Wisdom teeth

Right now I am really craving pizza.
What I have eaten these past 2 days:
- Danimals smoothies
- milkshakes
- yogurt (I think I'm sick of yogurt for the first time all year)

I am really cold and am craving some tomato soup. But we don't have any.

Love this wisdom teeth experience. I feel like I've lost brain cells over the amount of movies I have watched.

Have a good day!

There's something about...

I can't sleep, so I'm going to write.

There's something about

• a song that just relates to you in so many ways.
• 3 road trips back and fort to Arizona within 2 weeks days
• mountains.
• tall boys.
• Michael Buble's Christmas album.
• meeting a new person.
• opening up to people.
• letting people open up to you, and letting yourself love them, despite everything.
• realizing how wonderful and kind everyone is to you when you're having a bad day
• receiving a Father's blessing.
• a full moon.
• sunsets.
• coming to a realization that you hope you won't forget.
• boys with accents ;)
• voxing your mom and your aunts and your Grammie.
• waking up to a text from a friend telling you to read a scripture that you really needed to read
• speaking in another language.
• pulling multiple "all-nighters."
• breathing in fresh air.
• culture. pure culture.
• photography and capturing instant moments so quickly.
• having 20 panic attacks every 5 minutes and realizing how annoying that must be.
• watching your little brother play basketball.
• holding a door open for someone.
• finally letting all of the tears out at once.
• mom's homemade apple and berry pies.
• realizing you might have made a difference in someone's life.
• being humbled by all the people who have made a difference in your life.
• talking to one of your best friends on the phone till 2:30 in the morning, getting food with them, and knowing they will always be there for you.
• lying in your bed, wanting to sleep, and desperately praying for hours on end that your heart will stop beating so fast and you will calm down.  And then actually falling asleep.
• Mumford and Sons
• rekindling meaningful friendships
• loving others
• talking with your roommate way too late into the night
• the beautiful power of prayer
• a personal relationship with my Savior
• writing a blogpost while your adorable roommate snores on the couch
• realizing it's really late and I need to go to bed

This was super random and jumbled.  But I'm grateful for everything I have.  And although school is overtaking my life and causing me more stress than necessary, I am grateful for my family and friendships, and I know that in the end, it is the relationships we build with others that matter.

life right now

I love my Savior.

I love His gospel.

I love His prophets.

I love the Bible.

I love studying the New Testament.

I love the Book of Mormon.

I love my family.

I love my roommates.

I love my friends.

I love my job.

I love my freshmen.

I love my height.

I love my long hair.

I love my new phone.

I love fall.

I love the rain.

I love everything related to pumpkins.

I love colors. 

I love leaves.

I love the mountains.

I love wearing blazers.

I love pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and cookies and cake.

I love discovering new music on Spotify.

I love Mumford and Sons.

I love having a clean room.

I love meeting new people.

I love to smile.

I just love life right now.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

So I'm in this video for like one second.  But Karina and Ellie are very much featured in it.  And Eric is in my ward - so DUH I have to share it :)

Watch! Share! Boost of the views! Check out Eric Thayne on youtube :)

curse of breaking things

I have a curse.  No really, I do.  And while I write this I can't even laugh at myself anymore.  I just want to cry.

It all began with my Dell computer a year ago.  Don't even know what happened, it just decided not to turn back on again.  Started making weird beeping noises and overheating.  I lost everything.  After a couple weeks without a computer I decided to rent from BYU.  Let's just say I went through SIX of them.  Same sort of thing, they decided not to turn on.  One couldn't hold a charge for more than five minutes.  Sometimes I would back things up, other times I forgot to back some stuff up.  So I hardly have any papers or anything I wrote from my freshman year of college.  After going through six PCs, I bought a Mac.  Haven't had any problems whatsoever.

But the computers are only just the beginning.  I dropped my phone in water.  Oops.  Had to borrow someone's.

I went on a bike ride on Karina's bike.  Crashed it.  Broke the tire.

My ipod.  Kept deciding not to play stuff and the computer finally didn't recognize it anymore.  It's dead.  Maybe it got dropped too many times, I'm not sure.

I crashed my family's car on the way home from Utah (sorry, guys).  This one really isn't that funny, more like traumatizing.  But my roommates still insensitively laugh at me about it.

When I came back from AZ to Utah this year, my camera all of a sudden had a lens error.  No idea where that came from - it was working in the airport and decided not to work once we landed in Utah.

When I was in California I dented a bike rack.

And now, just yesterday, I wake up and my phone decides to completely die on me.  The touch screen is fried.  It lasted me so long....like 8 months.  That's a record.

So now I'm phoneless, without a camera or an ipod.  My computer still works, thank goodness.  And I was smart enough to get insurance on it just in case.

I also seem to have a problem with breaking toilets too.

I know material things aren't what make life wonderful.  But I like having working electronics.
I have a problem.  I swear, I don't throw my phones against the wall or smash my cameras with hammers.  Maybe I'm clueless, maybe there's some rule to technology everyone in the world knows about except me.  If there is, could you please tell me?  Because I'm sick of this.

I think I'll go cry myself to sleep now :)

Remembering Names

“Remember that a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language."

- Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

For the past couple of weeks, I have started my new job as a Peer Mentor through BYU's Freshman Mentoring program.   As soon as I came to BYU a year ago and met my peer mentor, I knew it was a job I would love participating in.  Being a mentor at Chandler Prep and being the oldest of seven children, I have always found myself in that "mentor" role.  I'm an Anthropology major, so I love to meet people, get to know them, and understand them.

Getting ready for New Student Orientation brought some anxiety but mostly excitement.  I had been training to meet these students for so long, and I finally got to meet them and get to know them!  And once I did, everything became so tangible.  Names became faces, and the real work began.

Now, something I don't like to admit - I can't remember names.  I will recognize so many faces around campus - of people I've never even met.  I have a favorite couple I see walking around everywhere, but they probably have no idea who I am.  She works in the Science and Maps section of the library, and they're quite adorable.  I know their faces, but I could never tell you their names.  With this lack of a gift that I have, I was worried about NSO.  For the days before it, I kept praying that I could remember names.  I still keep praying for that.  Because "a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language."

I mean, honestly, if someone calls me by my name, I feel valued.  They know my name; they remember me.  And I would hate to make someone feel like they are not valued by not remembering their name.  And guess what?  I am remembering names so much more now!  A simple prayer that has been answered and has strengthened me.

God knows each of us by name.  He can name all of his children by name.  Jesus Christ suffered for each of us individually.  He knows our name, our deepest fears, our happiest joys, and our hardest trials.  My burdens are His burdens.  And when I can't sleep at night when I'm thinking about my students, because I care so much about them already, I know Christ has mine and their burdens too.  I love Him, and I am eternally grateful that He will forever know my name.

How Great Thou Art

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,

Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art.

When I look at the stars, overlook a valley from the top of a mountain, or admire the detail of delicate butterfly wings, I am in “awesome wonder” God’s creations and perfect love.  Surrounded by nature, I am humbled by God’s magnificence and cannot help but thinking, “How great Thou art.”

Glacier National Park - Montana

Whitefish, Montana Summer 2011

Singing the words to “How Great Thou Art” is a “prayer” (Doctrine and Covenants 25:12) unto my “Lord my God.”  

 Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, is manifest throughout all of His creations.  His light is throughout the world, and sometimes we fail to recognize and be humbled by this.  I am very grateful for the beautiful world that surrounds us, and I know that Christ’s light is throughout the world.  The simple beauties that surround us testify of Christ, and all things point to Christ.  If Christ is the center of our lives, then all of our questions and doubts can be answered.

on-campus to off-camps shock

The New Heritage Halls were wonderful. (Click to see pictures of them). They were beautiful and I have nothing bad to say about them ever.  We were the first ones to live in them. They were spacious and clean and wonderful.  Never-been-slept-in beds, never-been-sat-on couches, never-been-flushed toilets, and never-been-used showers.

Then I look at my off-campus apartment for this year - much, much cheaper in rent - and we're gettin that quality.  I have to say when we toured the apartment I did not think it was all that bad.  It looked pretty clean and livable.  Probably because we didn't look in all the nooks and crannies.

I am scared to SHOWER in the bathrooms.  Seriously - how many people have showered in there?  How much hair has been lost by how many girls in those drains? I'm also taller than the shower so I have to bend my knees a whole lot :(  How would boys shower in those? (well, tall boys).
The carpets have apparently been cleaned but they don't look like they've ever been replaced in the last twenty years.   There is this apparent odor throughout.  The air conditioning is slightly....NOT WORKING. Luckily this isn't Arizona or I'd be out of there in a heartbeat. Even though it does feel like it's 95 degrees in there.
There are areas of this apartment that don't look like they've ever been dusted.  How did the previous people ever get away with cleaning checks?  The inside of the cupboards are all stained.

Last night I made a Target run (while getting lost multiple times along the way) to pick up some necessities for the apartment.  Like a fan, shelf-liner, air fresheners, and some basic cleaning supplies.  We bleached all the insides of the cupboards.  I don't even want to touch the showers.  Guess I'm going to break out those early morning custodial skills once again!

Now onto the good part.
This apartment is very close to campus so  I can walk no problemo.   Everyone that we've talked to says the ward is very social and fun.  I get to live with all of my same roommates from last year.  Once we turn this apartment into a home we'll be all set.  We can make this apartment wonderful and make our experience fun because WE are wonderful and fun.  There is an upstairs where all the bedrooms are so if I want to go to bed earlier there will be less noise.  And, there are much worse apartments out there.  For the price we're paying, we really can't complain.

Pictures to come soon...

Have you ever lived in an apartment that wasn't very livable?  How'd you make it your home? Stories and suggestions please :)

Clark Kent

I've had this blog-post sitting in my drafts folder ever since I watched all four Superman movies featuring Christopher Reeves and the 2006 version Superman Returns with Brandon Routh in California with Seth, Isaac, and Aunt Sarah.  After that movie marathon I fell in love with Superman.

this is Brandon Routh with his "hipster" glasses
see - he's just as attractive as superman!
haha - he IS superman.

See, something I've always found fascinating about all superhero movies in general is that the public needs a hero.  Gotham needs Batman.  Metropolis (or the whole world, I suppose) needs Superman.  These heroes are their Saviors.  And although there aren't any superheroes around these parts flying and catching reports and helicopters, we have everyday heroes that mean so much to us.  We find hope in our heroes.  And since we put so much hope in our heroes, we need to have good heroes.  Not the amazing basketball superstar Kobe Bryant or baseball legends that end up being on steroids.  We can find our heroes in the good people around us.  Our grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, mentors, professors, siblings, prophets, and pastors.  And we can find the hero in ourselves, too.

My favorite superhero is Superman.  I love Clark Kent too.


I fell in love with the movies featuring the 6'4" Christopher Reeves (I mean, 6'4" tall, dark, and handsome - I'm not gonna complain).  I fell in love with the superhero Superman - he's now officially my favorite one.  And I also fell in love with Superman's alter-ego Clark Kent.

Christopher Reeves as Superman.
His only disguise - glasses. It fools Lois Lane.

I mean - some people need a superman in their lives, but give me a Clark Kent and I'll be happy.  I find his hipster glasses quite attractive, actually.  I never quite understood what he saw in Lois Lane, either.

Superman's only weakness is Kryptonite.  He can take a bullet to his eyeball.  You can shoot him with anything and he'll be fine.  He can pick absolutely anything up. And, that's pretty cool. I also think he's the one with the most good in him.  Every hero has his tragic flaw, and his is Kryptonite.  Which Lex Luther uses to his advantage every time.

Clark Kent is just adorable. He's smart (well, the glasses make him look smart at least), kind, caring, and sensitive.  And underneath all that is the Man of Steel.  Clark Kent is like the kid next door who's quite attractive but you never give him the time of day because he's just too nice.   And although Clark is quite clumsy I find that quite endearing.

And yes, I know Clark Kent/ Superman doesn't exist in real life. But someday I'll find my Superman.  Or my Clark Kent :)  Yes - someday I'll find my Clark Kent.

some quotes and some change

do you like the title of my blog?  because I'm considering changing it.  I love my title, I just don't know if people can remember it because it's in Latin.  But the more I think of it, I'll just keep it :)

My mom found this quote, and I think it describes just what I'm trying to do on my blog.

Emily Dickinson: "Forever is composed of nows."  I'm writing about the different "nows" I am experiencing in life.  So, if I suddenly have a new blog that has something to do with that quote, don't be surprised.

Another Emily Dickinson quote I like:
"I dwell in possibility."  My Grammie always says that.  Life presents so many different possibilities, and by dwelling on all of them we remain open-minded.