Valentine's Day 2012

Well, I haven't written anyhting in a while and since today is Valentine's Day, I figured that I should write something. Btw, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! And for those who don't like this holiday, HAPPY SINGLES AWARENESS DAY! On a different note, I've always hated this day and spending it as a single person is not my idea of fun. However, I was talking to one of my friends and he helped me to realize that I can either wallow in my own self pity or I can take this day and embrace it. So, I woke up early and got all fancy for this holiday; I'm even wearing lipstick (something that I haven't worn in who knows how long). I'm not going to let this day get me down and I'm going to be happy for all the couples that I see walking around today. So, what are you doing for this holiday? And for my facebook friends, I am not going crazy with all that chocolate and other things that you saw in my picture. I am taking my time and being responsible.

On a more exciting note, I'm applying to go to CAmbridge, England for a study abroad thing this summer. I'm so excited about it and a little nervous because the cost is more than I thought it would be. Fingers crossed that I can get financial aid. I have never been out of the country before so this trip will be new and exciting. I'm a little hesitant about applying but I'm still going to do it. I really want to go and it will be a great experience for me. The trip is through ASU and I have a friend that goes there so I'm trying to convince him to go also. He says that he really wants to but he's more hesitant than I am. This is the same friend that helped to realize that I shouldn't wallow in my self pity. I really hope that he goes and not just because I want him to but because he deserves to do soemthing fun and have an adventure. Also, once he does this, he'll know that he can do it again and go on many more adventures (something that every writer should do which is what he wants to be). Anyway, that's all for now. Enjoy this lovely holiday and remember, the chocolate gets marked down starting tomorrow. HAHAHA!!!

Fishtailing and other adventures in Colorado

So, I'm in Colorado spending the winter break with my mom and little sister. It has been an interesting time so far and I haven't even been here a whole week yet. Usually when I come to Colorado I always leave with a funny story and this visit is not different in that area.
First of all, when my mom moved up here, she bought a love seat and it was strapped to the roof of her jeep and we brought it home. Unfortunately, it started to down pour while we were driving home and so the love seat was soaked by the time we drove the 15 minutes home. When we did get home, we had to unstrap it from the roof which was super funny because we couldn't see nor could we stop laughing. Our dog thought that we were in trouble and tried to jump through the screen part of the screen door; he managed to pop out the bottom and then was biting it. This made me laugh even harder which isn't good because the love seat was still on the roof. Finally we got it down and then we had to get it through the front door which was a whole new challenge. Every time I remember that part I always think of that one "Friends" episode when Ross is trying to get a couch up to his apartment and he keeps yelling "pivot"; I smile whenever I think of that. Anyway, the love seat survived and it's now my bed when I come to visit.
Well, the story that I have from this visit is also a funny one. My mom came home from work and parked out front because we were going to eat a quick dinner and then go to the store. Sadly, it had been snowing all day and her jeep got stuck. It wouldn't grip anything and the tires were just spinning. So, my little sister and I got out and started to push, trying everything. We even had our mom put the car in neutral to see if that would work; not a good idea when it's on a hill and you're on the downside of that hill pushing. We slowly got her out into the street but she still wasn't gripping anything. Becca (little sister) had fallen and I was close to falling a few times. Then this guy came to help us and we eventually got the jeep out of there. It was so funny and I wish that I had my camera with me.
Also, as the title says there have been many moments of fishtailing in just the past three days. One time my mom turned right and the jeep started fishtailing so she tried to correct it (my mom is very good at not freaking out and handling the problem). Anyway, she corrected a little too much and we ended up hitting the medium in the middle of the road. Thankfully, no one was coming and she was able to correct the jeep and we were off again. There other times when we had fishtailed so much that we were facing the wrong way on the street. Thankfully, each time there had not been any other cars around and no one was hurt, although we all were laughing uncontrollably.
And there was another time when we had dropped off Becca at her friend's house and we were trying to leave. The jeep was stuck again. So, I got out and started pushing and slid right on to my face. Snow got up my sleeves and my face was so cold! I stood up laughing; my knees were a little bruised because I landed on them but I was fine.
Anyway, that's the story of my adventures so far and I still have at least 3 weeks left. I can't wait to see what happens.

Thanksgiving Pros and Cons

I can't believe that I haven't written anything since September. Well, not a lot has happened to me since then, I've been doing great in my classes (except Italian) which is a big difference from what my grades normally look like. Good idea on the change of major. I'm living off campus now at the manch for those of you who know what I'm talking about. I love where I'm living and the group of ladies that I'm living with, they are amazing! Well, I went down to Phoenix for Thanksgiving and I realize some things while I was down there. Here is a pros and cons list of my Thanksgiving.
Pro: I got to see my family whom I love
Con: My family is crazy and even though I love them, I can't stand spending more than a weekend with them
Pro: I took a bottle of wine down for the everyone to share, hoping that it would make the whole weekend more enjoyable
Con: the wine tasted awful! Side note, don't get Coppola wine it tastes like a tire. I bought that kind cause my grandpa's last name is Coppola so I thought it would be cool
Pro: I got away from school for a while
Con: I had to take homework to Phoenix and I got maybe half of it done (that could be a pro)
Pro: I got to see my little sister that is growing into a beautiful young lady
Con: She has glasses now and everyone kept joking that they couldn't tell us apart (not funny), also my little sister is just an inch taller than me (not happy about that)
Pro: I got to see my 3 year old cousin whom I absolutely love
Con: We all went to a giant play place and I was the one that had to follow him around; that involves crawling through those little plastic tunnels
Pro: my mom brought some of my stuff that I left with her when I started college
Con: all of it was in a huge plastic container which could not fit in the car that drove me back to Flagstaff (we had a full car and no more room for anything)
Well, I think that is the end of my pros and cons list. Now to get homework done and when I say that I mean get on facebook and not do anything school related.

Writing Exercise

In my creative writing class we had an exercise where we had to write a story about something that could never happen but make the realistic part so real that it didn't sound so impossible. Here's my attempt (keep in mind that I need to work on being more descriptive).

In the one, lonely house on Birch street there lives an old lady whose only companion is a dog with three legs. Now you may feel bad for this poor, old woman but if you ever ask her if she was lonely, she would proudly say, "No, that dog is all the company I need. He's done more things than any person I know. Although, I think he stretches the truth some times".
She loves listening to his tall tales and picturing herself right there beside him. However, the tale she loves most is about how this dog was able to go to college by pretending to be a seeing eye dog. "It's nice that even animals can go to college", she states with motherly affection. "The one about how he lost his leg in Vietnam always brings tears to my eyes. If he was my dog back then I would have taken better care of him." She loves that dog with all her heart and soul.

That's all, what do you think?

First week of school

Sorry that this has taken so long to be posted but school is just kicking my butt. Well, I live far from campus now and I've been walking almost everyday, a couple of days I've gotten rides. At first I hated having to walk that far but now I'm getting use to it. I still complain a little but that's normal. I did realize though that if the people in the house behind us would let me cut through their backyard, then that would cut about 10 minutes off of my walk. Oh well! I'm gonna lose a ton of weight this way, especially since my eat habits are changing. Don't worry, I am eating just not as much as I use to.
Anyway, classes are going. They are intense but I know that I will survive and get awesome grades to prove it. I'm taking a Shakespeare class and we are going to be reading 7 plays this semester and I have an oral presentation that I need to work on for that class. My day to present is October 7th. I hope that I'll do okay with that, I have a fear of standing in front of people. I'm trying to get over that but it's not easy. Also, right now we are reading "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" and it's so amazing. We acted out the first act on Friday which helped me to understand what all goes into a play.
Another intense class is American Novel; we are reading a total of 10 novels in there this semester. We already finished one and it was interesting. At first it was really slow but then in the middle it picked up and I loved it! The book is called "The Rise of Silas Lapham". It's an older book, written in the 1800's but the story is so beautiful and I loved every minute of it. We were suppose to have the whole book finished by this past Tuesday so I spent all of Monday (Labor Day) reading it. Once it got to the middle, I couldn't stop reading it. I think the main reason that I really enjoyed the book was because I could picture my older sister and I as two of the characters. I like when that happens, I love putting myself in the books. Another class (introduction to literature), we are reading a ton of short stories out of our textbook. With all this class reading going on, I won't be able to read anything for fun. I'm trying to fix that though, with all the stress that my classes are adding, I need something to distract me.
I'm also taking Italian and Creative Writing. I haven't been to creative writing yet, our first class is on Friday. Italian though, I don't know where to begin. Ugh! My teacher is disorganized and doesn't always know what she's doing. She goes too fast when it comes to taking notes. The class itself is interesting and I enjoy learning this language, I'm sort of getting good at it.
Hhhmmm.... other than that I don't know what else to talk about. I've got homework that I should be working on but instead I'm writing this blog. I'm pretty sure that I'm just rambling on so that I can postpone my homework. However, I have to get all my homework done by this weekend cause my aunt and cousin are coming up. I don't want any distractions from family time. Another thought, I need to get better at reading books deeper. When I read a book I don't look for the hidden meaning in it. I enjoy reading it for fun and not putting too much thought into it. Well, that's all I can think of for now. Guess I'll go get that homework done.

First large group of the year!

Today has been the most stressful and funniest day ever. It all started with moving freshmen in this morning. Woke up at 7am so that freshmen wouldn't have to move themselves. Well, a group of us went to McConnell and realized that we had to check in at the front desk before helping. Only then did we realize that IV had to register online before today (I think for safety reasons). Anyway, Geoff is calling the interns trying to figure out what to do and we are sitting there hoping that we will have a reason for waking up so early. Finally, Rachel comes with a piece of paper saying we can move in freshmen. YAY! First problem of the day solved. So we are moving people in and pretty much every person that we move in lives on the third floor (and there's no elevators) so I got a huge workout with that. Then res life tells us that we have to wear the "welcome jacks" shirt that other people are wearing which means that we were wearing two shirts in the sun and we couldn't even show people what group we were with. I think the really reason is because our shirts are the same color as the res life shirts and they thought people might get confused. Whatever!
Anyway, after that we walked back up to north campus and decided to invite freshmen to lunch. At this point it was only me with two guys. We went to Sechrist and walked to the top floor. That's 8 floors! I would have taken the elevator but there was a huge line and probably by the time I got to the elevator they would be done. Therefore, I proved that I can climb 8 flights of stairs after moving in a ton of people. Well, we talked to a few people but nobody wanted to come to lunch so we went by ourselves. I was starving by this point which meant that walking into the hot spot was heaven! I didn't eat a lot of food but after wards my stomach was hurting (it's not used to eating that much).
By this time it's like almost 2. I had to go to Target and that place was jammed full of people. I'm not a fan of crowds so walking around in there was awful for me. I got my things (thankfully they were small) and got out. I ended up going and laying down in the grass for a little bit; I almost fell asleep. My old roommate was coming up today and I told her that I would help move her in but I had to be somewhere at 4:30. She finally got here at 3 and we quickly unloaded a lot of her things. It was so much fun hanging out with her and catching up.
By the time we almost finished I had to go. She gave me ride over to where the sound stuff for IV is located. She left and two other people came to help load up the sound stuff and take it over to the dub. We get there, start hauling things upstairs, and set up only to realize that we are missing a bag with important cables, great. So, Herbert and I drive back over to the Grahman's (where the sound stuff is) and look for it. Not having any luck we ask Steven about it and he doesn't either, we ended up borrowing cables from a church. While him and I were doing this, the other people on the worship team were suppose to be finishing the set up and doing a sound check but there was no noise when they did that; at this point we have 30 minutes left. We get back over there and realize that some of our cables aren't plugged in right and the one person who knows the right way wasn't there. We ended up calling 2 different before and spending the remainder of our time on it.
Finally, with only a minute left, we get everything working and do a quick sound check. We didn't have time to sync everyone together so I had to do that while we were worshipping (some thing that Herbert tells me is barely something that anyone can do). I'm stressed out worrying that it's not going to sound good but I did my best. Things get started and we realize that one of the mics isn't working. At this point, I couldn't stop laughing even though there was no point in laughing. I was laughing so hysterically that someone actually asked me if I was ok. I think I was going crazy.
So, the girl's who mic wasn't working ended up sharing with someone else so another problem gone. Larger group went smoothly, no problems and the talk was really great. I'm excited to see what happens this year. After IV they had a dance party and I really didn't want to be there. But, the sound stuff was being used so I had to be patient. Thankfully, half the stuff (the things we weren't using) was packed up and put away at the Grahman's. Then after a few nice stress relieving rounds of ninja (awesome game) I helped with the rest of the sound stuff. Here comes another fun part, Herbert's car isn't very big and we had some pretty big things with us. Trying to fit everything in there was like playing a mastery level of tetris. Finally, after moving things a million times and me laughing again, we get everything to fit (with me holding a sound board and Herbert not being able to see out his back window) and head over. We unload and move things that too heavy to be considered normal.
now I'm finally home and relaxed. I'm ready for bed but I wanted to first write about today before I forgot something. One more random thing, today it was decided that I am the wild card and I'm pretty happy about that. No one will know what I'm going to do next. Well, that's all. Good night everyone!

Rest of my summer

So, the rest of my summer was pretty fun. After Vegas I hung out at Susan's house and just chilled there. We went on a breakfast picnic with Frankie and then later that day we went to Chuck E. Cheese because Frankie finally pooped in the potty. We were so happy about that!
Then I went to Maygen and jon's apartment and hung out there. Jon finally moved in so they are having fun living together and they already act like a married couple. They have netflix so I watched a lot of that as well as some of the movies that they have. I got to hang out with Jon some more and got to know him better. Him and I have a lot in common, so much in fact that Maygen some times says "I'm dating my sister"! LOL! It's very funny. One day for dinner we went out to this place called the Pub and Grub which was just a hole in the wall kind of place (I mean it when I say hole in the wall, there wasn't even a sign saying that it's there). Maygen and I ordered margaritas and once those were done we had long island iced teas (which don't have tea in them at all), both were really good. Then about a week later we went to Graham's Central Station which gave me the club experience. It wasn't that exciting though, we went at 10ish on a Friday and there was barely anyone there. I tried an appletini and it was really good. I practically downed that thing. It tasted like a green apple and you could barely taste the alcohol. After staying there for about an hour we went and smoked hookah. I've never done that before and it was actually pretty cool. it's not something that I would do all the time but every once in a while I might. Oh yea! Maygen did my hair and make up and I looked good. The next night we went to night time at sun splash which was pretty fun but there were a lot of lines and waiting. We tried the fish bowl water slide that they have and it was really fun! It was totally worth the wait. I think my favorite part was the lazy river, I love just chilling while the water pushes me along. The next day it was time for me to leave, Maygen and I made raspberries bars earlier in the week so she sent some of those with me. I left, got all my stuff, and moved to my new house in Flagstaff.
It's a beautiful, huge house and I love being here. My only problem with it is how far it is from everything but I have found the positive side to that, I'm going to lose a lot of weight because of all the walking that I'll be doing. Well, I can't wait for school to start. I'm going to love every single one of my classes, I know I will. There will probably be a lot of writing involved but I think I can handle it as long as I don't procrastinate. Well, that's all I can think of for now. I hope everyone's first day of school (or the first day of the rest of your life) is fantastic!