The Best Year So Far

This has been a great year. The beginning months were a little slow, socially mostly. I had a bit of a hard time after the mission making friends. I mean, I made some friends, but not the kind I spent a lot of time with, if that makes sense. I don't know, it's hard to make friends without friends. Sometimes it happens, but it's hard. But particularly when I moved into my current ward, there were a few people that made a big difference to me, and I'd like to share a little about these folks, who made 2011 turn into a fabulous year!

McKell and Ben were great in reaching out to me. I've known Ben since we were kids. We were in the PV3 ward in Provo in primary, then he moved to Idaho in high school and so we met again there, and now again in the same area we started. McKell moved in to PV3 after we moved to ID, but I met her when visiting my grandparents in subsequent years so I knew her a little too. It was quite nice to have a couple of familiar faces in my new ward. She especially was good at inviting me to go with her to church, activities, institute, etc. It was great to have somebody to go with and talk with, so I didn't feel so awkward. After a while, I had made other friends and so when she started dating somebody (and got married yay!) it was okay, she'd done her job. She got me involved in the ward. She's a hero!

Another familiar face was Mazie. She had been in a couple of my classes the semester before, so I knew her a little bit from there. When I saw her, I thought, "She'd be an excellent Relief Society president." What do you know, that day she got sustained as such. Haha! She was also in my home evening group and she was my visiting teacher. We became pretty good friends over the course of the summer. I'm really grateful for her!

Hannah was also important because I wanted to be a good example for my little sister, so I made sure we were actively involved, continuing our institute and activity attendance. And as I said, it's always easier to go to something and make new friends if you already have somebody with you. She was a good one to have around. We had a lot of fun this summer.

Then there's Jamshid. He looked like a terrorist with his beard, but he's a softie. Hannah told him to ask me out, which he did, and a new friendship was born. We had fun flirting and joking around a lot. I could look forward to seeing him at various activities too. He has a way of making you feel at ease and he just cares about everybody. He knows everybody in the ward. It's amazing.

Kyle and Jason were other familiar faces, originally in PV3 too. They're always entertaining. I've gotten to know them even more this last semester, which has been a blast. Their whole household is quite delightful. I've written about them a little bit before. Once I moved into the the apartments, they were in my home evening group, and I know I've mentioned how awesome they are.

Of course there were others like Will and Brock and Annie who were in my summer home evening group too. As I got to know all these great people, I started considering staying in the ward for fall, which wasn't in my original plan. Then I got my new calling, which helped me even more. I made an effort to meet just about everybody. Definitely everyone in my Relief Society. I baked each weekend and took goodies to different apartments to get to know them more. It's been quite a delight. I've gotten to know a lot more people, Andrew, Brian, fun apt. 1, apartment 43 (with their own theme song), Raqel, Luke, Calvin, Celeste, Silvia, my roommies, I really can't name them all. (Also as a side note, most of these names are nicknames, but a few are real, so for those of you who actually know them, I hope you can keep track of it all.)

There are also those friends from the mission like Bunkie and Jemima and Boulty, who were around when I didn't have anybody else. They had their own lives too, but they were pretty good about being there for me. :) A couple pre-mission friends pulled through too, like Kimberly and Spencer, particularly at the beginning of the year.

In short, the wonderful people in my life have made this a great year indeed! Definitely the best year yet! And I'm sure that 2012 will be fabulous too! Thanks y'all, and have a Happy New Year!

Belated Christmas-related post

My mother is the queen of Christmas. I wish I could show you my whole house, but that would be a tad difficult. So here are a few pics to show the decor. But she's not only a great decorator, she really makes everything about Christmas grand. From the food and cookies to the gifts, to the movies and music. I love her.






This was an entertaining gift that each of us got. My brother threw his up in the air and it rained money.



This is a great ornament, don't you think?

Merry Christmas Eve!

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve! I'm so excited for our Swedish smorgasbord this evening. I love my family! Merry Christmas!

Hot Chocolate: Superior Refreshment

There's something amazing about hot chocolate. It's so comforting. It's hot. It's chocolate. It's delicious. The last few days I've had toast and cocoa for breakfast, which is really nice. I don't normally have time for that during the semester, since that requires actually sitting down for breakfast... So it's been quite delightful. And as I sipped it this morning, I thought, "Hot chocolate deserves a little lovin' for all the lovin' it gives to us." So this post is dedicated to the thousands of cups that are enjoyed each year. I hope you too enjoy some superior refreshment!

Freedom

There is a magnificent feeling that comes with the end of a semester. All semester even at somewhat relaxed times, there was still something hanging over me, an ax ready to fall and slice my head open. But now, there's no ax. There's no bucket of icy cold water. There's nothing dangling in a threatening way above me. I can breathe and relax and sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Freedom. No school. No homework. No work. Just family. Music. Movies. Food. Love. Sleep. Beauty. Christmas.

St. Lucia Dagen

I can't remember what I've written about on here. Have I ever mentioned that I got a nickname from members of my ward? I'm Lucille or Lucy to them. It used to lean toward Lucy mostly, but I get a lot of Lucille lately. I like them both though. Anyway, I'm Lucy.

Today is Lucia Dagen in Sweden. That means Lucy's Day! I was so appropriately nicknamed. This is a favorite family tradition of mine. Traditionally, a young woman dressed in white with a crown of candles brings Lucia buns and coffee for breakfast while singing the song "Santa Lucia." It's kind of a celebration of light. (You can click on the link up there to read more about it.)

This morning as I sent my mom a text to wish her a happy Lucia dagen, I realized "Hey, I'm Lucy now! Yes! This is my day!" Now I'm wishing I had some Lucia bread to share with my friends. Maybe I'll get some pepparkakor (a.k.a. wish cookies). But for now, back to finals.

Rubbish

Rubbish. What a great word. Don't you love to say it? Rubbish! Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. "This is rubbish." "My paper is four pages long, but what rubbish." "Que rubbish!" (Spanglish) Rubbish. Yep. This post probably belongs in the rubbish. But nay, what a rubbishful thought. One man's rubbish is another man's treasure. Treasure this rubbish. Treasure it.

December? What?

Today is December 1st. I'm not sure how that happened. Wasn't it just barely September? But I'm thrilled that the semester is nearly over. I just have to make it to the end! I don't think I've ever had such a struggle focusing on my studies. I've wanted to blog several times and I keep saying, "I don't have time." But then I find other ways to waste my time, so I'm blogging now. Mostly I wanted to show you my new shoe.

Ain't it pretty? Story? Okay. Actually, I don't know how I hurt my foot exactly. Maybe from dancing around the house over Thanksgiving break. But it started hurting this weekend. I didn't think too much of it at first. But it got worse and on Monday it hurt a lot. So I went to the doctor. They took an x-ray. Nothing wrong there. So I went to the podiatrist on Wednesday and he diagnosed me with flexor tendinitis. It's not too bad really. I can feel it if I move my big toe...so the shoe is supposed to help me not move that tendon in there that's so unhappy. It works fairly well. I had to wear two pairs of socks today though, to keep my foot warm! If it starts snowing...I might have to wear some other stiff shoes on the walk to school. We'll see. Anyway, I find it rather entertaining. Nobody noticed I was wearing it today, which surprised me. I felt like I was walking really funny since my normal shoe is an inch or so taller than this one. But apparently it must not be too weird-looking!

Ah yes, fabulous adventures have I. Happy December!

(Rebecca) Black Friday

Black Friday is not a big deal in this house. As my mother says, "There's nothing I want bad enough to get up that early for." Yep. Me neither. I slept in. It was lovely. Except I'm still super tired. And I fell asleep last night during our movie, went to bed as soon as it was over, and slept in. I don't know if I'm getting too much sleep or the last three months are catching up with me...haha. I went to the temple and had some trouble staying awake then too. I've been doing homework since then. I'd love a nap. Maybe I'll take a quick one? I do have a testimony of power naps... Hmm...Maybe I went Black Friday shopping in my dreams and that's why I'm so tired. I don't know. Hope y'all have had a nice day, however you chose to spend your time!

Happy Thanksgiving, La la la

This video is of a Hallmark e-card I found some years ago that I loved and shared with a bunch of people. Then my freshman roommates were lucky enough to see me perform it in person. Yeah, what a treat! It's kind of become a Thanksgiving tradition. I thought of it this morning and then one of my friends texted me a line from the song too, so I just had to find it and fortunately, Youtube delivered! Enjoy! And if you're really lucky and I see you often enough, you might be able to get me to sing it for you.

Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!

Today is the day! Happy Thanksgiving! My thankful for today is a biggie. It's my family! I sure love them. I'm thankful to be with them. I'm thankful that my mom has already made several pies and other dishes for dinner tonight. I'm thankful that she is such a great example of service and love. I'm thankful for my daddy too. He is such a great man. My parents have taught me so much. I'm so blessed. I wrote about my siblings the other day but I'm still grateful for them! Love them muchly. I'm also thankful for having both sets of grandparents near this holiday, so I can see all of them. I also have an uncle here. What fun! I'm grateful for Thanksgiving, a time to remember how great our lives are, how many blessings we have, a time to celebrate with our loved ones. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Thanksgiving at home

I'm grateful that I live close enough to home and that transportation is good enough so that I can go home for Thanksgiving. Yay for being with the family! Now we're starting the Christmas movie marathon that comes with Thanksgiving at our house. We're starting with Christmas With the Kranks, we'll definitely watch The Christmas Story tomorrow (tradition! tradition!) and maybe Polar Express, Elf, White Christmas...so many possibilities. Fortunately, I get to come home in a couple weeks and watch them all some more! I love me some Christmas movies! :D Yay! Life is great!

El dia del pavo

Today was the last day of class this week. That's always a happy thing. Just four hours of work tomorrow and then I'm headed home. Yay! Today was pretty great. My teachers planned on not many students in class and the first one brought pizza for those of us who came, and the second brought cookies and milk. Nice I didn't have to buy a lunch today. :) I'm grateful that Thanksgiving break is here!

Home Evening is GREAT

Today I'm grateful for my home evening group. They're so great. Actually, I kind of have two groups. My old group and my new group. My old group was delightful too. Basically I'm very blessed. Since I'll be meeting with my new/current group shortly, I'll tell you a bit about them. They're very awesome. They make me smile. We have bedtime story with some of them most nights. That's always fun. We had dinner together last week and I shared pumpkin cake last night too. That's how awesome they are. They deserve pumpkin cake. Pumpkin cake is amazing, by the way. With cream cheese frosting. Yeah, you should be jealous. Both of my cake and my group. :)

Just us kids

I've kinda been saving writing about my family for last, but since yesterday I spent quite a bit of time with my siblings, I figure today'd be as good as any day to talk about them. Yesterday Hannah came with me to a Vocal Point concert, then we went to the grocery, then we met up with Jord and members of his posse for dinner at Cafe Rio. That was super fun. Awesome possum. I like having my sister down here with me. I don't get to see her all the time, but usually once a week anyway. She comes and visits me at work sometimes. And when she has a Jamba at those times, she lets me have a sip. What a good sister. Brother dearest is still in the land northward, but that's okay. He came down and this time I got to see him. And best yet, I'll get to be with my whole family for Thanksgiving. I'm quite excited for that. I have a great brother and sister and I'm very grateful for them.

Sadie Hawkins

I've probably mentioned this a few times...but I LOVE my ward. They are so great. Seriously. The best. My favorite. Whenever I'm with them, I'm ridiculously happy. Last night we had a Sadie Hawkins Decade Dance. It was so awesome. We dressed up in different decades. 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, I think we had some from the 20s/30s too. It was so fun. The 50s were quite popular, which is what Luke (my awesome date) and I dressed up as. We kind of moved through the decades with the music and that was fun, except the further we got, the less I knew. Haha. I listened to oldies more than popular music in the 90s. It's all good though. It was so much fun. We also had hamburgers, fries, and malts. It was so good. The malts were huge and I couldn't finish mine. Too much for me!

It was really fun to dance with Luke, and my favorite was going outside and dancing in the SNOW. That's right folks, it started snowing during the dance and it didn't stop! We got a couple inches at least while we were there. It was awesome. I love snow. Except for traveling in it. But it was way fun last night. A bunch of us had a snowball fight and everything. Yeah. My ward really is awesome.

While I'm pretty sure nobody had more fun than I did with Luke, I loved looking around and watching everybody dance and smile and laugh. It made me so happy to see that. I was thrilled to see those who came alone being included too. Seriously, I just loved looking around at all these people that I love so much and seeing them so happy and having a good time. I'm so grateful for those who planned this awesome activity. Their hard work really paid off.

P.S. I'm also grateful for my mom, who made my poodle skirt many years ago. I got so many compliments. Thanks, Mom!

Friends at Work

So, today at work I decided I should write about work. Actually, not so much about work, but the people I work with. Because my work itself isn't all that exciting. It's fine for me, but I'm pretty sure you don't need to hear all about it. But the folks I work with, now they're worth reading about. I think I'll stick with writing about the other students. Just know that the full-timers are cool too.

Emily is awesome. She trained me and did an awesome job. She's been working there for a good long while and knows how to do everything. She's also an incredibly talented artist. For birthdays and other special events, she designs cards that we all sign. They are awesome. I think when I start my own Hallmark company, I'll hire her first. Sadly, since we have the same job, she works afternoons and I work mornings, so I never see her. But she's fabulous.

Skyler is great. He loves Disney and football. It seems every time I quote a Disney movie to him for some reason, he thinks I've done some serious Facebook stalking so I know exactly how that applies to his life...no, I just kinda like Disney too... Every morning I scan and index the daily reports and a couple of them I give to him to do something or other with, and he just LOVES that. Yep. Those reports are his most favorite thing ever. He just begs for me to give them to him. Hehe. He works afternoons mostly, so I don't see him a lot, but some Fridays I get the pleasure of giving him those reports in person. And sometimes he gets the pleasure of throwing them back at me when he finishes.

Then there's Tracie. She works on the other side the tree. The tree is there mainly to keep us from talking to the people on the other side of the tree. Not that it really stops us. Tracie is so fun and friendly. I love her. We often talk about dating and all the problems and drama that come with that. Fun times.

And then there's David. David is...David. We have an interesting relationship. For example, today he said, "You look like you're on something." And yesterday he asked, "Have you looked in the mirror today?" Ah yes, always such a gem. I'd probably be really offended if it weren't so funny. You really can't take David seriously. Ever. We give each other a hard time. He eats a mini loaf of bread and a donut pretty much everyday. Sometimes he shares. So we can be friends, kind of.

So those are the people I associate with the most at work. And I'm grateful for them. Even David. Sometimes.

Sleep is good.

I'm grateful for power naps. They're powerful. Even twenty minutes of uncomfortable sleep in a chair can do a lot of good. :)

quince de noviembre

I'm really grateful that November is half over. That's a really good thing. Next week is Thanksgiving, then just a tiny bit more school till Christmas. Almost done. Yay for the ides of November. :D

(Okay, so technically the "ides" of November is Nov. 13. But who really knows that?)

Thoughts on the Holocaust

The last few days, I've been thinking about the Holocaust. It started because I'm in a class on Judaism and that was what the chapter was on, but it's actually come up more than once since then outside of class. Today was the lecture on it. It's really horrific to see what happened, and unbelievable that some people claim it never happened. Since my class is on Judaism and the Gospel, my teacher posed a few questions for us:

*What long-term lessons can we learn from the Holocaust?

*Would you have been one of the non-Jewish people

who risked their lives to save a Jewish family?

*What help does the Gospel of Jesus Christ offer for

people who struggle with such horrific experiences?

I have a few thoughts regarding these questions:

I hope I would have had the courage to do what was right in that situation. But how easy is it to say, "Well, it's not my business, I couldn't do very much, and I have my own problems to deal with, my own family and friends to care for," and turn a blind eye? It's kind of a scary thought. So many people just didn't want to take the risk. And so many people were blinded by an evil dictator, following him just because he told them to.

Yesterday in Sunday School, the teacher had us stand in a circle, then follow her example, clapping, tapping our knees with our hands, tapping our neighbor's knees...then she asked, "Why did you do that? Why did you do everything I told you to?" She pointed out we really have to be aware of who we are following and why. Are we following Christ? Or are we following the adversary? Who am I following?

In the reading for class today, it talked about the problem the Holocaust poses: how could God allow this to happen? The Jews had always been persecuted, but this was far more than anything before. Why wouldn't a loving God intervene? Without the context of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that question is really hard. It can be hard enough with it! We're blessed with a knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. There's a line in Preach My Gospel that says everything unfair in life will be made right by the atonement of Jesus Christ. The Holocaust was definitely not fair. But it will be made right. We can't even comprehend it, but somehow, our Savior makes everything right. That is such a blessing.

So in keeping with my posts this month, I'm so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I'm grateful that through it we can be made whole, physically, emotionally, spiritually. There is no greater blessing.

Relief Society

I'm so grateful for Relief Society. I love it. Today we had a great activity and I'm so grateful for all those who were involved and for those who came. It was amazing. I just love the women of my ward so much! The men are amazing too. Basically I just love my ward. :)

11.11.11

Today was a good day. First of all, I love BYU and its nerdiness. The Bookstore made an announcement at 11:11 today. It was pretty awesome. I thought it was funny that they acknowledged it.

But not only is the day aesthetically pleasing, but it's Veteran's Day. So today I'm grateful for those who have fought for our country. :) And it made me really happy to come home today and hear the BYU marching band playing patriotic music. I love it! God bless America!

La computadora

I'm grateful for my computer. What a convenience it is to have! I can do my homework, blog, email, check up on my friends and family, entertain myself, and more! I especially love that I can do pretty much all my homework on it and don't have to go to campus. That's always nice. :D

You've got a friend in me

I am soooo grateful for good friends. I have been seriously blessed in that regard. Nobody has friends as good as mine, pretty sure. I can give a few general categories: early friends, high school friends, SHA friends, other pre-mission BYU friends, mission friends, and post-mission friends. Haha. I am still friends with some of my early friends. I don't see them often, but we still keep in touch (gotta love technology!). I had an amazing group of friends in high school. We had so much fun together, and we really built each other up. SHA was where I worked at BYU for so long before my mission. Loved it so much and I met so many amazing people. We sure had a lot of fun. Most of my other friends were through my wards. My mission friends are fantabulous. Especially my sisters. They are my favorite. Seeing them always makes my day. Post-mission friends were kind of hard to come by for a while. But then I moved into my awesome ward this summer and now I have the most amazingest friends ever. And living in a social apartment complex is the best. I love that I can walk outside and talk to a good number of people, even when it's freezing. (By the way, it's best to wear shoes outside even if you think you'll only be out for about 30 seconds. Because 30 seconds might turn into 15 minutes when you run into friends.) My life and my friends are fabulous.

Life is a Highway

I'm grateful for...Vocal Point. Haha. But really. They're awesome and doing a great job on The Sing-off. And their music makes me happy.

Dos cosas

I didn't have a minute to write yesterday. Well, I could have stayed up later, but that didn't seem wise. So I'll write two things I'm grateful for today, really quickly because I have a lot more stuff to do. I'm grateful for my new roomies. They are a lot of fun. I'll probably write more about them later. I'm also grateful for Apt. 4 who helped me move in the last of my stuff yesterday. They were oh so helpful and very willing. So they get brownie points, which will translate to chocolate chip cookies at some point. Yay!

Baptism!

Yesterday afternoon I got to go to a baptism of a young man in my ward. I don't know him very well, but it was awesome to be able to go. I haven't been to a baptism in a long time. I'm grateful for that opportunity and for knowing that the priesthood power of God is on earth today, and we can participate in the ordinances needed for salvation. What a blessing.

Also last night I was driving to my friend's house in Pleasant Grove, and I hadn't driven there before, and when I'd been a passenger, we took the interstate, and I didn't, so it was all new. I got to a certain point and I hadn't seen the road I needed yet, but I figured it had to be close. The road curved, and as we came around the curve, the car in front of me signalled to turn left onto a road I probably wouldn't have noticed. I thought, "Hey, maybe that's it, I'll turn here." Sure enough, it was the road I needed. How cool is that? I love it when I feel guided. I attribute it to the Spirit. I'm very grateful for it!

Fabulous Friday

I had such a tender mercy today. My minor is TESOL, but I've been questioning whether I really like it and can do it and do it for a long time...and those questions are still valid, but today helped. In my teaching methods in TESOL class, we had to teach just for 10 minutes, but to actual students from the ELC. I was assigned to teach today, but I had a really hard time deciding what to teach. I figured if I could come up with that, teaching wouldn't be too bad. I finally decided maybe talking about prefixes would be good, but I really didn't know how well it would work. How much do they know about prefixes? Is this level appropriate? I know their level, but what the heck does that even mean? Last night I prepared and felt okay, but still really unsure. This morning I felt so much anxiety. It was a hard morning. Finally it was time. There were three of us teaching our little group that day (the class was divided into 4 sections and we taught at different white boards). I was the last to go, so I had to sit through theirs...I was kind of worried, because the students weren't talking a whole lot, but in some ways they didn't have a chance, plus they also were shy to begin with I think. So I finally got to teach and it went fairly well, but I still wasn't really sure if I was being clear or if it was helpful. They knew what a prefix was, but I'm pretty sure they didn't know what most of them meant. One of them took notes. They talked a lot more, because I asked them to brainstorm words that began with whatever prefix we were talking about. I was really impressed with some of the words they came up with.

After, I told one of the other teachers she did well and she commented to me that the students seemed to really enjoy mine, that it actually meant something to them, as they kept thinking of new words and such. I realized she was right. They got kind of excited as they asked me questions and clarified points. So I felt pretty good.

As I walked down the hall after class, my "class" caught up to me and asked me if I wanted to teach. I said that was the plan eventually. She asked again though, and then I realized she wanted me to teach her. I figured maybe she'd like a tutor or study buddy type thing, but then she was asking what I wanted to teach them. I ended up telling her that I don't know much about teaching yet, and I don't know what to teach yet, but I would be able to meet with her and the others sometime if that would help them. She told me that she thought I'd be a good teacher.

Anyway, that was a really long way of saying I must have done alright. I think it was helpful to choose something that wasn't too easy, so it was new to them. Pushed them a little. But the point of all this is that I was really grateful to get some good feedback. I'm not quite as terrified by the concept of actually teaching English as I was before. And this post is way longer than I intended and I'm not actually expressing everything how I would like, but I think I'll end anyway. Happy Friday!

Special Collections

Today I am thankful for the cool opportunities we have at BYU. There's some pretty awesome stuff here. I haven't even tapped in to half of it. Today for a class we met in Special Collections in the library. We got to see some really old Bibles and other religious documents, as well as a first edition Book of Mormon. It was neat. And I'm grateful that we don't have to copy down scripture word for word, page by page, to get a complete record. Even though it looks really cool.

Also, in case you were wondering, Special Collections has the original score for Gone With the Wind. I'm not quite sure why you would need the original score, but that's legit. Also, we have a lot of Jimmy Stewart's papers and stuff and his personal copies of his films. Why? Because somebody here asked for them. Nobody else thought of it I guess? Or maybe he just really loved filming Mr. Krueger's Christmas and figured BYU was tight with Motab. I don't know, but that's pretty cool.

Christmas isn't Christmas without Mr. Krueger. I make people watch it every year. :)

Well looky here, two days in a row

Today I'm grateful for a lot of things. Here’s a sample:
1. Automatic staplers...my job is really not fun at all without one, what a delightful device (hope our new one comes soon)
2. The ELC (English Language Center): I got to go observe a class at the ELC today and it was so much fun. They were so welcoming. Super excited to have a visitor I guess. :) Favorite parts: Michèle, from France, an older man with white hair and a beautiful French accent; watching all the students interact; and most of all, a question when I introduced myself: "Do you like Asian guys?" (I skipped that one.)
3. Scarves and sweaters
4. Institute! I went to institute tonight and it was amazing! We were in 3 Nephi 11 and I learned so much tonight. Such the best.

We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet

So I've seen some people do the whole post about something you're grateful for each day this month thing...that may or may not happen here. I make no promises with my crazy life. But I'll at least start off today. :)

Today President Thomas S. Monson came to BYU and spoke at our devotional. He focused on being a righteous example and developing our testimonies. We have to obtain light in order to share it. What a blessing it is to be here and have the opportunity to listen to a prophet of God speak to us. For that I am indeed grateful.

Facebook in Real Life

I'm pretty positive there's some homework that I should be doing right now. But instead, I will blog. I'm sick of homework. But that's not the point of this post. I want to tell you about an incredibly creative and entertaining party I went to last Friday. It was a Facebook in Real Life Party. Seriously. We got there and had to create a Facebook profile with a t-shirt! Let me give you an idea through these pics of my shirt:

So this is my Facebook profile...it's got my name and status and my relationship status and available to chat icon...notice the like button stickers too. :D Also my dear sister was kind enough to write some Facebook spam on it too.

We added friends by talking to an admin. I'd request somebody and they'd run off and find that person and say, "Brooke has sent you a friend request. Do you accept or ignore?" Most people accepted except one mean Badger who didn't want any friends. Then the admin would write the name of your new friend on your sleeve. I had quite a good number of friends. Sometimes the admins complained that I was crashing the system.

People could write on our "walls." My favorite was a picture shared of a chameleon doing a dance in a slaughter house. Yes, very original.

They had some other Facebook-y things like layout changes (you had to wear your shirt backwards) and ads (I'm not totally sure why so many admins wanted to give me ads. Some people didn't have any. But I felt special. After all, who doesn't want to advertise for Mormon.org and Old Spice?!)

They had other activities like pin the like sticker on Mark Zuckerberg and throw darts at Google+ and they had a bonfire burning MySpace logs. We also had a dance party outside. And the hosts served hot Kool-aid and popcorn, a staple in that household. If you don't get the hot Kool-aid thing, I'll be happy to enlighten you. Overall it was a super fun time! Mark Zuckerberg would be proud.

Orange October

I have a relatively new love for the color orange. And so I switched things up a little around here. Orange is more fallish, right? Even when it's super bright...? Maybe. It's definitely still fabulous, although I seem to remember Sharpay telling Tiara Gold to get rid of any orange in her wardrobe. Oh well. I'm not Sharpay. I'm me.

I LOVE October. I love Fall, I love General Conference, I love pumpkins, I love pumpkin flavored foods, I love leaves, I love the mountains, I love the cooler weather, I love love love it! So fabulous! The only thing I haven't loved is the snow covering the pretty colors on the mountain. Come on, Utah. Couldn't we enjoy autumn just a while longer? I think this is the first summer I've actually enjoyed the weather ever so we'll see how well I do with cold again.

All sorts of crazy awesomeness going on lately. Besides October's arrival.

September 30 I hit my one year home from the mission mark. That was crazy. To celebrate, I got together with all my mission friends...well most of my mission friends at our reunion! Way awesome way to commemorate the day, huh? It hardly seems like it's been a year and yet at the same time it seems much longer. I wanted to write a post on what I've done in the past year on that day but obviously that didn't happen. I pretty much came home from school, made brownies, and left for the reunion which we got to way late because we got super lost. Fun times.

October 1 and 2 we got to enjoy General Conference! I absolutely love GC. It's the best. I came more prepared than I have been the last couple times and it was absolutely wonderful. You might even say it was fabulous. I got to go to the first session at the Conference Center with some friends in my ward. We had fabulous seats, that's for sure. Even better than the fabulous seats I had the week before going to the Relief Society General Meeting. (I probably didn't write about that either, did I? Oh well. It was great.) I feel so spoiled getting to go to these things. So delightful. And the good seats, well, I'm just a VIP I guess.

It's BYU's Homecoming Week (Geaux Cougs!) and last night I went with my bff Leah to the Homecoming Spectacular with Tony Award Winner Brian Stokes Mitchell. He was amazing. And the BYU groups were amazing. As usual.

Speaking of BYU groups, shout out to Vocal Point on The Sing Off! Dang they are good. I just love them! I hope they win. That'd be cool. What else is cool? I got tickets to their concert in November. Yeah baby!

I'm swooning.

School is school. My awesome computer programming class just got ridiculously hard and I have absolutely no clue how to do my current assignment. How fun is that? I worked on it a while today but gave up after a while. Got too frustrated. So I checked my email and found out that my Spanish class was cancelled because my teacher was sick and so I got to go home early! Yes! The best day ever! I went to the temple and then to the grocery and now I'm home...can't decide if I want to chill here tonight or go find something to do. I probably should clean my room...and if I work on homework tonight there's less to do tomorrow. We'll see.

I feel like there's something else to share, but this is probably long enough already. If you made it through all those ramblings, good job. You are awesome. If you didn't, well, you're still awesome, but you don't know it because you didn't read this.

Happy October, y'all!

Una manzana

Today I ate an apple. That probably doesn't sound very exciting. But it was! This is why:

1. I actually only ate half an apple.

2. This apple was offered to me by a classmate.

3. He offered it to me in Spanish.

4. By that I mean he spoke Spanish, although we were in Spanish class too.

5. He divided that apple in half personally before offering me half.

6. He divided it by ripping it apart with his bare hands.

7. Yeah.

It was cool. And it tasted good too.

A Tender Mercy

I thought I'd just share a very simple tender mercy of the Lord today. I'm using just the initial of the sister's name in this story. I decided to go the temple this afternoon. I went, and I had the thought "T works at the temple on Saturdays." T is a sister in my ward, and more specifically, in my Relief Society. I didn't really think I'd see her, but I knew she was there. I did initiatory, so there were three temple workers involved in that. After I finished the first round, the shift changed and so I had new workers. Sure enough, T appeared among them. I was a little surprised that it would work out that way, but at the same time, I wasn't at all. I felt like the Lord had blessed me with that, but I couldn't quite pin why it was important to me. It really wasn't a huge thing. But as I thought about why it meant something to me, I had the thought that God knows me and everything about me, and just as He knows me, He knows each and every one of the sisters in my Relief Society. And if He can do something as simple as put T in the same part of the temple as me, He can and will help me to know what I need to know and do what I need to do to serve His daughters. I hope that makes sense. I'm still having a hard time putting it into words, but very simply put, God loves us and He knows us. His hand is in our lives. I originally planned to go to the temple Friday night, then Saturday morning, then Saturday night, then ended up going Saturday afternoon. Just the right time. Everything will work out. God is good.

Homework.

Yesterday I had a pretty fun assignment to copy a user interface as nearly as possible, with buttons and stuff...the buttons don't actually have to work, but make it look real. I think I did a decent job. I think I took this screen pic before I made some final changes, but still it gives a good idea. Mine is on top and the real thing is on the bottom. Not too shabby.

Okay, well enough fun and games. Off to read 200 pages of Woman's Exponent. I'm sure I'll be writing more on that later. Hint: it'll probably have to do with polygamy. Yeah. You're excited now, aren't you?

I Need a Little Study Break

Having spent the better part of the last two hours looking through articles in The Deseret News from 1880-1881, I need a break. Might as well blog, right? I know a few of my faithful readers have been waiting...

I've been pretty busy since school started. Besides the obvious responsibilities that come with school, I have a new calling. Let me tell you a funny story.

I went to church the Sunday before school started, and was asked if I could meet with the Bishop. Sure! So I waited after church until it was my time. While waiting, a friend started speculating what I was going to be called as. We had a Relief Society president already, so she guessed 1st Counselor. I hadn't really considered that, but it was possible. So I went in to meet with the Bishop. He started by asking what my semester was going to be like. So I told him. After he got the information he asked for, he sat back, paused, and then asked, "How much of a challenge are you up for?" I thought, You already have a RS president. What could be more challenging than that? He continued to tell me that he felt that the Lord wanted me to be...a Relief Society president. Um...what? You already have one. She was called last week. Turns out, we're having two Elders Quorums and two Relief Societies in our ward. And I accepted the call to serve as president of RS group 2.

As you might imagine, I was slightly stunned. The ward clerk, a friend of mine, laughed at me a little when I came out. He was rather amused by the situation. Can't blame him. So that's the big adventure I've begun this semester as well. And I love it so far. I've made a significant effort to meet everybody in my Relief Society (and a whole lot of other people as well) and I almost know everybody's names. It's really exciting, because often I have a hard time with names...or rather remembering faces to attach the names to. So God is good. He qualifies those He calls, even making it possible to remember names and faces. He gives us what we need. It would have been so easy for me to become very self-absorbed this semester, just doing my homework and becoming a hermit. But now I can't, and I love that. I will be so much happier this way. It's great. Life is great. I love it.

And perhaps in the future I'll share the gems I'm finding in my Deseret News research. Because they're great too.

un semestre nuevo

I feel like I have a ton to write, but some of it I'm not at liberty to discuss just yet. Soon though. For now, I'll give you the run down of my schedule this semester. I work Monday through Friday from 8 to about noon. It's kind of nice to start the day with something familiar. Except yesterday was kind of crazy. I had a special project to do for one of the full time employees, which wasn't that complicated really, but it took a few tries to get it right. Then I do receiving logs twice each morning, and they index themselves into the database, and we just check them to make sure they're accurate. Well the setting that lets them index themselves wouldn't work, so I just had to scan them into an inbasket and leave it at that. I thought we'd have to index them by hand. I didn't have time to try though. Turns out that doing it by hand wouldn't work either and my coworker had to have the IS people look at it and see if they couldn't fix it. I hope they did, otherwise this next week will be super crazy too.

On MWF, I have Methods and Strategies in TESOL. Basically we learn how to teach English as a second language. My teacher is from New Zealand, so I love her. She's funny and I enjoy listening to her voice. Haha. So I think that class will be good. We're starting off with a group project. Hopefully that goes well.

On Monday, I have Judaism and the Gospel. It seems like it will be an interesting class. It's kind of nice to have just once a week (and because Labor Day is next week, I don't have it again for a while). I'll certainly still have to work hard in it, and there's quite a bit of reading, but it sounds interesting at least.

On TTh, I have my advanced writing GE, which is writing about religion. If I have to write academically, it might as well be about religion. There is too much reading in my opinion. I'm not an English major. Blech.

I also have a class that is basically computer programming. I didn't quite get that from the description of the class, so it was kind of a shock and scare, but I actually find it quite interesting. It might turn out to be a fave. We'll see. I got to use pseudocode to make a program for a robot to do certain stuff and it was really fun to think through and get it to work. I was so excited, and it looked like I was playing a game. (See picture above.)

Every day at 4 I have Spanish. It's killer to have it so late in the day, but it's okay. I know a couple people in the class–one from my old class, and one from my ward, and I've made another friend, so that helps. I wasn't sure about my teacher at first. She didn't smile at all the first day. That was worrisome. But she seems like she'll be alright. Sure, probably not as good as my last teacher, but it'll be hard to measure up to him. He really changed my view and attitude about learning Spanish. See this post. It actually doesn't talk about him as much as it should. He was great.

So this is a crazy semester. But it's going to be great. I'm determined. If I can stay on top of everything (there's the challenge), I think I'll enjoy it and learn a lot. If I can't stay on top of the readings especially, well...it'll be interesting. Several of my teachers do quizzes. I kind of hate that. Oh well.

Here's to a great semester...and I'll tell you soon what other awesome stuff I've got coming my way. It'll be crazy!

Love me some rain

Rain makes me really happy. I like to hear thunder. I don't really enjoy lightning. It's scary. But rain, the smell, the sound, the sight, it's beautiful. If my mother didn't tell me to stay inside if I can hear thunder, I'd totally be out in it. Probably singing and dancing. Because in addition to liking rain, I like singing in the rain. And Singin' in the Rain. The end.

That's Against the Honor Code

That's against the Honor Code!

Once upon a time, I worked for the Student Honor Association (SHA) on BYU campus. My job was the best on campus, pretty sure. We were to educate people about the Honor Code and encourage people to live by these standards. I learned so many awesome skills, and I got paid to do things like design thank you cards on Adobe Illustrator, sing in a choir, and hand out free hot dogs. ;) My favorite thing was at the beginning of fall, summer, and winter semesters, we did a show for New Student Orientation (NSO). The show is called Tradition of Honor. It originally consisted of a number of campy skits illustrating various principles of the Honor Code, and a couple of movies as well. I helped write one of the skits, "Stick to the Honor Code," a play off of High School Musical's "Stick to the Status Quo." (Is anybody surprised I'd come up with that?)

Stick to the Honor Code!

The show got revamped in the last year or so of my employment, dropping most of the skits in exchange for more professional dance and music performances and dialogue to teach the principles. Even the videos got redone and were way more awesome and professional. We had Jericho Road come a sing, Max Hall came a spoke, we learned a Young Ambassador dance, etc. It was pretty cool. Both versions of the show were fun for me. I was really involved in putting them together.

The one skit that remained in the newer version is the well-known "That's Against the Honor Code" angels (pictured above). I know that skit backwards and forwards. I even transcribed the music for future generations. I know every part and the exact timing of everything that makes it sound the best. It's one of my favorite things ever.

Tonight for the first time ever, I was in the audience for Tradition of Honor. The first time. I was in the summer show before I started at BYU, in the fall show when I was going to NSO, and every show after that till I left on my mission. I think that's a total of nine shows, if I calculated correctly. And I miss it.

They did a pretty good job tonight. It was mostly the same as I left it, although the music of the angels's song was changed a bit (so much for all my transcription work, eh?) and the timing was definitely off in some parts, but some things they did were really neat too.

For two and a half years, my whole pre-mission BYU career, SHA was my life. I'm so grateful for the opportunities I had, and even more for the people I met and befriended. I was certainly blessed. The Honor Code angels are real, and I love and miss them.

Mission: Arizona Surprise (not Surprise, AZ)

I've been a terrible blogger all summer. I apologize to my devoted followers...all eight of you. ;) I've been hoping for pictures to illustrate what I've been up to...and have failed miserably. But I'll do what I can. I won't try to catch y'all up in one go. That'd be crazy. But tonight I'll let you in on my Arizona trip. :) Aren't you excited? It was a month ago.

So we met Saturday morning about 8:30 am. It was a really really long drive. We stopped in Hurricane and ate lunch. Then we drove a whole lot more. One of the guys was super excited to see a tall cactus...and there were plenty of them. We got there like 8 or so and had dinner at Garcia’s. We also did a quick grocery run to Food City--ghetto! It was awesome...greeted by 3 black men, at least one was security, then the music was Hispanic and I swear there were more Mexican candies than the typical stuff. And lots of signs in both Spanish and English. White cashier though. It was totally awesome shopping there.
One elder had to be picked up at the airport, but they got lost, going to the wrong one.And my maternal instinct kicked in apparently, because I was unable to sleep until they got back...until everybody was safely in bed, I could not fall asleep. So I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep that night either. Not much napping in the car in either direction either. I wanted to make sure the driver had company to keep her alert.
Sunday morning we met at the church at about 7:30 and rehearsed our musical number. I arranged it, a combo of Army of Helaman and I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus. It sounded really good. Then when President and Sister Woods arrived, the look on their faces made the trip there so worth it. I loved President’s look of surprise when I walked up to him, then his joy in seeing so many of us. There ended up being 30 of us. President and Sister Woods' talks were great of course. I think the most memorable part for me was that President basically taught a first lesson for his talk. It made me really happy. In between the two of them, our “missionary choir” sang. When they announced it, I looked to see if they would react at all, but nothing registered until we all got up to sing. Then it was awesome. They actually joined us. I think Sister Woods cried the whole time (that’s what I was told anyway), but I could see President singing along.
After sacrament meeting, we went to the basement of the church and they instructed us, kind of like zone conference. It was neat. We got a big group picture too:

a tad blurry, but it took me a month to track this down!

a sisters' picture

On the way back, I tried sleeping a bit, and sort of dozed but was still aware of things. My phone then rang. Somebody had left a suit jacket at the house, but somebody was flying back that night and could bring it...if it belonged in Utah. Well after much phoning around and getting numbers of people and finally getting a hold of those driving through an area with terrible service, we learned who it belonged to. However, it's still sitting at my house, because he hasn't come to claim it yet!
We got back about 2:30 in the morning...I unwillingly woke up 5 hours later and went to work. I don't necessarily recommend such crazy travel patterns, but it was a lot of fun and it was great to surprise the Woods! Mission accomplished.

I got caught

Once upon a time, I was leaving work, just about to walk out of the Wilk, when I saw a coworker of mine coming out of Campus Craft and Floral. She was lugging a big ole piece of furniture...I don't even remember what it was, a desk or something? Anyway, I obviously stopped and asked to help, I mean, who wouldn't? I helped her carry it out to her car and didn't think anything of it. A few days later, she came looking for me, and gave me these:

So this picture isn't that fabulous, but these are two little gold coin things that say stuff like "Caught in the act of service," and "For demonstrating our value criteria," and "Thank you." I thanked her, but really didn't have a clue what they were for. Turns out they're awarded to people who do good stuff and are worth a dollar each in the Twilight Zone of the Bookstore. I used them to buy lunch the other day. So yeah...how do I end this post? This is slightly awkward...umm... Moral of the story: never suppress a generous thought. That'll do, pig, that'll do.

I'm such a great blogger

I haven't blogged at all this month. I almost let it stay that way. But then I didn't. The end.

High School Wonderful Day

Well, I did it. I watched all three High School Musicals today. Kinda crazy. Actually, I was so busy doing other stuff during the first one, I didn't really experience it fully. So I think I'll have to do it again sometime. Haha. (Don't worry, I cleaned the house, exercised, did laundry, etc. so I wasn't totally lazy today!) Anyway, I love these shows. I love the music, I love the dancing, I love the characters. I would so love to be Sharpay. I miss performing. It would be so fun. If I could do anything, I'd be a Disney star. But for now, I'll just enjoy watching the real ones in classics like HSM.

Happy Father's Day!

This is my dad. I love him dearly. He's very wise, handsome, and witty.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

June Updates

So far in the month of June which is speeding by...

I worked at the Utah Festival of Books, mostly face painting. It was fun. It started off rough. My first kid wanted the eagle head...uh...couldn't you pick balloons or something? So I did a pretty crummy eagle head. Things got better as we went along though. I soon learned it turned out a lot better if I didn't try to outline things. Other people could do it, but not me. But I tell you, I make a mean unicorn or dinosaur. Or eagle head. Yep. Skill. Mad skill. Obviously, because Winnie the Pooh came to me after I helped out Tigger (having no clue what I was doing with either of them). Luna Lovegood helped out in the kid tent most of the day and it was fun to talk with her. Haha. Overall it was a long day, but it was a good day. Yay Bookstore!

This weekend was very nice because I didn't have to work so I had a lazy start, followed by baking of my famous brownies, followed by another gumbo night with those folks above! And a few more. There were some that we haven't seen yet or seen much, so it was fun to get to know them more. The one in the Who Dat! Nation shirt just got home Thursday. I don't know how he even knew about it, but I'm glad he came. He was my district leader for my time in Oakdale. He spoke today at church and a group of us went to that in Sandy, then to another returning elder's talk in Kaysville. So I had a pretty busy Sunday too. Came home and crashed for an hour and a half nap. It felt good.

So far June's treating me pretty well.

She's a graduate!

My sister graduated! Wahoo! And I got to come home and be here for it.

Then I got to see her perform in her last Vocal Spectrum concert. It was quite fabulous. I gotta say, my sister is extremely talented. And in about an hour and a half we'll get to go enjoy her Senior Recital. It's gonna be good.

I'm so glad I was able to come home and even stay longer than originally planned. It's nice to be home for a while.

Fun-day Friday

I have such a great job! I really enjoy it. I have the daily routine down pretty well and I'm learning some new things. Plus, there are definite benefits to working in the Bookstore. Not only is there the employee discount, or even the nice atmosphere, but there are fun-day Fridays. Every once in a while, apparently, we get a special treat on Friday. How fun is that? Today it was ice cream sandwiches. You get to go down to the break room and mingle a bit with other employees. It was fun. Fun-day Friday!

In other news, I have a cold. It's not the best thing ever. But it's not horrible. It could be worse, that's for sure. I've tried to get more rest...went to bed about 9 last night. Probably close to that tonight. Plus, it's SATURDAY and I get to sleep in. Fabulous!!!

A confession

Good grief...don't accidentally hit enter after you type the title, it publishes your blog...and I just did it twice. Rather annoying, Google should change that...seriously, if it asks me in Gmail if I want to send without text in the body, surely it's the same idea here. Anyway. That's not what this post is about.

This post is a confession. A confession of love and adoration. The kind that makes you giddy and giggly. That is what I have experienced this evening. You see, I decided to watch a movie. Early. At like 5. Which meant I could watch another one after. The first one was Hairspray. It was good. I was still in a mood for musicals (and mostly Zac Efron), so the inspiration for my blog's name was the answer: High School Musical 2...yeah, this is the weakest of the trilogy but even in all its cheesiness, I adore it. I giggled quite a bit. And I haven't seen it in a long time.

While I watched it, I thought about the possibility of sometime having a HSM movie marathon. Actually, I've toyed with the idea for a while, but I haven't committed to it. I think it'd be so much more fun with other people...but I can't think of anybody who would be as nerdily excited as me. So then, at the end of the movie, I switched back to the television. It was on Disney Channel. You wouldn't believe what commercial came on. (Insert dramatic music or drum roll or something awesome here.) Next Saturday there is a sing-along High School Musical marathon! This made me giggle a lot more. Actually, I sat there laughing for a good long while. During the whole commercial basically. And it was pretty long.

So the question is, will I be participating in this sing-along marathon? Sadly, probably not. I have a wedding reception I plan on attending...plus I could watch the three movies without commercials...so my marathon probably won't be next week. But it is going to happen. Because, I confess...I LOVE HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL!!!

P.S. Hehe...it just came on again...yes, I'm watching Disney Channel. That's my other confession: I sure love Disney Channel...the simple pleasures of life...

Friday the Thirteenth

There's nothing particularly frightening about May 13th, but when it is Friday the 13th...it's still not scary. Now that we've covered that, I have some catching up to do. Here we go!

Sunday, May 1

I had a group of mission friends over. It was fun just visiting and chatting. And showing off my mission scrapbook. Haha!

Tuesday, May 3

Elder Clarence Jones from Houma, Louisiana, went into the MTC on May 4, so we had a farewell party for him the night before. We're so proud of him and excited for him to have a wonderful mission in Georgia! He's going to be great!

Thursday, May 5

Yet another gathering of mission friends, this time for the wedding reception of two of them! So exciting! I looked awful that night, so ignore me and look at everybody else!

Saturday, May 7

I cannot even express how much I loved seeing Seussical the Musical!!!! It was absolutely fabulous!!! My family came down and we had a great night of laughter and smiles. What a great show and it was so well done at the Hale Center Theater in Orem! I totally recommend it! My coworker even took that recommendation and she and her fiance are going to see it at BYU tonight. It's FABULOUS!!! I wish I had the music!

Wednesday, May 11

Meet one of my favorite foods: a poboy- roast beef and gravy on french bread, then "dressed" with lettuce, mayo, and tomato! Oh heaven. I haven't had one since...a long time ago in Louisiana...so I made one. It wasn't as good as the Corner Cafe, but it was pretty dang good. I invited Bunkie over and we had a fun night of poboys and watching one of our favorite movies, Bandslam. Fabulous!

Thursday, May 12

Another mission pal came up and we went out for Japanese food. I even tried spicy tuna sushi. It was pretty good.

So that's been the biggest highlights of this month. That doesn't include my new ward, but I'll write about that another time. Also, work is going really well. I'm getting better and faster and we're getting caught up on indexing (we were pretty behind, but now there are just a few hundred documents left to index, we'll definitely finish before our supervisor gets back from doing physical inventory in Hawaii. (Yeah she has a hard life.)

Well that's about it! My life's been fabulous, I hope yours is too!

May already?

I got a job! BYU Bookstore Records Management (in case you can't read...in which case, this sentence won't help much either). Anyway, I had orientation and a little training today. Tomorrow's when it really begins though. I'll start learning my morning routine. Hopefully I can catch on quick and notice the important details. Should be an adventure. This is a busy week! Starting work and a bunch of fun planned this week...so stay tuned!

Happy Easter!

I hope y'all have had a wonderful Easter Sunday. It was a beautiful day. Today as I've reflected on our Savior's life and atonement, I thought of a favorite hymn of mine, Savior, Redeemer of My Soul (Hymn 112 in the LDS Hymnal). It's not very well known, but I love it. I first heard it in this arrangement by Rob Gardner, which is absolutely beautiful. The song starts at 2:14 (this was the best recording I could find on Youtube). I hope you enjoy it.