Finals

One more final, then home on Friday. That's it. Then I'm finally done with this semester. No more ridiculous Humanities papers! Joyous occasion. I'm starting to look forward to going to California for Christmas. It'll be nice to have the warm weather for a few weeks. I didn't even think about the fact that I need to bring short sleeve shirts until Emily was talking about packing for Hawaii. What a strange concept, short sleeves in December.
So I'm hoping that my New Year's Eve is at least a little better than last year's: vomiting is not the best way to start the new year. Perhaps I won't be home alone again. That'd be nice.
We had a roommate powwow last night. People really need to learn to state their problems and to not get offended...oh well. We did what we could.
Lastly, I'm hoping the break will help to temper my...liking...a little bit. Or a lot. It's obviously never going to go anywhere, so I need to give up. Which is proving to be very difficult...since I like him so much. Oh, BYU.

End of Classes

So I've revamped the old blog...I like it better now. Especially the picture. I do love that picture. If I had a car, I'd go up into the mountains at night and just look at the stars. Often. However, I have no car, nor do I have access to one except at home, and home is considerably farther from the mountains than Provo is.
I'm done with classes for the semesters, reading days are tomorrow and Saturday, which is also the day of my first final (this was my choice). It is cold. Very, very cold. It's barely gotten above the teens for the past three days, at night typically between -5 and 5 degrees. It's five right now. I think there's something wrong if I can show the temperature on one hand...And our super thin windows do not help very much. There is currently ice and frost on them. On the inside. Oh, I got a letter from Dalin today. That was good. I miss him a lot...It's sad that we've talked more since he's gone on his mission than we did in the entire two years between when I moved and when he left. Oh well. Nothing like a mission to bring people together...haha. Not really.
Maddie demands that I be engaged by next year. And by next year, she means 2010. In three weeks. I find this comical...who on earth does she expect me to marry? My family is obsessed. BYU is obsessed. My roommates are obsessed. My stake presidency is obsessed. Everyone! It's getting old.
Jenae is having a bad day...boy troubles, as usual. If a guy likes a girl, it makes sense for him to get her number. Not this guy. Poor girl. Oh well. Life goes on. We'll both find someone eventually.

Is this a kind of magic?

So close!

Funny quote I saw today:
Some men are born with healthcare, some men achieve healthcare, some men have healthcare thrust upon them.
I liked it.
This is me procrastinating my paper. still. I still have to write at least another seven pages, and yet, I'm writing in my blog. Looking back, it appears that I started this blog as a way to procrastinate studying, so I suppose that this is an appropriate use of it. It snowed today. A lot. I love the snow so much... My roommates and I went crazy today. I think everyone is high off stress...this week is killing me slowly, and it's only Monday. Well, Tuesday morning now. And finals are next week. Meh.
I have mixed feelings about going home...I love my family, but we're going to California for Christmas and I was kind of looking forward to a nice quiet Christmas at home. Oh well. I do love California. It just doesn't have snow. I just can't wait until next semester. I have a feeling it's going to be great. I don't know why...maybe because winter semester was so great last year.
Jenae and I went to the Doyle's house for dinner on Sunday. They were in my family's ward in Texas...so I've known them forever. Longer than I've known most people. Anyway...we're going to their house again the day we get back from vacation. It's gonna be big. Sounds like a great way to start the semester, huh? Oh. Right. I remember why I brought them up. Apparently my dad, when talking to Brother Doyle, said that I have a boyfriend. So when I got there, Brother and Sister Doyle interrogated me about my "boyfriend." Separately. I don't think that two sort of dates a month ago count as a boyfriend, and I don't know who else he could have meant. I'm tired of my parents spreading rumors about me. I have no boyfriend because no one wants me. Because I fail at flirting. Or talking to guys I like. Sometimes I wish I had the skills I seemed to have so easily in high school...but then I remember why I don't have these "gifts" anymore: I abused them. Funny how that works. Ok. No more male bitterness. This is why I don't really mention that sort of thing anymore. The other day in the Wilk, every single conversation I heard for an HOUR was about marriage. There's a reason that sort of thing is hard to get out of your head here...BYU is such a special place.
Well, I should write my paper. Fare thee well, whoever you are.

20 Books that Changed America

So this is a list of books that supposedly changed America forever, in order of influence. I've never read any of them all the way through, but I've read parts of a good many of them. I'm in the process of reading one, though. I should have read that one many years ago...I'm glad that it's on this list though. It is the best book.

Common Sense (1776) by Thomas Paine

A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft

The Book of Mormon (1830)

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) by

Frederick Douglass

The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Leaves of Grass (1855) by Walt Whitman

The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) by Sigmund Freud

The Clansman (1905) by Thomas Dixon, Jr.

The Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) by John

Maynard Keynes

The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck

Invisible Man (1952) by Ralph Ellison

Howl (1956) by Allen Ginsberg

Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand

Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson

The Feminine Mystique (1963) by Betty Friedan

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) by Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

On Death and Dying (1969) by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

All the President’s Men (1974) by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

God Bless America...

So today in my Humanities 262 class (American Humanities 1865-Present) we talked about the Vietnam war and the effects it had on American society. It was really around this time that we stopped trusting our politicians. I wonder what it would be like to be able to trust our president...that would be a strange concept to today's America. The morality of our culture has declined so drastically since then that I often find it hard to imagine a world worse than this.
Then I remember the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
There were times in Earth's society when people were so bad that God had to destroy them. Sodom and Gomorrah must have been completely wretched, as well as the people of the Earth before the flood. Some of the things that are described in the Book of Mormon are simply barbaric. These things, to me, show that the world still has a long way to fall before the Second Coming. I don't think that's a good thing.

Epic. Win.

We won the Utah game, 26-23 in overtime. It was intense.

Samwise Gamgee

My roommates and I have been watching all of the Lord of the Rings since I got them in the mail the other day. Before this, I'd never really liked Sam for some reason, but watching it this time I started to come to respect and admire him, especially for his line at the end of the third movie, as he and Frodo are trying to climb Mount Doom when he says to Frodo: "Well, I can't carry it [the ring] for you, but I can carry you!" That line really struck me this time. Sam was a perfect friend to Frodo, sticking with him through everything, even when Frodo was making decisions that Sam knew were bad for the both of them (keeping with Gollum for so long). Sam supported all of Frodo's decisions, following him to help Frodo with the hardest thing he would ever have to do: carry the ring to Mount Doom and destroy it. Samwise Gamgee is one of the most unselfish characters ever written. He is completely honest and loving to Frodo, even when Frodo is rude and selfish in return.

BYU -- I Do!

I understand why there is such a pressure to get married here. The church is centered around families, therefore we're encouraged, nay pushed to date, get engaged, and get married. It's all very subtle, the church's influence on that aspect of BYU student life. At first glance, it's simply the sheer numbers of people that are in relationships, of both the permanent and transient variety. But when a member of the stake presidency spends three-quarters of a lesson that was supposed to introduce the stake theme talking about how guys need to ask more girls out without batting an eyelash...well, the root cause is found. These "subtle hints" create a culture where everyone feels like they need to be in a relationship as soon as they become sophomores, if not as soon as possible. If they're not, there's something wrong with them. If they're not married by the time they graduate...there's next to no hope.

I do admit that, if given the opportunity, I would get married. I'm sure I'd be very happy. I'm not going to go jumping into any relationships with jerks, though. Too many people here succumb to the pressure by marrying someone they hardly know. Yes, sometimes it is "right," but nine times out of ten they've worked themselves up into "love" with someone they barely know. Some of these marriages work out with lots of effort and God's help, and some of them don't. They mix up the Spirit and love, or they simply are completely different people after they're married.

Dear God, don't let that happen to me. I'll do my best to not let it happen.

New Semester

Back at school. Ward's alright finally, roommates are crazy (but good), classes are interesting. Still don't know what to major in. I'm tired. I have hypothyroidism, so I have to take medication every morning. Maddie got her birthmark removed from her forehead. No guys in my life, as usual. The end.

Summer

So it's two months into summer, and I desparately want to go back to BYU. Alas, there are still two months to go. I'm currently a nanny for three kids and a six month old bull mastiff. I'm starting to dislike the dog a lot, and I love dogs. My mom has become politically active, which is weird. I guess I didn't know my mom as well as I thought I did. Today, she wrote a letter to our Senator and our Representative about some UN thing that wants to give kids all over the world rights, and apparently our terrible president wants it to happen. Whoever came up with this idea is obviously an idiot that doesn't know anything about children. They need parents to guide them; their brains aren't like an adult's at all. Obviously, no one in the UN took Human Development (haha). Anyway, I'm bored out of my mind.

Oh.

One more thing.

Dalin got his mission call on Sunday (:D). To the Salt Lake City South Mission, Spanish speaking.

This means he will be less than five minutes away from me for three months, and less than an hour away for the rest of the two years. The closest to him I'll have been in years, yet the farthest.

Mr. Perfect

No, I haven't met him. At least, I don't know him very well if I have. :P

Yesterday, instead of paying attention in German, I made this list. Enjoy. There's no particular order.

• confident, but not pompous
• intelligent
• spiritual, but not intimidatingly so
• good with kids
• loves his family
• curteous
• returned missionary
• generally happy
• sensitive, but not overly emotional
• prefers not to watch chick flicks
• likes to read
• loves to learn
• funny
• will be silly with me
• polite
• has a geeky side
• congenial
• treats me like a princess, but doesn't overdo it
• knows his limits, financially and personally (as related to the previous statement)
• wants to spend time with me and family, but doesn't require me for happiness (i.e. he isn't depressed when away from us)
• thinks for himself, doesn't require approval
• strong
• optimistic, but realistic
• understanding
• slow to anger
• makes me feel beautiful & delicate with actions, not only words
• appreciates the arts & beauty in nature

Those were the required ones. These are optional:

• Tall
• blue eyes
• curly hair
• plays soccer
• buff (large in stature)
• fashion sense (well, not fashionably inept)
• sings or is musical
• washes the dishes :)

So there you have it. My perfect man in a nutshell. Maybe I'll add to it later.

Mission Accomplished

First week = done. I've officially completed one week of my first job ever without blowing something up. The power did go out, but that was because of the snow, not me. It's been kind of slow, but it's supposed to get busier next week. We'll see. It's just been really stressful with my job and school and a girl came and stayed with me and a choir retreat on Friday...ya, busy. There's just so much to do..

There are a couple people in a couple of my classes that I knew in Germany: Sarah Jane in my German class, and Skylor in my Book of Mormon class. I was so in love with him in Germany...it's been a long time. I think he might think I'm running away from him every day after class, but I literally have to run from Book of Mormon to German every day to get there on time. Oh well. All my classes look like they'll be really interesting though; I'm excited. 

Today I got to see the prophet for the first time in person. It was pretty much the highlight of my life. I love President Monson; I was crying for most of the fireside. I love the Gospel :)