You're flaming right about those two!
Welcome to the boards. I pulled a reverse of yourself, I lived outside of Texas then moved here in the mid-2000's.
Be suspicious of all plot points that have more than one interpretation. Some of the seeds sown in the last two books you've read will bear glorious fruit throughout the whole story, and it's so entertaining to see them all appear!
I'm glad you managed it at last! It's such a good book, and the threads of the pattern continue to weave all the way through to A Memory of Light even from before this point.
Whether you measure it in Fahrenheit, Celsius, or Kelvins, it's already hotter than the Dark One's bath water outside, and almost as humid. Hooray for staying inside and reading messages!
Around this point in the books I was tired of the Amyrlin Seat being just as scared and quick to judgement as she has been, but considering how no one but the reader has full knowledge of what is going on, and even then that is still faulty, I have to agree. If all I ever got was the information...