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...
Monday, January 28, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
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.
uh, it's really technical... so if you zone out while reading, that's normal. anyway, I'm pretty stoked about it.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
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!
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!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
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. :-)
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. :-)
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
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. :-)
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. :-)
Sunday, January 6, 2008
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*
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.
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.
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