A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

Last night, as my friend and I were unloading and loading my dishwasher, my StormTrooper spatula popped out of nowhere.

"oh no," I thought! "My friend is going to think I am ridiculous."

He asks, "Is that a stormtrooper? Is it yours?"

I respond sheepishly that it was, and I explain quickly how I came to receive it.

Then he asked, "Have you read all the books?"

I again, sheepishly, respond in the positive. And then,

he announces that he OWNS all of them!

ALL OF THEM! This is beyond amazing and rather spectacular. This somewhat magnificent connection led us to discuss and dive into our pasts, ... our rather nerdy pasts. It was a blast, and a definite positive boost to my weekend.

Star Wars is great.

The Extended Universe is grand.

And I am glad (and extremely proud) that Star Wars is a part of my life. It makes me smile.

I mean a quote from one of the latter books is my email signature, Hello! It's great.

the Slap in the Face

For the past few days I've been in a funk. Falling deeper and deeper into, as Anne Shirley would say, the "depths of despair." Simply put, I've not been myself and I needed a slap in the face to kick me out of this disgusting, vile, horrible, feeling of which I want no part of.

So I got one!

And it hurt.

One of my best friends looked me square in my eyes and demanded me to tell him 5 great things about my life in payment for the one horrible thing I let lose on him. And I couldn't tell him more than a couple.

This is when I realized something desperately needed to change immediately. This was not me. I'm the person who can find the tiniest bit of joy in the most uncomfortable, horrible situations. For example:

* The cold, dark months of winter?

I get to wear scarves! and the world is a beautiful, snowy wonderland.

* Saying goodbye to the summer?

The colors of fall, the smell of the Earth, the crunching of the leaves. Pumpkin!

* School?

Oh my gosh, freshly sharpened pencils!!

See!! So what the crap is wrong with me!!! Some not so pleasant things pollute my life right now, and I lose myself in despair? My life is sad--BUT it's not wholly sad!

I have great friends. Emily! Toni! Ricky! Maria! Travis! ... and the list

could go on.

My mom and dad are spectacular, letting me raid their food storage

and giving me fresh tomatoes and peppers.

My little sister, Shelbs, makes me laugh.

I played tennis with my brother and sisters Monday. It was hilarious.

The weather is glorious.

The sun is shining.

Fall is on its way (with all that it brings)!

My friend made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies the other day as

I did homework.

I have a job (well two) that I love.

Football just started and, oh my heavens, I'm stoked.

Financial aid has kept me alive.

I just made Crock-pot pizza.

Speaking of food, cooking brings me great joy and I love it!

I mean, Gumbo!, Bacon-wrapped Meatloaf! Enchiladas! Gosh, it's

fun.

Pickles are one of God's greatest creations.

Rubios's salsa is magnificent and should be illegal, it's so good.

My calling brings me great joy.

I am loved by many, including and most importantly my Father in

Heaven.

The Atonement is Real and I'm feeling its power more and more in my

life as the days pass by.

Honestly, my life is GRAND!

not perfect but when is it ever.

It's gonna take a while, and a cup of effort, to fully get out of this funk and to reintroduce myself to ... myself!

I love Life!

So, to help, once a week I'll be blogging about the great parts of my week! A type of therapy really. Why? To remind me of how purely wonderful my life truly is--no matter the gigantic rocks (yeah a rather dramatic word, but deal :) ) in my path. But, That's what makes life interesting anyway right, the rocks and turns and twists in our path?!

So, friend, thanks for the slap in the face. It was absolutely necessary.

TRuNky

trunky |trǝ ng ki|

adverb; having the inability to do anything due to a desire to jump into the beautiful future where one will rest from responsibility they deal with at the moment

I have 3 days left of class, and 9 days before Winter 2011 is officially over. I still have a pile of math homework due Monday. I have a 400 pg book I need to read before my History Final. I have a writing assignment I haven't even started due Wednesday. I have a Calculus Final in a week. But alas, I am super trunky.

Any sort of desire to propel me forward to accomplish that which lies ahead of me is gone. I can taste the sweetness of being finished and it's paralyzing my ability to encourage myself to do what needs to be done, to finish the semester by giving my all.

I can see the end. I can feel the release of pressure. It's so close.

But, I have to finish strong.

But, I don't wanna.

Lucky Me.

Sunday was the beginning. I sat on my couch and listened to a young man sing a song while playing his guitar. Honestly, I could stop with that sentence. Any girl who gets to listen to this young man play his guitar is a lucky one, but to show just how lucky I am, I will continue.

The next day would be Valentine's Day. The night before, Denver and I had been making Valentines for random people. In my little head, I thought, "I wonder if I'm gonna get a Valentine tomorrow." I just wondered. As Valentine's Day came to an end though, Denver showed me that he had planned on making my Valentine's Day spectacular.

At 7:40 am, I walked outside and was bombarded with red and white hearts on my door, and a gigantic envelope addressed to me. When I say gigantic, I mean gigantic. I promptly closed my front door, sat on my couch and opened my ginormous valentine. Lo and behold, it was a gigantic pop-up Valentine, with a 3d heart and everything! It made my day. I raced over to Denver's apartment, and the moment he opened the door, I enveloped him with the greatest hug. Then we went to school.

Then he went to work. I fell asleep in two of my 5 classes. As I reached my last class though, I had no idea that I would be wide awake for the rest of the day. I had bought some CornNuts at the vending machine, which I promptly dropped on the floor as I sat down in my last class. This made me slightly bumbed. As I had left the basement of the JFSB, I had received 3 text messages. One of which was from Denver asking me if my last class was at 3, which by itself did not cause me to wonder. As I sat down in my class (slightly noticing a red heart on the wall), he sent me another text asking if I happened to be in 112 TMCB. At this text, I'm pretty positive my face went as red as a tomato. All sorts of crazy thoughts entered my head. I asked him what he was doing, and he said Nothing but chem homework. So my heart calmed down a little.

Mid-way through my Fundamentals class as my professor was discussing mathematical induction, my eyes caught sight of the red heart on the wall again. This time, I decided to read what was written on it, it read, "If I were a flower growing wild and free All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee." A smile erupted on my face, and the people near me probably were thinking, "Why is she finding so much joy in induction." But alas, that is not what I was finding joy in. My mind was far far away from induction. My mind was fixated on that heart with very very familiar lyrics of a song that Denver introduced to me on Thursday and has been singing ever since. I instantly texted Denver saying, "Oh my freakin goodness! Are you calling me your sweet honey bee?!" To which he replied, "It's about time you noticed! I didn't want to have to spell it out for you. Yep, I sure am." Oh my oblivious self. Anyways, I couldn't stop smiling. I felt so loved.

If his goal was to keep me smiling, he achieved it with that red paper heart, but that was not the end. Yesterday, I got my hair colored. And let me just say, I am super happy that my hair is one color again. It feels great. Getting back to the story though, Mr Denver knew I was going to get my hair colored today and it just so happened that he knew the girl who was doing the color. As I sat there smiling away with Miss Amanda chatting about how amazing my day had been, I noticed someone had received some roses during the day. They were absolutely gorgeous. I thought, someone is a lucky woman like me, with a man who cares tremendously. The roses were soon forgotten though as Amanda washed my hair out, and blew dried it. It was heavenly. As I got up to pay Miss Amanda, she got a little twinkle in her eye. She handed me my receipt and the previously admired roses, announcing that someone had delivered them earlier for me! I was in disbelief! Amanda started jumping up and down, telling me to read the card. What an amazing fella Denver 'Do you Wanna Be my Valentine' Erickson is!

I left the hair salon spectacularly happy. I didn't deserve all of this! I needed to see this fella as soon as I possibly could. He was on campus, I had to go to the store with Shelby, but then finally I got to squeeze him tight and thank him hard core for making my day super happy. It wasn't done though, he made us crepes which were superb. (Then we had to do some homework) BUT THAT was even bearable. Smiling all day released so many endorphins into my system that I was wide awake and happy.

I got to end my day, by being super selfish, and holding the very tired man in my arms! And kissing him hard. Life was good.

Lucky me.

(I just needed to explain that my luck has definitely changed)

Biographical Sketch

So tonight I sat down and decided (well kind of had no choice) to apply for scholarships. They needed a 300 word biographical sketch.

Denver wrote mine for me.

Hello my name is Melissa. I like long walks on the beach and warm fires with a book to read. I particularly like young men whose names rhyme with enver. My favorite movie is the Lord of the Rings but what most people don’t know is that I have an affinity for westerns. When I grow up, I would like to go to Budapest and milk a goat.

I wonder what kind of scholarship money is going to come my way to help me out with my dream of milking a Budapestian goat.

a Boy's idea of Fun.

I never really had thought about the doings of the male sex in their free time. It had never crossed my mind that their idea of fun would be any different than that of mine. It had never crossed my mind that they could be so easily amused as like a cat is easily amused with a laser pointer. It had never, in a million years, crossed my mind that at a Ward Activity where professionally-made games were amply available, four young men would spend a good half hour amused by a cellphone.

---

It all started (at least this is where I'm putting the beginning) the first time a certain young man watched Inception, which perhaps is one of the best movies I saw in 2010. This young man seemed to also have really enjoyed this movie. If we think back to the movie, the characters used totems to pull them back into reality. The totem of Cobb being the last image we see before the screen blacks and the movie is over. Well this certain young man, let's just name him Denver, has a phone. This phone happens to be pretty well balanced, which he likes to boast about as he constantly pretends it is his totem. Anywhere, anytime, if the phone is near and a hard surface is close, Denver spins his phone and watches it. It doesn't ever seem to stop.

Are we in a dream?

Well last night, we had a ward activity. We had so many games on each table to choose from: Apples to Apples, Mario Kart, etc. As we were all slowly becoming full off of CostCo Pizza (which is delicious by the way), Denver realized he had his phone and a nice round table was sitting in front of him. The phone starts to spin. One by one the boys on the table become entranced by the sheer beauty of this well-balanced phone. Then one of them has a bright idea to see exactly how long it spins for, because it is indeed an unnaturally long time.

Thus the games created by professionals were quickly pushed to the side and the real man fun began. First, they just wanted to find out how long the phone spun. Then it became a competition of who had the best technique and could make it spin the longest. For awhile, the phone never reached a minute. But then Mr. Brian Bean broke a minute with the time 1 min 14 sec.

A record to be beaten!!!

Then, amazingly so, Mr. Brian Zundel spins out 1 min and 18 sec.

No matter what anyone tried they could not beat this well-deserving record of phone-spin. What a guy game. I was entranced. It was amazing to see how easily amused these 4 young men were with this spinning contraption.

And we know that a certain young man will continue to try to beat that record spin time...even if he's behind in chemistry.

I mean it is his phone, he's had more practice. He should have been the reigning champion.

---

And girls, don't get any smart ideas, it is a man game. I thought I'd join in on the fun, but only got a measly 44 sec. I don't know what it was but it most definitely is a guy thing. Or, it could have been the fact a certain young man blew at. But I'll leave it to the men.

Thoughts from the Last Week

There are sometimes in your life in which you really really want to just run away from all responsibility, and just fly. This week I have had many of those moments.

***

As a disclaimer for this post, my brain is 99.9% fried, so I apologize for my lack of good spelling and/or grammar. Also, it is literally just a list of thoughts that ran threw my brain this past week. Enjoy

***

Ahh! The world is out to get me.

This car that looks like a box had better get out of my way, or else....Real mature, trying to run me over. Excellent.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow.

Adios, Professor Davis. Never again.

Please take this book away from me. Sorry we're not buying it back. Just one more way Professor Davis put his oppressive stamp on my life. Beautiful.

I just want the next 5 days to happen without me being aware of them. I'll just deal with what happens.

I was told I had a beautiful smile and it made my century!

Relief. Exhaustion. Sorethroatness. Happiness. Joy. Pleasure. Warmth. Mind-stretching. Mind-explosion. Excitement for Next Semester. Pure bliss to know that the Federal Government wasted $300 on my un-buyback-able textbooks.

***

One more test and then...

Nothing. It's going to be awesome.

The Passing of Time

I woke up this morning, realized that it was the 21st of November and wondered how in the world that could be! Halloween was yesterday. At least it seems like that's when it was. Wow! How fast time passes when you're not thinking about it.

But oh how slow it passes when you are.

The last few weeks have been full of excitement, laughter, candy canes, sadness and tears, great friends, drama, complications, Lord of the Rings.

In a word--HAPPINESS!

I sit here thinking on what to type and my mind is moving faster than the speed of sound. It's hard to write about what has been happening in my life the last few weeks. I can say that the last couple of weeks have been some of the best weeks I've experienced in the longest of times. My friends and I decided we needed to experience the extended edition of Lord of the Rings, which always brings a smile to my face. School has been intense. I made a monstrous list of the things I needed to do before Thanksgiving, and ever so slowly have been checking things off, which feels great! My time has been filled to the brim with good times. The Fall and I have bonded with the explosion of gorgeous colors as I've walked the Provo River and reveled in the beauty. I've acted like a Kindergartner as I went swinging often and enjoyed the crisp Fall breeze on my face. I spent an excessive amount of time with an exceptionally foolish friend. I lost myself in the moments.

All in all, life has been great. There is an emptiness in the air though as everyone leaves for Thanksgiving Break. Provo is emptying and it makes one sad. However, I am super stoked to leave Provo as well, to see my family and experience American Thanksgiving at home!

Voilá!

Fall is a beautiful season. The colors explode. The leaves dry out and fall to the ground, rustling around your feet. It's a tad cold, but that means that layers, scarves and hats can start being warm, hot cider can be drunk, and there is an excuse to stay indoors and read while cuddling under a blanket.

I love Fall.

Some of my more favorite colors are seen everywhere, bringing me joy each time I leave my apartment. The earth smells old and brings comfort to my soul as old books tend to do as well. It is just a vibrant season. One of the more prevalent reasons I absolutely die for Fall though is the orange deliciousness of Pumpkin. Cookies, blizzards, pie, bread, seeds. In all its glory, I fall. Even the word itself is cool.

Well, it snowed today, which put a damper in my mood. I decided that pumpkin would bring the party back, and thus chose to dive into the wonderful world of Pumpkin Bread. I know, I know, What's a girl like me doing in a world full of flour and baking spices?

Well, I decided to branch out and reach into my potential as a homemaker.

And it turned out pretty delicious if I do say so myself.

So thank you, Mrs Lisa Rhodes.

Oh Birthdays!

Tomorrow is my birthday.

I turn 24 years old.

Seasoned and aged.

The greatest things are.

***

I am a full-time student. I have a butt load of homework that I should be doing. I have a paper due Friday. An essay due in a week. A ton of reading piling up. Time running out.

But alas, my birthday is tomorrow. I can't seem to focus and get down to business. I think I'm going to just have to start my birthday early.

***

Oh gosh, I don't even want to think about the consequences of that decision

Vacation

A couple of days ago my sister, roommate and I were sitting in the living room discussing where we'd vacation. We even pulled up the 50 Most Vacationable Spots list. My list compares but is 1000 times better.

(1) San Diego, California

The Pacific waves. The fresh seafood. The marine life. The Mexican food galore with the wide variety of salsa. The vibe. Can you even imagine a day of beaching, then restauranting at either a seaside table, filling up on mussels and prawns--maybe a swordfish steak OR a fresh Mexican grill where I eat All I can eat Salsa and chips before receiving some pretty sweet fajitas? O Paradise!

(2) Prince Edward Island

The Beautiful Nova Scotia coastland. The romantic atmosphere. The Lobster. Sure it's the home of Anne and Gilbert, which adds to its appeal, but it's gorgeous up there on the Southeastern tip of Canada!

(3) Paris, France

The Eiffel Tower. The Louvre. The Arc de Triumph. The Notre-dame. The Seine River. The French Accent. The french cuisine. The pure fact that you are in Paris trumps it all.

As I sit here and think about where I would love to go, I really can't throw the fact that I really am okay with what I've got out of my blasted head. How is this possible? The idea of traveling has always obsessed my soul. I would die to get back to Europe. I would die to see parts of this crazy world we live in: Egypt, St Petersburg, East Germany, Australia, Alaska, Israel etc.

However as I sit pondering on where I would love to visit, all that really matters is ocean, great food and great company. That tends to make me think island or coastline. There are only limited islands I would deign with my presence. Hawaii is definitely out--I mean, active volcanic activity, me, are you serious? Sorry but definitely not on the top of the list for me. I thought Caribbean, but the more south you get the deeper you get in rice, bean and big bug territory. Me and rice don't mesh well, as well as big bugs and I. Then my mind traveled to the South Pacific (like Fiji) but I don't think the Island food is for me either. The Rice. I love, and I mean absolutely die for, fish! But the rice just ruins it. So that leaves me with the Eastern and Western Coasts, but we all know the better ocean (aka the warmer ocean) is the Pacific. That leaves me with Southern California.

So, San Diego, you and I belong together! It's official.

What I would do to see the Pacific Ocean right now!!

Especially as the tell-tale signs of winter sit in.

BYU vs Florida St

Last week, BYU was eaten alive by Airforce. It was the 11th of September so sure, Coach Mendenhall probably told the players to lose so that we could all attribute Airforce's win to an outflow of intense patriotic zeal.

But that was Last week.

It aint no September 11th anymore.

This week we play Florida State.

However, BYU's loss at Airforce broke down my faith a bit, but I have repented. I decided that I needed to show my school pride. Maybe, if I plastered myself with paraphernalia my pride and support would give them an extra push of enthusiasm and would win with flying colors. I mean they're going against Florida St. They are going to need all the help they can get.

So, Bring on the T-shirt and Cap!

Life is Great - When you have people to Share it with.

Who would have thought I'd only been at school for 2.5 weeks? It feels like I've been doing the same thing for ages.

It's only been close to 3 weeks but already so much has happened. My September has been nothing but boring.

It's been

unpredictable

hilarious

physical exerting

up

down

spiritually uplifting

rejuvenating

beyond freaky

stressful

obnoxiously irritating

but never

boring.

It all started 3 weeks from Thursday. It's interesting how each of my terms or semesters here at BYU increase in insanity through the people I interact with. Can you even imagine how Boring life would be without people? Sometimes, I, at least, wish other people did not exist. I mean sometimes people make you mad, sad, angry. Sometimes they disappoint you, lie to you, use you. Sometimes your life is just complicated when others play a role. But honestly, life would be super boring without people. So no matter how much at times, we might wish that other people would just leave us alone, People make life interesting and the world goes round.

Some of my most memorable moments of the last 3 weeks involve people. These memorable moments have both been super positive and exhilarating, and lame, but the exhilarating seriously trumps the lame.

For example, I moved into a new ward and have met a whole new group of people, each person with their own unique personality. Living with my sister is a treat. I have become "bestest friends" with Melissa Waldron and we've had our own share of adventures--including loving Robert Downing Jr in the role of Sherlock Holmes. 4 members of my MTC group religiously follow our tradition of Saturday volleyball. The mysteriously, perhaps beautiful, world of calculus has been introduced to my over eager mind by a wonderful Professor. My job is complete human interaction and I love it. I have amazing, sometimes hilarious, "companion study" with one of my awesome friends twice a week. Through that friend wanting to cheer me up after one of my not-so-great-experiences of the past few weeks, I enjoyed the insanity of a blind date, which consisted of perfect french toast, apple-cinnamon syrup, ninjas, and poetry. I went to FHE and had 7layer Bean Dip and played a crazy Name game.

All in all the great has definitely trumped the lame. Thus far, Fall Semester 2010 has been great.

Sure, I've lost my bus pass causing me to have to replace it with a $25 fee thanks to my mom who covered half of it. Sure, my mind has been stretched as I've tried to come to terms with Calculus. Sure, my roller coaster has definitely taken me for an intense ride.

But it has been great. And has definite potential of getting even better.

The Moon

Ski lift. Heights. Steep mountainsides. Full moon. Extremely chilly weather. Cold Medication. Odd variety of People.

Interesting Evening.

***

That is all I have to say.

Nasal Decongestant

The last few days have been horrible. My sinuses have killed due to the excessive amount of pressure they have had.

Anybody know where sinus pressure comes from? 'Cause I would really really like to know.

Anyways I had been popping Ibuprofen or Tylenol to depress the Sinus Headache pain, but it wasn't really working. I decided that I needed to go a step further and possibly find some Decongestion. To find the best, I call my mom - she doesn't know, but she gave me the best idea to ask the pharmacist. He saved me $9. He gave me a $3 generic Nasal Decongestant (instead of the $12 Mucinex that I had been looking at). He warned me that Pseudoephedrine is a stimulant and could cause trouble sleeping; especially to those who are highly sensitive to medication like me. If I took it at 7 or 8, he told me I should be fine.

So I took it when I got home at 8, and then about 45 minutes later I was caught on my bed snoozing by Shelby. 15 minutes later I was out. I woke up to much less sinus pressure. I was in heaven.

I don't know what the Pharmacist was saying though - trouble getting to sleep!

Third Time's a Charm -- Hopefully.

Changing rooms is a nightmare. The packing of the boxes, the moving them all out and into another room, the cleaning. As the resident of Room 2, I have to clean the bathtub. For the last cleaning check, I cleaned that tub so well but failed and paid $20 for it. Awesome!!! Failing the check brought the cleaning lady - whom I'm positive came in with sandpaper and paint to make the tub perfectly white but leaving a brilliant layer of white dust-residue.

As I faced the tub this time around I was a girl on a mission--it was going to be clean! I took 3/4 of a bottle of SoftScrub to it. I scrubbed it once and then again. But alas, as the foot prints slowly faded away but a hidden weird dark stain showed up. (AH! the SoftScrub was eating away the paint and uncovering the hidden stains underneath.)

After two scrubs it still wasn't clean so I took Ajax to it. It turned blue!

It was a genius blue color.

Now it's white and my arms are exhausted. If it's not clean enough, I just guess I don't have the right supplies. I'll have to buy some white paint for next time.

I think it looks pretty good.

(for the amount of energy and cleaning product that went into it)

2010: Summer Term

Wow! Time flew by, yet, at the same time, this term feels like it has lasted forever.

Spring Term was full of excitement: experiencing the whole BYU experience for the first time, diving into the Provo scene, learning guitar, meeting some pretty awesome people and some pretty interesting people as well. I thought how could anything top that 7 weeks of my life. Well, Summer Term was even better. For one, I only had to write 1 paper and I got to do mathematical equations every day! I mean, what is better than that?!

At the start of the term, I was super excited to start my College Algebra class to prepare me for Honors Calculus in the Fall. I had a Chemistry class I was going to also take but mid-first-class, I dropped it due to the teacher's incompetence. I signed on for Introduction to Music instead, which turned out to be an excellent choice. Both my classes were exciting and thrilling.

My teachers were both humorous, which helped my 8 o'clock music class and I become friends. The Music class had me listening to Mozart, Beethoven, Copland, Gregorian Chant, Vivaldi, and Opera all term. The Math class had me solving wonderfully beautiful logarithms, quadratic equations, inequalities, inverse functions, and then combining polynomials as well as ripping them apart. Life was good!

As I went through the term, desires to see Opera and Ballet, to play in a Symphonic Orchestra again, and to teach math were intensified. It was pretty exciting. Some people might think those desires are extremely odd, but that is just who I am.

I realized once again that I rarely open my mouth before 10 o'clock AM as I didn't meet anyone new in my early Music class, but Math (as 12:00) was a different story. I met a few people in my math class - including the mothers that were working on their unfinished degrees. Within my first week, I noticed a young man that looked really really familiar. Finally I just decided to ask him who he was and lo and behold, he lives in Centerville, went to Viewmont and his name is Brad. Small world. Anyways we became Math Study partners and dominated the class because of it. Honestly, if any of our classmates found out our grades, we'd have to go under cover to protect our lives. Why? Well, our grades will in no way help the class curve to increase. Oops.

All in all, this term was pretty awesome. Next semester will be interesting: more people, more classes, and more weeks. We'll see what happens. I'm pretty excited for the adventure that lies ahead; especially for Honors Calculus. That will definitely be one rockin' adventure.

BYU Graduation. Winter 2013.

So, my education history has been nothing but smooth sailing. One turn led to another turn or dip or a flip. In a sense, almost complete nonsensical nonsense. I attended Viewmont High School up through 10^th grade when during a Trigonometry course, I decided to follow my family into the awesomely intricate world of Home-school. Oh, Home-school! Thomas Jefferson Education, South Davis Co-Op, Shakespeare, over-excessive drama. O bo bo! Weird decision after decision, I end up spending a month of my life in Europe. Loved life—Paris, London, Rome, and Gelato. Then I came back from spending a month through Europe with George Wythians and decided to head south to Cedar City to attend George Wythe College, becoming a janitor/slave at GWC so that I could afford to attend. Throughout it all, the experiences were great. I learned a lot. Our experiences and what we learn from them are what make up our lives. My love for mathematics intensified without it being in my life. As my time at GWC ended in the summer of 2006, I looked forward into my life and saw completely nothing. I moved home and I thought, “What now?!” Well I went to work to get some financial backing for whatever was in my future. Then, in January I followed the scholastic call again and became a Weber Wildcat. After a semester, I decided that Weber just was not going to cut it and became an Aggie, enrolling at Utah State. Utah State lasted for a year, but a dream that I had dreamed since I was 8 years old would not be shaken. I decided that I needed to turn in my mission papers. In July of 2008, I entered the MTC to serve a mission for the Church of Latter-Day Saints in Tirana Albania, returning in January of 2010. My education career has carried me from George Wythe College, to Weber State, to Utah State, and finally to Brigham Young University where I stand today.

Tonight, I put my foot down and planned my education future from today until the day that I will receive my BYU diploma wearing my Blue cap and gown. I have put in motion declaring my major to be that of a Mathematics Education. My minor will be History Education and possibly a TESOL Minor as well, but that could be just a bit excessive. We shall see what happens. Anyways through all my planning, I have come to some conclusions: (1) each semester will be 15/16 credits, and (2) I will officially be wearing that cap and moving the tassel Winter 2013.

I will be much older than the average BYU female graduate I assume, but as a friend once told me, It doesn’t matter when, It just matters that it happens.

Thus it shall – Winter 2013. Go me!!

Overzealous Excitement

During my most recent CostCo experience,

I came across a sight that I found hilariously ridiculous.

They are prepared for the next 3 major holidays.

Lt to Rt: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween.

Sure, I am super excited for Halloween, THANKSGIVING and CHRISTMAS. I mean it was back in 2007 that I got to experience an American Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's been too long. Thanksgiving is not the same anywhere else in the world. I can hardly wait for the turkey, the stuffing, the olives, the sparkling drinks, the cranberries, the mashed potatoes and gravy, the Grateful feelings. And Christmas, in a Non-Christian society, it just isn't the same either. Whenever I catch myself thinking about what the future holds, my heart starts beating wildly and I get almost giddy. I have at least voiced this excitement to 3 people. I am downright excited for it all. The food, the Holiday cheer that can be seen everywhere, even College Football. The wassail, the hot chocolate, the cinnamon sticks filling rooms with Holiday smell, gift-giving, wrapping paper, Peppermint CandyCanes!, Christmas carols playing on the Radio, Christmas trees, lights, and the list goes on. I am stoked. And can hardly wait!

But CostCo - aren't we going to the extreme? I mean it's not even September!

11:42 P.M.

I am on my floor of my apartment. I just printed out the final draft for my paper, my flashcards are sitting unused by my side, and I decided that I eat WAY to much food and spend WAY too little time doing anything physical. I feel fat. I know I'm not fat--don't go all crazy on me! I just feel it.

I feel fat.

My thighs seem larger.
My pants somehow make them look even larger.
I feel rollier in my belly.
My breasts feel tight around the undergarments (I know way too much info, but who really reads this anyways!)
and I feel so much more oily on my face like the fat has liquefied and is seeping through my pores.

I need to solve this crisis. And I know how to do it!

Physical exertion. I haven't been on my bike for days. True the weather has been so PMSy that I haven't had the courage to get out to be electrocuted seconds later by a freak lightning storm or blown away by a random Tornado. I can't even remember the last time I went running. It probably coinsides with the rape on the Provo River Trail. Lame, sick world we live in.

But enough is enough. I feel fat. I know I ain't fat - but I sure as do feel it. And I'm done with it.

Physical exertion Here I come.


But first I got to finish the term off with a bang,
but before that I have got to go to bed!