Word Scramble

Yesterday in my clay and construction class I decided that we could work on learning shapes and cutting by making a moblie and hanging the shapes on it. I started out the class saying, "Who knows what a mobile is?" Evan raises his hand but it too excited to wait for me to call on him because he blurts out, "I know the batmobile!" Then Katie says, "Yeah! And there's a snowmoblie!" Then Nicholas says, "We're gonna make CARS!"

Boy the shapes mobile was a let down after that!

Two Pats on the Butt and a 72 Hour Kit

In case you were wondering, today was indeed my first day of my most favorite summer job ever. I am back to teaching art classes! YEAH! Here are the highlights of my first day back:

• It is so great to see the little kids that I have been teaching in previous years come back and recognize me!
• I noticed today that when you take roll and call out a little kid's name and they raise their hand to tell you that they're here, they also smile a great big smile-even the shy ones. It's just great to see.
• I forgot that my butt was the perfect height for little kids to tap to get my attention.
• A little barely 3 year old girl in my class was having troubles getting down the stairs today so the 5 year old girl walked back up to hold her hand and help her down without any prompting by anyone. It was so precious!

In other news, tonight Daniel and I went in for an interview with our bishop. He had previously talked to Dan about having an "emergency plan." I told him that when the bishop asked we should just say, "Don't worry we have our 20 pounds of wheat storage." Dan thought we should say, "We're living in the basement so we don't need to have ladders to get out of the windows in case of a fire." It was so funny to me that the bishop was planning on our failure! Anyway, we went and the interview was actually pretty good. All positive. He didn't even bring up the emergency plan. I am SO EXCITED to be home, and to be working, and to be getting married! I just love my life right now! YEAH!

Reflections

I drove home this weekend with my cousin. She is so funny! I didn't even know until I had to spend 10 hours with her in the car non-stop. We stopped at a rest stop on the way home because I was so full of pee I thought it might come out my eyes. We went into the "restroom" that had wet floors and those airplane style toilets. You know the ones with the flap that opens to let the waste out of the bottom and use the least amount of water possible. She was in the stall next to mine when she yells, "Ahh!" After we got out I asked her what happened. She said that as she flushed the toilet the flapp opened, the water sprayed the stuff down and then the flap shut, WHILE THE WATER WAS STILL SPRAYING! Needless to say the water sprayed all over her foot! GROSS! In other news a friend of mine just got home from his mission this weekend. He left the summer after our freshman year in college. The question in my mind is how the heck did time all of the sudden jump forward? I went to his farewell! It's too bad I didn't get to go to his homecoming. He always was an amazing person and I'm sure he'll end up doing simply amazing things in his life! Anyway my leaving BYU and starting a new life away from everything I've known for the past three years has really given me a lot of stuff to reflect on. His homecoming hit this idea home to me in more concrete terms. It seems ironic to me that as my friends are coming home and back to school, I'm leaving it. Now I can't be sure of this, but I think I've changed tremendously over the past three years. Not that I've changed per se, but that I've grown up. My freshman year in college I was so naive in my understanding of things. I kind of regret how people viewed me after that year. I always kinda felt misunderstood. I realized this past month that the way people saw me that year was a direct result of what I let them see. They say that you can change who you are from high school to college, which is only sort of true. You can change what you let people see and percieve about you. You will always be you deep down inside, it is my opinion that doesn't really change. You can change the ficade though. When I decided that I wanted to be friends with someone I let them see in me what I thought they would like the most. Unfortunately I showed the lesser aspects of my character. The ones that were superficial. Somehow I went from one of the best good girls in my high school to one of the "easier" girls in college. (That's in quotes because I went to BYU and the general public would never think anything I had done was "easy") The reason that happened was that I showed that side of myself to the people around me and once you are percieved that way it is really easy to act that way too. I never told any of them how I didn't kiss a guy my entire high school carreer. I never told them that until my senior year the parties at my house were all girls. I never told them that I was always "one of the boys" with all the guys I knew. I never told them about telling boys I wouldn't date them until I was 16 and once I was that age they had stopped asking. Don't let this post make you think I didn't love my freshman year in college. I look back on it with fond memories. I think the people I met there are some of the most amazing people. I can see them being the future leaders of businesses and organizations, families and nations. I just wish I had shown them something better of myself. Now I have someone that thinks the world of me! He thinks I'm better than anyone else. His perception of me is so precious and dear to my heart. I realize now that is because I showed him everything about me. If he doesn't know everything about my past, he certainly knows all the parts of my personallity that were created from those. I am so excited to be with someone forever that loves me so much and that thinks I'm so amazing! So as scary as moving into the great unknown is, I am so glad to know that I will get to do it with him by my side. With someone that thinks so highly of you, how could you not work to achieve the best?

Infernal Tapping

I'm in the library writing a review of this paper and the girl opposite from me has been tapping on the enter key for the last 5 minutes. She has ONLY been hitting the enter key. Over and over and over. If she doesn't stop soon I may have to move. I just have a lot done on my work already. Oh good, she stopped. Now I don't have to kill her. Earlier today this guy just flipps open his cell phone and starts talking on it. Did I mention I'M IN THE LIBRARY?! I stared at him without even blinknig until he said to the person on the phone, "Oh sorry, I'm trying to be quiet because I'm in the library." Did he get up and go to the talking section? NO! Did he stop talking on his phone? NO! Grrrrr.

About to Cry

This is safe to write on this post because my Sweetie doesn't ever read this. I don't even think he really knows what a blog is really.

Today I got him the second half of my present to him. The first half of the wedding present is a nice Seiko watch. It's just beautiful. I ordered it at overstock so a watch that would usually cost $150 ended up only costing $50.

The second half of the present requires a little more explination. He went to Chile on his mission and had a nice Spanish Book of Mormon complete with that requisite leather case that all South American missionaries seem to come home with. A couple of months ago he lost it. Since then he's moved twice and it's still missing. I was talking to his mom and she talked about how much he really liked to use them to study rather than his english ones. I thought it might be nice to get him a Spanish set of scriptures. I know I can't replace his mission scriptures, but at least he could use them to study or something.

Today I happened to get an hour break between work and class so I went and purchased the set. They are black leather bound and I had his name embossed on the covers. I was so excited to not only have found a present I thought he would like, but also to be able to check that off my list. I didn't want to just leave them in my car (I've had scriptures and other items stolen from my car so I'm pretty paranoid about what I leave in there now) so I put them in my backpack. Well, on my way back from the store I dropped by Wendy's and got their delicious Mandarin Chicken Salad for a lunch.

I got back with just enough time to go talk to one of my professors before class so I figured I'd have to eat my lunch in class. I put the salad in my backpack and went up. I dropped by my professor's office and it turns out I didn't need what I thought I did so I had extra time. I walked to my class sat down and opened up my salad to eat it before class started.

It was right at this moment and earlier conversation I had had with my mom that flashed into my mind. We were at Wendy's several weeks ago and she talked about how the salads always have EXTRA WATER in them that she has to dump out so the dressing isn't runny. At the time I had said that I didn't care because I don't use dressing on my salads anyway. Well, I'm sure you've all already made the connection, but this time I CARED. The water had run out of the salad and onto the BRAND NEW set of scriptures I had purchased for my Sweetie. The bible is ok and the Book of Mormon only has water on the corner of some of the pages, but I am so upset by this.

I think I may be under some stress because after I got out of class I sat down in the sun to further inspect the damage and I started to cry. I don't know what to do. Do just give him the scriptures with water on them? Do I get a new Book of Mormon? If I get a new one then what do I do with this one? I thought I was done with this task! I'm just so upset right now. I tried calling my mom to vent about it and she isn't answering her phone, I tried calling Katie, but she never answers her phone and I can't very well vent to my Sweetie! Well, now I'm late for my next class so I'll just have to figure this out later.

2 Dozen

I was walking down the hall in the new JFSB after class today. All the doors were lining the sides. I was thinking about the next few days ahead of me when I suddenly felt a lot like Donald Duck in Mathemagic land. Not after he finally understands all the math around him. Do you remember right in the beginning when he feels totally surrounded by all these numbers and doors and had no idea where to go? Well, my life right now seems to be swirling with numbers

4-days of class left
2-statistics assignemnts still to finish
1-present still to buy
12-hours of lecutres still to sit through
2-final exams still to take
24-days until my wedding
227-dollars left in my bank account
1-present to return
20-pages of my final paper left to format
12-hours of work left to go to
1-final paper of someone else to grade
2-books to sell back
5-minutes of an oral presentation yet to write and give
5-days my granparents will be out of town
2-grades to recieve
10-days until I get to see my Sweetie

And only 1 me to live through it all.

Humor

Maybe it's just that I have a weird sense of humor, but I think that my Statistics professor is HILLARIOUS! Here is a sample of the things he's said (I hope they're still funny written down):

• This quote was taken as he was giving an exam review. A kid raised his hand to ask the steps to do a complicated problem. The professor didn't really want to go over that particular part and he said, "I'm just doing this general review because who knows what's on the test? Well, I do because I just wrote it, but you don't."
• "In statistics you want the truth, but you want the simplest form of the truth."
• This last quote was taken as we were discussing the use of some statistical tools. We wanted to know if our model matched and he was talking about experimenting until you were "happy" with the fit. Then he says, "We'll define happy later."

Anyway, I love sitting through that class just because it is so funny!

Passion

I would like all of you to think of the stereotypical redhead. Are you thinking about it? Good!

I was born the stereotypical redhead. I have the worst temper and I get SO PASSIONATE about things. Most of you that know me well know that I really can get more worked up about something than a lot of people. Over the years I have tried with all my might to control this. When I let myself get worked up nothing good comes of it. I always end up worse in the end than I was in the beginning. Why do I let myself get so upset at things?

Things that I am very passionate about:

• my family-this means that I am passionate about defending my family and that I am passionate when I am in fights with them
• my education-I have worked very hard to learn what I have learned and it gets me really upset when people de-value it
• my religion-it irks me when people de-value my religion or tell me why it's not true. I'm not of the opinion that I know all about my religion or that everyone not in my religion is going to hell or something. Just let me have my space and I'll let you have yours. In fact I find it simply amazing that most of the world's population has sought some sort of religion, even if it isn't mine.
• my person-perhaps this is just my insecurities, but when someone says even a joking comment about me I have such a hard time taking it (even if it is a joke)

In the end I have found that instead of controlling the emotion, which would probably be the best, I have to control the actions. When I get mad I have to just not say anything or step away for a while. It is better to let people just say what they want and stop trying to correct them. This may seem like giving up to some, but for me it has worked really, really well.

The only drawback to this is that days or even minutes later I think of a scathing comeback or remark that would totally make me win, but I've missed my opportunity. My most recent remark that I came up with correlated to a situation that happened over a year ago. Just so nobody thinks I'm that crazy, I wasn't mad about this thing for over a year. I just thought about the situation and realized the perfect response.

Some of this I wish I could change, in fact most of this I wish I could change. I'm not going to apologize about it though. I'm simply reporting the truth.

My Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor

Last night I was laying in my bed, waiting for my Sweetie to call me back and my allergies kicked into overdrive. I'm not sure whether the situation could honestly be described by the fact that my allergies are always worse at night or that I finally slow down enough to notice them, and thus let them drive me absolutely insane.

Symptoms of my allergies (I'm not just trying to gross you out, I just thought the story would need this background):

• Red, itchy and sometimes puffy eyes (Yes, a kid in my english class this term did ask me what was wrong with my eye one day earlier this year when it had started to swell up)
• Very runny nose
• Sneezing (I always sneeze twice, everyone is always waiting for the third, but for me it never comes)
• Itchy mouth

If you don't have allergies imagine a really bad cold and then put on top of it the itchy mouth and the itchy eyes and you have the allergies. If you don't know what an itchy mouth is it is when the roof of your mouth way back in the soft pallete starts to itch. There's nothing you can do to scratch it. My sister makes this sound when she itches it with her tounge. It sounds just like a baby pig. Very classy, I know.

So anyway, last night I'm in my bed waiting for Daniel to call and my mouth starts itching. I start rubbing my tongue on it (the best way I know how to scratch it, even though it is pretty fruitless). Then the itch spreads to the front roof of my mouth. This rarely happens, but it's not unheard of.

Later the inside of my ear starts to itch. Yes, that's right the inside of my ear. This has never happened before so I got a little worried. I thought perhaps I had caught some sort of disease that makes the inside of your ear itch. I was worried that the itch would never go away. Maybe my hearing would be effected? Maybe it would make that ear produce enormous amounts of ear wax that would be an unsightly mess on the side of my head for the rest of my life? After maybe 2 minutes of this I was really nervous. (Yes, I know it takes me a long time to jump from minor itch to exotic disease. It runs in my family. Just ask my sister.) So I thought I needed to consult something or someone about this new problem of mine. I surly couldn't sleep wondering about this. So what did I do? I couldn't just run upstairs and get on my grandparent's internet for WebMD (my grandparents have the slowest internet. You still hear the dial up when you get on) I didn't have an ear, nose, and throat doctor at my services, but I did have an ear doctor! I called up my sister's boyfriend. We're getting to be pretty good pals so I thought it was ok to call him up and ask about any sort of medical condition. We had a nice chat and he gave me a good prognosis on my condition. He told me that it was probably just another symptom of my dreaded allergies and that I'd be fine. With all my worries about that put to rest I could have a lovely conversation with my Sweetie that night and then sleep soundly.

If anyone in my family has questions about the ear, from now on they know who to call. What a great resource.

Honorable Defeat

Well, I had a take home test that had a 4 hour time limit. I spent ALL FOUR HOURS on it and I still had about 2 hours of work left on it. While other students in the class may feel that the time limit was more of a suggestion, I just closed the program and printed off my work to turn in today. So I wont be getting a very good grade on the test, but at least I followed the directions.

Why do I feel so crappy about this still?