more stuff.

So, for my MFHD 221 class, we were assigned to create a "symbol-gram" which could basically be anything that told a bit about ourselves so that we could create a community of caring (or something to that effect) within our class. That's not really an every day type situation for college courses, in case we forgot, but whatever, sure, I'll do an easy A assignment if you'd like. I decided to tell something about myself using each of the letters of my name. Here's what I came up with.

Julina; I was named after Julina Lambson Smith. She was the wife of Joseph F. Smith and the mother of Joseph Fielding Smith.
Ultra-soft skin. Basically the next best "u" option was "ugly" voted by Casey jo. nice. There really aren't a lot of positive "u" words out there. I do freak out with dry skin though.
Letters. I spend a lot of my time writing letters to missionaries.
Intramurals. I work for the BYU intramural sports program as a supervisor.
Nineteen will soon be the number of people in my immediate family once Loralee has her baby in 3 weeks!
Autumn is my favorite season!

Harry Potter; I've read them all several times. I've debated all possible aspects of horocruxes... I cried when Fred died...
A&W Rootbeer. I really like it.
Shoes; my favorite accessory. If I could afford to splurge, I would.
Toblerone. my favorite candybar
Incapable of going anywhere without Chapstick. It’s true.
Normal? really, at this point, I was lacking in ideas.
Green is my favorite color.
Sudoku; my choice for passing the time.

I liked the idea so much that I did the same for Mike's name and put it in the letter I sent off today. I highly recommend the idea to everyone who is lacking in ideas of things to post.

So, I finally got the pictures from our family photo shoot scanned into my computer.

Here's the siblings.
Nate, Ryan
Karalyn, Me, Loralee, Andrea


And add the parents

And the in-laws and grandkids.
Taylor, Loralee, Mom, Dad, Kacy, Ryan
Karalyn, Brooklyn, Kyle, Andrea, Karalee Jo, Holly, Liz, Nate, Sydney, and Me.More later!

MLKjr. Day!

I woke up from a dream filled with acts of youth delinquency to a window full of snow. Basically. That's the short of it and the long version isn't worth telling. But my roommates and I decided to go out and play in the snow. We made snow angels and a snow man. But remember Harriet? I don't remember if I put a picture of her on here before, but here's the story. My mom was in Provo around Halloween time and got this "candy bowl" type thing that looks like a witch's head. Whenever someone would leave an article of clothing, we would add it to Harriet.



Well today, we decided to make a snowman. It was a perfect snowman and it took it a long time to get that way. When it came to making the head, Casey Jo suggested we bring out Harriet. So we did. Here she is!





So she's kind of creepy, right? Well, she is in the dark when you forget she's there and you drive into the parking lot and see her reflecting eyes by the lights of your car.

Also, we had another FHE photo shoot because we switched up FHE groups at semester. The boys didn't participate much, but that didn't matter since my apartment really gets into those anyways. We brought props this time, so it was way more intense. I'll post some as soon as we get the cd copies. Great, bye!

Pessimistic in Provo

I'm sitting at my desk in Provo. It's Saturday afternoon and I am not in Las Vegas as I had previously planned. Hannah has been called as the new Relief Society Secretary and as such has training tomorrow afternoon. Even when she couldn't come, my sister Andrea said she'd come with me as long as she could be back in Provo on Monday for her birthday. Kyle took work off so he could spend the day with her. Well, she and my mom got to talking about the weather (which, as of this morning, is probably as nice as Provo weather could ever get at this time of year) and they decided that if it did snow, we didn't want to get stuck in it. So Andrea decided against coming with me. So here I sit.

And I'm kind of in a crappy mood. Firstly, there are some roommate issues going on that I wish were resolved but not everyone is here, so that has to be postponed. It's putting a huge "distancing void" in our apartment. Does that even make sense? Secondly, I feel like there should be things for me to do, but I can't think of any. At least, any that sound appealing right now. Thirdly, I bought/put together a binder for all of Mike's letters and emails. (Let me say, that boy doesn't capitalize a single thing when he types.) I've spent the past few days doing that/reading them again and that's kind of put me in a "missing the crap out of Mike" mood. I just want to talk to him. Fourthly, I keep thinking that a lot of these issues would not be issues if I were in Vegas. My dad just got out of a rough trial yesterday and has called me a lot yesterday and today and I'm thinking it's because he has all this free time now. Great! I love talking to my dad. Except that it's making me really homesick since I should be there and not here right now. And last, I had the weirdest dream last night and so I just woke up in a weird mood... as in not good. I dunno. I think I'm going to read a book. Maybe that might help to cheer me up.

"I should probably blog something..."

yup, that's what I just said after reading up on everyone else's blogs. Congratulations to Nate and Stacy, I'm really happy for you guys.

So last post I said I'd tell you a bit about my chosen major. Well, last Monday, I was going to the McKay building with Casey Jo because she's planning on majoring in Elementary Education and while we were waiting, I pulled out some brochures. I found myself interested in one of them so I signed in so I could talk to a counselor, (not thinking it would even be possible because upon mentioning it to my mom, she said that that major was pretty competitive.) When I was called back, I started out by saying, "I've heard this is a pretty competitive major to get into..." at which point my counselor interrupted, "Oh no, not really, about 90% of our applicants make it into the program." So we logged into my account to see what I would have to do to raise my GPA and what pre-reqs I'd have to take and whatnot and after about half an hour, I left her office feeling very very optimistic and finally settled on...

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION! (ECE)
Basically, it's about a 2 (2 1/2 for me) year program that, once I get a teaching degree, will allow me to teach k-3. And after somewhat choosing 3 or 4 other major/occupational choices that I never felt very settled or sure about, I feel really good, like this is SO right for me. I definitely feel like Heavenly Father is... I can't think of a more reverent way to put this, but... is smacking me upside the head saying, "duh! why didn't you think of that before?!" This is one of the very few times where I've had a feeling this sure and I'm SO grateful to finally have it. Yay!

This last week, I made two batches of no-bakes with some vague intentions of sending some of them to Mike, but they never made it past a few hours. I have no excuse for my apartment of 6 girls.

The un-healthy vending maching in the Widstue building ate $2 of mine. Then, when I tried to buy a V-8 Splash, I got a regular V-8. Goo. If that's what I get for trying to be un-healthy in the first place, then I'm doomed.

Hannah and I have decided to road-trip down to Vegas this weekend. I have to renew my drivers license and it's Dan Lee's Mission farewell. We've decided to study for our Music 101 test that will be Wed-Fri of next week while driving down. It sounds boring, but we have big plans!

Did I even tell you guys my schedule for this semester? Here it is!

MWF at 11 I have Music 101 with Hannah. I'm liking it a lot so far. We'll see how I feel about it after the first test.
MW at 1 I have the 2nd half of Book of Mormon. I LOVE my professor, he's really good and really entertaining at the same time- a good thing for an in-depth course like BoM.
MWF at 3 I have Biology, which I failed last winter, but since I'm taking it from a completely different professor with a completely different curriculum, and Casey Jo and Sarah are in it with me, I'm feeling like I'm going to do really well. Get this; there's no textbook and no tests or quizzes. Our grade is based on 8 short research papers of our choosing. We just have to prove it's relevance to biology. I'm so excited.
Monday from 4:30-6:10 I have Foundations of DAP. Don't really know what it is yet, but it's a pre-req. for ECE, so I'm taking it. The teacher is really nice, wants us to call her Dodie, and the only thing I need to do so far is a symbolgram. Iiiiiit's gonna be a good class.
TTh I have Life Planning and Decision Making which I was originally planning on taking to help me decide on a major, but after the 2nd class period, I had that one figured out. Talk about effective, eh? It's still a good class though; small with LOTS of class discussion.
Sooo basically, that's it. Pretty chill schedule, but hopefully I get my GPA up and focus on what needs to be done to get into the ECE major. I know I'm going to have to do some observing at different levels of schools, but the plan is to try and get that done during the summer, so not a lot to worry about right now.

Also, my apartment has decided to participate in Lent. I've decided to give up chocolate. I don't think there's a day that goes by that I don't ingest some in one way or another. I do, however, get a break on my birthday (march 1st). Wish me luck.

Happy New Year!

I know it's kind of late... but, there's me for you.

So, I sat down once I got back up here and decided to write out a few New Years Resolutions. Here are a few of them;

1) Exercise every morning
I've done pretty good so far, I didn't do anything Sunday, but I wasn't planning on it either. I've gone jogging on the treadmills at the Liberty Square Gym and done abs and pilates via dvd on my family room floor. I know I wouldn't be able to do this on my own, but luckily I have some amazing roommates who want to be all healthy too. I'm not such a fan of jogging... totally GOO. But I know I have to have a strong respiratory system and I'll burn a lot more when I'm jogging vs. abs and pilates. I much prefer abs and pilates because I can stay barefoot and in my pjs on my family room floor... which is way more comfortable than having to put on "exercise clothes" and running shoes to cross the snow/mostly ice covered parking lot to the club house where the gym is and having your chest seize up after your first breath of icy air that pierces your lungs so much that you'd rather not breath at all, which unfortunately would kill you so you have to keep up these short shallow breaths which quickly becomes very annoying and you have to concentrate on that while focusing on where you put your feet so you don't slip and fall right onto your tail bone. After pilates, your abs feel all tight (not sore) for like an hour. It's so awesome. I MUCH prefer that to all of the other stuff involved in "jogging."

2)Lose 5 lbs.
It's not too much, and shouldn't be that hard at the rate I'm going at now.

3)Study Scriptures for 30 minutes a day.
This one shouldn't be too hard because I have to study Book of Mormon for half an hour for my BoM grade anyways. After doing it for an entire semester, it should become habitual. At least, that's what I'm hoping for.

4)Write a Missionary every week.
After going through Mission prep last semester (which I LOVED!!!) and watching the best two years, I realized how much missionaries look forward to mail. If I DO end up going on a mission, I'll feel better knowing I sent missionaries letters when I had the chance. Plus, I've decided to type out the mass of information that I'd send to the majority of them anyways and then make adjustments according to who I'm sending it to. I just don't have the time to sit down and write 6 or 8 missionaries 2 page letters. Which I can't help because I have a lot to say most of the time. There's an exception, sometimes two, but other than that, I'm sure they'll be grateful to get mail in general. And it's important for me to keep up correspondence with these boys. I spent most of my high school with them right?

5)No grades lower than a C
My GPA will never get good enough to get into my major (which I'll discuss more about later) if I keep slacking off. So, I figure, if I have a goal to keep it in the B or above range, I'll be good. It's gonna be hard, I'm not a very good student, but that's why I have this goal.

6)Be in bed BY 12 and up BY 8.
I wouldn't have set this one if it wasn't a huge issue. All of my roommates go to bed at a fairly early hour(also 12), but then here I sit, READY FOR BED, on my computer, reading other's blogs or checking up on facebook or cleaning my room even, basically anything to keep me out of my bed until 2 or so in the morning. And I DON'T KNOW WHY! I love sleep. I'm betting there's some deep underlying psychological issue here that I just haven't quite figured out yet. I've done ok on this one. There's room for improvement.

7)Go on one date a month.
Yes, my social life is that pathetic. And I'm not looking for any sort of a relationship or anything, (I obviously don't have things strait as it is) but I've found I am SERIOUSLY lacking in social skills. I mean, once I have friends, I'm a good friend, really loyal, but it's the making friends that I have a problem with. I have the hardest time with being outgoing around random strangers (like people in the ward) and I'm afraid it might give off a bad first impression (like I'm arrogant, or better than they are or something). More than really getting a date once a month, I gave myself this goal so that I'd concentrate on how I act around people when I first meet them. I figure IF I do this, I might get a date once a month or so.

8)Be less judgmental
This isn't a huge issue, but it started out with something my Book of Mormon professor challenged us with. We're supposed to choose 3 scriptures and try to improve ourselves on that weakness. The first one I chose was Moroni 7:18. I tried it one day and every time I thought something like, "She's so rude" or "Wow, why did he dress that way?" I think to myself, "How would Heavenly Father see him/her?" And it is AMAZING what a difference it makes. I'm serious, as crazy as it sounds, I feel a love (however strange or random) for that person because I know God loves them regardless of what they say or wear. Everyone should try it. It's amazing!

Anyways, I think I'll discuss my new major in my next update (which I promise will be in the month of January (reasonable goals for myself, see?)) because it's time for my 30 minute study now.

So go make someone smile today!