Too many

"sometimes i can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives i'm not living" -jonathan safran foer

I want to go on a study abroad. One of my friends might do an internship at a hospital/orphanage in Romania this summer. I might join her. BYU's field study in South Africa also sounds appealing. I'm also thinking about going on a mission. Oh the choices!

Technology

On facebook chat a couple weeks ago:

L: Dad!
D: What? I don't know how to use this thing!
L: Obviously you do...


Trying to deliver something to my mom on campus this morning after calling twice and texting she finally sent:
"I just left that rm mi phon is dyin"

And people say the youth of today are ruining the english language...

I went hiking in Boulder (near escalante) this weekend with my parents. Pictures to come.

When Parents Text

Texting "conversation" with my mom this morning:

MOM: Am at conference so text me if u need me
ME: Haha, well hopefully I won't. You're terrible at texting back.
{5 hours later}
ME: I see what you did there.

Someone came in my office at work earlier asking who they should talk to to get information about paranoid personality disorders, I wasn't really sure, so I just sent him to a professor I knew was actually in the building and would at least know something about it and who else for him to get in contact with. When another professor came in my office to get something from the printer, I asked him who the best authorities in the department were on personality disorders because someone had just asked me. He let me know who would be best to refer someone to and then said "Is this actually for a friend? You're not dating him are you?!"

I thought it was rather humorous. I assured him that it really was for some guy who had just come into my office. I wonder what he would have said if it was for my hypothetical paranoid boyfriend.

Summer Lovin

Well...I'm back in Provo. Actually I have been for like a month, I just haven't written on here in a while. My new ward is pretty cool. It's a very unusual ward, though from my experiences with other student wards. It seems like everyone in the ward is dating/engaged to someone else in the ward. Usually people end up dating random people like kids in classes and friends of friends and once in a while people in their ward. Two of my roommates are engaged and the third is dating someone, so that's interesting. They're really great girls! My apartment is pretty sweet. Not having a dishwasher isn't as bad as I thought it would be either. One of my (Fall/Winter) roommates, Krislyn,  is coming out to visit this weekend!!! I'm pumped.

Saturday night I finally went to see Harry Potter. (I was too slow getting tickets for the midnight showing. :(  ) It was great! At least the part that I saw...Just as Harry was getting Snape's memories some lights started flashing in the theater and a voice cam eover the intercom telling us to evacuate the building. We came to find out that some guy was upstairs in the building with a lighter lighting something on fire and threatening to blow the place up. I don't think any of us really believed it was going to happen since the employees had to keep telling us to move back further in the parking lot. A buch of police and firemen came, but after about 20 minutes of waiting around outside for something to happen, we left. And that's why I still haven't seen HP...but I'm okay with it lasting a little longer. Afterall, this is my childhood. What else do we have ot look forward to in the Wizarding World of HP?

Last night was bogo night (buy on get one free) at Baskin Robbins. It's every tuesday, so freshman year we used to call it tradition tuesday and go *every tuesday. And now that I live so close the kids in the ward like to go a lot. It was rather delicious, esp for being buy on get one, but there are other places I like better.

I just bought my ticket for the midnight showing of Captain America. I'm going with some comic book buffs, so this will be interesting....



*I skipped some due to schoolwork and money...

coding, coding, coding

So Lauren and I have just been coding all day everyday.

Okay, not really. We do three or four tapes in the morning, eat lunch, go lay outside and read, come back in and code three or four more tapes and then go to whatever we're doing that evening. Which this week has been a lot of institute stuff.

On Monday we volunteered at the Central Missouri Food Bank for the ward FHE. We're pretty much professional packers now. Then we went to our friend's and watched Clue. I had never seen it before. It's pretty funny. I can't believe I had never seen it before. I would recommend it.
Tuesday we went to Institute and talked about religion and politics, though there wasn't too much argumentation going on in the class...unfortunately.
Last night we went and helped make pinatas and candy bags with Mizzou's LDSSA for the pediatric unit at the hospital here. I may or may not have eaten two mini reeses. They are a weakness of mine.

Tonight we are going to watch Thor, I'll let you know how it is.

Foosball and Leo's

This weekend has been pretty good so far. Last night we went to a student ward activity that involved food (namely strawberries) and human foosball! For those lacking in the creativity department, human foosball is when you get a bunch of long pvc pipes (or duct tape some shorter ones together) and set them up like the rows in a foosball table. Everyone picks a row to stand in and just has to keep their hands on the pole when they kick the soccer ball. Pretty much Lauren, Mariah, and I kicked butt. Just kidding we weren't even all on the same team most of the time, but when we were all on the same bar we were like a brick wall!...

Today Lauren and I went to Mustard Seed to get some sseko sandals. We became enamored of them when we went to Mustard Seed last week and have been thinking about buying them this whole time, but couldn't decide because they're kind of expensive, but so awesome. Obviously we decided to buy them. You just buy the sole to the sandals and then the straps are interchangeable and you can tie them however you want since there are five spots the straps can go into the shoes.

They go towards helping some women in Uganda help fund their higher education, which is awesome. And...you can wear them with skirts and not get blisters! I'm excited about this since I will probably be mostly wearing skirts when I get back to Provo and am working...
We also went to Leo's. It's this super random shop in the middle of Downtown como. It's upstairs from Dryer's and just has random used stuff. It was so awesome. It's one of those places that you think is super cool, but you also really want to wash your hands while/after you're there. Lauren got a sweet hat and some rings and I got a sweet ring for like 3 bucks. Excellent. That store will be graced with our presence again.
We also had free coupons for Hot Box cookies. It was pretty good, but you can tell that they mostly make their money from lazy college student cravings rather than the excellence of their cookies.

Lauren and I have started making a wicked sweet video. We have so many random and awesome visions for it. Look forward to it. It will blow your freaking mind.

Home, Sweet Home

Just had a two day drive with my awesome roommate, Lauren. We actually had a blast on the 20 hour drive. We sang as loudly as possible to some sweet jams, yelled at Nebraska, ate delicious beef jerky, "raced" a car full of obnoxious guys, screamed to stay awake, hot tubbed at the hotel and watched an awesome move in the hotel room. It was insane, we really need to find out the title of it...
Easter was great and mom made my favorite dessert. What a doll. Tomorrow we start work. Yummy. I already miss my peeps from school, but it won't be too long til I see most of them, and I can survive until August for the others.  :)

I was going through some pictures today to figure out a picture I want on my debit. And I found this beauty from the end of freshman year:

we may or may not have gone wading in the JFSB courtyard fountain. It was awesome and the faces in this...classic. Marsh's might be my fav, but I can't quite decide...

He's Just Not...

...That Into You. I'm reading it right now. It's pretty good. Probably every girl should read it. I think that it should be way more acceptable for girls to just be able to say to our friends "maybe he's just not that into you." Sometimes I do, but I generally get expressions of pure shock. You can't say that! I think the real problem, though, is that we see our girl friends as so cool and so awesome that we can't wrap our minds around the fact that a guy might not be interested in them. "But ------- is so funny/smart/gorgeous/athletic/fun/great, how could he not want to ask her out?!" But sometimes he doesn't. Quit letting your friend wait around for him. Punch her. It might help.
I don't think that much of the book has applied to me yet, but maybe it will help in future dating endeavors and definitely in talking to my girl friends. Although this is what I am definitely going to have them read first. Breakups are the worst to get your friends through. When they're on a self-destructive path, they will eventually realize it themselves no matter how many times you told them. The article also has some relationship advice, ladies.

Now I just need to read The Gift of Fear...

...But finals are already rearing their ugly head. Remember that picture that people used to put on their facebooks around this time in high school? The one with the grim reaper holding the little boys hand and it said: "Let's Go Take the AP Exams." Someone should make one for finals. At least I only have four finals!!! :)

A Beautiful Week

I have been so busy lately! Our friend John was in town visiting for the weekend, so Monday night we went to SLC and had delicious Greek food and watched a laser show in the Imax there. Then we went to a yummy frozen yogurt place. (They're cake batter flavor was spectacular.)
Of course we played around on the galaxy/solar system stuff first:

 Yeah, we're on Mars.

Inspecting footprints on the moon with our friend in the background.

Thursday night we had a way fun big group date (girls ask guys). We played soccer for a while out in the cold and rain. We may have lost, but my team was awesome! Just saying...I think everyone had a lot of fun. They didn't want to go until it got pretty dark. Finally we went and got frozen yogurt (seeing a pattern?) Mmmmmm....

The whole group minus Tracie and Peter, party poopers. You should have seen us trying to take this picture, though. We put the camera on the TV with the timer and it kept falling off...

Last night I went to a "bonfire." The weather was pretty crappy, so we ended up grilling hot dogs outside my friend's apartment complex. Then we went inside and told a 'scary' story and made s'mores by roasting marshmallows over tea candles. It was really fun! Some of his friends reminded me of my roommates, which amused me.

And a couple pictures from conference at Brady's and Temple Square:

We're pretty awesome. I know. Speaking of awesome, Hannah and I went on a run in the snow this morning and then went swimming outside at Glenhood (okay, the pool is heated, but still pretty fun). Then we got some lunch at the coffee pod, it was good, but not too filling. The atmosphere was fun, though. There were a lot of hippies. I think it will become Hannah's new thing. She'll probably put our pics up in a few months...or years...

Cecil!

Conference weekend has been great! Saturday morning I lazed around with the roommates watching conference on TV. But right after the first session, Lauren and I jumped in the car to head to Salt Lake for the PM session since I had two tickets. We found parking pretty easily, which surprised me and meant that we had time to visit with a friend who works in the ticket office. My aunt was in town for the weekend with my cousin and her friend, so they saved us seats (we were in the balcony). Of course the talks were fantastic! And it was exciting when Cecil gt up since he's my homeboy. There was a lot of whispering in our section when he stood up. The BYU-I choir was great, but I wish we had been there for MoTab (don't worry, I've been to conference before, so I've seen them, but it's always nice.) I kept looking at the spots we had last year covetously, though. We were in the fifth row last year! But anyway, then our group went to Crown Burger, known for their cheeseburgers with pastrami and fantastic fry sauce. It lived up to it's name. Mmmmmmm! Walking around temple square rounded up the GC Saturday. And when we got home we got to visit with our friend from last semester who moved to Texas, but is in town visiting!

Today we continued our somewhat new semi-annual tradition of going to our friend's parents house for conference. His parents and family are fantastic and fun (and make amazing food!) His grandparents especially are characters. We also went in footie pajamas (I borrowed from Krislyn since I don't yet own any :(  ) And took some awesome pictures. They will be forthcoming....

Maybe I should demonstrate that I was actually educated from conference...I got:

GET MARRIED!

Yeah, it felt like BYU firesides all over the place (Especially Elder Scott's since he told mostly the same stories as our fireside a few months ago.)

So pretty much a fantastic weekend.

P.S. I went rock climbing on Friday! But alas,  I forgot my camera. It was actually kind of scary at first, but way fun.

Rents

I've been way busy lately because my parents are in town! Actually my mom just left yesterday because she has a conference in Montreal, but Dad is here until Thursday. Saturday we went skiing with my brother, Sam, and his new girlfriend, Sarah. She is way cool. I approve. I haven't skiied in a really long time, but I survived and I even did a few runs by myself when my parents were too pooped.

On one of the rides up on the lift I was with this guy. I started chatting with him and I couldn't figure out where his accent was from, so I just asked him. Apparently he was originally from Germany, had lived in Australia for about 10 years and now lives in the Bay Area. He was telling me about his work in IT and his very sick relative who they had been worried about, but was not longer on her death bed. I heard about his wife's stress over it and his relief in her relaxation from their visit to Utah. He tried to explain his exact job regarding cameras, but it was beyond me, so I just nodded politely to that part. It was actually rather interesting. I was embarassed when he told me he was from Germany and I asked what part and he named an area that my brother had been in for a really long time. I said: "Oh, my brother served there for a while." And he clearly thought I mean military. Sometimes I forget that most people aren't Mormon...oh BYU.

You know those days when you just know that you're not going to get anything else done for the rest of the day in school terms. That was/is today. I did however get a lot of names done at the temple along with two of my awesome neighbors. Apparently Tuesday afternoons are the time to go. There was like no one there. I then went on a run with one of said neighbors. It was a good pace and I felt way good afterward and then I went to...Pirate Island! (After getting lost first) for a party for the people who had volunteered for the Rex Lee run. It was Awesome. It reminded me a lot of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. The workers all dress as pirates-ish. And the decor is great. After eating pizza and talking about what we can do better/keep the same for next year, they gave us tokens to go play in the arcade part. I kicked trash at the rifles. If only i was that good of a shot in real life. I'm much better with handguns, but even then...speaking of, I'm going shooting on Friday! :)

Uncanny

...how much Hermann Rorschach (creator of the ink blot test) looks like Brad Pitt:

Hermann

Brad

 

We were talking about the ink blot test yesterday in class and the picture of Hermann was on the powerpoint. I assumed that they had made a movie about him and Brad Pitt had played the part until my teacher said: "Doesn't he look like Brad Pitt?" In my mind, I yelled "that's not him?? What?" Weird. I think they now need to make a movie about him just so they can cast Brad Pitt.

The Game is tonight!! Our boys will be taking on Florida!  Speaking of The Jimmer, I'm finally reading all the Michelle comments all the way through (for those of you not in the know, Michelle is a BYU student who wrote a letter to the editor about how people are too obsessed with Jimmer and are 'worshiping' him. they actually make "Michelle <3's Jimmer t-shirts and the like now.) Oh did people respond. She got Jimmered. Check it out:

http://dreamcatchermedia.com/jimmered

Story of My Life

We had cleaning checks this afternoon, so naturally I just started cleaning this morning (in my defense, it stinks when you're all cleaning at the same time, and most of my roommates were cleaning last night and I didn't have class until 12.) I passed! Half my apartment failed. Haha. Partly because one of our bathrooms is disgustingly moldy (I moved my stuff out of that shower...) I guess I'll be awesome and help Mariah with that.

Luckily I got to my research assistant job way early (I actually usually do because I just eat in there before anyone comes. The room is small and has two comfy chairs...And it's kind of nice sometimes being away from busy campus life) because we had run out of papers that I needed to proceed with the study and it would have been awkward to call the professor when the participant was there.

I went to the library and watched a terrible movie about protestantism. Most of the movies from this company that makes them about different world religions are pretty good. They just show different clips of ceremonies and interviews. But this one had and actor playing Martin Luther who dominated most of the movie and he was not good! And all the hair in the movie was clearly fake. Martin Luther had a wig. Another guy plainly had a natural goatee that they had glued an awful handlebar mustache to for some incomprehensible reason.

I met up with my roommate to go to the temple and we skipped along  joyously, for we were excited to do baptisms.  But we had a sudden rude awakening when we saw a horde of young boys (deacon age) massed around the entrance to the temple. We went up to a man we assumed was one of the leaders and politely asked him if we could go to the font ('font,' not 'front'). He snobbily informed us that Tuesday nights are reserved for the Aaronic priesthood (of course, everyone knows that!) And then we had to walk home in the cold. It wasn't a really bad walk, but I was shocked that no one along the way offered us a ride. This never would have happened back home! Just on a walk the three blocks from my church building to my parent's house I would usually get at least four ride offers. I know those were generally people I knew from church, but this is Provo! Weird.

We rounded off the day by going running in the Smith, watching Lauren and Krislyn (two of my roommates) play intramural basketball (with a spectacular comeback, yeah, they're ballers), and pumping some iron.


A few friends put this link on their Facebooks. So funny. Check out "both versions" of Animal Farm:

http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/classics.shtml

To the Future

Things that my future home will include: (Thanks to Pinterest)

Yes that is a chalkboard wall. The possibilities that chalkboard paint opens up...

A people wheel bookshelf. The practicality astounds!

Beautiful.

 The veranda.

 A secret passageway? 

 Fantastic.

That is all.

Except it's getting to be Jimmertime...

BYU Kind of Life?

Nice game! Way to take Wofford, Cougs. (Who even knew who they were before this game? We gave them publicity. How nice of Jimmer and the boys.)

Story: About a month into the semester one of my professors announced that this couple that had met in our class were engaged! What the what? They always sit in the front and are kind of lovey dovey, so he put his arm around her and I realized he now has a ring on his left hand. They already got MARRIED!! They didn't even know each other three months ago!!!

This is where all these ridiculous BYU stories come from. This is not the norm, but it certainly happens. I just don't understand...Although I haven't met anyone here yet. Maybe if I did I would be saying 'whoa, I need to snatch that up!' ...No...actually that still wouldn't be me. But to each their own I suppose.

Bridal Veil. Basketball. Dance.

This weekend was rather fun. Thursday night we hung out with our old FHE brothers as per us. and watched Wizard People. It's the whole Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone dubbed over by this guy who narrates the whole thing weirdly. It's way funny, but has quite a few cuss words. We had them fast forward through the worst parts. :) 

Friday night was, of course, basketball! Jimmer made 52 points!!!! It was so exciting. We didn't get that channel, so we had to stream it off the internet and hook the laptop up to the TV, so it skipped once in a while, but we stole saw Jimmer's spectacularness. (Yep, it's a word.) We also went to the Alpine Village dance party. Normally their's are way good, but it was really small for an Alpine Village party and we got bored really quickly and left. We decided to go to the hot tub, but on the way home we saw flashing lights and heard loud music coming from an apartment in a building near ours. Of course we had to go in. We made up about half of the party, but it was way fun alternative music! And we saw some people we knew even though there were only like ten people there. Then we did end up going to the hot tub and met some...interesting people.

 Saturday was again basketball...but let's not talk about that. Except to say that Brock got to play! He is soooo nice, I was glad he got some court time. Later on we went to Bridal Veil Falls. It was too icy to really hike up to the waterfall at all, but we wandered around near the bottom and told stories and played koomcha (sp???)  It was a way fun night, and we were even with a couple people we don't normally hang out!

Sunday Hannah and I went on a delightful walk. It was longer than I expected, but really fun. We sat in a park for about 15 minutes talking (I got a slight sunburn. Summer's here!) and then started heading back. But then some boys invited us to toss a football with them, so of course we had to stop. I'm terrible at football, but each time we got it, we had to tell an embarrassing story, so that was entertaining.

Sunday night I had dinner with my family. My younger cousins were so adorable! I'm so glad that I'm here for this stage in their life. They won't be young very long. I wish I got to see my nephew so much. I still haven't seen him in person.

And that's the weekend wrap up.

Catch a Cougar?

Two boys from the U just came by for catch a cougar (and awkwardly asked to use our bathroom. We really should keep it cleaner for such happenings...) I was definitely tempted, but my darling roommate Shayla was the only other one in the room and she isn't as venturesome as me. They would have bought us Brick Oven! But alas, she said no...I wasn't venturesome enough to go on my own. Who knows about those crazy U boys?? (or if they were even from the U for that matter!)

Random thought: Isn't it odd how we so easily forget people who were important in our lives albeit only in a useful manner. I was just thinking about this today because I got on the elevator in the SWKT with a girl who I knew I should know well from somewhere. It took me a whole minute to realize that she was my TA last semester. I saw her about 5 hours every week and she was even a funny TA and it was only a few months ago and I still didn't recognize her immediately. Though I guess it's also partly seeing the person outside of where you normally see them. But think about how many experiences like this you have had. I know I see people on campus all the time who I know I have some reason to say hi tom, but i can't remember why, so I don't say anything. I really need to just working on being a friendlier person and just say something anyway. I've actually been better about it than I was freshman year ( I made a goal of it :)  ).

I put my hair up in a bun when it was still wet and had it up all day. The result:

I've also decided that flannel shirts are one of the best things in this world. They are comfortable and warm and hot! This one from Papaya is my favorite. I think...Usually my favorite is just whichever one I last wore...

And...I was part of this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q_ymVeR6Yk&feature=player_embedded

Model. Number. Basketball.

This weekend has been fantastic. Thursday night we were planning on having a game night with some girls we know from last year. We didn't hang out with them too much last year, we just had some mutual friends and we think they're really cool. Of course all my roommates but one flaked out, but we still had a blast. Instead of having a game night one of the girls asked if we could model for her dad's girlfriend who teaches a photography class. She told us to dress up, so I wore that dress from H&M and Lauren wore a skirt. We get in the car and our friends are wearing jeans. We also realized that we weren't modeling for the dad's girlfriend, but for her class! Haha, it ended up being really fun, though. Some of the students were really awkward and I didn't really know what to do, but some were great at directing and telling me what poses to do, which was what made it so fun. We rounded off the day with ice cream from Sub Zero since that was the squeeze for the day (a coupon thing from restaurants all over Provo that you get texted every day). We had a blast with those girls, we definitely need to hang with them more often.

I almost forgot the best part though, on the way to the photo shoot we were driving and saw a boy in his car alone, so naturally we started waving and winking and then one of the girls rolled down the window and yelled for him to give us his number, so he did and I put it in my phone. We were texting for quite a while. Haha. It was way entertaining.

Last night we had a chill night with some games, talking, and part of an awful movie, I think it was called Arena. Terrible....and today was the basketball game!! It was soooo fun and fantastic since it was senior day. It actually made me really sad, though. I don't actually know them personally, but those boys are household names nowadays. We'll especially miss Jimmer and Emery. Tonight we have been volunteering for Krislyn's 3 on 3 basketball tournament that she organized for class. It went really well and we got to meet Brock, Nick, and Noah from the basketball game.

We just realized that since we have a long running joke with me and broccoli, I need to marry a boy named Brock. Get it?! Too bad the Brock we just talked to is already married, we'll have to go on a search for him...


P.S. We had to return the taxodermy animals that we had rented. We really miss Mouth, Charles, Genevieve, and Krislyn (the cougar) already!

I've been waiting my whole life...

for this...

My shampoo and conditioner ran out at the same time!

Yesterday was way fun. We played laser tag for FHE, I didn't do very well, but it was still an excellent time. I find it ironic that last time I went I did much better and about half of the group was in the ROTC. What is the nation coming to??
I also had some excellent spoon it up. I hope I just made you crave it. Bring me some!

I almost screamed!

When people read Footsteps in the Sand to an audience this is all I can think of: (It's rather appropriate for far too many talks as well...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TSth9DiXD4

I wore my new H&M dress that I got in Cali today. I'm kind of in love with it...I normally don't like ruffles, but for some reason I picked it up to try on and really liked it on. It's so odd when that happens.

The pic kind of sucks because I was on the phone with my parents at the same time. I really wanted to change into a hoodie, and naturally I couldn't wait to do so, so I had to take the picture then...although it misses my sweet grey beaded necklace that's tied with an awesome black ribbon. I don't have many outfits I can wear it with, so it was exciting...

The Happiest Place on Earth

I just got back from California!! It was FANTASTIC. We left Thursday night and drove through the night. We stayed with a member family there because Mariah's boyfriend, Kyle, went on his mission there and knew some people. We arrived around five in the morning on Friday and slept in. Then we went to South Coast Plaza (if you don't know what it is, look it up :)  ). Next we hit up Newport Beach. It was drizzling a little bit, but it wasn't too bad, so Lauren and I wandered away from the rest of the group to climb out on some rocks. The rain really started picking up, so we decided to head back to the group. We had to jump over this little barrier thing to get back, so I jump over it and wait for Lauren while she adjusted her towel when I suddenly felt like I was being stabbed by a million tiny needles. I screamed at her to hurry up and she was just like "whatever" until she jumped over and yelled. We had to run from dumpster to dumpster to avoid the tiny sand devils. Until the boys brought the cars to us. :)

Saturday was Disney Day! We got cheap park hopper tickets, so we got to go to California adventure as well and they included fast passes. The weather was kind of cloudy, which was fine with us because it meant the lines were way short! We didn't meet many of the characters, I think they were avoiding the rain, but we still had a blast! We actually saw a TON of BYU kids there. I guess its because we don't get a Spring Break. It was funny that we knew some of them were from BYU because of shirts/hoodies, but some of them we called before they even yelled "BYU" like any good Mormons (JK) because they looked young and had kids or looked like fresh RMs, etc.

 Right before the Indiana Jones ride!

Sunday we hit up the local singles ward, took pictures at the beach and had a delicious dinner with a member. My stomach seriously just growled, probably because I was already hungry, but that dinner was good...

 My bad...I'm not very good at jumping pics....

Sadly, we had to leave on Monday, but we still went to a delicious joint for lunch (The Hat, famous for their pastrami) and BJs for their famous dessert, a pizookie! They are not overrated at all. It was amazing. Awesome, not my mouth is watering...It's a pizza sized cookie (hence pizza and cookie combined for the name) with ice cream on top. Somehow they make the cookie the perfect amount of doneness (of course it's a word.) Yummy!

Sharing the pizookie.

V- Day!

So...I've never had a boy on Valentine's day, but I lurv it anyway. Sometimes I do get kind of down that I don't have a boy right now (other than my sort-of-missionary who sent me a flower and candy through his sister today :) ) but I honestly could care less on Single Awareness Day. Hanging out with my girls is way fun! Last year we started a tradition of watching The Hot Guy Slide Show. My roommate filled a power point with our favorite celebrities (and the boy I had a crush on last year) and we watched it making the appropriate noises when a new one popped up on the screen and eating chocolate. We also went to the hot springs last year. Today we are planning on the slideshow and candy and then joining our favorite apartment of boys and watching a thriller. Hopefully it will Psycho, the Alfred Hitchcock movie. I'm pumped! I've been eating so much chocolate all weekend. And I only regret it a little bit. :)

I love this tie skirt. I got it from the Mustard Seed. (It's like my hometown's 10,000 Villages)

New Dating Theory

So it seems like a lot of people I know, particularly in our ward have recently started dating, as in this semester. However, most of them have been here the whole year. I have to theories about this:

1) They're settling. They got stuck in the rut of hanging out with the same people all the time, (I know I have. I love the boys we hang out with, but I wouldn't date them and I don't really get out and get to know more people. It's kind of a problem...we should make some goal about that as an apartment...) and then they just decided the first girl/guy to come along in the way of romantic interest they should date. They haven't been meeting other people and this person seems pretty nice. Plus they haven't got some in a while (Mormon style.)

2) It took them at least the semester (or twenty something years) to realize not everyone is perfect. This is technically another form of settling, but this is actually healthy. Your significant other isn't going to be perfect and it's high time the no-longer-in-Young-Women girls and the recent overly zealous RMs realize this. We could all do with a little self-improvement.

Unfortunately it seems like a lot of people I have seen fit into category one. Oh, Glenhood kids. I just realized this post sounds kind of bitter. Honestly it's not. I was just looking around in Sacrament meeting today and thinking about things. And this is what I have come up with...so far. And it rather amuses me. :)

*Disclaimer: this does not apply to all couples, obviously...

Catching Up (w/pics!)

Whew, this week has been surprisingly busy. I'm looking for housing with two of my roommates and we're having a lot of trouble deciding between three. Haha. We just have to decide which advantages are most important to us...Bah. Too much effort!
Is it just me or are there a ridiculous number of couples wandering around campus these days? One of my roommates often bemoans the fact that she doesn't have a boyfriend. I always reply that boyfriends are nice, but I'm pretty content right now. Until yesterday. Nothing actually happened that should have so drastically changed my state of mind, but it did. I feel like there are a ton of engaged/seriously dating people in our ward/around us. And then our home teachers came over and introduced themselves and part of the conversation included love lives. My roommate said that she was dating someone (another contributing factor) and both of the boys said they were getting there...I want to be in love! Sometimes it sucks ("worse...worse than the total and utter agony of being in love?"-Love Actually), but other times it's SO amazing...obviously, since people get married. I'm only 19, I'm not jumping on the marriage bandwagon yet, but I'm definitely getting jealous of some of the couples on campus and in the Glenhood...One of my roommates good guy friends just asked me if he could set me up with one of his friends (I met the guy in like october, but I don't really remember...). My roommate said he's really cool. We'll see if the date actually happens (you know how it is with set-ups.)
Some buys from the Cherry Lane Boutique last week:

It's the hat...

This pic doesn't make it look as good, but I promise, it's ridiculously cute!

SOOOOOO in love with this!

the back!

I got a ton of compliments for it on Sunday! <3

Death by Christmas?

Soooo...my parents gave me some kitchen stuff for Christmas. This included a nice spatula (it's WAY better than any my roommates or me had) and a cheese slicer. Now you wouldn't think a cheese slicer would be that scary, but this is an intense cheese slicer made for chefs. I was used to this one in my parents house:



Here's the one I have now:



Yes, that's a knife on the side. When I exclaimed how scary it looked when I opened it, my mom said that I could trade it for the old, friendly one, but...this one has a case. How can you not pick the one that has a CASE?? Unfortunately this slicer has so far caused three cuts on my hand...



Whew, I need some lotion! I'm not very good with sharp objects...maybe one day I'll write about when I almost cut my thumb off last year...

P.S. This jumper my mom made me awesome! I wanted it tighter, but...mothers...Ignore my weird face...

Scary!

Whew. I had to give a talk today. I was pretty nervous. I don't know why. I think if other people had to write my talks, I would be fine giving them. But I never let people read my writing, even after it's done, I just don't know if it's good or not. And I feel the same way with talks. I had some of my roommates read it last night, though. They said it was good, but I wasn't sure if they were just being nice or not...And people always compliment you after giving a talk, so that's not a good measure. Oh well, it's over and I liked my outfit:

I just got the headband at this cute boutique last night!

In other news, I really want to go to ward prayer tonight just to get to know some of the new people in the ward better. (No, I'm not interested in any of the new boys romantically, but they seem really nice and fun...) But I'm going to Family Sunday Dinner tonight and that's at 5:30 and ward prayer got moved up to 6:15 today. :( Maybe no one will go anyway. Haha.

:)

Wow! Last weekend was awesome! Aside from me having a fever and being pretty sick. Haha. Friday night we went to Soldier's Hollow with the ward. It's a tubing place. There is a toe rope that pulls you up the mountain from a string on all the tubes. You get going down the lanes pretty darn fast, especially when you connect your tube to some other peoples' and you pull each other's ropes. It's normally like 20$ each, but since we went with the ward it was free. (Apparently bishop got a mild concussion, but he seemed fine when we had donuts afterward...)
Saturday night my roommate Lauren and I went snowboarding with our friend Patrick to show us the ropes. It was soooo fun and sooooo hard. My muscles were killing me after the first run. I definitely need to excercise those muscles more. I'm thinking about getting a snowboard, but I will probably wait until next year. It's just another thing to store and I don't have a season pass anywhere this year. But I was talking about going on a study abroad to New Zealand with one of my roommates next Winter semester. We'll see, who knows who will be married and what not...
Monday was MLK day and our friend's birthday, so we went and played laser tag. My strategy was to stay up in the balcony areas and shoot down at the people on the main level who often didn't even see me. I got second place!!! Nice!
I just went to this sweet boutique downtown and bought some new stuff that I probably shouldn't have but did anyway! Pictures coming soon! I have made a goal to be more classy in my dress around campus and at work and having extra cute classy stuff will help me meet this goal. :)