Countdown

Finals done: 2 1/2*
Finals left: 1/2
Days until I go home: 3

*My last final is a short interview where I present my portfolio with all the projects we've done this semester. My portfolio is all but done (I only have to print out my cover sheets, title page, and table of contents and stick them in the appropriate places). So that final is half done.

Stats

Finals taken: 1
Finals left: 2
Days until I go home: 4

Name-dropping

So, coolest thing ever!

Ok, maybe not, but it's pretty cool!

You've all heard of Mitt Romney, of course. Well, his nephew is sitting in my apartment right now. I'm sure you all want to know why. Well, he (the nephew) has taken one of my roommates out a couple times now. He's nice. Not that I know him at all. I've just met the guy. But don't I so have connections?

I feel so shameless, being all name-dropping and stuff.

Dates

Break out the chocolate cake, people! Two dates. I've already had one tonight and I have another tomorrow. Look at me being all social and stuff.

A guy in my ward, Nathan, took me out to see the musical "Little Women." The play was amazing! It made me miss being in musicals in high school. The nice thing about Nathan is that he was very clear about how he's simply interested in going on lots of first dates right now. Very refreshing to me. I don't have to worry about whether he's interested or not. I know that he's interested in developing friendships. Sweet. I can do that. And he was so nice on the date, nice to talk to and very gentlemanly (holding open doors, holding umbrellas in the snow). I don't think I've ever been on a date like that. It was nice. I certainly enjoyed myself. And that, I think is what a date should be like.

Let's see how tomorrow night goes.

Apologies

I haven't posted in awhile. Sorry. I don't even have the excuse that my life is boring and nothing happens to me. At least lately.

This past weekend was pretty fun. I watched a couple movies Friday night: Hairspray and Amazing Grace. Both were way good. Saturday night I hung out with Mark. We went to Wendy's and watched Some Like it Hot. I almost didn't make it to church yesterday because I stayed up much too late Saturday night. But I did make it after all. We were late, but we made it. (My roommates came in at 4 in the morning, which was much later than when I went to bed.) Then I came home and took a 4 hour nap. Nice.

I got a lot done today. I did some post-Christmas-Christmas shopping. (Not meaning shopping after Christmas but meaning I had already bought something, but had to do some exchanging. Dad's fault. He gave me bad information.) I got an estimate on a printing project for my print publishing class. I finished my photo album for print publishing. I did laundry. I went to my dinner group. I went to family home evening.

Getting all of these things done is good. However, I still have lots to do. I have to get to the store sometime between now and Wednesday evening to buy food for dinner group. I have to get my PDF file up to the printing building north of campus so they can print my project. I have to go to some bookstore in downtown Provo to get a book that Dad needs me to buy. I have to write a paper about Much Ado About Nothing. I have to correct a bunch of projects to put in my final portfolio. I have to get through one more geography test. I have to call my relations to get a ride to the airport so I can go home for Christmas. Lots of stuff. I'm already tired just anticipating it all.

Monday

And what a Monday it has been!

Last night my nose started running and I started sneezing. So, of course, I wake up this morning with a full-blown case of the common cold. I had work at nine and since I wasn't deathly ill or having a near-death experience, I couldn't skip it. Besides, I take pride in never work. In my two and half-years of service at the library, I've missed work completely only once. My roommate Lindsay was deathly ill and I had to take her to the doctor. Another time, I got to work and was promptly sent home by Jonisa, because I was sick and completely miserable. The last time, I was 45 minutes late because I didn't realize that the new schedule had started. Other than those times, I've never so much as been late to work. It's something I'm very proud of.

Anyhoo, I'm working, sniffling, grabbing tissues, blowing my nose, grossing myself out by the amount of mucus in my nose and throat, and squirting sanitizer on my hands. It was not a fun morning. It didn't help that there were 64 recalls today. But then, there's always tons of recalls on Mondays. My boss, Sarah, finally told me to go get some medicine from the shop in the bookstore, so I could start feeling better. So I took some Dayquil but it didn't help much. My body feels really weak and everything seems a little fuzzy.

I went to my Geography class where we learned about soil and rocks. Loads of fun, let me tell you. I was so tempted to skip and go home, but I can't miss Geography--everything he says is fair game for the test. So I miserably endured that hour.

Then, on my way home, I realized that I had left my keys at home. This was bad. No one's at the apartment that time of day, so I'd either have to suck up my pride and call someone, or sit outside and wait for someone to come home. Luckily, I am a genius.

Our windows have screens on the outside of them. I didn't think they came off easily, but to my great surprise, they do. And we leave our windows unlatched all the time, so I just pushed open the glass part. However, I ran across a problem. Those windows are far enough off the ground to be nearly impossible to climb into, unless you have the arm strength of an Olympic weight-lifter. So, me and my jello-arms pretty much failed. I couldn't get in that way.

Nearby our apartment door is a green rectangular planter half-filled with potting soil. Cue light bulb above my head. I grabbed the planter and brought it over to the window. Standing on the soil inside the planter, I had just enough extra height to be able to see the inside doorknob of the front door. My arms weren't long enough to reach that knob, but I had an umbrella in my backpack especially for such emergencies. I extended the umbrella but didn't open it. Reaching my arm and the umbrella inside, I was able to jiggle the handle, thereby releasing the lock on the knob. Voila! Unlocked door!

So, in addition to being sick, I had to break into my own apartment today. I'm pretty frustrated, but pleased that my adventure is turning into a pretty good story. (Though, I admit, I left out some parts. Our windowsills are filthy and I have dirt all over my shirt now. Also, I rather stupidly tossed my jacket containing my phone into the apartment through the open window before I got back inside. This was stupid because I couldn't reach where I had tossed it. Guess I'm not such a genius after all!)

Addition

So, I have a few additions to my Christmas Wish List.

• silver hoop earrings
• a new mouse pad
• Dang, there was something else, but now I can't remember what it was! Argh!
  

Costumes

I should've posted this yesterday, but yesterday evening was somewhat busy. I made pancakes for my dinner group. And my first ever batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Now those were a grand success! Here's the very simple recipe:

1 big can of pumpkin (the size that makes 2 pumpkin pies)
2 boxes of spice cake mix
1 bag of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the pumpkin and the spice cake mix together in a large bowl until consistency is something like cake batter. Add the chocolate chips. Spoon whatever size you wish onto a pre-sprayed cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 20 minutes. (I had to bake mine for about 24 minutes, but I think the time depends on your oven.) Let cookies cool, then enjoy!

They're way yummy all warm and squishy straight out of the oven. Oh, and this makes quite a few cookies, but it's super easy to half the recipe.

On to the thing I really wanted to post about. Halloween costumes. Yesterday, I saw quite a few creative costumes on campus, so I thought I'd share. Too bad I don't have pictures.

• Magnum P.I.
• The Joker
• Moses
• Various colors of Power Rangers (Black, white, pink and blue. The Pink Ranger and the Blue Ranger were having a battle when I saw them. Most amusing.)
  
• Marty McFly (one of my coworkers, Jeff)
  
• a CEO (another of my coworkers, Kristina)
  
• Harry Potter (Along with various other generic Hogwarts students)
• Scooby-Doo (This one I saw in the morning. He was sitting on a bench and had a leash attached to a nearby pole. Classic!)
• a blue M&M
• a bee
• a Jedi Knight (A girl one!)
• a scarecrow
• a U of U student
• Patrick the Starfish
• a Newsie (Dang, this guy was cute. Yummy!)
• one of the 3 Musketeers (I wonder where the other 2 were?)
• a Scotsman wearing a kilt and, I kid you not, playing the bagpipes!
• 2 bunches of grapes (my roommates)
• a flapper
• various princesses, witches, etc. You know, traditional Halloween costumes.
  

Some of these were very creative and well-done. Others were not so much. Anyhoo, I enjoyed my costume spotting. And no, I did not dress up as anything. I am a party pooper.

Pictures

So, I was messing around with my phone today and found some pictures that I took while I was in Oregon. And a picture of one of my mountains. So I uploaded them to my computer and now I'll show them to you! Yay!

This is where we ate lunch the day Jamie got married.

This is what I ate. Shepherd's pie. Sooooo good.

This is the makeup I found at the mall where The Cheesecake Factory was. Becca Makeup! Yay for my sister! She has her very own makeup line!

This is one of my mountains. I took this picture on an overcast day this summer when my mountains were so pretty! I use this as the background for my phone. I should take another when they're snow-covered!

List

So, we started getting the newspaper recently and today the Toys'R'Us Big Toy book arrived. I looked through it, feeling slightly nostalgic about being a kid and looking through catalogs, especially before Christmas. As such, I have decided to post my Christmas wish list. By no means do I ever expect to obtain all the things on my list. I'm just trying to be a kid again.

Kristen's Christmas Wish List

• Lego Star Wars the video game (Though the complete version doesn't come out for PC, sad.)
• New earphones
• The Lord of the Rings Complete Recordings-The Two Towers and The Return of the King
• More of my favorite Bare Minerals makeup
• New clothes
• Various movies, including, but not limited to:

Star Wars: Episodes 4-6
Jane Eyre (the 2006 version)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Holiday
Stardust
Waitress

• Various books, including, but not limited to:

Believing Christ
The Rhapsody Trilogy (by Elizabeth Haydon, including Rhapsody, Prophecy, and Destiny)
The Twilight Series (by Stephanie Meyers, including Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse)
The Kite Runner (by Khaled Hosseini)
Six Words You Never Knew Had Something to Do With Pigs (by Katherine Barber)

• a Memory Stick Micro for my phone (1 or 2 gig would be nice)
• a gig of RAM for my laptop (and someone to install it for me!)
• a plane ticket home for the holidays
• a decent grade in my Advanced Writing class
• a batch of homemade mint chocolate chip cookies
• to see my adorable niece
• a printer that works

That's all.

Friends

Tonight I went to Amanda's bridal shower. It was so wonderful, you can't even imagine. I finally got to hang out with all my best friends here in Utah and I haven't gotten to do that since Jamie's wedding. I really miss spending time with Lindsay and Jessica and Amanda and Jamie. We never really get to now that we all live separately. Tonight it felt like I had come home and was with family. Such a wonderful feeling. I mean, my new roommates are nice, but I miss living with Lindsay so badly. And I miss seeing Jessica. And I miss being offended by Mandy. Kate wasn't there tonight, but I miss her fun yet practical personality, too. I'm so comfortable around them. Argh. I just wanna go back in time for a little bit, to re-experience some of that year in Liberty Square. Ok, there are parts of that year that I don't want to experience again. But the fun times we had, definitely. I just feel very nostalgic tonight.

Plans

I have big plans this weekend. Well, for Saturday anyways.

Saturday morning the roommates and I are going to Magleby's for their all-you-can-eat French toast which is truly one of the finer things in life. I'm hoping this goes well and won't be awkward. I'm still not bosom buddies with my new roommates.

Saturday afternoon I will be going up to West Jordan to visit this little place called Gardner's Village. A bunch of us from work are going on this little outing. The village is supposed to be this cute little crafty village all decorated for Halloween with witches and whatnot. There's a sweet shop and even a petting zoo. I'm way excited! I love outings!

I hope I can make it to Saturday. There's bunches of stuff to do before then.

Friday

This past Friday, I had an interesting day at work. Interesting as in bad.

Thursday night, the library computer system decided to glitch. All the daily reports from the system were therefore sent to the printer in Circulation instead of to their designated department. In addition to this, all the reports squished together into one massive, unreadable, almost useless super-report that printed 7 billion times. Using 2 and a half reams of paper before someone finally turned the printer off.

This wonderful fiasco meant that I had no recall/available notices printed out. And unfortunately, the computer system can only run my recall/available report once. So, I couldn't recall books from anyone. And I had to look up each available book on hold to see who to give it to. It was not fun. Eventually we found something useable in the massive report so I could email recall notices to people. So, my life was pretty stressful on Friday. Ugh.

And today, I felt all nauseated and stuff. I think it's from something I ate yesterday. Or rather, drank. I made fruit punch from a frozen concentrate can that was probably too old. Lovely.

Now, if we can only get something good to happen this week . . .

Lasagna

So, I made my first dinner for dinner group. And it turned out fabulous! I made, you guessed it, lasagna, which turned out to be a real hit! Thanks to Mom's homemade recipe, of course! Thanks Mom!

We also had french bread, store-bought from Smith's. Not quite as glamorous as the homemade lasagna, but still pretty good. I have a loaf left over. I should get some olive oil and make bread dip for it!

So, dinner was a success! Yay me!

Dessert, however, was somewhat less successful. I made brownies, but they stuck to the aluminum foil I lined the pan with and then I cut them too soon. They were gooey and crumbly and sticky, which I actually like in brownies, but it was difficult to get them out of the pan. I have leftovers of them, too.

At least I didn't have a brownie fiasco like that one time...

Nice

I think the highlights of my life are dinner group and work. Dinner group is great, probably the most social part of my life. I feel comfortable there, for the most part. I'm really glad that I decided to do it. It's most definitely worth it.

Work is the other good part of my life. I fit in so well there and know everyone. It's perfect. And though sometimes it gets stressful, like when I have 50 recalls to process and 60 available holds to put on the shelf, I feel useful. Which is a good feeling for me. I feel like I have something to offer there. Same with dinner group. I come across places and situations like that so seldom in my life. Where I feel like I'm welcome and accepted and maybe even needed. It's nice.

Kitty

I have a kitty-friend.

When I first went to my dinner group, I noticed this cat sitting in front of an apartment door. He was so cute and furry that I felt compelled to touch and pet him. And so now, every time I see him, I'll pet him. Last night, I reached down to him to let him smell me and he pushed his head up against my hand! He likes me! And he rubbed himself against my legs, too. It's nice to have a kitty-friend who likes me!

This is what he looks like:

Obviously, that's not really him. It's a picture of a cat who looks similar to him. But that's his coloring.

I don't even know if he's a really a boy. And I don't know his name. But he has a collar, so I'm assuming he has a name. Maybe I'll check next time I see him. Or maybe I'll just give him a name myself. Any suggestions?

Prophet

I just finished watching the devotional for today. President Hinckley spoke. It's strange that such a little old man has such influence for good over my life. He's 97 years old and I don't expect him to last much longer as our prophet, but I will miss him so much when he passes on. He speaks so powerfully yet so lovingly to us. And he has such a light in his eyes that I cannot doubt his faith. Today, as I listened to him, I realized that I really do believe he is a prophet. Even if I couldn't see it in his very being, I could see it in the fruits of his labor. I think my own faith is one of those fruits. I've never even met the man, yet he inspires me and countless others to believe in a loving Father who has a plan for His children. I will forever be grateful for his example.

Absent-minded

I just now realized that this afternoon, after finishing up an assignment in one of the computer labs on campus, I neglected to remove my jump drive from the computer I was using. Of course, I hadn't turned in my assignment electronically yet, so I began panicking when I realized what I had done. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to look up the computer lab's phone number online, then call them. They were super-nice and found it, still in the computer, and set it aside for me to pick up tomorrow when I'm on campus. I'm so grateful for those helpful people!

Dinner

Now that school has started, I'll probably have more to blog about. That's just the way my life works.

Classes have been a bit of a hassle to figure out, but I'm almost set, I think. I've ended up dropping Latin. It was causing me far too much stress on only the second day of class, so I'll just take 102 next semester and finish in the summer. This means I have 4 credits to fill up, so I tried to add a New Testament class today, but it was very full. I found a Teachings of the Living Prophets class, though. Tomorrow I'm gonna try to add an English class, which won't make for a fun semester, but I can do it if I'm not all stressed out about Latin. So, with some luck, by the end of tomorrow, I'll be in the black with my classes.

Monday night, at FHE, one of the girls in my ward invited me to join a dinner group. I thought it might be a good idea, so I went tonight to try it out. We had spaghetti and squash and biscuits. Nothing too gourmet, but it was probably better than what I would've had tonight. So I'm gonna do the dinner group. It'll be good for my social life. However, I requested that I don't do cook by myself. I think disastrous things would happen if I tried to do it alone. I can picture kitchens catching on fire. Scary.

Frustration

Right at this moment, I feel that my entire academic experience has been useless. I'm feeling completely overwhelmed by my Latin 201 class. I don't remember much of anything and I just don't know how I'm going to get through it. And it's only the second day! What's the point of taking all these classes if I'm not going to retain anything? It's such a waste of money. Ugh. I hate school. I just wanna get a job and not have classes anymore.

Too bad I love the job I have. Cause once I'm done here at BYU, I'll have to leave it.

New

Lately, I'm being inundated with new things. New job (I'm a secretary now!), new roommates, new school year, etc.
I'm way excited about my new job. I'm one of the Holds/Recalls/Book Repair secretaries now and all of the stuff I have to learn how to do is a bit overwhelming, but I'll eventually get a grip on it all. I'll miss being up at the front desk, of course. I grew so much as a person in that job. Hopefully, I even got a little more mature. And this new job, I'm sure, will make me stretch myself just as much. (Seriously, I'm afraid of all these phone calls I have to make!) But I'm catching on.

I've met two of my roommates so far. Erin (sharing a room with me) and Krista. They both seem really nice. I hope we get along something like my old roomies. I miss them a bunch. It's a way different adjustment when you start living with brand new people instead of people you already know. We'll see how it goes.

New school year. I'm not really too hyped up about it. I'm not looking forward to any class in particular; however, I'm feeling a little stressed about Latin 201. Especially since it's been a year since I've taken a Latin class. I'm just tired of going to school. I want so badly to just be done with it all. And hopefully, in a year, I will be done.

Oregon

Yes, I went to Oregon last week for my roommate, Jamie's wedding. It was very fun. We drove all night last Wednesday and arrived in Salem (near Portland) at about 10:30 Thursday morning.

That evening, everyone went to Sizzler's for the "rehearsal dinner." There really wasn't any rehearsing done, of course, we just ate food and enjoyed good company.

After Sizzler's, we all headed over to Jamie's house for homemade ice cream made in a John Deere ice cream maker. This thing was way cool. It had its own full-size power generator attached to it and man, was it loud! The ice cream was most delicious!

Here's me and Lindsay and Eva, "hanging out" on the backyard swing.

Me and Amanda and Eva in the kitchen. I don't think Amanda ever realized that I was making bunny ears behind her.

The wedding the next day was great. No rain, but it was slight windy and overcast. I felt like I was back in Alabama with all the moisture in the air! Here's some more pictures from outside the Portland Temple.


Me, Lindsay, Jamie (so pretty!), Eva, and Amanda.

Here we are, beating up Merrill for stealing our roommate away from us!

Lindsay and I are so weird!

We're such strong women!

For lunch, Lindsay's mom treated us to the Cheesecake Factory. Never have I tasted such sweet yummy goodness! I had the Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake. It was heaven!

The reception was held back in Salem at Jamie's home ward church building. She had chocolate wedding cake with white frosting. It can be done, Mom!

Here are Jamie and Merrill, cutting the cake! So cute! Note the chocolate wedding cake to the right! Of course, there is some white cake to the left, too.

Eva, Amanda, and I left right after the reception and drove all the way back to Provo that night. I slept most of the way.

I'd never been to Oregon, so I'm excited that I got to go to the wedding. It was way fun!

Third

So, according to The Princeton Review, BYU's library is ranked third in the nation among university libraries. Harvard and Princeton are numbers 1 and 2. Just a few years ago, we were ranked number one.

I'm so proud that I work at such a prestigious place! And I go to the number one stone-cold sober school, too!

Harry

I went to see Harry Potter 5 on Saturday. In my opinion, it was better than the book! I didn't really like The Order of the Phoenix book. Too many angsty teenagers. So I was somewhat surprised that I enjoyed the movie so much. Maybe cause they left out a bunch of stuff.

Anyhoo, while watching the movie, I was just really impressed with the soundtrack. So I decided to download it from iTunes. From some of the reviews on there, it seemed like people weren't too excited about it. Now, the composer, Nicholas Hooper, is no John Williams, but I really liked his work on the movie.

I really loved the new cast members for movie 5. Both Imelda Staunton (Prof. Umbridge) and Helena Bonham-Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange) are excellent actors and they do perfectly in their respective roles. I really was pleased with them. The other new actors were great as well. Tonks was just how I imagined her, and Kingsley Shacklebolt was way cool. They just did a great job with this film. I just really enjoyed the whole thing.

Cold

It seems I have a slight cold. I'm all stuffy and my nose is running out the wazoo, so it's either a cold or I'm severely allergic to Utah.

I've had a pretty social weekend so far. I went to the store yesterday morning with Jamie, went to work, then went to see Whale Rider at BYU's International Cinema with some friends. Afterwards, we went to The Malt Shop for some milkshakes. My strawberry shake was most excellent.

Of course, being social on Friday night meant that I didn't get enough sleep last night. I had to wake up early this morning since I had work at 8. Ugh. And it was then that my nose started leaking like Niagara Falls. Still, work was ok. Bev, my boss, gave me my evaluation for Summer Term and everything was phenomally positive. Course, I only get a 10 cent raise and not 20 cents, but that's because I was only working during Summer and not Spring. Still pretty good, though.

This afternoon, I went for ice cream with some ELang major friends, one of whom is getting married next week. Another wedding I'm gonna miss. Well, I'm sure Oregon will be fun. I've never been there after all.

Now I'm fixing to take a nap and wait for Kristina to call about going to see Harry Potter 5 tonight. Socially, I'm about worn out. But it's certainly been fun!

Phone

By popular demand, here is a picture of my phone.

Phone

I'm in love with my new phone.

I just got it today. It arrived in a brown cardboard box on my doorstep around 4:00 this afternoon. I set it all up just in time to leave for work (After calling Mother several hundred times to figure out how to activate it and stuff). It was pouring down rain so my wonderful roommate, Jamie, drove me up to the library.
While at work, I finished putting all my numbers into my new phone's address book. I also learned that even if the phone is set on silent, the alarm isn't. However, if the custodians are across the way cleaning the carpets with their astoundingly loud carpet cleaners, it is rather hard to hear the alarm if you're sitting more that six feet away from it.
I got home from work just after 11:00. I went to the Sony Ericsson website to see about downloading software I can use when I get my USB connector. While there I checked out some of the cool things my phone can do.

My phone has an FM radio. By plugging in the hands-free set, which acts as an antenna, I can listen to countless stations! (Ok, not countless, but it's quite a few)

My phone has a camera. With video capture. This means I should start taking video and post it on here. I'll have to wait until my USB connector comes, though. Since I ordered it just today, it'll take a couple weeks. I only spent about 2 dollars on the actual cable. Shipping cost about 6 dollars.

My phone has a nifty little music editor program. I just mixed my own ringtone! It has little soundclips you can combine together to create your own tune. Way cool.

My phone also has a video/picture editor for creating little movies. Fun!

My phone makes noises when I flip it open! Granted, I'm sure I'll get sick of this eventually, but right now it's pretty much the coolest thing ever!

My phone has a sound recorder. Now I can record those secret government phone calls I'm always making, so some evil villain can use them against me!

Lastly, my phone comes preloaded with Tetris. You gotta love a phone that provides you with hours of mindless entertainment!

In conclusion, I've discovered I really am my mother's child. I love my cool electronic gadgets, just like she does. And also in conclusion, I need to go to bed. It's much too late.

Solitude

It's been awhile since I've written on here. Really, my life isn't that exciting.

Seems like everyone's getting married, lately. My roommate, my coworkers, people I know from school. I'm not, of course. Just lots of people around me.

A friend of mine from work, Kim, is going to set me up with a friend of hers. I haven't met him yet, cause he's busy being an EFY counselor. He's from Alabama, and from what Kim says, seems pretty interesting. We'll see how that goes.

I haven't been doing much lately. I just work at my library. It's pretty much my entire social life, too. And since my roommate, Jamie, is moving to her new apartment next week, I'll be pretty lonely for the rest of the summer. I'll be fine, though, I've discovered that I rather like being a loner. I get along plenty well with everyone at work, and I'm there all the time. It's just I'll be alone at home. That's all.

Book

I finished Harry Potter book 7.
In 6 hours.

BBC

Last night I had a friend over to watch a movie. A four-hour-long movie. It was an adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's book, North and South, done by the BBC in 2004. The plot is very reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice: strong feminine protagonist, misunderstood (by the female) male protagonist, male falls in love with female but female thinks he's lower than dirt. There was even a proposal scene right in the middle where she completely shoots him down. However, the setting was different. The plot takes place in industrial Victorian England, in a northern town called Milton. I absolutely adored all of the northern accents. They're similar to Scottish. Anyways, they get together in the end, during an absolutely adorable scene in a train station, but only after both the girl's parents die, her best friend succombs to consumption, and her fugitive brother escapes the country. But that train station scene is just so great!

I might have to go read the book now.

P.S. The guy in this movie has these absolutely smoldering good looks. So dang attractive.

Going

This is a momentous occasion. Not terribly momentous though. I am blogging for the first time from my new laptop! I've had it for more than a week, though; it would've been way more exciting if I blogged the day I got it.

Tomorrow I wake up and head back out west. (At 6 in the morning. Blegh.) I'm fairly excited about this trip; I do love going out to Utah almost as much as I love coming home. We're going camping at the Grand Canyon for a few days before we go up to Provo. That should be fun. I like camping out west. Dry pillows to sleep on. Not to mention it gets appropriately chilly at night, so you don't get all hot and sweaty while you sleep. It'd be perfect for campfires, but I doubt we'll get to have one, due to all the dryness.

I'm really looking forward to getting back to my library. I miss it. I miss my coworkers and my roommates, too. I was surprised about how much I'm excited about going back; I didn't think I'd get so "homesick." Provo isn't really home, but I'm fairly attached to it right now. I do miss green things when I'm living in the desert, though. I should definitely live in Europe, in the Alps, so I can have both green and mountains. It'd be so perfect. Or maybe Scotland. Green (in the summer), mountains and hot accents! That's the life for me!

Computer!

My computer is coming, it's coming, it's coming! Yay! It's been shipped, which means it should arrive after I get back from the beach next week! And then I will have a beautiful new Dell laptop! Yay! Computer, computer, computer, computer!

Can you tell how excited I am!

And in other news, I just found out that my roommate and my good friend Jennica are getting married on like, the same day. Which means I can only go to one wedding. My roommate's in Oregon, or Jennica's in Salt Lake. Dang.

Computer?

So.
It's getting to be that time. The time where I get a new computer! Yay! It's been four long years and my good ol' dell desktop has been good to me, but it needs to retire.

I'm gonna get a laptop! I've been looking at the Dell Inspiron E1505. It'll run Windows Vista and I'll customize it to have 1 gig of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive. That'll make it just under 800 dollars. Course, this isn't set in stone. I'm still deciding. But Dell will probably be the way to go for me. I'd want to get another gig of RAM, but it's cheaper to get it separately than to upgrade it through Dell.

Exciting, huh? We'll see how it all ends up.

Lindsay

Check out my old roomie, Lindsay, on a real live podcast! She's so pretty, and she gets a t-shirt!

Movies

Lately, I've been checking out all the movie trailers on Apple's website. It's rather fun to find some of the more obscure movies and now I want to see them, too. So, here is a list of movies that I want to see, complete with links to the trailers. (Some of these have already come out, some haven't)

Spiderman 3
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Transformers
Amazing Grace
Martian Child
Duck
Hairspray
Moliere
Stardust
Waitress
Penelope
The Ex
Avenue Montaigne
The Nanny Diaries
In the Land of Women
Miss Potter
Pan's Labyrinth (I'd rather watch it on one of those Clearplay players so it'll be an "edited" version, but the movie does look pretty sweet)

Granted, some of these do look like cheesy chick flicks. But I rather like cheesy chick flicks.

Now, the ones I'm looking forward to the most are Spiderman, Pirates, Stardust(Neil Gaiman is awesome!), and Penelope. But Stardust and Penelope don't come out til August. And since I'll be in Utah with no car, there's a bit of a dilemma in figuring out the logistics of getting to an actual theater to see them. I suppose I could get me one of them boyfriend things.

Small

I came home this week. My plane flight wasn't that great. As a matter of fact, it pretty much sucked. I sat there on the plane just hoping that somehow we could instantly be transported to the ground, like in Star Trek. The turbulence was making me that sick. In fact, I started wishing that I had never even got on that plane. But when I finally made it into Nashville, and my family was there and I got to see them and be with them, I realized how happy I was to be home (though, technically, I still wasn't home in Huntsville). It wasn't some huge overwhelming "I'm home!" feeling, either. It was just a quiet, simple peace. Something very personal and undeniably real.

I love getting little assurances like that. It's all about the little things. And I need those little moments when the Spirit whispers to me. I need them like I need to breathe. It's like I'm a little kid who needs constant reassurances that the monsters under the bed aren't going to get them. But, hey, blessed are the little children, right?

Roommate

My roommate, Eva, had a really sad tragedy happen this weekend. Her stepbrother committed suicide. He and his wife were having some problems and she was filing for divorce. I'd just ask that everyone keep my roommate and her family in their prayers.

Taxes

I finished mine today. I get back about $400 from both federal and state taxes. Yes! I'm gonna put most of it into savings, but I'll keep a little for me.

Recently, I have come to the conclusion that I idealize boys and relationships. Which may explain why I have problems with those things. So I've decided that I need to mentally stay away from boys, until I can get over my idealizations. Much easier said than done. Especially when the boy I do like is practically perfect. Ok, he's not perfect, but he's ten million times closer than I am. And there's my problem right there. See how my thought processes go? I keep telling myself that nobody's perfect, that I shouldn't even compare myself to anyone else, but apparently, that just doesn't stick in my head.

Poem

I wrote a poem today. It's not that great, but I thought I'd share my meager offering.

Oh, what is the worth of a soul?
It is beyond the bright jewels of the earth
It is deeper than the depths of the sea
It reaches far beyond the limits of human understanding

But I begin to understand
When I hear a baby's laugh
When I gaze at the mountains
When I touch the petals of a flower

I begin to know
When I listen to a choir sing
When I see an older couple holding hands
When I feel love for another

I begin to remember
When I remember my Father
When I remember His Son
When the Spirit whispers words of peace:
"The worth of souls is great in the sight of God"

Brother

That dude is my brother! Isn't it cool! He's just like a one-legged puppy named Lil' Brudder!
Well, except he has two legs. And he's not a puppy. But he is my lil' brudder!

Revival

My phone works again! Apparently the battery was just taking a short sabbatical. It returned Tuesday evening, just before I left to see about getting a new battery. Maybe it didn't want to be replaced.

Anyhoo, I pressed the button to try to turn it on and it randomly flashed on for a second before turning off again. Very suspicious. So I plugged in the charger and tried to turn it on again. Voila! It started charging. I just don't understand why it wouldn't do that the last ten times I tried. Strange.

In other news, I want to throw rocks at boys. People tell me I'm pretty. Or at least my hair is pretty. But I must not be pretty enough to get asked out. I must not be pretty enough for a boy to be interested in me. And I know that I'm silly to think that, but at least to me, the evidence is becoming quite clear that I must not be desirable. And it's probably my own fault that I'm not desirable. I know I certainly don't make much of an effort to be available to boys. I think I'm missing something.

I'll feel better later, but right now I'm just frustrated with boys. And with myself.

Battery

I'd like to have a moment of silence.


My cell phone battery has died. Really and truly died. It was a good cell phone battery. Not the best, but then I did buy it used.

And now it's time to get a new one.

Mawiage

So, my good friend and coworker, Jennica, got engaged last night! To a former coworker, Mitch. I found out this morning when she texted me. Yay! I'm so excited! Especially since they're getting married in August and that means I'll be out here for the reception! Yes!

In the meantime, I get to go home for spring. That means I'll be in Alabama next month! Crazy! I can't wait!

Scripts

Today in my semantics class we had an interesting discussion. About a certain cultural script we have here in the U.S.

The script goes something like this:

people think like this:

everyone can do what he/she wants to do

if it is not bad for other people

So, on to the story. Every year my professor goes to this conference in California. During the conference he gets together with some colleagues and goes to dinner. However, this year, he has been 'uninvited.' Why, do you ask? Not because of anything he has done or said. But because he's a member of the LDS Church. More specifically, because some of the people in the group are gay and feel offended by the LDS religion. Wow. I kinda feel offended that they're offended.

I feel sad, too. Sad that there's such a double standard. Now, I'm not saying that all LDS people are perfect Christians, but let me tell you, my professor would never ever want to offend someone because they are gay. Maybe he'd want to offend someone who was stupid. After all, he is Australian.

thesaurus

So, today I was introduced to the coolest website in the world. Visualthesaurus.com

I love being an ELang major.

Really, the most amusing part of the site occurs when you look up a word, then 'share' it. You can send an email with the word, or design things with the word on it like coffee mugs, t-shirts, and even postage stamps. The t-shirts are particularly fun. They have about a million styles to choose from, including a onesie for your philologist-aspiring infant or toddler.

Now, apparently, after looking up so many words, they ask you to subscribe to the site, but since I'm a bright young student at Brigham Young University, I get to use the site for free. But only on campus. Blegh. I'm tempted to pay the 20 bucks a year for the darn thing. As a matter of fact, I'm almost tempted to pay 40 bucks for the desktop version! It's just that cool.

Movie

So my roommate (former roommate, that is, but I still love her!) made another movie. It's coming out in theaters in Utah in March and I will so get to go to the premiere! It's an LDS version of Beauty and the Beast and Lindsay plays the best friend of "Belle." There are about two seconds of her in the trailer, if you watch it.

The guy who plays the "Beast" looks about 40, though. Scary. But no offense to him. And the movie will probably be way cheesy. Mormon films normally are, though.

Quelf

is the weirdest game ever. Fun, but really quite strange. I did, however, meet a cute guy while playing. Unfortunately, I never found out what his name was, so it seems we were destined to meet like two ships in the night.

Actually, I have my Middle English buddy, Charity, working on finding out his name. Then, maybe, I'll find him on Facebook. Would that be too weird, do you think? Messaging him on Facebook and being like, "Hi, we met the other night over a festive game of Quelf. I was the random girl with red hair who had to make up a word and use it in a sentence whenever I had a turn. Do you wanna be friends on Facebook?"

Ooo, man, if someone said that to me, I'd so want to be friends with them.

Italian

I went to the Olive Garden for lunch with my good friend, Jennica, today. That place has some of the ultimate comfort food. Mmmmm, salad and breadsticks. I still have a faint, yet comforting aftertaste in my mouth. Actually, it's starting to get slightly gross. But I have leftovers for dinner! The only thing I wish I'd done was get bruscetta. But that would've made lunch out of my price range. 10 bucks for both lunch and dinner from Olive Garden is a pretty good deal, I'd say.

We saw so many babies at Olive Garden. They were really cute and I started to miss my niece. So I think that my sister and brother-in-law should post more pictures of her on their blogs. Or little videos where she does cute things. Yeah. Stage 'em if you have to, but I want to see my niece!

Walmart

So, me and Eva (my new roommate) went to Walmart tonight to pick up some necessities that I needed to get. Like ibuprofen. And milk. Anyway, while we were in the food section, Eva noticed some really cute guys that were kinda following us around. Of course, me being the oblivious person that I am, I didn't notice anything of the kind. Eva had to tell me all this after the fact. But apparently, one of the boys was pretty cute. And, also apparently, he was checking me out. Like, when I was getting some mayonaise(Actually, it was Miracle Whip. I alternate. Last time, I got real mayonaise), according to Eva, he came up and stood right beside without getting anything off the shelf. And he never said a word to me.

Oh, how I wish that I wasn't BLIND! I didn't even look once at this boy. Completely oblivious to his presence. And he was showing interest. DARN YOU, SALAZAR!(points if you know where that's from)

Oh well. I guess I'll have to go back to Walmart again. So I can practice realizing that boys are checking me out.

Birthday

Tomorrow I am going to reach the illustrious age of twenty-two. Ok, I know twenty-two is really not all that illustrious, but it's still older than I've ever been before. And I'm one of the oldest girls at work. Only counting student employees.

Speaking of work, I'm the senior TL now. Which means, apparently, that I have to take minutes at the meetings. It's not so bad, except when it's the first meeting of the year and I've totally forgotten that I actually have to take minutes. Fortunately, my boss had a pen and paper and reminded me. I hope that these first minutes are interesting, because everyone else has to read them. I did add pictures. When I go to work tomorrow, I'll see what I have to do to get them actually posted on Blackboard.

Yes, I do have to work on my birthday. I'm not complaining, mostly because it's just for one measly hour at 10 in the morning. Piece of cake. And really, who's gonna be at the library then? It's Martin Luther King Day. What, like five people?

My roomies are throwing me a party tomorrow night. I'm always slightly anxious about parties; I don't do that well with big groups of people. But I'm hoping this party will be fun. And I get to open presents tomorrow! Yay!