Playing With Light

It's hard to spell your name backwards...



We made oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies. Best. Cookies. Ever! Thanks to Ashley for the recipe! Pretty sure I'm gonna puke, though, after eating so many...







We tried to outline each other with the light. This was fun...



But you can see what a difference changing the batteries in the flashlight made!





We live in Cloud 9. NOT Apartment 9. Especially if Natalie's around.



Smiley face with the giant nose... Ashley said it looked like an upside down question mark.



The Thinker. Or at least an attempt...



I tried to do Mickey Mouse. Because, you know, I'm me. It turned out to more resemble Pooh Bear, though. Actually, it doesn't really resemble anything really well...




Me in my fail of a "gangsta" pose.



This is what Ashley and I would look like if we were one person. Kinda creepy, I know.

Stupid Cold

When I worked in Florida, they didn't like to tell us the exact numbers of how many people were in the park. But because I worked parades, we had to have at least a bit of an estimate. So one of my coordinators had a meter that she would base her idea of how many people were in the park.

The lowest end of this meter was just "Busy." Halfway up the meter would be "Stupid Busy." And the most busy we had was "Omigosh-Why-Am-I-Here Busy." Usually we were just "stupid busy" with occasional bouts of "ohmigosh-why-am-I-here busy" days in there.

Well, I can't help but use that same meter to determine how cold it is outside here in Idaho.

Forget numbers... it is stupid cold today. And I'm sick of it.

Tests...

I miss multiple choice exams. I miss them a lot. None of me teachers believe in them anymore.

Instead it's all research papers, fill in the blank, or worst... essay questions.

Blech.

Monopoly With Ashley

Ashley and I played Monopoly last night. And I lost. A lot.

This is my face before I looked down and realized how many properties I had mortgaged.



Annnnd, this is my face after I realized how much trouble I was really in.



And here is Ashley's "I won" pose.



And that's how much she won by. Sort of. It's how much she would have won by if I had had the extra 7.5 million dollars that I owed her.



I wouldn't allow the game to be over until she landed on my hotel. She did, but like two turns before I landed on her spot for the final time and lost. She owed me 2.5 million for landing here. I owed her 7.5 million for landing on her spot. This sucks.



I was the camel. She's the sumo wrestler.



And some more fun photos from the rest of the night:

I Love It!

My friend who's from China was asking me to help her edit some reference letters from her Chinese teachers.



I love how she makes me think of English in different ways. It's so second nature to me, and yet it's so hard for others. It makes me feel better about sucking at Spanish. Jean's English is actually really, really good.

Just Dance

I just wanted to see if this would actually work...

Natalie got this new dance game in the mail today and we tried it out for FHE. Yes, I tried it too... just not in this video.

When Natalie Plays With Monica...

And that's my life...

Chocolate, Chocolate, and a Little More Chocolate!

Our Bountiful Basket this week. I really don't know that it's "excess of farmers in the area." That's why I wrote "or something" at the end of that sentence. All I really know about it is it's run by farmers and I thought it had something to do with "excess." I don't know though... they're obviously not super duper fresh. Anyway, here's a picture. :)



And now for our chocolate-fest! We decided (okay, Natalie decided) that for Valentine's Day (slash Monica and Stanzie's birthdays since they both had birthdays yesterday) that we would have a chocolate party! Everyone had to make a chocolate dish (Ashley made two) for the apartment to share.

We also made guacamole, salsa, and chips for our "appetizer" for dinner. Then Natalie made some of the best chicken enchiladas ever for dinner.



And by "some" I mean TONS! We didn't even make it through one of these pans. We're going to be eating a LOT of enchiladas over the next few days...



Then the chocolate-fest began! Monica wasn't here (she went to Missouri-ish this weekend) so Cami came instead. Cami is friends with Teresa and Natalie from work, but we also happen to have the same class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I kind of knew her too... kind of.

This is Cami, Teresa, and Ashley enjoying the chips and homemade dip!



Ashley making her super rich truffles!



Natalie, putting her finishing touches on her chocolate cheesecake! Sort of...



I say sort of because someone kind of ate a piece before it was time... and that same someone filled it in with whipped cream to "cover it up." Smooth, Natalie, very smooth.



We fed that piece to Teresa later...



Stanzie made the salsa and the "Brigadero." I think that's what it was called...





Teresa made cherry hot chocolate. And I made the carmelitas (the ones being passed around in this pic)! Ashley's second thing was the trifle (the one with chocolate chips on top).



So after stuffing myself of guacamole and enchiladas, this is my dessert plate! Sooooo yummy!



Cami with the desserts. Taking Monica's place. Okay, so actually this picture is to show you a better photo of my carmelitas. Don't they look delicious!?



And just to be sure there's pictures of all of my roommates in this post, here is one of Natalie, Ashley, and Monica.

Good News, Semi-Bad News, and More Semi-Bad News

I got accepted to the Disney College Program!!!! Again. Yay! It's still exciting, the third time!

The semi-bad news is that my first choice was Costuming and I got my second choice which was Attractions. That's a long story, but overall it's probably better this way.

The other semi-bad news is that the fee for the program is three times what it was in previous years. It used to be $100. Now it's $300 because they added in a $200 "Housing and Administration Fee" which I think means that instead of having two weeks of rent pulled out of our pay check the second week, we pay up front. That way all those kids who cheat out the program by staying for one week, pretending they're going to work, and then leaving before they even finish training because all they wanted was to take advantage of the free tickets will not get quite as good a deal as they think. At least, I think that's what it is.

Anyway, I'm still stuck on the good news that I get to go back! I hope I get a fun attraction, though, like the Jungle Safari in Animal Kingdom or the Great Movie Ride in Hollywood. Actually, I'm mostly hoping for DAK or HS since those are the two parks I haven't officially "worked" in. Although, I was deployed to HS for a few weeks my first year, so DAK would be slightly preferable, which is ironic because my first year DAK was the only park I did NOT want to work in.

It'll be fun, though. I'm so excited!

Pilates

It's very convenient that my final year of college I get to be roommates with one of my favorite roommates ever. Stanzie is more like me than any other roommate I've ever had. Except she's better than I am. She's the person I wish I would be. Which is good because she encourages me to be that good too. Particularly when it comes to exercising.

Tonight, she talked me into going with her to Pilates. I've often thought about doing the on-campus exercise classes, but never really got around to it. Well, I went today. Pilates is like yoga except it focuses on making your muscles stronger, particularly your abs. (By the way, I've never done yoga either... the only reason I compare it to yoga is because that's what the teacher told us at the beginning). Anyway, it was fun but it burned! It was a good burn though, and afterward my legs felt really good... kind of as if they had a massage or something. It made me want to run but I had to go to the Spori and finish a project that's due tomorrow.

I thought I had finished the project... chapters 5 and 6. Then it turned out I found out at the last minute I had to do chapters 7 and 8 as well, and the project can only be completed on campus on the Macs. Blech. Hate it when that happens. But I finished, thank goodness!

Anyway, that's why I only did Pilates and not Pilates and Zumba which is what Stanzie did. Maybe next week I'll attend both. We'll see.

Oh, and by the way, Stanzie's name does not rhyme with "pansy," but it does rhyme with "Fonzie." And yes, she answers to "The Stanz."

It's Too Cold

It was -23 this morning. Cold enough to cancel schools. Public schools that is. Not our school.

When I go outside it takes about three seconds for me to be able to breathe the air. My lungs don't want to take in the cold so they try to cough it out but there's no air in my lungs to cough out so I kind of gag for a few seconds before my body gets used to it.

And this is why I totally plan on living in Florida when this is all over.

The good news is the Groundhog didn't see his shadow! Yay for early spring!

Also, cool random fact. I had a friend in Disney who was from Punxsutawney, PA. The end.

Bountiful Basket

Exactly the name of something you'd find in Mormonville, USA, right? Bountiful Basket

Our apartment went ahead and bought one and picked it up this morning. The Bountiful Basket is this thing where you basically pay $20 (it's usually $15, but there's a $5 start up fee) and they give you a big basket of fresh fruits and vegetables. Basically the excess of what the farmers sell in the area or something...

It's pretty cool. We got bananas, apples, oranges, spaghetti squash, asparagus, Romaine lettuce, and a ton more. We don't even have enough room in our kitchen for all of it! It's awesome!

If this were an advertising blog (and if anyone in the state of Rexburg read this) I would totally recommend this place!

Electives!

For some reason people have been thinking it's a good idea to tell Dianna horror stories of all the people who thought they were graduated and then found out six months later that surprise! they actually had like five more classes to take.

This is no good because we all know how horror stories freak Dianna out.

So I've been checking my "Degree Audit" and my Catalog book like crazy making sure that I've planned in filling every single requirement. But I was still freaked out I'd run into the issues my sister had or something... even though I've never transferred schools (yeah, logic doesn't take place in my brain when I'm freaking out).

So, anyway, I went to talk to an academic counselor yesterday for the first time since Freshman year when I first changed my major. They said I'm perfectly on track and I brought up every problem I could possibly think of and they calmed each of my fears.

And that's when I realized I had everything figured out correctly from the beginning! So, as of next semester, I will only have 7 more credits worth of classes required for my Major.

Except that since I'll only have 109 credits, I need to take at least 11 credits in order to have enough to graduate.

Except that at that point, tuition is cheaper if I go full time and get my scholarship. But in order to get my scholarship I have to take at least 14 credits.

Which means I have 7 credits of FUN to take next semester! So I've been wasting my time NOT studying for that Chemistry test tomorrow morning, nor working on my big Humanities presentation that's also tomorrow afternoon, but figuring out my fun schedule for next semester!

I have a super long list of electives now that I can't narrow down. I'm thinking most of my classes will be online. In fact, the way I have it planned now is my only class day will be Wednesdays and that's it. Class one day a week! I can't wait! Although I may end up doing T/Th classes as well... but still, gotta love four day weekends!

Of course that means a lot more homework and self motivation on my final semester of college which may be impossible, but hey! As a wise man once said: It's kind of fun to do the impossible! (that would be Walt Disney, by the way!)

Antwerpen

My friend from PAC is in Belgium this semester studying abroad. And she's been in Antwerp the past week or so. She put up some photos on facebook.



This is Janice with the Antwerp hand.



And this photo just made me homesick! Ahh, I can't wait to go back to that place. (Yes, I'm implying that I totally hope to see that place again... at some point...)

The... BIC

We had our first Chem lab of the semester yesterday. Basically, it was just going over safety. So the whole lab was basically our teacher lecturing us with things like, "Don't do this because something will blow, and you will die." "Try to do this, because stuff blows up, and you will die." Actually, a lot of her sentences ended with either explosions or death. I'm gonna like this semester!

The new building is open this semester and I'm super excited about it. It's called the BYU-Idaho Center and every single person I know doesn't like the name at all. What are we supposed to call it? The BIC? Really? Whatever. Anyway, there's an indoor track to go running on which is awesome! I way prefer running on a track than the treadmills I've decided because it's harder and I feel like I get more of a workout. There's a walkway (skyway? I don't know what the proper terminology is) from the old gym (the Hart) to the new gym (the... umm... BIC). So I can go to the locker rooms and change and not have to go outside to get to the track (we have to wear BYU approved clothing when we work out, and they just started charging for clothes this semester, too! Fortunately, I already had my own approved workout clothes).

Anyway, the BIC is an enormous building. It includes a giant conference hall thing that compares to the Conference Center in Utah. I think it's supposed to hold 15,000? I don't know how many the one in Utah holds, but I'm pretty sure ours holds somewhere between 14,000 and 15,000 people. Biggest room I've been in in my life!

They hold Devotional there on Thursdays so I've actually started going again! The past few semesters I've just been lazy and listened to it at home and I even (I can't believe I'm admitting this!) skipped a few times! It's a lot more fun to go now that we all fit in one room and it's huge and I almost always find someone I know. It's actually kind of funny cause now every Tuesday around 1:45 every single student on campus begins migrating toward the same building. Awesome!

Anyway, back to the exercise part. Because of this building's size, there's a lot of stairs so today after running I went up and down all the stairs a few times. Ugh, it kills my calves but it's so good afterwards! I like this new building.

Also, they moved the weights room and you have to go through a turnstile to get there. Ahhh, reminds me of Disney!

And in other news, we went to see the new-ish Narnia movie today at the dollar theater. It was actually really good. But surprisingly scary for just a PG movie.

And I think my roommates just turned on the movie Spaceballs. I haven't seen that in years! So yeah, I'm gonna go now.

Premiere Night

I'm so sad I missed premiere last night. But it was okay because the YouTube video was up like an hour after it happened.

Instructions:

Go to YouTube

Look up "Disney The Magic The Memories and You World Premiere"

Watch video and enjoy.


The new castle show will happen all year long with pictures of actual guests. The technology just blows my mind! I'll admit, I almost got teary eyed! I can't even believe what they're capable of!

Also, I'm pretty sure it's even cooler in person. Just sayin'.

Applications opened up today.

Snow Boots!

I don't really know how I ever thought it would be a good idea to live in Rexburg without owning boots. But for some silly reason I did.

But then this past week I've gotten sick of coming home from school every day peeling wet, frozen socks off of my soggy feet. So, despite it being my senior year, we went to KMart the other day and Kelly made me buy some boots.

And oh my gosh they're MAGICAL! I can walk through snow now and not even feel it! And I don't slip! It's incredible.

My feet are no longer frozen when I step outside. However, they're insulated so well that once I'm inside and wearing them my feet get really hot.

I approve.

My Nice, Big Bedroom

When I arrived last night, just as I went to open the door, my old bishop came walking out of the apartment with his two counselors. He remembered my name and who I was an everything, which impressed me since I wasn't really that close to him.

Well, I've now met all my roommates. I thought I was cutting it close not getting in until 8pm last night. But my room roommate Stanzie didn't get in until after midnight. She didn't want to wake me up so she slept on the couch which was very nice of her but I was so tired I probably wouldn't have woken up for anything! Here is our room.






You can see how I literally have to climb over my bed just to sit at my desk. And the bottom two drawers on the desk are essentially useless since they can't open.

But it's okay. I like comfy cozy. And I like how the head of my bed is kind of in a cave. And in my little cave I have some little bookshelf things to keep my stereo and books on. And today I'm going to buy a little bed lamp so I can read from my little cave.

Yep, this apartment will do nicely. We even have a Wii!!!

My only complaint is that there's a foot of snow on the ground and I was sweating in 75 degree weather three days ago...

Last Day At Disney

My last night at Disney I worked West and they made me Liberty 2 and Roller. The hardest of the rolling spots.



And it turned out to be the first and only night I ever lost the roll. I lost it in the first parade. Of course. I just had to lose it on my last night to scratch my perfect record. Fortunately Christeen was uber nice about it. She didn't blame me at all and David, Christeen and I worked together to fix it (yep, it takes that many... possibly more, to fix a roll).

This photo was taken before I lost the roll. Back when I was still happy to be roller. It's okay, though, because second parade I did it perfectly again. No problem!

Random Story: You'll notice the roll is made for right handed people. Of course. Well, sometimes the silver turny-thingy gets detached from the roll so you can't roll like normal. When this happens the roller has to actually grab the black sides of the roll with both hands and roll like that... much harder. Well, as I was rolling that night, my right arm just got super tired (like I said, it's the longest and hardest spot to roll on the route) so I started rolling with both hands, forgetting the silver thing. Melissa came over to me and asked: "Oh no! Did the roller break again!?" I answered, "No, I'm just tired... no problems." "Nice Dianna. Nice..."

Yeah, you had to be there... it was just funny.

Question of the Day:

What's worse than being in a crowd of nearly 100,000 people in Disney on New Year's Eve where only 1/3 speak English?



Being responsible for that crowd of nearly 100,000 people.

Hardest day of my life.

But at the same time, somehow, it was one of the best!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!