12of12 Catch-Up

I understand that I haven't posted any 12of12 photos for...months. So here I am attempting to play a little catch up. Some will still be missing, but we'll get to them soon enough.

SEPTEMBER

1. I have moved to Virginia! This desk is more specifically where I will be living for my first semester of college. 2. The fog! Oh, the fog! Usually you would see my school in the background, but the fog here is so thick that it feels like you're swimming through it. 3. Durham Hall. This is where most of my classes take place. 4. My first class for the day. In this school we don't have fancy equipment, just a good old chalk board and pretty wall colors. 5. These are the stairs I must climb up each day, sometimes multiple times a day, to get to my living residence. 6. What every missionary and college student live for - MAIL! 7. My two roommates (on the outsides) and a good friend (sandwiched in between). 8. My dorm building. The Lofts. 9. Study time. 10. Dinner. 11. I put up those cups as I was running for SVU Senate. My friends helped. 12. Even before we knew each other, my roommates and I coordinate our styles. These are our towels.

October

1. It happened to be Nerd Day at school for homecoming week - hence the clothing and cheesy smile. 2. Classics of Western Lit class where we were discussing the Aeneid. 3. I'm engaged! 4. Spanish class. 5. A trip to the post office. 5. I am obsessed with sticky notes. They are scattered all over my desk reminding me to do homework, go to meetings, and what days I go to work. 7. Darlynn's (my roommate) family came to town and promptly decorated our dorm and our window with Halloween decorations. 8. Darlynn's suspenders for Nerd Day. 9. The view from the top of the stairs. This is what you normally see without the fog. 10. I love the fall season. It's especially colorful here, even in the rain. 11. Soccer game! We actually won this one. 12. After the soccer game there was a "Flour Fight". We stuffed cooking flour into nylons and used them as weapons. Darlynn and I were so dirty we couldn't wait for one another to finish a shower to get clean so we both got in the shower (we had clothes on - don't get smart with me!)

Well...that's it for now. Until the next 12of12 catch-up.

Three Old Grouches

Ever since I was little I imagined myself moving to the bustling city of New York as soon as I turned 18 to go to an ivy league college. I would live in a modest apartment where I would wake up and make myself a healthy breakfast before venturing onto the crowded and noisy streets full of stockbrokers and Broadway stars to walk to school where I would meet up with my devilishly handsome boyfriend and go to my business classes taught by Donald Trump.

Instead, I'm sitting in a small dorm room at the campus of a small college, SVU. This year is special to the college because they have reached an astounding new record with the number of students attending - a proud and whopping 800 students. That's right. 800. It would be an understatement to say that this town the oh so proud university is nestled in is a small one. Buena Vista, Virginia. Ever heard of it? Neither had I.

However small the university is, it's big news in the town. At first the townspeople weren't too happy about the Mormon's taking over an all women's college formerly called Southern Seminary in which many of the women that lived here had once attended. So today as I and my roommate Darlynn assembled together with our fellow students to walk in the Labor Day parade (Labor Day is a big holiday in BV and is the kick off to all political campaigns) to represent our school I was bracing myself for hillbillies to gather up and down the streets, armed with their rotten tomatoes and ears of corn to chuck at us. I am glad to report that as we walked down the street we remained clean of rotting vegetables...for now.

Utah Bucket List - The Completion

Well...I've moved to Virginia and although I haven't been writing lately I have indeed been paying attention to my own dear little blog. For example, I did carry out 4 of the 5 things on the bucket list. The only one I didn't complete was #4 - Learn how to cook things other than Ramen and mac&cheese. I have an excuse for that one though, you see, for the dorm I am currently in, typing this entry, does not have a kitchen, and therefore, I wouldn't be able to cook anyway. So, therefore, learning how to cook would only aid in a depression for I would not be able to share my delicious creations. Instead the recipes would stay bottled up within me until eventually I would be crying homemade tomato soup and sweating Alfredo sauce.

ANYWAY...

1. Attend the Twilight Concert series - I did indeed attend one concert that the Twilight series hosted. I know...I know...one concert this summer. I'm a failure. BUT, it was a pretty awesome concert. I attended with my besties Adriana and Kenzie to watch the band Ghostland Observatory. Being the daring 18 year olds that we are we ventured in to the heart of the crowd were we encountered many strange people who included but were not limited to: a drunken man trying to feel us up, three to four men hitting on us, make-out partners, and a hippie man trying to flash us.

2. Spend the day at Lagoon - I managed to be able to do this twice, once with Adriana and again with Jordan and Duffy. Both days were so much fun and...there's not much else to say about Lagoon. It's a Utah thing. You only get to know about it if you're special.

3. Eat a lot of tacos from Taco Bell - After many discussions about exactly how many tacos were considered "a lot" we (Jordan, Kody, and I) settled on the number six. A couple is two, a few is three, several is four or five, so therefore a lot is six. With this new found knowledge in our minds the three of us sent out for a Taco Bell where we encountered an ill mannered Shift Manager named Shane at the drive through. He was first angered by the fact that we wanted two separate orders, and then when I asked for some hot sauce before leaving he leaned over the window, stared down at us with condemning eyes and said, "Seriously man, that's messed up," in a lazy, stoner-style voice. He eventually obliged my request, but not before accusing Jordan of turning his head and ignoring him when he was sure he asked if we wanted hot sauce before. No such thing happened.

4. Skipped....my apologies

5. Do something crazy! - There are two possible candidates for the covetous position of this number five bulliten on my Utah Bucket List. I will list both, and you can decide which one you think is more deserving.

a. At the above mentioned Ghostland Observatory concert my dear friend Adriana jumped at the offhand comment that I wanted to some day crowd surf. When she heard this she turned to me, her eyes wide with excitement as she yelled over the music, "Really? DO IT!" Less than a minute later she was asking a pair of tough looking guys next to us to help lift me up and get me going on my crowd surfing adventure. Less then two minutes after commenting I was indeed crowd surfing. And no Meili, my boobs didn't get grabbed as I was living this small adventure.

b. After the concert Adriana was driving us to a local Denny's where we (Adriana, Kenzie, and myself) would meet up with our other bestie, Kolbie. As we were traveling down state street Adriana casually observed, "Wow...there are a lot of cops out tonight," followed almost immediately by "Crap crap crap! I'm getting pulled over!" Irony definitely has a sense of humor and likes to pray on innocent girls.

So there you go...my something crazy can either be crowd surfing, or getting pulled over with my friends for the first time in my life. If you can't make up your mind I guess we can just conclude that that particular night in itself was pretty crazy.

Cotton Ball Mouth

Waking up under the bright lights of a small, semi-private hospital bed, the first thing that came to my mind was something along the lines of this...

Do I have cotton balls in my mouth? I wondered with confusion. Really, I thought a tonsillectomy was supposed to clear out my mouth, not make it seem like large, white, fluffy, balls had been implanted on either side of my throat. Talking didn't yield much of a difference in my thoughts of cotton balls either.

However, as I tried to walk out into the waiting room where my dear mother was waiting to drive me home, thoughts of cotton balls turned to jello as I focused on my legs. Walking proved to be a difficult, and oddly amusing ordeal.

After some hard work I made it to the waiting room, pretended to understand the nurse as she talked to me about...I don't remember, and finally was helped out to the car. I smiled on the way home, realizing that my body did not feel like my own. It was a short drive, and I kept thinking how nice it would be to get home and take a long nap to work off the anesthesia that was taking my body as a fool. I was surprised that I didn't feel worse.

And then I got home and threw up.

Utah Bucket List

I'm moving to Virginia. Buena Vista to be exact. Never heard of it? Neither had I.

Sometime in the very near future I will be walking up large hills and complaining about the humidity. It seems like a glorious way to be spending my college years, doesn't it?

However, before I leave, I have some unfinished business with the state of Utah. Hence, my Utah bucket list.

1. Attend the Twilight Concert series

2. Spend the day at Lagoon

3. Eat a lot of tacos from Taco Bell (Buena Vista doesn't have a Taco Bell, only a Hardy's and a Subway)

4. Learn how to cook things other than Ramen and Mac & Cheese

5. Do something crazy (I need suggestions for this one)

That's all that I can think of right now, but I'm sure as the date of my move draws closer and closer the list will grow.

12of12 - February

Click on the block of photos to enlarge
1. At Meili's in the morning so I got to see Calvin in his cute PJs
2. February, Meili made these caldendars, I have on in my room
3. Beautiful flower arrangement at the lunch table after the Women's Conference I attended with Meili
4. Prom pictures
5. Miriam's birthday party was the highlight of my night are pictures of that. This is Morgan, my fierce cousin who just beat up a kid
6. My cousin Brooke and the birthday girl
7. Martin being as silly and crazy as he usually is
8. Calvin and his favorite aunt
9. Meili's taking pictures for her 12of12 too
10. Great Grandma Bell....you have to know her to understand how awesome she is
11. Cupcakes at the party
12. My mom and her sister doing their own pose (it resembles picture number 4 don't you think?)

12of12 - January

This year, my sister and I are trying out something called 12of12. Every 12th day of each month you document your day in pictures. This way you can look back over your year and experience the day-to-day activities that control the majority of our lives instead of just special occasions such as a birthday or holiday. I think it's very creative. However, since I am no photographer, and I don't have a fancy camera like most people who do this have, you get to experience the mundane, day-to-day of a poor, young, student. Maybe not as fun as I was originally thinking, but here it goes!

1) Getting ready to go to school. 2) The essentials. 3) Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and a banana. 4) First period, AP Government, studying for the test. 5) Lunch with the pals. 6) Third period, AP English. 7) At home, the flowers my dad bought my mom for her anniversery. 8) An after school ritual, giving my dog Suzy a biscuit. 9) Homework - Marketing final online. 10) More homework - studying for the Accounting final. 11) A healthy dinner. 12) I make my bed before I go to sleep.