Wednesday, June 24, 2015

The End was Near

So I wrote this post a long time ago, and never actually posted it... but here it is, preserved for posterity anyway!!!

---2 weeks ago---

FINALS ARE NEXT WEEK. I can't believe how fast this term flew by! It seems like just yesterday was my first day.... but at the same time I'm really excited to get a new load of classes. I'm definitely ready for a change! It's been hard for the past few days to have motivation to go to class, so it's a good thing it's all about to change and I'm going to have to be running to keep up with stuff again!

This past little bit has been just grand! I'll start with the things that are most fresh in my memory.
Yesterday I turned in my big humdinger of a paper! We had to write an 8 page research paper for Book of Mormon. We could pick any topic we wanted that was somehow applicable to the gospel, and then examine it in a religious sense, a secular/academic sense (like what other religions believe about our chosen topic), and then we had a personal section where we talked about how it applied to us individually. I chose grace for my topic, and I feel like I learned a lot.
Last night was also ward temple night! It was great! I hadn't been to the temple in a little while, so I was really glad that we got to go. I went with my roommate Lily and a girl we live with, Kaitlin. It was wonderful. I'm so glad we have temples today. :)

Also recently, I went to play night games with some people on campus. I went with my mission friend Kaitlyn and Lily again. And Spencer went too haha. We went and met up with a big group of people who were all super fun, and played games like Ghost in the Graveyard and Navy Tag. It was a BLAST. It was seriously so much fun! And I learned that I am a REALLY slow runner. I think I was the slowest of all of us...kkkkk but that's ok.

In my apartment, we've been watching one Harry Potter movie per weekend, which is great. And everyone thinks that I am just like Luna Lovegood. Which I don't necessarily disagree with, but I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that...-__-

The other day I was reading about the Prodigal Son in Luke. I think it just might be my favorite parable in the whole Bible! I love it so much. If you give it a chance, you should definitely give it another read, I highly recommend it. :) (It's Luke 15:11-32).

I really like my ward. There's a bunch of really fun people in it, and 3 of them are even from Georgia! It is so fun. I'm in the ward choir too, and so it's fun to get to know people that way too. :)

ANYWAY. I should probably finish up this post so I can talk about Summer term stuff. But finals went great, I'm glad that they're over, and I'm glad I have new classes! More to come on that later!!!






Saturday, June 6, 2015

Whirlwind

Hey yall! I have been pretty busy this past week and a half doing a ton of stuff! I think Michelle described it so appropriately when she said that Spring Term is sometimes like trying to drink out of a fire hose. Hahaha it is definitely true! But I am loving it!

So just to catch yall up, last Saturday I went on a hike at Bridal Veil Falls. My roommate Markie described it as being, "the easiest hike ever. As in, a bride could hike it in her wedding dress and not have any problem whatsoever." So that's what I was expecting. Just that it didn't turn out like that at all.
It was supposed to be a ward activity. Just that me, Lily, and 4 other boys were the only people who went, and 2 of the guys weren't even in our ward! Kind of funny. But we had fun anyways. The guy who put the activity together, Jared, turned out to be super hardcore and somehow convinced us all that we wanted to go up the actual WATERFALL instead of the nicely paved trail. It was INTENSE. And I didn't take a single picture, blast it, but it was super steep and slippery and we kept sliding down because parts of the "trail" were just little tiny pebbles on top of the dirt, and so on some parts we would literally have to run sideways so we could grab hold of a branch or something on the other side without falling all the way down to the bottom. We went all the way up to the second waterfall. (I was SO SORE for the next few days. Oddly enough it was my hip flexors that were really hurting. And I got pretty sunburned too. But it was totally worth it.) The view was GORGEOUS. Everyone looked so teeny tiny down at the bottom where we started. Every time I get up super high like that it always amazes me that even though we are so small and seemingly insignificant, Heavenly Father knows and loves each one of us. It's so mind boggling and cool and comforting!


In other news, I FINALLY got tested for Tuberculosis. I tested negative. And I got a cool band aid.
And that same day, I went and opened up a bank account. The lady that helped me was a little weird, but she was nice. And she straight up lied through her teeth that she knew Shauna. HAHAHA :)


Concert (Joshua James). I went to my very first concert last night with Lily and a mission friend Katelyn. It was a rooftop concert, although they don't do them on the rooftop anymore because they outgrew it. Now it's just in the middle of the street in front of the Convention Center in Provo. It was fun! There were so many hipsters! So many beards! So many people with blue hair! SO MANY MAN BUNS. And there was Acai in a little food truck called Happy Bowls Bus. (It still was nothing compared to the real thing....) It was cool. There were a couple little local bands that played, and then the main act appeared at around 9:30. His name is Joshua James, and he was surprisingly good! Apparently this same place is where Neon Trees and Imagine Dragons started out. That's pretty cool if you ask me.
 It was cool just to chill with my girls for a little bit. :)


We had a ward activity last Monday that was so fun! We all filled up long socks with flour, and then we had to hit everyone else with them. If you got hit, you had to sit down and you were out until the next round. Later we added an amendment that you could still hit people once you got out, but you had to hit them while you were sitting down. It was so fun watching the guys in my group go at it. Most of them are pretty athletic, and it was so fun to watch them come busting out of the trees with these huge grins on their faces, swinging their socks around everywhere and getting a ton of people out. #fhegrouppride


So for my Psych class we have to participate in a certain number of research projects. I went to one last Friday that I had to stare at a really bright screen with a little x on it. They had a fancy eye camera that they aimed at my eye so they could monitor my pupil dilation while they played different sounds. They played sounds from 60 to 80 decibels loud. Every time they played the 80 decibel ones i jumped out of my skin because it startled me so bad. Then the guy told me at the end that usually autistic people have much more pupil dilation on the louder sounds than "normal" people, because they perceive it as being louder than it actually is. So pretty much, he diagnosed me with autism. Nice. Speaking of which, we went over Psychological Disorders in my psych class, and I'm pretty positive I have ADHD. Really nice.


So I went to give plasma yesterday for the first time. I was there for over and hour and a half and ended up not even getting to donate (long story. I'll go next week.) but who should I meet at the plasma center but Doug's little brother, James! It was nuts! I heard the front desk call for a James and then I saw him get up and head over there. I knew I recognized him from somewhere, and then it hit me. So I went and talked to him for a little bit. He said he knew I was Shauna's sister because we all look exactly the same. Haha that's ok though, because I feel the same way about the Mitchell family. Anyway, that was pretty cool. Finally got to meet the kid, in the flesh!


Also, as I was walking to the plasma place, I was a SUPER old man outside walking very slowly to his car. I asked him if he wanted help and he said, "No, I'm ok. But I'll sit down and talk to ya for a minute!" So he sat down in his car and we chatted for about half an hour. He is HILARIOUS. His name is Don and we're friends now. He's a real sweet guy, has 5 kids and almost 50 grandkids! WOW. It was nice to take some time out of my day to help make someone else's day better. It makes me happy. :) Hopefully I'll run into that guy again soon.


Donut Day was yesterday!!! I had no idea that Donut Day even existed until I kept hearing the phrase floating around yesterday, so I googled it. Apparently it's to honor the people who first served donuts to the soldiers in WWI, and is celebrated the first Friday in June every year.

Oh, also the other day I saw 2 teeny tiny baby squirrels on campus! They were so stinkin adorable! I got about a foot away from one of them and we just stood there and stared at each other for a few seconds and then he went and dove into the bushes. But it was so precious. And then, I discovered a mommy duck with 6 teeny fluff ball ducklings in the stream! "It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!!!"

Anyways. My phone's being silly so there's almost no pictures this post, unfortunately. But when it gets it's act together you can expect photo documentation. There's a stake activity tonight in Provo Canyon so I'll be sure to blog about that and keep you all up to date. :)