Study break.

8% body fat

Worry About Yourself :)

Meditation is a critical aspect of my identity. I wouldn't be me if I didn't have quiet time by myself to just THINK.
I know who I really am when I'm by myself, my identity with others is a natural extension of the things I have decided while by myself. Identity should be operated on a base, not sporadically made up based on the immediate circumstances.
I talk about myself because I am an expert on this subject, I am uniquely qualified. In talking about myself, I hope it helps you better understand yourself. worry about yoself :)
"Ideas are the currency of the academic world." -Unknown
When are you the happiest? When do you feel a rush of joy? When do you feel real peace? DO MORE OF THOSE THINGS.
When do you feel bad? When do you have regrets? Who pushes you to make bad decisions? DO LESS OF THAT.
That's really how I can summarize up Life at this point in time.
Stay tuned, xoxo

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas

Yesterday marks one month that I have been dating Regan. He is wonderful, I'll need to introduce you sometime. He is 6'1", big brown eyes, soccer player, Neuroscience major, and so thoughtful. He's great, so happy. #okblessed

Why, yes, I am in my Living With Plants Class. This class never ceases to amaze me with the quantity of anecdotal and irrelevant information that gets bounced around between these walls. Really respect the teacher's enthusiasm but. Teaching is an art that exiges a certain amount of empathy on the teacher's part to understand how to present their course's information, my Psychology teacher does this very well.

Last night, strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting, name: strawberry cream cheesecake. Catchy, huh? Tastes like a dream. Also made taco soup with "hot" taco seasoning, had a box of tissues handy. I aspire to habituate my taste buds to spicy things so I can live extensively overseas and eat fearlessly. 

I am watching Tarzan for the first time on Netflix, confession: the song "You'll Be In My Heart" literally has made me cry every time I've heard it. Kind of ironic because a line goes "just stop your crying" but it's soooo good. You pull at my heart strings, Disney. Also rewatched The Hunchback of Notre Dame, kind of on a Disney binge. Woah did you know that the Hunchback's master had a thing for Esmeralda?? Yuck to the nth degree. Did not catch that as a kid, praises. Esmeralda is the name of Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes' baby, right?

So I bought boots that have changed my life, I wear them with skinny jeans/pants and they make me look well-dressed, immediately. Finally, my clothes are working for me instead of me slaving over outfit arrangements. I guess you could say that I feel like the world is my catwalk. 

"Ecological Succession" that is the title of the powerpoint that just got thrown up onto the white screen. Ugh, this class is backwards. We started out learning the 834752983 parts of a flower and now we're talking about the food chain. Simmer, honey child. I need to find a way to make peace with this class, I'll just make my final assignment, a hypothesis notebook, super impressive. It's a pocket-size notebook with pictures of plants and I have to write 2 observations about each picture, no wrong answers, just do it. Seems simple, just need to take the pictures now...

I served a church mission in Tahiti for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (www.learningtwolanguagesinparadise.blogspot.com) and worked closely with an ADORABLE elderly couple who are super sharp and good cooks. They own a fishing resort in Alaska and they asked me if I would be interested in working there, uh HECK YES. So I called not long ago and the nice lady Lisa emailed me an application, so I'm going to bump that up on the priority list. Visit www.docwarners.com to be jealous of my hopeful summer. 

Ok, ciao! xo

Qualities of an Italian guy

I had an emotional connection to the main guy, trying to analyze why. Why?



Lorenzo Jovanotti Cherubini, Italian singer
His music video: Mi fido di te

Civilian Life

Time flies when you're having fun, hence the 2 months of incommunicado.

I'm in my "Living with Plants" class which is roughly 75 minutes of an older man telling us interesting factoids about planting season and unusual flowers. Not necessarily geared towards helping us succeed on tests, but if this was a club & if I had time to be in a plants club, I would stay entertained.

There are 2 kittens hanging out in my apartment bathroom right now & I'm having separation anxiety. Last night, my sister H and her roommate texted me a picture with 2 kittens and I zipped over there with Tanner and we named the black one Hiccup and brought him home to my apartment. Camped out on the couch with the kitten deciding my collarbone/neck area as his preferred bedding location. I woke up abut 7 times during the night: turkey bacon feeding, lace ribbon-playing, etc.

Rekindled my love of the movie "Warrior" last night (before kitten love), is that movie on Netflix? (No. Redbox?) The story plot always draws me in with its ability to have levels of reasoning and justification, you can't make snap judgments on its characters. It's also got the "Olympic appeal", lots of fit people and muscles I've never seen before (ex:Tommy's shoulder muscles, he looks like he's been studying with bad posture for too long).

I watched a fairly traumatic movie about an hour ago called "Rome, Open City" in my French & Italian film class. Some traumas: a pregnant mother being shot while running, a torture scene complete with man's vocal pain, a shooting squad firing on a priest, and children getting beaten for coming home late. It was pretty rough. It's a powerful depiction of life in Fascist-controlled Rome, this period in Italian history was graphic. It made me imagine how God feels when He sees these events happening in real life. I felt a deep sadness.

We have a guest speaker with an intriguing display of plants on a metal rolling cart and a table covered with colored seeds in plastic bags. His name is (?) and he's telling us about plant propogation. He has a perfect white noise voice. His subject material is told with a moderate level of vigor, his visuals are appealing, but every second is made apparent that this information is not testable. I love plants, I would like to grow some in my near future.

I am going to Lowe's Extreme Sports for a church activity tonight (family home evening) which costs $8 and a signed waiver. It's a big gym with lots of trampolines, swings, and a diving board with foam pits everywhere. What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

I can't stop imagining that I'm a mom for those 2 kittens. All I want to do is get back to the apartment and play with them.
"What's the one thing you do NOT do with African violets?" (That is a question that was just asked by the speaker) Answer: Over-water.



Ward prayer last night was our apartment with Joel's apartment so since we're all best buds, we paired up and presented someone from the other apartment. Ian & I were paired up, gosh that was fun. He told everyone to check out my Facebook profile picture & I told everyone that he has a younger brother in Taiwan, he's from Taiwan, Ian is Taiwanese, be careful what you say to Ian because he'll call you racist. :) Everyone already loves him and knows this so it was all in good fun.

The speaker chopped up a plant and now the room smells of skunk.

A Wal-Mart trip is in order: I am fresh out of apples and other essentials. Does anyone else appreciate Wal-Mart as much as I do? I get a thrill from people-watching, good deals, and general grunginess of spirit. I find that Wal-Mart changes people, regardless of who you were when you entered between the Greeter and the metal detectors.

That skunk plant is from South America and is also called a "dumb" plant because if you eat it your mouth goes numb for a few hours. Stories go that messengers would receive messages and then eat the plant so they couldn't share the message until they got to their destination.

Feeling actual angst at being separated from my kittens since 12 noon. I'm going to slip out at the next natural pause in presentation.

People on the front row are struggling with aforementioned skunk plant. Plant phenomena.

Peace up, A-town,
Courts xoxo