Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Improptu Temple Journey

So, today, Suzy was monumentally stressed out. SOOOO, she went to the temple, and I tagged along. While she was inside doing baptisms, I sat outside with my journal in the dark and watched a PHENOMENAL sunset.
As I sat there, I was suddenly overcome by an almost giddy sense of excitement oddly enough... NO I'M NOT GETTING MARRIED. But all the sudden, I was just really excited to go through the temple and see what it's really all about. It was kind of a crazy and unexpected experience. But it made me super happy that my family has been sealed in the temple for eternity. I think it also has possessed me with a greater desire to go to the temple more often, and to make sure that I am always unquestionably worthy to be there.

That's about all I have to say about that... I'm just glad to be here when I am.

Also, I found this stick. When I look at it, I feel that it's just the epitome of what a stick should be. I mean, when you think stick, you think this. In addition, it's also deliciously smooth.

"I FOUND A STICK!!!!" Name that movie...

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Update on My Life

This is the Rexburg temple that I can see from my window. Beautiful.
Hello! I live in Idaho. I go to BYU-I these days. I haven't blogged for eternity because I keep forgetting to take pictures of things that I do, and nothing has changed there. I just figured(hoped) that people were giving a rip about my daily activities. So here comes a major updating session.
I got out to Salt Lake City last Saturday, September 4th, also known as Nate the Great's birthday. It seems like whenever I'm at Shell's house we have a party... not that I'm surprised. It was great to see Nate and Shell's family and to see Ben and Beck for the first time in forever! We had quite the blast.

This is a cute boy who had a HUUUUGE 50 pound grasshopper on his "bike." And it was fearless. I waved my hand around it to get it off, but it just looked at me. So I had to flick it. With my FINGER. It left an average sized crater when it hit the ground.

Splinter in the foot.
After some incredible ribs, Dutch oven potatoes, and watermelon, it was time to open PRESENTS! Nate got a really cool lazer-disk-helicopter-shooter thing that not five minutes after the first launch got tangled in the lofty branches of a tree. It took several broken branches, one broken broom handle, and multiple shakings to extract it.

And what's a party without some good old fashioned Rocket Balloons?!

So, after ten rounds of Memory, three episodes of House, and birthday cheesecake, we wrapped up another fantastic day at the Waite house.

The next morning, Ben, Beck, and myself set out to Idaho to meet up with the Reinhart's. For those of you who might not know, Samantha Reinhart is my best friend in the world who moved out to Idaho the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school. It was indeed a joyous reunion.

I spent the night at Sam's on Sunday, and the next morning we set out for BYUI. We arrived only about 25 minutes later (NICE) and ran up to my room to throw all of my junk in it. [Back story: I was REEEEALLY dreading living in on-campus housing because this summer at BYU, the dorms were really tiny and there was ONE bathroom for about 30 or 40 girls. Also, my roommate was interesting.] It's great! It's DEFINITELY more of a kitchen-less apartment than a "room." There are three bedrooms (with a fridge, freezer, and microwave for two girls per room) a big bathroom with seemingly infinite storage space, a hallway with closetS, and a small living room in the front with a couch and love seat where the olda boys can come party with us. Oh and they do party...

After the initial exploration, we did a Wal-Mart run. Never, in all my years as a Wal-Mart shopper, have I ever seen a store so PACKED. Every aisle was jammed with college kids and their parents stocking up on everything from Ramens to toilet paper. It was also at this point that a gnawing in my stomach that had been there since that morning grew to a nearly undeniable need to barf. It was NOT good. Fortunately, I denied the urge and didn't hurl my cookies.

That night I went to bed early so I could better fight my sudden illness. Around 10:30, after I had been asleep for about two hours, my roommate, Susannah Sheuermann, and her parents walked in and turned on the light. After my assurance that I was perfectly content and awake, they started unpacking all of Suzy's 14 thousand boxes. As I sat there, groggy and probably covered in dried pukish drool, I met my roomie for the first time. I'd just like to say that she is absolutely PHENOMENAL. Her family is from Eden, UT, though her "mum" is from England. She has three very handsome brothers, and she is currently an art major, though she's probably going to switch to horticulture. She's absolutely fantastic, and I haven't yet found one thing that I don't like about her.

This also goes for the rest of my apartment mates. Heather Kirby is from South Carolina and is super sweet. Rachel Klopp, her roommate, is from Ohio and has a beautiful voice. Joyce Tram is "from Vegas(old man voice)" and is just in general one of the coolest girls I've ever had the pleasure to meet. Her roommate, Ally Bjarnason(bee-yarn-uh-son) from California, cracks me up like no other. It's amazing how fast we've gotten so comfortable with each other. From the way we act around each other, you would never guess that we've known each other less than a week.

From left to right: Theresa, who sleeps at our house sometimes, me, Rachel Klopp(brown hair), Ally Bjarnason, Joyce Tran, Heather Kirby, and Suzy Sheuermann (pronounced Sherman).

I'm looking EVERYWHERE for a job. I've applied endlessly online, and walked up and down Rexburg putting in applications. There is one place though that Suzy's parents actually suggested to me: Melalueka. (Which is apparently a big Nu Skin rival.) Suzy's mum, Amanda, is a rep for this company, which means that she just tells everyone she knows about it and gets paid big bucks for doing it. This saintly woman called the REGIONAL MANAGER of Melalueka and let me talk directly to him. She put in a VERY good word for me, and I'm hoping to hear from them in the next week. IF I get the job, I'll be working in a call center placing orders and such, whilst making $8.15 an hour starting off, which already is almost a dollar more than I made at Ingles after two years.

Well, now on to the first real two days of school. The first day of classes, Rexburg experienced record breaking rain fall and a high of FORTY-SEVEN DEGREES. Not pretty.To save you the uninteresting details (which you can get if you call me), my favorite class is definitely going to be my Personal Health and Wellness class. That is, it will be my favorite AFTER our mile and a half run on Tuesday morning. Heh heh... (I suspect that the last time I ran 1.5 miles was in seventh grade track.)

I made the Women's Choir! Apparently, that's a really big deal. Me and Suzy just stumbled upon audition sheets while we were exploring one day and thought "Hey, what the heck," so we both signed up. There's a PRE audition before you can even go into the audition itself. Big deal. I'm listed as an alto 2, which means I sing below bass because I have a manly voice. It happens I s'pose...

This weekend, I took an undocumented trip to the Blackfoot, Idaho fair with the Reinharts! It was a blast. I even won a panda bear who is holding bamboo.

In closing, I'd just like to say an embarrassing thing: I absolutely LOVE it out here. This is embarrassing because I came thinking that I hate Idaho, it's a knock-off school, this is going to be so dumb, for heaven's sake these people can't even wear flip-flops, but now I'm having issues finding things that I don't like about this school. Hooray!


This is me being thrilled.