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 :)