As you might guess from the title, the Semester of Excellence (TM) didn't quite live up to all of its expectations. Like all New Year's resolutions, it went strong for a while, then slowly started to drop off. I do think that the spring semester was much better than the fall, for me and most other people, but it still didn't quite live up to its billing. The following is a topic-by-topic breakdown of the goals of the SOE.

Excellence in Academics B
I personally didn't have much room to drop after the fall, so I definitely improved all of my grades. I actually started getting A's on tests again and stuff. I'm pretty sure my GPA will be a lot better. It seems like most other people's grades are either going to stay about the same or drop a little bit, though, so this category gets an overall B.

Excellence in Spirituality B+
This one's hard to give an over-all grade to, because different people are always at different places. I gave it a B+ because it seems like more people have become more open about talking about their relationships with God and stuff.

Excellence in Bidding F
This category wasn't very fair because of the demise of Card Night as a Thursday night institution. So we simply just didn't play cards very much, but when we did, the bidding was still pretty atrocious on most parts.

Excellence in Exercise B-
Believe it or not, this one actually lasted quite some time for Brandon and myself. It wasn't until our classes really started to overload us and not give us time to go to the rec center anymore that it died a painful death. But we at least showed the potential for its existence, and I've heard of lots of other people at least make efforts to get more exercise.

Excellence in Entertainment A+
The fact that we hardly ever played cards proves that this one actually worked. We had choir and drama trips to fill up some weekends, and Jennifer and I had a date every now and then. I think everyone was entertained more the second semester. 1122's VCR provided a place to watch rented movies and, more importantly, The Simpsons.

Excellence in Friendship C
This was successful in some ways and not successful in others. I think a lot of people got to know a lot of other people on a deeper level than previously, but I also think some other friendships sort of dissolved. No names here, of course...

Excellence in Turning On the Answering Machine F
I rarely forgot, but Brandon still continued to. Oh well...we don't have to worry about it next semester. We'll have voice-mail! Have I mentioned how excited I am about that?

Excellence in All Things Culinary B
1122 did better on the grocery shopping, I think, and we probably ate out a little more, but I think our cooking actually went down. But we did manage to get people to cook for us a time or two, so that's an improvement.

Excellence in Everything B-
So the SOE wasn't a total bust...some things improved, some things stayed the same, and some things got worse. That's life, I guess.