Little Happy Update... With Nothing To Say

It's been beautiful weather lately. That always makes things happier. Me particularly. :) I love this kind of weather. I especially love waking up in the morning and walking to school listening to the birds chirping in the nice cool weather with blue skies going past the beautiful green trees and grass. I like this apartment complex because we actually have a yard. In a way we have two yards. But the second isn't really a yard. We just have this giant tree with a tire swing that random people like to play on. It's great!

I have officially started counting down the days to the end of the semester. I don't actually do this typically until we have like 5 or 10 days left. Right now there are 40. August can't come quickly enough.

I'm still frustrated with my teachers, but I have to say I have the best roommates this semester that I've had in my entire life. I don't think I've ever had a better apartment atmosphere in my entire life. Usually there's at least one of us who doesn't like another or one super messy person or one super clean person or one arrogant brat. But no. We all get along surprisingly well. We're all friends. And it's GREAT!

I can't wait to move back to Disney World. I feel like every day I'm reminded of it somehow! Oh sad!

And yeah. So there's my update on life. :)

Note:

Tomorrow is Donald Ducks birthday.

Just thought I'd warn you.

LOVE It!!!!

You know that feeling when you're just so happy and excited you can't possibly wipe the smile off you face?

I freakin' LOVE that feeling!

That's Kinda Cool... But I'm Shy!

Weird... I got an email today inviting me to eat lunch with President Clark (the dean of our entire school) and his wife next Tuesday. Me and seven other students at a fancy white tablecloth meal. (They do it every week, it doesn't mean I accomplished anything awesome or successful. It just means I'm a random lucky kid.)

I'm nervous. I haven't responded to the email yet. I'm sort of shy.

But don't worry. Of course I wouldn't pass this opportunity up. I mean, seriously. Free food!!!! :)

Dreams

Most of the time my dreams are random places I don't know with random people who I don't know doing things I don't understand (You don't get it! I have to put these worms in the peanut butter jar! If I don't, the world is going to explode!!).

Lately my dreams have felt very realistic though. Things I know won't really happen, but feel like real life and I don't realize I'm dreaming. Here are two:

Last night I dreamed someone in our apartment complex died. I even watched them carry the casket out of the apartment and put it in the hearse. I can even tell you which apartment it was at my complex it was so vivid. Creepy!

I dreamed I was at graduation next year. But as I went up and handed them the paper to call my name, they paused. Apparently, I had forgotten to fill out the proper paperwork so they wouldn't let me graduate. When I woke up it took me a while to realize that I'm still just a Junior.

I remember thinking last night just before falling asleep that there was something important I had to do today. I told myself, "Self, you better get up and write that down or your gonna forget." But then my other self told me, "No way! I'm tired. I'll remember it. Usually important stuff I can remember. I'm so exhausted." And then my other self said, "ZZZzzzzz" and I fell asleep. Now I have no idea what the important thing I had to remember was. All I remember was that it felt imperative that it had to get done today and that I don't have a clue what it was.

Anyway, there's part of my sleeping life for those interested. I guess I just have really dramatic fears!

Rainy Day With No Roomies

Of course, as Idaho weather is horrible and unpredictable I'm not even surprised that the canoe trip was canceled. Again.

In happier news, Breyers ice cream is on sale for $2.88 at Broulims. I bought some last night because my roommates wanted smoothies. But I'm not really a smoothie lover so I made a milkshake. I inherited a smoothie maker from my previous roommate. I figured we should use it at least once.

Our apartment has officially dwindled to half it's usual capacity and I'm left with my own room! And an entire day to relax! I was supposed to have an exam open today, but my teacher still hasn't opened it. I'm hoping she forgot and I won't have to do it this weekend! Yeah, that is a real possibility. She forgets things a lot.

I'm kinda freaking out about classes because of the five classes I have only received one grade back in three of them (two exams and a project) and nothing back from the other two. And we're halfway through the semester. Seriously, I have literally no clue how I'm going to do this semester.

Anyway, hope your days go great! It's wet and cold and slushy and mucky outside with all gray skies and disgusting mud. It's one of those days where I think I'll make soup and curl up in my nice warm blankets and play with my new ITouch read. It's gonna be a good day now. I can tell. :)

***Oh, and so far every single person I've asked has responded that a vacuum tube is a tube on a vacuum and nothing more, however some asked if there were dirty connotations***

Long Weekend

It's a three day weekend and I have hardly any plans. One of my roommates is going to IF to be with her mom and my other roommate is going to Provo to hang out with her family.

My friend, Ashley and I have been trying to do this canoeing thing since last summer and finally this weekend will hopefully be it. It was canceled other times due to Idaho's crappy weather (99% of the time Idaho weather is crappy. This is why I will absolutely never ever live here ever never never ever ever.). We got an email today saying it may be canceled tomorrow since it's been rainy and gray all day today, but they're going to try and meet anyway. They're gonna make us wear wet suits because it's supposed to be cold. Ah well, I'll just cross my fingers!

That's my only plan for the weekend, though. Unless you count that on Monday my friend and I are going to watch a movie that's required for my Sociology class.

Just gonna be me and Kiara all weekend. Unless of course Kiara decides to go home (she lives only two hours away). Then I get the apartment to myself.

I'm ready for a nice, relaxing weekend with lots of sleep and down time. (Except for the exam I have to take tomorrow and the two huge upcoming midterm projects and my mountain of Spanish homework)

Boys!

I wish I had more to say.

I Think I'm That Kid Everybody Hates

I have a class this semester that I don't like. It just annoys me and I disagree with some of the stuff we have to learn. I haven't read the book all semester. Well, no I tried to read the book but it annoyed me.

We had our first test last week. I hardly studied because I'd get frustrated with the material. The teacher gave us this diagram in class and said, "Memorize this. It'll be on the test." So I memorized it but didn't care what it meant or why all the arrows pointed in the directions they went.

I went to take the test and obviously knew almost nothing about what was on it. To make things worse it was all short answer. Only two of the questions were multiple choice. It asked about some theories that I remembered hearing about but didn't remember much of what they were. I faked almost all my answers.

The final question asked about Jonathon Turner's Theory. Who the heck was Turner? I had no clue. I stared at the question trying to at least come up with a funny or witty answer. Nothing.

So just as I began to write "I have no clue who this dude is. Sorry." I happened to look down at the diagram I had to memorize. And there was Turner's name. His theory was that chart thing. So I quickly scribbled out "I have no clue" (I was using pen because my pencils are all broken) and made up an answer with that.

We got our test scores back today. I got that question right. Also, I got a 94% with "Excellent job!" written across the top in red ink. At first, I thought he just curved the grades. A lot. But the class average was 84% and the lowest score was a 40%.

How does that even happen!?

This Is Not Okay... Except for the Ice Cream

I just haven't been feeling great lately. Maybe it's the fact that I have been having so much trouble breathing. I've actually been having breathing issues pretty much since January, but I've been able to just ignore it and get over it. Except now my roommates actually care that they can constantly hear me gasping for air and breathing heavy and they point it out and threaten to call my parents if I don't do something. The other day a girl in my class even looked over at me and asked if I was dying. This is not okay.

The breathing thing makes me feel better if I try to force myself to do a huge yawn. Needless to say I've been trying to yawn way too much lately. This makes me tired, and I think is the reason for my sore throat. Plus the other day I somehow got this big blister on the roof of my mouth and the skin tore off and it tastes bloody. This is not okay.

My abs hurt from doing this new ab machine yesterday. Good workout. Sore stomach. Especially since my diaphragm already hurts from breathing so heavily. Again, not okay.

Add on top that on my way to the store today I walked into a hole. Well, I walked into a car, and then into a hole beside the car. Who freakin' parks their car on the sidewalk and then puts a hole right beside it!? I seriously looked around for some kid with a camera pulling a prank. This is NOT okay!

Okay so in all honesty I'm laughing most of this off. Yeah, I think the hole thing is funny and was practically rolling on the floor as I explained my grass stain to my roommate (seriously, do those ever come out?) which was not okay because if you recall from complaint numero 3, my abs hurt!

I came home and ate a Neapolitan ice cream sandwich. And then I ate an apple. Then I ate chicken pasta roni. Then I ate another ice cream sandwich. Then I took a nap. Then I ate another ice cream sandwich.

So maybe I'm a piggy. Correction: I am a piggy. But this little piggy's had a hard day.

Personal Triumphs

I have a confession. I'm super competitive. Not many people know or believe this about me. I'm not competitive in the loud, obnoxious, "If you win I'll hate you forever" type of way. I'm competitive in the "I have to beat you or else I can't feel good about myself" kind of way. I'm usually able to, in general, keep quiet about my little obsession with having to be better than everybody else (which, by the way, I'm totally not).

Pretty sure I've been this way my whole life. At the bookstore we had to sell discount cards. If I hadn't sold more discount cards than anyone else, I was going nuts inside my brain. I also tried to make sure I had more sales than anyone else. Not that my bosses (or anyone for that matter) saw or cared in the least about that, but I sure did.

In school I always secretly compare my grades with everyone else. Anytime I get the chance to figure out another students grades I always grasp at it to make sure that I'm doing better, or at least as well as said student. If not, then I get all depressed and work super hard until I make that happen. I force myself to try and be in the top ranges. I don't necessarily have to be the best (cuz that's totally a lost cause), but I have to just be better than usual.

Last winter my roommate Ashley worked really hard and got a 4.0 GPA at the end of the semester with 15 credits. I love Ashley to death. She's very smart and a great roommate. But I just felt like I had to beat her. Secretly, of course. I never told her how much it bothered me. But that's one of the reasons I took 20 credits last semester and did so well. I had to just prove to myself I could do it.

It's a bad obsession overall. But in some ways it's good because I push myself so hard to be better, and I actually do become better.

Today at the gym I was really excited that I finally made my goal of running 4 miles in 50 minutes. I ended up going over 4.5 miles in one hour. I was really really proud of this little triumph of mine. Until I looked at the guy on the treadmill beside me who was on mile 6 in 45 minutes, running without even wheezing. There's no way I'll ever be able to do that.

Then I went over to the weights. I was really proud of myself for being able to finally do this one arm machine at 40 pounds. I felt like this was a super successful workout. Personal triumph. As I got up, feeling the burn in my arms, I noticed the guy sitting down right behind me. He changed it to 110 pounds. Again, no chance I could ever beat that it seems. Fail.

For me, going to the gym and improving on my exercising is a great personal triumph. I have to be careful not to let other people who are way more in shape than I am ruin that for me. It's nice to go to the gym with my old roommate Ashley because we're both about the same level and we both push each other to do a better workout. Well, at least she helps me, I don't know if she has that weird competitive thing or not.

It made everything better when I came home and my roommate, who also works out, told me it looked like I lost weight. I'm not sure if she was just trying to be nice or not, but that made it all totally worth it.

Now I just have to stop comparing myself to people all the time. That can be my next triumph.

Note To Self:

Never ever ever under any circumstances ever never ever live in Idaho after graduation.

I'm sunburned. From being outside for twenty minutes. In Idaho. This is not acceptable. Especially since I lived in Florida and it took like three times as much exposure to the sun for me to get a burn.

Stupid sunburn.

Stupid Idaho.

I took this picture of my legs wishing they weren't so white.



Twenty minutes later I got my wish. They're now red.

On a happier note I had a fantastic weekend. Apart from passing Bliss,




spending it in Boise,




watching* a friend graduate with a bagpipe band,



and hanging out with another friend which was a total adventure, my sister is married and graduated! That's a lot to take in in just one weekend. But it's awesome. I freakin' love my family!

Now I'm back home and back to my typical college life. But maybe I'll be more motivated to work now. Considering the past few weeks I've been super lazy. I practically bombed a test Friday. Okay, well I don't actually know what I got but I'm pretty sure it wasn't good.

But I woke up at 6:30 this morning to go to the gym with Ashley. My arms are no longer sore from lifting weights. But then again, I went all weekend without it so we'll see...

We decorated cakes for FHE tonight. It was so much fun.



It was Maddie's birthday. We split into three groups and we each had a cake with three color frostings that my roommate Jeanette made. Daisy went to the dollar store and bought tons of random crap to put on the cakes. It was awesome.



The one with the glow stick rainbow and the Army men belonged to my group. And ours won! We let Maddie choose her favorite. Honestly in my opinion, the other two were both better than ours. But ours was cleaner looking.





I liked the one with the salamanders coming out the sides, personally. It was fun though and tasted delicious (after we took all the plastic off). Glad I didn't choose to sleep through it, but really, I'm going to bed now.

*So there were like 1,100 graduates at that thing. So Kelly and I stayed to watch Jalene walk across the stage. Then we went outside and sat on the grass (insert sunburn picture) and watched YouTube videos on my new ITouch for the remainder of the graduation. It's kind of cheating, but really, who enjoys watching strangers walk across a stage for a blue folder?

Is It Just Me?

Maybe it's because it's almost 2am.

Question: What is a "prediction" of a scientific hypothesis or scientific theory?

Answer: b. An observation we ought be see if the theory is true.

Does that answer make sense to anyone else? I know what a "prediction" is. That's like, fifth grade. But this answer makes no sense in my mind. Sometimes I really think I'd do better without the multiple choice.

Maybe it's, "An observation we thought we'd see if the theory was true." That's still poorly worded but...

My Old Roomie Got Married

Oi! So much to say!

I'm sore. I've been exercising more and more lately and today and yesterday was particularly hard. Especially since now I have an ITouch. I get so bored running and doing the elliptical at the gym it's nice to finally have cool music to listen to!

Oh yeah, I got an ITouch!!! As much as I despise Apple and am risking being disowned by my family for giving them money, I have to say Microsoft has nothing close to an ITouch (that I know of). This little device is incredible, plus I got a fantastic deal on it! The only negative is the back is a little scratched up, but it came with a free case so you can't even tell.

My old roommate Kassie got married a few weeks ago and her reception was on Saturday in Blackfoot. I rode down with Alyson who is Kassie's sister Kellie's (who was also my roommate) husbands sister. Yeah, see if you can figure that out! Alyson happens to be in my ward this semester and we remembered each other from back when Kellie and Alex (her husband and Alyson's sister) we dating. Anyway, I rode to Blackfoot with Alyson and her boyfriend, Brian. This is us by the giant potato in front of the potato museum in Blackfoot. Yep, Idaho has a potato museum. Stop laughing.



I got to the reception and Kassie and Joe were standing at the front meeting people. When I walked in Kassie's mom said she had to hold her back because she was jumping up and down trying to run to me! We hadn't seen each other since last July! My horribly wrapped present went over well. At least I thought. See, once I got there and saw the table with all the beautifully wrapped pink gifts with ribbons and expensive bags and such, I became very self-conscious of my magazine wrapped gift. And then I realized I'd forgotten a card. As I walked into the room a little boy came over and offered to take my present to the table. I gave it to him and decided to disown the gift after that. No one saw me! I was safe!

And then last night Joe and Kassie came up to Rexburg. They came by my apartment to say another goodbye until January. While there, they mentioned the gift. "Yeah, you know we had this incredibly strange gift you may know something about." I had no idea how they figured me out. Since a lot of Joe's old roommate's who I'm sure were perfectly capable of doing the same thing were there, I thought I was safe.

And then they explained that my magazine I had used still had the address on it. It said Apt. 23 and since I live in Apt. 23 they knew it was me. Blast it! I hadn't even thought about that! Ah well. They said thanks. :)

This is Joe, Kassie and me.



I don't know why I do this to myself. Kassie is seriously one of the most beautiful girls I know and I feel so hideous and fat and ugly standing beside her. But I love being with her because she's so stinkin' awesome! And Joe is incredible too. Seriously, this is my third year at BYU-I... I've seen a lot of weddings/marriages. But theirs is definitely the one I'm happiest with and I think it'll just be fantastic! I'm so happy for them! Kassie really is one of my most favorite roommates I've ever had and Joe is so great. I'm so glad I get to be friends with them!

Speaking of favorite roommates, I've been going to the gym with my old roommate Ashley lately. And by "lately" I mean yesterday. But we're trying to go every M/W/F at 6:45am. Early, I know. But hey, maybe it'll be good. I miss rooming with Ashley. She's also a favorite roommate. I love going to the gym with her. We both think the other is more in shape, but actually I think we're about the same. Although I really do think she's thinner. Anyway, I like going to the gym with her because I push myself harder when she's around and I feel more wiped out when I'm done. We also have plans to go rock climbing and canoeing this semester. I'm so excited!

And continuing with awesome roommates, I seriously have some of the best this semester! We all get along so well. There hasn't been any fighting or even bad feelings or anything. It's so nice! I love my roommies!



This is them eating my totally awesome apple pie. And that reminds me, I never showed pics of my apple pie so here they are. It looked better before it went in the oven. But it tasted great! At least my roommates said so.





Anyway, I should probably get back to work. All my homework has kind of just piled on me at the last minute (well, no it was more that I knew about it and chose to let it pile up to the last minute but... you know, I'm the victim here!) so I better go. So on a slightly related note (studying), I'll leave you with this final picture. This was my desk during finals week last semester. I had everything I needed. Book, notes, study guide, paper, pen, and most importantly, food,

Good Friends Work With Limited Resources

My old roommate's wedding reception is tonight. Did you know you're supposed to dress up for those? Well I didn't. I don't go to these things very often, okay?

At least I bought her a present! But I was too cheap to buy wrapping paper. And I was too lazy to go on campus to get a copy of The Scroll (school newspaper). So I used this convenient magazine/coupon booklet thing that was in our house. No one in my apartment has scissors... except for my hair cutting scissors but I didn't want to use them so I wrapped her present with just exactly enough paper. It looks amazing if I do say so myself!





Don't be jealous of my superior gift wrapping skills. Wouldn't you want your wedding present to be this awesome? That's what I thought.

Oh, and Cathryn, your wedding present will be ten times cooler! But you'll have to wait ten times longer too because I'm only giving it to you in person. :)

Girls Are Weird...

Girl #1 asks Girl #2 to ask Girl #3 a favor because Girl #1 is too shy to ask said favor. Girl #3 does favor, but makes a funny face while doing so. Girl #2 assumes that Girl #3 didn't really want to do said favor, therefore, Girl #2 feels bad for asking.

Girl #1 notices Girl #2 feels bad, and when she finds out it's because of the favor she wanted Girl #3 to do, Girl #1 feels bad.

Girl #3 notices Girl #1 and Girl #2 feel bad, and so Girl #3 feels bad for making them feel bad because in reality she was happy to do the favor, she just passed gas while doing it which explains the funny face.

Girl #1 feels bad because she feels responsible for making Girl #2 and Girl #3 feel bad because it was her favor to begin with.

Girl #2 blames herself for beginning the "I feel bad" feelings.

Girl #3 feels bad for making a funny faces.

All feel bad that the others feel bad.

Boy walks in. Sees an apartment with a bunch of girls apologizing to each other. Boy wants to know what happened. Girls say boy doesn't want to know. Boy insists because boy wants to fix problem.

Girls unify in being annoyed at poor boy who has no idea what's going on and girls no longer feel bad.

Good luck if you followed that. :)

Joys of a Fake Mini Kitchen!

I get burns a lot. Seriously, when I'm at college I can pretty much always guarantee I have at least one burn on my hand. This has only been for the past few months, however. Ever since I learned that my pan fits in the oven. None of my roommates, nor myself, have cookie sheets or really any oven-safe anything. Except for my pans that can double as working in the oven. So I use those to make the things I cook in the oven.

Well, last night I wanted to bake cookies in the oven. I was super careful and used a cloth to take it out (we don't have oven mitts or hot pads either, so we just use dish towels... but we have to be careful cuz if the dish towel touches the bottom of the oven it starts a fire.... don't ask how we figured that one out). Anyway, I took it out and put it on the stove. Well, the dishwasher was running with our only spatula in it, so I was trying to get my cookies out with a butter knife. This doesn't work very well.

So I decided to grab the handle of the pan and flip the whole thing upside down. My reflexes apparently decided to work super slow though. I had grabbed the pan and even picked it up when my hand decided that was not going to happen and I dropped the pan with a loud clatter.

No worries, the cookies were safe! But my hand? Well yeah, it feels kinda funny. Actually it doesn't. Cuz you see, it doesn't really feel at all anymore. Despite my running it under cold water for like ten minutes. It just sort of tingles. It's funny to use this computer because as I move around with the mouse I can't really feel that my pointer finger is moving it, but I see the mouse moving. Weird.

Okay so really it's not that bad. But typically when I get a burn it's pretty small. This one covers literally my whole entire hand. It doesn't hurt though, so I'm sure it'll be fine. :)

I can't wait to own my own house with a big kitchen and a dishwasher that works and real dishes and a real nice mixer and plenty of plates and serving bowls and spatulas and can openers and strainers and cookie sheets and cake pans and pie pans and and and.... well yeah.

Today Is The Day

I have to give a presentation in my persuasion class today. This is one of those assignments that I totally dread and don't want to do and procrastinate it to the last possible second and then when it's over I feel like a gigantic weight has been lifted off of me.

The presentation is about this TV show "Intervention" where they film people who are drug addicts. Unfortunately it's a partner project and when we began the project I was totally comfortable with everything and my stance and our question and all. But then she decided to change it and complete her outline in a totally different way than I did. It basically forced my stance to be, "I believe doing, and encouraging others to do, recreational drugs is perfectly ethical." Which, obviously, I totally do not believe at all. I was able to convince her that I didn't want to stand in front of the class and act like I actually believed this. So we changed it to a slightly better question, but one that I still disagree with the stance I'm being forced to take.

My friend took this same class from the same teacher though and said she's not a super hard grader. I'm sure I'll be fine. My partner's not freaking out, but then again she doesn't have to stand in front of the class and be the "bad guy." I wish we'd have chosen a different question. Too bad I'm a pushover. Blech!

Random Stuff You Probably Don't Care About

Things I bet you didn't know about me... and you probably never wanted to:

1. I hate closed shower curtains. If I'm at somebody's house and I use they're bathroom and their shower curtains are closed, I will always either check behind them or open them while I do my business. Once or twice I've forced myself not to because deep down I know there's no creepy raper guy with a knife back there... I just have to check. It comes from my childhood anxiety years I guess. My roommate this semester keeps them closed all the time and it drives me nuts.

2. I went to a gas station at 11pm last night sporting a hoodie, checkered PJ pants, white sequin flip flops and lime juice on my face. My roommate assured me that I "just looked like a typical college student."

3. Sometimes when I'm really really tired as I'm walking home from class, I'll start walking with my eyes closed. I'll see how long I can make it until I'm too scared to walk anymore because I might walk into something. I've never walked into anything, somehow.

4. I've now had four roommates in a row tell me I whimper and whine in my sleep. I've been trying to figure out why for a long time now. I finally decided I think it's because in the morning I just really really don't want to get out of bed or wake up so I whimper just at the thought of it. This is just my guess since apparently I do it most in the morning. I apologized but my roommate said it's only annoying when it's 6am.

I LOVE My Roommates!

My roommate's been having pain in her stomach for a couple of days. We've been working on making her go to the hospital. A few days ago, I was cooking in the kitchen and my other roommate Kiara was on the couch. We suddenly heard a loud "Aaaahhhh! Nooooooooooooo!!! Uuuugh!" general pain-ish sound coming from her room. Immediately Kiara and I were at the door. I knocked and called through, "Daisy, are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

Silence. Then, just as I reached for the door handle to go in, Daisy came out laughing. "I'm sorry guys, I'm just on the phone with my mom and she just told this boy back home that I like him! Ugh, I'm so mad at her!" I don't actually know the whole story but really, that wasn't fair. We had freaked out for nothing. I guess it's okay, adrenaline is fun sometimes! Oh, and she's feeling much better now. No worries! :)

I LOVE my roommates. We all get along so well. There hasn't even been the slightest annoyance (that I know of... maybe they do all hate me!) from any of us all semester. We went to the store Friday night and bought a bunch of toys. Baseball and bat, glove, bow and arrow, frisbee... all found in the kiddie section of course because we wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise.

Then we came home and played. We drew a target on our window in the front room. The arrows are like suction cups so we try to practice our aim with our little $4 bow.

We had FHE last night. We found out our group at 6 and FHE is supposed to be at 7. Our apartment alone planned it all. I'm so proud of us! Daisy prepared the lesson. We all cleaned the apartment super fast and then Kiara drove us to Broulim's so we could get snack (chips and salsa!). We ran over to the other apartments and told them where we were meeting and when and it ended up going very well. Especially when we let them all have a try with the bow and arrow!

We tried to play baseball in the house too. But Daisy hit the ball into my face. So we stopped. Ahhh, the joy of no parents!

I went to the Dean of the Communications dept. today. She's awesome! She was super friendly and told me that I could absolutely get credit for the Disney CP, and was excited when I mentioned I wanted to be a campus rep possibly next year. She said all I have to do is write something about what I learned. She said she didn't care how long it was or exactly what I wrote or what format because it would be primarily for me. Basically, I'm gonna get credit no matter what, I just have to have at least some hard document showing that I learned something. I no longer have to worry about that.

I also finally got my Astronomy assignment figured out after hours and hours of hard work. And then found out that I found and plotted stars for June 6 instead of June 13 by accident because I counted wrong. Fortunately I went and talked to the teacher (you know how hard that is for me, two in one day even!) and he said it was fine... thank GOODNESS! He actually laughed at me though because seriously, if he said no that would have been hours of work down the drain.

Kay so this turned out longer than I expected (as is usual) so I'll stop here.

Classes

My Spanish teacher reminds me of Dr. House. It's going to be an interesting semester...

After having an awesome spastic noisy mini prank war with my roommates (old and new) last night, I officially decided to drop my Group Dynamics (ironic?) course and take it easy for the next three semesters to graduate next summer instead of cramming tons in and stressing (even though I like stress, it keeps me busy).

I have awesome roommates this semester! Just thought I'd add that.

My Astronomy course is going to kill me. I just realized it today. I can tell it would be a thousand times easier in a class but since they don't offer it as a lecture course except in the Fall when I'm off-track I don't really have an option. It's fun and interesting but some of it just makes no sense. Hopefully I'll find a study buddy soon.

The rest of my classes seem fine. I have the same teacher for two classes. Everyone I know who's had her before say "she's a hippie... you'll understand what I mean by the end of the semester, I promise." Hopefully this'll turn out to be a good thing. Her syllabus is difficult to read because the course calendar is like nine pages long because she included tons of graphics and pictures and color coded every page. We found out in class today that she had a different book than we (the students) did. This would be why the reading assignment she gave us didn't correspond with the book at all. I feel bad for her because the only solution she could come up with, instead of having us all buy new books, was that she would redo the entire course schedule and syllabus.

Yeah, I feel bad for her. Especially since it was the bookstore's fault.

Anyway, there's a little update. Not much else to say.

Update

It's been a week. Not much to say. It's been nice to be home. I'm definitely glad for the visit to the east coast. I freakin' LOVE eastern weather and it kinda makes me dislike Idaho even more. I can't wait to move back to Florida in August.

I was supposed to go back to ID Saturday, but they conveniently canceled the flight so I could spend an extra day or two with my brother. We shot guns Saturday which was so totally awesome. Though I'm still sore. I have a nice red rash on my left shoulder from the kick of the guns. It was awesome!

I hope a plane back to ID tomorrow. School starts Tuesday. At the moment I have 21 credits which I understand is pretty much suicide, but I can't decide which class/classes to drop. I'm going to just go the first few days and then make up my mind.

Yep, so that's that. I'll probably have another uber-long update after school starts up again about my classes.

How To Be The First Off An Airplane

I learned a lesson yesterday. Very valuable. It all happened during my flight from Salt Lake to Denver. Just a one hour flight, right?

Well, I got on the plane feeling fine. We took off, one of my favorite parts of the ride. We were in the air. I started feeling sick. Really really sick. I grabbed the barf bag and looked at it. I felt sicker. I pulled out my tray thing and rested my head on it after putting the barf bag back in the pocket. My ears started going all weird. As if they were inside a bubble... everything sounded muffled. I vaguely noticed the stewardess making her way down the aisle with drinks. My ears were now muffled worse and I started seeing black spots... not to mention I kept pulling out the barf bag, certain I'd puke and then putting it back in the seat, determined to not need it.

The stewardess got to me. I was in the aisle seat. There was a man in the window seat to my right. I heard her ask through my muffled ears if I wanted a drink. I tried to say water... I'm not sure anything came out. "Do you need water, you said?" "No. No... actually... just.... bathroom!" I was trying really hard to talk. The man to my right looked at me, "You don't look so good..." "Bathroom!" I said again. "Where's the bathroom?"

The stewardess pulled her cart out of the way and pointed to the back of the plane. The black dots in my vision were getting worse and I was so tired. I was getting even more tired. I grabbed the backs of people's seats as I stood up. I didn't even notice until later that I think the people were actually leaning forward in their seats for me to grab the backs. The black dots were getting thicker and I couldn't even hear muffles anymore.

And then I was dreaming. I was asleep, in a nice comfortable place. Finally asleep, right where I needed to be. It felt so good! I heard muffled voices. They were saying things like, "Is she okay?" "I think she passed out!" "Somebody check her pulse!" "Did she faint?"

Who fainted? I'm an EMT! I can help! Who passed out!? Maybe I should help them. I tried to open my eyes. I was looking up into about eight people's faces from the floor of the aisle of the plane. Everyone was staring at me. I couldn't believe it. I was so comfortable here. This was a dream. I closed my eyes again, but the voices continued.

This can't be happening! It can't be real! I'm dreaming. I'll wake up any second. My eyes fluttered open again. Through the black dots I heard more muffled whispers. It slowly but surely occurred to me that this was reality. I was seriously on the floor of a plane passed out.

I started to stand up. The sound was coming back better and better. My vision was getting better. I sat up and the stewardess was right there beside me. I walked back to my seat and sat down. I could feel everyone's eyes on me. Then a thought occurred to me. "I'm fine!" I told them. "Don't let them turn the plane around! I'm fine. I promise, I'm totally fine! We have to go to Denver!"

The stewardess assured me they wouldn't land the plane and then asked if I wanted oxygen. I at first said no, but she brought it anyway. As soon as she forced the non-rebreather over my face I felt better. "It happens all the time, dear." She assured me.

Everyone was still staring at me. The guy beside me asked if this happened before. Nope. I kind of have brown outs, but I've never actually gone all the way to the floor. I offered to hold the oxygen tank so the stewardess didn't have to stand there, but for some reason she didn't trust me. So the guy across the aisle had to hold it.

After I started feeling better it occurred to me just how embarrassing the situation was. It was a small plane and I swear every single eye was on me, including the one and only stewardess. The stewardess came back a few minutes later and told me that after we landed they wanted me to stay on the plane a little longer to get me checked out by some medical personnel. "It's local protocol. Do you want me to see if there's a doctor on board now?"

"No, it's fine. Really, I feel fine. It's okay."

I don't even know why she was asking me these questions because she then got up and said over the loudsystem of the plane, "If there's a doctor on board, please press your call button now." I heard about four "dings." I turned around to see the lights coming on one by one. The guy sitting across the aisle and back one seat had hit his button. He came out into the aisle. He told me he was an ER trauma doctor and asked me some questions. He eventually decided it wasn't super serious, recommended I see a doctor when I get home, and went back to his seat.

The lady in front of me turned around. "You're traveling alone?" She said, obviously overhearing our conversation. Her eight year old daughter kept staring at me between the seats. "Yes." I told her. "Well, you have to promise me you'll call your mom as soon as you get off the plane. I have two daughters... and... I just... I feel so bad for your mother not being here right now. Just be sure to call her, okay?" "Yeah, I'm planning on it. It's fine though." Inside my head I was thinking, "Yeah, I'm gonna call her but she probably won't even believe me. It took me long enough laying on the floor to believe me!"

The man to my right turned to me again. "Feeling better?" He asked. "Yeah. The oxygen's really helping." Although every time I removed the non-rebreather from my face to talk I started getting dizzy and sick feeling again.

"You know," he went on, "I was on a plane once where someone had an emergency like that. But after we landed, they actually let that guy get off first instead of having to wait for everyone else to leave. I wonder if they'll do that for you too."

"Yeah, I hope not. I'm already embarrassed enough and I'd feel bad making you guys wait..."

He just smiled. The stewardess already told me that I'd be the one waiting. And my connecting flight wasn't for about an hour and a half so I had time.

The plane eventually landed and came to a stop. Everyone got up and starting getting their luggage and such. I turned to the guy beside me and said that I'd let him out as soon as I could get into the aisle. Then the loudspeaker came on again.

"Will everyone please take their seats for just a moment."

Everyone sat down again surprisingly fast. Then about four EMTs rushed on board and asked hurriedly, "Where's the victim?"

I wanted to melt into the ground. Actually, I half wanted to turn around and look expectantly behind me for whoever they were looking for. Unfortunately, every eye on the plane was still on me and I was the one holding the oxygen tank with a bright yellow cup strapped to my face.

I grabbed my bag as they rushed me off the plane. I chuckled to myself as we passed two wheelchairs and a stretcher as we hurried down the hall into the airport. Seriously? I passed out, I didn't have a heart attack! The main EMT guy I was with asked if I wanted a wheelchair. I told him no and he actually listened to me. We sat down at one of the chairs and soon after, everyone else started filing off the plane.

After making sure I had time before my next flight he explained that they had to do some tests and work for legal reasons. They took my vitals and even did an EKG scan on me. After asking me a ton more questions he apparently decided things looked pretty normal. He asked if I wanted a ride to my next gate. I said no, I'd be fine. I figured getting my blood circulating by walking would be good. He made me promise that I would tell someone if I felt the slightest bit woozy again and told me the only requisite for allowing me to walk to my next gate was if I promised not to collapse.

I was still really shaky and my muscles were beginning to ache. But I didn't think I was going to puke. I think it was at that time that I noticed I never even made it to the bathroom. Actually, as the guy in the aisle across from me told me, I didn't even make it four feet.

Anyway, so if anyone was wondering, in order to make sure you're the first passenger off an airplane, you have to get sick, have a heart attack, or faint. But, you have to realize that you'll be kept for questions for about ten minutes after wards, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Oh, and also it's highly embarrassing to faint in public.

And if you're wondering I feel fine now. I think it was just a lot of stress and the lack of sleep and food and I had just finished finals and cleaning for white glove and hadn't eaten real food in like a week and was excited to come home and just a pile of things like that all creeping up at me at once. I did fine through my next two planes flights. Felt a little sick, tired, and shaky, but that was all.

The end. :)

Disney Party!!

I was invited to a party tonight for people who were involved with Disney on campus. That's me! At first I almost didn't want to go because I doubted there were really a lot of students on this campus who worked in Disney World. But actually, there was a good thirty people there! It was great!

They had a Q&A session which was good for me because even though I've done the program before I still learned some things. Like the fact that while it doesn't count as an internship credit, it could count as a practicum credit for me. And I can be a campus rep next year and make money!

Most of it was a simple "mix and mingle" kind of deal. I had a nice conversation with this guy Denis who is going to be in Merchandise and when he heard that's where I worked he had a bunch of questions for me. I loved answering questions from people. It made me feel knowledgeable. But he asked one that I had a lot of trouble answering. He asked me, "What was the biggest thing you learned going down there?"

This was hard. If it were a college paper I could easily BS ten things that I "learned."

"Well, I learned a lot about how important diversity is. I learned how to provide magical moments for guests. I took a people management class and learned about managing people at Disney World. I learned to appreciate my superiors. Blah blah blah."

But this guy was seriously genuinely wanting to know if this was an experience where he could expect his life to be changed not only because of the fun he'd have, but because of how he'd learn and grow. It's harder for him to do the program because he's from Hong Kong, China. It's going to actually cost him money because he's an international student. So, what was the biggest thing I learned at Disney World?

I learned a ton of things. But the biggest would have to be that I got to not only learn, but see and experience how a Fortune 100 company runs from the inside out. I watched the organization of the company and how they kept up with checks and balances systems and did guest recovery and enforced their values that they as a company were trying to portray. I observed my managers and determined what worked with them and found what didn't work for some of them. I learned how important respect is within an organization and how respect ties everyone together. Respect for each other regardless of race or even personal issues is vital to running a smooth company and I learned how quickly people can (and maybe should) be booted out for a lack of respect whether it was for themselves or others.

Anyway, I won't stay on my soap box too long, but his question really got me thinking a lot. The party as a whole was fun. I'm super glad I went. And now I have loads of new thoughts and feelings running through my head.

The problem? I still have one exam left.

I Know It's Ridiculous

I just finished my Organizational Comm class. I actually came home sad that I'd never get to go there again. Yes, I know this is totally abnormal and I promise to never feel this way again. But seriously, that was the best class and the best teacher I have ever taken in my entire life. I wasn't the only student who thought this, too. I'm really gonna miss that teacher and the students and the crazy activities that the teacher made us do to screw with our minds.

Kay, well, moving on. I also turned in my Practicum paper and worked on my Visual Media portfolio. As of this time tomorrow I'll have completed three more classes and have only one left for Thursday. Things are moving well!

After Friday I'll have to pack as much of my life as I can into a single suitcase which I will be living out of for the next ten days. I have some friends who have offered me houses, but somehow I'll be providing my own food for that time. That'll be tough seeing as how it's hard to pack all my dishes and cookware and food and then have to move said food from fridge to fridge when I switch houses... or I could live on non-fridgefied/cook food like Oreos, cereal, and TV Dinners! I'm sure it'll all work out in the end. :)

Anyway, thought I'd throw out this update to further procrastinate my homework.

What's Left?

In order of what I plan to finish first.

D&C-DONE!!!

Comm Practicum-Turn in final paper (printed and everything, just have to go talk to the teacher and turn it in)

Organizational Comm-Show up to class tomorrow in professional dress. Group, in class, final. Thank GOODNESS!

Mass Media-Final exam Wednesday at 11:30.

Spanish-Finish workbook/lab manual and then take final exam sometime between Wednesday and Thursday at 3:30

Visual Media-Fix final portfolio. Spend and document at least 2 hours worth of corrections. Reprint.

Humanities-In class presentation tomorrow. Final exam Thursday 7:45pm (YUCK!)

Who says 20 credits is hard?

Okay just kidding. I got lucky this semester. Really I feel sick when I think about my Visual Media class because while it doesn't look like it, that's a LOT of work that I have left to do. And studying for Mass Media and Humanities is a nightmare! Ugh! Good luck to me! It'll all be over in just three or four days (depending on how you count)!

*PS* I just reread this post. All the exclamation points in the previous paragraph just made me think of one of my English teachers last year. He told me that you never ever under any circumstances ever use more than one exclamation point per paper. I had included two in my paper when he was telling me this, however they were both in the same paragraph. Just thought it was funny cuz on here I can use 'em all I want!!!!!

Easter Sunday

I don't really have a lot to say. As always, I'm way ready for this semester to end. Less than a week left and we'll be done.

And less than a week left til I'm basically homeless. But it'll be cool. I'll have a place to stay.

We had a pretty good Easter Sunday today. It was just my roommate and I so it was possibly the loneliest one I've ever had. We have two other roommates, but they disappeared yesterday and never came home last night. They returned later on tonight, so don't worry, they're alive.

Alexis and I dyed eggs yesterday. We bought this cool tye-dye kit thing and we got a sparkles kit too. I wasn't a fan of the sparkles but the tye-dye thing was kind of cool. We also bought eggs and stuffed them with candy. I don't like jellybeans but we had to get them because really you can't have Easter Eggs without jellybeans.

We stuffed them with jellybeans, peanut butter M&Ms (my contribution) and starburst. There were 42 of them. But since it was only Alexis and I we didn't really have a good way to do an Easter Eggs hunt.

So while Alexis was in the shower I hurriedly his all 42 eggs this morning. She had to go through our apartment and find all 42. I was able to stump her on the last five or so. We ended up playing hotter/colder.

After that we realized that we had to eat the eggs we dyed. We had so much fun dying the eggs we didn't pay attention to the fact that we had 18 of them to eat. We had expected to eat them with our other two roomies, but since they disappeared it was up to us.

No, we did not eat 18 eggs today. But I've had eggs in every meal I've eaten today. We ate the "golden rod" and then deviled eggs for dinner. We still have about 7 or 8 left.

When you dye eggs and then peel them the white of the egg is actually colored. Pretty cool.

Anyway, so yes I know this was a super lame Easter. We watched General Conference and didn't really do anything else. Hopefully next year will be more fun.

In fact, I'm sure next semester will be more fun. And we'll have more people come over to our apartment. And we'll have more parties. And my roommates will be more spastic and fun and interesting. Pretty sure more of my friends from previous semesters and Disney have been to our apartment than the friends of all my roommates combined. And I'm not even that social!

Anyway, here's to looking forward to next semester!

April Fools

How pathetic of me to not write on April Fools Day!? I hardly even tried to fool people today because I knew everyone was expecting it. However, I did get my roommate with a story about how I was hit by a car this morning.

The weather, however, decided to play an April Fool's prank on us. Despite our 60 degree weather this past week and the snow completely melting away, it snowed all day long today. All. Day. Long. There's a good solid four or five inches on the ground now. Yeah, it was hard core snow. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!?

In other news my roommate made a necklace for me. She asked me earlier if she made a necklace if I'd wear it. I know she's been really wanting to make one and she loves to make jewelry and she's good at it. It's a super cute necklace.

The semester ends exactly a week from today. I have three more exams just in my Spanish class. I swear this class kills me! How the heck does he expect us to take three exams in one week! Granted, we've been having weekly exams all semester long and they're only like 30 questions a piece but still!

I've finished all but one of my big papers and that one I'm over halfway through. Everything else should be tolerable. I'm already getting emails from my teachers next semester assigning out homework. What really drives me crazy is my teacher actually said in the email, "I recommend you finish this work within the next week. That way you're not too stressed over the break and first week of school."

Yeah. Right. As if finals aren't stressful enough. Thanks!

Anyway, that is all. My roommate's asleep and she's probably annoyed by my typing so I better go to bed. Goodnight!

Two Trips

Wow. So this post totally can't beat my mom's on her blog. But I took a trip and a half this past week too.

On Thursday we drove down to Salt Lake City. We left at 6am. Ew! I rode down with my friend Allison (we did the Humanities tour together last year). Three vans went and I king of wanted to go in one of the vans the students were driving, but she wanted to go with the teacher. Because really, college students will stay up all night even when they know they're making a four hour drive the next morning. She knew the teacher would be more awake.

So down we went to Salt Lake. We went to visit the Museum of Art. It was okay. This whole entire trip reminded me a lot of Europe, except like a tenth the magnitude. We had similar assignments we had in Europe. But the museum as a whole didn't even compare. Our tour guide was all excited about the random artists most of whom I had never even heard of. The only ones I'd heard of were Church and Moran. And of course William Bliss Baker but that's only because I chose to primarily focus on him (he only drew like four paintings in his whole life) because his "Fallen Monarchs" is one of the most beautiful paintings I've ever seen. But anyway, this museum was small and a lot of the art was kind of sad. Meh. I'm too spoiled. This is the only museum I've ever been to where I actually enjoyed the modern art section more than the older stuff.

Anyway, we went to the "Creamery on Ninth" for "dinner" although we all got ice cream cones. They were gigantic too, it was great. We had to sit there and eat while our teacher ran to Little Caesers to pick up our pizzas for dinner. Dessert before dinner. Yum!

We spent less time at the museum and in Provo than we did in the car. I took a bunch of pictures in the car because we were really bored. Allison, Kathryn and I were all in the back seat. Kathryn slept pretty much the whole way down and the whole way back so we started taking pictures of her sleeping and zoomed in on her face. Then she woke up, told us she hated us, and went back to sleep.

We played the alphabet game. It was over in like five minutes which was kind of sad. We went backwards and we blamed it on that.

I have pictures. But none are really that great and I'm too lazy to post them on here at the moment. We got back to Rexburg at night so it didn't even feel like a real day since I didn't even see my own town in the light.

I don't even remember Friday. I had only one class. I think I didn't really do anything productive (except we made lasagna, it was soooo yummy!) thinking I'd accomplish everything Saturday. Except Friday night my friend called and asked if I wanted to go with her and her family to the fair in Pocatello Saturday. I totally accepted since it would get me out of Rexburg. So yesterday we drove down to Pocatello which is like an hour and a half drive.

It was worth it. I had to pay a dollar to get into the fair. But I got a free knife fancy paring knife from the cooking show as well as a free glasses shine/defog treatment thing. We also got to play on these workout machines where you stand on this vibrating surface and it moves your whole body. Weird.

There was a lot of cool stuff there. But all expensive. At the cooking show, they were trying to sell these uber fancy pots and pans. I'll admit, they were incredibly nice and he did a fantastic job showing them off. As he handed out the paper there was the different "sets" of pots and pans you could buy and beside it the price wasn't written (you had to listen to him tell you the price and then write it in). Kelly and I looked and tried to figure out what the prices were before he told us. We knew they'd be expensive. The first set which included four pots/pans and their lids we decided would be around $500 and the "family set" which included about eight pots/pans and their lids plus a cake pan we decided was like $1200. We were wrong. The first set that we thought was $500 was actually $1995 and the second one was actually $2495.

Yeah, I could possibly buy the pans. But then I would have no money for the food that would go in them. Not. A. Chance. But I will admit, they were very very nice cookware. They even gave us the food they cooked and it was fantastic. (chicken, potatoes, carrots (my weak spot), etc.)

We went to Golden Corral for dinner. I hadn't been to Golden Corral for dinner in a while. It's always a family place. I was surprised at how expensive it was. I thought a dinner there was around 7 or 8 bucks. It was over 10! But I got all kinds of amazing food that I haven't eaten in a long time, including steak which was incredible! Every food I got was stuff that I normally wouldn't be able to make or afford. Except the rolls (they have the best rolls though) and dessert brownies which I decided are not nearly as good anymore. They taste to preservative-y. I guess this lack of eating out is making it more obvious when I eat precooked/packaged food. Gross!

Anyway, it's been a fun past few days. Now all I have to do is finish up the last two weeks of school. I'm so excited it's almost over and I'm over half way through with college now! I can't believe how quickly it goes. But really, I'm also obsessing over Disney again. I can't wait to go back! Hopefully my roommates and friends this fall will be as amazing as last fall!

Ph. D

In order to be a professor at BYU-Idaho you have to have either gotten your PhD or at least be actively working on it. I'm not sure if it's that way for all colleges, but it is at least for this one. Pres. Clark, the dean of our whole school used to be the dean of Harvard Business College before he came here and had received his PhD law degree there. I didn't realize he was so accomplished until recently.

Well, one of my teachers is currently working on his dissertation for his PhD. Therefore, he's been canceling class every once in a while. And the day he doesn't cancel class? Let's just say last Friday we ate ice cream and watched a YouTube video of him when he used to work at the U of I.

Anyway, these were extra little tidbits I forgot to include in my last post. Ergo I put them here. (I've been wanting to use that word in a sentence all day)

A Bunch Of Random Updates

-I have Spanish class every MTWTh. On M and W I go down the hill to Mass Media and on T and Th I go up the hill to Humanities. This is a very horrible setup. I always forget which class I need to go to and walk the wrong way and then realize this fact and have to do the whole "awkward turn around and walk the opposite direction" thing. This was made extra weird today since after class, Sean caught up to me and wanted to talk about something and while I was talking to him I remembered that I was walking in the exact opposite direction I wanted to go. But I couldn't just turn around and start walking the opposite direction while talking to him... ugh. Story of my life.

-There is nothing that bugs me more in a teacher than when they speak so quietly I have to strain my ears to catch what they're saying. Usually my college teachers don't do this. It's normally my church teachers who speak uber quiet and it drives me insane. I eventually just stop even trying to pay attention and draw pictures on paper. But I'm a crappy artist, so I then get annoyed with myself. It's a never ending cycle of annoyance when people speak quietly.

-It also annoys me when people want to have full on conversations with me in the middle of a teacher's lesson. This girl in my Organizational Comm class does this frequently. "Oh my gosh, Dianna, do you see that red headed boy over there? I think he's looking at me. He is like, so cute. Don't you think so!? Like oh my gosh!"

-Speaking of good looking men... The guy that sits next to me in Spanish looks exactly like Taylor Lautner. Exactly.

-I went to my friend Krystal's birthday party yesterday and we played Apples to Apples. It's been a loooong time since I've played that game. It was way fun, plus she had the yummiest cake ever.

-I'm really excited for all of my classes next semester. There are a lot but they all sound fun. The downside is I accidentally signed up for 21 credits. The upside is that I'll have room to drop two. The downside is that I can't think of any I'll want to drop because they all sound fun and I have to take them eventually anyway.

-I recently found the game ZZT online. It's this computer game I used to play as I kid. I had forgotten how difficult that game was, but it's also so fun!

-Healthcare bill passed. I've been spending today figuring out exactly what that means for me... as well as keeping up with my paper that's due tomorrow and printing off some notes from the conference I attended Thursday and preparing for my trip to Utah this Thursday.

-My left arm's been twitching a lot lately. Like for the past three weeks. I wonder if this will be a permanent twitch. Like in "The Kid."

-Our bathroom is missing the little toilet paper roll holder thing. So we keep our TP on the back of the toilet. I'm a lefty. My roommate's a righty. You can always tell who was in the bathroom last because I always leave the TP on the left side of the toilet and she leaves it on the right side. TMI, I know, but it makes me laugh.

-My friend made me brownies yesterday (that's right, I have great friends! Be jealous!). When she was cooking them she decided that 2 cups of sugar sounded like a lot of sugar so she only added one deciding the recipe was wrong. Well... the recipe was actually right. 2 cups in fact is NOT a lot of sugar when you're making chocolate brownies. Some people said they were bitter. I actually loved them. They had Ghiradelli chocolate chips in them and basically tasted like dark chocolate brownies. Totally amazing after I drank milk with them. I loved them! In fact, I'm asking for her recipe and will probably make them again... adding only half the sugar. :)

-I just went to eat the last of said brownies and discovered that it's snowing outside. For the first time all month! All the snow was melted in fact. We've had beautiful weather. I haven't even put on my coat all month. AND IT'S SNOWING!!! I don't get how something so huge and hot and powerful and bright and NOT DO IT'S JOB IN REXBURG!

-I checked out a book from the library to read for a class. Someone has gone through this book and highlighted, underlined, and done all kind of things to the book. This annoyed me at first, until I realized that every single word in the book that I don't know has been defined for me and then the explanation of each of these difficult sentences has been written in the margins. Awww, how nice.

-I need to finish that book by tomorrow and have a paper written on it. I still have 200 pages left to go. I'm going to stop here. :)

One Of Many Final Papers

I've been working on two final projects/papers today. Both for the same class. Yep. One class requires two huge final papers. And when I say huge I mean one is about 5-7 pages and the other is 10-12. So they're not really that huge. But still, they're important.

So the one I was gonna write about is the paper where I have to pick a company and basically analyze the heck out of it. I really wanted to pick Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. This teacher has shown "Office" clips in class, has a sense of humor, and loves creativity and new ideas. I was just slightly nervous at the fact that I'd be making the big final paper of the semester into a joke. And the fact that there's info I need to talk about in this paper that isn't available for Dunder Mifflin.

The benefit of using Dunder Mifflin is that it's dysfunctional enough that I'd have plenty to write about. But instead I chose a highly NOT dysfunctional company. Pretty sure you can guess what it is, though, seeing as how I'm obsessed with it.

Oh, speaking of Disney... ;) With my acceptance letter came a pair of 3D glasses and a black paper saying something cheesy like "Dr. Evilness is out to take over the world! Rescue the universe and log onto www.website.com and save the planets by doing Disney trivia!"

So I went to the website, put on my handy 3D glasses, and played their video game. Yes, I am that much of a dork. It's actually hilarious and cheesy! The cheesiest thing ever, but sooooo Disney! Basically you have to pick a planet to "rescue." You then have to click on the moons around the planet to learn trivia about the various aspects of Disney, and then when you've read everything, you have to "take over the planet" by doing a little quiz. When you win a planet you get a key. You then have more stuff to do with the keys. The rest is more complicated, but you get the basic point. Oh, and it's all in 3D.

I'm ranked number 13 out of I don't know how many people. I think at this point I've done everything in the game except "collect all the hidden mickey's." Love it!

Anyway, back to my paper that I should be working on....

What Have I Accomplished Today?

3 Things That I TOTALLY LOVE About My Computer Screen Looking Like This:

1. My totally favorite movie of all time in Spanish so not only is the movie amazing with awesome music, I can pretend I'm learning at the same time!!

2. Check out the top right corner. Note the temperature. AND THIS IS IDAHO! How freakin' great is that!? Spring begins Saturday!

3. This game... Not only am I about to win but it's leading up tooooooo.....



This screen:



Need a better look at the box? Here:



And then I sit back and think about the things I could have been doing. You know, like writing that 5-7 page paper due Tuesday. Or the 10 page paper due Thursday. Or the art project for Humanities. Or my brochure for Visual Media. Or my paper for my practicum class.

Yeah. That.

But hey, 100 wins at 100% perfectness! At least I'm good at something, right?

Buenas Noticias

I finished my online course yesterday. Now I'm officially down to 17 credits. I've already been graded for everything it's possible to get a grade for, but throughout the course there were things that said, "Now pause here and write some thoughts about ________ on the discussion board. You are encouraged to respond to other's remarks as well." Except there is no discussion board. So I didn't..... hope that's not a problem.

Also, I got my first A on a Spanish exam. This excited me greatly and it brought up my average!

AND, yesterday, I watched The Lion King in Spanish (El Rey Leon). LOVE it! I decided that since I watch so many youtube videos in my boring free time I might as well be learning Spanish. So I did. I only got to watch it for a little while because my friend Kelly came and kidnapped me and we went to her house, made kettlecorn, and watched "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past." We do that a lot. Go make kettlecorn and watch movies, I mean. :)

Anyway, there's your update. Today I have a big presentation in one of my classes. I have a meeting with my Spanish teacher where I'll have to only use Spanish the whole time. And a week from today I'll be in Provo!

FHE Fire!

We had an awesome activity for FHE tonight. Kudos to whoever's idea it was. It was one of our sisters in another apartment.

Anyway, you start with several copies of The Scroll (school newspaper). And a few cigarette lighters. Catch the scroll on fire. Eat a mouthful of powdered sugar....



And then blow as hard as you can directly at the fire. It looks awesome in real life.



It's super hard to capture good pictures. I didn't take any, these were all taken by our FHE bros and I just stole them off of facebook.



Unfortunately, they didn't get a very good one of me. I did it three times. You have to blow quickly before your saliva and spit make the sugar too wet. I think I kind of spat it one of the times. Lame. This time actually looked cool, but they caught the picture just after the "explosion."



We even had people looking out their windows from other apartments to watch us. So cool. This is definitely something I'm gonna keep in mind for fun ways to hurt myself in the future!

Why I'm Failing Spanish

Today in class the teacher was teaching off of a powerpoint. There were loads of words and things we didn't understand. Finally, one of the students asked the teacher...

"What's comeremos?"

"That's the future form of 'we eat.' Oh, I guess you guys wouldn't know that. Man, there's a lot of new stuff on here."

Our teacher looked at the powerpoint a little more, "Ohhh, that's the problem, this is a 302 presentation, not a 202 presentation."

The whole class was silent as the teacher tried to figure out what to do/change. Then the student raised his hand again, "Sir? Are you aware we're only in Spanish 102?

Yeah, my teacher's used to teaching 300 and 400 level classes. Obviously not 100 level. Ugh!

Typos

My teacher had us do this reading for class on Tuesday. Well, I think technically every day we're supposed to have done a reading, but he never really enforces it so I've never really done it. I know. Bad student. Smack my hand.

Well, he actually told us to do the reading this time and really emphasized it's importance. So I decided I might as well do the right thing at least once this semester.

This book has so many freakin' TYPOS! It's an online book. Actually, I think it's a real book but the teacher had mercy on the fact that we're poor college students and put it online so it's free. But seriously, there are so many typos and they're really keeping me on my toes in this reading. Here are a few sentences:

"The right action is the one chat avoids punishment and gains approval."

"...an equal exchange that satisfies die individual's own interest"

"...does not yet have the power to identity with others"

"being responsive... is considered die right cling to do"

Yeah, I could seriously go on and on. These were taken from only a paragraph and a half. AND EACH PARAGRAPH IS ONLY FOUR LINES LONG!!!

And no, there isn't a reason for the typos hidden creatively in the meaning of the text. It's about Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Growth. Maybe it's seeing if I have the morals to not make fun of silly people.

I don't. Although I'll be surprised if I don't have a typo of my obn somewhere in this post. But at least I don't have thrie in a single paragraf.

I Don't Like Going To Offices

I hate going to see teachers in their offices. Hate it. No matter what teacher it is or what the reason is, I hate going to see them. I don't even know why. There's no rational reason. I have just always dreaded it.

Today, though, I finally made up my mind that I just had to see my Spanish teacher. I got a 50% on an exam a while back which is very clearly not like me at all. It was seriously bugging me a lot. It was actually two exams ago but I've been dreading seeing him so much that I've refused to go until today.

Well, I went upstairs in the Smith to talk to my teacher today. On my way to his office I decided I had to go to the bathroom first. I was so nervous! On my way to the bathroom I walked by my friend Tiare (T-R-E). I said hi, she said hi back.

She asked me where I was going. I pointed behind me and said, "On my way to go see a teacher..." She looked at my hand pointing back in the direction I just came from. "Annnnnd?"

"Annnnd.... umm.... I'm going to go to the bathroom."

Kay, well it was funnier at the time. She just laughed at me. I don't know why I even pointed. Ugh.

I hate going to see teachers. But I did eventually make it into his office and we discussed the exam. We noted some errors the computer made in grading my exam and he bumped it up a bit for which I was grateful.

We also talked about the ones I got wrong. As usual I had everything right but just got a basic idea backwards accidentally and that killed me on several questions. He said the whole class average went down several points with that exam so it wasn't just me. And he drops the lowest exam score anyway so it wasn't really a big deal.

The best part is I now totally get what I did wrong and I've proved to the teacher that I truly do understand what's going on in his class even if my stupid grades don't reflect it. He really is a fantastic teacher and is genuinely interested that each individual student not only gets a good grade but thoroughly understands the material.

But I still hate going to see teachers. Hate every second of it. Which is weird cuz my dad is a teacher and I've always felt like he's totally cool with students coming in to see him. That's why they have office hours. But I still don't like it!

Wallace the Rat-Dog

We went to a member of the bishopric's house for FHE tonight. They try to have each group do that at least once a semester here at BYU.

Our First Counselor has a rat dog. No seriously, it was the tiniest, rattiest little ball of fluff I've ever seen.

His wife told him the dog, Wallace, needed a haircut last week. So, our counselor took it upon himself to give his rat-dog Wallace a mohawk.

Now his wife insists poor little Wallace wears a rat-dog-shirt to cover his little rat-dog-mohawk.

But when she left the room he showed us Wallace's awesome mohawk anyway.

Poor rat-dog Wallace. Those poor little things seriously have zero dignity. None.

But it is pretty interesting to see a greased-up mohawk on a tiny half pound rat dog!

OCD... Or Maybe I'm Just Weird

My first meal of the day has to be breakfast. It's just one of those things about me. No matter how late I sleep in, or how long it's been that I've been awake without eating, I have to have breakfast food as my first meal of the day.

Today I woke up and had some errands to do in town. I left the apartment before eating breakfast. When I got home from shopping I was starving and I really wanted to make a sandwich or eat some of my leftover enchiladas, or maybe eat some of the broccoli pasta-roni I bought.

But I couldn't. Because I hadn't yet eaten breakfast food (eggs, waffles, cereal, oatmeal, sausage, pancakes, etc.). I just had to eat a breakfast food first. I ate some cereal.

And then I was too full to eat my leftovers. But my first meal of today was breakfast, and that's all that matters... right? Normal food is for later in the day and that's all there is too it.

Identicals

My roommate's identical twin is in town this weekend. I was shown pictures before and I was well prepared to tell them apart. I saw them. I truly can tell them apart... it takes me a second, but I can do it. I mostly do it by facial expression (if it looks familiar it's Alexis, if not it's Ashley) but I'm slowly noticing other differences.

BUT their voices and mannerisms and just the way they talk is so identical it's stinkin' hilarious! They came in our room just now and I was just listening to them talk to each other. I swear it was exactly as though it was only Alexis just talking to herself. I had no idea which one was talking because their voices are exactly the same and they talk the same way with the same phrases and everything.

I had to work to keep from laughing.

Alexis has a yellow coat. Ashley has a blue one. This I know.

I also know that they have a lot of fun trying to confuse people as twins.

One of them came in in the blue coat just now and for a second I seriously thought it was Alexis wearing Ashley's coat to confuse me. I had to just stare at her for a second to figure it out... probably creeped her out. It was Ashley. I figured it out when she gave me the weird look. It's easier to compare them side by side, okay?

This is gonna be a fun weekend, I've never roomed with identical twins before...

Study Tips 101

I had an art quiz in my Humanities class today. I started studying for it yesterday. For the record, normally I'm not a procrastinator but... well I don't really have an excuse except I've been feeling particularly lazy lately.

So yesterday I was standing outside one of my other classes with my little flashcards out trying to memorize art/artist/location (I had gotten there early) when a guy friend from my class came up and asked what I was doing. When I explained it was for a quiz in a different class he immediately took it upon himself to teach me art and good ways to memorize each piece.

I had hardly even looked at the art pieces when he first came up (only enough to make them into flash cards but that was it) but by the time our class started fifteen minutes later I had memorized every single detail of every single art piece we went over as well as every single detail of our conversation, every word he said to me. And then I replayed it in my head throughout class. Some call it having my head in the clouds... I call it studying smart!

It really helps to have an awesome, fun, cute guy help you study. I got a 46/45 on the quiz today (the teacher provided an extra credit point for knowing where the Spiral Jetty by Smithson was located).

Oh Spanish...

Today in Spanish we were split into groups and were supposed to be conjugating verbs and reading sentences aloud to each other. As I began a sentence I noticed the last word.

"marihuana"

I didn't know what it meant. I thought it sounded like a cute little girls name. You know like "Mariella" or "Marianna"

Nope. Marihuana is just like it sounds. Marijuana.

This is where I get my "naive" and "innocent" status from. Failure!

At least I got a few laughs.

Oh, and as a followup on my pirate post, you guys were right.

"Dead men tell no tales." Good job! :)