Marshmallows? *sniff...*

I'm staying home from FHE because I still have ten more PAGES of Old Testament homework to cross-reference. Ugh! Needless to say...depressed a little. I mean, I'm missing roasting marshmallows! *sobs* I love roasting marshmallows!

Honestly, my life is sooo busy right now...I get up, go to Children's Lit, run to Old Testament (because the Children's Lit teacher usually goes a bit over, and the O.T. teacher hates you to be late), then run to work. Then I work...which is crazy. Every day seems crazier than the last...and every day I think "It can't possibly get any crazier." Maybe I should stop thinking that, eh?

Anyway, then I come home, do my Old Testament homework, and get to bed at 10:00 pm. The O.T. teacher told us that we should plan on doing the University's "recommendation" of 3 hrs of homework per credit hour. That means 6 hours of homework for his class. So far, that prediction has been correct. YUCK!

Andrew has a little stomach flu, I feel really bad for him because nausea is my least favorite feeling of all time...and he had a date planned for tonight. So sad! I really hope he gets better soon.

I hear grandma talking to Mommy on the phone. I think she's mad at me for not going to FHE. So now I'm going to get a talking to from my mother (bless her heart) about how I'm falling away from the church...I'm sorry, but it's either miss an FHE (*sigh...* marshmallows...) or get a B or worse in this class. I just know she's going to find some way to link this to my pierced ears...I love her.

Anyway, speaking of homework, I better get on mine.

"Yesterday"

I've decided that before my posts I'm going to start putting a picture of me exactly as I am at the moment. So this is me being tired and having no makeup on at all. Yay! Ugh...

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Today I was listening through all my iTunes stuff (lots of Old Testament homework), and came upon the son "Yesterday" by...the Beatles. I think. Band names are the bane of my existance!

Anyway, I had to smile, because I remember my Show and Chamber choir singing that one in 2006. At the time...the song did not make me smile. I was going through a really rough time, trying to get scholarships and keep grades up, having a tight schedule, and dealing with my now-ex-sort-of-boyfriend.

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For anyone who doesn't know the story I'll give the reader's digest version: This boy, I'll call him Manuel, liked me. He was friends with another boy that I really liked to hang out with, and finally Manuel asked me out. Because of this, the other boy stepped back. That made me sad. To make things worse (sort of), Manuel and I kept going out. We weren't really an item (at least, never in my mind), but he was the only one who ever asked me out...so he was the only one I dated. And I could NOT figure out why I wasn't crazy about Manuel! He was everything on my list! He respected him mom, opened doors for me, had a good head on his shoulders, was very intelligent, complimented me a lot, was romantic...he even sang! But I just didn't feel like I could be myself around him. So the guy I liked was staying away, and the guy that was okay thought that we were more serious than I did.

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So. Life problems, love problems...and I think there was something going on at home that was hard for me...maybe someone was ill, or something. I don't remember. Add that to the fact that I have a major problem with growing up...it just seems sometimes that life's passing me by before I can grab onto enough of it. But I couldn't keep from crying when we sang this song in Show and Chamber. I actually had to step out of the room. I mean, the lyrics:

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"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,

Now it looks as though they're here to stay,"

Well, I sure had troubles, and at the time it didn't seem like they were ever going to end. I saw no end in sight.

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"Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play,

Now I need a place to hide away..."

Speaks for itself. And there were times I literally hid from Manuel because I just didn't want to deal with him right then.

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Anyway, the point is, now I look back on that and smile! It's really a testament to me about how life has ups and downs, but the downs always end! I've been in many hard places since then and each time have not been able to see a way out--an ending-- to all the darkness around me. It seemed like I would go on in shadow forever, but I was determined to go on, believing that somewhere on the other side of this down there HAD to be an up. And I was right! There was always an up. Sometimes it took a lot of courage and admitting I had messed up, but there definitely was an up. How wonderful it is that our Heavenly Father has provided for us a way to gain this experience, and a way to get up from our downs! It takes courage, and admitting that we've messed up, and some definite work to get up from the down...but it is possible, and He helps us every step of the way!

My Pierced Ears Story

Me with my newly pierced ears

Well, it's finals week again (week...two days...ugh). And then I get a whole 2 day break before the next term. On the up side, my ear piercing seems to be healing fine.

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I promised some people I would tell the story, so here it is: My friend and I started out from my house around noon. I had google maps directions, and even a little ipod virtual trip to the place. Getting there happened pretty much without incident, except that it was raining buckets at times, but that's normal for here. When we got to the piercing parlor, she gave me my birthday present. It was a card that sang "Bad to the Bone" (her statement on my mini-rebellion, lol), and some earrings. Then we went in. The place was burning lots of incense, which took a while to get used to. Incense usually makes my head ache.

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Okay, back from work. Anyway, so we walk up to the counter, fill out forms that asked a lot of stuff (including my myspace...wow), and picked out my studs. Then we waited for a bit, then "Ed" took us back and pierced my ears. Not much to tell about that. He tried to make me at ease...my best friend told me later that I looked like I was going to faint. I didn't feel like it, and I wasn't all that nervous, but whatever. I was more nervous that I was going to faint, because that would be embarrassing...meh. He took 30 minutes to mark my ears, and then finally had me lay down, covered my face except my ear with tissue paper, and stuck the needl---

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That was Andrew. He's a dork (but I love him). Anyway, so he stuck the needle through my left ear, and put the earring in, and then he did the right ear. He did this one more slowly and I heard it pop. Oh, joy. Then it was done. They said if the piercing felt dry I should use emu oil. Emu oil?! Who has emu oil?! Anyway, so on the way back....long story short, my friend and I got hopelessly lost and ended up halfway across the state. So much for road trips without GPS, or any bathrooms in sight. Never again, I tell you!!! Well, eventually we made it home, and I fell into bed. and that's pretty much it.

Major craziness!

I know, I know, it's been a while. But I actually have a legitimate excuse...I got into my major! YAY! So I've been in major classes for the first time. I actually really like them most days.

Advanced Writing: Since I'm taking this advanced writing class Spring instead of Fall or Winter (the way it's usually taken), the workload is due a lot sooner (which means I had about a week to write a 10 page paper). But the teacher is pretty cool about turning things in a little later as long as we're up front with him about every little problem so he knows WHY he's getting it late, and he's great with revisions and stuff.

Math: It's really fun learning how to teach math and stuff, although I have to do a 25-minute presentation on Fibonacci numbers (25 minutes just for ME...oh joy). It's interesting to go home an test the stuff out on Catherine and Gordon and actually see that they do solve problems the way the Carpenter study says they do (for people who don't know what that is, basically Carpenter studied a whole bunch of grammar school students and found consistent ways they solve math problems).

Music: Just a BLAST! We get to do autoharps and recorders, and I'm actually getting to sound okay on both of them! At times it's sort of frustrating and boring because we spend a lot of time explaining scales and key signatures to those who can't get them. I don't really mind that. But when I heard one of the girls in my music class complaining about it (we were in math at the time), and saying that "It's like she expects you to already know half this stuff...I'm not musical..." I felt like standing up and saying, "We just spent a whole HOUR on scales yesterday, just for you...and now you're complaining that we don't help you enough?!" On top of that, when she was taking the test I noticed that she had positioned herself right in front of the scale chart and was just copying it down, so I guess she doesn't really want to learn it. But all in all the music class is SOOO fun! I even have the same teacher that my mom worked a summer for when she was in the program!

Other than that...I got my ears pierced for my 20th birthday! I actually like it, the fact that I can wear earrings and not even feel them. Andrew graduated (making me feel old, haha) and is going to be moving in sometime pretty soon here. When I get screenshots from the footage we took I'll post them here. I was soooo proud of my little brother! He starts here Summer term, so that will be fun.