Check out my bizzillion ab muscles...

11 days till Christmas!!!

Wow, did that just come out of nowhere? Of course at the same time it feels like this semester has been FOREVER long, lol! But it's practically over! I only have one (well, technically two) more final to take and then I'll be on my way home!! So exciting :D Never thought I'd be excited to go back home again, but the reunion that we've been planning for this Christmas is just going to be fabulous :) I'm still very, *very* bummed that Matt and Tyrelle and Ellie aren't going to be there, but everyone else is, so it should still be awesome!!!

(lots of exclamation points in this post already, huh?)

I took two finals today and actually did well on them (gasp!). Of course then I went to try and sell back my stupid Anatomy book (you all remember *that* fiasco, don't you?) and BYU wouldn't take it!? what's up with that? They said they can't take it cause it's damaged, but that's how I bought it! I barely even used the book anyway....pft....annoying....but it all turned out fine in the end. Actually better than fine. Cause right when I got home I put it up on the BYU book exchange and someone called me about an hour later and wanted to buy it! And she's also going to buy my workbook, which I hardly used and would've have been able to sell back anyway, so really I got an even better deal, lol. Way to beat the system! GO ME!

I never reported on my "Wedding/Thanksgiving break" just cause the story was too long. It was a CRAZY long, busy week, but lots of fun and I'm glad I got to be involved in both the weddings. The most exciting story from that week was getting from Vegas to Provo on Saturday night. I ended up just going to catch a Greyhound bus to Provo and rode it through the night. I didn't get any sleep cause there was some completely unnatural snoring going on in the front of the bus. Even my headphones didn't block it out....ugh. So I reach Provo at 5:30 in the morning with no ride from the bus stop to my apartment. So I start walking. Another BYU student was on the bus too, so he walked with me part of the way. He was an exchanged student from Taiwan so he didn't know really where he was going and we were in south Provo where I NEVER go, so I had no idea either. I ended up steering us towards Smiths, which was good cause that led us to Freedom Drive and you can get anywhere in Provo if you find Freedom Drive. So yeah, I ended up walking about an hour and a half back to my apartment. The guy walked with me for about half the time, then we split off to go in different directions. I ended up calling my mom so I could just talk to someone while I walked. I was really glad my suitcase had wheels, lol. So yeah, that was the craziest adventure I had, and I'm not in a hurry to repeat it :p

Not much else to report! Going home on Thursday!!! ::throws confetti:: Going to the beach house on Saturday!! ::launches fireworks::

(oh wait, ps. For those of you who care, I *did* go see New Moon over the thanksgiving break. I was...impressed. But only cause my expectations were so low I think, lol. I'm now kinda leaning towards Team Jacob in the movies, but still team Edward in the books. I went back and read through Eclipse after I saw the movie...yeah *totally* team Edward in the books, lol. The movie just looked better, meaning that it didn't look like a low-budget student film, aka. Twilight. The acting was still horrid. Painful. Only the guys who played Jacob and Charlie showed any kind of real emotion. so final verdict is: better than Twilight, which didn't take much, haha.)

What are men to rocks and mountains?

Okay I think I'm seriously going through "video making deprivation", which is sad when you realize that I did make a video, like 4 days ago.

wah!

I have no life!

But it's true, I did get 100% on a quiz today, but only after staying on campus for 7 hours. Ew, who does that? Oh that's right, normal people at BYU who have oodles of scholarships that they need to keep up their GPA for.

In exciting news, I'll be home in a week! I guess that's exciting. It's actually really exciting because (a) Rachel will be *married*!!! (b) I'll only actually be at my parents house for less than 3 days (c) I'll get to see most of my family again (d) I won't be at school and (e) I'll be flying to Mariah's wedding very very soon!!

I came home today and thanked my roommate that she's not getting married any time soon. Most of my friends are either engaged or have serious boyfriends. It's quite draining to be around them. My roommate very seriously told me that she was happy to help. <3

In other news, I'm living off or Raman, peanut butter and tortilla chips at the moment.

In other, other news, I get my temple recommend tonight :D

Epic Win

My new favorite ways of wasting time:

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

http://www.cleverbot.com/

That is all.....

Bags, woman!

Alright, so I just (finally) finished the 4th book in the Sword of Truth series.

.

.

.

.

And yeah, I'm kinda not sure how to react. That book got WAY to explicit for my taste, I was almost going to just stop reading....BUT I HAD TO SEE RICHARD AND KAHLAN GET MARRIED!!! Good grief Terry Goodkind, could we have dragged that out longer if we tried?? And honestly, did they really have to go marry other people first?? And who *totally* called Drefan being a bad guy? I mean honestly, he was waaaaay too nice to actually be on the good side. And who was just waiting for Kahlan to let out some blue lightning on Nadine? MAN that girl was *annoying*!! And what was that whole pointless, random side story with Zedd being dragged around everywhere with that Ann woman who *annoyed* me to no end. And then just *bing!* there they are at the end at the wedding! Don't tell me, it's magic, right? And I totally don't think Ann knows what she's talking about with Nathan, because he seemed to understand everything a LOT better than her and she's chasing after him trying to get him to wear the collar again...what woman is just really messed up. I don't think I've ever really believed anything she's said.

No, but seriously, it was a really good book. Like I said, I could've done without the expicit scenes, but I could see how at least some of them were quite important to the plot. (speaking of explicit scenes, I *totally* knew it was Richard and not Drefan who was in with Kahlan after the "weddings". I kept thinking "No, it's got to be Richard, it's got to be Richard, she just can't see his face..." the whole time I was reading that chapter. And then when she realized it was I was like "BOOM! Betrayal by the one in white! Boo yah prophecy!" (I talk to books, it's weird, but I feel very smart when I can actually see something coming, cause a lot of times I *really* don't see things coming)

Anyway, I'm sure that no one who reads this blog will care, but I had to write this down somewhere, cause none of my roommates would understand :p

Are you trying to develop a sense of humor or am I going deaf?

So October is practically over, which is weird cause it was August, like, yesterday, I kid you not.

This was the pumpkin I carved at FHE this week. Cute, no?

I haven't been very good at updating, and honestly it's because I have nothing new to report in my life. Things are pretty much the same, and then last week dive bombed on me and I felt like I was finally getting my bad luck all out at once. Pretty much I got a really bad cough from my roommate, and while I was expecting to get sick soon anyway (I ALWAYS get sick in the winter), it couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time, cause it was also midterms week. It was also the week I was supposed to start my "part-part time job" where I go visit a handicap girl named Katie 3 times a week. So I'm sick, having to take midterms and not being able to earn money! argh! FRUSTRATION!!!

My first midterm was a complete FAIL - and I'm not even exaggerating. It was curved enough that I don't want to kill myself anymore, but I'm still freaking out about that class. My second midterm went a bit better, but I was even more mad about my grade because I studied SO HARD and got a far lower score than I thought I would. Again, there was a curve in the class that made my grade very decent, but I still am mad that my studying didn't pay off as much as I wanted it to :(

I thought I was finally over the cough this week, but I'm STILL coughing, and today I started to have congestion AGAIN. grrrr........stupid, stupid, stupid....

So anyway, last week was FAIL, but this week went a LOT better, despite the growing cough again. And despite the fact that I still don't have a job and I REALLY don't have any money. Like really, I'm not even exaggerting.

I went and had an interview with the bishop to renew my temple reccommend and walked out of it feeling like the biggest failure in the world cause I'm not dating. How is that right? Bishop kept insisting that dating needed to be a top priority in my life right now, but honestly, finding a job to get money so I can support myself seems like a better priority. And hey! I have been on a date this semester and that's already WAY more than I usually do (haha). Anyway, I went home and moped to my roommate and ate some chocolate and we took a trip to Wal Mart and I felt much better.

Signed up for classes for next semester. My schedule is all over the place again. Ugh.

I know everthing in this post sounds depressing, but really, I'm very happy right now, lol. Last week was bad, so by comparison this week was brilliant :p

Oh and it snowed this week!! LOVE IT! I walked out of Language Structure class and it was coming down all pretty and white and I got to walk home in it :) Of course we'll see if I still love it when it started sticking to the ground and I have to drive through it, but for now it's very fun :)

If it is a blond woman I will *kill* myself!!

Rachel's getting married in November after all!!!

::cries of jubilation::

::fireworks::

::confettii:: <---cause I like it

So this means that November 23rd I will be flying back to DC to attend her wedding at the DC temple on the 24th. Then I'll be able to have Thanksgiving with my family, then on the 27th I'll be flying right into Las Vegas for Mariah's wedding on the 28th. ::whew:: Now the only thing I really need to figure out is (a) where I'm going to stay in Vegas (b) how I get from the airport to where I'm going to stay and (c) how I'm getting from Vegas back to SLC. These may sound daunting, but they were already on my list from before and now that I've knocked off a lot of that list, those three things don't even sound like a challenge. Ha!

In other news: I listened to Christmas music again today. Don't tell my dad.

Dwarves are very upsetting

Hey look at me! updating so fast...I should totally get a reward...

So it's the day for exploiting cute little kids, so to distract you from the rest of this post where I'll be ranting, here's some cute pictures of my nieces :p

Awwww!! Aren't they adorable?

So okay, what has happened in my life this week? Not much. I got my first phonetics quiz back and got an A, yay! A lot of people got marked off for writing the "ae" symbol wrong, but not me! I pay attention, boo ya! I got to go to Mariah's bridal shower on Saturday, which was way fun, I'm so excited for her :) I'm only slightly worried about Rachel's wedding happening at the same time as hers, but I'm trying not to think about it. There's not much I can do if both of them happen at the same time, which stinks, but that's reality I guess. It was Conference weekend, which is always fabulous and I got to spend time with grandma Erickson *and* grandma and grandpa Kelly! How cool is that? And of course listening to conference is just always awesome and I *really* needed a spiritual boost. I am NOT a fan of college wards and I feel almost inactive when I am in them. But conference was great to remind me of the things I need to keep doing.

I posted 4, (yes F-O-U-R) videos last week, which not only signifies that I have no life, but also means I have too many ideas floating around in my head. I was actually starting to be kinda content with my editing skills, realizing that yeah, I could do some cool stuff and my videos, while not amazing by any means, were quite fun to watch. Of course then I spend a little time cruising YT and of course come across the videos that are AMAZING and it's almost painful to watch them cause I just feel so inadequate after seeing other people's skills. One of the videos that was posted this weekend was an uh-MAZ-ing Robin/Marian vid to "Shattered". Now, I almost didn't watch the video just on principle because that song is SO overused, and I hate it when people use the same song that other people have. It just irks me a lot and frankly I think that it's not very creative. I mean, I know that "Shattered" is an amazing song, and I'd be one of the first wanting to make a vid to it, but it's been beaten to death by every fandom making vids to it.

(begin /SIDENOTE/: *So* often on YT you see videos done to songs by someone who is a good video maker and the vid is so cute and good and as you watch it you think "that's a great song!", and then a few weeks/days later, another video is posted to the same song by someone who is a "better" video maker and they think they can do a better job of the song! It just makes me mad when people do that cause it totally takes away from the originality and creativity of the first video! Sure the second video might be edited better or "look" cooler, but to me it just looks lazy that they couldn't come up with a song on their own! Urgh! It's like, my BIGGEST pet peeve about YT! (of course this statement is footnoted by the fact that if you do the same song but in a different way with different characters or a different idea with the song, then that's cool, kudos to you for thinking outside the box) end /SIDENOTE/)

So I almost didn't watch it. But then I did and it was so beautiful! ::sob:: it actually made me uncomfortable how much I loved that video. I wanted to favorite it, but I just couldn't do it cause of the song! It sounds so stupid, but there you have it. And of course *everyone* is favoriting it, so I see it everywhere, but I have yet to watch it again. the combination of the effects and the editing being so amazing along with the overused song kinda makes me feel sick inside. ugh, I need help.

Basically the point of that paragraph was to segway into my latest thing I'm finding out about myself. So I'm good at a lot of different things. I have talents, I'm acknowledging this. I can play the piano, write, edit videos, play sports, preform well in school, etc. So I have these skills, but I'm not, like *fabulous* at anything. I'm pretty much average, like C or B material. Does that make sense? Like I've never really excelled at any particular field. I got pretty good at writing, but that's gone now (and no one really knows why), I was good at crew but I gave up that one as well, I'm pretty adequate at the piano, but not enough to preform, I can edit videos so they look fun but they're not the jaw-dropping-heart-stopping-amazingness that you can find on YT. And while all this sounds depressing, it's nice to finally acknowledge it, haha.

And now here's a cute picture of my little brother to cheer you up:

This week brings my first midterm for my Language Structure class and hopefully some more headway on the never ending job search. Wish me luck!

My parents never took me camping. You know why? Because they *loved* me!

I'm so bad with this blog. I used to be really good at journal keeping. Then I went on a mission and was forced to write in my journal every day...hummmmmm.......

Well, I guess I'm back to bullet points again, not that there is much to report, but I've decided I should at least try to make an effort, for myself at least so I remember this year, har har.

• I *still* don't have a job. The big problem at the moment is that EVERYONE is looking for a job, so anything I apply for I'm competing with 100 other people who are probably FAR more qualified than me ::sigh:: And then there's the problem with my schedule not fitting ANYTHING even though I'm only taking 9 credits now and I'm BORED
• I haven't worked on Anatomy, like, AT ALL. It's like this looming presence hanging over my head and one day it's just going to crash down on me like reality smacking in my face. Blah.
• Since I have so much free time, I've been making videos like crazy. It's a hit or miss each day as to if I'm actually going to *like* the video I make, but I keep having ideas, so the videos keep coming out. I have a roommate who's a film major and she keeps insisting I need to take some editing classes and change my major cause she thinks I could do well with film editing, but as enticing as that is, I kinda want to keep the whole thing casual. I like the idea of having this creative outlet that I can just accomplish on my terms without being graded on it or doing it just so I can get money.
• And speaking of money, I'm SO broke it's sad. I don't know what more to say about that other, than the fact that it is teaching me to be frugal AND teaching me how to give cheap gifts to people. (omg I'm so pathetic...)
• I've gotten through the firs two books of the "Sword of Truth" series and I'm really enjoying them. My one complaint would be that they...well they kinda *drag*. The second one was 1000 pages and as I read through it I couldn't believe how slow it was moving sometimes. I realize why the author put in that much detail, it is all important to the plot. But I guess I'm just used to faster paced books. I'm getting the third from the library today so we'll see how far I get through that one. I am really enjoying the characters and the plot. There are certain, er, more explicit scenes I could have done without, but, well, he does get the point across I guess.
• I'm actually still really enjoying school. My classes aren't killing me too much yet, but I haven't had any tests and I've barely had any homework. But still, it is nice to go to a class and actually be interested in what the teacher is saying, not just cause you need to know it to get a good grade, but because you actually care.

Oh yeah, and I'm 23 now. YAY!!! It's a very uneventful year! YAY!!!

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

So I have to rant about this somewhere and even if no one reads this blog at least I can just write it down....

To start off, I am *not* Miley Cyrus' biggest fan, not by a long shot. I actually think her voice is a tad annoying and she can overplay things. But hey, the tv show is cute and I'm a sucker for the Disney channel.

SO, that being said, I rented the new Hannah Montana movie from Redbox the other night,just on a whim cause I like those "feel good" movies and I had nothing better to do. I watched it and it was pretty dang cute. The songs were upbeat and fun to hear (she doesn't have my favoirte singing voice, but I respect her for her songwriting skills). Like any cheesy, kid's movie, some of the dialogue could've been better and the plot was just like any other disney movie. But I *love* that plot!! And obviously lots of other people do because this movie did AMAZINGLY good in the theaters and it's flying off the shelves now that it's on DVD.

So, me being me, after I watched the movie I went on IMDB.com to look up info about it (I do this for practically every movie I watch, it's an addicting site). So I go on there and the movie is rated, like 2.5 stars out of ten. And this is where I start to get ticked off. While looking through the public ratings and comments 99% of the comments were from adults who obviously didn't have children and obviously rated this movie *because* they don't have children and want to deny the existance of adolecence. I can understand if you rate something low because the acting is poor, the plot is poor, whatever. But rating something low simply because it's a kid's show?? I mean HELLO!!! I would bet all the money I have that most of those people actually never watched the movie, or if they did they went in with the pure intent of making fun of it.

It's just amazing to me that the ratings can be so low, and yet the movie did SO well at the box office. Don't say something is bad just because it's made for kids! I mean, come ON! Are you a child?? What are you doing watching this movie if you know you're going to hate it?? It's made for pre-teen girls so OBVIOUSLY it's going to be cheesy and have jokes that you would never laugh at!! I wanted to reply to each review and ask them all the same thing: "If this show sucks so much, why on earth did you watch it and take time to review it on a website? Your opinion of yourself is very high but anyone who reads your review and has a brain is definitley going to think less of you for taking a cheap shot at Disney."

While I was looking through the reviews I did see a few from actual parents who, while not rating it a ten, gave the movie 6, 7, or 8 stars, commenting on how it was great for their kids, had a nice moral and everything, and was clean. And see, THAT is what you should be judging the movie with. Not stuff like "Miley Cyrus can't act cause she's a wanna be [actually meaning: "I'm mad that Miley Cyrus makes more money than me and my instinct is to lash out at her"]" or "This movie was so lame it lowered the bar for all disney movies! [meaning: "I actually don't watch Disney movie's cause if I did I'd know that every single one of them has basically the same plot with the same type of humour in it."] <----Most people have this problem. I love Disney, so I love seeing that plot over and over again.

Okay, I'm done. I dont' know if I actually got my point across through all of that, but I just had to type this up cause while I know I am ignorant of lots of things in the world, I still know when other people are being idiots.

Welcome to Pacific Ink's "Smart People on Ice!"

Checklist of things that I should probably get taken care of before I go back to school (in ten days, AHHHH!!!!):

-Find somewhere to live (SO important)

-Figure out if I need to get my car inspected....somehow....in another state.....

-Find out if I am still a full time student if one of my classes is independant study... (anatomy is going to kick my trash)

-Pack, while realizing that I'm just going to have to pay to take two suitcases, cause I'm a girl

-Remember that I actually LIKED school in the spring...and start praying that I will still like school in fall (haha)

-Finish video requests and stop crusing youtube so much (is there an addicted to youtube anonymous group I can attend? ATYTA <---haha)

-Return my library books

-Finish my dress <---impossible. Coherse Kirsti and Heidi into finishing it for me <----possible

-Have the dreaded "money talk" with dad and dream about the days when I won't ever have to do that again and remind myself that the real reason I'm going to school is so I can get a real job and NEVER have to have that talk again

Khumbaya!

So I recently watched the movie "Osmosis Jones" on youtube. For those of you who don't know the plot, if follows the story of this really unhealthy guy (live action) and the inner workings of his body (cartoon style) as a white blood cell and a flu pill fight off a nasty infection thing. Despite being kinda nasty sometimes (it's about the inner workings of the body), it's quite clever and funny. Of course after I've watched it I can't help but picture what's going on in my brain as my white blood cells fight my allergies or my nerves try to get me back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night cause of itchy mosquito bites on my feet (yuck). Anywho, the point of this is, the movie is funny, but it just makes me think about anatomy far more than I actually want to.

Also, thanks to my brother-in-law, I've been watching old episodes of Eek the Cat on youtube. ah, I miss the old days where the cartoons were good :p

Oh, and I'm totally gonna be an aunt again soon. :D

That is all.

Well there must be another Arthur, cause this one's an idiot

So Half Blood Prince was pretty much amazing, not that anyone is surprised that I'm saying that, lol. Honestly, the only flaw I could really find in that movie was Bonnie Wright, the actress who plays Ginny. I thought her performance wasn't very good, which was disappointing to me cause I love Ginny in the books and I expected her to be played more dynamically in the movie. Bonnie seemed to play her very....flat. Does that make sense? No dimension to her at all and it very much looked like she needed acting classes. I'm not normally this critical, but it really bugged! Thankfully I enjoyed all of the other aspects of the movie and was practically bouncing up and down in my seat the whole time ;)

Life is still pretty slow, but of course that doesn't make me work on my Anatomy any more. I doubt I'll have it finished by the end of August, blah. I just hope I don't fail, whenever I finally finish the course.

So Mariah got engaged!!! I'm so excited for her! (she's my old mission comp, we were like twins on the mission) She's even asked me to be Maid of Honor, how exciting is that?? ::squee!!:: She seems so happy and that makes me so happy for her, cause she deserves it :D She'll be getting married in the Las Vegas temple around Thanksgiving time, so I guess it's good for me that Rachel had to push her wedding back (sorry Rachel!). But of course this means I really do have to lose weight by Thanksgiving...blast it! Oh well, whatdoyahdo?

In other news, I need to get more sleep. And stop making videos when I should be doing my Anatomy class. (which i kinda did with this one....I just stopped right in the middle of making it, haha)

Shipmates again, Jim!

So I did my first Anatomy lab today. They provided a cd with some short little lessons about basic anatomy from TA's who stood infront of a sheet hung on a wall and were dressed very eighties. It probably would have been captivating if they weren't talking about the vocabulary of cutting kadavers in half and studying them. I'm just not into that sort of thing. There's a reason I'm not going to be a doctor. I'm going to work with children, and none of them will bleed in front of me (ha, yeah right).

Of course, as much as I complain about anatomy, as always, it does make you believe in God, like whoa. I honestly don't know how people can study science like that and think all of this just happened by chance. It boggles the mind.

I did another Robin Hood video yesterday, for no other reason than the fact that my back was hurting and making videos doesn't require much movement. This one I made for my neice, Elizabeth, who turns 10 on Sunday. Does that make me feel old or what? lol. Well it makes me feel like a cheap aunt, but I know she'll like it anyway. Besides, she's nice to me when I give her things and I'm all about the bribing at this point. It seems to be the only thing that works.

Todd seems to be doing better than he was last week. We took away the extra meds that we had started to give him and he's reverted back to his old self. It's crazy how one little half of a pill can just make him practically dead to the world. It makes us wonder what he would be like if he didn't take any of that medication. Of course it would probably mean he would have a seizure every week, but if he could learn to talk and interact with people it's almost a tempting trade off.

The fabric I bought with Kirsti continues to lay on the extra bed in my room, waiting for me to decide to do something with it. Of course now I find out that mom doesn't actually have her sewing machine any more, and of course this means nothing to me because I don't know how to sew anyway, lol. But honestly, if I ever actually make that dress, it's pretty much going to be amazing.

(ps. This is a continuation of an online journal I used to keep. I think most people who read this will know me enough to understand the references I make to my life, so if you don't....well, sorry. Hopefully you can catch up through my innuendo, haha)

Piglet, why are you swimming in the popcorn?

Cause I'm actually supposed to be doing my online anatomy class right now...and yet I'm not.