This is an airport

And I have spent more time than I really think necessary in an assortment of these the last month or so. The week before Thanksgiving I flew to Arizona. Then I flew to Chicago for Thanksgiving. Then this last weekend I flew back to Chicago for an interview. And I will once again fly to Chicago, for the third time this month in just a couple weeks. I guess that's not a lot of traveling for some of you frequent flyers out there, but I have about had my fill.

I'm feeling so overwhelmed with school right now that I might die. I haven't even had time to stop and think about how it's going to feel to be finished with my undergraduate education in one week from Friday. Weird.

Also, I heart Northwestern. I interviewed for their PA (physician assistant) program on Monday and I really just loved it there. And maybe, just maybe, they loved me too.

And last but not least, I got to see the one and only Brian Regan live tonight. It was amazing. And he was hilarious. Thanks to good friends with even better connections.

Sorry. That was probably a really boring post. Better luck next time.

Sara Bareilles

Until very recently I have been calling her Sara Borealis. You know, like aurora Borealis. Boy was I wrong. Anyway...last night some friends and I went to her concert in Salt Lake. It was fabulous! We learned from our experience at Ingrid's concert and got there to get in line at about 5pm. We had to wait in line for quite a while but it was totally worth it when we got in there and were on the second row! Success.

While in line we had some Costa Vida for dinner. Everybody was jealous.

The four of us. Just regular old concert-goers.

And...Sara! She really was great. Not quite as funny as Ingrid, but her voice is truly amazing. It was really hard to get over her outfit, however. I don't think you can tell in this picture, but she is basically wearing a black one-piece pant suit with a zipper and a belt. I don't know if I missed something but last time I checked, that really was not an attractive outfit.

And by the way--this is my 100th blog post! Holy smokes. I feel like google should give me some kind of a prize or something...

Preemptive Posting

So...my facebook's back. Yeah I don't get it either. I just decided to try one more time and there it was. So thank you everyone for your concern and prayers. It was felt. Crisis averted.

PS--Who keeps commenting on my blog and then deleting them?? It's kind of weirding me out.

Facebook?

So I had an interesting thing happen to me today. I logged onto my computer this morning to do my usual site checks: gmail, facebook, blogs. Yes, in that order. I put my email address and password into facebook, clicked log on and was met with a bright red message saying, "Your account has been disabled." I tried to figure out how this would have happened so suddenly and without my knowledge and all facebook gave me was this huge rant about how you can't make a facebook page for a fake person or with a fake name. At which point I wanted to yell out to the universe, "I'm real!! I promise!".

So as of right now, I have no facebook account. I have really mixed feelings about this. A part of me is relieved. I've almost gotten rid of my facebook account a bazillion times but I could never go through with it. Now that it's been done for me, an even larger part of myself is feeling lost, hurt and confused (just for the record--I am being purposefully over dramatic...). I've had facebook for five years. That's a long time. Do you have any idea what kind of a friend base I've built up?! Yeah, I don't know either. But a lot! And that's all gone now. And sure, I guess I could just start another one but...do I really want to do that? Would it be the same? Oh man, this news has really thrown a wrench into my day...so I just had to blog about it. Naturally.

And ps, last weekend we went to the hot springs up Spanish Fork canyon. Here is a picture to prove it. Well...I'm not sure it actually proves anything but trust me--we were there.

The Thanksgiving Push

Beginning with Halloween, we have officially entered a time that I have just at this very moment decided to refer to as the "Thanksgiving push". I've never really experienced this period of time from anything but a student's perspective so this may be a little off for the rest of the world. But I do believe that most people would agree with me. It is a well-known fact that Thanksgiving to New Years is the very best time of the year. People are happy, we get to sing Christmas songs, buy presents for people, think about Jesus, be with family, eat lots of food...all great things. And what is so great about the middle of November? It's the second round of midterms, fall is ending, leaves are falling, it's turning ugly outside and getting colder. So may I submit to you all--the Thanksgiving push. Just push through to Thanksgiving! Two weeks from today and we will all be on the brink of the best five weeks of the year. We can do it. Go fight win!

Identity Crisis

I got on my blog the other day and I realized that I really didn't like the way it looked. I liked the book background thing I had going on but it just wasn't looking good. So...I've got this up and...it's alright I guess. I don't know. I'm not sold yet. If you have any suggestions, or want to come on over and design my blog yourself, I'd be more than happy to let you do that. I'm not exactly what you'd call the creative type.

The biggest news of the week--it's Friday, and I'm alive!! It really is a miracle. Hopefully the next few weeks will be equally as miraculous. On that note, I pretty much have no time to be blogging right now so let's get right to it.

On Tuesday night, some friends and I went to an Ingrid Michaelson concert in Salt Lake. We got up there at about 7 and waited in a line four blocks long, in the snow, for about two hours. Definitely a great way to start the night. By the time we got in there, the viewing options for someone just over 5 feet tall (yours truly) were pretty limited. My roommate and I finally found some decent standing room over by the bar. I learned something that night. Smelling alcohol for long periods of time gives me a headache. Good thing those drinking days of mine are behind me.

At one point, the snow was pelting horizontally. That was neat.

The four of us waiting in line (Hilary, Lauren, Jenny, me).

Using my scarf as an umbrella. More effective than you might think.

When we walked out of the building at about 11pm, I was astonished to find a solid two inches of snow on the ground. And there was no sign of it stopping. Well, I don't know why after living in Utah for almost 5 years I haven't learned to keep my snowscraper close at hand starting in September, but after I used my hand to clear the car of snow we were good to go. Until we got on 215 (the freeway). The clincher was when, as I was going 25 down the one lane that had been carved out of the snow, the SUV in front of me somehow spun out across all four lanes of traffic. Luckily, there was almost no one on the road so they were fine. But, that's when we decided our life expectancy would increase dramatically if we stayed the night at Jenny's house, which we happened to be about 10 minutes away from.

So we got there at about midnight, decided we were starving and ate everything we could find (sorry Jenny's parents...) and tried to get some sleep.

Jenny let us borrow some great clothes. Which included

these Texas boxers that Hilary was only too happy to sport.

My car in the morning. I was clearly not amused. I knew there was a

reason I've been saving that Toy Story 3 coloring book in my car...

it made a stellar snow scraper.

So Ingrid? An adventure. But what's life without a little bit of that? You might not believe me, but I actually did have a good time. Ingrid is hilarious and sounds even better live than recorded. We're going up for another concert next month. So...better luck next time?

Another Ragnar

After we ran the good ole Wasatch Back in June, most of my team decided to sign up for the Las Vegas relay race in October. Having just spent about $100 to be in pain and run 18 miles and not get any sleep, I opted out of the Las Vegas race. But I still got pulled into it. Turns out they needed a driver, and I was available so I decided--what the heck. I'll go and drive.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the Ragnar Relay series, first of all--they are amazing. They have them all over the US and each one is a total of about 200 miles. You gather up a team of 12, and two vans and then run. Their tag line is very appropriately, "Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat." And there you have it. So what did I do this weekend? I drove an Expedition full of 4 smelly boys and 2 slightly less smelly girls through the Las Vegas desert. For 29 hours. For future reference, if you have any plans to run one of these--don't pick Vegas. A couple of our runners got lost on the course in the middle of the night and...I can't vouch for any of the other ones but the Wasatch Back at least is way better. So pick a good one.

This is a picture of me at probably 2am, standing on the side of a road in the middle of the desert, wearing an orange reflective vest (that we found out wasn't actually reflective so we had to stick some reflective tape on it...) holding a bright orange flag and a bottle of water. This is also about the time I thought to myself--what on earth am I doing here?

Here's the whole team before we started running. Mike bought a purple bandanna. Then Ben bought one. And then Brad bought one. And then...suddenly, it was team uniform and we all had one.

The finish line was at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas. We were supposed to get a couple free rooms there but apparently they ran out and we ended up staying at the Venetian right on the strip! In these huge suites! So that was pretty darn cool. Although, I still had to sleep on the floor because there were 8 of us in there. Oh well, beats the driver's seat of a car (which is where I slept Friday night/Saturday morning). So, I guess the cool part of this race is supposed to be that in ends in Vegas but we got there and I suddenly remembered--I hate Vegas. I feel like it is the perfect embodiment of everything in the world I live my life trying to avoid. It's a dirty, sleazy and uncomfortable place. So what did we do there all night? Well, what any good group of Mormon kids would do:

Watched the Bellagio fountains.

And got our picture taken with the Coca-cola bear. Naturally.

Because what else do people come to Vegas to do?

When we thought we were all going to die of exhaustion (at about 10pm...), we wandered back to the hotel. We left to drive home at 5 the next morning and I was completely astonished at the number of people that were out and about. Way more than I expected. I guess the no clocks and windows in those casinos really does trick people...

Fall

I spent this last weekend hanging out with my pal, Jen (aka--my sister). On Friday night we drove up to the outlets in Park City. I'd been dying to go there forever and even though Jen has been there several times recently, she still took me. What a sacrifice... :)

We spent quite a while trying to get the perfect picture but...

turns out a car is a really bad place to try to take a picture off of, and

I accidentally ruined every one just by being in it. So this is unfortunately the best we have.

I finally got aviators. Which I'm pretty sure I've been meaning

to do for years now. Hopefully they're still cool. But I guess I make them

look pretty good. So, it's a win-win either way really.

Saturday night was when the real party started. Jen invited me over once again to have dinner in a pumpkin. You really carve out a pumpkin, mix up some meat and rice and stuff, and then throw it in the pumpkin and put the whole thing in the oven. It was delicious. But it took a while. So in the interim, we made caramel apples. Naturally.

Just excited to be there. And so naive.

Jen holding dinner. Well done!

Ok, so Jen and I have never made caramel apples before. No one warned us that it is a very involved science. So, we started the night off by making some really ugly ones.

And, we ended the night with some slightly less ugly ones that were

exciting at the moment, but by morning looked just as bad as the first batch.

BUT--we had a great time. And maybe learned some things not to do next time. If we are ever brave enough to try again. And also, I do realize that I am sporting the button-up shirt/sweater look in all of these pictures. I just wanted to be positive that when you think to yourself, 'who do I know that wears more button-up shirt/sweater combos than I've ever seen?' there's zero hesitation before my name comes to mind.

Happy Fall!

Busy!

Here's a few quick random updates from my life.

A couple weekends ago, Jen and I were able to go to the first

session of general conference at the conference center in Salt Lake.

It was a good time. And sunny. That's why we all look really weird.

Jen's roommate Jen (yes, it's confusing) and her friend Mary came with us.

We had wicked good seats. This is taken from my camera without

any zoom. I think we were about 15 rows from the front.

Jen begged me not to put this picture on here but I just can't help myself.

I think it's hilarious! I obviously caught Jen rather off guard as she was

chewing her headache-preventative granola bar.

About a month ago I bought a bookshelf. One of those $25 ones from Walmart.

Thus, I didn't have very high expectations for it. But is it too much

to ask that the bookshelf be completely vertical?

Apparently those stipulations are more than Walmart can handle. They told me they'd give me a new one if I brought this one back in but it's not exactly easy to take apart and...I just don't think it's going to fit in the back of a sentra. So I decided, what the heck. We are just going to embrace this topsy-turvy piece of furniture. And you know what, I think it was a great decision.

Today I came home from school to do some homework and our toilet was running. It's been doing this a lot lately. Marie's fiancé (gotta love fiancés!) told us he'd fix it but he hasn't gotten around to it. I was pretty annoyed by the constant running water so I decided to fix it. Since I had no idea how to do that, this is the best I came up with:

A hair tie and a twist tie. Maybe I missed my

calling as an engineer somewhere along the road?

Mud smells

Yesterday I ran The Dirty Dash--Utah's very first mud run. It was a 10k which is a little longer than I really wanted to run but it was totally worth it. Here's a map of the basic set up.

I was picturing running all six miles through mud but most of it was more of a trail run with some mud obstacles sprinkled in. The walls were definitely the muddiest part. We did some wrestling and mud sliding through/over those. Believe it or not, we actually spent the majority of the race much dirtier than we are in these pictures. We literally had mud caked all over us. But then we went down the biggest, bestest slip n' slide ever and a really deep and nasty mud puddle. So we came out a little cleaner than we initially were. But...I think we're still pretty dirty. Observe.

Pre-race cleanliness.

Take note of the shorts I'm wearing...

And post-race.

Lee made a last minute decision to run with us and he didn't have any shoes. So he ran the whole thing barefoot. People thought he was really hard core. But really he just forgot his shoes.

Me and Suzanne. Notice the absence of the shorts. After the first bit of mud, they were drooping somewhere around my mid-calf. So, I decided to take them off and run in my spandex. And I definitely wasn't the only one who left articles of clothing on the course. No worries--I got them at DI.

And yes--it was awesome. I loved it!

Good resolve, bad memory

I would like to apologize. My resolve for taking my camera places has not diminished. However, it appears that my memory has. This weekend I took a little trip down to Moab and even experienced Melon Days in Green River, Utah and--I forgot my camera in Provo. Some good it was doing me there. So...rats. No pictures again. My next outing--I will remember my camera. I'll have to make something exciting happen soon.

In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on this. It's not really very impressive, but when I was down in Moab, I went and picked up a CD of some pictures of me guiding on the river. There's a company that takes pictures every day that people can buy (kind of like when you're on a roller coaster...). So, this is the best one by far.

By the way, this was my first day ever guiding (I'm in the back of the boat with the white hat--staying dry) and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Don't worry--I faked it really well.

Resolve

I am hereby now officially resolved to take more pictures. When I first came to college, I was really camera happy. Somehow, semester after semester, that trait has left me. But you know what? My life still consists of some exciting things (or at the very least things I deem exciting...) and those things warrant pictures. Right? Right!

If you are wondering where this resolve came from...it was this:

This is the best picture I have from seeing Lion King (the musical) in Salt Lake last weekend. It was incredible. ...and this is really the best picture I could muster? I really think I could have done better. So here's to hoping there might actually be something good to look at on my blog this semester (not that Jen and I growling--you know, like lions-- isn't good to look at...).

PS--My sister is awesome. That's really all you need to know.

Warning: PHOTO OVERLOAD

This is what I get for not posting in so long--an overabundance of pictures to post. So here's the extremely condensed version of the last two weeks of my life:

• Mom, Dad and Jen came to Moab to visit and take me back to the big city (aka--Provo)
• I graduated! Ok, so I "walked". I still have a semester left
• Brian graduated for real. Hence me walking now.
• Sara had a birthday
• I met my adorable niece Hailey
• Jen got her Master's degree
• I went home for a visit and we went on the lake five nights in a row (yes, I am sore but feeling better now, thank you.)
• And now I'm back in Provo, moving in and waiting for school to start/life to end (ok, so life doesn't end when school starts it just slows down. Or speeds up?)

Enter photo onslaught:

We went on a hummer safari. I have never heard my mom

and sister scream like that. It was amazingly fun.

Jen, Dad, me and Mom in Moab.

We took some normal pictures but

I just like these ones better.

Priceless. The picture--not the education.

Just ask Dad.

The whole fam. We even let Dave be in it with us!

Me and my cute sisters.

Jen won't actually be walking for her Master's degree but

the road there has been so long that she just had to

put on a robe and throw her hands in the air. GO JEN!

Oohing and aahing over Hailey. I'm sure it's hard to believe

that we spent most of the week doing this.

...and this. Give us a break, we're not so used to babies at

family gatherings.

And last but not least...

...me and the girl of the hour.

Phew. If any of you actually made it to the end of this post, thanks. You get a gold star! Adios for now.

Let me out!

Here's a picture of where I've been living this summer:

That's right--a double wide trailer. And just to make sure
we fit in with our redneck neighbors...


We have a toilet on our back porch.

So it's been quite the experience sharing this tiny, somewhat dilapidated space with 17 other girls. Mostly, it's really been ok. But this morning, I lost all patience with my summer home. I got up early this morning to get ready for work and walked to the bathroom. Sometime between about 12:30am and 6:30 am, the bathroom door had been ripped from its hinges. The top one was completely off and the bottom hinge was holding the door at a rakish angle by one screw. Shaking my head, I squeezed into the bathroom and attempted to close the door. But the door wasn't even the last straw--the lack of toilet paper was.

How many more days do I have to live here? SEVEN!!!! And they couldn't be over fast enough.

If it ain't broke, I don't own it

Well hello there. I've had some great things to blog about recently but I think when I explain my life as of late, you will realize why I haven't posted anything. Ready for the list of things that have recently BROKEN in my life? Here you go:

• my driver car door (don't worry, I figured out this one)
• my watch (I also figured this one out)
• my camera battery charger
• my computer

Yep, you read that right--my computer. One day, my computer screen decided to no longer illuminate. It was fantastic. Upon further evaluation, a local computer repair man declared my motherboard to have a short in it. Don't worry, it only costs about $300 to replace. For a computer that is three years old and has no battery life? Not worth it. So, a moment of silence for my computer please.

Alright, now that we're all teary-eyed I'll tell you the good news. Moab has an awesome library and I was able to get some pictures off of my camera card today. So I can share some fabulous photos with you. I know--I've made your day. You. Are. Welcome.

A couple weekends ago, Jenny and Ben came down to visit.
It was fun to have them down here. Here's some of the things we did:

We went bouldering. None of us had ever really been
before so here's Jenny trying her hand at it.
We went up into the La Sal mountains to attempt to do some climbing where it wasn't 115 degrees. Well, we got a little lost. And ended up walking about a half mile through an ice cold creek (with a very strong current I might add) and straight up things that looked like this:

And here's our victory picture. You can't really see, but behind us
is a canyon that looks like it has some climb-able walls but...we sure couldn't get to them.
Since our climbing venture failed, and we were up there anyway, we decided to check out Oowah Lake. It was beautiful. We skipped rocks on the lake until we couldn't handle the bugs anymore.
Apparently the rock I set the camera on wasn't exactly level. My bad.

A few weeks ago, a few of us went out to a place called Honeycomb Caves. It was a cool place. We just explored and climbed around in the caves for awhile. And I snapped this picture which, being the photographer that I am not, I thought was pretty cool.

Jen came down for my day of birth! It was lots of fun. These pictures
are out of order but...we got some snow cones because it was so blasted hot.

We ate lots of food (this happens to be a picture of my free
grand slam breakfast at Denny's on my birthday).

We went to Canyonlands National Park.
Again--unbearably hot. But fantastic views.

And we stayed at the slightly ghetto Motel 6.
And we may or may not have jumped on the bed...

And other than that, I'm either at work trying not to kill tourists, at the trailers trying not to melt away, or at the library attempting to understand biochemistry. Yep, I'm a busy girl.