I remember back in the day when I was homeschooled. My bed time was 9:30 and my wake up time was 7:30 at the earliest. Granted, there were plenty of times I stayed up much later, but for the most part I got about 9 or 10 hours of sleep at night.

Even looking at my senior year in high school when I went to a private school, I still got a decent amount of sleep. I usually went to bed around 9 or 10 and got up at 5:30ish because my school was well over an hour away and because I took the bus partway, it became nearly a two hour trip. It was still 7-8 hours of sleep, and I survived just fine!

I think this decent amount of sleep started to really deteriorate in the summer, between my senior and freshmen year. I didn’t have school, wasn’t working, and really wasn’t doing anything pressing. I would go to bed more towards the 11-12 scale. Of course, then I remember that I was able sleep in until at least 8 every morning which is still 8 hours.

Okay, maybe it really stems from the time I spent at my dad’s house. There was no official bedtime, and I normally only went over when I didn’t have school, so I would stay up to all hours of the night, either at friends houses or with family. I enjoyed staying up late, and it didn’t affect me too much (except maybe a few Sunday mornings when I should have been a little more alert for church…but I never fell asleep in a church service).

Now I’m looking back at first semester at college. I started out with an average of 8 hours of sleep, for the first week, then it went down to 7. We were getting to bed by 12ish or earlier. Considering all the other people that I had heard of who got 5 or 6, I thought that I was doing pretty well. In fact, I was doing well until the middle/end of last semester. As paper season approached I found myself up later and later every night. Sometimes it was because I was truly writing papers or studying for test, other times it was because I wanted to hang out with friends. Soon nights were verging on the 12-2 spectrum. Normally falling around 12:30, which is still a decent amount of sleep, I suppose, though it continued getting smaller and smaller. The last week of school I averaged 5 hours a night.

This semester I started out on a burn the curfew pass note. In fact I think I burned two or three curfew passes in the first week and a half. I should explain a curfew pass: curfew is 12 on weeknights and 1 on weekends; freshmen get ten passes per semester that let them stay out one hour later. Curfew is the time you have to be back in your dorm, not the time you have to go to bed. Basically, I’ve been getting an average of 6 hours of sleep this week.

So present time: Sleep=not enough, reason=many….main one may be the amazing people that will stay up and talk. There’s nothing quite like the conversations you have at 1 or 2 in the morning.

I haven’t crashed yet, but I am trying to get more sleep….I think I’ll start by pressing snooze on my alarm!

Emily

I want to apologize for not blogging in so long. It’s quite horrible of me!

I think I’m going to dedicate this blog post to what I did this Monday in Washington D.C.

Monday January 23^rd was the day of the annual March for Life held in D.C. My college is just a little over an hour away from D.C., so of course we wanted to go. My roommate worked on getting a group of people together, rather surprised that there wasn’t already a group going. She asked around looking for people and possible rides. It seemed that everyone was busy with classes, or sick. In the end, we borrowed our friend’s car and took five people total. We drove to Falls church and went down to the metro. We boarded the empty train and began the thirty-ish minute ride into D.C. Along the way various people got on and off. A stop before ours we saw a huge group of people with pro-life shirts on, which was really neat. Finally we made it to our stop and walked the short distance to the speakers for the march. I was amazed at how many congressmen and state representatives came to speak. After about an hour, we wove our way towards the start of the march. Finally it began and we meshed in with the crowd of hundreds of thousands of people all marching for the cause of life! The march curved up to behind the capitol building. It was an amazing experience and one that I hope to experience every year that I’m near D.C. After the March we walked around D.C. until about 7 p.m., and then we headed to the metro.

There is a rather funny story that occurred when we arrived back at Falls Church that I will share.

My roommate Michelle and I decided that we would go get the car because the other people still had to pay for their metro exit fare. We walked through the dark cold misty air to the parking garage where the car we were borrowing was parked on the roof. We pressed the button for the elevator. A few seconds later it opened, and a rather homeless looking and very likely high man holding a medium sized black plastic bag staggered out. I caught Michelle’s eye as we entered, with a “that is creepy” look. We pressed the button for the roof. As we waited for the doors to close, the man started walking back towards us. I’m pretty sure both of our hearts started beating a little faster. Was he going to get in the elevator again? He looked at us as he staggered slightly. “You…ya’ll gonna get trapped! You gonna get trapped!” He chuckled seeming amused that he knew something we didn’t. We were both concerned now, and still afraid that he was getting back on the elevator. The doors began to close, and he walked away still chuckling and muttering “you gonna get trapped.” I reached my hand through the door to keep it from closing, and looked at Michelle, as the man continued to stagger away muttering. She motioned for me to let the doors shut. As the elevator began to ascend, I had a slightly worried feeling. What if there was something on the top of the roof, or what if the elevator was really going get stuck?

“That was weird,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“Yeah, just a little.”

Finally the doors to the elevator opened and we walked out onto the roof. There were only about ten cars left. Misty rain fell through the slightly illuminated air. The black sky above seemed threatening. It was the perfect place for something horrible to happen. We walked really fast towards the car, extremely happy when we were safely inside. Once the other people were upstairs and in the car we began to tell them the story. Suddenly, it sounded like there was a knocking on the car and felt like we had run over something. I let out a slight gasp. “What was that? It sounded like a person!”

“I’m pretty sure it was just a bump,” Michelle said.

Indeed it was just a bump, but I was never so glad to get out of a parking garage and back on the way to school!

When it happened it was rather frightening, but looking back I’m able to laugh. Maybe someday I’ll have something similar happen in a story I write, only there will be someone on that roof…

Well anyway, it was an amazing day, and even though I missed classes for a day, and it was freezing cold (quite literally), going to The March for Life was well worth it! Hopefully next year there will be a much bigger group going from PHC.

Emily

We were impressed with your novel. You should continue writing as you have a future in this field. While your book didn’t land a top spot we found it to be noteworthy. This will qualify you for some free publicity in the next couple months as we announce the winners.

Also your name was drawn for a free 1/4 page ad in a local newspaper called The Inland Adventurer. So you might think about what you want to advertise and which photos to use. Let us know, we can put something together for you.

Congratulations.

Read More Here

They have subsequently interviewed Emily, and we look forward to seeing the interview in print!

If we were to be honest, we are all pro-life.

Human beings have a built in mechanism that desires to preserve life. We fight and struggle each day to survive – sometimes against great odds. This principle is present in the very core of our society, and Hollywood demonstrates this idea movie after movie.

We cheer on the hero who is trying to rescue the weak and innocent (or at least his own self), while we boo the villian who is trying to destroy the life of the innocent or weak. But…are we missing something?

What about the weakest and most innocent of all people – little children – particularly those in the safety of their mother’s womb. The same innocent children who would continue to live and laugh and love and dream, except perhaps that the child’s mother decides to end its little life because of the lies of the pro-choice movement.

Murder is never justified by convenience! If so, it would have been fine for Hitler to kill millions of innocent people. It would have been okay for Stalin to do the same. Because a human being has not had the opportunity to take its first breath, makes them no less human than you or I, nor is the act of ending their heartbeat anything less than murder!

Who is going to save the children from the abortion industry? And it is an industry, masterminded by the greatest villian ever. Shall we continue to cheer him on? Or shall we stand with the truth and our own convictions to preserve life! Children in the womb are indeed living beings – this fact cannot be denied.

I implore you to watch this powerful video. It could save millions of lives! Then click on this link to see the one simple thing you can do to help end abortion.

This Christmas, give the gift of excitement and adventure…

The car turned up the long paved driveway towards the beautiful brick house set back in the isolated lovely woods of Aldie, VA. “They must be Republicans! They have a circle and a paved driveway!” Iain announced as the car arrived at the top of the hill.

Naomi and I looked at each other and couldn’t hold back the laugh. “So, Republicans like circles and paved roads?”

“That’s what Uncle Rickey said.”

“Okay so…it would be so nice to have a legit Uncle Rickey!” I said as we topped the hill.

“Yeah seriously! Who wouldn’t want a super rich uncle who has you as sole benefactor of the will?” The car stopped. “You got this one, Naomi?”

“Yeah!” She jumped out of the car and stuck the bundle of literature on the door, then ran back; and we headed to the next house on our list.

You may be wondering how this conversation ever started, or what we were doing where such a conversation made sense…well I don’t blame you!

I will explain. This last weekend was Fall Break. We got two days off of school over election weekend/week. The people at Patrick Henry College are very politically minded, and over election weekend, HSLDA works with Generation Joshua to put out SAT teams which help with campaigning. I am the last person in the world to do political campaigning. In fact, I said I wasn’t going to get involved in politics at all while at school, but when Fall Break comes and all your friends are either going out of town or going on an SAT, you have to do something. I chose the SAT.

I was thrown out of my comfort zone and into a sea of literature folding, literature dropping, phone banking, sign waving, standing outside the polls, late nights, early mornings, victory parties, news interviews, long driveways, a ton of laughter, and awesome people!

There are far too many stories that I could tell…but unfortunately time will not permit…so I will only tell a few.

I think I will start by explaining how you determine if a person is a Republican. On the first day, we ended up in the backwoods of Virginia delivering literature to huge homes off dirt roads and really long driveways. Among other things, we came up with a way to determine if a person is a Republican or a Democrat. Dear Nellie (the car) made numerous trips up very long driveways, so to entertain ourselves, we came up with ways to determine if we were giving lit to people who really needed it. We discovered (made up) that Republicans like circles and paved driveways. In particular they don’t like gravel driveways. But there were exceptions. If the gravel was covered in leaves they were still Republican, and if there was a circle at the end of the driveway they were still Republicans. They were also Republicans if the houses had redneck qualities…I’ll leave those up to the imagination. It was highly entertaining and made the long hours in the car full of laughter!

At the Polls on Tuesday I got a lot of practice braiding. You would think that I would say I got a lot of experience talking to people, but my braiding practice was much more exciting. During the early afternoon hours there was a complete lull in people coming to vote. My Roommate, Tara, offered to let me braid her hair, so I did. I made a halo around her head with the braid, and then I did it again as a snake starting at the top of her head and then zig-zagging down her head. I then did Anna’s hair like that. Afterwards, we decided it would look cooler if I did it from the two sides. So I started with two braids and then zig-zagged again. I did Anna’s too, and we called it the waterfall. It was highly entertaining and I must say it looked pretty cool. But alas, it was all practice for the victory party later that night. We made a bet with our SAT director that if our candidate won, we could dye and braid his beard. Well needless to say the canidate won…and we dyed and braided! It was really fun and, let me announce, Red food dye looks a lot like blood!

Okay well I guess I will leave it there. There were some other really fun stories, but I need to go read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Prince and write 5 papers…and, well, I need to get going on that!

Emily

Saturday—this word immediately speaks of joy, relaxation, and a break from classes. Indeed those are the first words that come to my mind. And this Saturday would be no different; at least, that is what I told myself at 9:00 in the morning as I climbed out of the warmth of my bed and onto the cold ground below. I sat down at my desk and opened up my computer. I had a lot of work to do today, and the best time to work on a Saturday is in the morning. I began reading Beowulf. About three pages in, I heard a shriek of excitement coming from outside the open window.

“It’s snowing!”

I jumped up from my desk and rushed to the window. Pulling the shades aside, I was met with a world of white flurrying snow. Giant snowflakes gently floated down, covering the green grass that still poked up from the thin layer of snow. I looked out for a few more seconds then knew I had to take action. It was snowing in October this was crazy! I quickly dug through my drawers and closet and found the warmest clothes I could—jeans, long-sleeved shirt, scarf, little gloves, socks, a jacket, and (here lies my biggest mistake) a pair of cloth ballet flat (chosen for the fact that they were already falling apart, so I couldn’t ruin them). Once I was ready, I ran downstairs and out the door, camera in hand. And so my Saturday began…not as a regular relaxing Saturday, but as an adventure full of excitement and…well…eventually…love poetry?

The moment I was outside, the frigid air hit upon my face, and flakes of snow began landing on my bare head, and casting white flecks on my black jacket. My toes were almost instantly wet and cold, but that didn’t really matter. I began walking. Most of the snow was still fresh and untrod upon. I walked around to the back of Founders and then ran through the snow. It was beautiful! I took some pictures and then began to go back. I took the little trail behind the back of the BHC so I could enjoy my walk a little longer. It was now that I began to realize that I couldn’t feel my feet, and the shoes I was wearing were falling off because they were so wet. I hurried back to the dorm, occasionally losing a shoe, and then ran upstairs and took off the shoes and socks to let my feet thaw. I didn’t have any snow boots, but I would have to wear my Ugg-like boots if I was going to go out there again. Even though they weren’t waterproof they would keep my feet somewhat warm. And of course I was planning on going out again.

My friend Mikey and I planned to go out into the snow a little later. I was dressed much warmer this time. We quickly decided it was time to build a snowman. After a little bit of work we were able to get three masses of snow stacked on top of each other. We looked at what was supposed to be the head.

“This is not round at all!” Mikey said with a laugh.

“Let’s try to pack snow in and make it more…snowman like.”

We did; it didn’t quite go as planned and one pack of snow ended up looking like an ear.

“Let’s make it a snow bear!” Mikey suggested.

“Okay, that will be awesome!”

So, we gave him another ear, some berries for buttons, and a broken shell of some sort, for eyes and a nose. The finishing touch on our bear was two leaves that made it look like he had a mustache. Once we were finished, we contemplated over what we should name him. We finally settled on Fredrico the Snow-bear. We took some pictures with him and then headed back to the warmth of our dorm and then off to lunch. After lunch, my roommates and I were productive, but then at four we found out about a snowball fight. My roommate Michelle and I grabbed our warmest clothes and headed out. For over an hour we trotted around the campus with a group of people, attacking random people passing by with snowballs, having a snowball revolution war, sliding down hills, slush sliding on sidewalks, tactical snow fights, attacking cars, making snow angels (okay…well I may have been the only person to do that), and a having free-for-all snow throw. It was quite wonderful! The group finally disbanded and we went to dinner. I decided against changing from my sopping wet clothes for some silly reason, so I was quite cold at dinner, but I didn’t really mind. Despite my shoes being soaked my feet were still warm!

The last excitement of the evening was a wing event at Abbey’s house. We were baking all sorts of goodies. We made brownies, chocolate chip cookies, ginger snaps, and muddy buddies. While baking we listened to Michael Buble, and other music in similar style. There was an “awkward laugh” session/training seminar, a little bit of dancing, and way too much sugar!  We decided from the kindness of our hearts that we would give some of our goodies to our brother wing, but they had to be packaged creatively. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of writing love poetry. So we sat down around the table and tried to come up with the sappiest things we could imagine and wrote them down into poetry. Once we finished, we drove back to campus and prepared the food and poetry. We sprayed perfume on the poetry and placed lip-prints on them. It was the sappiest, silliest, but cutest thing I think we could have done. Then we went over to the boys’ dorm, set all the goodness in front of their wing door, knocked, and then ran back to the elevator and back to the warmth of out dorm. We all felt content with our evening endeavors, so finally it was time for the day to be over and we went to bed!

Yesterday was quite possibly the most fun day I’ve ever had. I hope you enjoy this little narrative, and the pictures!

Emily

This is a picture of my completed paper, fanned out over my computer, which tolerated my laborious toiling much of yesterday and today…and yummy chocolate.

I don’t think this needs an explanation.

So, I finally found a purpose for the old Heralds…it tests colors and flattens pencils…hehe.

Doghnuts, hot chocolate, and coloring…good times

My other roommate…laughing at our silliness, while making herself yummy tea.

Our almost finished product.

Well I hope you enjoyed this little snip-it of the truths of college life.

Emily

We have been working diligently to update the ICU blog and would love some feedback.

Here are the changes we have made.

• The header has been updated. The old header looked like this: 
• A Why Buy page has been added, highlighting the benefits of purchasing a copy of ICU.
• A Media page has been added, which includes links to the media attention ICU has received.
• The About ICU page was updated recently.
• The Goal page has been updated.
• The page links at the bottom of the header have been reordered.
• The Buy Now links have been updated, and a new link has been added to account for the eBook.

Today we would like to introduce the eBook version of ICU. It is the same wonderful story as the in print version – so if you already have a copy – you don’t need to buy a new one.

However, if you haven’t purchased a copy of ICU, the eBook version can save you time and money.

• Time 
• because you don’t have to wait for shipping
• or take time to travel to the store
• Money
• because you don’t have to pay for shipping
• the price is discounted
• and we are going to take care of any taxes

The funds still go toward Emily’s college expenses, and if you have been following her blog, you can see she is spending lots of time studying – lol. Click the image below to get your eBook today.

$10.00

If, however, you like to have a hot little book in your hands, be sure to visit one of our merchant sponsors located under the Where to Buy tab, or click the buy now link at the right hand side of the page.