Adjusted back already?!? You decide...

Good afternoon! And Happy Sunday!!!
This has been an absolutely fantastic week so far. Getting back into the swing of school has been a great experience. I have a lot of study time built into my schedule in between classes during the day. I spend 2 or 3 hours a day in the library going through all my anatomy for the most part. I find it to be one of the most fascinating subjects ever! I could spend all day going through all the different parts of the body and what they do and I would be ecstatic. The other classes I spend a small amount of time studying for are PD bio and statistics. Neither of those seem hard though. Statistics is all common sense and Mr. Higbee covered way above and beyond the depth of the honors biology class that I am registered in currently. Having Lora in the same class as me is also a ton of fun. I am going to try my hardest to make sure that I can get the higher grade on every possible quiz, test, or assignment. It is on! I have found people in almost every class now that I know which makes life so much better. Also, getting to know the ward members better here at Liberty Square, lots of really fun and amazing people. Everything is just fantastic.

Lots of random adventures this week as well. The highlight would have to be the dance/paint fight I went to last night. Courtenay, Lauren, and Will went with me. We met up with Will's old roommate and friend there as well. Also, one of the ticket sellers was Sister Maudsley from the first area of my mission. Talk about crazy coincidence. That was fun. It was a clubbing kind of experience for the three hours of dance time at the beginning. All bass and electronic mixes of popular songs. Some turned out pretty good, others not so much. It was fun to dance in our own little circle though. Then we got squirt guns filled with neon paint and got to squirt it at each other. We all ended up covered! Courtenay got me really good in the ear. I have gone through about 7 Q-tips so far trying to get all the paint cleaned out. It was the most epic adventure I have had in a long time. This week we also started to use our Pass of all Passes. Right now, only Kelly Ann, Jared, Will, and I have them. We went up to the Tralfaga up in Lehi and played some blacklight minigolf and road one of those bouncy up-and-down drop rides. We will have to play lasertag/rock climb and other things another day. Not a bad deal for $30 and good for the whole year plus soon can go iceskating, skiing, and so much more. And guess what happened in minigolf? I got a hole-in-one on my first hole. All the way up the wall and around the corner and made it in!!! After that, my game might have been not that good. But I started out on fire :) Oh, confession of the week. I loved watching the movie version of Sense and Sensibility (I would have that italicized but my computer was freaking out and wouldn't agree to it). It was, without a doubt, the funniest movie I have seen since I came back home from my mission. Courtenay is going to make sure I now get to see all the rest of the movie versions of the classic Jane Austen books. She says that they are all that great. Who knew what I was missing out on this whole time? Also, we have the projector all set up now with nice speakers and everything. We had a movie night to honor the newly returned missionaries in my apartment. We watched Megamind and it was a riot. Much more funny watching with a lot of people and being in a really humorous mood (not having just tore ligaments in my ankle like last time).

So all-in-all a very busy and productive week. I get a lot of study hours and a lot of fun hours. Most the time, staying off my knee which is superb. I can't wait to be able to start playing sports eventually though or at least hiking or something. I am studying hard though. No worries about that, I am not reliving freshman year or anything and I am sleeping a lot more. Or at least lying in bed for more hours relaxing. I did manage to already catch a cold. My voice is much deeper than normal and I have a cough/runny nose. It hasn't slowed me down much yet though. I hope it goes away soon. My knee is doing ok, as long as I stay off it as much as possible. I also need to always sit somewhere in class where I can stretch my leg out because if I bend it that long, it doesn't support me after class is over. I am learning my limits and trying to stretch as much as I can each and everyday. My knee continues to get better and better. It just isn't fully there yet. My ankle has not given me anymore problems. Thank goodness, God has blessed me to only have one injury at a time. Which is all I can take I think. I can't think of much else to report on right now. I am loving life and everything about it. I really do miss my family is the only downside. They are amazing, the best anyone could ever dream of. Also, Mesa friends are missed, but these next few months will fly by and I will be home before you know it. Things will be and are great!!! I hope everyone else is happy and doing well!

Picture of the week:

The Return

Dang. So I just had something pretty amazing written and now it all disappeared. Even after hitting the save button and everything. Now I get to start over, yay! NOT. Oh well. Here goes...

I know I haven't written on this blog for a very long time, too long. I guess in my mind it will always only be the blog that I use when I am a student up at BYU. It is my chance to release each and every week and to keep a good record of everything that has been going on. I definitely fail at keeping a journal so this is the one chance that I got to record things or to help myself remember them. I don't know if anyone will ever look at these again or not, but at least it is worth it for my own personal sanity.

That being said I should start posting something worthwhile. I absolutely loved every minute of my mission. As you can hopefully tell by the other blog that was created by my family while I was out in the field. I would never have given those two years for anything else. Ever. The amazing people that I met and worked with both member and nonmember, active and not so much are now such great friends. The most important friend that I truly made though was my Savior, Jesus Christ. I got home from my mission in October and since then my life has been a whirlwind. Time decided to switch into mega warp speed (not just even warp speed, but mega) and I can't seem to catch up with any of it. I was truly blessed at my homecoming to have such great friends that came down from BYU to see me and hear me give it. Unfortunately, I proved to be the same old me. I tore ligaments in my ankle while playing ultimate frisbee and ended up having to wear a big black boot for about a month and a half. I never would have went in to have it checked out though if my mother had not insisted. I would have kept living life like normal with just more pain and problems. Three days after getting that boot off, I managed to do my knee in while playing Just Dance. How dumb is that? Another very me thing to do each and every time. Anyway, life is good. I had a great Christmas with my family and an amazing job to boot. I hung out with lots of friends and had a lot of fun and got a lot of things done. Then Lora and I drove up here. Oh, I almost forgot. Of course I hit up all the amazing Mesa restaurants that are nowhere else like Tia Rosa's, Crackers and Co., Oregano's, and Floridino's. So good! But not as good as Mom's cooking, I missed that so much for two years and I am already missing it again!!!


So far I have loved being back at BYU. Overwhelming? Yes! Stressed? Yes! Exhausted? Yes! But loving it. I miss my family though, I really love them so much. They are the most important thing to me in this world and I will forever more cherish the time I get to spend with them during breaks or vacations or whatever else happens. I will never take that for granted again. I have been blessed to have some pretty amazing roommates. My room roommate is probably the best ever! He is the son of a mission president who is serving in Texas and just got back from his own mission about three weeks ago from Georgia. He is the most outgoing person I have ever met. He talks to everyone and never stops serving other people. I am going to be learning a lot from him about the kind of person that I want to become and that I really need to be. He is one of the most Christlike people that I have ever met. Collin is another roommate, he is the only one that is still living here from last semester. He is way into music and is very intelligent. He likes snowboarding and graduated early from high school. He seems way chill and he likes to have fun. Clay finishes out the apartment. He is a major Lakers fan (but he can be forgiven for that) and likes to have fun as well. It is turning out to be a much better combination that I was hoping for having completely random roommates. Interesting fact: I am the only non-Californian in the room. They all actually know all the same suburbs and stuff, so that's cool. Collin and I got the projector and speakers set up already so that will be super fun. We will have to find excuses to use them and to invite lots of people over to have fun with them. We also have a very large assortment of board and card games to play. Also, a very huge fake Christmas tree with colored lights and pinecones. The tree belongs to someone who actually moved out of here but doesn't have anywhere to put it yet, but we will definitely keep it for the time being. It adds a certain cool element to our apartment. We finally cleaned out the nasty fridge as well and everything feels so clean and good now. Much better. Lora and her roommates are way fun. So are all the friends that I still have from Mesa that are up here or those from freshman year. We have already had a plethora of game nights (from Quelf to He said, she said), birthday parties, decorating someone's car, a DI trip, studying, classes, grocery trips, a snow fight and so much more. Life is good that way. And fun. Tonight was my first dessert night, it wasn't bad. But I felt out of my element, too many people going too crazy. I can do good with small groups, not humongous ones. Oh well, I will keep working on it and see what happens. I am so tired so I think I will turn in for today and leave this as my first post. Hopefully next week, I can start taking pictures, getting quotes and all those other good stuff!

The end and the beginning

So it has been another few weeks since my last post, but trust me when I say life has been busy and finding anytime to be alone to write up here and sort through my thoughts about stuff is quite the impossible task. Seriously, being alone has never been so hard to come by. I guess that's what happens when you have such great, crazy, amazing friends. They make sure to fill up your time and then school fills in the other hours and then just barely enough sleeping and eating to get by on fills up the rest. Never a dull moment these past few weeks. There was so much we did, it was quite ridiculous. I guess I should start off with the Six Flags Magic Mountain trip since it was probably the most monumental by far. It has actually been on the planning process since sometime in the beginning of January when Will and I decided that we really wanted to go to Magic Mountain just for the fun of it. He had never been and I just happen to be a die hard roller coaster fan. So it went through numerous phases of being planned and unplanned (including at one point either hang gliding there or somehow getting an RV to drive there) before the details were finally hammered out, the tickets bought, the people picked to go, and so on and so forth. In the end the group that ended up going was Sherrie, Courtney, Regan, Will, and me. And I don't think a better group could have been picked to go. We all somehow match up with each other perfectly - balancing out each other's insanities and craziness, introvertness and extrovertness, and so on. Plus we ended up being seriously one of the closest groups of friends I have ever been in. My really, really close friends back home in Mesa is the only one that could probably really top it. Anyway, it was a blast. One of the best ideas of the whole semester and one of the best and most fun activies of my life so far. I even found who I want to room with after my mission is over - Will Casper. Granted, he has been wanting to room with me ever since the beginning of Marchish, but I was never really sure if I wanted to back. There are so many people from Mesa to choose from, or the roommates I have now, but in the end after this trip I can finally say I am pretty sure he is the best option for a roommate for me. The only problem is that he happens to be a major slacker, but you couldn't find a more loyal, caring friend in the world. And there are very few who understand me and read me as well as he does. Call it a rare talent. I also found out this trip that my love life could very well just be the lamest such story in history. I am such a coward is what I learned. I liked both girls that went with us earlier this semester (much earlier) but had always been afraid to act on it because of my bad luck and experiences with such things in the past. However as we talked and talked waiting in lines or on the long drive home, I learned that they had both liked me when I had liked them (and I had liked them at different times, just clarifying - I am not a player). All it would have taken is for me to have told one of them that I liked them in January or February and this semester would have turned out a million times differently. But oh well, everything happens for a reason as well I figured out. One, I would not have become good friends with Will at all if that had happened, not even close or Regan for that matter. Two, I would have blown through a lot more money and got a lot lower grades which I can't really afford either so in the end it all works out for the better I guess. Just kind of funny the things you learn about the choices you made in the past and how much differently life could have been. Another interesting event that happened with in the past week was that Jared decided to have a yearbook party. He made the yearbooks and the food to go with them. But for some reason, I always end up being the one to invite all the people and planning out all the activies at the party. No one else ever steps up to the plate so if I don't do it, parties end up, well, lame. Regardless, this one was a brilliant idea. It allowed everyone to be able to say goodbye to each other and for us to take a very long trip down memory lane of all the crazy stories and events that have gone on for our freshman year at BYU. I also got voted quite a fair few of those personality awards. I managed to snag most outgoing, best at throwing/planning parties, one with the craziest late night plans, most likely to win a Darwin award, most likely to make Aaron a sandwich, and best at cutting hair (don't even ask). So maybe the last three are not the most enviable titles I found out a lot about how people actually perceive me because I honestly have no idea. I still am caught up from things that happened years ago in junior high and the beginning of high school when all I was thought of was extremely shy, a bookworm, and rather plump. The bookworm I don't mind, but the other images I have been constantly working on since about the beginning of my junior year in high school to change. And I guess change they have. I get called a "stick" now about my weight and got voted most outgoing. Boy have I have changed. But Im not always the biggest party animal, in my more personal messages I got a lot of comments from people about how nice I was, or how I was a great listener, or I am "the most amazing friend ever" (thanks Will). It just really made my day to know that people actually care about me and think highly of me because a lot of the time I really can't see how they do or why they would. It was the self-esteem boost I really needed going into finals and the end of my freshman year. Also, this week I went on probably the most random, crazy date I have been on ever. I took Courtney, Will took Sherrie, Tayler took Regan, and Jared took Amanda and it was a blast. We started off by thrifting for the most outrageous outfit we could find for each other. Mine ended up being a Jamaican dude/druggie thing complete with Aladdin green pants and I ended up getting Courtney in a baseball uniform. Then we went and ate at Red Robin and ended off the night by sitting around talking by a bonfire at the Central Building of our aparment complex. The stares we got and the laughter we got made the entire thing worth it. It was just a blast and and a great closer to all the best friends I have made here at BYU because that is probably the last time we will hang out in a group again. I plan on writing each of them and note and delivering it individually but altogether, last night was it. It was the end. And I am crazy sad to see it go. I really do want to go home, but I really don't want to lose all my friends and the atmosphere that is BYU. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else. So much fun, but always clean at the same time. Lots of work, but so many people to help you out. It just rocks and I am going to miss it terribly because it will never be the same again. When we all get back from our missions, I will room with Will and that will be awesome. But most of the girls will probably be married or engaged. Most of the guys I probably will only catch glimpses of between classes or something. It just won't be the same. Maybe it will be even better, butI doubt it. This year would be such a hard thing to top as far as college experience goes. Not going to lie. It is just hard to watch it go and it is a heck of a whole lot harder to say the goodbyes than I thought it would be. Anyway, finals and classes are going pretty sweet here at the end. I managed to score all A's so far on my finals with the exception of a mega retarded biology one but even that was still a B. I have one final left to go tomorrow and then a crazy amount of packing and cleaning to do. Also, finding time to write all those invidual thank you/friend notes is going to take awhile but I really need to do it. I just have the strongest feeling that I do. So here is some pics of my last days as a freshman, enjoy! This is a pic of Whitney and I when we all went out to breakfast before finals

This is Courtney and I on our date night!
This is everyone who went on our amazing group date!

This is all the guys that went.

Freshman year has started to wind to a close....and I am not quite ready to consider saying goodbye to everyone...

So, it has been a long time since my last post. A very long time. But I suddenly let life get busy this month and then all of sudden you just run out of time to spend an hour or two writing up here and organizing all the pictures you took during the week and such. Anyway, I have been having way too much fun lately complete with studying crazy hard complete with trying to do my best in everything that I do. Which means sleep has been lagging behind a little bit lately and I probably haven't been eating as healthy as I should or really want to. This past week has held a lot in and of itself and I think I will start writing about that first. Last Sunday, the Draper temple dedication took place and they broadcasted it to the Marriot Center for all to see. It was an amazing spiritual occurrence and definitely worth the hype that the bishopbric has been putting into it all semester. I have been to temple dedications before, but I was too young to really concentrate and understand everything and get all I needed to out of it. This one I finally listened and got everything out of it that I should have which makes for a much better and more uplifting experience. After that we went over to Will's sister's house to play games and just enjoy some Sunday R and R. She and her husband were really nice and they have a two year old son named Max who is pretty much the bomb. We played Rage! (which is a card game kind of like Rook or Oh heck! or whatever else you want to call it) and some Catchphrase. It was a lot of fun and totally worth it, although we did miss ward prayer and tunnel singing and the like which was kind of depressing but sometimes it is just nice to get away for a while from the BYU campus and forget about the stress and hyperactivity of college for a while. I usually need a few hours of this at least once a week and since I had been unable to go to Uncle Karsten's and Aunt Julie's the week before, I was sorely needing a breather. And Will's family was gracious enought to provide one and make my day and my week that much better and easier for me. Monday was back to school as it always is after the weekend and I got through school all day and then ended up playing around with Sherrie and Regan for a few hours watching Youtube videos and getting some homework done. I saw by far the trippiest video on Youtube ever, it is the music video for "Lollipop" by Mika and only watch it if you either want an epileptic seizure to occur or you want to kill a few brain cells trying way too hard to understand anything they managed to stuff into that movie. I also managed to go run get a book approved for history during that time which is due in about a week and a half along with a 3 to 4 page paper about it. I picked a book entitled "The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern Mind" which so far has turned out to be one of the most fascinating reads yet. I always knew Alexandria was an interesting city and far ahead of its time on philosphoy and invention and such but I had no clue how truly far ahead it was. It was like the ultimate gathering place for all the smarties during that time period and all they did was study every possible subject know to man at that time. How cool would that be? Your only job is to keep learning your whole life through as much as you possibly can by studying the world around you and reading what has already been written about it. There was no specializaiton, everyone studied some of everything and managed to get quite good at it. That would be like my dream come true if such a thing were possible today. To just keep learning new things all the time throughout your life and somehow make a living doing it and just enjoying the countless hours of time to read, write, and experiment. But the modern world is too fast paced to have such indulgences, way too fast. You need to pick a major, study it for four years, then decide if you need to study it even further in grad school and once you finally graduate with the degree you want, work in that field for forty or fifty years and then finally retire and travel the world or go on missions or whatever until you eventually end up dying and hitting the next life and doing whatever it is exactly we end up doing there. Its not a bad formula, but I just wish sometimes that we got to the opportunity to learn more while in this life. The opportunity to explore more of the realm of human thought and knowledge. But I guess that is what the eternities are for: getting to know everything we missed out on during this life and truly knowing everything. Be that as it may, I found a new subject that I absolutely find truly fascinating and that is geology. Just throwing it out there if no one reading this has really studied it at all yet, but the Lord truly created an amazing world for us to live in with much more complexities than we can really ever comprehend until the next life. Anyway, getting back to Monday. Sherrie, Will, Regan, and I ended up going to the Nickelcade to see what it is all about. It was awesome! There is a $2.25 entrance fee and then all the games cost anywhere between 5 cents to 25 cents, nothing over that. Cheapest arcade I have ever been too and one of the most fun. We played skeeball, DDR, Gauntlet, car racing, motorcycle racing, Bubble Bobble, air hockey, all the classic ticket earning games, some shooting games, an 18-wheeler racing game, an ATV game, and countless others for a few hours. The greatest find though was a new take on DDR that involves using your hands instead of your feet. You have an upper left, upper right, lower right, lower left sensor that you have to run your hand under when the game tells you to do so in a DDR style format. It takes a couple run throughs to get used to, but after that the game is pure fun and dancing mayhem. Pefect for a group of college freshman just wanting to have some fun. It was amazing. Tuesday was another great day after I managed to get all my homework and classes out of the way. I played some racquetball for the first time in ages and greatly enjoyed it. The only issue was that I got pegged hard in the eye during the beginning of the first game that I was playing against Will and let's just say it hurt really bad and managed to get my eye to swell up for the next couple days. Be that as it may, I still managed to have a blast and play really the best I could missing all my depth perception from not being able to see out of one eye. After the end of the game, some of us headed over to the movie theater to go see "Knowing" which starts Nicholas Cage. It was an end of the world flick about the destruction of the world and those who try their best to survive it. It was an awesome movie until about the last twenty minutes and then it quickly transformed into the most stupid movie ever made. So if you want to see it, go ahead. But ditch the last twenty minutes and just create your own end to the movie or you will hate yourself for spending the money to go see it. Wednesday was another good day with the excpetion that I somehow managed to lose my temple recommend and so could not keep up my weekly temple trips that I had becomse so accustomed to. It was kind of heart breaking. I had been looking forward to going all the week leading up to it, like always and then at the last second I managed to discover that I had no idea where my temple recommend was. And no idea where to start looking to find it. That provided a kind of depressing crusher for the day, a really big one. But I am planning on getting a new recommend today after ward prayer in order to attend the temple this week. Wednesday night I also managed to play some more racquetball and enjoyed it yet again. Except that Greg played this time, and he creams me completely. I really need to practice more and get better at it because Will and I lost to him, not terribly but bad enough. Wednesday was also Psych night which is always a welcome night during the week just in order to laugh my head off for an hour and a half. We managed to get the whole first season finished recently and now just need to have a marathon in order to watch the second before the end of the semester. Thursday was finally a chance to do laundry again day. And do laundry I did. At least 5 or so loads of it at Uncle Karsten's and Aunt Julie's. And it was nice to finally get another break and get some homework done and play with Bryn and Brooke. I taught Bryn how to play war and memory with her deck of Disney princess cards. Also, I watched some "Sleeping Beauty" with her and worked on some homework with her. I love playing with Bryn and Brooke. Brooke and I just played with the random assortment of toys they have over there and ended up getting into a tickling war which was sweet. Im going to miss seeing all of them every week when I go home soon. I am looking forward to seeing my immediate family a lot, but I am going to miss the family I got to finally get to know really well during my time up here at college. Just saying. That night I also managed to stay up way too late going to Walmart or Wendy's like seems to happen randomly now. The stuff that happens when you have a car and your friends and you want to have an adventure at midnight. Good thing I decided to not have 8:00 classes this semester, it really paid off considering the fact that I sleep till 8:30ish every morning. And even then I probably should sleep more, but I usually wake up then and start getting ready for the day to start, which happens at 10 each day with my first class. When I go back home, it will be hard to adjust back to going to bed much earlier and, the getting up I can do. Its the getting tired at a decent time that is so difficult. But if I work really hard everyday, I should be exhausted enough to get enough sleep to get through the summer. Friday was finally the weekend again, which is something always looked forward to and appreciated especially since this is going to be the last normal weekend of my entire freshman experience. Kind of sad to see it go to tell the truth. Friday night we finally managed to squeeze in some Quelf for the last time. We had quite a big group of people playing and an even larger group wathching. Funny how that works out that people enjoy watching others be humiliated so much, but I thinks it's all great fun. I met Will's younger brother Michael that night and he is a pretty cool kid (and he's 17). We also ended up hitting Walmart that night and then taking a mini tour of northern Provo to enjoy the view that if offered by the mountain roads. Saturday I spend doing homeowork all morning and early afternoon which was a needed push in order to get all the stuff read I needed to for history. I also managed to start liking a new TV show called House. But it's a lot more full of adult content then I really like so I might stop watching it. I just wish they would make TV shows clean these days, because they are founded on great ideas but then they throw in so much unneeded stuff that it ruins the entire thing. Saturday afternoon, we headed to Holi of the Festival of Colors in order to celebrate the arrival of Spring in the Indian tradition by throwing color chalk up into the air at everyone possible. We got there too late to actually by any colored chalk but still managed to get covered in it from the explosion of it from everyone else. It was sweet. There was about thirty seconds to a minute where it was almost impossible to breathe because of all the chalk that was in the air and when it was all said and done, I ended up covered in almost every color imaginable. After that, we headed to Iceberg to enjoy some dinner and food while still all colorful and see the kind of looks we would get from people. And we did get plenty of interesting looks. After that we ran home and showered to get all of the color off. I manged to cover the entire shower in purple from my hair and it took about 5 minutes of spraying water everywhere to get it all to go down the drain. We went to the hot springs later that night and I didn't find them that amazing, but oh well. We also watched an edited "Galdiator" which everyone kept telling me was one of the greatest movies ever made, but I didn't find it that great at all. It was a good movie with good ideas, but it would have been much more effective to read that story in a book than watch it on a screen. That brings us to today, Sunday where I have work soon so this is the end of this post.

Thought of the week: "I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things."
---Alan Coren

Song of the week: "Six Songs Collide" by Norwegian Recycling. The perfect mix of songs that I love to death - it has "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz, "Superman" by Five for Fighting, "Here Without You" by Three Doors Down, and three other amazing songs. I got it on a CD from Will, and he is letting me keep it because it is just that amazing :)

Pictures of the week:

These last two weeks have been eventful to say the least. There were tests, trips, games, movies, friends, family, competitions, and the list goes on and on and on. First, I had to survive through a midterm in social recreation, biology, geology, and history. More than eventful to say the least and a lot of hours of reading and reciting and studying and applying and it just never seemed to end. Somehow, I managed to make it through it all getting all A-'s or B+'s. So not too shabby at all. After I managed to survive through all that I was ready to party and relax all this week or so I thought. There was still more than enough work to keep me busy and running around. Reading t-keep up with all my classes has kept me very busy. Especially history reading - reading from the textbook and then reading the entire Iliad has kept me going. Its very hard to keep up sometimes, just finding time to focus and read and understand. Then there is always geology reading and quiz and biology reading and quiz. Then throwing together stuff for the social recreation class. Like this week we threw a pirate party on Monday for an assignment and then provided twenty minutes of entertainment on Tuesday with a Goldilocks and Three Bears skit, a mind reading trick, and the Virginia skit that all the girls knew from girls camp. I had to look up and find a preopener for this next week and get it all planned out so we will see how that goes tomorrow night. I also had a concert during these crazy two weeks and it went rather magnificently. It was the most hilarious concert I have ever participated in. The band ended up rebelling against the conductor and they had a nerf gun war and then shattered a violin that was falling aprart on stage in front of everyone. It was amazing. There is nothing quite like trying to play the Romanze by Mozart while attempting to dodge incoming nerf bullets. This weekend was my escape weekend. I got the chance to get away from it all and took it. I went to Idaho Falls, Idaho with Will Casper and hung out with my awesome grandparents. We took the bus up on Friday night and got there around 10 at night. Saturday we went snowmobiling up by Island Park and it was truly gorgeous and lovely. Plus snowy, very snowy. Snowmobiles are much better than quads on the smoothness factor, not going to lie. Also, it was much easier to control and automatic which was a nice addition compared to my quading experiences. Grandpa also caught me up to speed on everything family history there was to learn in Idaho and it was fascinating. I also went up to pick up a red Saturn Vue, which I find to be a simply astounding vehicle. It got me through two major snowstorms (and that was the first time I had even driven in snow, period). It looks pretty, has comfortable seats, and runs like a charm. These past two weeks have also been missionary insanity as many, many people have gotten their calls or started their papers or finished them and sent them in. Yet, I am able to do nothing. I just have to sit and watch everyone else and wait for my turn which still seems to be an eternity away. At least right now anyway. But I am excited for it and ready to be of service to the Lord in that calling as soon as I am old enough and able to.

Stress has come back

School finally got fun and crazy again. Two weeks to take five tests, so I have been studying like mad after the teachers finally put up a study guide, took them long enough and it doesn't leave much time to get them all filled out and study when you are doing five of them. Anyway, Monday was President's Day and a much needed break from school and classes. I slept in (a bad habit I am forming on holidays and weekends, although it's only till 9 or 10 at the latest so it is not too bad). When I finally got up, I was feeling really kind of sick and it showed when I talked and the fact that I couldn't really eat. So I watched the newest episode of Psych (they had finally posted it) with Will, Brad, and Karen. Then we proceeded to find a way to get to Tucano's, a Brazillian grill that serves amazing food and they just keep bringing it to you. They have a huge salad bar you can visit and get all the food you want there and then they proceed to bring all the slabs of meat to your table and slice you off a piece of it. There had to be around10 different meats they brought and some grilled pineapple. Im not going to lie, the pineapple was some of my favorite, but so was the garlic sorloin (only time I will admit to liking steak - all the other steak they brought I still didn't like) BBQ chicken, chicken wrapped in bacon, turkey, pork, and so on. I still was feeling a little sick but managed to eat enough to stop feeling hungry and was able to keep it down despite my stomach doing all sorts of odd flips and turns. Then we came home and watched The Return of the King, while I studied some more for my map test for history the next day. And I continued to study for the rest of the day until Kelly Ann and Whitney came over to try to make scones. Everywhere we tried to find a kitchen, someone was watching a movie though so we ended up at Courtney's place where somehow someone managed to start a grease fire. So after we cleaned that up we headed to back to Kelly Ann's place to finish them and play games. We ended up playing psychiatrist and "have you flirked...?" both really fun group games and there was quite a sizable group - Regan, Will, Kahi, Matthew, Whitney, Kelly Ann, Kelsey, and me. Fun times. Tuesday was Monday classes so that came back to haunt me and made that day much, much harder than it needed to be and the week feel so much longer. But I got through it and then headed over to the testing center to take my map quiz. I ended up missing two, which was really frustrating because I had studied hours for it, but at least I still got an A I guess. Tuesday night we had a ward activity where we went to a roller skating rink which I haven't done since I was in 6th grade or before. I started out ok (roller skating is MUCH more balanced than ice skating) but got progressively worse over the two hours as I got tired. I ended up getting some serious bruising on my hip, knees, elbows, and a few other places. Still have most of them right now. But I wasn't the only one who wasn't amazing at it - Regan and Courtney both joined me in falling over a lot and so I wasn't the only one who kept getting laughed at. After we got home, I made some smoothies and Regan brought over Killer Bunnies and we proceeded to play and I lost really bad because I never managed to get a bunny or keep one alive long enough to mean anything. Wednesday was hard because it was an exact repeat of what Tuesday had been in classes and I had them all day with no breaks. But I manged to survive somehow and was more than ready for the weekly temple trip that evening. We went up to the temple in our larger group again and proceeded to do the quickest baptisms and confirmations I have ever done. We were in and out so fast. And the coolest part was that they recognized my hair cut I had gotten the day before and said I looked awesome in it. Ok, so that was not the coolest part, the coolest part is the spirit of the place, but still the fact that people noticed I finally got a hair cut made me feel better about it because I had just let my roommate Brad cut it for free. And it turned out looking alright, not perfect, but alright. After that it was time to go home and study and then start serving the crockpot BBQ chicken I had made that morning. It was so good - I used chicken breasts, Dave's BBQ sauce (from the infamous restaurant that Dad enjoys so much), some freshly squeezed orange juice, honey, and a can of caffine free coke. They tasted amazing and made the whole day seem worth it. Good food always does somehow. After that we watched three episodes of Psych and hit the halfway point of the first season. We just have to get through the rest of it and the next season before the end of the semester which I hope we will do. The show is so funny! Thursday was finally back to an easy day for me and I went and did laundry and took somewhat of a nap on their couch until Bryn's friends came over and then I gave up. I still mangaed to fill out my geology study guide fro my midterm this Wednesday and go through all my history notes for my midterm tomorrow. So needless to say, got a lot of work done and got some really good food in the process - we had raviolis for dinner, which is something I haven't had in a very, very long time. I came back in time to clean like crazy for my cleaning check that night and was able to pass off all my jobs with flying colors. Then it was back to studying. Friday was a good day as well because I only have to make it through three classes plus I play racquetball at 7 in the morning. I have managed to teach Rachelle, Kelly Ann, Courtney, and Will how to play racquetball since the beginning of the semester and got them hooked on it like I am so we play every Friday morning. Friday I had work and that ended up being much crazier than usual but I got through it and got food afterwards. MTC dinner = always amazing because its free and we get all we can eat. After that I came home and then went to a game night at Courtney's place and played some fun games of UNO and Jenga and Phase 10. Saturday I got up late (again) and then started studying like mad for my history midterm that is tomorrow. I managed to fill out all the reading questions from the whole semester and went over all the dates and concepts and themes of the course. But she doesn't give us much of a clue to study so I just tried my hardest to touch bases with everything we have gone over so far in the course. The test is supposed to be 40 multiple choice questions and two essays. Kind of sounds like the AP test format I took all throughout high school so I hope I can do ok. Im studying some more again today and will do some more tomorrow morning and right after classes before I head over to the testing center to take it. I am just hoping and praying to do my best, which is hopefully an A or close to it. I also played four square on Saturday with Perry, Ryan Chapman, Matthew, Tanner, Will, Aaron (my roommate), another Aaron and a girl named Mary Celeste. It was fun because I have never truly played the game before and we made up all sorts of wacky, weird rules to make it more interesting and keep getting people out and move the game along faster. After that and studying all day I headed to work again because I was working for Alyssa. That was not so bad because I managed to get a job that I enjoy better and we got free dinner again after it was over! Two days in a row is awesome plus we also got free cheesecake that night! Yum! After that Whitney came and picked me up to take me to Kelly Ann's where they were making dinner (which I had to decline eating because I had just stuffed myself at the MTC) and then we went and played night games at the park. We played a really fun game called ninja tag which is like lava monster except the monster is blindfolded. Then we played duck, duck, goose and then finished off the night with some mafia in my lobby. After which Will, Aaron, Brad, and I watched Transformers because Will had never seen it before and the sequel comes out this summer. That takes up to today where I am getting really anxious about all my midterms and not at all sure what is going to happen there. I have studied a lot, but Im not sure if it is the right thing - especially in history's case. But I am praying for help and we will just have to see how it all goes. If I can survive to going to the temple Wednesday night, I will survive it all. That is what I am shooting for and after that the week will become a million times more relaxing. Also, I hope my headaches stop, but so far no luck there. Not yet. Another also, if you read feel free to comment please!

Thought of the week: "There comes a point where you just love someone. Not because they're good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn't mean you'll be together forever. It doesn't mean you won't hurt each other. It just means you love them. Sometimes in spite of who they are, and sometimes because of who they are. And you know that they love you, sometimes because of who you are, and sometimes in spite of it."

Laurell K. Hamilton 'Anita Blake: Incubus Dreams'

Song of the week: "Light On" by David Cook and "Hanging by a Moment" by Lifehouse

Picture of the week: I have once again failed...but I am going to remember my camera this week, promise.

Living in the moment

This week was much like the last one - no big assignments, no tests, no hard school stuff at all really. Just another week to relax and enjoy the Provo area and the people that reside in it. No complaints about that really, nothing possible to complain about. I even got people to start doing their own dishes - quite a miracle and it kept the kitchen cleaner all week than it has ever been before. Monday I got the kitchen clean and started instituting a program that for every dish that people left unclean in the sink, they would have to pay a quarter. So they have to load it in the dishwasher, or if the dishwasher is full, wash it by hand and put it away in the cupboard. It has worked magnificentally so far and I hope it continues to work for the rest of the semester. Monday night we had family home evening at the Roberts' home, he is second counselor of our ward bishopric. It was great fun - we just had a lesson, got to know each other better, and finished the night off with ice cream sundaes of which I ate wayyy too much. But hey, calories don't count on family night. Or valentine's week in general for that matter. So I keep telling myself. Tuesday was a fun day as well. Got slightly more studying done, but not by much - I read all the things I had to read and it didn't take very much time at all. I did get a good solid couple hours of practicing in though and it felt wonderful. The cello is amazing and I would do well to remember that and keep up my practicing all the time. Those two hours flew by so fast it was ridiculous and didn't leave much time left before I had to head off to my recreation class where we presented our favorite songs. I led mine, but was not my usual charasmatic, engaging self because I have been having really bad headaches recently. It really makes it hard to lead the party when you have to think through a cloud of fog at all times. But I got through it and it ended up being a bundle of fun and well worth it. After class, we came home and Jared threw a hamburger cook out to prove to us that he could make cheaper, much better tasting burgers than Legends Grill. They were certainly cheaper, but not nearly as good. They weren't terrible, but there was a huge taste difference for those who were eating. So Jared lost. Although it was more fun because a lot more people were involved. Not that they really bought anything, they just kind of subsisted off of Jared's mercy at buying all the meat, buns, and condiments. After burger night was over (which might become a commonplace occurence), I went to Tayler's 19th birthday party where we played Apples to Apples for quite a few hours. It's an amazing game, but once you have exhausted all the cards, it gets a little bit old. The cake was amazing though - spice cake has always been a favorite for me - nothing compared to red velvet cake made by my grandma, but definitely one of the better cakes known to mankind. Wednesday was temple day, which is always such a happy day. It is something I look forward to everyday is getting to go to the temple on Wednesday and enjoy the spirit there and the comfort and peace that it brings. All worries and concerns are melted away and life is so simple and pleasant and everything just feels right. No sadness or depression or anger or frustration, just peace and joy. Plus, my recurring visits have been noticed - most of the temple workers recognized my face and said they look forward to seeing me again next week. Also another plus - the devotional this week was about the blessings we receive by making time to attend the temple on a regular basis. Talk about awesome promises! I seriously can never wait for the next Wednesday to roll around usually. I just want to keep going to the temple so bad. Wednesday has also become crockpot day mixed with Psych day. Sherrie and I bust out one of her crockpot recipes and throw it all in before we head for classes in the morning and then eat it after getting back from the temple and then watch two or three episodes of Psych. Good times. Thursday is laundry, do homework, babysit (and therefore rewatch all the great Disney classics with Bryn) day. Plus I get amazing dinners and lunches. Family visiting = amazing, relaxing, a nice break from the hectic life of college life and friends. I also attended an extra credit lecture on Thursday night about the life of Charles Darwin. He is quite a remarkable man and has a huge list of achievements to his name and the lecturer was entertaining to say the least. It was well worth giving up an hour to go see it. Plus extra credit for geology is always a nice bonus. After the end of the lecture, I came back and watched the Shawshank Redemption (edited). Will had it and had been wanting us to watch it with him for quite a few weeks now so I suggested we watch it and we did. It was an amazing movie and very deep and effective and moving. Movies about prison usually are I guess. It also had a happy ending, which is always a good thing. Tragic endings are very effective at making the audience feel and think and all that jazz - but sometimes the audience needs a happy ending just to prove that the world is not all bad, that there is always hope, that good wins out in the end always. Greg and Jared headed out to San Diego Thursday night as well. I hope they are having fun. Friday was a fun day after I managed to make it through all of school and work. We went to LOL (a improv comedy troupe that does skits much like Jesterz in Tempe and also as clean) and had a good time laughing at other people. They were not quite as good as the people in Jesterz, but they don't get paid either so I guess they don't have to be. After that I came home and studied some and then proceeded to play ping pong and talk with Courtney and Rachelle and Will and Aaron and Brad and Regan until 1:3o when all the girls had to leave. Then we watched the new episode of Psych online and I went to bed quite exhausted and needing it. Saturday morning I woke up sick and with a headache and promptly went and got drugs for it, the same stuff Mom found for me last year when I was at home. Excedrin - killer good stuff. I then proceeded to try to organize a LOTR marathon, but I failed to get any people. They were all asleep so I ended up watching The Two Towers by myself while studying for my map test for history and my recreation midterm this upcoming week. Will joined me halfway through the movie and we plan on watching the other two and getting more people to do it by the end of this weekend. We will see if that actually happens. Saturday was also Valentine's Day (I had a date for the evening so it was not Singles Awareness Day as I had thought it would be). There was a huge dance that the Residence Hall Association threw for all the on campus housing in the Wilk. It was called "A Time for All Seasons" and it was amazing! There was minigolf, dancing, catered sandwiches from somewhere delicous, chocoloate fountains, lemonade stands, caricature drawing, kareoke, limo rides, and movie clips of kissing scenes from all sorts of famous and popular movies. It was awesome! I got asked by Karen Chandler who has become quite a good friend of mine since the Christmas Pary last semester that I threw. That had to be one of my most brilliant plans all semester because it is how I made so many good friends that I now have such as Regan, Will, and Karen. The problem is that everyone now expects me to pull it off somehow again this semester and I don't know if I am up for it, but I will try. Anyway, Karen and I had a great time. It was like being back in high school and going to one of those dances, it was just a blast that I got to have with a really good friend. Plus I got to ride in a stretch hummer for the first time ever! Talk about sweet! Today was ok, I had to work and now am trying to decide how to plan out the rest of tonight and tomorrow since it is a day off school and almost all my roommates are gone except Brad. I need to visit Kahi and catch up with him for one. Plus I need to meet Kelly Ann's friend who came down from BYU-I for the weekend. Plus I need to plan out at least one more segment of LOTR time. Plus a snow trip tomorrow for everyone. Plus going out to lunch tomorrow with Will. Plus tunnel singing tonight. Plus studying some more for the map test and the midterm. So I will manage to keep myself busy, no worries.

Thought of the week: from the Shawshank Redemption:
Andy Dufresne: That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music? Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here. Andy Dufresne: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget. Red: Forget? Andy Dufresne: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours. Red: What're you talking about? Andy Dufresne: Hope.

Song of the week: "Ocean Avenue" by Yellowcard. Its an upbeat song that is fun to sing along with. Plus it accurately describes most college people's lives I decided. I am an anamoly by waking up early and getting to bed at a somewhat decent time.

Picutres of the week: Karen and I at the dance!