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...