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