like a trail marker) around 40 meters away. As it turns out, my sister (who happened to be the one hiding it) hadn't felt like walking all the way out to the pole, since it was in the middle of around six centimeters of icy water, and had instead put it on the signpost, neglecting to correct the instructions afterward.

Regardless, we found it. When we looked back over the ranch from where we were, though (we were on higher elevation than the rest of the ranch at the time), we saw the girls had definitely not figured out our clue. The first one that we gave them required them to go to one of two storm drains within the boundaries, and then walk such-and-such paces in such-and-such a direction. We didn't want to give them a hard time finding the first clue, though, so we put it in plain sight. Well, sure enough, they all went to the wrong storm drain first. We sent them to the other one, and they spotted the clue from around 100 meters away. w00t for them. That clue, though, was the one that would eventually lead to the wagon. It was a poem, which gave such hints as the location being red, being a bed that you couldn't sleep on, being near "where the horses are at bay", etc. Somehow, through some presumably twisted reasoning, the girls walked like twenty minutes across the pasture to the train tracks, as if they at all fit the clue (I still don't understand their reasoning, and btw, the wagonbed happened to be around ten meters from the main building).

We called them back and let them know that they didn't need to go out that far, and then tried to figure out their last clue. It was a poem.

Mirror, mirror, on the dresser
Tell us, are we any lesser?
Are we fatter than before?
Have we lost weight,
Or gained more?

Well, we figured that the first bit was just to throw us off. After all, there was no dresser in the main room. We checked behind the mirrors, though, just to make sure. In the main suite, where we guys slept, there was nothing behind the mirrors. It's just an understood thing on these sorts of events that the rooms are not co-ed, so we figured that the girls rooms were off limits unless we were told otherwise, which we weren't. So, we abandoned that line of thought and tried to think of what else the poem could mean.

We came up with the idea that they meant the stream--after all, it's narrower in some places and wider in others, and it is reflective, like a mirror. Furthermore, while the stream was drawn on their map with approximately the same width throughout the whole thing, at one point it suddenly dropped to a third (max) of its width, and there were erase marks around that whole section, which led us to think that it was intentional. So we walked out that way.

It turned out that they had just free-handed the stream, hadn't really looked to see how it ran (unlike us guys--one of us fell in while we were checking it out :D), and thus, that narrow spot was pure accident. Well, we spent some fifteen minutes trying to find this supposed bottleneck, with no luck. I rolled my jeans up and walked through the stream a few times in narrower areas looking for whatever they had hid, on the chance that we had found the 'right' bottleneck. Needless to say, those were fruitless minutes.

We went back to the buildings some five minutes after the time was up, and found out that somehow the girls hadn't found the banana. We had seen them finally find the clue under the wagonbed, and that clue was our most brilliant--it was something that they had to use the Quadratic Formula to solve, etc., but we specified that they couldn't use a calculator. They had to solve for C, which was the number (counting from the East side) of the bridge plank that the banana was hidden under. They thought that the equation was just meant to throw them off, and went and looked under the bridge. Fortunately for us, they didn't look far enough under it (they basically just stuck their heads over the edge, which gives them far too shallow of an angle to see it) and they didn't get it.

In the end, we found out that they had gotten permission with the moms to hide their thing in one of their rooms, and had just neglected to tell us that the rooms weren't restricted anymore. w00t for them. I ended up going back into the stream to get the banana back out, and once again had to change into shorts while my jeans dried. w00t for me.

Anyway, it was an awesome time.

The evening before, we had climbed a nearby hill, which was only 600 some meters tall, but it was just really steep, so it was literally a climb, with us using our hands as much as our feet to reach the top (along the trail). That was really, really fun, except that I was in sandals for lack of shoes that fit, and that the sun hadn't really melted the snow on the climbable side of the hill (one side was climbable, the other was quite literally a sheer drop). So my toes were cold for a while.

Since only four of us were really 'athletic' or whatever, and one of those four happened to be the one designated to carry the backpack with everyone's cameras; my sister, my friend (the same one who hid the clues with me later that night--Chad), and I ended up being the ones to lift people past the difficult places and lower them down and stuff. It was really fun, but several times, in bracing myself so that I could literally pull people up icy patches, I sat in snow. The snow was gone by the time I stood up, but I was starting to get really cold. :P

Anyway, it only took us twenty-five minutes to reach the top, and the view was awesome, since it was like smack-dab in the middle of the valley, so there wasn't anything taller to block the view of the entire ranch property as well as the surrounding villages. The way down, though, took around forty-five minutes. My sister and Chad went at the front, and I was the rear guard. However, it seemed as though everyone in between those two and I slid down all of the steeper parts on their butts, which meant that all of my handholds had just been smoothed away, which made bracing myself and lowering people a lot more challenging. We were all really dirty and scraped up by the time we reached the bottom, but it was really fun.

So, the climb was Tuesday evening, and the treasure hunt was Wednesday morning. We left Wednesday afternoon, around two o'clock. This time, we literally had no leg room. I could not touch the floor. I spent most of the four or five hour trip with my knees tucked under my chin (my legs cramped up early on, which made it really painful for a little while), which was only slightly worse than how everyone else was stuck sitting, since they had only like two different ways to sit. So we were all really glad to get out at the end.

It was, overall, a fun trip, especially the climb and the treasure hunt, but I'm glad to be back--for starters, now I have the computer again.

Randomnation AND SPOILERS!!!

Meríndë, don't read this--it's got spoilers!!!!!

Well, I'm all the way back to Knife of Dreams again. And I think that it's passed A Crown of Swords as my favourite WoT book, just because of the Mat/Tuon plotline, along with the culmination of a bunch of other interesting ones--aCoS was merely another stepping stone on the path of books, so it left as many unanswered questions as answered ones. And it didn't have Tuon in it.

Regardless, not counting the whole Tarmon Gai'don storyline, Mat and Tuon's is the most interesting one in the books, I think. Poor Mat. :P

[/SPOILER]

Also, most unfortunately, I have a 12-page thesis paper due on Friday, and thanks to my procrastinating ways (which I probably won't change anytime soon), I've yet to even pick a topic to write about. o_O

Our Physics teacher is planning on giving us an insane amount of homework, hoping to finish a chapter in a week (that's some 25 pages, including questions), and our last Geometry homework assignment was four lessons and the end-of-chapter review. And this was over the weekend, when we're supposed to have less homework. Life is really strange at times.

So mostly my life revolves around reading KoD and putting off my thesis paper right now. It's pretty sweet. :D

Here are some things that I've found online in the last few weeks and thought were really funny, or just worthy of being posted. :D

That's someone's take on BMW's new marketing slogan. :D

And here's someone's amazing artwork of Egwene:

Well, in the last few days, I've noticed a trend in the music that's been connecting with me. I mean, I do get tired of songs eventually (most of the time), but there are certain times when songs just really connect, regardless of whether or not they have before.

I've been listening to a lot of Relient K and Casting Crowns recently, along with some Skillet, and currently these songs are my favourites to listen to:

Say Goodbye by Skillet

Don't say goodbye
Cause I don't wanna hear those words tonight
Cause maybe it's not the end for you and I
And although we knew
This time would come for me and you
Don't say anything tonight
If you're gonna say goodbye

Fallen Man by Relient K (still my favourite lyrical song)

Because the judge of you is someone I could never be
Is why you should thank the Lord that it is Him
And it’s not me
Don’t give up, it’s not the end
There’s hope for every fallen man
To pick themselves up when they think they can't
Because with every passing second comes a second chance
Don’t give up it’s not the end
You’ll get back on your feet again
Forgiveness can be given when you think it can't
Because with every passing second comes a second chance

Let It All Out by Relient K

And you said "I know that this will hurt
But if I don't break your heart, then things will just get worse.
If the burden seems too much to bear,
Remember, the end will justify the pain it took to get us there."

Prodigal by Casting Crowns

I dragged Your name back through the mud
That You first found me in
Not worthy to be called Your son
Is this to be my end?
Daddy, here I am
Here I am again

When I Go Down by Relient K

When I go down
I go down hard
And i take everything I've learned
And teach myself some disregard
When I go downIt hurts to hit the bottom
And of the things that got me there
I think, if only I had fought them
......
When I go down
I lift my eyes to you
I won't look very far
Cause you'll be there
With open arms
To lift me up again
To lift me up again

Who I Am Hates Who I've Been by Relient K

Who I am hates who I've been
And who I am will take the second chance You gave me
Who I am hates who I've been
Cause who I've been only ever made me
So sorry for the person I became
So sorry that it took so long for me to change
I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again
Cause who I am hates who I've been
Who I am hates who I've been

With the exception of Say Goodbye, which just totally fits a lot of events in my life, all of those songs have to do with forgiveness/repentance, and the realization that God is there to lift us up whenever we fall. They are incredibly encouraging for me--the ultimate music (IMHO) to listen to when I'm feeling depressed, because they're a reminder that I'm not alone, and that I'll never strike out. God isn't going to run out of patience with me--I am His, and he's not going to let me go, no matter how many times I stumble in sin. God is good, and knowing that is great.

This Easter was an unusual one for me, mostly because this year, only one of my sisters was present for it. My sisters rock, and their absence is always noticeable, especially on a holiday like Easter was. However, I went to a friend's birthday party over the weekend. Sort of. I actually went Sunday night, after spending Sunday afternoon twiddling my thumbs at a family's house that happens to have a 14-year old girl, a 13-year old girl, a 9-year old girl, and a 5-year old boy. Needless to say, there wasn't much for me to do, though of course the parents all talked together, and Amy talked with the girls. Anyway, post-that, I went to my friend's house. Not only do we have a blast talking about a really, really large variety of topics, he also has an X360. And Halo 3. That game happens to rock. A lot. I'm almost as good as he is (he won a twenty-minute game by ONE point), but that really doesn't add or detract from the fun of it. We played that a lot. He also has Assassin's Creed. He got it for his birthday (like a week before his party). He'd already beaten it like twice, and the final level three times or so. Anyway, after we played Halo 3 for a matter of hours, he played Assassin's Creed for a while and pretty much just showed it off. As a matter of just having a goal, he hunted down, battled, and slew all of the guards he could find, generally in as stealthy a manner as possible, and if that wasn't an option, it was mass-battle. The largest group he fought at one point was 21 guards. O_O

Anyway, suffice it to say that we (him, two of our mutual friends, and I) had a blast. Then we went downstairs, snacked for a little while, then went to bed, it being around 2:30 AM. We got up at 10:00 or so. Then we ate a nice big breakfast (French toast!), talked for a while, and played more Halo 3. A lot more of it. At 3:30 PM, the party guests (those who weren't invited to spend the previous night) started arriving, and in the end, there were 29 people in the house, counting the parents and younger siblings of the invitees. It was really loud. And we had mass games of Halo 3, taking turns playing matches and such. It was really, really funny to see everyone who had never tried before attempt it (there were like four of them who had never played before, and believe it or not, they were more or less massacred). We laughed. A lot.

But then, my sister, another of my friends, and I all got permission to spend that night as well there, and watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We laughed at that a lot, too. At around 1:00 AM, the movie finished, and we went into Michael's (my friend whose birthday party it was) room to talk--my sister, Michael's sister, another of Michael's sisters, and Chad and Matthias, who were also spending the night. We talked for just rather a long time, finally deciding that we should go to bed at around 5:00 AM.

In true form, all of the guys were up by 9:00 AM. So far, Chad and I have yet to get more than six hours of sleep at any sleepover or slumber party or whatever that we are both at. This time, though we were all of the opinion that four hours was too little to sleep, yet still, going to sleep again would be a waste of daylight, since Chad was going to get picked up at noon. So we all got up. And had another blast.

So all told, I had a great Sunday-Monday, but then on the way back from Michael's house with Amy, we got caught between buses in a sudden miniature snowstorm. It lasted for around an hour, and we were walking it for twenty minutes. Unfortunately, Sunday and Monday, the temperature had been around 12°, so I was in jeans, sandals, and a t-shirt. Which totally didn't hold up against reasonably fine 3° weather, negative-something windchill, and snowflakes (and for a little while, hail as well) that were at least a centimeter in diameter. We could see around twenty feet in front of us, and that not very clearly. It was pretty miserable for a while. I don't mind being wet, and I don't particularly mind temperatures above 0°, but when it's wet and less than 10°, it's really hard for me to stay warm, and we eventually stopped into a store for around ten minutes just because I wasn't sure of the consequences of walking much longer with the blood having mostly receded all the way to my shoulder blades. That wasn't cool, but anyway, we made it back to our house, and I took a nice hot shower. It felt great.

Yesterday was a whole 13°, which was awesome. The sun was shining, which I love, and so I went and played basketball for a little while. I think I should do it more often, because I wasn't very accurate. :P

So yeah, this holiday was awesome. Oh, yeah--on Friday, Chad, Amy, a friend (Santa) and I went to one of the malls here and just talked. For five hours. Santa actually goes to school in Vienna, so none of us (with the exception of Amy) had seen her for a while, and since she was formerly one of our classmates, we felt that we should take advantage of a time when all of our breaks corresponded. We had fun.

But, I think I've dragged this post out long enough. I'll just add one more thing--I'm borrowing Gladiator: The Extended Edition from Michael, and I'm so going to watch it over the weekend. Be jealous, all of you!!! :D

Changes

Well, it's certainly been a while since my last post. I've done a whole lot in that time, and in some ways, not so much at all. I'm on Crossroads of Twilight for the seventh time, and I've been managing on staying well on top of my homework, which is fun.

I house-sat again this last month for the same family as last time, and for once I played no Halo 3 at all (I was going to, but the X360 wouldn't connect for multiplayer. Fable: The Lost Chapters and discovered that it was a really, really cool game.

I've also decided that I really, really, really love epic soundtrack music. Not just battle music, but epic music. And if it's somewhat sorrowful/bittersweet, so much the better. So I've been listing to the AWE, DMC, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, The Passion, The Last Samurai, The Village, and RotS soundtracks. And loving them. I just need more soundtracks. But, as the title of the post implies, I've got some huge changes coming up in my life, starting with the fact that my family is moving to the USA in mid-August. Having never really lived there (spending the summer doesn't really count), that's going to be a really radical change. I've got no worries about whether or not I'll adapt, as I know that won't be such a huge deal for me, but it will also be my first time in a "public" school setting (my sister and I might end up going to a private school, but most likely a public one). That is somewhat more worrisome. However, I'm mostly just wishing that I could do everything that I want to do before leaving Slovakia, as I obviously won't be able to do that when I'm in the USA. Especially because there's not much chance of me going anywhere before I'm out of college, now, which might end up being a matter of some years (depending on whether or not I go to med school). So, I'm kind of split over whether I want to move or not, though I'm certainly not going to try to keep my family here--we're going to the USA just to be closer to my older sisters, who are having a really rough time being away from us and trying to adapt to the (seemingly) bizarre culture in the USA.

So, life is going to be interesting for me. And, since in the summer I'm going back to the Czech republic for some weeks to work at a camp again, and then I might go to a camp in the UK as well (on top of packing to leave to the USA), I probably won't be on the comp much at all. Which totally stinks.

Glee

Well, on Thursday night I went to see the premiere (in Slovakia) of 3:10 to Yuma, which actually came out on September 7 in the USofA. I've been waiting since before then to see it.

It's a remake of a 1957 Western of the same name, which is adapted from a short story of the same name. Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a down-on-his-luck rancher with a wooden leg, who isn't respected by his sons (the older, and more prominently featuring son being fifteen years old, and played by Logan Lermon), and whose barn is burnt down by two men working for a man named Glenn Hollander, whom he owes money to.

Russell Crowe plays Ben Wade, a notorious, classy, and confident outlaw who always seems to be more in control than anyone else in the movie.

Dan goes into the town of Bisbee to talk to Hollander, and witnesses Wade robbing a stagecoach with his gang. Wade takes Dan's horse and leaves it on the road to Bisbee, where he rides to with his gang. Wade gets captured there when Dan shows up and distracts him long enough for a posse to surround him. Mr. Butterfield, an employee (I'm not sure how high up he is, but at least decently high) of Pinkerton National Detective Agency, wants him taken to the town of Contention, to be put on the 3:10 train to Yuma prison "the day after tommorrow". Dan joins the group for $200, so that he can pay Hollander off.

Wade's second-in-command, Charlie Prince (played by Ben Foster), finds out about the move, and the escort has to race against time and Wade's gang (which outnumbers them) to reach Contention.

My rating of the movie is a lovely 4.3/5. ^_^ It could easily have been less violent (it was rated R for it), as I don't think it's necessary to see someone get blown away via shotgun blast, but I really, really liked it. The music was awesome, involving a whole lot of guitar, and the acting was amazing, as was the casting. Ben Foster was an incredible pick for Charlie Prince. I loved that movie. I want to see it again.

I'm currently looking for The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel to read again, as I think that that book is incredible. Meríndë, it's a book you should read. :) Anyway, I'm gonna read that one, and then I'm gonna read his sequel, The Case for Faith. That one is also good. I was going to read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for the first time, but while I know we have it somewhere, I couldn't find it. At all.

In further news, I've been able to listen to Switchfoot's Oh! Gravity for the first time (all the way through, as opposed to piecemeal), as I'm borrowing it from a friend. It's the only one of Switchfoot's CDs that I don't own, though it's one of five that I don't possess, as all but one of the ones that I own vanished with my CD case on June 14th last year. In my house. >_< Anyway, it rocks. Probably, at this point, my favourite songs are "Awakening", "Circles", and "Faust, Midas, and Myself".

I looked outside the glass

At golden shores

Golden ships and masts

With golden cords

As my reflection passed

I hated what I saw

The Golden eyes were dead

A thought passed through my head

A heart that's made of gold can't really beat at all

And then...

My heart beat once or twice

And life flooded my veins

Everything had changed

My lungs had found their voice

And what was once routine

Was now the perfect joy

Yeah. That's from "Faust, Midas, and Myself." I really like that song. It's got an awesome ending.

Um, another reason for glee right now is that I had garlic soup tonight. It was sooooo good. Besides creamy potato soup, garlic soup has no rival for being the ultimate soup. It's so fantastic.

Oh, yeah. I also got Casting Crowns' The Altar and the Door, which is just an incredible album. "East to West" got instantly booted onto my list of favourite songs.

Jesus can you show me just how far

the east is from the west

‘Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been

Rising up in me again

In the arms of Your mercy I find rest

‘Cause You know just how far the east is from the west

From one scarred hand to the other

Pretty much that entire album is awesome, ranking right up there with Five Score and Seven Years Ago by Relient K, The Beautiful Letdown by Switchfoot, Comatose by Skillet, Mmhmm by Relient K, and Lifesong, by themselves. The lyrics are just incredible.

So, um, yeah. That's my life right now. Happy. ^_^

Back

Well, it seems that right after I left A-U so that I would have more time that I made use of in real life, real life gave me a lot more to do. I just got back today from house-sitting for a family that was at a conference for a week. It was fun. Spent most of my time reading, talking with my sister, doing homework, lplaying with their dogs, and playing on the X360. Which is pretty much what I do at home, but minus the X360 and plus chores and stuff.

Since it seems as though I never got around to updating about my Christmas holiday, I'll do so now. It can be summed up in three words--"It. Was. Great." :D All of my sisters were present, in addition to my sister's boyfriend (who is now her fiancé), and a childhood friend from the Caribbean and her boyfriend.

Life rocks. ^_^

Um....what's new. On my birthday this year, I'll be on a twelve-hour flight to the USA for the graduation of one of my sisters and the wedding of another. I love how so many exciting and enjoyable things can happen in a short time.

Hopefully I'll be back on a normal sleep schedule by Monday--since we started Christmas break, my sleep schedule has been really diverse. At around New Year's Day I was staying up until around 5:00 AM on a daily basis, several days pushing it to 10:00, but then school started, so I had to switch around to getting up at 6:00 AM, and consequently going to bed earlier. Thanks to the machinations of life, I felt almost jet-lagged after my sisters flew back to the USA (several days after school started), waking up around four times every hour for the whole night for around a week. Then that stopped, and I had an almost-normal week, then I went house-sitting, and ended up going to bed before midnight only one night, and that night I actually couldn't fall asleep until after my alarm went off in the morning. >_<

But now things should hopefully return to normal. :D

Eh?

My sister is back from the USA. Well, one out of three of them who were in the USA. My other two sisters return on Friday and Sunday, respectively. :D I'm so happy.

And I did something Friday night that I've been wanting to do for a while--I stayed up with a couple of friends and we watched all three LotR EEs back-to-back. 12 hours of watching. Counting the bathroom breaks and food raids and stuff, we were watching from around 6:30 at night to somewhere between 7:45 and 8:00 in the morning. It rocked. And we did it all with just six liters of soda to go around four people. And I drank around three of them (I'm not that great at refraining from drinking stuff when I'm thirsty. :P). Plus two liters of milk. w00t.

And we had pizza, which is always something to enjoy, no matter how common it is. :D

Unfortunately, I can't really sleep during the day without messing up my sleep that night, so I had to stick it out for the rest of the day on Saturday. My friends all fell asleep at various parts during the day before they went home (we watched Ocean's Eleven around noon), but I managed to make it to 8:37 before I went to bed--a long 38.5 hours of staying awake without even dozing off. It was really hard, and I can't say that I'm all that interested in staying awake that long again. It doesn't sound very endearing right now.

But. I still watched all three back-to-back. :D