Thankful

My favorite definition (courtesy of Webster): Impressed with a sense of kindness received, and ready to acknowledge it; grateful.

I have been infintely blessed in my life, to which I will be eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father for the life He has given me. In no particular order, I am most grateful for:

-My parents: for teaching me to love reading and learning, for teaching me the gospel and loving it, for listening, for calling at random times
-My big brothers: for being protective, but not necessarily wanting to admit it
-My big sisters: for setting such beautiful examples of what I want to be
-My brothers-in-law: for being amazing to my sisters, being such wonderful fathers to my nieces and nephews, and giving me hope that there are honrable, preferably available, men out there...
-Good friends
-Books, reading, the smell of a new book, the smell of an old favorite, the excitement of a new story, the cozy familiar of an old story, the beauty of the right words in the right place at the right moment, the clever dialogue, the well-placed joke, and the never-ending joy I get when I have time to enjoy it all!
-My laptop
-My notebook, pens and paper, lists, Sharpies, Crayola Crayons and Markers, dry erase boards
-hobbies, crocheting, sewing, crafting, writing random thoughts, blogging, reading the news, watching the news, debating topics with good friends
-being easy going: this is kind of random, but I usually don't get worked up about stuff. I get along with just about anyone (there have been some very few EXTREME exceptions, one of which I'll blog about later because it's just too funny to keep to myself). I enjoy being in a diverse group. Last night I had the pleasure of enjoying such a group over the longest game of Settlers of Catan I have ever played in my life (4 hours). All ages, backgrounds, and differing viewpoints. We laughed a lot and just generally enjoyed each other. I've met people over the years that just can't get along with certain types of people, girls who didn't get along with roommates, etc. What a miserable way to live!
-the internet, facebook, Google in all its awesomeness, the fact that I can still access the BYU library from Tallahassee, online news access
-Adobe: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash Animation, Dreamweaver, seriously, how cool is this technology that is at our fingertips? How lucky/blessed are we to live in such a time!
-the ability to write well, quickly, and, strangely, better when under pressure
-Photography, my camera, still moments of life
-my cousins and their blogs: growing up in GA I didn't have much contact with my cousins in UT and over the past year or so it has been sucha blast to reacquaint myself with them through their blogs :-)
-my grandparents, my heritage, their stories, their lives, their memories, their hugs and kisses, their homes, their food, their children
-... and surely many more things that I have failed to mention!

7 Random Things...

My bro, Jon, tagged me (punk), so here are seven random facts about me:

1. I broke/dislocated a guy's finger on a date once.

2. I have a 3rd-degree black belt in taekwondo. I can probably kick you in the head. Does that count as two facts?

3. I've been kicked by my father. Many times. Don't worry, we were sparring in a taekwondo class, so it was legal. I kicked him back. We're good.

4. I've seen more movies filmed before 1960 than most people who have actually lived during that era.

5. I like to crochet :-) and cross stitch... and other random homey things.

6. I grew up reading comic books, science fiction/fantasy, and watching GI Joe and Transformers with my brothers. I tend to have more in common with 12-year-old boys than with girls my age. Sad. But true.

7. I am secretly (or not so secretly if you're one of my roommates) addicted to "17 Kid and Counting" and "Tom and Kate Plus 8." Yea for TLC!

Now I'm taggin' Karen, Ariel, Jen, Michelle (spreading the love to the family :-D ), Fernando, Pec and Marissa.

Love It

I really wanted to entitle my post "Come What May And Love It" after Elder Wirthlin's talk from conference, but Pec beat me to it. So I modified it :-)

It's been a while since I've written a real post. It's like journal writing. I keep thinking I'll just wait until something interesting happens. Then I have a moment to sit down and realize all sorts of things have happened and, gosh, I'm more interesting than I thought! Okay, maybe not to that extent, but this month has surely not been a latent one for me.

The past two weeks have really been amazing fun. Last Sunday a few of the girls in the ward thought the ward wasn't being social enough (some newly formed couples in the ward sort of broke up the band, so to speak) so they put together a pre-Thanksgiving bash. They sent out a facebook invite and told everyone to bring something. There had to have been at least 40 kids there. Bonfire outside, lots of yummy-ness inside. I was there until 12:30 AM or so just chatting and playing games. The kids in this ward really are a good bunch.

On a side note, some mild banter between me and one of the guys there turned into a small wrestling match. The guy won, but I put up a good fight. I had him in a headlock a few times, but just couldn't close. For a skinny guy, he's stronger than he looks... Poor guy was embarrassed afterwards, though. "Man, that was stupid of me to wrestle with you. I could have hurt you... my pride got in the way. I'm sorry!"

Nice kid.

This Friday I had Thanksgiving meal #2. Elder and Sister B prepared a most awesome turkey meal for Friday Forum lunch. I got to help since I don't have classes on Fridays. It was also the first time since I was, maybe, 5 that I've had a turkey cooked in the oven. Growing up we'd almost always either deep-fried the sucker or smoked it. It was delicious. I love the B's!

Friday night was also our ward camping trip. I froze my tail off (who knew it could get so cold in Florida?!). But it was spectacular to be out in nature. No lights, no noise, just the beach and the stars. Oh yeah, did I mention we were camping on an island? Yeah, it was cool. We actually weren't terribly close to the beach, but our campsite was within walking distance and we all took a moment to check it out. We had everyone turn off their flashlights so we could thoroughly enjoy the stars. Absolutely beautiful. I met some people I wouldn't have known otherwise and got to know people I already knew better. Great weekend. Also, yea for living in UT for 5 years. I was perfectly warm in my sleeping bag thanks to a lovely winter-wear underarmour shirt my bro got me covered by my most-awesome Adidas hoodie, two pairs of socks, and my lucky BYU fleece blankey that my Guelita made me one year for Christmas because I'm her favorite (okay, so the other 40 something cousins also got a fleece blankey, but whatev... I'm still her favorite). I didn't sleep due to the GROUND, but I was warm so I didn't mind. The power of layers!

Prior to the spectacular loss of BYU to Utah yesterday *hangs head in shame*, I made a small gift for our institute director, Brother B, who is a Utah alum. Sister B (his mother) was my partner in crime. She rather obtained a recent photo of Brother B and his family from their Disney World vacation a few weeks ago. I photoshopped BYU t-shirts on all of them (which, with seven kids, took a LONG time). And Mini Mouse became Cosmo the Cougar. I emailed the new photo to my folks and they printed out a banner-size copy of the photo along with 8 11X17 versions of it and overnighted the whole set to me (yea for Mom and Dad!). Also in the package was a huge banner of the BYU logo with the cougar on it. Wednesday afternoon Elder B played distraction while Sister M (the institute secretary), Sister B, Michelle (one of the YSAs) and I put the photos up all over the building. One wound up in the men's bathroom (not me! it wasn't me! I swear! Sister B! Sister B! she looks so innocent, but really...).

The reaction was classic. I should have taken photos, but I didn't think to bring the camera. Brother B was a good sport. He said he'll keep everything up for a week. Good times.

So things are good here in Tally. The next two weeks will be beastly with final projects, but the good news is I am done by December 8th with everything and then I can relax!

Cheers!

Prop 8 (CA), 2 (FL), and 102 (AZ)

Glad to say Prop 8 passed in CA, Prop 2 in FL, and Prop 102 in AZ. I came across this article written before Prop 8 passed and thought it worth sharing (Mormons rock!):

http://www.sacbee.com/391/story/1308945.html

The Little Red Hen

Check out this great little story courtesy of my friend, Pec

Bolt

Can't wait to see this. The hamster totally reminds me of my brother, Jon.

Comcast Commercial

I laugh every time I see this:

Simmingly to Drowning...

My gloriously easy SPSS class has turned into the daemon from the underworld. Seriously. I've always done well with statistics. In fact, I like statistics. I even like SPSS. Most of the time. Our teacher, however, decided long ago in his career that the "mindless point and click method" of using a computer program does not leave enough of a paper trail for budding researchers. Thus, he believes in directly writing the syntax for the program. To those of you who don't give a hoot in you know where, that means the all the kids who decided to take this class from the other professor are laughing and pointing at us suckers who didn't.

Oh, and I have an 8 page book report due on Wednesday. The good news is I've actually already finished the book. The bad news is the SPSS exam is on Tuesday and I can't get help until Monday. Yea.

Lest you be concerned (*squints into the audience* you three who read my blog, that is), things are actually going pretty well. I'm just stressed. Really stressed. It'll all go away in like four days, but until then I'm stressed. I even bought some begonias to distract me from myself. I figure if they die it's 'cause I was too caught up in me. So here's to their longevity! *holds up bottle of water to toast* They have been named Daphne and Josephine. I'll post pics when I get the chance.

Meanwhile, to help keep me on track I'm posting my schedule for next week:


October 13 - October 18
Monday
5 AM - 10 AM Register for Spring classes, Work on SPSS assignment (meh, 6 AM, 5 AM, same dif... and, as it turned out, I couldn't register for classes until 8 AM. Sadly, I was only able to add 2, but at least they were the two I really wanted!)
11 AM - 4 PM Get lab help on SPSS (okay, I figured out most of my assignment on my own, so I rewarded myself with a little nap... and then I went in and checked my work with the TA. I got everything right! She showed me a much easier why to do one of the problems, though, but assured me I wouldn't get docked for doing it my way. Hurray! I feel so much better about the test tomorrow!)
5 PM - 5:20 PM Hunt down some food (Oven-broiled, ham and swiss sandwiches... I love hot sandwiches!)
5:30 PM - 7 PM Finish studying for SPSS exam (I redid a few problems to ensure I could remember the formulas. I'll go back through my notes tomorrow afternoon before the exam.)
7:30 PM FHE (avoid contact with SB) (Contact with SB successfully avoided! Also, FHE was fun. We played "murder in the dark," only they thought that was a little harsh in the Institute building so it was re-coined "struck-as-though-dead in the dark." And the little slips of paper that told us if we were the murderer or not also had funny little sayings on them. I ended up with one that said, "You're not the murderer... but I just saved 10% or more on my car insurance by switching to Geico!")
9 PM Heroes! (I am so not missing this for a stupid exam) (Heroes was awesome. Really, really awesome.)
10 PM Scripture study, and I should start writing in my journal again (I'm running a little behind schedule, but I will be doing this momentarily.)

Um, sometime today I also have to get the oil changed in the Camry... (uh, I'll try and do this during the week)

Overall, the day was spectacular! I love my Sundays. I don't study on Sundays, and the Lord has always made it up to me. Monday mornings my thinking is clearer, my resolve greater, and my ability to perform the tasks before me exponentially increased. It's really remarkable what our Heavenly Father will do with our small leaps of faith.

Tuesday
5 AM - 10 AM Work on book report (1st draft?)
11 AM - 12:15 PM Class (no assignments this week, thanks heavens!)
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM Lunch and review SPSS material
2 PM - 3:15 PM Class, get last minute questions sorted out
3:30 PM - 5:15 PM Review SPSS material
5:15 PM SPSS exam (joy)
8 PM Finish book report
I probably won't be in bed by 10
Scripture study sometime before I go to bed

Wednesday
8:30 AM Print off book report, find "favorite household utensil" for Web class
9:30 AM - 12 PM Class (turn in report)
12:15 PM - 1 PM Lunch
1:30 PM - 4 PM Class (get to show off favorite utensil in class, yea!)
5:30 PM - 6 PM Scrounge up some food
6 PM - 10 PM Work on IMC assignments 6 & 7
10 PM Scripture study, bed

Thursday
6 AM - 10 AM Work on Web assignment
11 AM - 12:15 PM Class
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM Lunch, tidy up IMC and Web assignments
2 PM - 3:15 PM Class
4 PM - 7 PM Read "Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama (it's for a class, we were encouraged to cross read...)
7:30 PM TNT (Thursday Night Thing!)
9 PM The Office
10 PM Scripture study, bed

Friday
7 AM - 12 PM Research "Earned Media" at Stozier Library (this is going to be a weekly thing, part of a research project due at the end of the semester)
12:20 PM - 1:30 PM Friday Forum followed by an awesome lunch provided by the Institute (yum!)
2 PM - 4 PM Clean out car! My poor baby has been neglected...
4 PM - 7 PM Read "Audacity of Hope"
7 PM - Uh, whenev PM Relax, yo!

Saturday
7 AM - 12 PM Hobbies, crafts, wherever the wind blows me :-)

Dove "Little Girls"

This one almost made me and my roommates cry when we first watched it. I love it. There are a couple different versions of it, but I think this one if my favorite. The video isn't the best, but you can check out a really nice reel of it here: stevefordmusic.com (I believe these guys helped produce the video).



Here's another version:

Dove: Little Girls

Dove

My cousin, Allison, recently posted one of my favorite video advertisements of all time. You can check it out at her blog here: allisonkimball.typepad.com

The video is part of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. This campaign is, for me, something that just makes me feel passionate about my field. I had the enormous opportunity to attend a Q&A session at a public relations conference with members of the Dove marketing team and Edelman PR, one of the public relations firms Dove worked with on this campaign.

The idea behind it is absolutely fabulous. Dove conducted a worldwide research project evaluating women's perceptions of beauty. They were shocked to find that worldwide (not just in the United States) only 2% of women thought they were beautiful. In conjunction with internationally renowned public relations firms such as Ogilvy and Mather, Edelman (as mentioned above), and Harbinger Communications, Dove launched the Campaign for Real Beauty.

In defiance of the Super Bowl advertising norm, Dove aired "Daughters" during Super Bowl XL. It certainly wasn't funny, but it got lot attention for two huge reasons. Fifty percent of Super Bowl watchers are female and the other 50% are fathers, brothers and sons. The reception was phenomenal (details above I had to glean from Wiki, the percentages are from my notes).

Also spectacularly done was Dove's billboard advertisements, my favorite of which is posted below.

Another billboard, also a favorite:Dove's concept was to start a discussion. What really is beautiful? These billboards were placed in areas like Times Square. The Wrinkled or Wonderful billboard was seen in London. Passerbys could actually text Dove and "vote" whether they thought the woman was Fat or Fabulous. According to Wikipedia the results were actually posted real-time on the billboard.

Dove took corporate responsibility to a level that, in my opinion, hasn't been seen since the Cyanide/Tylenol scare in 1982. I'm curious to see who else is going to step up to the plate. I'm rearing to be a part of it.

Gasoline vs. the Environment: Gasoline 0, Environment 1

I drive a Camry. It gets pretty good gas mileage and I can fill it up for around $60. Not phenomenal, but not bad. My little gift to the environment. *bows head modestly*

Sunday was, possibly, on of the busiest I've had in a very long time. Sunday morning a fellow YSA and I drove over to Quincy, about 30 minutes from Tallahassee, to give talks at the small ward there (VERY small, around 30 members, still not sure why it's still a ward). The other YSA didn't have a car, so I picked him up and, later, drove him over to the YSA ward in Tallahassee where I had to also give a lesson. I didn't think too much of all the driving, by the end of the day I still had a little of a quarter of a tank.

Monday morning on my way to the grocery store I decided to fill up and pulled slightly absent-mindedly into the gas station only to realize all the nozzles were covered in plastic bags. "Huh," I thought to myself. "That's kind of weird." With a shrug I start to drive across the street to the neighboring gas station only to find that their gas pricing has been taken down. What are the odds! Two gas stations on the same corner out of gas.

Two? Try the 5 or 6 I pass on the way to the grocery store. Or the tens of other gas stations located in Tallahassee. Yep. No bueno for my little tank (or the other couple hundred people that needed gas). Due to Hurricane Ike, a bunch of Tallahasseans panicked and went to the pumps "just in case." Gas stations were out all weekend. School is about a 15 minutes drive from where I live, so I was a little worried but figured my quarter tank could last me at least until Thursday. Tuesday morning on my way to class I noticed gas stations were still out of gas and, of course, glancing down I also realize my gauge has suddenly dipped to about an 1/8 of a tank.

Eep.

I began pondering the ethical technicalities of a siphon and a few large vehicles I'd noticed in the parking lots that, I figured, wouldn't miss a few ounces. All hypothetical, of course. Merely a scholastic inquiry. The serious thought didn't come until after class when I hopped in my car and the gas light came on. Where was that Hummer parked again? I say a few prayers (okay, more than a few, the thought of walking 2 miles to the nearest bus stop to get to class every day was entirely unsavoring). The thought comes to mind to try a different route home. I follow the prompting and, miracle upon miracles, the first gas station I see as I come up over the hill is an Exxon Mobil with a price listing for regular fuel.

Perhaps it was the glare on the windshield and the NPR station my radio was tuned in to, but a little beam of light shone and a small choir of angels began singing. Okay, the last part didn't happen (At least not in reality. My heart did, however, give a rousing rendition of the "Hallelujah Chorus"... really spectacular, the stuff of legends... but I digress).

Thankfully I was able to pull into a section of the gas station/line at the gas station where I could both turn off my car to conserve my remaining fuel and was out of the way of other vehicles. Sadly the station was limiting fill ups to $30 a customer, but that pulled me up to a good half tank so I was considerably grateful. Bless the attractive station attendant who ensured no one cut in front of me in line.

That evening as I got home I figured it would be a good idea to find out when there would be gas in Tallahassee. That's when I discovered that there is no actual gas shortage in Florida, just panicked people. Over the last two days I've been noticing a few more gas stations opened and today, even, I was able to fill up the rest of my tank without too much of a wait. I've never been so grateful for a full tank of gas or a Heavenly Father who is willing to answer the prayers of a silly girl with an 1/8 of a tank.

But with some cars out of commission for running out of gas and others conserving what they have, it looks like the environment got a little extra breathing room this past week. I hope the trees appreciate it. Because once this whole gas "crisis" is over I'm burning my fuel and going to the beach. Hey, at least I don't drive a Hummer, right?

tow, tow, your boat....

So my first day of classes was last Tuesday (a week ago). I was stressing out because I couldn't get into the classes I needed/wanted, it was hot outside, and, well, it wasn't the best day I'd ever had. Classes went fine and while I was walking back to my car my dad called me to let me know my Camry was all ready to pick up at the dealership (it was getting some work done so I was using a rental). That cheered me up and put a little spring into my step as I walked to the institute building parking lot. I'd parked the rental in a really obvious spot (in case I forgot what it looked like). As the parking lot drew closer I had a sinking feeling something was missing... like, say, my car, for instance. I walked up to the empty spot, looked around for a sign indicating who had, apparently, towed my car.

Property Parking Services. Lame.

I called the bishop's wife, Sis. L., to find out what I could do. I'd been told I didn't need a parking permit the first week of classes since they had told the towing company to not tow yet. Sis. L was super nice and directed me to Bro. B, our institute director. Bro. B was amazing and within 20 minutes of realizing my car was gone I was driving it up to the dealership to pick up my Camry. And he got the fee waived. He also got a chocolate sheet cake two days later. The incidents are related.

The next day I was hanging out in the institute building between classes when the kind Bro. B comes up to me and asks if he can chat with me a second. Sure, I say. He explains Pres. W of the Quincy branch is looking for two YSAs to speak in his branch in two weeks, would I mind? The dude got my car out of the tow lot... sneaky. I say sure, I'd speak.

Sunday I meet with the YSA ward for the first time (the previous Sunday was stake conference) and a member of the bishopric pulls me aside. Sunday school teacher for the teacher development class. You'll probably teach your first lesson in two weeks. I do the math. *cough* I have a talk that morning in Quincy. Counselor: don't they meet in the morning?

Sweet. So busy Sunday in two weeks. Also, I recently checked the assignments for my Web usability class. He's assigned seven 4 page papers for 7 weeks in a row. Welcome to grad school! All-in-all, though, it should be a good class. I've loved the reading so far and I'm planning on keeping at least one of the books. And I found Border's Books. Yea!

First Day

I have about an hour to kill before my first class, so I thought I'd give a more detailed update. Things are going great so far! This past weekend was stake conference. The Tallahassee stake was getting a new stake presidency so we had visiting general authority, Elder Kenneth Johnson. It was really good. Unfortunately they had to cancel the Saturday adult session because of the rain caused by Tropical Storm Fay. But the rain lightened up considerably during the night. Today, in fact, we have blue skies and sunshine! Mostly I was just glad our power didn't go out. Not that I'm afraid of the dark... No, seriously though, if the air conditioning went I out I would have checked into a hotel. Some pioneer, but whatev. I'm comfortable with my pampered lifestyle.

I'm excited for classes to start. I hate not having some sort of schedule in my life and it will be nice to get rolling with that. I only have classes Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Funny how I was never able to get that sweet of a schedule doing my undergrad... and I didn't even have a choice this year. Yea for grad school! (Hee, I'm pretty certain I won't be that excited in a few months when the real work starts... Oh well, I will enjoy my moment of glee for now)

An odd addition to my college life is having to drive to class (okay, okay, so we're all a little spoiled at BYU... Most students live within a few blocks of the school). I'm still trying to work out how long it takes me to get to my building. The neat thing about this stake, though, is that the stake center is across the street from campus to they let the YSAs park there to get to class.

Speaking of YSAs, I've been able to meet quite a few of them over the past week. My roommates brother was kind enough to invite me to a few get-togethers this weekend, which was great since I won't be able to meet in the YSA ward until this coming Sunday.

So exciting things ahead. I imagine I'll update more after my classes this week.

Tallahassee

I just said goodbye to my parents. What a week! For those of you who don't know, I was accepted to a graduate program at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL. School starts on Monday so last Saturday my parents and I packed up my Camry and began the long drive to FL. We arrive Monday night and we've been on the go ever since. My apartment was unfurnished so we had to get the necessities (bed, desk, etc.). Thankfully with all the driving around I now know how to navigate to school and back (and to Wal-Mart)-- at least in the day time. What else could a girl need? Oh, I know how to get to the mall too. :-)

Both my roommates are LDS, which is great. I've already hit it off with one of them. We have a similar sense of humor, which makes her twice as cool. Tonight I will most likely chill and enjoy the new episode of Psych, my new favorite show. My roomie watches it too. Again, cool.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

For those of you who have read (and loved, as I did) "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynn Truss, you will love this blog: http://spandg.blogspot.com/

Enjoy the grammar abuse.

Busy Boo... I mean bee...

Whew! What month it has been. I finally started the application process to the grad schools I'm interested in. After only completing the online application for the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, I was surprised to get a call two days later from the admissions adviser letting me know I could consider myself accepted and I just needed to send them a portfolio so they could decide which classes to place me in. STOKED is a pretty descriptive word. I will still be applying to Florida State University, but I'm leaning to San Francisco. The program looks amazing and, I think, is more suitable for me. And it's a little closer to the folks, which would be nice (okay, okay, I've gotten a little accustomed to having them closer).

This week I've been meaning to finish up my portfolio and send it out but work has been, um, work. The big conference is next week and the past three days I've been trying to get our printed agenda ready to be sent to the printer. My supervisor designed the layout, but I had to build it in InDesign and fill in all the agenda info. And, as luck would have it, an hour after sending it to the printer I discovered glitch with one of the speakers that was supposed to be listed. Oh well. I'm excited to see the finished product, though. It should turn out really nice.

With that out of the way I just have to worry about making sure all the speakers know where they should be, make sure all the badges are made and are printed correctly, schedule all the one-on-one meetings that will take place during the conference, finish my portfolio for grad school, write a letter of intent for grad school... um... I might be missing something...

Now might be a good time to start using a planner. Just a thought.

Oh, and start planning enrichment activities with my enrichment committee. Did I mention I'm the Relief Society counselor over enrichment now? Yep. The past week or so we've been trying to get visiting teaching organized. Can you say TRANSIENT WARD? Good grief. We tried assigning companionships last Wednesday, but during Fall and Winter semesters we have two separate Relief Societies which were combined for Spring and Summer terms. We realized we didn't know half the girls or who was still living where. So on Sunday we went and visited all the apartments in our ward to get to know the girls and determine who was living where (the bishop doesn't have an updated list yet). It took about three hours, we were exhausted by the end, but it was definitely worth it. It really got me excited for Spring and Summer because I found out how many cool girls we have in our ward. Tonight we put them in companionships (another three hours, ha). I think it'll be a good summer.

The last few weekends have been spectacular. I don't have time to read during the week, but I've been taking advantage of the weekends. This last weekend I finished reading "Tunnels," a book I bought from THE PURPLE COW :-). It was an interesting read. I'm still deciding what I thought about it. I liked it; it was certainly and interesting story. The writing style was a little different, and maybe that's what bugged me about the book. Not bad writing, just some portions were packed with suspense while others I wondered why they bothered to drag it out so long. The book was co-written, so I wonder if it was just an indication of the two authors writing styles. In any case, I think I would still recommend it. Again, some parts were drawn out more than, I think, they should have been, but overall a good read. I'll be interested to read the sequel and see the movie, which is forthcoming.

Busy weeks, but great weekends. It should be a good summer. :-)

Rebecca

Hahaha, so I thought I'd join in the fun... I think most of this is pretty accurate. Minus the daring stuff, unless it's in conversation. When it comes to "adventurous" stuff, though, I'm not particularly daring... and the Type A personality... I don't think I have one of those:

What Rebecca Means

You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something. You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense. You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are full of energy. You are spirited and boisterous. You are bold and daring. You are willing to do some pretty outrageous things. Your high energy sometimes gets you in trouble. You can have a pretty bad temper at times. You are very open. You communicate well, and you connect with other people easily. You are a naturally creative person. Ideas just flow from your mind. A true chameleon, you are many things at different points in your life. You are very adaptable. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

*proceeds to breath into paper bag *

Uh, so, I'm a college graduate. Cool, huh? I'm pretty excited about it. I'd post pics but certain individuals haven't emailed them to me yet (*cough, cough * DAD *cough, cough *). But he's forgiven because he took the entire day off to come see me walk (and take pictures). :-)

In other news, since my "internship" was officially over, my raise started at work :-). I got my paycheck today. Rebecca is very happy. Thank you.

Oh, and one of the press releases I wrote for work ended up in a magazine. It's been a good month. :-) The next one will be very, very busy, but, hopefully, also very rewarding. Our company has been planning a conference for the end of the month that I have been involved a great deal in the planning and coordination. Assuming it doesn't bomb, it will be exciting to see how everything turns out. I also have grad school applications to get out, but I'm interested to see which schools respond. I am slightly stressed, not going to lie. But I have my handy-dandy paper bag here so I think I'll be okay.

22 and then some...

Today, in case any of you forgot, is my birthday. Just thought I would post and remind everyone.

Okay, totally kidding, but I am ridiculously excited that it's my birthday. I felt like such a nerd this morning. I woke up, for whatever reason, at around 5 a.m. and the first thing that popped into my mind was, "It's my birthday!!!!" Then, of course, I couldn't get back to sleep so I ended up rolling out of bed at about 6 and cleaning my room. Why cleaning my room? I have no idea other than that it seemed like a semi-turning-over-a-new-leaf-for-the-next-phase-of-my-life ritual. That and it was really messy.

The rest of the day will consist of taking a practice GRE (assuming I get motivated/psyched up enough to commit 3 hours of my life to it) and celebrating the rest of the day with unhealthy food, a shopping trip, and (if I'm feeling adventurous) a movie (or two). Here's to a happy birthday (to me). :-)

Deep breath...

Wow, yep, never ended up posting about the homeschooling thing. I'll try and do that sometime this week when I have more time to think. The past several weeks have been a blur. Our company is holding a conference at the end of May, so in addition to the regular business we have all the things to get sorted out for that. Aaaaand my supervisor was involved in a bad car accident and hasn't been able to come into work because of injuries. That being said, the other "bosses" at work talked me into working an additional 10 hours a week (I was working 20, not it's 30) to help pick up some of the slack. Monday comes and the next thing I know it's Friday again and I wonder what I did during the week other than go to work. Usually the answer is, "not much." So this week I'm planning on taking more time for myself, getting back to the gym (haven't been in two weeks), doing some leisure reading, taking a few walks, etc.

Also on my list for the week (and the following 3) is studying for the GRE in the mornings. I registered for April 12 to take it, but I haven't started studying! Time to get rolling on that. I aslo have an economics test that runs through Tuesday, but I'm planning on taking it Monday evening so the rest of the week should be good to go.

This weekend I went to my parents house in Tooele to relax and just get out of Provo. I love having them close enough that if I need to get out of the school environment I have a place to go. This weekend was a blast spending time with them. I'm much better prepared for the week than I would have been, and even excited to get moving with it.

Anyway, I just thought I'd give a little update. I'll (hopefully) write more later in the week.

Homeschooling Illegal?

A firend of mine showed me this article today: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/07/MNJDVF0F1.DTL

I'd love to hear what people have to say about this (Vanessa, Montse, your two bits? if mom gets brave enough and learns how to comment?).

I'll post my two bits tomorrow when I get a chance, but I thought I'd go ahead and post the article for folks to read.

Prideful and Prejudiced... haha

I stole this from my cousin Allison's blog:

Take the Quiz here!

Heh, I thought I would end up being Elinor Dashwood. Who knew?

What American Accent do you have?

I took this quiz out of curiosity and just laughed at the results. Who knew?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The South   That's a Southern accent you've got there. You may love it, you may hate it, you may swear you don't have it, but whatever the case, we can hear it.
The Midland
The West
North Central
The Inland North
Boston
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Don't Panic!

For some reason this just seemed fitting in my recent search for graduate school programs. The search, however, has been entertaining. I've found a couple that I'm really excited about. The programs I've been looking at are either Integrated Marketing Communication (generally a mix of ad and pr) or advertising creative programs. The most interesting, by far, has been at (drum roll please) FSU. They have a really neat program under the healm of int. mar. comm. with an emphasis in digital marketing communication. Pre-reqs for the program included a familiarity with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver (yea for the BYU PR program which makes learning these REQUIRED), etc. Needless to say I'm applying. The really good news has been that most deadlines aren't until July. The only exception so far has been Boston University, which also has a really neat program, so I was a little bummed about that.

Anyway, I've been slowly wittling down a rather lengthy list of schools with programs in communications. Most of the schools were on the East Coast. There were hardly any on the West (?), which I thought was kind of weird. But oh well. As long as there's a coast, I think I'm pretty cool with anywhere (with the exception of Chicago... I could do Chicago). For some reason living in a landlock state as a single freaks me out. I have in my head one of those images of the United States taken at night where you can see all the lights of the cities. It's really bright on all the coasts but as you get more and more in the middle it gets really dark. Only in my mind the lights don't represent cities... they're my marriage options. Okay, okay, paranoia. Whatev. I'm sticking with coastal states.

That, I think, has been the hilight of the week. Oh, and Pere took me to the gym. My body hurt for three days. I might start speaking with him again tomorrow, but we'll see (I think my calves might still be holding grudges). That was the other hilight. More to come next week...

Spanish and Econ and Internships, oh my!

Ah, so the big news it about two weeks ago I decided it wasn't worth it to minor in Spanish (I already have a minor in business), so I withdrew from my two Spanish classes. It was utterly and completely liberating. The past two weeks have been (in the words of Billy Crystal) MAH-VELOUS! I still have economics and my internship class, but I now have PLENTY of time to take care of those.

With all my free time I decided to finally join a club on campus (meh, 5th year at BYU, figured it was time to start feeling a little school spirit). So I've joined the Asian Cinema Club. Every few weeks the club gets permission to show an Asian film on campus for free. And before you start thinking "anime," the films we watch are popular Asian films that, for the most part, just haven't been seen in the U.S. The first two we've seen I highly recommend (if you can get a hold of them): "Love on a Diet" and "Be With You." Both are just really cute, well-made, movies (both with around a PG rating). So, essentially, every few weeks I go and watch a quality, free movie and "participate" in a club with no required committments (money/time) from me. My kind of club (woot, woot!).

My free time I'm also hoping to fill in with grad school applications. First on the list is to, um, make a list. I've only checked out one program so I need to see what else is out there and then get a move on with applications. Meanwhile I also have to study for and take the GRE and find an internship for the summer. The beautiful thing is I also don't know where I want to do an internship. I really want to see what places I might enjoy living in. My aunt used to live in Seattle and, although I've ruled out California, I would like to check out Seattle. I LOVE rain, so that won't be a problem. :-) So Seattle is at the top of my list followed by D.C., New York and Chicago. I'll probably end up applying to 5 or so in Seattle and 5 or so in D.C. and see if there are any takers. So my time is very quickly filling up, but at least it's filling up with things I actually want to do.

Things are wrapping up at the ol' BYU, which is both frightening and exciting at the same time. It's funny how until now I never considered what would happen after college. Now it's something I definitely have to consider, worry about, ponder, decide, etc. But it's also pretty neat to sit back and realize, "hm, ya know? I really could do whatever I wanted!" The opportunities are immense. The next few months will be quite the experience!

President Hinckley

There's a really nice slideshow presentation on President Hinckley that I thought I'd share:

http://photo.byu.edu/video.php?cat1=Slide%20Shows&cat2=General&cat3=2008&cat4=Hinckley%20Tribute

It may or may not have made me cry...

Aw, all grown up...

here's a link to my first real press release: http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/2053571.html

uh, it's really technical... so if you zone out while reading, that's normal. anyway, I'm pretty stoked about it.

No hablo espanol... apparently.

So I can't believe how fast the last two weeks have gone. Okay, so during the week it actually felt really slow, but now that it's already the second week of classes I'm wondering how I'm going to have time for everything. Due to my free-spirited wanderings this past weekend I didn't get any studying done. Now I'm behind in just about everything. Which I don't quite understand since the only purpose of studying on Friday and Saturday was to get AHEAD. Shouldn't I technically be right on schedule? Lame...

I have to dedicate a ton of time to my Spanish literature class. I can generally understand the stories we read, but to get all the little details there is a lot of vocubulary I have to look up. I think I'm averaging about 45 minutes per page with all the words I have to look up. It sounds worse than it is. Most of the words I can get from context, but our teacher likes to go over dual meanings a lot so although I might get the gist of a word the first go around I like to look it up anyway to be sure I'm getting the nuances.

And, apparently, I need to spend more time studying for my Spanish grammar class. We got our first paper back today (and, on a side note, who assigns a paper the first week of class?). Um, yeah. No bueno. One of the guys I met in class, though, offered to help me on the next one. So, hey, I got a study date out of it so maybe it was divinely inspired! :-D.

Work is going well. I feel a little lost. My supervisor has been out sick for about a week. I have no idea what I'm doing. But I got my first press release written! That was pretty exciting. It's technically not done yet (it's getting reviewed by one of the tech guys), but most of the work for it is done. When it's released I'll post a link to it so you folks can read it. Not that it will be very interesting to you... heh.

The goals for the new year are trucking along! I've been making it to the gym, waking up early to study, and doing well with eating out only on the weekends. But, I have a ocnfession to make. *starts sobbing* I caved on the soda. I had one with my Wendy's. One with my A&W. A few sips of one at the movie theatre. A can of Dr. Pepper on Sunday (I forgot I had them and it was ice cold...and I'd made the most awesome burger (see post below)... the whole situation was just bad). And one with my Olive Garden on Monday (work provided the food, so not my fault!). So four sodas over the weekend. My bad. Better luck next weekend. Maybe, hee.

Speaking of goals, after watching the CES broadcast on sunday (Elder Tingey talked a lot about planning), I realized I had never made any long-term goals. Up until the past year or so I haven't really thought of much outside of college. So Sunday night I also sat down and wrote done some long-term goals and some measurable objectives to reach them. It was an interesting exercise and maybe even a little scary. But certainly well worth it.

Last year a friend of mine gave a lesson in his elder's quorum on time management. They were having a problem with guys spending too much time playing video games. I really liked the way he approached it. He handed out index cards to all the elders and then told them to write down a few long-term goals (he defined them as farther out than a year) and short-term goals (within the next year). Then, when they were done, on the other side of the index card he had them give a report of their hours during the past week: ours spent studying, spent playing video games, reading scriptures, etc. He then asked the elders how many of those hours were spent working on any of their goals. Pretty good exercise for anyone, I think.

Four steps to a happy burger... Red Robin style

Fry Sauce

1. Mayo/Miracle Whip (I prefer Miracle Whip)
2. Ketchup
3. a little bit of Mustard
4. a bit more of bar-b-que sauce (I used hickory flavored and it was delicious)

Mix together to taste in a bowl and top on burger or fries.

I cooked my burger then grilled it between two slices of buttered bread with cheese. After grilling I topped it with my sauce. So good!

Jane Austen on PBS!

I'm so excited about this! http://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/news/20070523_janeausten.html

PBS is doing a run of all the Jane Austen novels on Masterpiece Theatre. The article link is above. Just thought I'd spread the word. :-)

Ah, school...

Today was my second day of classes. School actually started on Monday, but I only have classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday so only day two for me :-) (you think that's cool, my FRESHMAN roomie somehow managed to get Tuesday/Thursday classes... lucky duck, when I got hom from classes at 11 I think she had just woken up).



I was a litting worried about my Spanish classes this semester (I have two, one gramma and one lit) because I haven't really spoken Spanish since my trip to Spain over the summer. But my fears were alleviated as it turns out 3 years and two months of studying Spanish did not magically disappear in the past 4 months. Who knew? In any case, I think I'm going to thoroughly enjoy my classes this semester.



I was, however, reminded how ever so much I dislike taking foreign language classes with RMs (returned missionaries for those who don't know). They mutter! Constantly! They absolutely must answer all questions if only "under their breath." Not all of them, of course, but there's always at least one (I happened to sit next to him if you can't tell). Oopa. I shall arrange my seating better next time. Perhaps more strategically next to the cutie in the third row. But if he's a mutterer all deals are off!



Anyway, now that I've gotten that out of my system... I'm also taking an economics class. There are many, many horror stories about this class but I think that makes me feel more competitive more than anything. I know I'll at least pass, so the only way from there is up, right? :-)



Between those three classes I have 9 credits (12 is full time at BYU) but I also have an internship I am doing for credit which brings it up to 13 total. I've been trying to stick to a schedule with everything in order to make sure I get my goals/resolutions for the day in there. So far things have gone really well! I'm actually pretty excited with how much I have gotten done this week.



On a side note, I am really excited about my internship. I started writing my first press release for the company and it frustrated me to no end (and, no, I'm not going to tell you what the release was about... you'll just have to read it when it finally gets posted on their web site). That, of course, was not the exciting part. That was the "crud, what did I get myself into?" part. Anyway, I was feeling pretty lame about my attempts at the press release because the company is a pretty niche tech company and I had no idea what I was writing about. A few people, though, cheered me up and got me excited again about the internship. The first is a fellow we shall call N. N came in to introduce himself to me towards the end of my day and apparently he graduated from BYU in PR (like me!). He told me, "yeah... there's a pretty big learning curve. It took me months to get the hang of things, but it comes!" So that made me feel a lot better (it was my 4th day on the job, heh). Then today I met with supervisor J (ALSO a BYU PR major grad) so he could explain some tech stuff to me so I could work more on the press release. Needless to say I was pretty stoked about writing the press release and my internship in general after that.



Supervisor J is a huge fan of BYU's communications planning matrix that all the students come out knowing from the PR program (it's, essentially, steps one should follow when planning any type of campaign). For most of you this means nothing, but I pretty much get to implement it a lot in my internship. Basically, as turns out, my education is applicable in the real world. A very exciting epiphany for me (can I get a woot, woot?!).

So things are going well. More updates to come. :-)

Goals, Resolutions and Change

I thought I would go ahead and post some of my new year's resolutions and goals for 2008. So for your entertainment:

go to the gym everyday: I have noticeably gained weight in the past year. Ugh. Having avoided the freshman 15, this is simply not acceptable! The pudge will be gone by summer swimsuit season! Mark my words!

budget: I, in a few words, suck at this. I'm not really an obsessive shopper or anything, but little things I think I need to get "right now" add up. So I resolve to stick to my grocery lists! And I'm going to not buy any new clothes until after this semester. Consider it a graduation present to myself.

meal planning: in association with the above, to help keep track of my expenses I've set a moeny restriction on the amount of groceries I will by in a week. I'm not going to post this amount because my sisters will probably laugh at me. Anyway, meal planning is something I've done moderately well in the past few semesters, but I'm going to do better with the amount I spend on those meals.

A sub goal of the three above is to reduce eating out to twice on the weekends and to not drink soda. Last year a buddy of mine bet me that I couldn't go a month without soda. I took him up on the bet, realized it was a lot harder than I thought, and then he never paid up because "betting is wrong." Punk. Anyway, I still managed to do it so for this first month I'm going sin soda. After this month, though, I'm not going completely off as a burger with fries is just not complete without a coke. this month is to break the addiction. Not that I'm addicted. :-D

Early to bed, early to rise: This is really a continuation of a goal I started last semester. I actually did remarkably well on it. Rather than stay up late and pull all nighters I resolved to go to bed early and wake up early to study instead. Now once 10 p.m. comes around I'm wiped and for some reason my body wakes me up at like 4 a.m. (I'd wake up really early for those study sessions, heh). But overall, I know it's a good thing so I'm continuing it into the new year.

journal writing: I'm going to be more consistent with my journal writing by writing at least once a week in my journal.

scripture study: I don't have a problem reading my scriptures. When I was about 11 I got into the habit of reading daily right before bed. But I'm upping the ante this year.

Well, that's the crux of my new year. I started going to the gym last week and did pretty well. I'm still trying to figure out when the best time for me to go is, so it's a work in progress. But here's to the new year! *holds up glass of Martinelli sparkling grape juice*

New year, new blog...

I've moved over to blogspot because... well the templates just looked cuter. Also, you can edit the templates at blogspot and you have to pay to be able to do that at wordpress. So here I am!

I am pretty excited about the new year. It's also nice looking back on 2007 and thinking, "hey, I really did get a lot accomplished last year..." Some hilights of 2007 are (in no particualr order):

1. Two month study abroad to Spain. Those two months were some of the most amazing in my life and I can't wait to go back some day.

2. Had the Brooklyn Roll at the Happy Sumo. It was amazing.

3. Read Harry Potter 7

4. Took my capstone public relations class with one of my best buddies.

5. Found out I could wake up before 5 a.m. and not die. On that note, I also finally adjusted to studying in the morning instead of at night and going to bed at a decent time.

6. Got accepted to my first internship

7. Learned how to make homemade bread

8. Worked for 3 months at a copy center with some of the funnest co-workers in the world

9. Spending the last two weeks of Spain with my fam and seeing the places where my grandfather grew up

10. Discovering the "sandwich mixto con tortilla francesca." Heaven on two pieces of toasted bread.

In all, '07 was amazing but I am excited to make '08 just as amazing. At this point in my life time moving forward is scary but also very exciting. It's my last semester at the Y and in the next couple of months I have to decide where I really want to be. The opportunities are exhilirating. I have been richly blessed in my life and I hope to make the most of it this year and always.