Hallow's Eve

I'd like to link to a friend's blog.  She asked a question, and I wrote a comment that is very fitting for Halloween. Check it out! Really, do it!  Click here.

Also, I dressed up as a Ravenclaw student today.  It was so much fun!  I didn't have a real costume when it came to clothes, but I stuck with Ravenclaw colors, and I had great accessories.  And today isn't even over.  So there's a quick post before I go eat and dance like crazy.

Also, my two of my best friends in China watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie with me, and we chatted about it through Skype, so it was like we were watching it together, so I watched a movie with them on Halloween (my Halloween).  It was great!

Blog n Library

Hey guys!

I thought I'd let you know about a new blog I've started, called Cleave (<--that's a link, for all of you who might not know it already).

I'm still working with the code to fix a few things with the layout that I don't like, but that's just me being picky, and it's totally visitable.  So check it out if you want, and if you don't, then I still have something to tell you!

I have 2433 songs on my iTunes.  It's over 8 days worth of music.  Usually I get a craving for certain songs and artists, so I just listen to them over and over again.  Today I wasn't in a mood for anything specific, so I put my library on shuffle, and something AMAZING happened.

I realized I have buttload of really great music!  It's just such a huge library that there's no way I can remember everything I have.

So, I know you guys probably do that too, but I tell you what, wow!

Fabulous Facebook

You may think this a strange statement.  If that be the case, you probably have no idea about the wonders that Facebook provides the world with.

Put aside the addicts out there of status updates, flair, bejeweled, vampire wars, farm town, farkle, and my recent favorite: street racing (cars...and it has all the koenigzeggs)...

There are miracles at work here.  Facebook was made to grant desires.

Take a hypothetical situation: A girl says she's single, that she ended a relationship.  This notifies all the males in her social network that she is now available.  This could lead to something.

That didn't happen to me, but I'm sure it's happened somewhere.

But what DID happen to me was absolutely wonderful.  I made a status saying that I wanted cheesy bread, Brady style.  This is an amazing bread and I cannot tell anyone the recipe because it is a loosely-held family secret recipe.  Lol.  It's from one of my best friends, Keara Lei.

And Megan read my status....then next thing I know I'm at Smith's...then next thing I know I'm at home...then next thing I know we have Brady Bread!...then next thing I know it's all gone...because I ate it so fast.

It was yummy and facebook and friends are fabulous.  Ha ha.  Lots of Fs.

My tummy is happy, my friends are great, and I miss the ones in China.  Thanks roomies for cheesy bread, and thanks China roomies for introducing me to cheesy bread and practically shoving it down my throat the first time I tried it.  I really do appreciate it.  :)

Pumpkin Walk

For our group project in my Management of Organizations and People class, my team decided to volunteer at the Pumpkin Walk (look it up online, the North Logan Pumpkin Walk) and raise awareness of child safety during halloween and trick-or-treating.

Not gonna lie, I was against this idea from the get-go.  I wanted to throw a masquerade dinner/dance, and half of the team agreed with me, but for some reason this Pumpkin deal worked out...

Anyway, for the project, we got a lot of organizations to donate candy and crayons and coloring books, and we got dentists and policemen involved, and we made cotton candy.  (Btw, it sucks to make cotton candy for 5 hours straight.  Never doing that again.)

Let me tell you a secret that everyone already knows: kids are SO funny!  I was asking kids if they knew how to be safe on Halloween and they'd all nod their head, but when I'd ask them to tell me what they knew about being safe when they went trick-or-treating, they froze, and sometimes great things came out of their mouths.  Take some of my favorite responses:

(2 boys, probably 6 or 7 years old) First boy: "If you touch the door and it's hot half-way up...if the doorknob is hot...don't open the door and then the fire won't burn you."
Me, after a moment of blinking stupor: "Well, that's good fire safety, but do you know about trick-or-treating safety?"
First boy looks stumped, but the second boy is now bouncing up and down with his arm raised high in the air squeaking "Oh! I know!"  I tell him to go for it.
Second boy: "You should always bring a bag, otherwise you'll lose your candy."
I said that was true and resorted to asking them yes or no questions.

A boy, probably 5 years old: "Don't go to dark houses, unless it's your bishop's house, then it's okay."

I explained 3 of the simplest rules (stay with your parents, don't run across the street, and have your parents look at your candy) to a 4 year old, and right after I told her, I asked her what she learned, and she thought for a moment and then replied, "I'm gonna be a pirate for Halloween!"  I laughed, of course, and I told her that I like being a pirate for Halloween, so we could be pirate buddies.

It's Close to Miiiidnight

I taught the Thriller today, and it went AMAZING!

Let me tell you, there's just something about Michael Jackson that pumps your confidence levels up, especially when you get to dance to it.  Especially when people EXPECT you to dance to it, and they want to learn how to dance like you.

It was the best dance moment in my life.

Even though I forgot the order of moves in one part, it went well, because another girl in the class learned the thriller from the same site i learned it from, so I had an extra brain to rely on and another body to demonstrate the moves.  It was so much fun!

We only had enough time to get through half of the dance, but my regular dance instructor is going to take it from there, which is fine by me, because we ended at the exact point that I start getting iffy with.

So, all things accounted for, dancing went well.  If it hadn't, I would've been in a very sore mood today because i didn't finish my stats homework, i KNOW i failed that quiz, and I am pretty sure I'll be taking stats for the rest of my life.  I am not joking.  I am signing up for it this Spring.  Hopefully Keara Lei wouldn't mind helping me fix whatever the heck I'm understanding incorrectly.

My stats instructor said something to us in class that made me feel better.  He said that if we're confused, at least we're confused about something that's complicated.

Also, I made cotton candy for 5 hours last night.  I might do a whole post on that later.  Or maybe not.  But I am ready for this term to be over.  What a nightmare.  Fast-forward please.

Jello Cake

I made a jello cake!

It consisted of layers of 4 colors, and somehow I ended up with a rainbow!

It was great and tall and wiggly and almost fell apart, but it was delicious.

My roomies ate some, and took some pictures of it. They even took pictures of the bowl because it was so cool looking. It just had rings of color around it.

73.XX%

Amazing news.  Just did some calculations on what my grade is so far in statistics, and I found out that my last quiz brought me back up into C territory.  Thank goodness for doing well on quizzes.  I thought it would never happen.  Didn't get a perfect score, but that doesn't matter.  I just need to pass this course.  Although I wish it was possible to get an A, because that would really look good on my transcripts.  But I'm an English major, so I don't know who expects me to do well in statistics anyway.  As long as I pass, I'm good.

And right now, I'm passing.  Phew.  Let's keep it up.

The Thriller

At the very beginning of my hip hop class, all of the students had to say how much dance experience they had. I said the most experience I've had was watching an online tutorial on how to do the Thriller dance (i love mj) but I didn't even finish that.

Last week, my instructor came up to me in the middle of our routine practice and asked if I would teach the class the first half of the Thriller to the class after we mastered this routine, which would probably be This Friday.

With mixed feelings, I accepted. If I had been thinking, I would've asked for her to give me extra credit or free days or something in exchange for facing one of my worst fears: dancing in front of people. It took me a bit to get comfortable dancing with everyone, and now I'm going to dance in front of my class and teach them how to do what I do.

It is good thing I love the Thriller, otherwise I would be so scared right now. But actually, I'm kinda excited. It's no fun to do the Thriller all by yourself at home. I bet it will be awesome with everyone else. Plus I get to tell people to be more Zombie-ish. I cannot wait. Anyone have any good lines I can use to tell people to relax their arms like noodles, to make their fists look more like vicious claws, to look dead? Just checking if anyone can think of a fun way to tell people to be zombie's, because the more they laugh, the more they'll play, and it will look so much cooler if everyone plays along with this awesome dance.

Here's the Thriller tutorial I learned from: http://www.thrilltheworld.com/

Heads Up Before You're Down

I'm not gonna lie. In fact, I'm going to tell everyone the truth. It's not a fun truth either. It's negative. So if you'd rather not read something negative today, no harm done. You can simply close this page and move along.

I'm not joking. I want you all to seriously consider leaving my blog right now. Reading is a choice. Choose to read or leave.

Okay.

This has been a rough two weekends in a row for me. The first weekend I dealt with a lot of external issues. The second weekend was internal torture.

I feel like telling everyone everything that my emotions have turned into, everything that my thoughts have evolved into. But I'm not going to. There's too much and it's not going to help you guys in any which way. I'm not going to give you useless information in this post.

(Just because this post isn't useless doesn't mean that you should read it. This is the last time that I'm telling you that you should exit this post right now if you don't want to read a negative truth about the world I've come to know.)

Right now, I'm simply going to show a human weakness. I'm admitting defeat. These past few weeks have kicked my butt. That's the simple truth. I feel dead and heavy and I'm pretty sure that even dead and heavy people spill saline all over their face.

But in my death, I'd like to warn everyone about something, because I don't remember anyone warning me about this, and I don't want anyone else to be caught off-guard.

Most of the time, your heart and head fight for no good reason, but there are times they fight because you are ignorant about a critical truth about yourself, a truth that you need to change or you'll never be happy. It's those times when neither your heart nor your head will understand you because they are sick of you the way you are.

This is what I believe causes people to hate themselves so often. They cannot justify themselves any longer, not with their head and not with their heart. When you can't justify or support yourself, I don't think it's possible to be happy.

That's when things get really rough. That's when it's easy to give up and just hold on to whatever it is about you or your past that's holding you back from real happiness. That's when you stop your pursuit of happiness, pursuit being an active word, one of the most active words Webster can provide.

That's when it's easy to be scared of failure so much that you'd rather struggle to just be content with your life rather than endure the sweaty, tearful pain that comes from taking a good honest look at yourself and doing whatever is necessary to become the best person you can be, to let go of everything that's holding you back from being a genuine form of you.

That's when I get scared. And I am scared, right now.

If it hasn't happened to you yet, I'm sorry for when it does. It's not fun. But I'm warning you right now, and I apologize for not having any advice to offer--I'm no wiser than you, especially not right now. I'm just telling you the bad part about growing up that I don't remember learning.

But if it doesn't happen, then I wonder why you are so lucky to be brave enough to fight the worst parts of yourself, and I envy you.

Before anyone comments, I know things will get better. I know this because I'm going to make them better and I'm looking for good things, the simple things that I can enjoy in life. And I know that this post is really negative. I accept the possibility that this post isn't the Truth for everyone, but it's the Truth for me, and I'm willing to bet that it's the Truth for at least one other person in this big world.

But don't anyone try to argue against the fact that right now, I've got a painful growth spurt to initiate, and I'm not looking forward to the journey. I'm not saying that I'm hopeless or that I'm giving up. I know I can do it, and I'm determined to succeed. I'm just hoping that the journey doesn't take too long, and I'm frustrated that I didn't realize how hard this was going to be until just now.

I hope no one looks at me weird for being so honest today. I just thought you all deserved a heads up from what I've noticed about the world I've come to know.

Trust and Truth

I just watched the House, M.D. Season 6 premiere, and let me tell you something, that show makes me reflect on myself more than I like to sometimes.

I'm not going to ruin it for those of you who didn't watch the premiere yet (notice that I make the assumption that you'll eventually watch it, like you care), but I would like to talk about what it made me think about.

This whole episode was about trusting other people. Trusting other people not to hate you or treat you differently because they know the truth, whatever the truth is. Trusting other people enough to say what you think and what you feel. Trusting other people enough to trust yourself, too. Trusting yourself enough to understand that you don't mean to make mistakes, so you should just say sorry as best at you can, fix what you need to fix, and most importantly to move on and be happy and keep being happy.

Let me tell you a truth about me.

I hate talking to people. I don't want to tell people what I'm really thinking about most of the time, because I think about a lot of weird things. I make observations that people think are a waste of time, but I hope that maybe they will engage in conversation with me long enough to discover something new and thrilling about the world, and I hope that if they play along with me for real, not just to appease me, we can come up with fun ideas and perspectives together. I think about things people said days ago, weeks ago, years ago, and people think I'm weird for remembering those things in such detail when most of the time I have to be reminded that I'm eating. I really freak out when I talk to someone because I don't want them to realize just how weird and scattered my thoughts are, because that would mean they would realize how weird and scattered I am.

Let me tell you another truth about myself.

I don't like to let people know that I need and love them and that I want them to need and love me back. I don't like to let people know I miss them because I have this insane belief that I need to do everything on my own and that means I should be able to be on my own for any length of time without missing people.

But I miss my family. I miss Jaycey being in my face and sitting on me all of the time. I miss Kim quietly supporting me and keeping me upbeat about life because she watches me and knows when something is on my mind and when I just want to have fun. I miss Allison growing up but still remaining the perky crazy kid that I love who surprises me every time I see her. I miss Mom nagging me to clean up the trail I leave through the house and glaring at me for stealing a drink from her water cup and giving me advice and forcing me to relax and have fun. I miss Doug making sure that I've got everything I need and cracking jokes and jumping off the couch or throwing the remote while watching the Seahawks. I miss Dad playing witty games with me and teaching me about technology and showing me the genius people, places, and things of the world. I miss having fun with my aunts and uncles and cousins, and I miss the stories I hear when I'm around all of my wonderful grandparents. I miss my stepmoms and how all of them worried about if my sisters and I were enjoying our visits with them and how they wanted to make sure we spent enough time with our dad, and I miss the friendships that I developed with them.

I miss my friends, the ones scattered across Utah and across the country. I've missed Ammon Malmgren for a long time now, since 10th grade when he moved to Texas. I've missed Keara Lei, Chelsey, and Becca so deeply since they left for China in August.

Let me tell you another truth about me.

I am LDS. I'm not just LDS because I was baptized. I'm LDS because I became converted, and the more I hear about the LDS gospel, the more it makes sense. It's like puzzle pieces coming together to show me a picture that I've already seen before. At first this gospel wasn't anything too big or spectacular to me. I've grown up with this church in my life, but I started questioning it one day, and I realized that it sounds a bit crazy. But that craziness goes away once you start fitting the puzzle pieces together, once you start collecting all the pieces of the gospel and really look at them. It makes sense. It feels right. And it feels good. And I'm finally allowing myself to just enjoy that good feeling and not block it out.

Let me tell you one more truth about me.

I'm always nervous to blog. I don't know how my blog posts change people's perception of me, and I hate to change people's perception of me because I'm afraid that it will change for the worse. But I'm reading other people's blogs, and I'm discovering that I enjoy reading the blogs about people and their thoughts and reflections on the world, and so I try to include my perspective of life as often as I have the courage to. This is one of those moments, a moment that I have the courage to post something that says things about me that I wouldn't usually bring up in conversation, things that I'm worried about telling people because I don't trust them enough to give them information about me, my thoughts, and my feelings. It seems simple, but it's so much harder than it sounds.

So thanks House. Thanks for teaching me something new so often. Thanks for pushing me out of my comfort zone and encouraging me to live my life in ways that make it interesting and sincere. Thanks for making me figure out what's really going on around me and making me take a good, honest look at myself. Here goes another click of the great and mighty publish button.

Quick Quote

I'm staying up pretty late tonight. Took a 5 minute break to look at the weather, my horoscope, and a quote of the day, and I'd like to share this one, because it's something I need to do more often. I save my best for the people who haven't done anything to deserve the only best I have to give. Then the people I care about most get the stupid version of me, the version that is too worn out from either being extroverted with strangers or introverted alone. I need to save some of the best of me for the people I care about. Anyway, here's the quote that got me thinking about that:

"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers." -Maya Angelou, American Poet

Grandma G

My Grandma Great (great grandmother) died this morning, and I thought I should document it. She was a funny lady and I remember laughing a lot when I saw her. For some reason, I used to get really nervous going to her house. I think this nervousness was due to an experience I had at her house as a child.

When I was little, I visited my Grandpa and Grandma Johnson's house and I think it was around Halloween, because when I visited, I was very excited about the idea of candy, even fake candy. During this trip, Grandpa Johnson was playing pretend with me that his couch pillows were made of candy. I'd bring him the couch pillows and he'd pretend to eat them, and they were SO yummy to him, so I'd giggle at how animatedly he pretended to enjoy eating the pillows as I run around the room getting more pillows for him to eat.

Then came the disaster.

After he bit "into" one of the pillows, his face went wide with shock, and he showed me his hands.

some of his fingers were missing.

A little known fact to me when I was that young, my grandpa was missing fingers. I think it is because he played with fireworks or something. my mom will probably correct everyone on the finer details of this story.

but i thought i had made him eat his fingers, and i was so sad and troubled and scared. and so the game ended and i was pretty much traumatized.

after a couple of visits when i was old enough to get over that horrible experience, i realized that my grandma was sweet and funny. i don't remember any grand experience i've had with her, just a lot of little ones where i was hanging out at her place and enjoying being there and talking with her, seeing the pictures of my ancestors and listening to stories, eating some bread and jam...just a lot of little stuff.

and i'm sad that i didn't visit her more, but i'm glad that she's with grandpa now.

end entry.

Freaking Idiots

How often to I truly feel hatred toward stupid people?

Well not very often, because I try to avoid stupid people. But there was an instance that slipped through my normal defenses. So today, I'd like to record an instance of stupidity, stupidity of self and of others.

At the beginning of this term, I was taking two stats courses. In short, I got sick of it and decided to try to appeal my business stats to fulfill the University requirement that my other stats class was meant for. But I have grants and scholarships and I've taken out a loan for school, right? Say right, because it's true. So before I began the appealing process, I asked the financial aid office if dropping from 11 to 7 credits would affect the amount of money I had been awarded this semester. They said that since I was still between 6 and 12 credits, it wouldn't affect me at all. They assured me of this, because I asked several times in a couple of different ways. Because I get worried about things even if people tell me not to worry about them.
So I appealed, and I was able to drop my second stats course. This would me time and money, which was sorely SORELY needed to pay for rent, food, bills, and car insurance and registration. Also, I need to take the MAT (or the GRE) soon so that I can attend grad school in the Spring.

Oh, by the way, I've talked to someone on the Board of Those-Wielding-Power-to-Accept-or-Deny-Grad-Students, more commonly known as the BTWPADGS (Yes, I just made the name of that board up, but I talked to someone in charge of admitting grad students) and he said that I meet all of the requirements and that I just need to go through the motions, and score well enough on that test.

Anyway, I found out that i had a $200 balance on my account for USU. not as in they would refund me that money. balance as in I needed to pay that much. So I went to my financial advisor and said to her (not sure of exact words here, so i'll wing it), "so, uh, what the heck? i came in here an asked if dropping a class would affect me at all, and i was told that it WOULD NOT affect me at all. so what's up with me PAYING 200 dollars all of the sudden?"

pretty much she told me, (not sure of exact words here, so i'll wing it), "well, looks like someone didn't know what they were talking about, and there was pretty much one week that you could've dropped the class and screwed yourself over, and you picked that week to drop your class. I can't do anything for you."

She then proceeded to explain to me ALL of the reasons why this was impossible to get out of. So I went to the cashier's office and asked if i could set up a payment plan (because clearly I cannot afford a sudden 200 dollar balance. i am praying that i can afford my next rent payment in time). They tell me that setting up a payment plan wouldn't help me (and I verify that it would not help me, it would make me pay more and i'd still have to pay it all by the same date).
So pretty much i need to make an extra 200 bucks by the end of this month.

Say What? Are you reminding me that I was already trying to come up with money for rent and car insurance, that I really can't put that many hours into work if there's nothing to do for the next week and a half? Oh, right. Hmmm. I guess I forgot about that.

Can everyone just agree with me that some lady at the financial aid office is an idiot, and that I was stupid for trusting her even though I was trying to go to valid sources of information to make responsible decisions? Yeah, not trusting people based on their position anymore...
I wonder how much I can make by "donating" plasma. can i do that when i'm on birth control?
maybe i'll sell a kidney.

i just can't wait to see how i figure this one out. time for tithing blessings to come forth.