Thriller! Oh, How This Does My Heart Some Good.

Why yes, that's Katherine and I.
Why yes, that is my Stats Practice Final.
Why yes, it is projected behind us for me to study...
The Varsity Theatre.
Finals Week Fall 2011.

Christmas Delight #4

Messiah Sing-A-Long.

I had never heard of such a thing. Until Katherine threatened me several weeks ago that we ABSOLUTELY HAD TO GO--NO MATTER HOW BUSY WE WERE WITH FINALS. She said that her family has been going for years and that she even owns her own copy of Handel's Messiah. So Monday night, we skipped FHE once again (such delinquents we are) and loaded up in Danger my Ranger with multiple old-copies of the Messiah "borrowed" from the BYU Music Library (we even picked up the copies after hours--Katherine has connections)and drove to the Orem Library. Where we stood and watched 4 Opera singers walk out in front of a half-orchestra and sing their solos-which were amazing-and then when we got to the Chorus parts, everybody sang and sang and sang and sang. It was simply glorious. A wonderful night indeed. I finished it off by driving home the 'scenic route' even though I didn't quite know where I was; I knew that we could see more Christmas lights on houses if we took back roads rather than State Street back to Provo. It was a fun adventure and so. much. fun.

GAH!

Lately:

-Working for the HC office part-time, which is taking all my good study time. But I've finally been able to get the hang of things; beginning to be my sarcastic self with the co-workers.

-Trying to motivate myself to not fall asleep while studying for finals. Thus making Katherine and I get off of our beds (bad place to study at 11pm at night) to get on the floor and do sit-ups.

-Trying to enjoy finals week, one of my favorite weeks during the semester because 1) you have no classes to attend 2) after each test you take, your stress level and focusing ability decreases in huge proportions 3) studying in random rooms on campus is different and more fun than the HBLL so I can use all the classroom resources (projector, sound system, smart board, lazers, white boards, talking aloud, etc) Side note: On Monday, Katherine and I studied in the Varsity Theatre for 5 hours. We had the room rented. Background music was awesome and loud! It was a party.

-2 finals down and 2 to go--less than 24 hours :/ the only hope I'm running on right now is that tomorrow at this time I'll be headed to the airport to go home

-Packing because Mont's Management is dumb and won't switch my contract from 1 to 5 so I might have to move and it's just a whole, huge mess so I'll just keep it to myself and the roommates

-I feel gross. After taking really fun Aerobics and Jogging classes everyday I haven't been eating as normal things/at normal times and I haven't gone running in a week! Bleh, bleh, bleh! And I need to do laundry. And pack. Or pack my dirty laundry...

-I can't forget to sell my books back. Then buy some Christmas goods for the family while Bookstore is on sale. And do Rocky Mountain Recap. And Visit Teach? Oh, and cleaning checks.

-OH! And then party with the roommates tonight by watching Singing In The Rain, White Christmas, and Muppet Christmas Carol (definitely, falling asleep in this one).

Well, I'm off to work my heart out. Time to see if they stars will align for me to get everything done and finished!

Christmas Delight #3

The week before Thanksgiving our Monticello Ward had Service Week. My calling right now is Service Co-Chair, so I had spent a lot of time preparing with my assistant Co-chair, Aaron. The week was amazing. Man Monday. Turtle Tuesday (roommates). Woman Wednesday. Thankful Thursday (bishopric). Friend Friday. Stranger Saturday. Serviceman Sunday. I made this awesome banner that we hung between the balconies of the boys and girls apartment building in the fishbowl. And we had sticker charts for each apartment for people to fill out. We decided that if the entire apartment did service everyday and filled out their chart, our committee would serve them before the end of the semester. I was so excited for our Service Week and made it a point to serve everyday. It was such a joy for me to see service going on everywhere throughout the week. I know a lot of apartments didn't finish their sticker chart, but it was powerful to see through the fishbowl, different visiting teachers, friends, FHE friends, home teachers all getting served by each other. The fishbowl is quite transparent, between our super small sidewalk barely separating our buildings, and the massive windows/sliding glass doors to the balconies, you can basically see what your neighbors across the way are up too, especially when people were serving each other. I love this Ward. By Stranger Saturday, I still didn't have set plans for Thanksgiving. That's when John surprised me with a ticket home to see the beloved parents. Which meant that I would miss our Social Sunday where we planned to write letters to the Serviceman. I felt really lame leaving Aaron by himself to hit off a Sunday evening Ward Social. But today, in our Committe meeting, he stopped by and gave me all the letters my Ward had wrote to the serviceman at this activity. Jim's planning on giving me an address to send to a unit in Afghanistan. I wasn't quite feeling a Sunday nap earlier today, so when the roomies were dozing, I sat myself down and began reading these letters. It didn't take very long for me to get teary-eyed and feeling my heart just begin to swell and swell.

On one side I have this really amazing and special student Ward who I love and on the other side I have a love for these random serviceman who are going to get these letters. I love America. My family has always been patriotic, probably because of the military's influence in my Dad and brother's careers, and the fact that my parents have always shown a respect to what our America's history, values, and general spirit has been. Add some country music to my childhood where I adored any patriotic songs that came from my favorite country singers and I began to also find a love for this country of mine. When John was 18 he enlisted in the National Guard and went to Boot Camp. I remember him telling me that the people you would expect [I would expect as a teenager] to be a part of the Army would be different than whom he came into contact with--the many orphaned, high-school drop outs, messed-up-pasts type of folk. Then Jim was deployed and when he got back, I've heard little bits of snid-bits of information of what it was like for him and his soldiers to be away from their homeland. Comparably similar in circumstances to LDS missions, but also extremely different in numerous ways. So I day-dreamed it up with this a semi-supposed idea of what it might possibly be like to get random letters from a random group of Molly Mormons and Peter Priesthoods, if the most of my life had been screwed over. Which might under some circumstances be a little weird to read. But reading so much gratitude, hope, and love that came from individuals in my Ward who I know and already love was so inspiring. The Spirit basically popped out of these letters that I was reading in my little apartment in Provo, Utah and touched me because I knew, they were going to touch others who needed it. They spoke of truth. Sometimes very blatant truth about the Savior or scripture or America. Ha, especially the little premie who left a Chuck Norris joke: Super herose have Chuck Norris on their PJs, but Chuck Norris has solders on his PJs.

I think the people who are veterans of war become heroic because (hopefully) the gratitude and appreciation they receive from people who have no need to necessarily give it touches them to realize that what they're doing is something important and of value for the one. It's all about giving charity to the one. Whether it's through one letter written from one person, or one soldier who puts his life out on the line for a battle buddy or another human being from a different culture, or the charity of doing the temple work for 'the one'. And of course, receiving the blessing of being the one who receives the blessings of the Atonement. I am one of the many 'ones' that the Savior was born for, lived for, then Atoned for, and died for. ALL because he understood the love for the one.

Christmas Delight #2

Several weeks ago, I came home to dinner group (one of the roommates was cooking that night) and the roommates said they had a BIG surprise for me. I was pretty excited and anxious, since everyone likes a good surprise. I was handed an envelope and I immediately knew what it was and began to exclaim, sigh, shout, rejoice, call it watch you will. . . Katherine got tickets to the 2011 First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I love going to Temple Square and I love the Mormon Tabernacle Choir even more than that (I'm a MOTAB Sunday music addict) and I love even more listening to the Orchestra at Temple Square (my dream career job if I ever find myself in Utah when I'm older) accompany the Choir, and I love even more listening to our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson. Ever since I was a Freshman and won/randomly selected tickets to go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert with famous Brian Stokes Mitchell and we took off to drive to Salt Lake for the show and ran into traffic. It was tragic for my 18-year-0ld mind to miss the show that night. When we finally made it downtown, construction made parking out of the question and I just remember seeing the minutes switch by on the dashboard feeling more and more hollow and sad. The time passed for us to have been 'seated' and then for the show to start. We finally decided to just head back up to Provo. I silently cried the entire way home from Salt Lake from Provo. I was devastated. Every year since then I have requested tickets for me and everyone in my family to try and increase my odds to go to either the MOTAB Christmas Concert or 1st Presidency Christmas Devotional. When Katherine go the tickets, I knew she would take me. Otherwise, well...let's not go to what I would have done if she hadn't. My night was so much fun with the roommates and ward friends. We made crepes to eat on the way, drove to Sandy, took the tracks to downtown SLC, had AMAZING seats in the Conference Center, heard amazing Christmas arrangements by MOTAB with the Orchestra, and powerful messages from the First Presidency. Afterwards, we took a walk around the Square to look at the detailed lights and nativities from around the world. A cold, fun night. One of those nights where nothing could wipe the grin off my face!

Michael Buble! Cold December Night.

This song has pretty much been playing non-stop between Whitney and I. I've probably listened to it a couple hundred times by now. Unlike Justin Bieber's "Little Drummer Boy", which is horrible (we could only get through the whole song a few times) I WILL not be posting that song, but feel free to listen to it for the experience and read the lyrics if you want to know a little more about Chinchillas and have a really good laugh. It gets even more catchy the more you listen to it. This song does, NOT Justin Bieber. I'm beginning to branch out though and love Michael Buble's entire Christmas Album. Definitely a highlight to this Christmas season. Christmas wouldn't be the same without Christmas music now would it? Nope, not one bit at all!

(Especially when you're a college student who doesn't have time to take part in Christmas movies...yet!)

Blog Spoilers: Coming To Your Blogger News Feed Soon!

I'm a bit behind on my whole 30 day blog challenge. Of course, I'm tempted to play catch-up; but I've been trying to do the whole good, better, and best thing this time of the year (recommended from good'ol Pres. Dieter). I think I just might have the good vs. better thing down. Like giving up blogging for a few days to do other forms of procrastination before I really get started with stuff. Which is why I probably do not have the "best" part down. Tomorrow's the last day of classes, yay! I've been busy with the final assignments of the semester. See? I copied my Gmail To Do List below:

	Call for Seminary
	Take Jogging Exam
	Take Aerobics Exam
	Write Family Life Analysis Paper
	Stats Quiz
	Special Stats Quiz for Ex.Credit
	Student Ratings
	Seminary Paper
	Write Scripture Journal
	English Presentation

As you can probably tell, I still have a 5-paged-paper about Jesus to do by tomorrow morning for my AMAZING Intro to Seminary Teaching Class which is the BEST RELIGION CLASS EVER. I wish it was mandatory to take because I think everyone should take it. Which is why Katherine is signed up for it next semester. :D And I should be writing this paper right now. But I'm extremely tired from sleep-deprivation from getting #4 checked off and #9 checked off. I'm actually suppose to be napping right now. Instead, I'm thinking of what I would write if I had the time to blog. Since lately, I've been in a bloggy mood. Enjoy the spoilers!

	Spoilers
	Day 17 How You Hope Your Future Will Be Like
	Cold December Night
	You Have Agency!
	RIP Duke Turk (Eulogy)
	A World Without Mirrors.
	Christmas Delight #2
	Honor the Code
	It's That Time Of The Year...
	I'm In Denial--I'm A Band Nerd.
	Pictures For Mom and Bales

Something I Crave A Lot.

Would be a
hug
If you know me,
you know then that I absolutely love giving hugs
and receiving them.
I am what you would call,
a hugger
:D

Something I Never Leave The House Without. . .

I wish I could say something cool, like I never leave my house without a prayer, but I'm not that perfect yet. And the reality comes that if you know me, you know I'm notorious for leaving my cell phone or my jacket or shoes or keys or the reason for why I'm leaving my apartment when I do leave my sweet home. However, after having to train myself to pray not to break or lose anything (or forget to bring something) I have dramatically improved at remembering/handling my items with greater care. (Thank goodness).

The moral of all this is that I can't think of anything that I never leave the house without.