Here we go again!

Hello! I am back from my wonderful Christmas break and am starting my second semester at BYU. Time to put away the Christmas decorations, stop eating good food, and change my playlist to the regular one without Christmas music. Fun, huh?

So I got home on Saturday night after a long day of travelling and decided that I didn't want to be here! I was doing fine while I was leaving home and during the travelling process, but as soon as I stopped and sat on my couch, the tears started flowing. There was a definite hole or withdrawal from leaving home that made me sad. After some healthy, well-needed tears, I felt some weight off my shoulders and felt prepared to go back. Have you ever noticed that?Sometimes you need just a good cry. ~Cue Dane Cook's skit about crying. Look it up. It's awesome~. Sometimes the world taps you on the shoulder and squeezes those tears out of you like an orange in a juicer. And even though there are sad thoughts and unhappiness while you are crying, there is something about the aftermath of it that just makes you feel better. It cleanses your soul so you're ready for more crap the world is about to hand you. So if you haven't cried in a long time and you feel like you're depressed with the world, force yourself to cry and almost guaranteed you'll feel better.

Anyway, I digress.

So today was my first day back to class and I must say it went pretty well. The day started out pretty well because I got to sleep in. Since my plan is to get a morning job on campus, my classes don't start until noon or 1:30. So I take my time getting ready and head off to school. I get to my English class and, of course, think that it's the wrong class because even though the room number is right and the building is right and you're there at the right time, you think you're at the wrong place. It happens. But I was at the right place and my teacher seemed funny and easy-going so I think it'll be a good class. I proceeded to my Book of Mormon 122 class after that and almost stepped into a Statistics class. Yikes! So I proceeded to the room next to it, which was the right one, and found out that Todd Parker if freaking hilarious. Thank you, Liz! He was explaining the syllabus like every other teacher and then all of the sudden he would burst out with some movie quote or just kind of stare out into the audience and point at two guys and be like "Are you two twins?! You look like it! No? Ok, never mind" and then continue. I can tell that'll be a good one. Then I headed to my honors Biology class, which has such a funny, quirky teacher. It was weird having an hour and a half class in stead of a 50 minute one like I did my first semester. All in all, my teachers are funny and the classes seem good. A pat on the back for moi for picking my Monday-Wednesday classes. (We'll see about tomorrow's classes...)

One thing that will be different this semester will be that I will have more work to do. I will not be able to get away with lazing around all night without doing any significant homework most of the time and in stead watch movies online. Nope. I have reading assignments that I have to do for almost each class every night so when I get home and have that free time, it will be spent doing homework. WHAT? I HAVE TO STUDY? Yeah, weird.

One thing that I noticed, however, is how much we as humans crave other human interaction. I swear. I was feeling the let down of coming home and having to go back to school and just feeling sad/stressed/unmotivated. Then, I started talking to my roommates and I went to FHE tonight and had fun with my group and just felt so much better! Goofing around and joking with my roommates and talking about our classes and our homework just boosted me up and made me happier to be here and more motivated and made me feel like "Ok! I can do this!" It's amazing how much friends and just general people around you can affect your mood. Granted, this might just be me and my personal needs, but I seriously don't think I would have survived living in an apartment by myself. I need other people, which is good and bad at the same time.

So yeah, that's what's going on in my world. First, feeling unmotivated to go back to school and missing home and then being lifted up to feeling ready to go and ready to continue college and my independent life. (That's such a weird transition, by the way. Turning into an independent adult from a dependent child under your parents. Weird.)

Right on.

Christmas Joy!

It's Christmas time! I love the Christmas season. I love the snow and the lights and the smell of christmas trees and being around family and just the general joy I feel around this time. I'm so glad I'm not one of the those people that has been scarred by Christmas in some way so they get all depressed or angry during this time. THANKS PARENTS FOR NOT SCARRING MY CHRISTMASES!

So it's a little different this year because I'm at college. *Breathe, Stephanie, Breathe*.

My heart sinks at the fact that I'm not going to be there to do the gingerbread house with my parents and put really funny stuff on it and impailing the gummy bears on the trees and sides of the house. I'm also not there to help get and decorate the tree. I'm not going to be able to help my dad pull it off the car roof and bring it into the house and try to stand it up straight. I'm not going to be able to have the pine tree smell on my hands for two days after that. I'm not going to be able to watch ebony creep in the mysterious and deep forest that is the Christmas tree and then get high on the smell of it or the water or something and watch her dart across the room behind the couch. Sadness.

But fortunately, I have done mini-versions of these here at college life! It's pretty exciting.

I got to make a gingerbread house with my little cousin Helen. I actually put the house together with the frosting and it actually stayed up and it didn't break. SUCCESS!! My mom always does it and never let us kids because it was a very "delicate and complicated procedure". Helen was so creative with her ideas and everything! And she loves pink. Hence the pink walkway and pink woodpile, which you can't see because it's on the side of the house. It was really fun.

On top of that, because I'm such an awesome FHE mom, I made our group make gingerbread houses with graham crackers for FHE one night and I made one for myself!! It's sitting next to my little Christmas tree.

Which brings me to my next item. MY TREE!!! Since I wasn't able to participate in the tree-ness of Christmas at home, I decided to get a small one with lights for our apartment.

Isn't it beautiful!?!?!? The tree was 8 bucks at target. With the lights and the ornaments and the skirt thing, it was all about 20 bucks. Awesome. Yeah, so it makes me happy every time I look at it. Even though it's not real and it doesn't smell like Christmas, I can still live with it. The sacrifices you make when you go to college. *sigh*....

So yeah. And to make our apartment even happier, my roommate, Britney, had some lights that she put up on our window.

It's my favorite thing to just sit on the couch at night with the lights on and drink hot chocolate. I sat next to them the other night and it was snowing outside. CAN IT GET ANY BETTER?!?! Oh yeah, it can. Ebony could be sitting on my lap and Skink next to me on the couch. But it was still pretty awesome.

So this is a lot of Christmas-ness. You'd think I'd be done. But i'm not. This is just the beginning. MUAHAHAHAH. And this might turn out to be one of the longest posts I've ever done. Okidok.

So for our last ward social, there was a dinner and then we all headed up to temple square!! It was so amazing!! Here are some of the pics I took.

It was so beautiful! Even though it'd be so cold, I think it would be fun to get married at the Salt Lake temple at that time of year with all the lights on. By the by, the last picture is my favorite. :) Even though there's a big light post in the way, but I kind of like the light post.

ANYWAYS! So that was really fun. Other fun events included watching "A Christmas Story" for FHE one night, watching rudolph and other movies on YouTube, and listening to the Christmas music on my playlist from this very blog. I'm just so full of Christmas, it's coming out my ears.

So to share some of the oozing Christmas goodness, here are some clips to bring you Christmas cheer.

Yes, the quality is crappy, but this is the best quality I could find of this song.

It's so great!

Ren and Stimpy classics

Elf

So yeah. Enjoy all the Christmas-ness. I'll be done with finals soon and then off on a plane home to just bust out in absolute glee!!!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITED!!!!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!!!!!

Right on.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

This is a great day to stuff your face with mountains of food and take a 5 hour nap!

And in honor of this holiday, I put up this video to really bring the Thanksgiving spirit!

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

Hardcoreness=Beethoven

Ok, so in my Music 101 class we were studying the Classical Era. I actually have to take the test like today...hmmm I should probably study...ANYWAY! We were studying Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Mozart's awesome. A child prodigy who could play anything and could make up amazing music. Yeah. Haydn, very popular. Lived a long time and the French and Italians freakin stopped the war to commemorate his death!! Now that's respect. But really, I think Beethoven is the coolest.

His music was awesome but kind of rebellious for his time. He would push the players to play really loud and the music before then was not really meant to be played that loud. Concerts went from background music to performances. He might have done it because he was going deaf and couldn't hear as well, or he just thought it made a bigger impact when played fortississississississimo. I'm gonna go with the second option. Yeah, a lot of anger of being beaten as a child and from going deaf comes out in his music. Just listen to his 5th Symphony!

Yeah. It's freakin awesome. My personal favorite is the third movement, but no one hears it. Yeah. And then it goes straight into the 4th movement which is very VICTORIOUS!! It's like Beethoven is screaming

I'M DEAF AND I'M OK WITH IT!! SORT OF!!

Yup. Good stuff. Also, if you ever get a chance to watch Amadeus about Mozart, it is freakin awesome. His laugh in the movie is amazing.

Right on.

POAHD;FLAKS;HOIA;DFJLDSKJA!!!!!!!!

Ok...It looks maybe good...maybe...but it still might suck...yeah...

Maybe....

I DONT KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But I'm going to the midnight showing on November 20th. :D

Right on.

Giving Blood = Not Worth It!

I am never giving blood again. I know, it sounds harsh and there's a blood shortage at some places and everything, but I have A positive so it's not very rare. So I don't feel bad for never going back again.

I got out of class, went to get something to eat because I hadn't had much to eat in the morning and nothing looked good so I just grabbed a Jamba Juice and started to head home. I walk by and see that the blood drive is going on! I was excited because I missed it last time and I've been meaning to try! (Last time my iron was too low. They didn't even give me a sticker that said "I tried". Jerks.) So I get there, sign the paperwork and my iron was just on the very minimum so I could do it! I was so excited!! I would be able to give blood and do a service and feel good! Little did I know I was about to embark through a series of events that were really unfortunate and made me never want to give blood again.

I get there and they start to try to find a vein. This girl had a hard time finding one, asked another nurse and he said it was fine. She poked it, looked at it and said it needed adjusting. After like three different nurses tried to "adjust" it, meaning just poke around until they find a vein, I was in a huge amount of pain and they just finally found it. Ok, phew. So I gave blood and it went pretty quickly and I stayed after for like 15 minutes and had a chewy bar and gatorade to get some food in me and feel better. So I started to walk to the bus stop.

I get there, call Mom and Katie saying I'm totally fine and that it hurt, but I wasn't dizzy or anything and it was good. After I hung up, I suddenly felt very very nauseated. Gross. I stood up and walked kind of around the corner just in case I barfed. ( I didn't want to barf in front of people). I started getting really dizzy and saw the bus was coming. I thought to just get on the bus and then I'll feel better there. I remember kind of stumbling over there, turning around because I felt dizzy and that's the last thing I remember. Next thing I know, some girl turns me over and I hear "Are you ok?!" And I felt like I was just waking up from a nap...on the ground...in the dirt...at the bus stop. I had dirt in my eyes and I couldn't open them! It sucked! The paramedics came and made sure I was coherent and they asked me my name and information and everything, blah blah blah. I was dizzy and I couldn't see and I lost a contact and I hurt my knee and it sucked. The paramedics said I was fine and told me that because I hit my head and had a baseball-size lump that if I felt nauseated and vomited that I should get it checked out because that means I hit my brain pretty hard.

The cop took me home and I lie down. Then, I started feeling just really gross and felt like I was going to throw up . Gross, huh? So I eventually did, twice, and ended up going to the ER. FUN DAY! I waited for like two hours to get into a room while Aunt Katie was telling us to go complain and demand a room when I felt totally fine and had really no symptoms anymore except that I was hungry since all the food in my stomach was...gone. I finally got in, doctor asked if I had any symptoms, I said no, so he said I was fine, but I asked for a scan because it would give my family a peace of mind to know that I didn't have a cracked skull...or brain tumors that have been there for years. And it was clear. I was fine.

So all in all...don't give blood. It's stupid. That person better freakin enjoy that blood too.

Right on.

No blog-ige.

Yeah I know, I haven't written anything for a while. I don't have anything to say! I can't think of anything to post or I'm just to lazy to post. So I just basically use it to listen to my music. So, those of you who read it, unless you want to comment and ask me to post about something about me that you want to read, I'm gonna continue to not post until I feel like it. So yeah.

Oh, and by the way, Star Trek is freakin awesome still. If you haven't seen it, GO.

Right on.