Skiing Mount Doom

Ever since I can remember what family home evening/friday family fun night was, there was always the suggestion of cross-country skiing thrown about as the possible activity. It was often shot down by the idea of instead eating hordes of popcorn and other unhealthy food items at the local theater. That, or my sister and I would get in such an epic fight that all fun would be canceled for that week. I also believe my parents were beginning to realize their eldest daughter was a constant attractor of obscure life threatening situations. As per my years are numbered and it is only a matter of time before my black cloud eats my soul, I decided it would be wise to scratch cross-country skiing with the fam off of the bucket list. I believe this idea was supported in part by my father's desire to measure Sel's "worthiness" of dating his bouncing ball of joy. Since , jousting, head-hunting, the giving of barnyard animals and climbing world's largest mountain weren't ideal sounding options over Christmas break (though they will probably occur within the coming year), cross-country skiing was chosen as the test. As my sister, poptart, Sel and myself started the trek to Doughnut Falls, it became all too apparent who was going to be required by their immediate skill, elegance, and suprising abilities to try out for the next Winter Olympics: Me. Haha, gotcha! Unless they wanted to hire me to give the athletes a little boost of hope in going against the rest of the world.
"Alright athletes. Gather round. We are going to watch this girl try to cross-country ski as our warm-up today. It will be entertaining and the warm-up part will come from you all skiing her back down the mountain to a hospital"
Poptart and the second born glided through the enchanted wonderland like little fairy princesses . Yes, even the tall, dark headed fellow who married my lovely mother resembled a fairy princess. I have pictures to prove it. Sel kindly stayed behind to keep me company despite his ever present ability to join the two graceful fairies on the distant horizon. At one point, we reached a decent sized hill that reduced me to popping off my skis and walking up. My blood related slave was one determined little thing and crawled up the hill with her skis attached and the muscular Sel huffed it to the tip top too. Then came the hill that defeated us all. I have currently named it Mount Doom. The only difference really was that we were going down it, there probably isn't lava burning beneath it's surface, my finger wasn't reduced to a bloody stump by a peculiar anorexic creature suffering from bi-polar disorder and lung disease, we weren't in Mordor and we didn't have the ring of power. Oh and no one touchingly said with fierce tears in their eyes "I might not be able to carry your ski's Lauren, but I can carry you" I believe the fall down count was
Poptart: II
Girl who should have listed to me more as a child: III
Sel: IIII
Me: IIIIII
I was ultra prepared for the frozen tundra as per I was wearing my Grams' gardening gloves. And since I have excellent circulation, my fingers started to look like a double rainbow minus all the colors once we reached the falls. Which, may I insert, were spectacular! It was beautiful! We took off our ski's, hiked up the mountain, and crawled into a little opening into the cave of wonders. We also fell into the pool that transported us to the time of the Nephites. It was a grand old time. Sel proved his manliess to my father after realizing he would be dating a girl with nubs as hands and giving me his warm winter gloves. My kindly father then passed off his gloves to Sel as a sign of acceptance, appreciation, and acknowledgement that Sel has survived dating me and my black cloud thus far. Though I have some pretty bruises from the experience, cross-country skiing was probably the best part of break. :) Maybe head-hunting will be the family christmas activity for next year...Other than the vicitm, the likelihood of my family and I getting hurt is minimal ;)

L

Sleepovers

This is what I remember from my childhood sleepovers: The day I was supposed to go over to a designated friends house for a sleepover would be full of overwhelming joy and excitment. I would spend the whole day asking my mom how long until we left and make her help me pack and repack my dinosaur backpack. You never knew what sort of adventures awaited you at the legendary sleepover. An attack from a T-rex, a random exploding volcano that forces you to jump from rock to rock to avoid falling into the lava, a prince that begs you and your friend to help him defeat an evil witch who stole his kingdom who ends up turning you and your friend against one another as you viciously fight who gets to kiss the imaginary prince until the more genius friend with brown hair invents a brother to the prince who is equally as charming and heroic.
As soon as my mom dropped me off, my friend(s) and I would zoom around the house and yard with the spastic energy children are so privy to. After a semi-exhausting romp, we would go into the house and entertain ourselves until the sun went down. As soon as it did, the world seemed to transform into what people in the 60's probably experienced when they took LSD while playing Candyland (I hear this happened alot. Ask your parents if you don't believe me. If they deny it, you know they are lying cause no parent would admit to their child they ever did drugs or played Candyland :) Any food source in the house that had even a trace of sugar or saturated fat was devoured by our little mouths. In our elated sugar high, we would run up to friend's room or down to the basement to commence the ever thrilling episode of "Truth or Dare". Since I was a very socially capable child, "Truth or Dare" became a bit overwhelming due to the enormous amount of friends present at the sleepover. After a disappointing duet round of the game, my friend and I would decide it was time to tell scary stories. Scary stories generally lasted for about ten minutes until both of us were too terrified to even think of breathing. Our fear instantly drained our sugar induced energy high and it became high time for us to slip into our sleeping bags. This is where the real scary story would start for me. I would stare with eyes wide at the foreign place I was currently laying in. The dolls that only hours ago were my playmates became Chucky's demonic children. Shadows of monsters and ghosts began to populate the walls. The Hansen brother's images transformed from adolescent heart throbs to flesh hungry werewolves. I would spend the whole night debating whether to call my mom and beg her to come pick me up. When I would finally be released from the prison known as friend's house, I would be banned from ever having a sleepover again. Enough time would pass that I began to think a sleepover wouldn't be such a bad thing and the vicious cycle would start again.

Last night marked another sleepover moment. My dad, sister and I opted for a sleepover in my grandma's living room. We popped in a movie and all fell asleep within the first twenty mintues. I awoke a few hours later with an instant feeling of dying. I was sweating buckets as per I was in my onsie, my glasses were smooshed into my face, there was a witch laying in a lair of blankets on the floor beneath me and a dragon was snoring away in the arm chair. Since I had spent so many sleepovers vanquishing queens and dragons and rescuing sugary substances from evil clutches, I knew exactly how to escape from my dire situation. I hopped, skipped and jumped to the kitchen with relative ease and located the half gallon of ice cream in my grams' freezer. The dragon, also known as my father, found me nestled into the corner of the kitchen with my half gallon of joy just as the sun began to peak over the mountains. Thank you childhood sleepovers for teaching me all the survival skills anyone could ever ask for. :)

Pocket Full of Sunshine

Tada! Another semester survived! The week of finals (which I can hardly believe was only last week) was typically stressful, but uniquely wonderful. I kidnapped a random feller in a onsie for his birthday (and received a carnivorous plant currently named Seymour aka VENUS FLY TRAP) . The woman who birthed me and her second favorite child came on Tuesday, my longest childhood friend married her lover on Wednesday, and I disappeared into the vortex of library death until Friday night. Then the fun really started-I left for a random road trip with Sel at midnight to Idaho Falls. We jammed to the gem of a station that played non-stop 80's music and also had a truly "special" moment on a random back road in Malad that probably starred in House of Wax and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The party that commenced at Sel's house was fantastically epic. Party events: running in the snow, tour of IHS, viewing of the black lighted video game bathroom, shaving stray cats, lots of naps, onsie photo shoot, Youtube night, throwing a siesta with all of Idaho Falls' Hispanics, taking pictures for Father's Day, sledding down the ceiling of a cathedral, describing my Harry Potter alternate life to Sel's ever accepting family, and watching the flame of eternal Hogwarts love blossom in Sel's father heart. I have never seen a HP fan develop so quickly in someone. One of the better weekends of my life I daresay. Here are some recommendations for all to start your Christmas week off right

1. Sleep in-everyday. Including Christmas morning.

2. Blog about your Little Dancing Man cousin

3. Do a "drug deal" in the TJ Maxx in Salt Lake City

4. Hold three battles (only three) between two snow leopards and a polar bear to see who would win. Or between a seal and a pack of dancing penguins. Or a jumbo shrimp and an Alaskan King Crab. I would place my money on the jumbo shrimp-mostly because I would rather eat a jumbo shrimp than a king crab...

5. Fly in the award winning horror novelist who happens to have donated your other X chromosome

6. Avoid strangling yourself with Christmas lights after spending far too much time cooped up in your grandma's house that believes it still belongs in the 1960's (aka no internet)

7. Instead of reading Dickens' commonly read novel during this time of month, read his other beautiful novel, A Tale of Two Cities

8. Calculate a way to split oneself so one could maybe be in Idaho Falls with Sel at the same time the other half of oneself was in Utah.

9. Try not to destroy your beta cells and develop Type II diabetes by eating an overwhelming amount of chocolate, cookies, candy, candy canes, cauliflower, other foods that start with C.

10. Watch the Nativity Story-seriously one of the best movies I have ever seen. I may or may not have shed a tear of two while watching it in the back of a van whilst enjoying the spacious leg room with Sel.

11. Write the annual Christmas rap that puts Akon, Eminem, and 50 Cent to shame.

12. Wrangle up some flying reindeer, Stephen's Peppermint Hot coco, break into people's homes via a chimney, and spread Christmas joy to everyone by helping them learn the joy of sharing puppies, cars, ipods, really snazzy socks, plane tickets to exotic places, and moose shirts with a random, though very sweet and clever stranger who breaks into their homes on Christmas Eve night.

May your sanity reside with you all during the holidays! I am accepting bets on the battles described in Christmas Advice Point #4 in the form of cash or check or new cars or new laptops or food. :)

Ancient Children Finding Their Voices

In honor of the speedy advancement of the dreaded finals week, I have decided to list positive things about my classes this semester to remind me I didn't completely detest them (as I surely will in only a few days).

1. Physiology: Since I got to have this class four days a week directly after lunch, I got in some really great naps in this class. I conquered (if only briefly) my trigger of passing out upon drawing blood from my body. I learned everything imaginable about Dr. Rhees' health problems. I learned things that reminded me why I thought it would be a good idea to be an exercise science major.

2. Physics: Dr. Stokes = entertainment. Never a dull moment while listening to him further prove my theory he has Aspergers and making poor college students curse the moment they raised their hand to ask a question. The friends I made in this class have been life-savers. I wonder what I would have done had I not forced by poly friend into playing hang man, tic-tac toe, and "would you rather" with me every class period. What would I have done had my neuroscience genius bud not navigated my physics group through every Wednesday night torture lab?

3. Chemistry 107: .......um......this class was the source of 80% of my school hater moments. Okay, so mixing a bunch of elements together was pretty interesting and my two lab partners were VERY patient with my black cloud. When I poured sulfuric acid on my foot, it forced me to throw away a holey scooby sock I was refusing to part with. The 100% on my practicum made me believe in miracles.

4. Music Civ: My lil Aussie, American hating, Mo-tab singing professor was fantastic. He fully acknowledged that 8AM was a preposterous time to hold class and luckily didn't grade on attendance (much to the saving grace of D and I's grade). I found a song written for my voice. (Ancient Children Finding Their Voices-Crumb). D and I had a grand old time watching our freshman row friends laugh hysterically at everything Dr. Howard said.

5. Mission Prep: Wow! What didn't I love about this class? Brother Bott, watching Sarah announce she was engaged, learning more about the gospel than I ever imagined I could in a few short weeks, loving every single second of class.

6. Weight Lifting: The only reason I didn't balloon into a beached whale. Being blessed by my weight lifting partner. He will probably never read this (as many won't), so I feel okay about ranting about how remarkable this boy is. My friend is a brilliant mathematician. He recently rocked the LSAT well enough to apply to Harvard and Stanford with a high probability of being accepted. He is by far the most positive human being I have ever met. He also has cerebral palsy. I have had a lot of days this semester (tonight included) where I walk out of the testing wondering why I am majoring in exercise science. (Insert vent: no matter how long I study, how hard I try, how prepared I feel, how many study guides I make, I continually get terrible grades. That stupid, stupid screen in the testing center is all too eager to flash "Failure" back to me every time I take a test.) My friend has been a ray of sunshine reminding me why I am shaming myself by taking these classes. If I continue down my career path, I could help people like Michael. People who are constantly humbling others with their strength, optimism, faith, and love. I asked him today what his favorite part of the semester was, his response was "Going to ward prayer with you that one night". As I struggled to discover what great event happened that night, Michael filled my pondering silence with a beautiful expression of how it is the little things in life that make it wonderful.

In all, this semester has been a truly, truly blessed one. I have had certain people come into my life that have changed it for the better (Michael, Sel, Sel's relations, above mentioned classmates). Am I still pretty darn confused on my future life course? You bet. Who isn't though? Do I constantly wish I was reading about the kinship systems of different cultures or preparing my thesis for a field study to Ghana or aching that I could have said yes to my professor's request to change my field study to Kaokaland? oooohhh boy, do I! Am I happy with all that has happened and certain I will continue to be happy? Response to rhetorical question with another rhetorical question: Is listening to Josh Groban whilst eating Milka one of the most amazing experiences a living being can have? :)

Random Thoughts

About a year ago, I read an article that changed my life. A man posted 3 pages worth of random thoughts about life. This is the article if you so wish to enlighten your life with it's profound wisdom http://www.albanian.com/v4/showthread.php?t=28550. (Warning:he does use some vulgar language a bit, BUT the rest of the article is hilarious enough to make one forget about it) My favorites are: "I wish googlemaps had an avoid ghetto routing option"(would have been especially helpful on my terrifying excursions to Detroit or Pontiac), "Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart", and "How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?".
I have been compiling a list today of random thoughts I feel the internet world needs to ponder. Here goes:
1. While I understand the genius of inventing a toilet that flushes itself, there is nothing worse than one that forcefully sprays its automatic demon robot possessed self everywhere while you are still stuck in the bathroom stall
2. I hate having to pass strangers who are walking in the same direction I am. You can't simply walk a few feet behind them because you could be mistaken for a creepy stalker type. You absolutely can't walk next to them. You either have to fall behind a significant distance and attempt to keep at a slow pace or you must drastically increase your pace to pass them. Oh and you must keep your eye line rigidly on the horizon or on the ground as you pass them-NEVER turn your head to acknowledge them.
3. Every single class has the annoying kid who raises their hand to ask a question that makes them seem smarter. My favorite professors are those who completely destroy the kid with their response demonstrating to the rest of the class they won't stand for such obnoxious questioning.
4. Drawing from thought number three, I sometimes want to put my hand over the mouths of those students who argue with professors in a class of 100+ students about test questions. They have a Ph.D, wrote the test, and have all power to fail you-you don't even have your associates yet and obviously don't care that the rest of us want to learn something other than how unjust you feel a question was that everyone else understood . Shush.
5. Facebook is a most excellent tool for stalking without crossing an legal boundaries. When people tell me they don't stalk people on facebook, I know they are liars and I should never trust them with anything important.
6. I feel that Harry Potter nerds are more socially acceptable than Star Trek nerds. This is a bias, but very true fact.
7. My spelling abilities without the aid of T9 and spell check would make my third grade teacher cry. I feel these two things were invented to comfort all who sometimes ponder on the ridiculous conventions of English language. Related quote: "I' before 'e' except after 'c' and when sounding like 'a' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh' and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May and YOU'LL ALWAYS BE WRONG NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!!!!" Thank you Brian Regan
8. I wonder if the words for reproductive organs are so gross sounding because of what the word actually references or whether the word itself is unappealing to the auditory senses.
9. I have decided there was a nation wide club organized among parents in the 90's to help their children develop a solid character instead of relying wholly on looks to get through life. They achieved their club goal by cutting their children's hair in the ugliest way they would possibly imagine (please reference your elementary school pictures as proof: mullets, bangs, bowl cuts, excessive amounts of gel or hairspray, rat tails etc).
I am opting not to write a tenth thought to live true to the name of it being "random" thoughts instead of an even list of well organized processes. :)

A Kreature of Change

Whilst staring into the red face of an offended Danish man today, I had an epiphany about my life. I lack the one thing that has been mankind's key to survival: adaptability. The portion of my brain that stores the information of "life lessons/past situations that you should have learned something from to better handle future situations" must have been rendered useless in one of my plethora of concussions. Here are a few key evidences to support this argument.

1. The first week of my freshman year, I had a class in the MARB. The MARB is a ridiculously structured building with its identical classrooms and wretched architecture that reeks of the 1970's. Despite its confusing structure, all of my classmates seem to have figured out how to not get lost in it. I have had a class all but one of my semesters at BYU in the MARB and I continue to end up in the wrong classroom (or on a completely different floor full of eerie fish and disturbing biology professors who smell of dead animals) if I do not walk in the same door on my way to class.

2. My entire family talks about 10 decibels louder than the average human being. Genetic research is being conducted to determine if this is attributed to the fact that some of us (my dad) are deaf or we simply lack a "normal" speaking voice gene. Speaking too loudly coupled with my tendency to talk about things I probably shouldn't has resulted in disastrous situations time after time. The intelligent person would have learned their lesson by at least the third mishap, but I am still going strong after my 701st entanglement. While talking loudly about a dramatic human being who I maybe don't like that much, a frightening Danish man sitting next to me and my poor cousin chimed in with "(Danish accent) Sorry to butt in, but are you talking about (insert person I was complaining about)?" Horrified silence filled promptly with cousin's remarks about how much he adores said person. The angry Danish man's face was a sickly red at this point and was making me feel quite pleased with myself as he continued to stare at me with unblinking eyes of pure hatred. I tried to smooth over my situation by talking as quickly as possible about worlds most random things in hopes he would forget how I just bashed on one of his life long role models. I am pretty sure he would have punched me in the face had my glorious cousin not come to my rescue by stating we had to leave that very instant.

3. Some people outgrow childhood loves, some don't. This concept is not that peculiar nor is loving Harry Potter so much you create an alternate character of yourself in every single book. Lots of people love Harry Potter. There is even a new theme park in Disney World to commemorate this revolutionary series of geniusdom. J.K. Rowling has more money than the queen of England because so many people love Harry Potter. Everyone should love Harry Potter as much as I do or at least as much as the world in general does. I feel as if I am talking to a martian when they tell me they A. haven't read all the books (or, horror or all horrors, none of them) B. Have only seen a movie or two C. Didn't cry on their 11th (possibly 12th and 13th and so forth) birthday when they didn't get an acceptance letter via owl to Hogwarts. I got to express my ardent love for Harry Potter this week at the midnight showing of Deathly Hallows with my fantastic Harry Potter loving ward. Every one of us dressed up. My favorites were: Dumbledore, the bust of Rowena Ravenclaw, Voldemort, a 6-year-old house elf, Hagrid, Gildroy Lockhart, Molly Weasley, a Nimbus 2000, Ollivander, Rita Skeeter, and the Grey Lady. Right before the heading to the show, I remembered back to the time my mom signed me up for a Harry Potter night at the library. The flier for the event advertised: quidditch, potion lessons, charm classes (with a wand fitting), and a night of magical fun. When my mom hugged me goodbye, I hugged her back extra hard. My 12-year-old self knew this would be the last time I would see my muggle mother for at least a year as per the West Jordan library was the American platform to Hogwarts. When she said, "Be out here at 8:00PM so I can pick you up". I knew her full statement was actually , "Be out here at 8:00 PM so I can pick you up after your year at Hogwarts" but as per she and I both knew what she meant, it wasn't necessary to add those last six words. Guess what? The library gig was a total hoax. Quidditch was using brooms to play indoor broom hockey. Potions was watching dry ice bubble out of a lame plastic cauldron. Charms was eating a handful of peculiarly shaped marshmallow cereal. I attempted to pick up every book in the library convinced one of them HAD to be a portkey. Ever since the unspeakably disappointing library incident, I have been wary of any Harry Potter events that promise magic. Even so, as my now twenty-year-old self dressed up as Bellatrix Lestrange this week, I literally had the thought "Maybe the movie theater will have a piece of popcorn that is actually a portkey to Hogwarts!!!"
I guess some things about me will never change: my lack of directional skills, talking too loud, talking about things I shouldn't, lacking all forms of tactfulness, my desire to be buried with the elder wand when I die, my certainty that Hogwarts is actually a graduate school, and my general inability to change above personality traits ;) P.S. If any ridiculously muscled, martial arts master wants to be my body guard against "Angry Danish Man" and the many other people I am still likely to offend, please send me: a recent photograph, a recording of your intimidating voice, your percent muscle mass, the record of your (at least 8 years) of defensive training and your favorite dessert recipe that I will force my roommates to bake for you when you want to be compensated for your protection services. Thank you in advance for your speedy responses!

Just Say No to Sugar

Just to let you know, it is 2:30AM. Ask me if I have a class in roughly five hours? Now ask me if I think I will even remotely make it on time? Final question, do I have a very unhealthy relationship with food that fully expressed itself this weekend as it does in many weekend instances?
So this weekend I got to venture up to Logan with (let's call him Scottish Eyebrowed Lad or Sel for short) to visit my lovely cousin. My cousin, for all who don't know, is one of the world's top ten coolest people. If you don't believe me, google top ten coolest people and you will see her pretty lil self right next to Aragorn, Dumbledore, and Billy Joel (if you haven't discovered how fantastical my pal BJ is, you need to download all of his songs immediately to your ipod). Moving on. I am a strong believer in the concept that one gets to chose how awkward they feel. Certain degrees of awkwardness, however, can stem from being caught of guard without a logical way to navigate a new turn in a situation. One such instance occurred while Sel and cousin were eating dinner at Logan's fine food establishment, Juniper. As per Logan is a college town and Juniper has some of the tastiest food for students to partake of, a large contingency of Aggies (I finally learned what this stands for. Agriculturalists= Aggies. Almost as lame as my high school mascot except for they don't wear brown and yellow skirts) are bound to gather here on any given night in honor of delectable food. A boy my cousin had done the awkward date tango with came in to Juniper. Just as cousin was launching into describing the awkwardness involved with this boy, Sel goes "I know him". As we began laughing at his jokester self, Sel got up to embrace the fellow. Mild awkwardness escalated to unnavigable awkwardness. How could one expect cousin to react to such a shock that such a social tie could possibly be made between these two? Answer: She couldn't have.
The second part of Friday evening consisted of going to the Logan temple for baptisms. What more could I say than it was beautiful and the temple is literally one of the best places on earth? Also, Logan temple goers are spoiled because shampoo and conditioner are provided for your ten minute, worry free shower after you get out of the font.
Saturday was a fun, cookie filled blast. After babysitting for my other cousin awhile back, it was revealed unto Sel and I about a hidden magical world in Logan called Pepperidge Farm. In this magical place, you can buy 3 pound bags of milano cookies for $3. Since Tim Tams have recently redefined to me what it means to live, I knew I must visit this magical land that birthed my revolutionary discovery. I think I ate every single sample cookie and goldfish displayed on that glowing table of yore where King Cookie once sat with a few shiny friends of his. Now this might not have been such a terrible of thing had I not then gone on to buy a whole package of Tim Tams, had pounded some Fro-Yo the night before, preceded to eat far too many handfuls of Jalapeno Kettle chips at the rugby game, ate a giant lunch followed by a cheesecake contraption at a beautiful bridal shower, ate the chocolate party favor on the car ride home, sampled some more of the Pepperidge Farm magic, and then spent Sunday eating astronomically large amounts of chili at the chili cook off (my roommates took second by the way), and more sugary goodness at munch and mingle. I attribute my current state of death like longings for sleep to my poorly made food choices in the past 72 hours. Let my Lauren go (if you know where this line comes from, you have just inched your way onto Google's waiting list for top ten coolest people)
Yes! Mission successful. I am now entering the glorious field of exhaustion. Moral of this story and any other really: If you think it is a good idea to spend a whole weekend pumping your body with pure sugar, you will spend the rest of the weekend, week, month, eternity wishing you were a smarter person. Just say no to sugar! Smokey the Bear endorses this cautionary message :)

The Fountain of Miracles

This week has been a wonderful oddity in my life. The fountain of miracles started trickling into my life on Tuesday when I managed my time wisely (shocker, I know) and accomplished everything I put on my to-do list in my ever neat handwriting. Wednesday is where the fountain started spurting at an alarming rate into my life. If you have ever met me (mom and dad, my most avid readers), I cannot handle blood. Wait, lies. I cannot handle my own blood coming out of my body. While seeing others blood is far from enjoyable, it certainly isn't the nausea provoking, vagal overloading experience watching my own seep from my body is. We had a hematology physiology lab on Wednesday and I had been dreading it for three dreary days leading up to it. I quite logically deduced in the three days leading up to it that the small finger prick required of me would go terribly wrong. The lancet would undoubtedly rip through my entire finger causing all of the nasty metallic smelling life force in my body to pour out within two minutes. The front page of the Daily Universe would have my ID picture splashed across it with a beautifully tragic article on my untimely death. The headline would read in bold letters"BYU Student Dies Heroically in the Name of Hematology". A quote from one of my roommates would be like this "Lauren was one of the bravest, most self-sacrificing people in the world. She knew going into that evil lab she might not be coming out of it-but she went in anyanyany waay" (quote ends because my roommate is sobbing to hard to go on). When I finally entered the lab, the mildly brave being lurking behind my normal pansy self emerged. As soon as my lab partners asked who was to donate their body to science, it was I who volunteered. It is now two days later and all of the flesh on my finger is intact and at least 5 liters of blood is floating around in my body. Today, the miracles of all miracles occurred. To fully understand this miracle, one needs to know a very simple and true fact about my life. I hate chemistry and it hates me. There have been points in our relationship where we have tolerated one another. In the early parts of our relationship, we even viewed each other with tiny hints of passionate interest. These brief instances of interest, however, quickly dissolved into a solution of pure hatred. My chemistry lab this semester has helped me imagine a bit of what Dante envisioned the 7 circle of hell to be like. Of the 8 labs we have had, I have had to re-do every. single.one. Most Thursdays have involved me calling my parents shortly after the lab, sobbing to them about my failures and the injustice of Chem 107, throwing myself on the floor of our living room until one of my roommates offered to comfort me with food all the while telling me my lab grade didn't define my high intellectual ability, asking if people would still love me even if I failed stupid chem lab, and then going to bed resolved to get an A on the next lab. Today (mark this date on your calendar of historical events) was the first day I EVER got an A on a test in chemistry ( I have taken now three semesters of this blasted subject). I got 100% on my practicum. When the previously demonic TA said the words" Wow, good job. You got 100" I literally started jumping up and down, spinning in circles and telling anyone I had ever said "excuse me" to in the lab "I GOT 100. A.100 percent. AAAAA". (Side note: this overshadowed the moment that occurred two hours previous when demonic TA woman told I had failed number 8 lab because I hadn't put the dumb, stupid, ridiculous, ugly, (insert all other negative terms) sticker on my report and would now have to redo it. I burst into tears whilst wearing my lab goggles while she awkwardly stood there trying to locate where her heart had disappeared to years ago). I think I will just keeping doing laps in this fine little fountain of mine until a drought tries to dry up my happiness (which it won't because I have an eternal fountain of miracles :)

A Talent to Brag About

You know when you get those annoying "Get To Know You" forms and they ask you what your talents are. I usually list the fifty or so I generally excel at: eating, sleeping in class, knowing random facts about the universe that take the place of knowing useful facts for acing classes that will help me take over the universe, procrastinating, etc. This final talent, procrastinating, has taken me years to develop. In my younger years, I never would have listed it as a talent-more as a random hobby I sometimes played around with whenever my mom reminded me to clean my room. In high school, I thought it wise to excel at other things and so I procrastinated developing my procrastination skills (whoa, bet that thought just blew your mind ;) My first year in college was one that finally allowed true opportunity to develop my hidden talent. I didn't realize my hidden talent until finals week of my freshman year. It was a beautiful experience. I had thought until that point I didn't have any particular talent I excelled at-I was mostly just mediocre at a handful of things. My realization occurred when I procrastinated studying for finals by watching five movies and an entire disk of episodes of the X-Men animated series. Once I got my grades back for that semester, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was a Class A procrastinator. Developing such a talent really does take a lot of time and effort. If you are reading this and wishing you could be a Class A procrastinator, just know it isn't the easiest of paths to follow. Most Class A procrastinators have to posses a certain degree of talent initially before they can truly begin to excel. Discovering I had this genius ability was a bit overwhelming. Was it possible for a human being to be so astoundingly good at such a thing? I kept my talent partially hidden throughout my freshman year for fear people would view me as some freaky procrastinating genius they simply couldn't relate to. This semester, however, I have decided to let my talent really shine. Why should I hide something I am so miraculously good at? I should share my talent with the world! I now stare at the odd water marks in my apartment for hours wondering what it would be like to ride atop a elephant in Indonesia instead of doing my physics homework. Instead of studying for my music civilization class, I practice speaking in different accents and coming up with ridiculous (though extremely true) stories of how Isaac Newton was in love with a musically gifted nun. Instead of grading endless papers, I decide to eat all of my roommates food. When I should be running off all of the food I keep ingesting, I decide to let facebook continue to steal a part of my soul. Instead of studying for the dumbest class ever invented by worlds most evil creatures, I decide to write on my blog. See! I have made some truly impressive strides to claiming procrastination as a full fledged talent. I can put it on resumes, OT applications, "Get to Know You" forms, you name it! My heart is full with the final acceptance that I do have a valid and well developed talent to brag about. In fact, I think I will go try and strengthen my talent a bit more by choosing to take a nap :)

The Key to Adventure

It has been a decent while since writing about my ever impressive ability to entangle myself and others in safe, fun, and wholesome activities. I am going to try and give a brief synopsis of what dire situations I have been putting my most recent victim into throughout this past month. On our first adventure, ole Blackie only briefly revealed his ever thoughtful self by making us late to a marionette performance. Being late forced us to stowaway our recently purchased sandwiches in obscure hiding places and made my mouth water as its wafting goodness tempted me to pull it out of its indecently loud wrapping paper. Now the second adventure is where I introduced poor Scottish eyebrowed lad to the full effects of deciding to hang out with one such as I. After researching the hot pots in Spanish Fork, it was decided we needed to go there. Best time to chart a path along an unknown trail: sometime after sunset. Getting to the trail itself was an adventure as per my victim and I are both directionally and technologically challenged. We possessed not just one GPS to guide our way step by step, but TWO. Instead of relying on those imaginary satellites with their silly navigating instructions, we decided to practice our appariting skills we had mastered at Hogwarts. It would have worked had we learned how to apparate objects (such as the car) along with ourselves. We finally did reach the trail and then my new favorite victim revealed the many preparations he had made for our journey to the sulfurous pits of lore. Items of protection in backpack: a jump rope (for tying any of the lewd attackers lurking on the trail), an orange and packet of fruit snacks (food to tide us over for a few weeks in case we got lost), a head lamp, a camel back, and a pair of matches. Looking back at our preparations, I really can't discern why we weren't more successful. On paper, we sound like the best two people in the world to hike on hidden paths in the middle of the night. To keep from making this an abnormally long post, I will simply say this: We took the wrong path despite a sign telling us it wasn't the right one, found a lovely meadow instead of the natural hot tubs, missed out on seeing naked bathers, and had a grand time doing it. Small insert. My poor father was the unfortunate person that was told I was planning on going with a boy I didn't know that well yet in the middle of the night to find hot pots a good forty minutes from civilization. It was really great for him to sit for the many hours I spent being lost next to the phone praying the idiocy of his oldest daughter wouldn't bring about her death. What a good poptart that man is for not sending me back to my real, black cloud following parents long ago :)

The second part of this month has been consumed with my effect on impairing technology. While my victim will claim his car key malfunction was due to a "hot tub" incident, it really stemmed from a constant leakage of my black cloud into his life. One of the key incidents happened after we had snagged us some dang good (free!) frozen yogurt. The car wouldn't start :( (cause I was there) and we opted to take a faith walk to Denny's. You know what? Eating a $2 cheese quesadilla at 11:00PM has magical effects. Miracle on Bulldog Street: the car started. The car key failed again two days later in the parking lot of the temple. We decided our faith walk should initially be up the canyon instead of to a food source. I should have learned from my last experience on a trail that as much as I love trails, mountains, roughing it, ect, they don't love me back nearly as much. Nature is the boy I loved all through elementary school and I am still the awkward poofy banged girl pining for it/him to love me back. The car didn't start :( What do you do when things don't happen the way you want to? Drown your frustrations in food. One can also drown in sort of emotions in food really: sadness, happiness, success, giddiness, ect. We decided to taste the delectableness that is Creamery on 9th food and drown any frustrations in fries, sandwiches and, of course, ice-cream. In all, it was actually quite fun to get stuck and use our creativity to create other venues of adventure.

I shall close this sucker with a few expert comments: some may be asking why this poor, poor victim is still under the impression all above incidents are directly correlated to me and my constant companion, Blackie. If everyone could do me a good one (or a solid, however you feel like stating such a phrase) and not tell him, that would be awesome. I understand by requiring this of anyone is technically aiding and abetting in a possible death of either me or him or both, but I feel it necessary to ask anyway. Hope everyone else's adventures are going splendidly and safely! Also, continue to stay away from parking garages, creepy men, and blueberries!

For Sarah

This is an exert from a "thought paper" I had to write for my missionary prep class. Apparently my sister's charm knows no end cause writing about her helped me wrangle a 100% out of it

“For there is no friend like a sister, in calm or stormy weather, to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to lift one if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands."

She is my earliest and fondest memory. Whether from actual memory or a re-creation of stories told, the moment I was told of her coming is etched into my heart the same way every other part of her is. My loving parents sat on our old couch and told my almost three year old self they were going to have a baby. As they searched my face for reaction, I calmly replied “I know. Her name is Sarah.” When my parents attempted to explain they didn’t know if the baby was a boy or girl yet, I defiantly reiterated my knowledge of her and went back to playing with my toys. Turns out I knew what I was talking about.

Sarah was a beautiful infant. A shock of gorgeous blonde curls framed her chubby, smiling face. She giggled and gurgled and warmed the hearts of all who met her. She was the sister I had been hoping and praying for. When she was a toddler, I remember having a terrible nightmare about her. We were standing on an impossibly high, circular arena surrounded by crowds of jeering people. My sister and I were in the center of the arena fighting for the entertainment of those around us. I managed to push her off the edge and left her clinging to its side. She looked up at me in the dream and begged me to pull her up and protect her from falling. In the dream, I failed as a big sister. I woke in a cold sweat, rushed to her bedroom, and reached through her crib to touch her little hand curled in sleep. “I promise I will always protect you Sarah. Always. I won’t ever push you off the edge. Promise.”

As years went on, I certainly pushed my sister to the edge of her emotional limit as she did mine. We fought viciously with one another though we loved each other just as fiercely. Worldly and spiritual trials simply strengthened the bond created in our pre-mortal life. The bond we share now is one of the greatest blessings I have yet to know. She is my constant anchor to believing in love, in the power of temple blessings, in a knowledge of how well our Heavenly Father knows us, in the truth that families can be together forever and in finding the ultimate joy we can while on this earth. I understand more fully how the Savior must love His brothers and sisters through exploring how deeply I love my own precious sister. She has given me glimpses of what the Celestial kingdom must be like through all the laughs shared, all the charitable pasting of each others toothbrushes, all of the tears spilled, and all of the ever pervading love felt. One of the few things I am able to claim a firm knowledge of is that my sister and parents were blessing my life long before we all came to earth, that they are my greatest blessings I have on this earth, and that I will be eternally bound to them long after we leave this earth.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World

Discovery: Life is crazy when you are a college student. Particularly one who decided to take on a lovely load of difficult classes and be a TA. It is also quite exciting in many senses. Examples: I am dirt poor right now. Does that mean I don't have money in my bank account? No, it means it stares at me as a ghost spirit of what it will someday be: my tuition, my mission fund, anything but possible food fundage. My current assortment of food until Saturday: beans, crystal light packets, 3 things of oatmeal, a brownie mix, and an apple I snuck out of the cannon center today. It gets exciting though because the beans are actually an assortment: 2 cans of black, 1 of red kidney, and 1 of pinto beans. Why I am talking about boring things like my current food supplies? Because my life has become a void of endless classes and homework. A somewhat beautiful void-one that resembles a new born nebula. Chaotic, but with sprinkling things of wonder scattered between the circular arms of darkness. There are two things worth sharing per say of any interest other than how many different bean cans I have. One, I almost passed out today. Not always something to comment on as per it happens regularly, BUT today was a special moment. We had a physiology lab using blood. I am a pansy when it comes to watching my life force spill onto anything outside of my body even if it is just a finger prick. SO while I am surrounded by future pre-med students who probably sprinkle blood from a helpless lab rats on their morning breakfast, Miss Tipsy gets to sit pale faced and hyperventilate. My level of patheticness took on a whole new level today in this class. Second: The kiss blowing incident. This last Sunday, Mr. Bear E. Norris added further permanent sharpie eraser marks to his name of possible love interests. Whilst standing outside of an apartment munching on a cookie and mingling with ward members, I made the mistake of making eye contact with said person. Who in turn, winked at me and blew me a kiss. My response: say in a strained whisper to my three surrounding guy friends how awkward that was and attempt to hide behind one of them. His response, to ask in dismay why I didn't return his love. I asked him what he would have done if I had blown him a kiss and he said, " If you had, I would have caught it, put it in my pocket and never washed these pants again" My hiding failed and he gallantly walked over to talk to me about my least favorite show ever with the exception of Family Guy, the "Simpsons". Oh, the men I attract.

My Date with General Bear E. Norris

So my life of school and such has been preventing me for the past few weeks to make an entry to the blogging world, BUT I simply couldn't pass up writing about recent events.

Now on to the title of this blog. I went on a date tonight with a boy from my ward who is actually a character created by Mark Twain or some other fictional novelist. His life is simply too fascinating to be considered real. Our date agenda: calling elk and coyotes up Spanish Fork canyon. Yup, we drove up the canyon for about 45 minutes to sit in the woods and call the in heat bulls. Honestly, it was one of the most creative and fantastic dates I have ever been on. On our way up the canyon, my date realizes we are going to need fire wood for our dutch oven dinner. So what does he do? Laments forgetting his chain saw and then rips a dead tree out of the ground and heaves it into the back of the truck. He then pulls another, much larger tree straight up out of the ground and decides we are going to run over it to make it more manageable for firewood. I then decided to take my turn showing off my nature skills and perfectly camouflaged myself in the woods so I could use nature as the big outdoor bathroom that it is. Impressive, I know. We hiked up with the other couple in silence, treading as silently as possible, with me holding my breath in fear a giant elk would bound away when he heard my inhaling. This was a good idea because it made me really get "high of nature" via self-inflicted oxygen deprivation. Survivor Date Man then identified in hushed tones all of the tracks, plants, and droppings we discovered and finally had us huddle in admiration of the red sun calmly setting over the mountains whilst he used his whistle contraption to seduce all male elk in the area. It reminded my a bit of how I perceive internet dating: Getting excited to find a perfect mate over internet chat, deciding to meet in a public place, only to become disoriented and disappointed to discover the 20-something Abercrombie Model/Harvard Graduate is actually an overweight, 40-something high school drop out with a skill for photo shop. Luckily, we didn't have to completely disappoint the hopeful boy elk as they were too far away to reach us before the sun set, but we did get some interested vocal responses to our post for availability. We had an AMAZING dinner after our adventure because Survivor Man loves cooking on top of his plethora of other interests. Dinner Menu: Grilled chicken, potatoes-or spuds as he called them, salad with vegetables from his garden, and s'mores. Before I end this sucker, I need to further list why my date is not a real human being. In case you missed it, he pulled two trees out of the ground with his bare hands. He almost convinced me through his vast knowledge of history, politics, and current events that Abraham Lincoln was actually like every other politician: Dirty and power hungry, the southern states had every right to secede, the federal government should be pretty much eliminated from America and individual states should govern themselves, hunting is actually more humane than pumping our poor cows with steroids and slaughtering hundreds of them a day, and Japan is single handedly killing off 1/3 of the world's marine life with their love of sushi (okay, so this is a bit of an exaggeration, but still). He also hunts bears and mountain lions and showed me a clip of him on youtube literally punching a cougar in the face. He also has 8, yup, EIGHT dogs that he has trained to hunt with him. He earns his money for school by living and fishing in Alaska during the summers. He held the car door open for me and fought off my black cloud twice as a attempted to roll him off the mountain when I mistook our path for a slip and slide. He only hunts with a bow and arrow. He has the scriptures pretty much memorized along with the entire history of America. Does anyone else get the feeling this man is fictional? At the end of the date, he informed me I was a "good sport". AKA, you are the most ungraceful and loud human being to ever live, your dream of living in the woods for the rest of your life is the most ridiculous idea ever cause you would die within the first few minutes away from society, and you could never pull a tree out of the ground like I did cause I am actually a super human combination of Chuck Norris, Bear Grylls, and Robert E. Lee. Essentially, I wouldn't be surprised if I wake up tomorrow morning with a book smooshed against my face containing a fictional character in it who I actually dreamed I went on a date with...

O-Hey-o

So my family has been in the process this week of moving to Ohio and a mighty eventful process it has been. Things were running deceptively smooth until I arrived with my black cloud of tragedy. Since it is my constant companion, I have been pondering a proper name for it as of late. I have yet to find the perfect one, but it will be forthcoming. Anyway, the day the of moving into the house my dear mother and I are in the living room when her ever watchful eye notices a box with the words "Broken Angle Wing: Careful". First off, I am very happy the group moving us knows how to spell. Most words commonly used in home can be discerned though incorrectly spelt from sounding it out phonetically. Ex: Kitchin, familee room, sliverwear, offis, ect. Second, it went over quite well with my mother that the "broken angle" was a fairy sculpture my recently deceased uncle had made for us. Not a big deal it is irreplacable and, therefore, priceless or that Kenny's death is still being grieved. Yes, mom took it quite well. After returning from her drive around her new favorite neighborhood, we found our genius movers had followed another bout of our instructions to a tee. Kenny had made another sculpture for my mother a few years back of three delicate seagulls attached to a piece of Hawaiian volcanic rock with a beautiful wooden base. As per our instructions, they were very gentle with this one. Kind enough to completely dismantle it in fact. They detached the wooden base from the rock and either accidentally or purposely detached the seagulls from the rock. Mom took this second blow even better than the first. She smiled sweetly and calmly told the family, "Well, I am going to go on another scenic drive for a few hours. I love this new home a great deal so far and am so happy our movers all graduated from Yale with a 4.0. See you in a few my precious pets". She took it very well indeed as she should have. They only destroyed two of our beloved sculptures. They could have destroyed all of his paintings too or our other more valuable possessions like my endless boxes of beaded pets, old school papers, and useless knicknacks. The cherry on top of our welcoming party came when we delightedly discovered we were going to see Wicked last night. Elated, we got all dolled up and left our box filled house. We got to sit in the driveway for ten mintues in the very pleasant 95 degree whether with high humidity while my father messed around with the broken garage opener, making us a bit on the late side. We rushed to his office to pick up the forgotten Wicked tickets and were within 15 minutes of the show when a driver ahead of us who made excellent use of his turn signal slammed on his brakes. Luckily, we weren't following at an "unsafe" distance and stopped before hitting the back of his car. The 19-year-old body builder named Josh who was driving behind us was not following at a safe distance and we got hit hard from behind. P.S. I had just got new sunglasses to replace the recently deceased zebra ones that died in the tragic cow butting incident. Another pair of sunglasses has joined my family of them in sunglass heaven. The best part of the accident was that Sarah, Kelly, and I had our seatbelts on because we are smart passengers and smart drivers. My dad called 9-1-1 like a good citizen and my mom sat in the front seat in a significant amount of pain. We are still trying to determine precisely what he said to initiate 3 fire trucks, 2 cop cars, and 1 ambulance to come to our very, very mild fendor bendor (our car has one itty bitty scratch on it). They loaded mom up on the comfortable back boards and I sat in the front and made a new friend out of our ambulance driver, Rick. Sarah and Kelly made friends with Josh. Dad made friends with the police officer. Mom made friends with the doctor who, as she told everyone while heavily drugged, was friendly enough to take her bra off for her before she went into X-ray. So in all honesty, though my black cloud held true to its name of injuring those around me more than myself, I technically helped my family make new friends in Ohio. WHat a helpful daughter am I? What would my family possibly have done this week without me ;)

Blueberry and Cyanide Smoothies

I am pretty much the smartest person I know. 3 Reasons why:

1. This past week, I decided to make a smoothie for breakfast. I tossed in some blueberries, cherries and my favorite yogurt (Plain Fat-Free Grade A Cultures baby!). I never really ate cherries as a child nor paid attention to those who did. I discovered between sips that cherries have pits. Astonishing, I know. Not many people know about it or that cherry pits (along with peach pits and apple seeds) are full of that healthy energy boost Jamba loves to use, cyanide. Turns out it isn’t a huge deal to swallow a few pits, but once you blend them up, it really gets those healthy juices flowin. From the said incident, I now have a new friend at poison control. Ed, a true gem of a man, and I might catch lunch sometime. Hold the cherries.

2. I signed up for a race called “Hurt in the Dirt” about a month ago with the impression it wasn’t going to be too hard. Jump over a few logs for 8 miles and call it good. I suckered poor Matty to do the biking (20 miles) part of the race and he so kindly agreed. The race was actually one of favorite I have ever done. I got to run through rivers, hurdle over huge logs, book it up some death trap stairs from the 1800’s, and slide down treacherous hills into overgrown trees. It was my kind of race. I couldn’t have been more in love with it. Matt’s bike course sounded like a living nightmare (sand hills, pebble beaches, log hurdling), but Team Milk proudly pushed through under the four hour mark. Why is this listed as a reason I am lacking in the intellect department? Cause it could have been bad (2 people broke bones, 7 received stitches, and about 60 pounds of ice were used for the injured) and I didn't do a whole lot of research (this is the first year though, so there wasn't a whole lot out there anyway) and Matt and I are both eerily prone to getting hurt doing stuff like this (or doing normal type things like breathing in my case). Also, the “trophy” you get to brag about how legit you are after a race is usually a t-shirt. Not in this race. You get a 64 oz beer mug. Also, I just wanted to tell the cyber world how fantastically fun the race was.

3. You know when you swallow water down the wrong tube and reflexively cough for a few minutes straight? People annoyingly come over and pat you on the back as if it is going to help your lungs relax which is so irritating you just cough harder. Everyone knows slapping someone on the back is never going to help them cough “better”. Where do your hands go when performing the Heimlich maneuver? Oh yeah, in between the shoulder blades. Really helps get air into the lungs and get that intruding piece of whatnot outta there. Anyway, I have started a tally for how often this happens to me when I simply swallow. Count is up to 6 since Friday.

God Beats Darwin

In this world, there are those who are not only accident prone, but incident prone. What is incident prone you may ask. Well, it is those people who always end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The ones that die because of such incident proneness fall into Class A. Those who are severely injured, must enter the Witness Protection program, or acquire any other extreme, though not fatal emotional and physical damage fall into Class B. People who make it out of “wrong place, wrong time” incidents with a few minor injuries are Class C. I belong to this latter category.
Ever since my wonderful father got my potato shaped body of the couch in seventh grade, I have been addicted to running. I am one of those who like trail running in particular. Give me a less traveled dirt trail through some woods and you have given me a tiny slice of what I hope heaven is like. I have been training for the “Hurt in the Dirt” race for awhile and yesterday I upped my intensity per say. There is this nice little paved path that loops around downtown Salt Lake that I was intending to go on. When I reached City Creek, however, I saw there was a dirt trail on the other side of the river that looked promising. I was not disappointed in what it had to offer: tons of rough terrain, trees everywhere, and marijuana. I had been running for about two miles when I slipped off a particularly rough part of the path and got my right leg covered in blood and dirt. Normal people would have realized the trail only gets worse after this point and turned around. Good thing I am normal. I trudged forward proud of the blood pouring down my leg and the dirt smudges on my face. As I went into the heart of the woods, a sickening sweet smell filled my lungs. Another signal to turn my butt around. I kept going, wanting to hit that hour mark before turning back. The smell became stronger as I pushed forward and I eventually saw something that did get me to turn around. A camouflaged army tent with some intense hand made fortifications. You know what? They could have just been innocent campers chilling out in the heart of the woods where no one really goes and where it takes an hour to reach civilization. I convinced myself of this, but still obeyed the warning signals going off in my head, “Go back you idiot girl”. As I ran back, I took a fork in the path and ran about a mile before encountering 6 guys right off the path getting high. Terrified, I sped up a bit and was banking on the idea they were too high to chase me, aim a bullet at my skull, or even care that I was there. As I sprinted into the brush, I heard one of them go, “Dude, where was she coming from? Do you think she saw the stuff?” I like to think by "stuff" he meant what they were smoking opposed to the possible marijuana field behind the army tent further back. While making it back to civilization, I pondered why I had escaped a possibly dangerous situation. Class C people generally escape by means of intellect, quick thinking skills, intuition, or by the aid of good Samaritan like people. Since none of these are ever really applicable in my life aside from the good Samaritans, I realize it was divine providence. I had gone to the SLC temple just prior to my run and was being blessed despite my idiocy. God beat Darwin. Natural selection would have wiped my sorry self out long ago, but divine providence has made sure I made it to this point of life. I realize this trend might not continue much longer, ergo, I have determined to go to the temple before every run from now on. Happy and Safe Running to You All!

Exercising My "Physical Prowess"

Since my life is roughly as thrilling as that of James Bond, Indiana Jones, or a long list of other fictional adventure seekers, I feel it necessary to relay the details of my ever exciting weekend on this lovely blog (still really detest this word). Thursday was promising. I woke up at about 10:30AM, read for four hours, napped, ate, felt unproductive, ect. I decided to do something with my lazy day and headed out to buy gifts for people I love, which certainly improved my lack of productivity. Oh, I also got shot at while grocery shopping. I luckily finished my day with a fantastic 7 miler and went to bed aiming for a bit more excitement to fill Friday up. I got up really early (10:30AM), did some exercise (rolled over twice in bed trying to hit off my alarm), and ate a hearty and healthy breakfast (I grabbed a cheese stick as I raced out the door). I had made a reservation to go kayaking with Caitlin at noon and we were supposed to be up the canyon a half hour before “the launch”. We luckily made it with plenty of time to spare, but ended up having to outdrive a giant rolling stone that was barreling down the canyon. Good thing The Beast has a lot of acceleration power. Caitlin and I were thrown into a bus with a bunch of tubers and the instructor so kindly informed all of the tubers how to safely go down the river. Since Caitlin and I are Olympic kayakers, we weren’t really concerned that he provided zero instruction for us amid his warnings of how dangerous the river was and how people died sometimes when they assumed they knew what they were doing. Not concerned at all. We loaded ourselves into the kayak alongside a plethora of tubers who were extremely prepared for the river journey. Caitlin and I, decked out in $2 dollar flip flops and casual swimsuits, thought our fellow river buddies were a little over prepared in their airtight water shoes, sunglasses, wet suits, and camel backs. Oh how wrong we were. We barely made it ten minutes before our epic crash landing. I feel 100% responsible. Not necessarily because I was miserable at steering, thought trees magically moved out of the way if you were barreling toward them, and had organized the whole trip with little knowledge of kayaking, but because of my black cloud. I should have emphasized to Caitlin before our journey how I am not only a magnet for freak accidents, but because those freak accidents generally involve the people I am with to be injured to a greater degree than myself. Examples: Last time I braved a river Me: Bruised elbow, excess of spider webs on my shirt, and calloused hands Kara, my canoe partner: bloody lip, knees, a spider bite the size of a grapefruit, a new fear of water. Skydiving adventures. Me: Broken tail bone. Instructor: broken back…Yeeaaah. Anyway, our kayak collided with the tree and poor Caitlin and I were thrown into the icy waters of the Provo river. The current was so strong we couldn’t take a single step in that direction and our feet kept getting cut on the rocks as per our cheap shoes floated down past the “overprepared” tubers when we fell. Luckily, a good Samaritan tuber so kindly grabbed our kayak and directed it to us. Caitlin grabbed onto it and then started whooshing down the river clinging desperately to its side. As I watched her pale face fill with fear and hopelessness as she bobbed swiftly away, I realized my ever impressive intellect and skill in judgment was proving itself as useful as ever. Good ole Steve the tuber caught up to my lovely friend and dragged her to the side of the river until I managed to bang myself against ever rock in my attempts to reach them. We hobbled onto our kayak with Steve’s help and Caitlin submerged into shocked silence for the next twenty minutes. My attempts to lighten the situation with comments on how we were like my Disney hero, Pocahontas, didn’t really seem to help, though my eventual mastery of steering did make things go a lot smoother..until we hit the bridge. Apparently the bridge is a death trap and we had received the instructions to get out right before it and walk the kayak to the other side of the river. We managed to pull the kayak out and drag it up shore with our impressive manly strength. Without shoes, it felt awesome to walk on jagged rocks, prickly weeds, and searing hot dirt. Eventually Caitlin let go of the kayak and let me drag it on my own. As I waddled along, I heard a very peculiar noise-a loud, blasting horn and rattling of some sort. Taking little thought to it, I looked at the weird wood and metal thing I was walking over. Weird..why is there this random metal, wood, criss-cross contraption in the middle of my path to the river. The horn started to get louder and the genius that I am, finally recognized the noise and what I was currently walking across with my ever so light kayak. Loud horn noise: train. Wood, metal, criss-cross thing: Train tracks. Awesome. I furiously started pulling the kayaking that was going nowhere fast. Caitlin, still in shock, came over and started kicking it to make it go down the hill. We made it over in time-barely in time. The rest of our river adventure was thankfully uneventful, minus Caitlin almost getting her head knocked off by a fish that was dangling from a poor fly-fisher we almost hit. I don’t think anyone on the river was impressed that day with my steering skills-especially the multiple fly fishers. When we finally got back to the launch site, Caitlin practically kissed the ground with happiness exclaiming, “We made it! We’re alive!” Haha, that girl is one heck of a good sport. In response to my profuse apologies, Caitlin simply said, “It really was..fun. Just not something I will ever plan on doing again” Good thing she is a very forgiving person.

When I got back to the Riv, it was time to set off with Matty on a ten hour road trip to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. Ole Matt knew of my black cloud and refused to let me drive and also took extreme precaution in having me close to him. My good natured cousin and I drove FOREVER, but had fun doing it. When we got to Idaho Falls, we were struck with an intense desire to eat Little Cesars Pizza. After wasting thirty minutes driving around the city and not finding one, we decided to find one at the next exit. Guess how many people live at the next exit. City population: 34. Highlights of the town: A gas station. Oh boy. The next town that had more than two buildings in turned out to be the worst town in the continental U.S., Butte, Montana. That deceptive little piece of work was a living nightmare. We were STARVING by the time we got there considering we missed out on that opportune moment to eat something in Idaho Falls. The only thing that was open was a Pizza Hut. It was with great joy we raced to the door, only to find it locked with a big sign that said delivery only after 10:00PM. Blast it. Matt called the delivery number and talked to the jerk of all jerks who refused to “deliver” it to our car. Frustrated, hungry and bordering on the thin line separating us from a new version of Bonnie and Clyde, we found a savior at Papa John’s who agreed to “deliver” us two large pizzas. Yum! After demolishing a whole large pizza by our selves, the food coma started to hit and we still had four hours to go. Matt then whipped out a 5-hour energy shot. I have seen them plenty and smartly avoided ingesting them, but this called for an emergency. As Matt held it to his lips, I asked how he felt. His response set me into a fit of laughter, “It’s not too baa---WHOA! Wow! Holy cow! That is some, wow, strong stuff” This solidified my desire to abstain, but it became soon apparent I wasn’t going to make it as co-pilot much longer. With a deep gulp, I shot back one of the strongest bits of caffeine I have ever had. I apparently started talking 100mph and reminded Matty too late about my heart condition. (Don’t worry, still alive and no passing out occurred) We fffiiinally made it to Coeur D’Alene at about 4AM. While trying to locate the hotel, I commented on how the street we were on slightly resembled an Alfred Hitchock movie. Not ten seconds later, we drove past a Bates Motel. No joke. (This is getting lengthy,..) Anyway, the next day we went mountain biking through the breath taking woods of Coeur D’Alene. We saved ourselves $9 a person by not taking the shuttle (hahaha, this is now a new family joke I hope never will die), saw Mikey be the best roller-skating, puppeteer there ever was, and drove another blasted 12 hours back to SLC. The ride back was fun for me because I spent all but two hours reading the entire seventh Harry Potter book again, much to Mug’s and Mikey’s angst. I am apparently the sole creator of interesting conversation. ;) Overall, I feel my weekend adventures far surpassed anything some fictional CIA agent or treasure-hunting archaeologist could have ever conjured.

How I Celebrated America's Birthday

1. Skipped out on the usual 4th of July 6AM breakfast and had the same meal at 9AM in our pj’s instead.
2. Finished reading “Catching Fire” at the Riverton City parade
3. Had Matt describe what a heart breaker he was over dinner at Chili’s
4. Ate delectable kabobs and other tasty food at the family BBQ
5. Pretended to be pirates on the trampoline with Lincoln
6. Went to church and sang hymns about patriotism
7. Had another BBQ minus kabobs, plus heavenly grilled chicken
8. Went on an hour long bike road through the boonies of the Riv
9. Took a 3 hour nap
10. Watched an intense firework show with Joe’s excellent commentary
11. Ran and owned a 5K with Luke
12. Rewarded ourselves for a race ran well with Jamba and Great Harvest pumpkin bread
13. Saved a baby cow with a random family
14. Got head butted by said calf and sacrificed my favorite zebra stripped sunglasses for the greater good
15. Sat in the park and read Plato’s Republic
16. Decorated Grams living room for her birthday with Lauren’s artistic aid
17. Went to SLC and increased my culturally expanding palate at Mazza’s
18. Walked around the magnificent SLC county capitol with my sista from another mista
19. Drove the road that inspires awkward conversations
20. Hated on The Beast for being a butt head of a car
21. Helped Lauren almost die falling out of The Beast
22. Loved The Beast for enabling me to go on adventures
23. Kissed a hot movie star (juust kidding. Seeing if you were paying attention)
24. Grocery shopped with Sarah
25. Hugged Brian and Sarah a lot and
26. Ate a pizza with two lovebirds
27. Roasted marshmallows and listened to Brazilian music with my fantastic cuz
28. Pondered the magnificence of the beautiful America
29. Remembered my loved ones who fought to defend my liberty and freedom
30. Loved my life a whole heck of a lot

Overdosing on Chlorine

As I collapsed into my bed on Wednesday night, I noticed I had gotten a text from Brother Packham at 11:30PM reminding me about the ward temple night for Thursday evening at 7:00PM. I sighed and decided I wasn’t going to go as per I had gone to the Salt Lake temple that day. As I was saying my prayers, I was struck by a feeling I needed to go. I decided to ignore it and resolved to go trail running instead. I woke up excited to start my day with the promise of Arabic food for lunch and a trail run to cap off the evening. Can I just say how amazing lunch was? I went to Mezza’s with a co-worker and if you haven’t been, you need to. The first thing I tried was the limeade. Talk about heaven in a glass. They squeeze fresh limes right into your glass then bring a tiny little pitcher of rosewater and orange blossoms to mix in at your own discretion. I also tried falafel for the first time and am in pure disarray that I have not been eating this delectable food source my entire life. Since I took an hour longer for lunch, I had to stay an extra hour after work. Perfect! Another valid reason to not go to ward temple night. As I was driving home, I took the usual exit and my car seriously started driving itself to the temple. I tentatively asked, “Are you sure I have to go to the temple today?” My answer couldn’t have been clearer or more definite. Okay, fine. I drove to the temple parking lot and had a wonderful conversation with a wonderful friend while I waited for 7:00PM to roll around. When I walked in the doors I was sad to see only Brother Packham and another boy from our ward there. Wow! A whole two from the singles ward made it. I thought, “Well, this is why I must have to be here. To raise the dwindling ward temple goers”. I got dressed and since no one was there, we got ushered in to the font right after confirmations. The boy stepping out of the font had this HUGE grin on his face and one of the temple workers smiled at him and passed him his name slip with the astronomical number of 100 on it. I stared incredulously at him and quietly asked, “You seriously did a 100 baptisms? In a row?” He just kept smiling and shrugged, “Guess so”. As I stepped into the font, the temple workers joked about me doing a hundred names. I laughed too, but secretly wished it wasn’t a joke. When we reached 25, they asked if I really felt like I could do an hundred names. Done! I was dunked into that luke warm chlorinated water a hundred times and honestly, I don’t think I have ever felt happier after going to the temple. I wore a silly grin for the rest of the night and it is still ever present on my face today.
Maybe I ingested too much water in the font, but I wanted to go swimming in the morning bad when I got home. I got together my huge pack, set my alarm clock for 5AM, and then woke up at 4:30AM with fear it had failed to go off. I just sat on the edge of my bed and waited for 5AM to come and then raced out the door to South Jordan Aquatic Center. I walked in expecting 6 or 8 lanes to show off my swimming skills. There were only two. Two that already contained two very hairy men with pot bellies. Arg. I awkwardly waded through the pool and asked one of the hairy men to share his lane. He literally just looked at me without saying a word. Cool. “How about we just stay to one side instead of doing circles?” More staring. Okay, seriously? It is 5AM, I know I look beyond homely. Then he just took off and started swimming. Get prepared to eat some major bubbles you silent, hairy man. After 12 laps, I was pretty sure drowning was on my agenda today. Mister silent man was kicking my trash. As he was speeding past me with ease at one point, he bumped my leg and my hand flew into the divider. Blood gushed everywhere into the water. From my pinkie nonetheless. How lame is a pinkie injury? “Oh, that huge noticeable scar on my pinkie? Yeah, I got that from a fight with a forty something man at the local pool. It was intense. I won, obviously. This impressive battle wound proves that”. Not quite sure currently why I thought I would still be in swimming shape considering I haven’t really been for the past three months. Overdosing on chlorine apparently convinced me I wasn’t an asthmatic walrus and also convinced me I need to devotedly go to the pool for the rest of the summer for the sole purpose of seriously kicking the hairy man’s butt.

The Land of Cheese and Elk

My weekends are generally something to be looked forward to with excitement and anxious anticipation. This weekend, however, brought more excitement than usual. I decided to go to Logan and visit my fantastic cousin Mugs. I made the occasional trips in my younger years with my family to see the elk and go to the cheese factory. This was the epitome of heaven for my family, especially my dad. I still look back lovingly on those memories, but have come to further question the abnormalities my family and I are privy to. The idea of bundling up the kiddies and putting them on a sleigh to travel slowly across a snowy expanse watching a herd of lazy elk eat and poop isn’t precisely something a lot of people did. I used to bring it up casually in elementary school conversations about how I spent my Saturday freezing my bones off watching some elk than got to eat samples of peculiar flavored cheeses. I would stand there waiting after describing my weekend for the other school yard kids to excitedly exclaim how they had done that the previous weekend too or how they were so jealous of the things my family and I did on our weekends. I still ponder on how I was completely friendless in those days…Diverging from that tangent. I miraculously found Megan’s apartment and decided to explore Utah State’s campus while I waited for her to get off work. I was struck with how breathtakingly beautiful it was and how surprisingly similar the campus was set up to BYU. I was walking up one of the many giant hills in Logan and ran smack into 3 uniformed USU athletes. My abilities in the suave department really came to my aid in this moment. One of them smiled and me and said, “Hey, How’s it going?” Instead of responding I just smiled and kept awkwardly walking right into another person who was waiting to cross the street. Startled, I apologized and snapped my head back to watch the rugby players walk away only to meet eyes with one of the boys who undoubtedly was watching to see if I did anything else extremely sexy.
Megan and I had talked about doing a few things, but we mostly just spent the weekend relaxing. She got back from work and we met up with her friends Steve and Karen. We went to dinner at the only place we seem to every go when we go out, Wingers. Our waiter had a lip ring so Karen decided to ask him if it hurt, to which he replied no. I jumped into the conversation with, “What about when you’re kissing? Does it hurt then?” Apparently he gets really great reviews and offered to ask one of the people he works with to testify of such or told me if I come in again, I can decide for myself. I never really liked Wingers anyway…A miracle occurred when we got back to the house. I played Nintendo and didn’t suck. That is, until Steve changed the level from “So easy a toddler could beat this thing” to “What seven year old kids do as a warm up”. My poor little victory at Star Wars Speed Racer was crushed into oblivion at least 30 times over. I went to bed shortly after to let “the adults” have grown up talk ;)
Saturday was by far the best. I woke up at nine and went on a fun hour long run all through Logan. I am still marveling at the beauty of that city. If you haven’t been there, you need to go right now. Seriously. Afterward, Megan and I went to the pool and resorted back to our childhood years. We jumped off the diving board, went down the slide, had a hand-stand contest and tried to touch the bottom of the deep end. I also got to read a new book called “The Hunger Games” while we were laying out and it was fantastic. We honestly bummed around after that. Watched a bazillion episodes of Psych, painted our toe nails, I finished my book, we went to church. It was truly lovely! So while venturing out to Logan doesn’t include the same activities it did when I was a child, it brought just as much joy as elks and cheese used too(and probably still would ;)

Creepy Old Men

I have encountered a wide range of creepy old men in my life. The ones who, when you go to shake their hand, not only hold yours for too long but do a nasty finger massage in your palm. Or the ones who stare at you with that uncomfortable, "If I was a few years younger" look. Well, I am apparently a constant attractor of the creepiest of the creeps. Now one would normally suspect this would be some sort of compliment on my attractiveness level. Not so. Those who are truly attractive intimidate creepy old men into suppressed restraint and cause all the young, non-creepy guys to fall in love with them. People like my roommates fall into this category. I unfortunately fall into the later. My extensive evidence comes from many years of creepy man encounters and is derived particularly from the experiences of the past two weeks. Here comes the cookie cutter definition of a creepy old man. I am walking with a semi-creeper man into one of the departments and we stop at this man's desk who I say "hi" to in the hallways sometimes. The three of us are talking for awhile and the creeper man turns to the other and says something to the effect of, "Thanks for bringing her around. I derive such pleasure from looking at young, beautiful girls like her". Um, what? I am standing right here mister! The favorite creeper comment came shortly after this. I said I wanted to go to Hawaii this summer. Jokingly, they said they said would come too. Creepy man numero uno goes, "I would go to Hawaii if you went. I would bring my binoculars so I could look through them and find your good looking body on the beach."Creeper number two goes, "I have binoculars with a camera..we could bring those" To which number one's reply was "Naw, like I said. I like finding pleasure in the now." They both turn to me and laugh. In the epitome of awkwardness I forcibly laugh for lack of anything else to do and hurriedly mumble something about getting back to work. Before I am able to stumble away, creepy man one asks if I have a boyfriend. Upon discovering I don’t, he expresses how grateful he is that my boyfriend won’t be coming to beat him up. He also threw in there how sad he is that his only son is married. “To have you as a daughter-in-law, ohhh, it would be like having sunshine in the house everyday”. I truly admire the skill of these men. Throw in some seemingly flattering and kind thoughts to mask the creepy ones. Impressive. Moral of the Story: Men out there: Don't be creepers. Thanks a heap!

One Year Later

This weekend marked a year since my old roommate Cindy got married. By chance, all of my lovely roommates were together again at this same time one year later. On Thursday we went to Bron's hilarious show and caught up at dinner afterward. I missed out on Friday :( cause I had a date, but they went wedding dress and ring shopping with Sarah. The date was really fun, though of course, my apparently awkward comments helped make it particularly interesting. For example, as we were eating a tasty chicken dish at Applebee's, my date said, "You haven't said much about your parents". My really suave and appropriate self replied with, "Well, that is because they were murdered by Ted Bundy when I was five". I attempted to laugh as quickly as possible after saying this to indicate it was a joke, but my poor date didn't think it was quite as funny as I did. When I told my parents this afterward, they also didn't think it was funny and reiterated their opinion that I have a sometimes off-color humor. I am disregarding their opinion in favor of believing that I am actually quite hilarious and mostly appropriate. Saturday D, Lys and I went swimming and had ourselves a successful little barbeque that night with B-Hobbs, Brian and Sarah. At the end of the night, I hugged my beautiful Lys goodbye and drove back to the Riv. Sunday was spent enjoying the blessings of going to church and spending time with the family for Father's Day. It made me miss my dad terribly, but I was grateful to be in the company of my second favorite family, the Milks. Mugs and I went to Provo that night to visit some of her mission friends and my desire to marry a non-white man was most adamantly enforced as I met her half Venezuelan half Italian friend Carlo. People with brown skin are just beautiful and posses a level of being sexy I will never achieve. Therefore, I must marry a brown person so my poor kids will at least have some chance of being attractive. With all the wonderful things that happened this weekend, I felt it paled in comparison to the one exactly a year ago. One of my best friends is in love just like last summer. I was around four of my favorite people in the world just like last summer. The weather was pretty much identical to last summer. It just wasn't the same though. This whole summer feels eerily like a watercolor of the previous neon streaked dream I experienced a year ago. I love this summer so far, I really do. My job is fantastic, my family is beyond wonderful, my adventures so far have been fun and fulfilling, but it just isn't the same. I miss people :( mom, dad, Sarah, mission friends...I hope I am able to turn this summer back into a brighter, more colorful experience soon and stop drifting back to compare the past to the present.

The Beginning of the Royal Announcements

I am currently torn about commencing this blog. Firstly, I hate the word blog in general. It is simply devoid of any audiotry appeal. Bah-log. Second, I have always mocked those who willingly display all their inner thoughts and feelings on the internet with the expectation all computer users will avidly follow every detail of said persons life. One might wonder at this point why, with my current inhibitions, I would succumb to starting a blog. Boredem is a dominating factor and I am also doing this to save my family and friends from having to listen to me for hours on end. The desperate need for a communication outlet was so vivdly displayed last night. I had the opportunity to go with my lovely roommates to "The Wedding Singer" at West Valley Hale to see one of our roommates perform her talented litte heart out. I attempted to dominate every conversation by telling supremely random and useless tidbits about my dull life and felt like putting duct tape over my mouth by the end of the night. I usually talk a lot and mostly about random stuff, but this summer calls for desperate measures. I am living with my aunt, uncle, a cousin who thinks I "crimp his style" and Zoe, the morbidly obese dog who tries to eat all my food and poisons the air within a ten mile radius when she passes gas. My other cousin, one of my best friends in the world, moved to Idaho today for the next two months which is another vital reason to find other resources of expression.
Interesting thoughts intenteded to salvage the lengthy explaination above: Today I watched an advisory committe for flibanserin. This drug is intended to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premneopausal women. When I first looked at the presentation docket, I wondered if there was a condition known as hyperactive sexual desire disorder. As embarrassing as stating you have no sexual desire could be, I tried to imagine going into my doctor's office and telling him/her about what a sex fiend I was and if there was treatment for that. The second thought provoking item was the sponsor presentor was a sexologist. Sexology is apparently the scientific study of sexual interests, behavior, and function and a valid profession. I wonder if BYU offers sexology as a major. If not, I am sure they at least offer it as a minor. Books to check out for the semester: Kama Sutra, Reproductive Anatomy, Pedophilia 101,...oh the possbilities. I am immensely looking forward to the day someone introduces themselves to me as a sexology major.
So it begins. The random declarations of a king :)