Of Ninjas and Waffles

What day is it? August?...

2011-08-06T13:11:00.004-06:00

(Photo courtesy of Austin, starting from top left, going clockwise - (1) my beautiful wife at the botanical garden. It looks like a photo for a brochure advertising a tropical resort. (2) Can you see the family resemblance between Sophie, the cute little brown owl, and Cecil, the cute but not quite as little penguin? We bought Sophie from the Zoo in Salt Lake city and we made Cecil. (3) and (4) Shots I took at the botanical garden )

So it has been a long and tiring and partially rejuvenating summer. Quite a bit has happened in the last 4 months as well as quite a bit of nothing.

Starting chronologically, back in April, I (Austin) graduated from BYU with major in Psychology and minors in Philosophy and Business Management. It is hard to believe that I am a college graduate. Now to find something meaningful to do with it :)

(Photo courtesy of Austin - from the botanical garden)

Three days later, with the help of Katie's parents who flew out to Utah and rented a car, we somehow managed to fit all of our earthly possessions into two vehicles from whence we drove all the way down to Oklahoma City. Of course, that excludes all of the things we sold, all the books and boxes we shipped to Oklahoma City and Katy and all the things we gave away or just threw away. The point is that we finally made and fast forward to now and we are all unpacked and settled into our apartment.

We had fun on the drive down to Oklahoma in our Malibu with a malfunctioning (or rather, NOT functioning) air conditioner. We took a leisurely pace because we were in no particular rush.

We stayed in Oklahoma, enjoying some downtime with Katie's parents until we drove up to St. Louis for Sarah's baby shower. That was pretty fun. It is always fun to be with family. I was also finally taken to the botanical garden. It was exciting. It has fish and flowers and botanicals.

We then spent a couple of weeks with my parents in Katy, TX until our apartment here in Waco, TX was available for move-in. What are we doing here in Waco, you ask? We ask ourselves the same question sometimes, especially when the temperature has been over 100 degrees for the last 31 days. But it will be more agreeable in the winter, at least. Well, that is why we bought and installed a ceiling fan. Let me tell you: that ceiling fan was almost more difficult than earning my college degree* (*disclaimer: extensive use of hyperbole). I was scared because the instructions had like 15 different warning labels on it. But I survived and our apartment has yet to become a smoldering pile of ashes. Anyway, I digress.....we are in Waco for law school!

Yes, I will be attending Baylor Law School beginning August 22nd. Well, from the 17th-19th I have Orientation all day long. I am pretty sure it will be something along the following lines: "We are going to work your tails off. If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen." Thankfully, I have a supporting wife to see me through it all because otherwise I am not sure I would make it out of the three grueling years alive.

Here in Waco, Katie and I have been watching a bit of television recently. In Utah, we only had basic cable. Here, we receive a free cable package from Time Warner Cable as part of our rent. So we have been watching things such as American Ninja Warrior, Doctor Who, and The Colbert Report. I, of my own voluntary free will, agreed to watch the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice with Katie since both her and my mom agreed that the best Darcy and Elizabeth are in the BBC version. I liked it. Yes, it was long but we broke it up over a week-long period. I am also currently reading Pride and Prejudice. It has been a fun read. I already read Northanger Abby and I thought it was a jovial read.

That's it as far as updates go. Recently, Katie and I made Rice Krispie Treats except that we replaced the Rice Krispies with Golden Grahams and Cinnamon Toast Crunch knock-offs. So I guess it isn't really a Rice Krispie any more but it is delicious. We used marshmallows that had vanilla flavoring: scrumptious.

Katie's recommend Goodreads.com. It is one of Katie's favorite websites and one of her reasons to for living. It is a site to keep track of the books you have read and want to read. You can review books, see what other people you are following read, etc. It is pretty fun if you have any love of books (and Katie has plenty of love for books; she has read 78 books thus far in 2011).

Austin recommends anime, ceiling fans, and 75-cm exercise balls. Katie got me the exercise ball for our anniversary. I love it! Sometimes I have a lot of energy and just like to bounce on it. It is a shame that I can't balance out the times that I have too much energy and the times that I have no energy....

Time Warp

2011-03-09T20:20:00.005-07:00

So, it's March and we've taken a long time to post again. I'm not even going to try and catch up, we'll just cut to the present.

Austin has decided; this fall he will be attending Baylor Law School in Waco, Texas. He is graduating from BYU this April in Psychology, with minors in Philosophy and Business. He works really hard. In addition, he has a job as a research assistant with a professor who has been doing research literacy tests for the last decade. He was able to present their findings at a research conference in Salt Lake City, which was really cool. As for me, I still work with a company called Park City Independent (iInstructor). It's really cool to help people to graduate from High School who, for whatever reason, didn't like or do well in public school. Right now I manage academic plans and transcripts, making sure students know what they need to graduate through us. It may sound boring, but being able to help people and to learn skills about organization and other things helps me stay interested.

For future blog entries, Austin and I will include things that we like to do in our updates. We may talk about recipes we've tried, video games we've played, books we've read, or even something we've learned for found interesting.

Our most recent food attempts (we both love to cook) were smoothies and marbled potatoes. Yum! The potatoes are normal and sweet potatoes baked, scooped out and blended with cheddar cheese, bacon, sour cream, butter, green onions, and a few spices, and then stuffed back into their skins. The smoothie is pretty typical, but the frozen berries we got from Sam's club today looked amazing. If only our blender was as helpful...but in the end it was all delicious.

Katie Recommends: Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork
Austin Recommends: FFXIII Piano music and homemade peanut butter (We'd include a picture of our homemade nutella, but it's not very attractive)

Where on earth (or elsewhere) did Katie and Austin go....?

2010-11-05T18:57:00.006-06:00

Wow, has it really almost been 7 months since Katie and I last updated our blog? Lamentably, yes. Katie and I have even mentioned several times in the last few months that we should update our blog, but then we just never get around to it. We would always mis-remember who was the last one to update the blog so neither one of us got around to it. So with all the turn-taking aside, I am going to update our blog while Katie is at a ballet showcase with her sister Sarah.

So what eventful events have transpired in the recent 7-month time span? Well, in a bombshell, Katie graduated, I got a job, quit a job, Katie found a job, I started my senior year of school, and then I found another much more enjoyable (and less morally apprehensible) form of employment. Let me expound slightly on these.....

Katie graduated from Brigham Young University in April 2010 with a degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development. I am proud of her. Education is indeed important for this world and the next.

Mid-May, still finding myself jobless, I was offered a position at American Income. To be honest, I don't even recall applying for the job; I think I was getting desperate and was responding to job postings on Craig's List. I was given the position as Insurance Agent. To make a long, grueling, deceptive story shorter, I will give you the conclusion: I was unhappy there. I gave it my all for 3 months but not only was I not succeeding financially (as promised) I was not happy. The company endorsed selling life insurance to EVERYone, including people without jobs, poor college students, and even seniors who already have several life insurance policies in place! Short line: they wanted money. This is was only one of many problems so I quit. Money is important but it is not worth the stress and the lack of ethical behavior.

However, I am now working as a Research Assistant in the Career and Counseling Center of Brigham Young University; this is a nice, flexible job that I can feel good about. I am helping a professor develop a reading test for college students, seeing as many are ill-prepared for the heavy reading loads.

Katie is now working with iInstructor. It is an online schooling system. Katie performs all sorts of tasks there in the office on the second floor of the University Mall, including writing curriculum, grading papers, creating tutorials, handling live chats to answer questions, and entering transcripts.

That is basically the most exciting events of our summer/fall. That is not to say that we haven't done other fun things in between....for example, yesterday Katie and I went mini-golfing at Trafalga's because they have $3 Thursdays and today we ordered a $5.99 large pizza from Domino's (delicious).

We have curtains now (with the help of Katie's mom). It makes our humble apartment look pretty classy, I have to say.

We have also entertained ourselves with an exercise DVD we received for free (the best price) in the mail from Special K cereal after we sent in 5 UPC's.

Oh, Katie and I won our Halloween costume contest, thanks to the costumes from Katie's mom. If you can't guess, we were Captain James Hook and Tinkerbell. There were about 3 other little kids dressed as Tinkerbell but Katie was still the cutest.

We are extremely anticipatory of the Christmas season. It will be a blast! See you all next time (which hopefully isn't in 7 months...).

Babies and Birthdays

2010-04-15T19:37:00.010-06:00

Katie and my life has been held pretty constant at the same degree of awesomeness and fun as it always has. Where to start? This coming Sunday, the 18th of April, marks the nine-month anniversary of our wedding! I can't believe that it has already been 9 months, and yet, at the same time, it seems like we have been together forever (in a good way). It just feels right to be with Katie, like I have known her my whole life (when clearly I have not).

April the 2nd was my birthday; I turned 23. You will notice that my "Red Velvet Cake" is not red nor round. But hey, it still tasted amazing! Alas, I am further embracing adulthood, and Katie likes to remind me that now we are both 23 (she is 3 months older than I am). Growing old is a funny thing. However, I do not fear or mourn the oncoming of old age as many do. I think America needs to revere old age and the accompanying wisdom, as do many other cultures. For example, in China and India, the elderly are well-respected; their wisdom is implemented by all. Not to mention, I can't wait to have star-light hair like President Dieter F. Uchtdorf! He has such healthy, shiny hair. My birthday was a wonderful day. I had to go to an event for one of my classes but I ended up winning a raffle there for a backpack and soccer ball. Then right afterward, my dad called me. I thought I was going to get chewed out for something but he wished me a happy birthday and told me to pick up a $50 gift certificate at Pizza Factory. That place has amazing food! My mom sent me the Kingdom and the Crown trilogy by Gerald Lund, the man who wrote the Work and the Glory series. She also sent me his most recent book, "The Undaunted". It is about a specific group of pioneers; it is terrific thus far. Katie's parents showed me the present they got me over video camera: a new solar-powered watch! It was so nice of them. It is the same kind of watch that my Book of Mormon professor, Brother Whipple, gave me 4 years ago. I no longer have that watch, however, because I gave it to an investigator on my mission in Chile. My older brother Brandon got me a year-long subscription to Netflix and Darrik, my younger brother, got me some Red Vine candy with pixie sticks. Good childhood memories. What you do is pour the Pixie Stick down inside the red vine. It is potent so be warned. My precious wife is all the gift I ever need but she went the extra mile and got me some presents with sentimental value: a Batman kite and a fort! She built a fort in our living room so we could watch General Conference from inside of it. She also bought the materials necessary to make smores, and she rented out some fun children's books from the library. Let it be a testament that a good gift does not have to cost a lot money. In fact, the best presents come from the heart.

(sorry if this is long and boring. Your patience will pay off).

To complement my birthday in making my feel older, my older brother, Brandon, and his wife, Rachel, just had a healthy baby boy: Chase Michael Miller. I am now an uncle. Being a parent someday is daunting and yet exciting. It would have been totally fun to have a child today when Katie and I went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. We both love animals so it was a blast. If you haven't noticed by now, Katie got a new hair style. Her hair is now much shorter that it used to be. Katie and I have noticed that married women tend to have short hair styles where single ladies tend to have long hair. Is it because single ladies want long hair to style for their wedding and then chop it off so babies cannot pull on it? Perhaps...(f.y.i., the Giraffe says 'hi', Amy. Thanks for directing us to the zoo!) Aren't the ducklings so adorable? We also purchased a cute stuffed owl, which we named Sophie, for Katie and a Butterfly which I named Bri.

Katie is graduating this next week! We are all pretty excited for her. I used to bewail that Katie and I would have much less time to spend together once we both find some summer jobs and are employed full-time. However, Katie wittily replied that perhaps we would be spending much more time together than originally anticipated: neither one of us have jobs yet so we can both go job hunting together! Yay for quality couple bonding.

Well, the time for me to stop speaking is over. Until next time kiddos!

Yummy Treats, Homework, and Dancing

2010-03-01T18:05:00.015-07:00

Happy March, everyone! We keep forgetting to add to our blog, because we are so busy, but we know there's at least one person (possibly) who is interested in what we've been doing, so here I am. A few weeks ago was our first Valentine's Day together as a married couple, so I was quite excited. Our ward (where we go to church) decided to have a catered dinner and a dance the day before, so we decided to go. They did the seating arrangements by what month people were married in. As we are all busy students, most of the couples were married in december or the summer months.

That first picture is at our apartment. I didn't realize that Austin was taking a picture of me. I'm happier looking in some of the other couple pictures of us, but this is the only one where you can see my V-day gift to Austin-a tie to match my dress, of course!

This was my gift:

Isn't it beautiful? I have a sweet husband.

My favorite part of valentine's Day? THE CUPCAKES!

Think of it: chocolate souffle cupcakes with a white chocolate cream on top. It is absolutely heavenly, particularly fresh out of the oven. We took heart-shaped cookies to the kids in our primary class, but we kept these ourselves.

I'm not going to say how many of them I ate myself. For the recipe, check out http://smittenkitchen.com/

So, basically, we spend most of our time making yummy desserts and studying for classes (I'm in my last semester at BYU, and Austin's studying for the LSAT) so we're busy but we love life. We tend to act like silly little kids in our free time, but we love it. It is so fun spending most of your time with someone that you get along so well with (most of the time). I hope you all are doing great!

Wedding Anniversary + Key Lime Pie = Yay!

2010-01-24T22:07:00.005-07:00

School is back in session (as I am sure many of you are fully aware of). On the 18 January, Katie and celebrated our 6-month wedding anniversary! It already feels like I have known Katie all my life; it is getting hard to recall what my single life was like. So on the 18th of January, Katie and I both dressed up and baked key lime pie together! It was incredible! Yes, our lime pie looks more like banana cream pie but do not let its yellow hue beguile you: it had an amazingly refreshing lime flavor. So the gorgeous princess in the icy blue gown is Katie dressed up for our anniversary pie baking. The picture of Pac-Man is our pie with a raisin (I just put the raisin there for the photo).

The picture of the couch is our lovely new home accessory, compliment of Katie's parents. As a Christmas gift, they told us to buy ourselves a sofa so we did. R.C. Willey was having a sale for Martin Luther King weekend so we browsed for about an hour or two, sitting on couch after couch, comparing the soft-index of each one, until we decided upon that one: a nice chocolate brown. It is a great sofa to nap on.

The picture of the snow is for those outside of Utah. Isn't snow such a beautiful thing? I admit that it is no fun driving in snow because you have to scrape the ice off of your car and have the air conditioning blowing so you don't fog up your windows but it is lovely nonetheless.

This will, perhaps, reveal some of my nerdom, but I enjoy preparing for the LSAT. I am excited to take a standardized test. There, I said it. To me, it is just fun to challenge your mind in new and innovative ways and to learn and apply knowledge.

Recently, Katie and I have both been reading from the book she gave me for Christmas: "With Love" by Kaitlin Miller. To be more precise, it is an anthology of most of the e-mail Katie and I sent to one another in our history of knowing one another. So it all the way back to 2005 when Katie and I were only good friends our freshman year together at BYU. The anthology then continues our exchange of e-mails through my mission in Chile, into our brief post-mission experience, on into our dating period, and then on into our engagement. We do not e-mail one another quite so frequently now that we are married but we talk everyday. But nowadays, even if the e-mails just simply say "I love you", it is just as sweet.

Post-Christmas Happiness

2009-12-28T19:27:00.007-07:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! Yes, that was a few days ago, I know. I can't believe that Austin and I have been married five months! It seems both like we just got married and that we've been together for a long time. We have so much fun together-I love it.

Right now we are in the land of Katy, Texas, where Austin's family lives. They actually lived here for several years, then moved to Oklahoma (at the same time as my family, actually) and moved back to Katy just this summer. We were here for a week right before school starts, and let me say, the temperatures are much better in December. While everyone else is having blizzards, we barely need jackets.

I am having a lot of fun with the Miller family during this holiday break. We have watched a lot of movies together in the media room, played video games and board games, gone shopping, and had lots of fun. Right when we got into town, we went to Cici's Pizza. Austin's family has been eating there for every Saturday for more than ten years; it has a lot of meaning for them. My favorite pizza there is the one the family special orders-alfredo with pepperoni and pineapple. It sounds gross, but it is really really good. It is fun to be included in this family tradition of eating too much pizza and then looking at all the video games there.

After that was my new brother Darrik's birthday. We got him a book on Zombies (brothers are so fun). Can you guess what his other presents were?

Christmas week a lot of the other family members went shopping, though Austin and I had already gotten our presents for everyone so we spent a lot of time at home. With original mario and DDR, anime, no school and lots of yummy food here, I can't say that I minded at all.

One of the Miller family traditions (aside from watching tons of Christmas movies) is filming the opening of Christmas presents that morning, and also watching the highlights of all the previous' years' videos on Christmas eve. It is really funny watching the four miller boys opening presents each year, and watching them grow up. Austin asked what is was like for Christmas morning with girls, and I said it was basically the same but with less bodily function humor and more Barbies.

On Christmas, Santa gave me a sweet new laptop, which I am writing this blog post on. This was way nice as my old computer died at the beginning of last semester, and while I was using an old computer of the Millers, it is nice to actually be able to open documents from my professors (and have a bigger screen for watching Rurouni Kenshin). It was a very fun and enjoyable. Growing up, my family drove around a lot on Christmas (visiting three different families) and even though I loved it and miss my extended family, having a slower pace is rather fun.

For the last few weeks I have been working like crazy to finish Austin's surprise Christmas gift-BYU recently acquired a machine that prints and binds your own books, so I compiled all of mine and Austin's emails, all the way from freshman year until right before we got married. We emailed a lot, so it took a lot of time, but it was worth it. I hope we will enjoy reading it for many years to come.

My birthday is tomorrow, and Austin has some kind of surprise for me. I can't wait to find out what it is!!!

This is me wearing my new flannel shirt from Austin (yes, I really wanted a flannel shirt for Christmas) and my new headband from accessories shopping with my mother-in-law and Rachel. I know they don't exactly go together, but I love them both. Austin is just there to look cute :)

Everyone has trials, but my life is better for this wonderful person that I am married to. I am excited for this new year to share with him!

-Katie

For those of you who have been to BYU, this is Austin's interpretation of the Karl G. Maeser statue :)

Feliz Dia de Halloween

2009-10-30T19:52:00.006-06:00

As you can tell, Katie and I carved a pumpkin. It was our activity for Family Home Evening on Monday night. We had forgotten to buy any carving knives but we made it through anyway with kitchen knives. Katie delighted herself in the de-boweling of the pumpkin and scraping its inards. In case you have a hard time reading the pumpkin, it has the letter 'A', the letter 'K', and a little heart. Pumpkin: 9 cents a pound. Carving love messages into a pumpkin: I charge $10 (that's a joke).

On Wednesday night, the 28th, Katie and I went to the Social Dance lab because I am in Social Dance 180 and thus was required to go. And since Katie loves dancing and I would much rather dance with her than any other woman, she came, too. We had such a fun time dancing the waltz, foxtrot, and cha-cha.

Tonight, Friday the 30th, our ward had a Halloween Party. Originally it was going to be a trunk-or-treat: classic LDS family ward tradition so that parents can take their kids trick-or-treating in a safe environment without having to walk very far. So that is like a win-win-win situation, right? Well, unfortunately, Utah weather disagreed with out idea so the ward moved the activity inside since it was too cold (particularly for the children). Katie was a Newsie although she looks like she could be the Newsies' attorney. I am wearing a homemade costume that was made 7 years or so ago by my mother; isn't she amazing? I was Legolas from Lord of the Rings. I have been wearing my cloak to school everyday since Wednesday. I get the ugliest looks, like I were a child rapist or something. Someone actually yelled to me, "Go back to Azkaban, freak." Don't worry, it isn't as bad as it sounds; I know who yelled it, he was just kidding....I hope. Anyway, back to the Halloween party: so as we walked in, I was asked to help with the children games. Little did they (or I) know, I was soon to be labeled as villain and I would also soon have 7 knee-height midget superheroes attacking me, ranging from Wolverine to Spiderman to Indian Jones. Even Ariel the Mermaid had her fair shot at me. I love playing with children. There were several really cute kids in costumes.

Katie and I are both really tired and need to get some sleep. But first, we are going to watch some Cardcaptor Sakura and Rurouni Kenshin. Yay anime ^_^.

We're so happy on our little piece of bread...

2009-10-18T15:03:00.010-06:00

Today is our three-month marriage anniversary. Yes, we are aware that it's not very long, though time has passed quickly for us. In less than a month is the 1-year anniversary of when we offically started dating, which will be way exciting. Here are some pictures of what we've been doing lately...

These are of us using the chopsticks that we got as a wedding present from our friend Amy. There's an inside joke about chopsticks from our freshman days, but I won't tell it now...

Austin and I love to cook together,

and try out new recipes. One night we made barbeque chicken pizza- it was really really good. Just shredded cooked chicken, cheddar cheese, bbq sauce and apple slices on homemade pizza crust. One of my new favorite foods to eat!

In an attempt to be more crafty, I decided to make the ruffle headband featured on http://heart-of-light.blogspot.com / My mom and I worked on it together during General Conference this year. I was happy to have my parents come out to visit us in Utah this year; as we'll be spending our first Christmas together with Austin's family in Katy, Texas.

My sister, who also likes the headbands on the aforementioned website, decided to make some as well. We had a marvellous time the other day going to Joann's Fabric store to pick out fabric and other crafty things together. I haven't put time into making my headband yet, but Sarah already made a belt version of the Rosebud headband for me. It looks awesome, and she is so cool she decided to give it to me! I can't wait to make my own version of the headband.

Other than that, Austin and I keep busy with school and church out here. We just were called to be primary teachers for the seven-year-old class. It's going to be an interesting experience. Some of the things we have done lately:

-go to the temple with my old roommate Aubrey and her husband Russell

-attend BYU's Lost and Found Sale (where Austin and I each spent nine dollars on new clothes...we're awesome like that.)

-make amazing desserts from scratch

-introducing Austin to classic musicals, such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

-take lots of tests

-an afternoon of me playing Boggle with my sister in law Rachel and Austin and his brother playing Halo/Batman games

-General/Stake Conference

Yeah, we don't get out much, but hopefully we'll do more when we don't have so many finals. I had two midterms this week and big presentation, and Austin also had two tests. Hopefully things slow down soon!

Other than that, we are very happy.

-Katie

Corn is no place for a mighty warrior....but Corn Bread is!

2009-09-12T19:43:00.003-06:00

I think laughing has serious medicinal and verifiably pharmaceutical effects. Friday night (11 Sept 2009) was the BYU Fall Fest. I have gone every year but I never remembered so many people attending! Then again, what else do you expect when free pizza is offered on a college campus? None other than full-fledged stampeding. I think some people even wore their soccer cleats just to get better traction and get to the food faster. So Katie and I decided it was not worth waiting in line after hundreds of people for a slice of pizza. However, we did go to the Laugh Out Loud (LOL) show. LOL is an improvisational comedy club; for those unfamiliar with it, imagine "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" but much cleaner and yet still spleen-splittingly hilarious. Katie and I both thoroughly enjoyed it.

Today (12/9/09) was the Opening Social in Wymount Appartments. Katie and I volunteered to run the Kids Prize section for an hour. It was fun handing out balloons and the such; little children are really cute, or even older, less-young children are still fun. After we were released from duty, we ate some hot dogs that were delicious.

Katie and I had leftover ground beef for dinner today; it was delicious. We have lots because yesterday, Friday, we made spaghetti for dinner. We had cooked 1 pound of ground beef for some reason....I think we are just both bad judges of quantity of food. So we had lots of leftover. But then Katie also made some corn bread for dinner that was absoultely amazing! By far, the best corn bread I have ever had; no ordinary, mundane corn bread is worthy of its presence. Furthermore, it is so good Katie's corn bread is INDEED a place for a might warrior. It has transcended the heed for honey-butter. You get the picture: it was good. ^_^ Cooking together has always been fun. It is quite the experience to cook together.

Besides all that, things have been relatively quiet around here. We have been doing a lot of homework and watching anime. We are introducing one another to our own favorite anime: Katie is having us watch Card Captor Sakura and I have introducing Katie to Rurouni Kenshin. For now, we are both just settling into the flow of school. Isn't life grand? We are truly blessed to be alive, as I am blessed to be with her.

Wedding Pictures..on facebook

2009-09-06T15:52:00.002-06:00

Since I'm rather exhausted from updating wedding photos everywhere, here are the links to my facebook albums. Don't worry, you don't have to own a facebook account to view them.

Pictures from the Temple:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2286173&id=17809652&l=0261ae87ff

Pictures from Forest Park:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2286403&id=17809652&l=4738b521df

Pictures from the reception:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2286407&id=17809652&l=09b74ac344

Give me a few days, and then I'll update everyone to what we've been doing in the nearly two months since our wedding. Ciao!

2009-08-13T20:21:00.002-06:00

So, Austin and I are back in Oklahoma. We have been married almost four weeks (tomorrow) and we still like each other :) So I figure things are going well. We will be driving out to utah in just a few days to start school, but for now we're just relaxing with my parents. It is really exciting that in about a week, we will have our very own apartment all to ourselves! Tonight, we cooked our very first meal together as a married couple. We made a Pasta Chicken Lemon Toss that was pretty good.

For the listening pleasure of those who were not able to attend the wedding, and to get an idea of our thoughts, Austin and I thought we'd blog about our actual wedding day. It may take me a blog or two, and I don't have the professional pictures on my computer so Austin will have to post those, but hopefully it will be of interest to some of you.

July 18th, 2009

7:30ish am Though I start my day here, I should point out that my dear friends, Amy, Ali, and Jen were all staying at my mom's aunt sharon's house (who is really cool) having a last girl's night together, and we didn't go to bed until around 2am. Then I laid awake for the next several hours. I'm not sure how much I slept...it didn't seem like at all. I wasn't nervous exactly; the anticipation simply kept my mind too busy for sleep. Despite my brain buzzing, at seven thirty I was still a bit sluggish and had trouble finding clothes in my suitcase and getting ready. Soon enough, though, I was wide awake and was ready to head over to the hairdresser. My hair turned out really cute. My sister was with me, getting her hair done. After lots of racing around, going back and forth, getting my wedding dress, temple clothes, and other necessary items for the day, Dad, Jen and I drove to the temple. Austin and those few people attending the Temple ceremony would meet us there.

10:40am Despite often running late in my life, I want to point out that I was early to getting to the temple, and meeting Austin there. The people who work at the temple are so nice and so excited for you. Austin arrived, and then we were whisked away to change for the wedding. In the temple you don't do the whole not-seeing each other thing before the ceremony. Which is good because it was nice to be waiting with Austin. There we were sitting in this little waiting room for everyone else to arrive, and my stomach is doing a bit of gurgling which I'm sure was just nerves over this huge step that we were about to take. I was thinking, "okay, one minute I'm not going to be married, and then I will be married. WEIRD." There were two older ladies in the room who talked with us for a bit and then chatted to each other. Austin and I talked some, but really, what was there to talk about? Then someone came in and asked if we minded starting early, since everyone was already there. It was like wait, now? Go get married right this second? I think my heart started pounding then (and continued to for the next 15 minutes) but I knew it would be okay.

12:00 noon (or a little earlier) People probably wonder a lot about what goes on in the temple. While I can't relate certain details because the temple deals with very sacred things, I will say that not a lot actually happens. We were given marriage advice by the temple sealer, though honestly Austin and I don't remember a lot of what he said...the day was very overwhelming. We shall have to try and remember what advice he gave us. Then we very simply made covenants with God in our marriage and made promises to each other as husband and wife. Then Austin and I kissed, and Austin jokingly said, "Ew..." He was kidding (I think). Then we spent some quiet time together in the temple, simply being married. It was wonderful, but very strange. We were married? Then we ran into my old college roommate Rachel and her fiance Felipe in the temple (they were married a week later)! It was wonderful to see her there, particularly on such a special day.
Then Austin and I went to change into our clothes that we would take pictures in and wear to the reception. For the temple I needed a simple white dress, but the dress I wore to the temple was a bit fancier. It had beautiful crystal and embroidery on it. Standing in the bride's room in the temple, putting my dress on, getting ready, was rather surreal, something I had been waiting my whole life to do. I was excited to get out there and see all my friends and family who were waiting to congratulate us, but I also wanted Austin to see me. We had been joking for months about the dress I had bought back in March that he had never seen a glimpse of, and how I was afraid it would be anti-climatic after all those months. When I came down from the dressing room, however, Austin looked at me and smiled and it was perfect. He held bobby pins for my mom while she put my veil in, and we got ready for our grand exit from the Temple!

Okay, tune in next time for some pictures and the rest of the day! I will be much briefer in the next portion; in fact, I think parts of it I will simply tell in picture.

3 Week Anniversary!

2009-08-08T09:41:00.003-06:00

This is Austin, reporting live from the Miller household in Katy, Texas. I can't believe that we have been married for three weeks already. It still seems as if we were married yesterday. My life is completely different and yet it still feels the same. Now that I am with Katie forever, I can't imagine my life any other way. We have so much fun together! And a wonderful part of being married is that I don't have to say goodbye at night and wait until the next day to see her. So in short, being married is amazing. You probably all think that I am just in that "honeymoon phase" that will wear out after a year or so. I think love that waxes cold is the saddest thing; perhaps mine and Katie's love with evolve or change, but I hope with all my heart that it will never grow dim. I'll do all I can so my love for her doesn't :)

Hopefully Katie hasn't been too bored here in Texas. I am pretty bored of the weather. I know you guys probably will not believe me, but I am excited to be back in Utah. Here in Texas, it is 97 degrees farenheit, but the 95% humidity, the heat index is up to 105 degrees, in the SHADE. In sunlight, the heat index is upward of 123 degrees Farenheit. Katie and I thought it would be a fun activity to try and bake muffins by leaving them in my car during the day, sort of like a slow cook oven.

I received my pell grant today. To be honest, I still feel slightly bad for taking government money. Does anybody else know what I am talking about? I feel almost...guilty for just getting $5,350 for doing nothing. If we look at it technically, I guess it is Uncle Sam's wedding gift for us. That money is not coming from nowhere; in fact, if we are extremely technical, it is like all of you paid us that money because pell grants come from tax dollars. So I thank all of you for paying your taxes so that we can afford school without goig into 7 years of servitude. I feel indebted and I want to pay back; I want to be rich so I can give lots of money to poor couples and people who need money. That would be so fulfilling.

Anywho, I am going to go get some lunch. Cheerio (and Frosted Flakes, for good measure).

Post-Wedding Life

2009-08-06T18:21:00.003-06:00

Welcome to the new blog of Katie and Austin Miller. So that we still maintain our inviduality (For you, Muscle Mike), we will be doing indivdual postings, but this way our friends don't have to hear the same stories twice. I'd like to think we are more entertaining together than we are apart, but for now, we'll see.

We have been married about two and a half weeks, and I suppose we're not acting too sickly-sweet newlywed like, because someone asked us how long we had been married and they were surprised. On the other hand, the people at the bank thought we were really young to be married (though it wasn't so bad when they found out we were older than we looked).

It's interesting, because Austin and I have talked about it and we both feel like we've been together longer than just a couple weeks. Time has gone by fast. In the last few weeks we have been in Missouri, Oklahoma, California, and Texas. After the wedding in St.Louis, we drove to Stillwater, Oklahoma, then had our honeymoon in Newport Beach, California, then helped Austin's family move from Oklahoma to Texas. It has been a lot of fun getting to know Austin's family. We've been bowling twice and we play video games and are all anxious to get access to the neighborhood pool.

We will be in Texas for another few days, then we will be heading up to Oklahoma to spend a few days with my parents before making the long drive out to Utah to start another year at BYU.

Sometime soon we will post more details/pictures about the wedding and California, but this is good enough for now, I think.

-Katie

Kind of Like Salvador Dali...(he's a surrealist, get it?)

2009-03-14T11:48:00.009-06:00

So...I know pretty much everyone already knows, but...I'm getting married! I'm really excited, if you can't tell. I figured I might as well tell the story in my own words here, since most people are hearing it secondhand.

Austin and I have been officially dating four months! Or as he calls it, our 1/3 anniversary :)

Despite that short amount of time, we've actually known each other for quite a bit longer. We were in the same ward our freshman year at BYU, and then at the end of the year he went off to Chile to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was kinda bummed that one of my best friends was going to be gone for two years, but I was so proud of him. This last summer, he came back to the United States and adjusted to non-missionary life. Despite the fact that I'd liked him for the past few years, and we went on lots of dates, we still took awhile to finally get together. Things have been fantastic and we couldn't be happier.

About a week ago, we decided to go to the Draper Temple Open House, where the public can tour the temple before it is dedicated, after which only worthy members can enter. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen; the rooms are white, and this temple had wooden benches and paneling, and tons of gorgeous lighting fixtures and chandeliers. Every single room I would stare at the ceiling and say, "oooh, pretty." During the tour, we stopped in one of the sealing rooms, a room in the temple where couples are married. We sat down in a row of chairs while listening to someone talk to us about the sacredness of temple marriages; it was a very spiritual moment for everyone and also a very personal moment for Austin and I; apparently we were thinking the same thing, only I didn't realize it at the time.

People start leaving the room at this point, but we're not leaving! On the drive up to Draper, I had asked Austin, "So, where are you planning on living next year?" "Oh, I'm still figuring that out..." So while everyone else is leaving the sealing room, Austin leans over to me and says, "Actually, I lied earlier. I know where I want to live next year; with you." And I think he's just going to say that and that would be it, but then he gets down on one knee in the sealing room and asks me to marry him right then and there! It was the most romantic of my life. I was so surprised/excited/freaking out that I didn't respond automatically, but then when I realized that, I said, "oh, of course."

And...we're getting married sometime this summer. We can hardly wait :)

Aren't we cute? We are so excited to have our own (tiny) apartment in the fall and to start our new life together.

Thank you to everyone and their loving support!

love Katie

By the way, do people think Austin and I should start our own blog together, or would no one read it?

Our song is the way he laughs...

2009-02-26T22:41:00.003-07:00

I've been told that I need to blog, and really, I haven't properly blogged in ages. I've been very busy since school started up again this semester. One major change in my own life is that I've decided to not only complete my bachelor's degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development, but I also want to do the Family Life Education Certification. BYU's program is so cool that I don't even have to take an exam to qualify, just get a C or better in all the required courses. I've taken a lot of the classes already, but I need to take a few more, so instead of finishing classes next fall, I will finish next winter and graduate next April. It's a little unfortunate because it is different than my original plans, but I think it's for the best. After all, I love BYU and I really think it's a scary thought to not be a student anymore, so I will just put that off for a little while....

I love my life and all the wonderful opportunties it brings. I am taking a cooking class this semester and I am learning all kinds of cool things. I am gaining a new appreciation for things I didn't really like before, like vegetables and fish. Who knew they could be so good???? Today our group make macademia encrusted tilapia and also chocolate pudding cake, and I have to say, I think our group had some of the best recipes. There certainly wasn't any cake left at the end of the day!

School can be very trying and hard, but I don't want to give up; I want to do well. Sometimes all you need is the right motivation...so thank you :) I hope all of you don't give up on dreary winter-spring is on the way!
*Blog title from "Our Song" by Taylor Swift

All those other girls, well they're beautiful but would they write a song for you?

2008-12-17T19:12:00.006-07:00

I haven't written in awhile, because I have been very busy. Finals are this week, and I am determined to do well so all my hard work this semester isn't wasted. Some of my finals have gone well, some...not so much. It's frustrating, because so much rides on that one test. My advanced writing class has gone surprisingly well this semester; even though writing is one of my talents, I am happy and sad to have my last writing class behind me. Papers take so much time and energy to write, and this particular semester has been very stressful because of it. I am glad that I was able to do well though, and give my gpa a nice grade boost.

Recently I read an article about a woman named Betty James. Her husband invented the Slinky, but she was the one who wrote the jingle for it, and she wrapped up the first slinky's on her kitchen table. Seventeen years after it was invented, her husband left her, their six children, and the company (that wasn't doing so hot) to join what she called a religious cult in bolivia. Now while I think he's a major loser for abandoning his family, I think she is so cool! She took over the company and ran it for a long time while raising her family. If that's not inspirational, I don't know what is. I think we can all learn from her example on how to deal with adversity; finals are nothing compared to that.
*Lyrics from Hey Stephen by Taylor Swift

It's that time of year...

2008-12-03T14:23:00.003-07:00

I love Christmas! I love that we have a whole month of lights and decorations and Christmas songs and service and everything. I wish that people wouldn't complain about how people only help others at Christmas. Yes, we should help people year-round, but this should be a time of gratitude, not of griping. Someone helps at Christmas? How dare they only help once a year! It should be all the time or none at all!!! Think how silly that sounds.

I recently saw (again) The Muppet Christmas Carol. I love that movie! Think of the message there, "wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas." That's because it reminds of Jesus Christ! So Let's try and remember our Savior this season. Some of the people I've met at school have family traditions where they always have some sort of "gift" to the Savior-usually service or something they give to others. I always thought this was a cool idea; something maybe I'd use in my own family someday.

I feel I've suddenly become a huge fan of Kristinen Chenoweth overnight. I mean, I always loved her as Glinda in Wicked (the musical), but I love her in the movie version of The Music Man, and I've listened to her version of the Christmas Waltz about 50 times in the last few days. Her voice is sometimes annoying, but she can sing very well. I also love her song "Taylor the Latte Boy"; look it up on youtube if you haven't seen it, because her facial expressions are hysterical.

According to my adolescent development class, the stage of my life that I'm in right now (emerging adulthood) is wonderful in some ways because you feel like you have so many opportunities, that you can do anything.

I've been told lately I seem very happy. I wonder why? :)
*Title from the Christmas Waltz (I prefer the Kristen Chenoweth version)

Laughing on a park bench, thinking to myself, "hey, isn't this easy?"

2008-11-17T16:04:00.004-07:00

My friend Jen recently asked me if I had made any observations about life recently. Unfortunately at the time I drew a blank, but having come up with one later, I decided to mention it here. I've noticed recently through conversations with my friends that everyone I know has parents who have mellowed out with age, or perhaps experience. I wonder why? Could it be they no longer have the energy to act the way they used to? Have they learned better ways to be parents? Or perhaps it's something else. My dad says that his temper has mellowed out quite a bit due to my mom's influence. I heard one of my professors say once that after several years in marriage, a couple is a lot more alike than they were at the beginning. Perhaps relationships make us into better people, or perhaps we want to be better for the other person.

I think some people who accept you for who you are encourage you to not change at all, and some people who accept you for who you are encourage you to be better, and to do better. Maybe some people would like the first, but in my expereince it's the second that really brings happiness.
I am a very happy girl.
*title from the song "You belong with me" by Taylor Swift

Help me Leave Behind some Reasons to be Missed

2008-11-02T13:32:00.004-07:00

The election is coming up; I feel terrible, of course, because I didn't realize the dates so I missed the chance to register in Oklahoma and get my absentee ballot.

But the issue I'd like to vote for the most is, unfortunately, in another state. Proposition 8 in California states that Marriage is defined between a man and a woman. It would not take away the rights of same gender couples, but they could not be called "married". My major in school is Marriage, Family, and Human Development, and though some may want you to believe that children turn out just the same if they have a mother and father happily married as divorced, homosexual parents, parents who cohabit, or only one parent, it's not true. I admire those who are in these situations and there are real heroes out there who have done a fanastic job rasing a child by themselves or in one of these other situations, but it takes tremendous work on their part. More than that, I believe that children deserve a mother and father who are committed to each other.

Are we thinking of the children? What opinions and beliefs do we want them to have when they're adults? Of course we should all make our own opinions, but if we do not teach them what we think is right, they will pick it up from their friends, their school, and the media. My parents and I do not agree on all political issues, but I'm glad that they told me what their beliefs were-and are. So please, talk to your children about important issues. And most of all, remember them. How will these laws affect them? Is it about "tolerance"? Or is it about standing up for something you believe is right?

I hope I haven't tremendously offended anyone, and if I have, I apologize. These are just my personal opinions.
*Title from the song "Leave out All the Rest" by Linkin Park

With you I'd dance in a storm in my best dress...

2008-10-21T13:58:00.006-06:00

Those of my friends who like to write (like me) know how difficult it is to force yourself to do so. I think that's why I don't blog very often, I think; I only write when something big happens or I get in a writing mood.

Though chilly today, Provo has been absolutely beautiful lately. The leaves are falling, and though there aren't as many deciduous trees out here, BYU does a fantastic job of landscaping campus, so there are lots of bright red and yellow leaves right now. So the trees are beautiful, the sky is gorgeous, and we have the lovely mountains in the background to complete the perfect picture.

What have I been doing lately? Taking midterms, of course! This has been a good semester for me-all good scores! I even got an A on my last midterm, so things are obviously going well.

And yes, I do other things too. Friday night my roommates and I went on a shopping adventure at DI (local thrift store) and the mall. Not only did we get some great items for our Halloween costumes, but I also got some cute things to add to my fall wardrobe! Then we all stayed up late watching a girl movie. It was a lot of fun; I hope we have more adventures in the future!

I've never been that much of a Fig Newton fan before, but today, they are AWESOME! Why? Well, let's just say the testing center isn't such a bad place after all.

*Title from Fearless by Taylor Swift

We were both young when I first saw you...

2008-10-02T14:51:00.006-06:00

Hey everyone! Happy October! I would like to make an official request to all Missourians-please send me fall photos! I can't believe this is my fourth fall in Provo-I love BYU and the mountains have grown on me-but I still miss the Missouri autumns, with the beautiful changing leaves.

Today in my Forming Marital Relationships class, we talked about how technology changes the relationships we have with people. Far fewer families have dinner together than they used to, and of those that do, how many of those times are there no phones answered, no texting, and no TV on? I think a lot of great conversations happen at the dinner table, and that's one of the things I miss about living at home, is eating dinner and talking with my family. More than once this summer I got out four plates while setting the table-even though if Sarah were there, Kevin would be too and I would need five. It's just one of those habits, I guess.

I feel so fortunate to attend BYU for many reasons, but one thing I love about going to an amazing school is that there are so many opportunities for performances and plays and concerts and comedy shows and art exhibits and pretty much anything you can think of! It's hard to find time-and money-to attend them all, but I try to see as much as I can. In the last month I have done a lot! I have been to an Indian musical performance (Indian as in India), World of Dance (which exhibits many different types of dance at BYU such as ballet, modern, ballroom international folk dance, and others), a Japanese Art exhibit opening reception, and BYU's band/orchestra showcase. I just love it!

I like being happy.

*the title is from Taylor Swift's song Love Story.

There's something about ice cream...

2008-09-19T14:22:00.003-06:00

I normally don't spend a ton of time in the on-campus computer labs as I have a great laptop at home, but today I am less-than eager to return home (I will explain why in a moment) so I decided to write another blog entry. I don't even plan how often to write in this thing, but it's always twice a month. Am I really so predictable?

This morning I was taking a shower when my roommate was knocking on the door. I couldn't hear her, but I just figured she wanted in there and thought was taking too long. Then when I turned the water off a second later, I could hear this high pitched sound in our apartment-it didn't sound quite like a fire alarm, and it wasn't a tornado alarm (you hear those a lot in oklahoma) but it freaked me out. So I dressed at top speed and went to go find out from Karin what it was. It turned out it was our Carbon Monoxide detector going off, and Karin had opened our front windows and the door and had called our friend David, who worked for matinence. So Karin and I left the apartment, me looking dreadful as I had put on a normal shirt but was still wearing pijama pants, was barefoot, and my hair was soaking wet and was starting to curl since I hadn't brushed it out (and since I ran out the door, I didn't have time to put something in my hair to make it curl properly and it just looked funny). David came to the rescue of course, to check out the apartment, and he said I looked great, which made me feel a little better that he was trying to be nice. We don't think it was a leak since we didn't have any of the symptoms and they thought it was because of the water heaters in the basement, but it still freaked both of us out. So, I'm not too eager to be in my apartment right now even though they said it's okay to go back in. Once you're paranoid about CO2 poisoning, you start getting a headache and feel nauseous just from thinking you could have it.

I'm taking an advanced writing class for the social sciences, and it's kind of intimidating since even though I've taken a lot of classes for my major and am supposed to be sort of close to graduating (3 semesters left!), I feel really unqualified to enter the real world and the work force. Today, though, we talked about interviews, and we had to practice answering interview questions (in applying for a job) in the last few minutes of class. The person who practiced interviewing me said I had really good answers, and this was a single mom who had been interviewed and had even conducted a number of interviews before, so it made me really happy. Now I just have to figure out how to write a resume so people will even call me in for an interview. Right now it's just for an assignment in class, but in about a year I'll be looking for an internship and I need a great one if I want to continue on in my field. It's scary, but it's also really exciting because this is, of course, what I really want to do with my life. I love studying families and marriages, and I want to utilize what I've learned so I can help other people.

One of my weaknesses in life is that I'm not the greatest at prioritizing. When I have too many things I should be doing, it gets really overwhelming and unfortunately, nothing gets done at that point. And I get distracted very easily-but I think I'm doing much better. I just have to stay on top of my reading assignments as well as the other things I have to do. I think as long as you don't procrastinate things too much, you go out and be social now and then, and you recognize that you need to go to bed at 11 if you're getting up at 6:30, well then do it. I think also you can't beat yourself up if you end up doing something on friday that you meant to do on tuesday, well, at least you did it! The point is, I'm trying to do my best with everything and that's what is important.

Saturday I'm going to see a lot of dance performances at BYU, and I am very excited! I love attending a university that has so many cultural events, and so many talented students!

Family, Friends, and Life is good!

2008-09-06T21:42:00.002-06:00

After typing that title, I am reminded of a post I made about a year ago entitled, "Today, Little brother, life is good." Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of Sarah and Kevin's wedding, and they are still doing wonderful and my life is still awesome!

I apologize for not writing in almost a month, but as I've been very busy I hope you'll all forgive me. Part of it is that I moved from Oklahoma City where I was staying with my family over the summer back to Provo for the start of another school year. So for the last two weeks I have been moving boxes, washing dishes, unpacking, going grocery and textbook shopping, figuring out classes, and the like. I call this my senior year (part one) and I estimate 3 semesters left before I graduate, so I don't have to rush through my internship. My Major is still Marriage, Family, and Human Development, and I still love it.

I am constantly reminded by how much people change around me; in particular, college appears to be the time where everyone is getting married or coming back from missions or doing study abroad programs or leaving on missions. It's all very exciting, but at this moment I'm just glad to be happy for all these people. In one week alone during the month of August I was able to attend two special occasions: a missionary homecoming and a wedding!

One of my good friends just returned from a religious mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the Chile, Vina del Mar mission. I went to his farewell also, so it was interesting to the difference. He's always been spiritual but he's grown in the two years he's been gone. It was a little strange to visit someone you haven't seen or even talked to in two years, but it was really a good experience. I think he appreciated me coming up to hear him speak in church. I think it's important to support our missionaries because they do so much for us. My family was introduced to the gospel of Jesus Christ by missionaries several years ago, and we are so grateful for their wonderful service that has brought our family so much joy, and I know the people of Chile are grateful for his service.

Three days after this, I flew out to Salt Lake more than a week before I could move into my apartment so I could attend my freshman roommate Aubrey's wedding! It was nice visiting my friend Amy for a day beforehand and eating lunch with her, and then we drove to provo!
Aubrey-and her wedding-were so beautiful! Aubrey has always been one of the prettiest people I know, inside and out. Her husband, Russell, also seems like a great guy. Aubrey said that she was marrying her best friend, and I am so happy for them. We saw them at Smith's grocery store last night, and they seemed so happy! I'm glad that their new life together is going well.

As I was homeless for about a week before I could move into my apartment, I stayed with Sarah and Kevin! We had tons of fun eating Sarah's delicious cooking, such as her Nach-o chicken, crepes, and even salmon (which I actually enjoyed)! We also enjoyed watching episodes of Burn Notice, playing cranium, and spending time at the pool. Of course I spent a lot of time finishing up my independant study statistics class, but I still had a great week anyway.

Now I'm just trying to survive the semester, keep up with my reading assignments, and still have fun with my roommates! I hope everyone who is taking a class or is in school right now does well in whatever they're studying. Have a great semester!

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

2008-08-13T15:21:00.004-06:00

The other day I was talking to my dad about how I was really stressed about some things, and he asked what, exactly, and I was in the middle of rattling off this huge list (I'm a worrier) when he asked me how many of those things I actually had any control over. I...I had trouble naming more than one. It put things in perspective. Sure, lots of things can go wrong, but you're just going to give yourself a heart attack if you worry about all the things that could go wrong or if you "what if" everything.

And I've discovered that even though working on important things is great, sometimes you've got to take some breaks or you're going to go insane. Today my dad said to me, "You must be sick of that statistics class, because I'm sick of hearing about it!" When I finished spring term at BYU this year, I made a few summer goals (look it up a few posts ago), and I wanted to report on how they're doing:

-I finished my scrapbook from freshman year! It took a long time, but I'm glad it's finished, mainly so my pictures are actually organized, but it's a lot of work, so I probably won't scrapbook again for awhile. Still, I feel so accomplished for actually finishing something sort of crafty! My skill on it has also improved, as the first few pages are not very good looking compared to the ones later on.
-I was going to try and get my license, but due to goal number three, I simply didn't have the time to do both. I'm hoping my dear brother in law is still willing to teach me how to drive, and maybe I can do it in Utah this year.
-Last year I signed up for an independant study class to have something to do over the summer. Instead, I spent my time helping Sarah with wedding planning and having fun, so now I'm spending large portions of every day trying to finish all my homework assignments and tests and things before the expiration date...which happens to be the end of the first week of fall classes. I'm getting it done or I'll know why, but it takes a lot of mental energy.

On a more positive note, I am loving the Beijing olympics this year! I especially watching Michael Phelps win gold medal after gold medal...he's awesome.

Fall classes don't start at BYU until September 2nd, but my roommate from freshman year, Aubrey, is getting married the 21st, so I'm flying out early so I can attend her reception. It's amazing how we all grow older, isn't it?

Happy as a Grizzly Bear

2008-08-11T10:24:00.005-06:00

I promise, I don't only take pictures at the zoo, but I just love animals. Despite the fact that other than for church I rarely get up before ten during the summer, I willingly got up at 7 (my alarm actually went off at 6:30 but I took that long to get out of bed) to go to the Oklahoma City zoo! It's not nearly as good as the St.Louis zoo, but as they have two snow leopard cubs on exhibit here, it was something I couldn't pass up! It was a good idea to go early, as by the time we left at 10:30, it was incredibly hot.

We also seemed to have the perfect luck to stumble onto the grizzy bear exhibit at the right time. They do these "frozen treat feedings" that are really cool!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Omedetou

2008-07-27T20:40:00.004-06:00

I was a little bit concerned when I decided to stay spring term at BYU this year, because I thought that I wouldn't like going to school for ten months straight, and then only having two months off before starting school again. I do like having less to do in some respects, and I love spending time with my family, but I feel a bit frustrated because I'm not working, and I'm not taking classes so I feel rather useless with my time. Right now I am a teacher in Primary (the children's program at church), and my class is the six-year olds. They're adorable, but they are a lot to handle. I now know one very important quality in parenting: patience! There are multiple ways to manage your kids, but I think it takes patience to do the best thing for them, and not force them to do something because you want it, and not giving in because it is convienent.

I'm really looking forward to my coursework in the fall semester because I am taking a class called "Cognitive Development". It sounds impressive, but cognitive development is studying how we think. I've always been interested in the little sections about cognition in my other major classes, and my professor is one I've had before; it was taking his class that convinced me to do a MFHD minor (changing it to a major came later, but that was for a number of reasons).

Sometimes I think that when you don't expect things to change that everything does, and when you expect things to change very little does. I wonder why that is?

Those who know me know that I love Japan. I love cherry blossom trees, I love japanese anime, I love the language, and their country is very facinating to study. I don't listen to a lot of Jpop (the name for Japanese pop music) but there is one band that I do like, called Ikimono Gakari. I can't buy their CD in America so I mainly watch their videos on You Tube. Recently I discovered a new song of theirs that I love, so I thought I'd share it with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ8upLulBSQ&feature=related

Even if you don't typically like this kind of thing, please listen. I think it will be different than you expect, and even if you don't like it, broaden your horizon!

*the title is Japanese for "best wishes".

My Old St.Louis Home...

2008-07-15T21:14:00.003-06:00

Okay, so this post took quite a bit longer than I expected to post. This is because I ran into some technical difficulties, but here it is. Our long-anticipated drive to St.Louis was the first week of July. The drive is a long one, but I don't mind it so much. I ate quite a bit of junk food on the way up there. There's a gas station in Tulsa that has chocolate cheesecake, so I've been getting that the last few times we've gone up.

I don't know how many of you have tried to use Blogger's photo program, but it is incredibly difficult. So, this time I decided to use an online photo album for my trip pictures instead. Here is the link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/EditingKate27/StLouisTripJuly200802?authkey=TJyuJgwRV6g

And I'll just put all the details on here!

Wednesday night Dad visited his family while Mom, Grandma Ruth Ann, and I went to the Muny. For those who are non-St.Louis natives, the Muny is one of the largest outdoor theatres in the world. They show seven musicals every summer, and tickets are surprisingly cheap and surprisingly good. Mom and I estimated that we had season tickets for seven years while we were growing up. Anyway, the Muny is one of the things mom misses the most about St.Louis, so she wanted to go, no matter what the show was. I was rather pleased, however, because I LOVE High School Musical. Yes, you can call it a kid's movie all you want, but I still like it. Probably because the music is excellent and the story is cute and it is sqeaky clean in content.
We were worried when we got there because there was a chance of rain, and obviously you don't want to sit out in the open when there is a gigantic storm. Right before it was supposed to start, the thunder and lightning started like crazy, though not much rain. I am all for thunderstorms, but not so much for being out in the open during them. Most of the people there moved to the wings, which are covered, and we stood there for close to an hour, waiting for the storm to pass, but it did, and then we could enjoy the show!

Thursday night we all had pizza at my aunt Cindy's house with a lot of my aunts and uncles and cousisns and my grandparents. It was a lot of fun. The girl cousins that were there (and Kevin) played phase 10, and it was a lot of fun.

Friday was the fourth of July! We went to lunch at T.G.I. Friday's with Grandma Carlette, Debbie, Marty, Emma, and Logan. Emma enjoyed painting mine and Sarah's nails with some kind of glitter polish at the table while we were waiting for our food. Then we all went to the St.Louis Zoo, which is ranked as one of the best in the country. I enjoyed the bears, the lemurs (Emma's favorite), and the giraffes (there was a three-week old that was adorable!), but my favorite section is Big Cat Country. Unfortunately we couldn't see any of the tigers out (they were probably hiding in the shade) but we did see my favorite, the snow leopards, and also a black panther that was pretty cool looking. I think all the big cats are magnificant creatures, and I don't even like regular cats.

Then we went downtown to see the fourth of July fireworks. Sarah, Kevin, Dad and I played different card games while we waited. We couldn't sit on the courthouse lawn this year because of the flooding, but we still had a decent view of the arch from where we were. The fireworks were amazing, per usual.

Saturday was the much anticipated baptism of Ruth Ann Kraemer, my grandmother. The missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints knocked on my grandparents door nearly 30 years ago, and many of my family members have been baptized in that time. Needless to say, we all have been waiting for this day with happy anticipation. Many people came for the occasion from other states; some friends from Tulsa, my family from OKC, Sarah and Kevin from Provo (a longggg drive) and Jonathan, one of the original missionaries who introduced my grandparents to the church.

While we were waiting, I saw the most romantic thing ever. A beautiful young woman was dealing with allergies and the strong emotions of the day, and her dashing husband came to the rescue of a runny nose by placing a tissue over it, allowing her to blow her nose.
I don't care what people say; it was like watching a romantic movie, it was so cute. And I'm leaving out names in case they're embarassed, though they've told me this is impossible for me to do. Usually they embarass me.

I don't know what happened to my sanity, but I volunteered Sarah and I to do a musical number as part of the program, Sarah playing the piano and me singing. I was shaking pretty bad even before getting up there. Kevin was sitting next to me making me laugh, but it only worked until I got up there. Then I had to try and not rattle while I was up there. I was told I was fine, but I think I was more relieved when it was over.

Now I'm back in OKC, just trying to not be too bored. Today I bought a bubble wand (Which Jen will remember from FHE) and it rocks! So...that's what I do with my time.

Now I'm just counting down to something that may or may not affect me. Nine days!

Have a nice week!

Where the wind comes sweeping down the lane...

2008-06-22T22:54:00.002-06:00

Well everyone, I'm back in good old OKC. I'm glad to be back, actually, more so than usual. I think this is partly because I've been gone for six months, and partly because I desperately need a break from school after going through winter and spring semesters without much of a break. My dog Mila was so excited to see me when I came home! Sometimes I worry that she'll forget how I am because I've been gone so long, but she knew me right away. She's still limping on her hurt paw, but this is not curbing her delights for rolling the grass, begging at the dinner table, or riding in the car, so she must be all right.

Apparently some lady at church today thought I was seventeen!!! That's only...four years off....When I'm quite a bit older I'll probably want to look younger, but not now. I mean, yes, I'm short, but still...I suppose this is just something I'll have to get used too. Sometimes I actually act mature (like when I discuss religion or parenting styles with my own parents) and sometimes I act very immature (like asking my dad to come kill a spider that crawled under my dresser because I heard that spiders crawl into people's mouths at night while they're sleeping-seriously, has anyone else heard this?), but I think that's just how I am. I found an old post from earlier this year where I discussed the movie Amelie, where the girl is incredibly unique but she finds an amazing boy that she gets along with great. I see people dating and getting married around me, but I think to myself, I don't really want to settle. I want to find someone who I really think is amazing-and to be honest, I want them to think I'm amazing. I think if I focus on doing what I'm supposed to (not in regards to dating, but life in general) it will all work out. I have faith that everything will work out.

I burned the roof of my mouth. That was kind of unfortunate.

My three main goals for the summer are:
-to finish that independant study class
-to get my permit and license (thus learning how to drive)
-finishing my scrapbook from freshman year (I am sooo close)

I will keep you all updated on the progress of those, in addition to all the lovely things I do in the coming weeks. Have an amazing summer, everyone!

Katie's Five!

2008-06-09T23:05:00.003-06:00

The five tag

5 years ago:

Five years ago I was sixteen; looking back, I had a very perfect seeming life, though I remember lots of drama from that time in high school. I think that was around the time I started to consider BYU as my college of choice.

5 months ago:

I was in my 6th semester at BYU; I had finally decided on a major I would stick with (Marriage, Family, and Human Development), and started my preparation for my first social dance competition ever.

5 things on my to do list:
-complete my list of interview questions for my project
-put clean laundry away
-ask someone in religion class for five points on Zoroastrianism
-catch up on reading assignments for school (*note: this may not be possible)
-call back visiting teaching companion!!!

5 snacks I enjoy:
-pepperoni: straight from the bag
-twizzlers
-milk duds
-chocolate covered pretzels
-dove chocolates with those messages in them

5 things I would do if I were suddenly a billionaire:
-tithing
-pay off debts (student loans, mom and dad's house, etc.)
-hire financial advisor (so I can figure out taxes and investments)
-invest
-donate to the Church's Perpetual Education Fund: it's the coolest program. It gives money for young adults from poor backgrounds all over the world in the church to improve their education so they can support their families and their communities. Then when they can earn money they pay the fund back, and that money helps others!

5 bad habits:
-oversleeping
-being late
-not washing my dishes and leaving them in the sink
-leaving reading assignments undone
-forgetting to read my scriptures at night, or not leaving enough time to read very much

5 places I have lived:
-St.Anthony's hospital, when I was born-hey, I didn't leave until the next year :)
-our little house in the scary neighborhood in Pacific (I didn't know it was scary until much later)
-our beautiful other house in Pacific
-OKC, OK
-various apartments in Provo

5 Things most people don't know about me:
-when I was little I had an imaginary camel named "ota-ota"
-I always wanted to have red curly hair and violet eyes
-I have a fantasy story I'm working on and I'm up to 28 pages-woot!
-my favorite chore at home is dusting. If I visit you and I see a patch of dust, I'll probably wipe it off with my hand.
-Sarah and I call each other "eye twins" since we both have the blue eyes with a green ring around the pupil-though the shades are different.

One thing I discovered this week (discovered again, you might say) is that happiness takes a lot of work to keep consistently. That's okay though, I don't mind.
I am so excited to be going home in less than two weeks! I am sad to leave Provo for the time being (not so excited to be missing tests and projects), but I'll be back in a few months for fall semester. I have a feeling a lot of things will have happened with all my friends that will change things, but change is good. I am going to try and do fun things this summer, so I can upload pictures of the things I do instead of just talking about myself. At the very least are trips to St.Louis and Dallas, among other things.

Take me the way I am

2008-05-27T22:12:00.002-06:00

Do you know me? I'm curious. I'm going to list off some random things about me, to entertain myself.

-I love listening to distant sounds of trains at night. I heard them at both houses in St.Louis, and I hear them in Provo too. Listening to them when I'm in bed falling asleep is very soothing to me.
-I love little kid things like playgrounds, bubbles, and jump rope.
-The bathrooms in the restaurant "City Bites" are the freakiest things EVER. I'm not kidding.
-My favorite coin is the dime.
-I grew up in a town called Pacific, even though it's nowhere near the ocean. (the trains, people)
-I love Billy Joel's music.
-I love lace on clothes. I also love shirts or dresses that tie in the back. And ribbons.
-I try so hard to find flats that don't hurt my feet, but they don't exist. My feet are a tad on the narrow side.
-My favorite big word to use is facetious.
-Orange is my least favorite color.
-Any boy, from high school on, that I had a crush on for more than a month, has a poem written about him somewhere.
-...I have a hard time writing happy poetry.
-my favorite flowers are alstroemerias, but I also like daffodils, morning glories, cherry blossoms, gardenias, and lilacs.
-I can smell things randomly that others can't, like blood and metal.
-I realized I only feel short around tall people.
-I actually can't stand cinnamon toothpaste, but they use it on me everytime I go to the dentist. I let them because it keeps me from swallowing, which I have a tendency to do.
-I like some country music. I adore Taylor Swift.
-I'm definitely a traditional romantic.
-I have a bad habit of speaking aloud when thinking about something.
-I love sudoku. It makes me feel intelligent.
-I am never buying an mp3 player not from apple again. It's not worth it.
-I strongly dislike most condiments (ketchup, mustard, mayonaise, relish, etc.) and unfortunately I have the worst luck with getting my food orders messed up because of this.
-I have convered at least three people to eating grapes and chocolate pudding together.
-I don't like wearing pullover sweatshirts because they mess up my hair.
-When I'm at home, you can always tell if the cash in the dryer is mine becuase no one else's is folded into fourths.
-I have this weird obsession with going through my stuff and purging what I don't use. It's oddly satisfying.
-I thought the new concentrated detergent bottles were genius. They're much easier to carry to the laundry room.
-I like sparkly things.

Okay, I hope that was at least mildly interesting to someone besides me. I didn't put any crazy things down because....well, I don't do very interesting things, like skydive.

I got a 91 on a multiple choice portion of my adolescent development test!!! That's the first time I've done really well in a class for my major in a while, so it made me really happy. And my roommate Rachel bought me a jump rope! I can't wait to start using it :)
Only 3 1/2 weeks left of spring term at BYU, and then I'm off to Oklahoma City for the summer! Hopefully these entries will be more frequent and exciting when I actually do something besides study.

Have a great week!

And so it goes...

2008-05-21T17:04:00.003-06:00

I think I overthink things. Well, anyone who knows me isn't surprised by that. But I've thought so much in the past week that periodically I have to shut my thinking down and do something to block it out-solitaire, reading, anything. I discovered one good thing though-I still love my adolescent development class! The things I learn are amazing-and you learn things that would actually help teenagers. I love it! So maybe I can work with some kind of program with adolescents when I get a "real" job-that'd be cool, I think. And I really want to make a difference in the world-make it better.

I got an email from one of my friends serving a religious mission in Chile and he says that the people there do nothing for the people that are homeless and begging, but they'll do anything for dogs. I love dogs, but I still think maybe we should care about people first. Or hey, how about BOTH? What a novel idea!

I like listening to music. It does a lot for me: suits my current mood, cheers me up, helps me vent frustration....I think there's a song out there for almost anything.

Two songs that I like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktUSIJEiOug

This one is Alicia Keys' new video "No One". It's not the coolest video ever, but the singing is amazing. One thing I love about her is that you feel that all the emotion in her singing is real. You really believe not only what she's saying, but you believe that she believes it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfp9wDrNWrY

I haven't actually seen that much of American Idol this season, but I've seen David Archuleta a few times and I like his voice. I really liked this performance because I LOVE Billy Joel, and I always thought "And so it goes" was a really pretty song. I'm not saying this is better than the original, but I liked it.

Life is hard sometimes, but I have hope that it is all worth it! There was an amazing BYU devotional this week about having faith in Christ, and it struck a chord with me. I know that He is mindful of all of us, and I know that life has good times as well as bad.
I hope everyone has a peaceful, happy week. I love you all, my wonderful friends!

Chocolate Cake and Laughing Roommates

2008-04-16T21:46:00.003-06:00

For those who think I should be working a paper right now, don't even tell me you haven't gotten on facebook in the past two days, when you're supposed to be studying for finals.

School and Life have been great lately. Unfortunately, most good things don't end up on this blog because I'm having too much fun to get on my computer. My major is changing names, from being a degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development to a School of Family Life Degree. I don't know yet whether my class schedule will change, but hopefully not too much since I'm already in the program.

I'm really excited to be staying at BYU for spring term! Utah is so cold when I'm here, but it'll actually be warm for once! I'm taking some cool classes in the spring, like country western social dance! I try to take fun classes at BYU because honestly, when am I again going to have an opportunity in my life to take dance classes? Or Asian humanities? Or badminton (I'm hoping to take it in the fall)? I figure I should take these opportunities when I have them. And my dad says you should never rush into the work force, because you're going to be there forever anyway.

It's a good thing I love my major, because if I never get married I'm going to be living in my friend's basement since there is no money in my chosen field.

By the way, sometimes I'm sarcastic on here because I think I'm funny, but even if I do complain, my life pretty much rocks. I have so many things to be grateful for, but I'll try not to fill this with things you don't care about.

All I'll leave you with are three words:

My Favorite Flowers!

Have a great week, everyone!

Walking

2008-04-01T09:22:00.002-06:00

I've been thinking about walking lately. When I was younger, I would always look at the ground while I walked everywhere. My "self-esteem" (my professors all hate that phrase) wasn't that great at the time, neither was my confidence. Then when I started working, both shot up, and one day walking across the quiet park in the morning, I decided then that I would never look at the ground again, at least for that reason.

Sometimes I do now, but the two main reasons are either the sun is right in my eyes, or I'm unhappy about something. Lately though, there's been a third cause: I'm thinking. About what? I have no idea. It's usually something random, sometimes important, sometimes not. So if you see me walking along with a concentrated look, it is genius at work! :)

On another note, I first heard Gavin Degraw's new single, "I'm in Love with a Girl" yesterday, and I LOVE IT. I seriously cannot stop watching the video. The only reason I haven't bought the single is because I'm debating buying the CD when it comes out in May. If you liked Gavin's old music, you'll probably like this.

Dance Sport!

2008-03-16T00:12:00.015-06:00

BYU hosted a National Amateur Dance Competition this weekend, and it was so amazing. I loved watching everyone from the professionals to the six-year olds who were amazing at swing. Even more than watching, I loved dancing! I entered with the beginning Dance 180 social dance students, dancing the cha cha. My partner and I just wanted to have fun, but we never dreamed we'd be called back four times! Even though we didn't make it to the semi-finals, being in the top 64 out of 240 couples was pretty amazing for us.

Oh, I think they do

2008-03-06T09:56:00.002-07:00

I get frustrated frequently by what I feel I should be. Countless people around me tell me I shouldn't care what other people think, but if I act like that, I'm really only doing it to please them, and in that case I'm still looking at others to decide what I should do!

So to be me, and have people like it, is a strange experience. It's kind of fun.

I learned in my MFHD 210 Child Development class that teenage boys are more likely to think they're invinicble and teenage girls are more likely to perform to an imaginary audience. So, it makes sense to me that I am concerned about what people will think. I'm trying to not care, but it's a hard feeling to get rid of.

I have a class that I've missed rather often lately, but I decided to go to today, and it was cancelled!!!! Why did it have to be today? Oh well. Now I have extra time, so I can do useful things like write in this blog.

I love my dance class. It makes me feel talented. And girls get to be spun around all the time, and that's my favorite part. I got a 91 on my fox trot test!!!! I was so proud of myself. I certainly am not doing that well in my major classes, so it was nice to do really well for a change.
In the not too distant future I'm going to be competing in Dance Sport with the cha cha! I'll post pictures up here when that happens, because I'm really excited.

Things on my radar right now:

-"Hero/Heroine" Boys Like Girls
-"The Way I am" Ingrid Michaelson
-Anna the Bot: a really weird sweedish music video my roommmates and I like to watch
-blackberry yogurt-sadly, I haven't had it in a while because of my cold :(
-when I walk through the bookstore, I stop and look at the easter candy. They have these Dove truffles in a package, and I've picked it up and looked at it like three times. I might buy it sometime, but that might ruin things.
-I keep looking at where the clock used to be in the living room, even when I'm facing where the clock currently is.
-my favorite anime (of the moment, Tsubasa Chronicle) is no longer on You Tube with english subtitles, only in spanish!!! Is this worth learning spanish for?
-I like Thousand Paper Crane's song "February 14th".

I am me, and you are you

2008-02-24T19:29:00.002-07:00

I've become a big fan lately of Regina Spektor's song On the Radio. It's kind of weird if you listen to it, but I've always thought her lyrics were very profound. Here's my favorite part:

"This is how it works:
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until laugh
And everyone must breathe until their dying breath..."

I think those lyrics are amazing.

A friend told me lately that no one really says anything profound. We just think it is because we finally understand it. I think it's true. Still, I think we all need that push, that "inspiration", that drive. To me, this song is saying, "that's how it is." That's it. Certain things are how they are, and don't go away. We just have to change how we deal with them.

Why do musicals make you feel so happy?

Oh, you know...

2008-02-17T23:18:00.003-07:00

It occured to me today that I haven't written at all this month, and perhaps I should have. Today in Sacrament Meeting (our main church meeting) people were speaking on time management and priorities, including my roommmate Jen. It makes me think. I don't think my intended priorities are necessarily bad, but maybe what I actually spend my time on is. If you think about it, your real priorites are what you spend time on, otherwise you wouldn't be doing them. So, you have to think, what have I been doing that isn't important, and what haven't I been doing that is?

So, I do a lot of pointless things, but I was thinking, maybe they aren't so bad. Yes, I'm on facebook a lot, but I'm also keeping in touch with my friends. And yes, maybe talking to my roommates at 2 in the morning means I get very little sleep, but I have great friendships with those girls. And as my dad pointed out, the story I've been working on "apparently" describes me very well, so I'm learning to understand myself and others while writing it. It also helps me to accept criticism.

I'm not saying that I should do those this obsessively, or that I should stop doing my homework, but I think I need to understand the concequences of the things I'm doing to figure out what I should be doing. Make sense?

Sometimes being happy is frightening, because you're afraid it will go away.

Favorite Section:

Today's selection of favorites will be: shoes

I really like shoes. My last two pairs of tennis shoes were the kind that have elastic criss-crossing straps instead of laces, and I love it. They're so easy to slip on! When those go out of style I'm going to be in trouble if I've forgotten how to tie my shoes.

We Love You, President Hinckley

2008-01-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

For those who are unaware, our beloved Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley passed away Sunday night. He was also the head of the board of Trustees for BYU. I am grateful that he is able to be with his wife that he missed so much, but sad that I won't get to hear him speak in conference. His talks were always the highlight.

In an earlier post, I addressed the question of whether it is better to do good or be good. President Hinckley's answer is to do both.

"You are good. But it is not enough just to be good. You must be good for something. You must contribute good to the world. The world must be a better place for your presence. And the good that is in you must be spread to others."

-Gordon B. Hinckley, BYU Devotional, 1996 (before my time, of course)

On another note, I was walking on campus today when I saw several "wet paint" signs on a wall that had been recently painted. Why is it people always put the signs right on top of the wet paint? Don't the signs mess up the paint? It confuses me.

You're tied together with a smile, but you're coming undone

2008-01-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

Something I've learned recently is that you don't have to have all the answers. Sometimes, I think people forget that.

In my very first MFHD class at BYU, in my family processes class, my professor said that someone didn't want to have a family if there were so many ways you could screw it all up. Dr. Day said, "You can mess it up, but it's better to go through life with a partner than to make mistakes doing it alone." (not a direct quote)

I don't think it means you're in trouble either way, but I do think he was saying that so much potential joy is worth some of the risks. Sometimes it isn't, but I think sometimes it is.

I think I need more culture in my life. Anyone want to see a play with me?

Princess Parking Only (All others will be toad)

2008-01-14T11:39:00.001-07:00

Happy New Year, everyone!

I've heard some discrepencies as far as what matters. Some say it is what you do that matters, others say it is what you are that matters. Since I have no clue which one is better, I suppose I should work on both.

I think I understand people a lot less than I thought I did. I thought that people didn't notice things about me, but they did all along and just didn't say anything. Knowing that people do care makes me want to be a better person.

After several months, I have officially declared myself a Marriage, Family, and Human Development major. Hurray! I've been taking classes all along, but it was stil a shock to discover that I only have 6 classes for my major left after this semester. I love being at BYU, and to think of leaving after next year seems way too soon. But then, maybe all steps in our lives are managable. I used to imagine that college courses were really hard, but I'm not confused all the time. Classes are definitely dificult, but they are also manageable. Frequently, I love it. Perhaps having a career in a field I love could turn out the same way.

I used to think that the perfect love in movies was so difficult to find. I mean, how often does a couple that is so perfect find each other, and actually be compatible? And yet it happens. I've taken a number of marriage classes for my major, and I can say that not only was Sarah the most prepared person I've ever seen get married, but Sarah and Kevin are also so perfect for each other. Maybe it can happen after all.

BYU has a free movie theatre on campus that shows foreign films, so I was finally able to see an edited version of Amelie. That movie is amazing. It not only makes you want to fall in love but also convinces you that even if you're strange, there's someone strange (but cute) out there that's perfect for you.

I'd like to make some goals for the new year:

-I'm completely cutting off soda, for now
-eat healthier
-start doing my strength training exercises again
-go to class
-do my reading assignments
-verbalize my emotions instead of bottling them up
-see all the foreign films I can that look good at the international cinema
-start conditioning my hair
-cook real food more
-forgive others more and take offense less

With so many goals, surely something will get done.

Today's happy moments of the day:
-emails from missionaries
-friendly conversations with roommates
-amazing chocolate cake

I'll try to not burn the apartment down...

2007-12-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

Life takes funny turns sometimes.

It's funny how sometimes you can feel really grown-up, and sometimes really immature.

We talked in my aging class about how you're an adult when your parents stop being "Santa Claus" and you finally give things back to people, even if your contributions are small. The idea that I can finally contribute makes me feel happy, in a serious way.

One person told me a lesson I taught on marriage had stuck with her, and another person asked me for relationship advice, and told me it was good advice.

I'm finally feeling maybe what I'm doing with my life, and my major, could be something good.

Another person I've looked up to for things my whole life asked me for something.

I think I like this Christmas present.

Let's Play Rachel's Game!

2007-12-10T21:18:00.001-07:00

I like being happy.

Do you know what makes me happy? Here is a list of a few things:

-great ideas late at night that never come to pass

-purple pens

-sweaters

-cake

-chivalry

-roommates

-quotes that are imortalized seconds after being said

-new versions of "rock,paper, scissors"

-laughing

-cases of those small oranges

-fleece blankets

-watching movies when I should be studying

-quiet boys

-christmas songs

-hot chocolate

-phone calls

-caramel and cheese popcorn mixed

-crisp air

-walking in the snow

-cream soda

-Thousand Paper Cranes

-romance

-inside jokes

-other people's snacks

-sunday dinner

-writing stories

-scum (the game)

-missionary letters

Maybe simple things influence my happiness, but I think that's a good thing.

November

2007-11-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

November is usually a very interesting month for me. Towards the end of it is Thanksgiving, so I am looking forward to going home for that. For some reason, Thanksgiving holiday is different than Christmas. Christmas is awesome (especially since it's more than a week long), but usually I'm taking finals right up until I leave so I feel less excited, plus I was home just a couple weeks ago.

Thanksgiving, I'm usually reaching the end of my tether, as far as school is concerned, so I'm much more excited to go. This year, though, I will be spending it in OKC for the first time with just my parents. Last year, at least Sarah and Grandma were there with me. I think if it had been like this two years ago, when I first came to college, I would have hated it. I would have been so desperate for my extended family I would have been miserable. This year, I think I'll be fine. I no longer hate Oklahoma the way I thought I would. Isn't it interesting the way life changes?

By the way, I don't really like turkey.

Or pie.

Or Macy's Thanksgiving parade.

I do like rolls, stuffing, and green bean casserole, though.

And my family.

And my dog.

Happy November, Everyone!

And may I say, Kevin is the funniest librarian I know.

Yes, I did just hit my head on the doorframe

2007-10-04T15:46:00.001-06:00

Today is not my day

Is it yours?

If I can’t be happy

I’d like you to be

I’ve got bruises

And sleep in my eyes

Today has little hope

But just maybe,

If today is your day

Our day can coincide

And today can be a pretty good day

I don’t want to ruin your plans

But I want both of us to be happy

So, let’s make it our day

Will you share?

I often wonder, if today is not "my day", then whose is it? I have hope that even if it does not start out as being my day, it will be by the end.

Today, Little Brother, Life is Good

2007-09-22T10:53:00.000-06:00

You know, sometimes life is boring and unhappy, and you forget that life can actually be quite good.

I AM SO HAPPY!

The last month has been absolutely insane (hence no entries) but quite wonderful. I have been having the time of my life.

1-Sarah's wedding shower. I put a lot of effort into helping plan it, and despite making three quiches and the very last minute and some minor problems, it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed being part of the "adult world" and being able to contribute to Sarah's wedding.

2-Sarah's rehearsal dinner. Despite stressing over my MOH toast, I had fun talking to my extended family. Everyone really enjoyed my toast, and it made me feel good. My favorite part was my cousin Mae seeing my bridesmaid bracelet (similar to her flower girl bracelet) and saying, "are you a flower girl too?" It was so cute!

3-Sarah's wedding was completely awesome. The entire day was great. I loved everything, from getting our hair done to waiting on the peaceful temple grounds to chilling on a bench with Kevin during pictures to getting lunch at Arby's in the car on the way to the reception to the strawberry cream hors d'oeuvres to talking to all our family friends to spending most of the reception dancing with my cousins. IT WAS AWESOME! I think it's a day we're all going to look back on as one the happiest moments in our lives.

4-Starting my 3rd year of college. Despite starting a week late, despite being behind, this year is already awesome. I have three fantastic roommates who always make me laugh and encourage me to be a better person. Our apartment is great, the ward is friendly, and I like my classes already. I am really getting into my major now (Marriage, Family, and Human Development) and I know now more than ever that this is what I want to do.

5-Homecoming! Despite being talked into it my my roommates, I'm really glad I went. Our whole apartment went together with a huge group of eight. What girl doesn't like to be treated like a princess?

With all these great things happening, who knows what the year will bring?

Why aren't my eyebrows singed?

2007-08-22T21:57:00.001-06:00

From May to August, as long as I've been home this summer, I've broken two glasses and a glass jar. I think this is a new record for me. I would like to point out all three times I was barefoot, and still avoided major injury. I think that's pretty lucky, don't you?

I've been stressed before. I think in the past year I've been stressed 60% of the time. So I'm used to it. The fact that pretty much everyone around me is stressed too is what makes me insane. I personally can't wait for life to settle down. I love my family, and I think they are mainly what make me happy. My life though, is set by routines. I like having a schedule of classes every day. I like walking the same way to class each week. I like ordering my favorite sandwich and getting the same soda from the vending machines. Perhaps my life sounds boring, but I find comfort in the monotony's. When I am in a routine, my brain is free to think.

I have been reading the Anne of green gables books lately, and I think I would find her to be a "kindred spirit". The only thing is, She doesn't dream so much and I still do. Tell me, where can I find Gilbert?

Thinking of vending machines really makes me want a red a&w cream soda now.

I'll tell you when you're 25

2007-07-03T22:42:00.000-06:00

This weekend, I went to see The Fray in concert! It was pretty much the coolest thing ever. They sang all the songs I wanted, and they were just as good live as they are on the cd. The special effects really cool too! They did this flashing red and black thing during the song "Little House". I wish I could repeat that every time I listen to the song.

I also had a great time visiting St. Louis (where the concert was) though I could have done without the 2 1/2 hour delay of my flight........or the twenty minutes we spent driving a mere mile and a half on the highway...but the rest was great. Normally when we go up to St. Louis, it's either the 8 hour car ride from OKC or the 3 hour flight from Salt Lake, and both are torture. Then we have 50 million people to eat with and talk to and things to do, so it was nice to avoid all that and just have a good time. I'll post the pics from the concert later...when I eventually get them developed.

I love fireworks. Maybe I'm patriotic, or maybe I just like shiny things. We saw some today and we'll see some tomorrow too.

Tell me, is it worth it to get up at 8am for pancakes?

Flying Yogurt and Lots of Drama

2007-05-24T11:44:00.000-06:00

"Every single person has at least one secret that would break your heart. If we could just remember this, I think there would be a lot more compassion and tolerance in the world"~Postsecrets~

This quote was on a friend's facebook page, and it really struck a chord with me, because I think it's true. If we realized this, all the people we thought were mean, or lazy, or apathetic, would suddenly have a reason for it, and we would empathize with them. Everyone has problems, but for some reason most people for get about everyone else's problems. Or, they notice the problems that can be seen, and forget the hidden problems.

Sometimes those who are doing nothing are going through a struggle you could not endure.

There is so much good music coming out this summer! I need a job just to keep up with all the music I want.

Here are the three things I am keeping my eye on:

1-Mandy's Moore's Wild Hope. At first I didn't think I would like it, since it sounds a bit folksy, and I like upbeat music. However, she was in Oklahoma City this week, and she did a live radio program that I listened to, and I want the whole cd. Really. And by the way, she is just as good live as she is on recording. How many artists do that?

2-Kelly Clarkson, whenever or whatever, I'm buying it. While I don't think I'll like the style of this new CD as much as Breakaway, it's Kelly. I have to buy it. Supposedly coming out this summer, I will pounce on it the week it hits the stores.

3-Maroon 5. At first their new single, Makes me Wonder, was just okay, but I've been listening to it since then, and it is slowly growing on me (not to mention it's been on almost every talk show in existance), and now I love it.

I love my family. That's all I'm going to say.

Run from the Panic Man

2007-04-24T14:35:00.000-06:00

I'm one of those people that actually works better under pressure. If I have a paper due tomorrow-or today, even, I can churn out those pages like none other. If it's due in a week, I congratulate myself if I've even read what it's about. Even if I don't procrastinate, there are times when the stress just hits me like a hammer.

With my two worst finals left, books to sell back, LOTS of packing-apparently I have a lot of stuff-and my family coming in town, this is one of those times. I begin to worry that I won't finish in time-and yes, I have until Saturday to have all of my things out of the apartment, but no doubt I will be entertaining family thursday and friday for my sister's graduation, so I am packing like a madman today. It's weird, because I keep remembering more and more things to pack. The number of boxes I have is getting smaller, but my stuff just keeps multiplying. One more box? No, maybe two-three-oh, just bring 10. I have too much stuff!

I find a strange satisfaction in packing. Perhaps it is because I am preparing to go home. and I am unbelieveably excited. It could be that although I may not do well in school, at least I can accomplish something! I wonder if UPS is hiring....

In reality, I really think I just want to go home, and packing passes the time. Once I am packed, I can go home, right? That's what I keep hoping. Eventually I'll be done, and then I'll get on that plane and all the stress falls off me. Until I get home, and the unpacking begins.

Writer's Unblock

2007-04-04T21:26:00.000-06:00

sunlight bright
forcing me to be alive
allowing me to waken
forbidding the cold
helping the flowers grow
causing friendliness
giving love a chance
making us free

Though I don't appreciate the face that my arms and ears are burning from my rest in the sun today, I still enjoyed myself, people watching and feeling the warm sun on me. It's a feeling that can't really be compared to anything else. It's like pure light is touching you.

I love spring!

ZZZZZ..............

2007-04-02T15:30:00.000-06:00

I read an old friend's myspace page today, and he had a theory of momentum where if you have nothing to do, you aren't stressed or upset about things, but you feel completely empty, which is even worse. He said that he would rather feel something than sit there doing and feeling nothing, so he says to go for life!

I feel this way a lot too. My schedule's rather lighter this semester, which you'd think means that I'd have more time to do well in all of my classes, but instead it has turned me into a slacker and I hate it. I keep getting so bored!!! I want something to do....It's funny, but I keep feeling like I should pack soon for going home. I always start packing for things way in advance, because I feel like I won't have enough time. Both times I moved homes growing up I packed up stuff in my room before half the house was packed up. Unfortunately, with a month left of being in Provo, I need almost all I would want to pack. At some point I'm going to have a Purging Party, where I get rid of all the excess stuff I have in my room, so I can actually have a managable life.

I'd really like to get into writing again, but I just can't seem to find my inspiration. Do you have it?

Some days I have to remind myself that no one's going to slap my wrist if I don't do something. This is both good and bad for me. Bad, because that is no longer a motivator for me to do something, and good, because I tend to get stressed if I can't accomplish anything.

Suddenly my apartment feels really stuffy. It's time to head outside.

Simple Things

2007-03-20T16:38:00.001-06:00

Sarah and her friends are doing posts involving five things that make you happy/smile. I'm doing something similiar, except mine is just going to be about the little things, things people don't notice, and don't take forever to explain. It doesn't mean they are more important than family, friends, God, or anything else, I'm just doing it my way.

#1-Sunshine walks to school

I say sunshine because walking to school freezing, wearing ten layers when it's overcast is not nearly as fun as wearing short sleeves, sunglasses and enjoying the warmth on your skin. I love walking to school because it is a time in my life where I am surrounded by silence and I can think about things, or I can not think at all if I need some quiet. It's a perfect break between working on stuff at home and furiously taking notes in class.

#2-Phone calls to friends

Even though I love have convenient the internet is and I'm on there every day for at least three hours, nothing replaces phone calls. I talk to my friend Ali almost every day online, but when her internet broke and I called her instead, I realized how much I had missed it.

#3-Music that defines my life

It amazes me how many songs feel like they were written for me. Some are happy, some are not, but music is like poetry in that it explains and understands the heart and soul more than any logic can.

#4- My dog

Once I had a friend that said she prefers cats over a dog because you have to work for a cat's affection where dogs just give it to whomever, but I quite prefer a dog's unconditional love (plus I can't stand cats). My dog makes me smile.

#5 Shopping

Did you know that shopping produces endorphins? I believe it. I love all forms of shopping: the dollar store, the bookstore, wal-mart, the mall, a scrapbooking store, whatever. Perhaps I just like things, perhaps I like to see what is out and popular, perhaps I just love the exercise. Either way, it's my favorite way to spend the day.

Is it so hard to find matching socks on a bad day?

2007-03-15T13:57:00.000-06:00

My life is a mess.

I don't quite know how that happened, but it did. I've gotten to the point in the semester where I know longer care what happens. It's funny, because I could be studying for my tests coming up, or working on this semster, but instead I'm looking at classes for next semester, even though registration isn't for another month.

I think sometimes people look to the future becuase they don't like where they are now. It's like daydreaming: when class is boring, we think about something more enjoyable. Come fall I won't be so excited about my classes, but right now they sound great!

Do you ever dread telling someone something because you know you won't like their reaction, but you tell them anyway, hoping that you're wrong, and when you were right after all you feel completely crushed? I suppose we can't change how people think or feel any more than they can change us. Sometimes our friends aren't as perfect as we'd like them to be, but as they are human that's only to be expected.

I had a powerade once and I didn't like it, but for some reason, looking at the machines filled with them on campus makes me want one. I know I won't like the taste (to me it's like really weak lemonaide) but I stil have the desire for one. Why don't I just buy the drink I know I will like instead?

I think somewhere inside of me I refuse to accept to be ordinary, to stay still. I want to move forward, even if the future isn't any better than here. At least I will have moved.

Not bipolar, just...interesting

2007-02-22T21:35:00.000-07:00

...blogger just erased what I had previously , so suffice it to say, I thought this video was really good. It is not mine obviously, but you should laugh with me to make me feel better.

Anyway...

Why am I unloved?

2007-02-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

Refering to my last post, trying is harder than it originally seemed.

No one seems to be posting very much these past two months. Perhaps everyone just kind of shuts down during the winter months. I know I do. Why in the world would I go to a school where it is winter six months out of the year?

...It could be that the tuition is insanely cheap....or my amazing roommate...or BYU chocolate milk..you know.

I've been trying my hand at cooking lately, as I'm spending entirely too much money on subway each week. It's kind of fun, but a lot of work. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't worth it just to eat a can of broccoli cheese soup instead. But this week Jen and I made a chicken pasta dish that went all out with fresh cilantro, green peppers, onions, and a bechamel sauce too! It was a ton of work but very tasty.

Today I made chicken tacos, which were quite good. I hardly ever cook with chicken but it turned out quite well so I might buy more in the future. I don't know why cooking can be so hard, I mean it is just mixing ingredients but it is. It's funny, because at home I'll be helping to cook dinner or something and I'll be sitting there peeling a potato for 15 minutes with all these spots I've missed and half the potato on the counter and my mom will come over and speed through all the rest in like 30 seconds and they look perfect. It is amazing.

I've changed from being democratic to republican (don't eat me anyone!) and now I feel like I don't like anyone. Is that so bad?

If one more person goes to walk next to me on the way home from campus talking really loudly on their cell phone I will go jump of the Swickett.

Anyway...

Pensive, for once

2007-02-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

Today, the weather was glorious. It was an amazingly perfect 50 degrees when I left wearing just a sweatshirt (no coat, gloves, scarf or hat in sight) and later on I wore just a shirt. The whole day I felt like I was missing something, because there was no bulky coat to carry around indoors, stuff in my chair in class or shed synthetic feathers on my clothes. If only every day was as today...

We watched Much Ado About Nothing (the movie) today and at first I wanted to marry a guy like Claudio and I wouldn't mind a quick marriage to him, but then he went crazy and clearly has some violent tendencies (i.e. throwing a bench at his fiance' because he thought she cheated on him) and I decided I wouldn't want him after all. Girls, always check to make sure he's not crazy.

My internet works! I am so happy that once more imdb, weather undergrond, wikipedia, my email, and of course my blog are at my fingertips once more. Though unfortunately I now have no excuse for not doing my online homework when at home.

I know there are a lot of things in life where "try your best" isn't good enough, but sometimes it is good enough for yourself. While pondering today the disparity of failing, I thought of the words of Michael Scott: "Never, ever give up". Isn't that the point of it all? Yes, we fail. We fail and we fall short all the time. That isn't what's important-what is important is that we keep trying and trying and even when we fall short, no one can say we didn't try, and that is the important thing.

Some people think that they're just emailng God and never getting any replies, but make sure he's listed as your friend so he doesn't go to the spam box by mistake. You could miss the most important message.

Why take drugs when you can have candy?

2007-01-31T15:05:00.000-07:00

This is post number 27!!! Twenty-seven is my lucky number, so this must mean something special. Do you ever make wishes on stars or 11:11, knock on wood, or read fortunes in your cookies at Panda Express? To me, it doesn't actually mean anything, but it is just a part of having hope. If we have hope in nothing, what do we have?

Yesterday this guy was my partner for this activity in my sociology class. He said "Are you a sociology major?" I said yes, that I had actually declared it that day, as I'm a slacker. He told me that he was originally going to do mechanical engineering but it was too hard, and he had heard sociology was easy so that's why he was there. Then he said that he was preparing for law school!!!!

I get annoyed when people do a major or ask me if I'm doing sociology because it is easy or short. That has nothing to do with it! It's true it isn't intensely hard, but I'm there because I think it's interesting and important and I love it! Besides, changing the world isn't that easy, is it? Personally, though, if he's planning on law school looking for something easy isn't the way to go. If he wanted easy he should have stayed working at McDonalds. (Sorry, I'm harsh, aren't I?) At any rate, he showed up an hour late for the class (it runs 2 1/2 hours), and was bored the whole time, and couldn't wait to leave. I wanted to be like, "if you hate it so much, then leave!" Fortunately I restrained myself. This is what I get for sitting in the corner by the back door. Perhaps next week I'll sit in the other corner....

But yes, I did declare my major yesterday. Basically I just wrote my name, student id number, old and new major (I used to be English) and put my signature on a piece of paper, and then the guy at the desk says, "Okay, now you're a sociology major" and hands me a packet of the classes I need. It was decidedly eerie.

I've decided to make this time's favorite section on wedding colors! I've gone back and forth between pink, sea green, lavender, and periwinkle, but at the moment, it is.....

a deep, shimmery blue if it was during the fall or winter, and light blue for summer. I just love almost all shades of blue. Though I admit the blogger blue bar at the top is not my favorite....

anyway, I have three tests week and in my mind, I feel like I have plenty of time to study! I don't need to start until monday at least.

My life is a mess....isn't it great?

French Toast

2007-01-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

I "helped" make french toast yesterday (meaning I dipped the bread in the egg stuff and flipped it over) and Sarah said I should blog on it, and I said, yes, I'll say I kinda made french toast but not really? And Kevin said that was a good idea, so here it is.

I have a confession: I've never liked french toast. It tends to slam your stomach, like hitting it with a hammer, which is why I usually don't eat breakfast foods in the morning, but this french toast was excellent.

I think it was the butter. Or the cinnamon. I don't really like eggs, though I ate scrambled eggs last night as well. I think I was in a strange food mood, considering I ate all day.

Here's what I ate yesterday:

a salami and cheese sandwich on a cinnamon rasin bagel

a cream soda

a ginger ale

a second salami sandwich

scrambled eggs

french toast

milk

yogurt burst cereal

cinnamon roll

a bowl of soup with two pieces of bread

hot chocolate

You would think that I'd explode after eating all that, and I did feel a bit sick.

Anyway, most of my blogs have been negative, but I am HAPPY.

Why?

I love my classes. I didn't think I would be excited to write surveys and write proposals, but I am. This semester is going to be awesome! Though, I think it will be slightly stressful, but that's okay. Last semester I only had 13 credits and had lots of free time, and it was horrible. I didn't read my textbooks, I didn't really do anything productive, and it wasn't intensely fun. So, that is all going to change this semester.

Above all else, I want to be happy! So, that's my official goal.

My favorite:

Pickles! (This was Jen's idea, not mine.)

The only kind of pickles I actually will eat are sweet pickles. I do not like pickles on hamburgers, sandwiches, salads, hot dogs, or any relish.

I will eat sweet pickles alone, though. They are quite tasty.

I'm not weak: Then Prove it!

2007-01-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year, everyone! I am slightly less out of it, though I still feel sick. Strangely, I seem to be doing worse after starting the antibiotics. Is that a bad sign? As I'm leaving in three days for school, this means that I will have been sick for the ENTIRE BREAK. It kind of sucks, because this is usually when I get to do all my running around and shopping and stuff, but that is the last thing I feel like doing.

Anyway! I am going to list my new year's resolutions, so that maybe I'll actually do them.

1-start up my medication again.

Oh joy. Yes, I can hardly wait.

2-Go to class more often than missing.

I cannot afford to have grades like I did this past semester, so I really need to go. Especially since my classes start at 12 every day, I really have no excuse.

3-Do all my reading assignments.

Unfortuantely I got out of the habit of reading my textbooks in the middle of last semester, and there was so much to read I didn't catch up. If I stay on top of it all this time, I should do better.

Yay for Katie! I am going to rock school this year.

Why the torture?

2007-01-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

I was sick, so I got antibiotics and they cured the infection, but now I'm sick again. WHY????? According to my Grandma, my dad would cough for a month after getting sick, and coughed the first three months my parents were dating. Thanks, Dad. .....I hit enter on this computer (my grandparent's) and nothing happens. I read this article online that people who are happier get sick less, and people who are unhappy get sick more. I ran this theory by my dad (as a possible explanation as to why I got sick when I was already unhappy and stressed and tired) and his response was basically "Don't be an idiot. That isn't why." So thank you dad, for being so compassionate. No, I love my dad. I just can't stand being sick, especially around Christmas. It gets in the way of everything I want to do. Grades are being posted tomorrow. I am gonna die. More later, on a better computer.

Wake me When It's Over

2006-12-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

My brain has gone under meltdown the past three days. It's a wonder that any of the stored information I crammed for finals was retrievable through my fogged head. Needless to say, I've been sick all week. I no longer want to take my throat out with a fork, but it's pretty close.

I'm going home tomorrow, so you'd think there are a million things I could be doing: cleaning, packing, doing laundry, studying for my last final...but unfortunately I can't seem to get the desire to do any of it. All I seem to want to do is read an old favorite in bed with some hot chocolate.

I've seen these things before, where you put your itunes on shuffle and whatever song comes up is supposed to answer your question, but a few actually worked. Others make no sense whatsoever. Here is the list, along with my commentary...

Opening Credits: Two Worlds-Tarzan Movie
I suppose that this song confirms my Dad's joke about one of us girls being adopted.

Waking Up: Jasmin-Yui Makino-Tsubasa Chronicle
A japanese anime song, it is actually very lively, something I would listen to while getting ready in the morning.

First Day At School: Marian the Librarian
I think this song implies that I'm a nerd, but I'm not!

Falling In Love: Save me from myself-Christina Aguilera
I really like this song. It does tend to come off like the person's suicidal, but I think really they are saving them from their own doubt and self-condemnation.

Fight Song: The Beat of My Heart-Hilary Duff
I really like the part where it says "I want you to see I'm not scared to dance." I think this song works!

Breaking Up: Thank You-Simple Plan
Though not too familiar with this particular song, I love Simple Plan, and I interpreted that this "Thank You" was actually quite sarcastic. Perhaps these boys need to listen to some more upbeat music....

Prom: Finale-The Secret Garden
Um...what? Though now that I think of it, our Prom's Theme was "Midsummer Night's Dream" and we had these fake trees so...it's kind of related, right?

Life's OK: Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer
A beautiful instrumental song (it's the accompaniment CD for my vocal class), it invokes peace, which is exactly what is needed when life isn't going so well. It is to the Savior, after all, that we look to for hope.

Mental Breakdown: Yakusoku-Ami, PGSM
One of my Japanese songs, I don't actually know what it's about, but it does not appear to be a breakdown kind of song....

Driving: Iowa Stubborn
I would never sing this song in the car or while driving. Ever.

Flashback: Stand-Rascal Flatts
I suppose you could think of this song when you need inspiration to do something, and you remember a time when you were brave.

Getting Back Together: Nothing Wrong-LDS P&P
Coincidentally, I think this song is played at the end of the movie (It's the reprise) when all the couples are together.

Wedding: Go Away From My Window- Folk Song Book
Uh huh....

Birth of Child: Piano Lesson
This is probably symbolistic of how I will end up with a daughter just as stubborn as me, in payment for how I was with my mother.

Final Battle: Home to Stay-Josh Groban
Oooh! I want to stay home with Josh Groban!

Death Scene: 7/10/02 Benton Paul
I don't really know what this song is about, but...it's sounds nice, so that's good...right?

Funeral Song: Steady as she goes-The Raconteurs
...huh?

End Credits: Wedding Celebration and Bottle Dance, Fiddler on the Roof
Right...I think I have too much weird music that keeps coming up.

Well, that was fun, but I'm rather hungry for dinner. That's probably something I can force myself into.

Sorry, I'm losing my mind

2006-12-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm not in a good mood. Sorry to everyone who's heard me rant today. Cleaning today, finals all week, and my world is a dark haze. Fortunately, we have to look for the good things in life, not dwell on the bad. I recently bought the book "Emma Brown" where 20 pages were written by Charlotte Bronte before she died and the rest finished by someone else. Everyone's life in this book completely sucks, but they learn to make the best of it. Normally those kind of books are a bit of a downer, but this book is really interesting!

My friend Ali makes anime music videos, and I love her new one, so if you by chance like Full Metal Alchemist (and romance), I highly suggest you watch her new video on You Tube.

I really want a cream soda now.

Animal Feet

2006-12-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing. - Randy K. Milholland

This was today's quote on my gmail home page. My english teacher said once that most people think that english majors are anal about grammar, but he said that it wasn't true, that they focused more on the content than the grammar. Though I would like to point out if your grammar is truly terrible, it doesn't sound like you have content whether you do or not. Have you ever read a paper really bad? The written text should flow as easily as speaking (though some people have trouble in that department as well) and when you write badly, you sound like a moron. This may or not be true-it just comes off that way.

I haven't written on blogger in a while...I'm not sure why. I just haven't felt like writing. Do you ever feel like you're on a train and you suddenly realize you're not really sure where the train is going? You don't want to get off and be going nowhere, but you're suddenly not sure you want to end up where the train is going, and you can't find anywhere better to go.

I feel very stagnant right now. If I felt I was working toward something, perhaps I would feel better....

I have a strange desire to go caroling. Anyone want to join me?

I have to keep reminding myself that even if I fail at something I try to do, it's not at the end of the world. I have to remember that life is still okay.

I want people to miss me like I miss them. Is that so bad?

I didn't like this picture at first, but it's growing on me.

I think real love is different than the stories. This is probably a good thing. It feels like it would really work, with a wedding, and a family. Fairy Tales just kind of end after the wedding, where in real life they begin.

What are sheep feet like? are they paws, or hooves, or something else?

Why is researching sheep feet so much more interesting than revising my paper?

One week left. Let's survive....

The First Noel

2006-11-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

Why is it the more work I have to do, the less I feel like doing?

Why is it that sometimes, you can "be working" on a paper for hours and realize you've written maybe a page, and other times you can churn out several pages without even realizing it?

My life is a mess. I feel like I've been asleep all semester and suddenly I've woken up and I want to do well in my classes, want to work hard, but have somehow forgotten how. I think I did really bad on my art history test....oh well. My teacher throws out one of our test grades, so mine will for sure be this one. I looked at the last question and said "huh?" I just made some stuff up on it.

I'm excited for next semester so I can start anew. It is very strange to go from high school where all your classes are a year, to go to college and have everything new each semester, but I rather like it that way.

I also love Christmas. It is my favorite holiday and I love buying people presents and I love shopping and I love decorating. I wish I had put up on our Christmas decorations at home before I left, though, because that's one of my favorite parts of Christmas. That and dancing around to Christmas music. And shopping. And figuring out what to get people for presents, even though they never react like you want them to. You want them to appreciate the time you spent agonizing over what to get them. Seriously, what do you even get grandparents? They are the hardest for me every year and I still have no clue what to buy them.

I don't think I've given my coat rant yet, so here it is. Both my coats are red because winter is dark and dreary and depressing, and red brightens it up! Yeah....which is weird, because almost all of my clothes are neutral colors or blue....

Today's favorite section is........my favorite class!

My favorite class this semester is Human Development. I am so intrigued class after class, and it hasn't gone away. Today my teacher showed a clip of the Today show with Katie Couric, talking about preschool "mean girls" (It was when the movie came out) and there is my teacher, sitting on the couch talking to Katie Couric in the video! I was so shocked, I nearly fell over. It was the coolest thing ever.

Beautiful Girl

2006-11-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

I don't really know why I'm writing a blog at 12:30 at night when I'm dead tired, but I'm feeling it, so I'm writing it. Normally I'm not tired this late, but I've been getting up early all week to run around and do things. Actually, twice I've had to get ready in 40 minutes after being woken up and told we're meeting someone at a certain time. I hate being rushed in getting ready. In an ideal world, I would love to take like 3 hours getting ready, but even if I have that much time, I don't use it to get ready anyway, so it doesn't matter.

My favorite movie ever, Singing in the Rain, is on TV, so we're watching it. I just adore this movie. Yes, there are some scenes that are really long and boring, but many parts of it I just love. When I was really little I wanted to marry Gene Kelly. I'm not sure if he was dead at the time or not.

Even though we're doing a ton of running around and shopping, I'm actually quite relaxed. I'm a little sad to back to school because I will have to face the world and papers and tests and everything I'm not ready for, though I am excited to see my friends and enjoy all the things I love about going to school. Even if I don't have near enough energy to do it all and will get no sleep when I go back for a few days.

There are so many things I wanted to do this week that I just didn't do. I really wanted to work on my scrapbook and buy people's Christmas presents and work on my story, but I ended up watching movies with my family, reading the 5th Harry Potter book, and playing my sister's SIMS2 on our computer. I don't know how I have less time at home then I do at school, but I do.

I think I need my dog at school with me to keep my stress level down.

I think college is one of the most selfish times in a person's life. They have no family with them, no one except their friends and roommates to care about, and they have to make all kinds of decisions about their future. That's not a bad thing, as it is an important stage of life, but sometimes I hate it.

Good night, bowl full of mush

2006-11-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

You know, I tried to not take a nap today so I could be tired and go to bed early, but around 6pm my eyes started closing and I felt physically exhausted and sick. So I laid down for a few minutes (it ended up being an hour but I'm not sure if I fell asleep or not) until my cell phone ringing scared the crap out of me.

My grandmother's dog ate two pounds of chocolate and got sick, but he seems to be okay now.

Am I a terrible person for thinking that people are vindictive sometimes? (Don't answer that..) It's just that sometimes people really don't do things as accidents. Yes, most of the time they are not and I am a highly suspicious person, but sometimes they are. Growing up, if anyone at school said something mean, my mom would always say "They have low self-esteem, so that's why" or "They probably have problems at home" and it used to drive me crazy. All I wanted was a little sympathy for me, not the other person. I wonder if it is because of my mother that I enjoy studying why people act or think a certain way so much. Now I am starting to analyze people's actions just as much as she does. Is it bad that I start using sociological theories to explain my family?

My favorite Christmas movie is "The Muppet Christmas Carol". I watch it all the time when it's around Christmas. My poor roomie's going to hate it before finals start **) he he.....

Aren't colors amazing? Today was so nice looking and the sky so blue that I wanted to twirl around in it and be a part of it, even if all I can see is parking lots and the roads to dance in.

One of the things I really wanted to see when my family moved to Oklahoma City was the art museum, because when I lived in St.Louis a glass sculptor/blower did an amazing glass exhibit at the botanical garden that I just loved, and this artist Chihuly has a large exhibit in the OKC musuem, as I think he lived there or something. The glass was soo cool! There was this glass ceiling in one room that was completely amazing. The art makes you happy like nothing I've ever seen.

Seriously, if anyone can duplicate this kind of art, I'd like to see it.

My favorite...Thanksgiving food!

Well....I'm not a big turkey fan, I hate cranberry sauce, I tried sweet potoatoes for the first time last week and they were okay, and I hate most pies, but I love any and all bread made by my mother, and I love her stuffing.

Today I laid on my bed with my head on the pillow and took like 20 pictures of myself. I was practicing closing my eyes and then opening them when the flash went off so my eyes would be open in the picture, with mixed results. I think I got my headache from that. Good night, everyone.

Is it me?

2006-11-16T00:20:00.000-07:00

I took a bunch of blogger quizzes today-most were stupid, but some I actually found amusing, so here they are.

You Are a Fortune Cookie

You're a rather normal person, except that you have extraordinary luck in life.
People want to be around you (even when they're a little sick of you), in hopes of being lucky too!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

You Are a Red Flower

A red flower tends to represent power, seduction, and desire.
At times, you are loving like a red tulip.
And at other times, you're very enthusiastic, like a bouvardia.
And more than you wish, your passion is a bit overwhelming, like a red rose.

What Color Flower Are You?

You Belong in Barcelona

When it comes to Europe, you don't want to decide between culture and fun. You want art by day and a big party by night.
Barcelona is ideal for you. You can check out some Picasso, eat some tapas, take a siesta, and then dance all night!

What European City Do You Belong In?

You Should Be an Actor

You have a flair for the dramatic, and you probably already do a lot of acting in your day to day life, just to entertain yourself.
No need to steal the spotlight from your friends... You'll get plenty of attention once you start acting professionally!

What Sort of Artist Should You Be?

Your Heart Is Green

Love completes you, but that doesn't mean you seek it out.
When love comes your way, you integrate it peacefully into the rest of you life.

Your flirting style: Laid back

Your lucky first date: Walking around aimlessly and talking

Your dream lover: Is both enthusiastic and calm

What you bring to relationships: Balance

What Color Heart Do You Have?

Any opinions?

$7.51 for a chapstick, anyone?

2006-11-13T16:52:00.000-07:00

I didn't have any cash on me and I only had $18.00 in my Wells Fargo account (as all my real money is in my Bank of America account that apparently does not exist in Utah) and the stupid ATM makes you withdraw at least 20 dollars, so I had to use my debit card in twilight zone to buy some desperately needed chapstick (I'm still not used to being in the desert of Utah weather), which meant I needed to spend a substantial amount of money so I didn't get a dumb fee from Visa for not spending enough. All this meant that I had to wander around twilight zone, trying to find stuff to buy. At least my roommate and I get to try this foreign chocolate I spotted today (it looks german), so that's something at least.

I'm actually in a really good mood today! My roommate Jen and I went to socialize last night after Ward Prayer, and we went to this really awesome guy's apartment that was completely hillarious. I had a great time. I thought I was going to have to do my singing test today in my vocal class, but instead my teacher brought her husband in to do a men's workshop into going into falsetto while us girls watched. I felt bad for them, because they were all like, "I feel dumb-we sound like girls!"

Then I got a postcard from my friend Alex in Paris!!!!! She says she has art history classes in the Louvre every week It sounds amazing. I've love to go to Italy or Paris. I think going anywhere in Italy would be soooo cool. Maybe Alex and I can go to Italy together someday.

I have hardly any food. Or maybe I just don't want what I have. Why is good cooking so much work? I swear I'm going to gain like ten pounds when I go home. Maybe that's a good thing though, since I've been losing weight here.

I used to dislike the song "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls, but my friend Ali put this song to an anime music video, and suddenly I like it. The same thing made me fall in love with Ryan Cabrerra when she put two of his songs into videos. Ali, you need to make more videos. How else will I discover new music?

Okay, today's Favorite section is:

My favorite scent is Cherry Blossom. I decided this is what Sakura from CCS smells like, and I'd like to smell like her. One of my friends asked me how I know what an anime character smells like, but her name means "cherry blossom" in Japanese, so it's like, "Of course that's what she smells like. What kind of question is that???" Besides, I was walking on campus one day and these two random boys I walked past said something smelled like cherries. Do you think I'm going to use something else?

On another note, I've always dreamed of going to the Cherry Blossom festival in Washington D.C. The problem is, you never know when the trees are going to bloom, so you can't exactly plan for a trip like that in advance. If a guy ever took me to the cherry blossom festival, I'd probably marry him. This also applies to a festival in Japan.

Life isn't worth living if I can't be beautiful!!!*

2006-11-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

I wrote a lovely long angry and bitter article for this post but decided it will be much better sitting in the darkness of my computer folder than on this post, and I was going to replace it with an article about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, but it turned out that article about Harry Potter and whats-his-name replaced it in that edition of the Quibbler, so you get this rambling nonsense.

So...yeah. During the summer, I had a long dream about the beginning of my new story, but as I left the first part of it at home on accident and I didn't want my parents going through my files to send it to me, I've been waiting to work on it until Thanksgiving. I really don't even know if I like it anymore. The story seems somewhat fake even to me. I've always liked fantasy novels and stories simply because they weren't real, and they help you forget the real world, but stories that touch you in the real world are great too, because you can't hide forever.

I had a thought today that most people simply aren't that compassionate. I used to think everyone was as a child, but most people tend to have a "get over yourself' kind of attitude that isn't very kind. I'm not saying we should sit around and wait for people to come to us with every little problem, but I think people would be happier if someone was there to say, "You know what? I don't understand what you're going through, but I will still listen and be here for you anyway." Why aren't there more people like that?

As my last post didn't have a favorites section, this one can have two:

The First is movie most seen. This is really dumb but...a longggg time ago in middle school I had never seen any anime movies before, but my friend Ali used to draw Sailor Moon characters in her notebook in class and she'd tell me about it, and I saw the Sailor Moon R (that's the name of the series) movie and I instantly bought it. It was what got me hooked on anime and even though it's really cheesy and stuff, I've probably seen it 30 times, no joke. There was a time when I could quote all of the movie from memory except this one part with a news broadcast. I bet I could still do part of it if I really tried.

The Second is my favorite musical. I love a whole bunch of musicals, but my top three are:

1-Evita (movie though)
2-Wicked
3-Aida

My dad and my sister and I used to sing Evita in the car together, our favorite being "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" even though my dad can't sing at all and normally doesn't like it. You know, when I was younger I used to sing christmas carols in the car with my family, but no one really liked it but me. My parents didn't know most of the words and my sister hated singing wth people. If you sang with her she stopped singing so usually we 'd be singing two different songs at the same time.

*The title is actually a quote from "Howl's Moving Castle" and is completely hillarious. The very vain wizard Howl is upset after Sophie ruins all his hair potions when she cleans the house.

Do the Cocomotion with me!

2006-11-03T11:42:00.000-07:00

My life constantly confuses me.

I feel like I am in a haze, and am slow to respond to everything. Paper is late? big deal. You slept until 11am? That's okay! I think those flannel sheets I bought on sale were a mistake, because now I no longer wish to get out of bed.

Our cable finally works! Amazing what they can do in 2 months time...oh, our amazing technology...so, this was the first episode of the Office that I was actually able to watch on televison. It was quite exciting. For those who aren't aware (or can pretend to want to hear again) Phyllis Smith on the Office is actually related to me! My grandpa and her are cousins. I haven't met her since I was like five, of course, but it's still nice to know. It's weird, because I have no idea what her personality is like in real life, but I have to remind myself that Phyllis on the show is different from the real person. I feel like if I ever met her in person, I'd ask how Bob Vance was.

I was randomly flipping through the channels last night instead of writing my sociology paper, when I came across a debate for the Oklahoma governors on CSPAN! Normally I don't actually follow this kind of thing, but I've actually met the republican canidate, as he's in my ward back home, so I decided to watch. I strongly agreed with Istook (the republican canidate), but then I'm probably biased both since I know him and I tended to agree with the issues he was talking about (P.S. I'm not republican, but I do agree with quite a few of their stances, and I happened to agree on the ones they were talking about). In fact, it gave me an idea for my sociology paper.

I just wrote two paragraphs on tv....my life is sad. I was reading this dilbert comic in the newspaper the other day, and it went as follows....

Dilbert: It's another day of useless and work and no accomplishment. Luckily I have a meaningful personal life.

(Random dog person): Ratbert broke the XBox.

Dilbert: GAAA!!! I HAVE NOTHING!

Unfortunately I have almost no social life, so this felt sadly familar to me.

For my vocal class I had to check this book out of the library called the inner game of tennis. I didn't really think it would be an athletic book, but oh yes it was. I felt so dumb sitting in this section of books about sports, considering I am terrible at any and all sports, except that I did dance when I was younger, but that doesn't really count.

But the book was really good! It talks about how tennis is half mental, and you basically have to stop thinking about how bad or good you are and just play. It was really interesting.

The haze seems to have cleared a bit. Time for another day.

World Series, Baby!

2006-10-19T23:20:00.000-06:00

I am feeling a whole lot of adreneline right now. The Cardinals beat the Mets!!! We are going to the World Series! We are going to the World Series! We are going to the World Series! I could dance! I am so excited!!!!!!

I just love baseball. They actually have to have endurance; with a 162 games, they have to be good all summer long, not just the handful of games you get in football. Baseball is my favorite sport to watch not necessarily because it is better than other sports, but because I have been watching this team my whole life, and I will probably never support any other athletic team as much as this one.

Plus baseball fans are so much cooler in the stands than in any other sport. And baseball fights are awesome.

...Did that sound strange? If you've ever seen one, you know what I mean. They're so rare because basball is hardly a contact sport, but usually someone gets mad and both teams crowd around home plate and it just makes me laugh. I've never seen anyone get hurt from these fights. You might think they are sissies, but personally I think it's smart that they don't ordinarily try to ruin their careers by sustaining injuries.

Anyway...yeah, that still sounds odd. Oh well.

Does anyone ever ask you what you want to do with your life? What if you don't have an answer? I mean, yes, you've got the general plan of a degree, a husband, a family, a job, retirement, blah blah blah....but what if it doesn't work? I mean, who all has a highly detailed plan for their life? and of those who do, when has life ever followed your set plan? My plan would probably be different than what's currently happening, but that's okay, because who's to say I would like how things would turn out if I followed my original plan?

Today's favorite section is on....favorite thing to do. My favorite thing to do is...........

go shopping!

I love going shopping. Whether it is in the mall at my favorite stores, dollar general, wal-mart, or twilight zone in the bookstore. I think I just like picking up things and taking them home with me. I'm such a crazy shopper though. I love clothes and shoes and books and movies, but I'm also a very hesitant buyer. I like to buy compulsively, but I also will debate for a long time over whether to buy something. If you've ever gone clothes shopping with me, you've probably seen me both hesitate over a 5 dollar shirt and also go right over and buy 80 dollars worth of jeans instantly. And you know if you've ever gone shoe shopping with me that I love shoes but will take 5 years to find a shoe I like after looking among millions of shoes. It's so odd. And yet I still love it.

I also love sale bins. I like to root through the bin to buy something, even if there's nothing I want, I'll check several times to make sure there's nothing I want. I almost feel obligated to buy something simply because there is a sale and so I should take advantage of it.

You know, I used to feel very torn between my friends who didn't care about fashion at all and thought I cared wayyy too much about clothes and shoes and matching, and my friends who always wore make-up and straightened their hair and shopped at express and limited when I dressed in jeans all the time. I used to feel like I didn't fit in anyway.

I still don't fit in. Now I just don't care.

Men are a Necessary Evil

2006-10-17T18:33:00.000-06:00

What is it?
The feeling you get when you’re nerves are humming just being around him
A magnetic pull
A feeling of attraction
Where the future is scary
But still, still tempting
A pulse going 40 miles an hour
A heart racing
Waiting for the future
Anticipation
For without this
Where are we going?
What are we moving for?

Yes, not my greatest, I realize, but I just kind of threw it out there a few days ago and dug it out while organizing my files. Poetry is usually the way I express my emotions when I can't describe them any other way.

People think that dogs have emotions that are simple and not like humans, but I've seen quite a few humans with this expression, haven't you?

I LOVE MY DOG! I don't understand how people could prefer cats over dogs. Someone told me once that a dog is stupid and loves everyone, whereas you have to work for a cat's affection, which isn't necessarily a good thing. I think it's great that a dog can love unconditionally. Of course, it's not for nothing the water pressure people call this cute dog "The Grizzly Bear".

For reference to the title of this entry, listen to the song "Necessary Evil" by Benton Paul.

Today's favorite section:

Um...my favorite decoration!

I love picture frames! I have so many at school at the moment that I don't have room for them all! I tried putting some in front of boxes on the shelf in my closet until one fell down and bonked me on my head. I took them out after that.

My teacher said today in class, "I'm going to say a dirty word, so don't listen. MUD." I was dying laughing. The girl sitting next to me actually stopped listening to her cell phone music to look up to see what was so funny.

I love the dashing and the British

2006-10-14T17:05:00.000-06:00

My roommate has informed me that I haven't posted in a while, so I'm going to post now. I finally got my camera cable from my sister, so I'm putting a picture of those pretty flowers that I told you about that got smashed.

Aren't they potentially so pretty??? I was so sad when they were gone. One of the things I miss most about St. Louis is driving down the back roads, looking at all the changing leaves.

I've heard that yellow roses can mean either "friendship" or "love everlasting". That's kind of a wide jump of emotions. What if you thought someone loved you, but they really only wanted friendship? You'd be heartbroken. My favorite flowers are morning glories, white roses and lilacs. I'm really sad that we left our lilac tree in Missouri behind. I think we have a small tree outside Sarah's window in Oklahoma, but I don't remember what kind it is.

Why are flowers so great? I mean, they die, so you don't get to have them very long, but that is probably why they are so precious. I honestly don't care too much about the mountains here because they're the same today, tomorrow, and five years from now. Yes in the winter they have snow on them, but that doesn't really inspire me the way a drive through a sea of orange, red, and yellow does.

Perhaps I should talk about more than flowers....Today's Favorite's section is on...hot chocolate!

I drink hot chocolate almost every day, since I love to watch the whirring of Jen's cocomotion.

My favorite is milk chocolate, but belgian dark chocolate is a close second. I also like cinnamon too. Chocolate Raspberry sounds good too, but I've never had it. I think I'll buy that next.

Happy October!

2006-10-02T16:10:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it is already October. That means that I'm one month into school, my sister's birthday is coming up (Sarah what do you want????) the leaves are changing (for a whole three days in Provo before they fall to the ground...) and the weather is amazing! I love fall. I hate being cold, but I tend to get physically sick if I'm too hot, so fall weather is perfect for me. I love the flowers in spring, but it's still usually too cold for me to enjoy.

Do you have something you should or shouldn't be doing, and everyone knows it? So they'll say, "Did you do it? Did you do it? DID YOU DO IT?" All the time. It could be taking medication (for the last time I am not a drug addict!!!), going to class, asking a boy out, doing homework, or anything. If it's something important, and you keep saying, "no...no....no...." it's completely guilt-tripping. It's like you have failed the ENTIRE WORLD. And you want to be able to do it for yourself, because it's important to you, but now there's all this pressure, and it's completely ruined. When you finally do it, it's like you were doing it to please them instead of you.

On a positive note, I started taking my medicine again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in a state of fleeting joy. I feel like Colin in the Secret Garden when he says, "I'm going to live forever and ever!" (This may not make much sense unless you've read the book. I highly encourage it.) I say fleeting because soon the happiness will wear off and I'll just be irritated that I have to take it, but for now I'm happy.

There are these gorgeous purple flowers right outside the MOA on campus, just one bunch of them. I've been meaning to take a picture of them for awhile, but today I actually brought my camera to take a picture of them, and SOMEONE HAD FLATTENED THEM!!!! I was so sad!!! I took a picture of them to show people, and I will put in on here once my sister returns my camera cable (or, if I have it, I find it buried in my room).

I put a picture of Winry from Full Metal Alchemist on my phone, because she's blonde so she could look like me, plus she's my favorite female anime character of all time. If I would be anyone, I would be her. She is a very strong person who has gone through a lot, but she still has compassion and kindness for others. It's the kind of person I'd like to be. Plus, she's just awesome**)

What do grades in classes matter? I mean really. Yes, I realize they are important for Graduate school and getting a good job and stuff, but other than that, not really. Does it matter when you went to class? Supposedly you're supposed to learn a lot outside of the classroom, in life, which is just as important. So why isn't there are "life" class at school?

Today's Favorite Section is on....um...art...yes, art. I like art!

My favorite painters are Monet and Van Gogh (though I agree that Michelangelo is freaking amazing) and my favorite sculpters are Michelangelo and Bernini. I have no artistic talent at all, so other's work always impresses me.

Hourig sounds like a cow's name....

2006-09-24T00:01:00.000-06:00

Does it ever bother anyone that the question "How are you?" should never be answered honestly? The expected response is "fine" or "good" and then people go on with life. They never actually want to know, and if you do give a whole explanation of why you feel like crying or jumping a plane to australia over something they feel isn't a big deal, they inwardly cringe as they tune you out, thinking, "oh crap, why did even ask?" Very few people actually want to know, and when they do ask, all they get is the customary "fine" and so they assume everything is fine. Gahhh!

I read a really interesting theory on invisible illnesses about spoons. If you actually care (and actually get it) it's on http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com Click on "spoon theory"

I decided today's favorite section is on names! My favorite boy and girl names!

Girl Names:
Emilie (spelled like that)
Julie
Adele
Katoria (pronounced KA TORE AH)
Charlotte

I realized that I really like "pretty" girl names. That was unintentional.

Boy names:
Kyle
Edward
Austin
Ryan

This is off topic, but I had an ancestor with the middle name Lincoln. I suddenly want to have a son with the middle name Lincoln.

Fear

2006-09-17T23:03:00.000-06:00

How do you deal with fear? I'm really stubborn, so if I don't want to do something really bad, I won't do it. I generally try to control my temper around non-family members (Sarah's laughing right now) so it doesn't come off that I get really mad, but I generally throw that out the window if I don't want to do something. If people pressure me, I get really ticked.

When I'm afraid of something, I like to forget about it. I like to pretend it's not a big deal, that it doesn't matter, or it doesn't exist. I like to put things off. Even if I can go now or in ten minutes, I will wait that ten minutes because I don't want to deal with it. When I have no choice, though, I get really upset. I panic and I freak out. This is also a problem because I tend to be afraid of many things. It's kind of my cover. If I'm afraid of things, I don't have to try anything new. I can stay where I am and be completely comfortable.

Of course, no one will let me do this. I have to be brave, I have to be smart, I have to be social. I get dragged along, digging in my heels, but I do it anyway. I don't know if I should be glad or angry.

Today's favorite is my favorite poem that I have written. Or, one of them. I like different things for different reasons. I feel like throwing this out in the open because these feelings for this person have made a complete 180 turn, but I hope to have these feelings for someone else in the future.

I haven’t slept in days, thinking about you
Imagining conversations, feeling hope and despair

I want to talk to you, just know what you think
So desperate that I want the truth, even though I’m scared

You make me laugh and make me smile
I enjoy just being with you

I wish that things weren’t so complicated
That you were just a boy, and I a girl

No politics, no awkwardness, just-being
No “friends-or-not-friends”, no “what will happen next”

I just want there to be no risk, so we could discuss it
Instead of using channels, hoping and dreaming among friends

And yet, I’m scared and afraid to act

Just like him
So I’ll continue to watch him from afar

Goodnight, my lucky star

I swear, if someone steals this poem from me and claims it as their own, I will shave their head in their sleep. Repeatedly (as when it grows back).

Lavender vs. Lilac

2006-09-13T22:20:00.000-06:00

I am free! I am free from German! No more phrases I can't remember or understand, no more awkward conversations I don't understand! I mean, German was fun, but it just wasn't worth taking up so much of my time. There's no point in passing German if I'm going to fail everything else. so....now I have a big gap in my schedule. Theoretically this means that I can get up early and use that extra time to study for my other classes, but I probably won't do so great at that.

I really like my vocal class. I had to sing in front of the class today though, and it was really scary. My hands were shaking as I held the hymnal. I think I did okay, but I think I didn't do as well as I could have were I not so nervous. My brain was kind of frozen. We are learning a song called "Guide me to thee," which is really pretty. It's also kind of hard to learn, but I think it will be fun. Practicing the same song over and over again on your own is kind of hard. It gets repetitive, and you don't feel like singing the same song over and over again. I hope that my singing will improve with this class, but I really don't know.

I really liked President Samuelson's devotional on Tuesday. I'm tired of everyone being like, "the honor code is too strict, this rule is stupid, no, this rule is more important than that rule...blah blah blah....I'm tired of it! He totally set us all straight. It doesn't matter if we think one is more important than another, we signed it, so we shouldn't be dithering. Personally, I think if you think it's too strict then you should go somewhere else...though I admit that I have cut across the grass before and jaywalked, but if I get fined, I have to understand that I broke it, so I can deal with it (or beg money off my parents when I call them crying my eyes out)...anyway, I'm going to do a favorites section in my blog, for my posterity, so they can see what a wacko I am **)

Favorite Shade of Purple:

Now, this brings into question whether purple is a shade, or a group of colors? I mean, there's orchid, and lilac, and lavender, and apparently Oprah had her own crayon color that was a purplish shade....my favorite shade is....lilac! Jen and I have determined that lilac, in comparison to lavender, is slightly lighter and perhaps bluer....I'm not sure. Though my shirt is probably lavender, and it's a really pretty shade. I think it might have some pink in it. I love purple, it's a nice color, with lots of expression in it. I don't really like dark purple as much, but it's still fun. I might have a light purple wedding. It's either going to be light purple, periwinkle, medium pink, or sea green. I know exactly what I want. Right.

2006-09-11T17:29:00.000-06:00

Um...I'm at school. Real exciting, right?

Does it ever bother you when you feel apathetic about something? Like you should care, and you know you should care, but you still don't?

No one does? Oh, good. I was really enjoying my German class for awhile, but now the novelty has worn off and I'm just dreading the class. I feel like I am not picking up the language phrases as quickly as other people in the class, but some of them already know a lot of German, so I just look stupid in comparison.

And....I feel like I should be having more fun than I am. People are like, "let's do this! Let's do that!" and....I don't feel like doing it. I feel like relaxing in my apartment. I realize I shouldn't be a hermit, but a hermit has more fun.

I love walking around campus when it's not too hot. The flowers are so gorgeous right now.

Yay! My other roommates bathroom flooded, so when the matinence man came, he fixed our sink and our broken door too! Woohoo! Hurray!

Here's me, as a spy:

Professor R. J. Lupin

2006-08-17T22:40:00.000-06:00

Have you ever heard someone say, "With practice, it will get easier." Well, I'm here to tell you that this, on occasion, is a flagrant LIE. Not everything gets easier. Sometimes it gets harder.

I was talking with my dad about this, and he agrees. He passes out every time he gets a shot or too freaked out about a hospital. I had a doctor's appointment on monday, which was just a talk-to (though it was still in a hospital) and we were both panicking. It was really funny.

But anyway, he says he passes out still, after years of this happening. He says it is NOT easier, because instead he knows what is coming and so he still panics. I think, for me at least, it is the fear of what you know is coming, and what usually happens, than what is actually going to happen at the moment. The fear gets out of control, and so it becomes harder. The only solution I have is to either avoid it as much as you can (my usual solution) or, keep trying. Even if I fail several times, as long as I never completely give up, it's okay. Even if I can't do it today, I'll do it tomorrow. I know that, which helps with the fear. I take one day at a time, and I keep working at it. Some days are better than others, but the good thing about bad days is that you start over tomorrow, and it will be okay (This unfortunately means that if you have a good day, it means nothing for the next day and you have to start over again, but that's okay too.)

I heard a really cool quote from one of my anime shows, and it said, "Don't look down. If you have something you must do, just look ahead." I really liked it. It was direct and to the point.

So anyway, I met with my doctor earlier this week, and it turns out I lost four pounds. This was in a month. And no, I was not dieting, nor am I anorexic or bulemic, so I was kind of surprised. My doctor was like, "So, you lost some weight. How did that happen?" I wanted to be like, I don't know, you're the doctor, but I figure I should be nice to him since he does treat me. He also informed me that I should be on iron stuff, since my red blood cells are small, which a sign preceeding anemia. I wish, you know, the hospital could have told me this when I got my blood test results back, but no, it's not like they could figure it out. So helpful going to these people when they don't know what they're doing.

Apparently Julie Andrews is coming to do a women's health forum at my hospital in september. This is depressing, as tickets are free and I would have loved to go see her, but I'll be at school then. I'm trying to convince my mom to go instead, as that would be the coolest thing ever.

Only like 8 days until we go to STL, and then it's out to school!!!! It's all exciting.

P.S.-Ali, I'll write you in my subject when we've continued our story. **)

Vanilla Milk

2006-08-13T22:57:00.000-06:00

I feel like this summer has been in a dream-like state. The first part of summer passed by painfully slow, but the past two months have just flown by. At first I was kind of anxious about school, but now I'm really excited to get out to Provo and start my classes and meeting new people and stuff.

Do you ever come to the end of summer and say, "what the heck did I do this summer? No job, no classes.." Well, even though I know no one in the entire state, here is a list of my accomplishments:

*I went from having taken no pills, ever, to taking...well, at least a couple a day, if not as much as I'm supposed to (for those reading, no I am not a drug addict!!!)
*I learned how to make beaded bracelets, which are actually pretty fun if kind of nerdy to do
*I survived my first colonoscopy and my first blood test (which, by the way, my dad can't do-he passes out every time he gets a shot)
*I'm not very artsy, but I finished a large portion of my scrapbook
*-this isn't really an accomplishment, but I bought a whole bunch of stuff for myself, plus a few things for my apartment, which was a lot of fun
*I started a brand new story I'm writing, which is a stand-alone story, not connected to someone else's book at all, a first for me

And...well, that's not a great list, but it's something. I'm planning to accomplish a lot more at school-I say plan, b/c most likely I'm not going to want to study all the time at school, I'm going to want to drink hot chocolate with Jen and listen to music on itunes and watch movies. At least school gives you something to balance against wasting a lot of time.

And my main goal for this semester is to figure out what my major is going to be-or at least figure out what it is not going to be. I may have a minor, but the majors I'm looking at require statistics, and I really would like to avoid math at the moment, as I hated everything past Algebra II, including statistics.

Is a hammock really that comfortable?

By the way, my mom said, "Why do people scrapbook? The glue and tape are just going to separate from the paper anyway in the long run, and it will fall apart." Is this going to happen soon? I mean, I don't really care if it's like decades from now when I'm dead and stuff, but I'd prefer it to not happen soon. That would be depressing.

Pirate M&M's

2006-08-08T21:52:00.001-06:00

My sister said something today that echoes my thoughts recently: "I really have to get more sleep at night. It's just hard when you have so much on your mind."

I realized lately that I am hardly ever not thinking. I don't mean that in a snobby, I'm better and smarter way, because I'm usually thinking about stupid stuff, but I rarely am not thinking about something. When I lay down at night, my mind is always racing with things that happened that day, or things I'm thinking about, or even flashbacks of upsetting moments in my life pop up occasionally. Is there a way to put your brain on autopilot? I think that's why I have trouble relaxing. I started getting chest pains last week, and I think it's because I've been really stressed. I need to just calm down and take one day at a time, but I'm very melodramatic, so I tend to make a bigger deal out of everything than it really is. Sometimes it helps if I breathe deeply and drink water, though. Sometimes music helps, too.

Has anyone ever tried counting sheep? Does that really help? I don't think it would, because then you would be counting sheep instead of trying to fall asleep.

You know, I really should be attempting to sleep right now instead of typing this, but my sleep schedule's all off, so I'm not even tired yet. That's going to be a problem at school. Or maybe not. I went to bed late at school too, though not quite as late, if I wanted to attend at least some of my classes that day.

I'm so excited about school starting again! It starts in a month. I'm actually looking forward to my classes, and they are actually classes I want to take-though that could be because it's my first semester with no science classes. I'm taking a vocal class too-this makes me nervous because I'm kind of shy, but I'm going to have to sing in front of the class and stuff, so I'll have to get over it. My voice isn't horrid, but people at college are usually really good, so that's a lot of pressure. I imagine I'll enjoy it once I get used to it.

My mom bought a package of Pirate M&M's, since I like Pirates of the Caribbean so much. They were very exciting to eat. There was a picture of Jack on the wrapper.

Bitter is still a flavor

2006-08-07T18:35:00.000-06:00

My parents and I were talking about my latest appointment for the doctor, and I thought it was the 14th, my mom thought it was today, and my dad didn't have a clue, so both parents called the office, which was pretty funny. It turns out I was right, so I was happy for a little while, but then my symptoms started getting worse. My "condition" is kind of scary, since it is still kind of new to me, so I started to panic. I called the doctor, but he just said to keep an eye on it, and to call again if it got worse. I'm feeling better now, but I don't like my body doing things without telling me, so I panicked.

Not much is new in my life, other than that. I haven't done much this whole summer-I've been "concentrating on my health". So I didn't take any classes, didn't get a job-all I do is tour my extended family around the city, make jewelry, and scrapbook. And take pills. Every waking moment of my life is consumed by my medicine. I hate it. I hate things being out of my control, too.

I had a dream last night that I became a country/christian singer person and I did pretty well, but I had a stage name and people weren't too familiar with my real identity. I told one of my best friends, Ali, but I didn't tell my other high school friends because I didn't know how they'd react. For Christmas, though, my friend Julie (name has been changed) gave me my own CD as a present, because she thought I would like it. I struggled not to laugh (in the dream, of course) and my friend Ali did too, because she had got me my own merchandise as a joke.

It was quite an amusing dream, but I wonder if it has underlying meaning. My mom likes to analyze my dreams, but we don't really have an answer for this one. Another time I had a dream where I wrote a novel about this crazy love-triangle thing that happened with a group of friends, and my friend was like, "did you read this book? It sounds like what happened to us! (It was julie) and I was like, "really? what a coincidence!

It's not like I keep a ton of secrets from my friends or something, but I think that some things that happen in my life people simply wouldn't care about, so I don't tell them. Fortunately, most things I tell a lot of people, so it's not a big deal. Anyone who doesn't know me very well thinks I'm kind of quiet and shy-anyone else thinks I can't stop talking.

For family night, my dad is buying these 99 cent caramel banana splits from Sonic. They have them on the commercials all the time and I've been wanting to try one for forever. My sister is coming home from a summer at college in two weeks, and I'm kind of excited because I'll at least have someone to hang out with for a week.

I hope everyone has a good week!

2006-08-06T21:58:00.000-06:00

I recently heard the song "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt, and I love it. The music is so pretty. I was reading through the lyrics, though, and they don't make sense.

He says that he sees a beautiful girl on the subway, but she's with another guy. He says that's okay, because he has a plan.

Unfortunately, the rest of the song just says "you're beautiful-I'll never be with you"....blah blah blah....where did his plan go? Was his plan to just give up????? I don't get it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If someone has the answer, that would be great! *Warning-there is a clean and an unclean version of this song. The unclean version lyris have a very bad word in them. You are officially warned.

Onto a lighter note, After two months of letting my scrapbooking stuff sit around in my room, I've started working on it with a feverish energy, desperate to get it finished before I go out to school, so I don't have to lug all my stuff with me. I think it looks pretty good so far. Unfortunately, I'm only a bit past halloween, so I don't know if I'll be done in a month (it sounds easy to do, but I'm a slacker, so lots of slacking time must be figured in.) I really like doing it, but I think for the rest of college I'm just going to do photo albums, because they are sooo much easier.

The other day my dad and I were in the car, and this song comes on, and I swear it sounded like the band was saying, "mow the lawn, mow the lawn" but when I asked my dad if that was what they were saying he gave me a strange look. It's the "Move Along" song by all-american rejects (if you were wondering, they are actually saying "move along" not "mow the lawn"). If you hear it, though, say the words "mow the lawn" while it is playing, and it fits!

I would like to say I have more of a life than this, but no, not really.