Finals

Finals are finally over! Well, not really. I still have MCOM in about an hour. I hope it will go smoothly. I finished my STATS final. It was really hard, but I am glad it is over. After my final this afternoon, I am going to drive home. Hopefully the final won't take that long because I want to get on the road. I am ready to leave. I am ready to have a break from the whole roommate thing. I am super excited to go where Christmas actually exists.

I passed my cleaning check yesterday. My job was to clean out the fridge. There were things in that fridge that expired a year and a half ago. None of my roommates or I have even lived in this apartment more than four months. So I have no idea where that food came from. The cleaning lady is really strict, but she said we all did a good job on our cleaning. My apartment isn't that nice, so you can't expect the expectation to be too high. Anyways, this is probably the most boring blog post ever.

I'm blogging so I don't have to study....

Finals week is upon us. I took two finals today. I took my World Religion final as well as my Family Finance final. Both of them were relatively easy, although they both required a good amount of studying just to memorize all the random stuff. I don't have to take my business finance final because my teacher will drop your lowest test grade. All my other test grades have been high enough that I don't have to take the final. This is a huge relief. I am super grateful. All that is left is my stats final and my mcom final. My stats final is tomorrow afternoon and is going to be really hard. They are always really hard for me. It is my last stats class. After tomorrow afternoon, I will have completely finished up my entire major. Hooray! This is so exciting and slightly terrifying at the same time. I am finishing up school. I am getting ready to enter the real world (because the world I live in now is apparently not real....or so they tell me). My mcom final is on Friday afternoon, which I think is completely lame because I have to wait three days just to take it when I could be going home and spending time with family. Off to study some more...:)

Sarah Elizabeth

I got to meet my new cousin, Sarah Elizabeth today. My aunt and uncle adopted her a couple weeks ago from a young mother in Mississippi. Sarah is a blessing from God. My aunt and uncle have been trying to have another baby for many years. My aunt and uncle found out they were going to get the baby on a Thursday, and Sarah was born the following Tuesday. She is adorable, granted she hasn't quite woken up from her "newborn sleep." She has incredible dark hair. She was completely out when I was there, so I didn't get to see much of her personality. She is very precious and a joy to my aunt and uncle. I am very happy for them. My aunt says she feels like she was meant to be in her family. They are very happy to finally get a little girl. She has four older brothers who are excited to have a new baby in family....as well as someone to tease.

It's Christmas Time!

It's finally December! Thanksgiving is over. Black Friday has passed (thank goodness, I really don't like shopping...at all)

I love Christmas. There is not any snow on the ground, but it is definitely cold enough outside. Campus is nicely decorated in random spots. I bought a poinsettia for Christmas to decorate my apartment (yes, that plant is the only Christmas decoration we have, and it's wilting. In fact, it's almost dead). I am really excited to go home to Colorado in a couple weeks to actually get into the Christmas spirit with the decorations, the baking, and the movies. I feel like I really need to be grateful for all the things that I have, especially this Christmas. I don't know, I just feel like things are changing and that I am really blessed. I am blessed to be in school. I am blessed to be almost done with school. I am blessed to live in this country and have the freedoms that I have.

Thanksgiving

My plans changed at the last minute, and I was able to go home to Colorado for Thanksgiving. It was nice to get away and see my family. My brother, my Uncle David, and I left for Windsor on Wednesday morning and we returned to Provo Friday night. While in Windsor, I played games with my family, went shopping, and ate a lot. Our Thanksgiving meal was wonderful. We had all the traditional food. We ate turkey, dressing, veggies, mashed potatoes, cranberries, candied yams, and rolls. It is nice to have a real meal once in a while. The trip was short but well worth it. I am back in Provo now frantically working on homework and grading tests. I didn't do any school work when I was home. I spent about four hours grading Stat 221 tests this morning. Grading is my least favorite thing about being a TA. I am starting to study for my next Actuarial Exam, exam FM. It should be a lot of work, but I find the material interesting so it should be ok.

MTC

Yesterday, my little brother entered the MTC. I was able to go pick him up from the airport to take him over there. It was pretty cool since I haven't seen him in about three months and I have no idea where I will be able in two years. He will be in the MTC for about two months before heading off to Guayaquil Ecuador. Before I dropped him off at the MTC, we tried to visit some of his old friends. He spent his freshmen year out here last year and he wanted to see some of them before he left. We tried a lot of different people, but we only ended up seeing one person. We then went to Wendy's for lunch. My older brother Jonathan went with us. I am really happy for my brother and I am so proud that he made the decision to go on a mission. It will be a great, and hard, experience for him.

Baby Shower

Today I went to a baby shower for one of my old roommates Alicia. It was the first baby shower that I have gone to where the person having the baby is one of my friends and not one of my mom's friends. Alicia is seven and a half months pregnant and she looks great! She is one on-the-ball girl and she will be a fantastic mom. I got her a little fleece winter outfit. It is really cute. It was good to see some of my old roommates from a couple years ago. Everyone is growing up! Some are married and some are graduated. They even have real jobs.
We played a couple of cute games, and there was only one game where I refused to play. I am a "germaphobe" and they have a baby food tasting game where you had to guess what kind of baby food was in the jar. Once I saw someone double-dip, I was out. I couldn't do it. haha. It was fun and I am glad I went. I am very happy for Alicia and I wish her the best with the next couple months.

Statistics

I am taking my last statistics class this semester. It is called life contingencies. We are learning about expected insurance payouts as well as reserves and the probability of actually having to payout the money you expect to. It is super interesting for me, but it is also very difficult. We have a test coming up on Wednesday next week, and I am super stressed about it. I plan on studying the entire weekend for it. No Friday or Saturday night plans will be allowed. I am going to lock myself into the library and study really hard. All the rest of my classes are going well. My family finance class is super easy. It is so easy to the point that I never go to class. I have never done that before. I have always felt that it is so important to attend all your classes. In this class, however, I am not learning anything. I can get so many more things done when I am not in class.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! I love fall. I love all the leaves on the ground. I love crunching the leaves as I walk home from school each day. I love the smell of pumpkin spices. I recently had the opportunity to make a pumpkin pie from scratch. The pie was so delicious. I am not a huge fan of Halloween, but it gets me so excited for Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. I love spending time with my family and friends. I love eating so much I feel like I will pop. I have no idea where I will go for Thanksgiving this year or if I will get to see any family at all, but that is ok. I may get to make my very own Thanksgiving dinner this year. Of course it will not be as fancy as my mom's Thanksgiving, but it will still be good. I think I want to do a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I don't want to try to imitate my mom's cooking and then be disappointed. Maybe I'll make pizza, or lasagna, or teriyaki chicken.

Buy Someone a Coke

Last week, my professor introduced the assignment of "buying someone a coke." In this assignment, we had to buy a stranger something. I had to think about what I was going to do because this is completely out of character for me. After paying for some of the meal for the person behind me in the Taco Bell drive-thru, it made me think how this person felt. Since I don't know the person who was behind me, I am going to assume that they appreciated it. I know I would if that happened to me. I hope that they felt good about someone doing something nice for them. I also hope that they maybe they passed on the good deed; a.k.a. "paid it forward."
It makes me wonder if they thought about who the person was who paid for their meal was. Maybe they thought I saw them in my rear view mirror and fell totally in love with them; this is Provo, after all. Maybe they thought I was looking to lift myself up and to make myself a better person. You never know.

Mid-Semester

This week marks the half way point of the semester. I do not think words can describe how happy this makes me. This semester seems to have been going slower than normal. I have no idea why. Roommates, school, and work have all seemed to bog me down. But let's look on the bright side, only eight weeks until Christmas vacation. I don't really believe in wishing life away like this, so I guess I better stop. I should be enjoying myself. I am grateful to be in school, working on my education, and becoming well rounded. Sometimes it is just hard when every single day is exactly the same. I think I'm bored with the routine of school. I am trying to think of ways to change this, but school has chained me in and is forcing me to stay in Provo to complete hours upon hours of homework and studying. I know I am rambling. I am happy. I am just tired, and unfortunately this post may just be written as another assignment I have to complete. Next's weeks post will be better. I have to "buy someone a coke." :)

Balloon Boy

You probably all have heard about this little boy who supposedly went flying in this weather balloon that his parents had made to teach their kids about weather only to be found hiding in his attic five hours later. This boy is from my hometown so I kept an eye on the story throughout the past week. It made local and national news, and the coverage is still continuing. The media is beginning to examine the family and trying to figure out if the balloon incident was a stunt or not.

In my opinion, who really cares? The boy is safe, right? If this really is a publicity stunt where the family wants to be famous, don't cover the story on national news. Don't give them the attention they want. Let the local law enforcement figure out the intentions of the family and charge them with the misdemeanor of false reporting and move on. The national media is playing their game.

There's my rant.

p.s. The boy's name is Falcon, that's really cool right?

Fall is in the Air.

As the leaves begin to change and the season turns to fall, we begin to expect lower temperatures, snow, and big winter jackets. This year is no different. The leaves on the trees in the mountains are turning a brilliant shade of red and it seems to be cooler during the days. Earlier this week I had heard a weather report saying that there was a chance of snow on Wednesday. I was fully prepared for this. I got out my jacket Tuesday night and I planned my outfit for the following day. When I woke up on Wednesday morning, it was pouring. I decided that it would probably be best if I drove to school because I needed to look nice for the career fair and my job later that day. I grabbed my car keys and went up to campus. I was walking on the side of a road that is on campus, when a car was coming my way. Before I knew it, in slow motion, I could see a huge gush of water coming my way. All I could do was stand there and get completely soaked by gallons of water splashed on me by this car. The only thought that went through my head was Really? My plan to look nice and put together was thwarted. I was completely soaked. I quickly ran to my class and spent the rest of the day drying and freezing cold. Oh how I love fall.

I'm an Idiot.

This morning I got to work with a message for me to go to a review session as a teaching assistant for Statistics 221 at 4:00pm. I figured it would be ok since I am done with all of my classes and work by 2:00pm. I finished up all my classes and went back to work to pick up the materials for the review. I walked into the classroom, set up all the materials, and began to wait for the students and the professor to show up. I noticed that it was pretty close to the hour and nobody was there. Weird. I waited and waited and finally I looked up on Blackboard the time and place of the review. I was in the right room, just two hours early. Whoops! So here I sit in a very big, empty room waiting for 6:00 to arrive so we can begin the review. My only excuse is...well, there isn't one. :)

This week....

This week has been a very busy week. Unfortunately, I don't have very much to report about it though. It basically consisted of 12 to 16 hour days on campus doing homework and working. I had a humongous statistics test today and a business management test yesterday. I hope they went well.
So I have a random story...I bought this new kind of mascara last week, and I pulled it out on Sunday to wear it. It is a waterproof mascara and I found that I would not wash off my face when I tried to get it off on Sunday night. I tried everything from make-up remover, to face soap, to regular soap. I guess all the different kind of soaps irritated my eyes really bad because the skin around my eyes reacted big time. The skin turned bright red and burned for three days. I seriously looked like I was stoned or had been crying really hard. I felt completely disgusting with bright red eyes, so I avoided eye contact with everyone. I even saw one of my good friends and I turned around and walked away from he saw me so that I would not be seen. It was so embarrassing! I am very glad though that my eyes are back to normal. I actually wrote to the company telling them about my dilemma and they are giving me coupons to some of their other products. By the way, it was Marathon Mascara by Covergirl. Don't buy it.

Weekend!

It's the weekend! Thank goodness; so here I sit in the library doing homework all day. BYU has only been in session for two weeks and I already have two tests coming up next week. I will be studying most of the day for them. It's ok though. I am really liking my classes this year. The material is very interesting.
Last night, two of my friends and I decided to go to Cafe Rio and then the BYU's Fall Fest. Cafe Rio was amazing as always, but Fall Fest wasn't that great. We weren't really sure what to expect, but we figured it would be fun to get out of our apartments and at least attempt to do something fun. There was salsa dancing, laser tag, a bunch of video games to play, singers and bands performing, an actual dance out in Brigham's Square and other activities. This all seems like it would be fun, except for the massive amounts of people who attended and the big lines to get into everything. We ended up leaving after about 30 minutes of wandering around without doing anything.
We ended up back at one of our apartments to play games. We played Pit, Scum, and War. Our selection of games wasn't that great and there were only three people playing. Anyway, I had never played Pit before, and it was kind of interesting to play a game that tries to resemble a market economy. Scum was frustrating! One person won every single round, and we probably played 20 rounds. We could not overtake him. War was our last resort to find something to do. Of course it lasted way too long and I was very grateful to lose.
Overall, last night was a fun night. It is always fun to take a break from school work and spend time with your friends.

School

So I have nearly made it through the first week of school, and it has been a long week! I feel like I have frantically been trying to figure out my schedule all week. My work schedule has switched probably 10 times, and getting back into school mode has been more difficult for me this semester. All my classes seem interesting--which is a relief because I wanted to quit last semester. I absolutely loved my Business Management class today. The spiritual thought the professor gave really got me thinking about adversity and how we cannot give up. I am so excited to learn about different religions in my World Religions class. I have always had an interest in other people's beliefs and I think this class will help me understand what others are thinking.
I am really excited for the long weekend. I am not sure what I will do, but I will try to do something fun. If not, I am sure relaxing will be just fine too. I turn the ripe old age of 22 on Sunday. Maybe I'll have a party or something. You're all invited. Dang I'm old.