So yesterday, mom left! :( I drove up to SLC after I got out of my Latin class so that I could take her to the airport. When I was up there Grandpa gave me the first three books in the Children of the Promise series by Dean Hughes in hardback. They are all in practically mint condition, including the third one which is like hard to find and uber expensive when you can, and the first two were signed for Gma and Gpa by Dean Hughes! That practically made my day! I've decided that I'm going to go up there at least once a week and see him, I mean who knows how much longer he's got and it's not like I live that far away. I decided that I wanted to take a picture of Mom and Grandpa together before Mom left so we did that and then threw all of Mom's stuff into the back of the car and I drove her to the Airport. It was sad to see her go, but I think I'm getting better....

After that I went back down to Provo for my last class of the day, Intro to Calc. We usually have homework due everyday, but yesterday, for whatever reason we didn't and we were all kinda curious about what exactly we'd be going over in class, turns out my teacher is awesome and since we were a bit ahead of schedule, he took yesterday as an opportunity to review everything we've covered thus far this semester.

Last night Michelle, and Jessica and I went to this sketch comedy show called the Divine Comedy. You gotta love it right there just for the play on Dante! haha Anyway it is this I way funny sketch comedy troupe that put's a on a show every month or so. A lot of it is Mormon/BYU Humor but some of it is just downright funny....like this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJaN_F4tCrs! Makes me laugh every time.

Michelle has this mystery dinner party thing that she is going to tonight and so I told her that I'd help her make her hair all curly and pretty for it, so last night after the Divine Comedy she and I went out in search of one those special curling irons with the cooling coil around it designed specially for spiral curls. We checked Target and Wal-mart and couldn't find one, sad day! :(

Looks like we'll have to settle for using a regular curling iron. But she and I did have a bunch of fun driving around in my car last night belting out disney tunes at the top of our lungs! haha After our shopping trip was a bust we went to Blockbuster to rent That Thing You Do! but they didn't carry it so we rented Baby Mama instead which wasn't as funny as I was expecting.

This morning I rolled my happy bum out of bed at 6 and went running with Matt again and this time Zach joined us. 6 am on a Saturday! Why so early you ask? Long story Jessica had a test at 7:30 she had to take and I told her I'd go with her to campus and the boys had other stuff they had to do. Short answer we're masochists and decided to go at 6 instead of just not going! haha It was probably way funny for people driving cars to see me running flanked by these two gihugmously tall dudes. One of their steps was like five of mine. At one point they got ahead of me and they actually had to stop so that I could catch up with them! haha They're good guys for putting up with me. Today Jessica and I spent the morning on campus, I had a quiz to take and tried to get some other studying done (which I should be doing now) while Jessica took her Praxis exam (basically a test that tests her competency in the subjects she is teaching students). After that we bought a piece of German Chocolate Fudge from the bookstore which is really good but very rich. And that puts me here. This evening Jessica and I are headed back to campus to watch Zach do the Tango in a ballroom dance competition that he is in for class and I'm helping Michelle curl her hair. Other than that lots of studying...hopefully....if I don't get distracted. haha

So I mentioned in my first blog that I got into an accident in the beginnning of October that totaled my car. Well, these are the pics of the damage. Doesn't it just look loverly? The guy who hit me was literally picking pieces of my car out of his grill! So I've been a pedestrian for a while but this last week mom got here and brought me her car! I still miss the RIO like crazy....it was my first real car....I mean I had the hobo-mobile before that but that thing was falling apart before we even got it. I don't know why, but for some reason I was really attached to the RIO maybe because with moving and such it was the only thing that stayed constant and it gave me a bit of independence so that I could get away. I don't know....but Mom's car is good, it runs well and it isn't too shabbby, and at the end of the day it is still a car (one that I didn't really deserve seeing as how the accident was my fault) so I'm not going to knock it.
Everything else is fine here in the bubble....today I had my bowling class and we're split up into teams of three, neither of my teamates showed today so I was all by myself, thankfully we had a bye this week because we are out of the class tournament after losing on Tuesday. I got some great practice in today, my high score was a 131! That made me happy. I've decided that I want to start posting at least one picture a day so that you guys can sort of get a feel for what my life has been/is like since moving to Provo, so I've started carrying my camera with me almost everywhere I go. Today as I was walking through Brigham Square they were doing an ROTC demonstration with the Army and the Air Force and I was totally going to take a pic but my camera was dead and hence why you're seeing pictures from a month ago of my old busted up car. The new Taylor Swift cd came out Tuesday and I bought it and have totally been rocking out to it all week. I had it blaring in the car this afternoon as I drove up to SLC to spend some time with Mom and Gpa. It was good to see them. That was 'bout it for today. Love to you all!

Pics (L-R): My freakin' sweet dinosaur that I drew at Enrichment tonight, The Obama Joke board we started last week after the election, The poster we made about a month ago for the noisy apt. above us.

So, I should start this blog by saying that I loathe the way that BYU does testing. Like for my Calculus class, the tests aren't given by individual professors, they are given by all the instructors of Intro to Calculus collectively so it's the same test for each student no matter who their professor is, and each professor gets a crack at writing one of the 4 tests administered throughout the semester (I don't know how they work the final). Can I just say how gay that is! Different teachers emphasize different things. Then you have to go to the testing center, which even sounds formidable and strikes fear into the hearts of every student at BYU, and is basically this giant room filled with desks where almost every student goes to take their tests, and is usually jam packed with people so you're sitting on top of each other, and there is always people coming and going, shuffling in and out, and people coughing and sneezing all over you, and the desks are so close together that whenever someone shifts in the slightest it causes trouble.

So Monday, I had to go and take my Calculus test and I walk into the testing center and try and find a desk that had enough space around it, well it took some searching but I found one, with really only one other person sitting across the aisle from me. But with my luck that was too easy, wouldn't you know it, the kid sitting across from me was...a sniffler. You know that kind, heck, I use to be one. The kind that don't blow their nose but sniff it! And the worst part about it was that this kid had it like timed, I swear, every thirty seconds without fail he would sniffle! It was soo distracting, and sickening. I finally had to get up and find another suitable desk. The test was difficult but I finally emerged nearly three hours later having received an 80% on it. I wasn't sure how that measured up, one kid I talked to said that 80% was the highest he'd heard anyone get, but some other guy said he got an 85%, and I overheard this other guy say that he guessed on two or three of the questions and got a 90% (how is that even fair)! So I was a little nervous, but today when I went to lecture my teacher informed us that the average for all the sections was a 64% and that the average for just our class was a 62% so I'm feeling a little better about my 80%. That was really the hightlight of my day, my Latin class is getting to be a bit more difficult and I'm beginning to worry a tad about my translations but I just plan on hitting the books pretty hard this weekend. Friday night Michelle and Jessica and I are going to this BYU sketch thing called the Divine Comedy which is really funny! And then Saturday we're going to a dance competition to see Zach. So it sounds like my weekend will have some fun mixed in. Tonight we had Enrichment night and we had one of the members of the Bishropic's wives come and talk to us about budgeting and such. It was interesting, although I mainly doodled while I listened, the product was my dinosaur drawing which you can see above, and which is now mounted on the wall above my bed! haha

So, over the summer, my sisters told me that I needed to start a blog so as to make it easier to stay in touch. At the time I laughed and didn't think much of it, I mean I thought that Mom would keep me informed. Well, apparently I was wrong and so therefore, I have decided to start a blog, because I really am missing the fam!

I'm not going to lie, my first two months here have pretty much been some of the most dreadful ones of my life. There was all the stress of moving out on my own, and starting classes at BYU, and then some other stuff that happened at that point that I don't want to get into, and I was homesick, and then to top it all off I got into a car accident in the beginning of October that totaled my car and just left me feeling hopeless. But thankfully, I was able to ask for a blessing and got confirmation that all of the bad things were going to pass, and that I wasn't alone, that the Lord is always with me! I still had some hard times after that and continue to have them but I really am doing a lot better!
My roomates are pretty much amazing and I honestly don't think I could have been given better ones for my first year away from home! Jessica, my friend from CO and my room roomate, is so much like me sometimes it's like we have the same brain. I'm so glad that I made the decision to move in with her. My roomates Kaela and Michelle are pretty awesome too! We laugh so much it's ridonkulous, and we are always doing fun things! Friday, I had a craving for Chipotle, and Jessica and her friend Ben (who is also from CO) know what amazing food that is, so myself, Jessica, Ben, Michelle, and Zach all piled into my car and drove half an hour to Sandy to get some Chipotle because that's where the closest one is! Then Saturday Michelle, Jessica, my friend Matt, and Michelle's friend Austin and I all went Ice Skating! It's so much fun, unfortunately though it doesn't lead to much studying! haha Nena is also living in Provo (just across the street in fact), and it has been so great to live close to her again, she really has been a fantastic support to me, a friend to lean on, and an ear to listen to me whine about how crappy things were! I have also had the privelage to see Flora a few times since moving, even though she lives in Rexburg she is closer and she has family that lives in Provo.

The pictures that you are viewing, are of what myself and my roomates have come to call the stairs of DEATH! Hiking up and down these stairs constitutes a large portion of my life here at BYU. Look steep? Believe me, they are even more daunting in person, especially when you have to face walking up them at least twice a week with what feels like 40lbs of books strapped to your back! haha Lately my friend Matt and I have been going running in the mornings, and when we do we usually run up these stairs....(ok, so he runs them, I more like power walk them...I have to take each step individually because two at a time just feels like too much of a stretch and I'm worried about falling on my face! haha) Suffice it to say, because of this I have been going up these stairs even on days when I don't have a class that meets at the top of them.

To be quite honest when I first started classes at BYU it weirded me out a little, I had never been to a school where they pray and sing a hymn at the beginning of each class! The spirit really is amazing though! The devotionals every week are exceptional (except when the hijack it for junk like "The Opening Ceremonies of BYU's Homecoming Week" Give me a break!) and it feels like there is always some fireside with a GA of somesort being held. Two weeks ago we got to hear from Bishop Burton and two months before that it was Elder Holland!

I learn so much from all of my classes and I feel like I'm doing well in all of my classes (of course two of my classes are bowling and ice skating), the only possible exception to that would be my Calculus class, though I got two 80%'s and a 90% on the tests we've taken so far which, from what I understand is better than most. I think my favorite class so far this semester is a 3-way tie between Survey of World Religions, Book of Mormon, and Bowling. Bowling is just really fun, I've seen my game improve and my 'teamates' Sydney and Rob crack me up! And then I just feel like I've learned so much from Survey of World Religion and BOM. The semester is almost over though, we only have a few more weeks till Thanksgiving (which I get to go home for :) and then after that there is a week or two more of classes and then finals! I'm so excited for my classes next semester! I'm taking Latin 102, the 2nd Half of the BOM, Family History, World Civ. pt I, History of the Middle Ages, Tap Dancing, and Piano! So I think I just may make it through! The other day I was reading in 2nd Nephi, and it's the part where Lehi was teaching about the importance of the Fall of Adam and Eve and in one verse he said that if they hadn't fallen that Adam and Eve would have had no joy for they would have known no misery and I had this epiphany: In the long run it really is our trials and the hard times, the moments when we feel most miserable, that make us happy, because if we didn't know what that was like we wouldn't have that contrast between sorrow and happiness, and we wouldn't know what joy felt like.

"I testify that the bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs, and that heavenly promises are always kept." --Jeffrey R. Holland, CES Fireside, Sept. 2008