H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y ! ! ! ! (late)

In no particular order, these are some of the pictures that I took at Emma and Joe's birthday parties:

Emma's presents:

The flash on my camera hurt Julia's eyes:

Joey got a scooter:

Joey blowing out his candles:

Dad, Mom, and Jules dancing in the kitchen after Joey's party:

Lila and Emma looking at Emma's scrapbook:

Mom frosting Emma's cake:

Emma waiting to blow out candles:

Emma's big present was a microscope!!

I do apologize...

...for not updating so much. I did take many much pictures at Emma and Joey's birthdays, so I will narrow those down and put them on here soon, as well as some videos I took after Joey's birthday party. So don't give up on me quite yet!

In other news, it's past 11 on a Thursday night and I have a paper due tomorrow that I haven't started yet. I kind of hate myself right now a little bit. Guess I'd better get on that...

*die*

Every time I watch this, I simply melt into a puddle of squee.

Since it is now March...

...I'm going to update my blog. I don't have much to talk about right now, and not much time -- I'm doing homework and watching the Oscars, very time consuming -- I'm just going to post my Spanish written composition. But this composition isn't about me, it's about Katelin. The instructions were to write about what my friend did last week. So here you go:

La semana pasada, Katelin fue muy ocupada. Todos los dias, ella trabajando muchas horas a bailar. Por las mañanas, levantó a las siete y vió a clase tan rapido. Tiene cinco clases de música. Los clases son el teoría, el coro, el piano, y dos clases de cantar. Tambien, tiene cuatro clases de baile: historia, ballet, ballet de carácter, y baile moderno. Después de los clases, tiene practica de baile. Ella practica cinco horas por día. El martes pasado, ella y yo tenemos un concierto del coro. Cantamos cuatro canciones. El jueves pasado, ella tenía un concerto de baile. Fue al teatro a las cinco y medio. Se vistió y se maquilló antes del concierto. Su maquilla fue muy blanca y extraño. Después del concerto, regresó a casa y hace la tarea. Tambien, comió unas quesadillas de pollo para cenar. Sus padres estan aquí para ver el concierto. Ellos dicieron el concierto fue muy bien. El concierto fue en jueves, viernes, y sabado. El sabado, Katelin fue a Great Harvest y compró pan. Tambien, ella comió mucho y relaja. La semana pasada, ella y yo vamos a Wal Mart y compramos chocolate. Tambien, vemos películas romanticas. Katelin está muy ocupada.

For a good translation, go HERE. Then just copy and paste. I'm pretty sure it works.

Hey look.

I got a bed. Huzzah! I was just tired of sleeping on that futon, and we had an extra bed because Gwen moved out. So today I took it. It will probably be much more comfortable than the futon was.

Boy Scout Sandwich: Perfected

I love food. And I have recently perfected the Boy Scout Sandwich. (some amateurs may call this "egg in a basket," but that is wrong.) This is how you make The Perfect Boy Scout Sandwich:

First, get out two pieces of bread. Punch the holes in the middle, and then put butter on both sides.

Then scramble an egg in a bowl. You can add some cheese if you like. I did. It was tasty.

Then you grill it up all nice. Be sure to save half of the egg/cheese mixture for the second piece of bread.

I made some hot chocolate to go along with it, because hot chocolate is delicious.

Tada!! All done. It was muy delicioso, if I do say so myself.

I have discovered...

...that I am a nerd of EPIC proportions. I really ought to have figured this out by now. But I didn't. Until today. Want to know why? Well, even if you don't, I'm going to tell you.

Today marks the day that I started watching Star Trek: The Original Series. Yes. You heard correctly, my children. I have descended that far. Although, once I sat down and thought it out logically (Spock is getting to me...), it was very obvious that this was simply the next step on my road to full-fledged nerdhood (if I'm not there already). I will now detail for you, in chronological order, my descent into geekdom:

• Fourth grade: HARRY POTTER. That was when I read book 1. Then, for two weeks in June of 2000, all I did was read books 1, 2, and 3. Then, for my 10th birthday, I got books 1, 2, 3, and 4. And the rest, as they say...
• Summer of 2003: I saw Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes, at first my love for that series had solely to do with Johnny Depp. But now I love it. I love the fantasy elements, the awesome fighting, and, of course, the pretty men (is that an oxymoron?).
• January 2004: The Lord Of The Rings had been sitting on my bookshelf gathering dust for months. But in January, I picked up part 1, "The Fellowship Of The Ring." I read it in two weeks, watched the movie, and promptly began part 2.
• And for a while, things were quiet, fueled only by the continued release of Harry Potter movies, and The-Series-That-Must-Not-Be-Named trying in vain to take its place....
• THEN I went to college. And I met GWEN, who's nerdiness exceeded my own. She introduced me to LOST. I watched 4 years worth of TV in 4 months. And then I did it again. And again. That makes three (3) times.
• Also, we had movie marathons. Many much movie marathons. Pirates, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and X-Men.
• THEN Star Trek: 2009 came out. Gwen, of course, bought it. And we watched it. And then Gwen went to BYU and started watching the Original Series.
• THEN Gwen CAME BACK! We watched Star Trek. That was last night.
• Today I finally took that last step. I have now hit rock bottom. Now what?

So you see, once you work it out logically (curse you Spock), my descent to geekdom wasn't really all that sudden. Especially since my Dad used to watch Star Trek when I was little. I'd watch it with him, but I don't remember anything about it. So, not only is it in my blood, but it really was only a matter of time until I started watching Star Trek... There was never really any resistance in me. I don't even know where to go next... That's okay, I've got 40+ years of TV to catch up on. But I really don't think I'll go that far. I am a bit of a purist, even though I only started today. I think I'll stick to the Original Series.

And that concludes my nerdy ramblings.

Amber Out.

(Curse you, Captain James T. Kirk...)

At last...

... a long weekend... This week has been the week of DEATH.

Monday: Test in Spanish and a mini-paper due in Theory.

Tuesday: Writing test in Spanish.

Wednesday: Rough draft of Essay due, 3 pages, in Poetry. Biology test.

Thursday: Spanish oral exam.

Friday:.... nothing on Friday!

Hooray for long weekends! FINALLY a chance to relax. This last week just felt SO stressful.

I think...

...that I've lost track of the number of papers I've written so far this semester (and it's still only January). Let's see if I can remember...

Theory: One essay, one journal question (2)

Poetry: Three exercises (3)

Music: One critique (1)

Okay, so that's.... six!? How did that happen? When I counted this morning I could have sworn it was just 4. Oh my goodness.

Not much to report...

...on the me front, lately. I've written 4 papers already, and I've only been in school for 3 weeks.

This is a close-up of my tasty dinner from the other night.

This is my tasty dinner. Cream of chicken soup, toast, and Steamables roasted red potatoes with green beans and rosemary butter sauce.

This is a close up of a little man that I drew on my Theory notes the other day.

These are my Theory notes. I just thought that they looked very nice and organized.

Pictures

Here are some pictures that I have taken lately with my new camera.

This is the necklace that Emma gave me for Christmas:

This is the new leather cuff that I got in my stocking:

This is a peek into one of the mini-cupboards of my jewelry box:

On Sunday, we went for a drive up the canyon. This is just a sample of the many pictures that I took. The rest can be found HERE

I don't know...

...what's going on. Usually I'm homesick for the first night and some of the next day, and after that I'm okay. But I still have this nagging lonely feeling and I really don't like it. I don't know what to do.

Also...

...there is a little secret surprise in my header photo. Well, it's not secret. But it's awesome.

Yesterday, January 4

Here is how it went down:

• 4:34 am - Woke up sweating and hot. Dozed on and off until...
• 7:00 am - Gave up and got up. Ate breakfast and got ready for the day.
• 9:00 - Intro to Critical Literature and Theory. Overwhelming number of textbook pages, all combined.
• 9:24-ish - EARTHQUAKE. Magnitude of 4.1
• 10:00 - Intro to Poetry. Only one book, and no writing of poems. Huzzah! Half of the people from my Theory class were in this class too.
• 11:00 - Spanish 1020. Half the people from Poetry were in here. Must be an English Major thing.
• 12:00 - I went to choir, but there was no choir because... I dunno, there just wasn't. Went home. Also, I ate ramen.
• 12:something - Apparently there was another earthquake, a 2.6 or some such, but no one felt it.
• 12:45 - Went to the bank so I could buy my textbooks later.
• 2:00 - Got lost trying to find my Biology class. Stupid PE Building. So messed up.
• 3:00 - Came home and fussed around a bit trying to organize myself.
• 3:20-ish - Borrowed Kelly's bike and went to get textbooks. Very much heaviness. Entered a drawing to win free textbooks, but I'm not crossing my fingers or anything.
• 4:00 I guess - Came home and tried to organize myself some more, but gave up because everything is in the syllabus anyway.
• 6:30 - Starving. Ate cereal.
• 7:00 - Katelin finally got home so we went shopping. Yay food!! My paycheck hadn't gone through yet, though, so I only had $18. I made it work with $15. I feel cool. Also, I didn't buy any crackers! GO ME! My goal is 3 meals a day, no more, no less. Let's see how it goes. I kinda failed today, but I can blame that on the fact that I didn't actually have any dinner foods at the time of my cereal-eating.
• 9:00 - Ate dinner and a SUCCESS brownie. Also had some chocolate milk.
• 9:55 - While watching Brian Regan, EARTHQUAKE!!
• 10:30 - Went to bed very traumatized. I don't like earthquakes. Listened to the world's most soothing song: Simon and Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair." *love*

Well, that was yesterday. I hope today is better.

I fail.

I've given up trying to do all sorts of cutesy daily blog things, because they never work.

In other news, I'm back in Cedar City. Spring Semester 2010 starts tomorrow. I feel strangely apathetic about it, but that might just be the homesickness creeping in.

Christmas break was...pretty good. We did Bethlehem, but I missed most of it because I had to work. On the bright side, though, I had a job! I might actually be able to afford textbooks now, which will be nice. Hopefully I don't have to buy too many, as I already have 2 that I'll need.

I feel bad because I can't remember a lot of the things I got for Christmas... My main present was a camera, and I took a gazillion-and-a-half pictures on Christmas day. It takes WAY too long to upload them to blogger, though, so I just put them on facebook. If you want to take a look at them, click here.

Last semester I took a yoga class, but over Christmas break I didn't do any yoga. Add finals week to that, and it's been an entire month since I did any yoga at all. My body is not happy with me. Thankfully I'm going back to yoga class on Thursday, woohoo!

I'll update on classes soon, I guess, once I find out what they're like and such.

Pictures 3 and 4

It's that time of year again....

You may have noticed that the schedule looks a little different this semester. That's because I only have one, yes, one final this week, and it's on Tuesday. So I'm going home on Wednesday! I am very excited.

Picture 2

AAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!

Today is the Day of Awesome.

Deathly Hallows high res trailer from MN Vids on Vimeo.

Picture 1

I've decided to try my own hand at a 365 project. So here is the picture from day 1:

Update?

I haven't blogged in a month, but not really anything has happened in that month. Just school. And Thanksgiving break, which was nice. But now it's back to school and I feel more busy than ever.

Things I've done since being back from Thanksgiving break:

• Had a cold.
• Unpacked.
• Spanish homework
• Woke up and couldn't speak
• Spanish Test
• Rescheduled Math final exam
• Math homework
• Ironing party for my choir dress (which takes about an hour for a good job)
• Choir/orchestra concert
• More math homework
• Woke up again and couldn't speak
• Took Spanish Oral Exam despite not being able to speak
• Finished CSIS 1000
• Turned in choir music
• Last Creative Writing class :(
• Started compiling artifacts for my creative writing portfolio

I'm pretty sure those are the main things... Still, only a few more days to go!! I'll be sure to make my customary Finals Week rainbow schedule and post a picture sometime this weekend.

I made it...

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

AMAZING

Everything else

There isn't much introduction here. These are just all the other pictures I've taken lately that are cool.

This was probably the best moment of my life. It was at the High School Shakespeare Competition Awards Ceremony. They had a slideshow of the festival, and when the music started playing, nearly every student ran down onto the floor and had an impromptu dance party. The announcer said afterwards, "No matter what happens now, it was all worth it for that!" It was SO AWESOME. The energy in that room was palpable. Absolutely incredible.

This is an outlet that's about 8 or 9 feet up on the wall in my Creative Writing classroom. We have yet to figure out why it's there.

This is my lunch from today. It's cheesy scrambled eggs with ham and toast. Yum!

This is a hole in the ground. I didn't even know it was there, which was weird.

This is the inside. I felt this weird urge to go exploring, but it was very unprepared and I was lacking in the necessary items, like food and water.

This is a flag. Duh. They put them up for Columbus Day. (I have no idea who "they" were...)

This is Gwen being attacked by a giant sparkly spider.

Also me and Taylor. I chose the most realistic spider in the bin, because I wanted it to be realistic.

FAIL JUICE.

This is "the rock church." No, it doesn't belong to The Rock Church, it belongs to the LDS church.

This is a sweet-awesome sign in the Catholic thrift store downtown.

These were some weird potted fake flowers that we saw in a random parking lot.

We decorated...

... our house for Halloween. Yay!

Cobwebs on our bookshelf, along with a little black bird that belongs to Taylor. No, it isn't real. It's just awesome.

Cobwebs on our awesome clock.

My pirate flag covering up an ugly painting. This house is full of weird old-people stuff.

Tombstones on the other bookshelf.

"Beware," "Caution," and "Enter at your own risk" streamers in the hallway leading to our bedrooms.

First I shall blog about...

... Conference weekend, in no particular order.

We passed this old Olympic thing on our drive. It reminded me of this documentary I once saw about how cities will go to all these lengths to build great arenas for the Olympics that then fall into ruin and never see glory again.

This was a sweet awesome view that we happened upon.

More of the awesomeness...

This is Julia looking so cute with her apple in the car.

This is the tabernacle. I took this when me and Shannon were sitting on one of the benches in that park next to it with Colby and Dex.