Be Grateful

I tell my family how grateful I am whenever I skype or call them. I show my gratitude through action: "reaching out" texts, doing well in school, attending church activities, and making time to talk to them. I told my family how much I appreciate them because it makes me feel less in debt and because they are so appreciative of my expressions of gratitude. I love how much support I feel from them at all times, even though they are across the country. 

Hungarian Dance: Why So Serious?

I am flattered by the cute way Lowell asked me to the Hungarian Dance, very sweet.
He asked me through a puzzle message which means that he spent time putting together the puzzle so he could write on the back! I love puzzlessss and it was fun putting it together with some roommates and friends. There's a dress swap going on tomorrow which will be nice because I LOVE my royal blue satin dress but I would love to wear something different for another formal dance. My roomies are all going to look lovelyyyy and it was fun trying on their dresses today and all deciding who should wear what dress.

I need to stop being so sensitive to the fact that girls are competitive. Just because I wouldn't suggest things that have potential to make someone sad doesn't mean that they've necessarily thought through all of that also. The fact that the puzzle was the evil queen wasn't a negative thing, it was part of his question. I love my roomies and that's the most important thing.
Next, I want my hair to look fabulous because it's currently the longest it has ever been in my entire life and I have this window of opportunity while one of my roommates is a fresh graduate from Marinello's School of Beauty and she loves playing with hair. Let's get braid-crazy, shall we?
By the way, I started writing a book that I'm going to keep completely to myself for a few years, possibly. I just want to nurture and prune it based solely on my own opinion until the very end because people are not always tactful and I don't want this to cause me anxiety.
Exciting news: got a letter from Jerr-Bear today. :) (please ignore how crazed I look, it's almost 3 am) It was a great letter and he was so thoughtful to send me a row of stamps so I don't have to go crazy looking for stamps to mail his letters!! He's currently in the city of Gaoxiang which he says is one of the most polluted cities in the world, so he can barely see an 85-story tall building that is within view of his apartment. It made me really happy to get his letter & it makes me feel content to type out all of the above information also.
I really must get some sleep, I'm waking up tomorrow to work-out (probably just Abs Core Plus because I want my waist to look fabulous for the dress) and then go to the TA lab for Finance and have an overall relaxing day. Love, Courtney

Well If This Isn't Nice, I Don't Know What Is

Things that I really love:
tie dye clothes
spectacular photography
fall asleep in the sun
wearing trendy clothes
reading books that I can't put down
long talks
taking showers
painting my nails
good hair days
compliments
making plans with my family
making money
white, flowy sheets and blankets
long, descriptive words that mean exactly what i need
speaking Arabic
hearing people laugh
wedding dress shopping
BYU
the smell of leather
the smell of paint
pyjamas
wondering if I have a soulmate
anything romantic
animals
kids with personalities
making something new from random ingredients I have
news reports on the middle east
hugs
my visiting teaching calling
thinking about my mission
the color sage green
saying "I love you" to people I love
thinking about good book ideas
having time to ponder
reading scriptures
sharing my testimony
the color silver
clunker cars
bohemian culture
England
Germany
Mexico
Australia
North Carolina
France
clean socks
flat stomach
snuggling
boys who talk
expressing myself coherently
Enya
sleepovers
blanket forts
strings of lights
nerds
being nerdy with people
my glasses
helping other people
intelligent people
bonfires
the night
the day
having people appreciate me for who I am
kissing
getting back massages
the movie Warrior
when I'm witty
reconnecting with old friends who act like no time has passed at all
dreaming
<3 Court

Valentine's Day, A History

Valentine's Day doesn't have to be a sad thing if you're not dating someone. I love having this day as a marker to evaluate the people I truly love who are in my life. I have a beautiful and fabulous family, caring and supportive extended family, successful and fun friends, and I have a pillow pet named Raja who has never misplaced my trust and is the best listener a girl could ask for.
Do you know the history of Valentine's Day? I didn't really know, so I googled it and now I do.
There was a Catholic priest who served during the third century in Rome named Valentine. Emperor Claudius II was the ruler at this time and determined that single soldiers were more effective in battle than married soldiers so he outlawed marriages at this time. Valentine thought this was really dumb, so he kept performing marriages secretly. When Claudius II found out, he had Valentine put to death (martyred).
So there you have it, love prevails.
I truly need to spend more time on my blog because there is a lot going on right now. But for now, I must attend to school and dressing for a wedding. xoxo Court

Just Throwing This Out There: Taylor Swift

A show that is very near and dear to my heart is Les Miserables. I read the Sparknotes version of the play before seeing the Broadway show and later read the book in 9th grade. I attended the phenomena in the Queen's Theatre in London and I fell in love with this masterpiece from the first moment Jean Valjean walked on stage in seemingly pouring rain. The story by Victor Hugo illustrates the poverty and desperation of a man who has no one but himself and who eventually makes a new name for himself and brings a town out of its depression. Each character is unique and crucial to illustrating the different demographics of the French society at this period in time. That's the objective standpoint of this play. My subjective feelings towards the play cannot even be described accurately with words I currently possess.
I sobbed the entire four hours. I pretty much can only recall blurry images because I was on a crying binge. No play has struck me so forcefully before or since then.

On a seemingly unrelated note...

Taylor Swift: Sweetheart Songwriter & Singer
 LOVE her song lyrics, beautiful, so sweet and considerate of her fans, appreciative, classy. But let's be honest: she CANNOT act or dance.  Do we not remember valentine's day?? her dance with nicki minaj?? Sooo awkward, hon.


Exhibit A: Valentine's Day excerpt
Exhibit B: Taylor Swift Dancing While Nicki Minaj performs


WHY IS SHE IN LES MISERABLES?

Tay, love you but stick to your forte. I beg of you.
xoxo, a fan of your lyrics & passion... for country/pop songs.

Well I'm Just Killing Time...Writhing

Not really, but I do have some breezes to shoot because I can't do my homework until mommyo deposits my textbook funds and I can get my books. Anywho, this is a divine opportunity to catch everyone up. So.
Andrei is still MIA, I got a new calling as VT Coordinator last night (shout out to the mormons out there who know what this means) and was up until 130 doing the spreadsheet because I'm so excited about it, realized this morning that to apply for the Broadcasting program here at BYU I have to take one more class (pre req that no one can get into because it's like 18 people total capacity for each class), went on a date on Saturday with a cute guy from the accounting program, Duke died and I was given 11 new fish by Kay, still crushing on K. (hopefully no one in my ward knows about zis blog), got a 100% on my first couple of Arabic quizzes, played dodgeball last night and was better than I expected, went spelunking last weekend, worked out on Friday by biking 13 miles, got a new phone (same #), decided to write a book called "malleable" about the dilemma and the obsession with identity in today's world, and am awaiting a letter in a few weeks from Jerr-bear. Yup I'm pretty lucky to have one of the best lives going on.
Fun fact from my Foundations of Islam class yesterday: 75% of Muslims don't live in the Middle East! Most are in Southeast Asia with Indonesia being the #1 Muslim country. I'm loving hardcore on my major. I was able to spend some time today reading up on the Middle East on Fox News and CNN articles like: this one. I have a Family Finance class in a little under 2 hours, then Arabic, then home-free to hopefully convince a roomie to go shopping. I can't bear any more fish dying because they're being fed beta fish food. Also I need face lotion.
I have had two songs stuck in my head: "Paradise" by Coldplay, and the song with the lyrics "In another life, I would make you stay" which plays EVERYWHERE. I rode the bus this morning with Caro and the bus driver was "unusually attractive" (I believe those were my exact words at the time) and a guy got on the bus who looked a lot like B and we kept making eye contact. Missed my dance class again this morning, 8 is just an unholy hour to have class. That means though that I haven't been to a class yet which is not gewd. I really need to get back into writing because I constantly have things that I want to write about and I'm worried all these good ideas will be lost if I don't pen them. Also, the mission is ON. I can put in my papers this July and I'm considering leaving next January. Woah, I said it so now I have to be a perfect saint. I am DYING to travel, like I can feel my eyes wrinkling at the corners when I hear about people who have study abroads planned and I'm like... oh yeah, still on campus. GET ME TO JERUSALEM. The amazing Haley H is on her 2nd study abroad right now: in Thailand. Her first was in London. THAT is how college should be. I would love to go foreign for my mission, but I'm worried that will jinx it and also the point of a mission is not to vacay.
Well I have to go to the bathroom again since I started this water binge and I worry about leaving a blog post open around this group of guys sitting near me. xoxo Court

Oy with the Poodles Already

The best way for me to deal with stress or concerns is to physically do something about it. Either make a call right then, send an email, talk to someone, clean it up, write it down, whenever I physically do something to solve a problem it always makes me feel much better about my abilities. I have realized that I have quite a few big plans for myself, including but not limited to: write a book (stream of consciousness possibly), be on the Ellen show (I spend a bit of thinking time thinking about what I would say), travel the world with my husband (get some spectacular photography shots for our home), be a reporter with a Middle East liason, and be in a movie at some point. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what is important to me. I think about everything all the time and I think specifically about how I feel about different people in my life and what they mean to me.
The biggest frustration is when people think that I haven't thought through something because I GUARANTEE I've already thought about it, and followed the idea through to multiple conclusions and come up with various solutions to any and all potential issues and stored those thoughts away in my mind or otherwise written it all down in poem or song format. A big thought hogger right now? Boys. Boysboysboysboysboys. I like them a lot. But a theme of my thoughts is that guys have no idea how much time I spend thinking abou them/their problems/their attractive qualities/our relationship to each other, on & on. I seriously have no "off" switch to my mind which I kind of love but at the same time, it gives me all this power (knowledge) which means that I have a lot of responsibility to do stuff with it. Which is fine, but there's SO much to do that I usually go to Tumblr to pamper my creativity and idea of self. I need to write more often, because there's so much else I'm thinking about but it could get overwhelming real fast because I type quickly but not nearly as fast as I think SO class now, perhaps more later. <3 Courty