1.31.2009

BYU...

I will now have to give up my love and adoration for the Utah State Aggies at the end of the semester and switch over to our rival, BYU and cheer for the Cougars. I found out Friday night that I was accepted into BYU starting Fall of 2009. Despite our basketball team's domination this year (20-1, they are tied for the most wins with Oklahoma), I have decided to leave the wonderful Aggies and soon call myself a Cougar.

1.30.2009

Random-ness

Some friends asked me to do this on Facebook (the wonderful website that uses up all my free time and then some). And then I thought I would add it here for the enjoyment of my family and friends!

Some Random things about me…

1) I always sleep on the left side of the bed if I have a choice.
2) When I was younger, my sister convinced me that I only had 99 “feelings” and one day she hurt my last one so I cried because I thought I could never feel any emotions for the rest of my life. (I was/am still really gullible.)
3) I love camp and can’t wait to start my own camp one day.
4) I LOVE countdowns…and just to let you all know, 94 days until I come home!
5) I would do anything for my bestest friends. Even beat up creepy people if they asked me.
6) When I run, I have a unique breathing pattern. I inhale twice on steps 1 and 2 and exhale once on steps 3 and 4.
7) When given the choice, I hate being touched.
8) I want to run another marathon in Madagascar or South Africa.
9) When I was young, I played school with my older siblings and I was the teacher. I wrote quizzes and everything for them. Every time, they would yell “RECESS” and run up the stairs. I just cried.
10) I really love looking at the stars.
11) I want to marry someone with two tall alleles/genes so my kids actually have a chance at being tall. (The short life is not that grand.)
12) When mail comes, my roommate and I sing the Blue’s Clues song!
13) With a passion, I hate the movie Aladdin.
14) My favorite memory is when my brother got hit with a birdhouse after going sledding with my dog. It was a marvelous time.
15) Ice cream is the best food group in the world. I have a bottomless stomach for ice cream.
16) Running is the best thing in the world no matter what the weather is like.
17) I dream of going to Europe (with Jackie from Wisconsin!) South Africa, Morocco and the national parks in Canada.
18) When I was little, I wanted to become a meteorologist. I literally watched the WeatherChannel for hours at a time!
19) Sarcasm is the best and worst parts of my personality.
20) I have blown up a cheetos bag in the microwave. You should try it some time! It is the coolest thing in the world!

1.21.2009

Exciting Weekends in Utah!

Classes have been in session for over two weeks now and yet it feels like I never left school. I like most of my classes but can tell that this semester will be far more challenging than last. Each of my classes has more reading assignments and more scheduled tests and exams. Plus, many of the classes give essay exams in addition to multiple choice tests, which I haven’t had since my senior year in high school. I am hoping I did not lose much in my writing abilities since then. One of my classes, Parks and Recreation, is very interesting. The professor used to live in Wisconsin and actually was the previous camp director at the camp I work at. It was very fun to meet him finally and talk about camp and how it is progressing. I am taking another statistics class this semester that is extremely boring since it is a review from junior year. The professor is from Germany and has a very rich accent and that is probably the best part of the class. We spent the last few days learning about how to find the mean… and it is a 2000 level (at most universities, that would be a 200 level) class.
Last weekend on the 11th, I had the opportunity to go listen to President Monson speak in Provo, Utah. He spoke at BYU so some of my friends from USU drove down for it. It was a long day but well worth it. It was absolutely amazing to hear him speak again. We also got to have a homemade dinner at Heather (my roommate’s) house in Highland, which is located about 30 minutes outside of Provo.
This last weekend, we had the delight of having a three day weekend. I had to work most of last week and put in almost 30 hours within four days. But then Sunday and Monday, I was able to rest and relax. On Monday, some friends and I decided to go hiking in the mountains. We left too late though and ended up walking back down the mountain in the dark. But we arrived home safely, no worries. I included some pictures of the hike for some enjoyment.

this is in the Wind Caves up in the Logan Canyon.
Yep, they're pretty much the coolest thing in the world!

1.06.2009

The New Year in Utah

I arrived back in Logan on Saturday. Classes for spring semester started on Monday. I have had most of my classes so far and most of them are good. I am taking the following classes: Political Science, History, 2 religion courses, Statistics, Life Science and Introduction to Parks and Recreation. It is 20 credits total but I have Thursdays off completely.
The rest of my winter break was pretty good. I got to spend some more time with friends and family. Christmas was a marvelous time spent with my family. My brother and sister-in-law came up for Christmas Eve from Kansas and it was nice to see them again. After they left, they ended up rolling their truck but thankfully they were okay. Other than a few scratches, cuts and bruises, they are fine, just a little shook up. I also spent a few days over break working at the YMCA camp that I worked at throughout high school. It was great to see the campers again and also to hang out with some of the staff. With this are some pictures of my break and Christmas.
2009 has arrived all too quickly and I have made a few resolutions that I doubt I will stick to. One is to be more optimistic. People have told me many times that I am very pessimistic. I always reply saying that I am just realistic but somehow that doesn’t work for people. I do not really know how I should become more optimistic but we will see how the year goes. My other resolution is to be less sarcastic. More often than not, my sarcasm gets me in trouble or I fail to catch myself before I say something that probably should not have been said. I believe this will correlate with me being more nice and kind to people around me. My last resolution is to run two marathons this year. There is one in July that I am running with a friend from camp and perhaps another friend. Then I plan on running the Top of Utah Marathon again in September. Even though I vowed after my marathon in September that I would never run again, I really want to see if I can get better. And I think it will be fun to do it with a friend this time!