Late June

Hiking with pals is a fun way to spend the day!

 

On this fun triple date, the six of us journeyed through the Tony Grove.  Legend holds that a large bear-sized mountain lion frolics in its trails, slumbers in its meadows, and snacks on its visitors.  So they named the grove after him as a sign of respect.  And they named him Tony I guess to make him seem nicer.  And they named him at all to make him seem real.
All the secret agenda of naming the grove has been successful, I think.

That sweet face on the left belongs to Rebecca Hansen.  Rebecca is great because she knows big words, but only uses them if necessary.  She'll ask you how your day is, not to make small talk, but because she's actually been curious about you.  Her second favorite holiday is April Fools because she gets to exercise her impressive non-malicious talent for trickery.  Her first favorite is Easter because she gets a new kite each year.  During finals week, she made special time on her schedule to have a who-can-get-dizziest contest with me.  She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, even though she may know better.  She likes, or is really good at pretending to like, everything I bake.  She is the most intellectual, well-rounded, hard-working person I know.  She's undeclared because she's not sure which major will truly let her help the most people.  She has both the softest voice and the loudest laugh.  She's super great.

One time, I got contacts!  Seeing so well without glasses on my face makes me feel like a superhuman.  I wasn't expecting to feel like so empowered when I got them, so I was unprepared for the surge of invisibility that came with them.  I might have jumped into some public fountains, ran around campus, and gotten really gutsy.  I might not have.
But it reality, I did.
Also, the word "gutsy" is weird.

People are super supportive and empathetic when I they find out I'm new to contacts. But they don't say things like "aw man, contacts are a pain" or "ugh, that sucks".  Instead they say things like "it gets better" "it just takes time" "hang in there".  It's pretty intense.


In general, my life is so beautiful and overwhelmingly joyful all the time.  Truly.  Giggling comes easily, my steps spring into one another, I wake up smiling.  I enjoyed a live performance of the "Ode to Joy" and I could totally relate.  I've been so happy for so long, I even get nervous.  But then I'm like "THAT'S SILLY AHAHHAHHAHAHA" and I skip gaily, flowers in hand, into the orange sunset.  So that's my life lately!

"...et le singe est… est… le singe est disparu.”

I know that my first visit home from college was supposed to be full of angst and claustrophobia, but it was good days all around.  Arizona's beautiful, my family's perfect, and my friends are just awesome.  Not to say I don't love Logan, i just don't hate Mesa as much as I hoped I would.

When it came time for me to head back to school,  I guess I felt a need to act out somehow.

Sometime last year, I was driving in one of the few roundabouts in Mesa, feeling very European.  I made a mental note to shave in the near future.  Then I decided it would be very silly to put a mini Arch de Triumph in the roundabout, just like its location in Paris.  Granted, this idea is kind of obscure and not that funny, but I still laughed for a while before the idea scuttled into a deep corner of my mind.

Anxious at the thought of leaving my hometown before I even got around to hating it, the idea came back.  So I found an abundance of post-Christmas cardboard, some tape, brown packaging paper, and a complete disregard for sleep.

And then I took a whole bunch of pictures:

little baby

My dad served an LDS mission is Paris, so he was just mumbling in French

It added to the artistic process as I mumbled along in fake French (or, most likely, obscene French)

So there's that.
Next time I go home, I think I'll make it a bit bigger and put it in a less desert-y landscape.

P.S.  In news of much cooler things being built, this is a Mormon temple under construction.  Also, some cool kid.

kind of feels like doing drugs

New Firsts:
-sweeping snow off my car to recognize it
-scraping ice off the windshield
-slipping on the ice
-falling on the ice
-Tim Tam Slams

FIRST YOU BITE OFF A CORNER

THEN YOU BITE OFF THE OPPOSITE DIAGONAL CORNER

THEN YOU PLACE ONE CORNER IN THE COCOA AND PROCEED TO USE THE COOKIE AS A STRAW

THEN THE WHOLE THING IS SOGGY, SO YOU AWKWARDLY SHOVE IT IN YOUR MOUTH.

This is probably as close to doing hookah as I'll ever get.  Which I realize isn't close at all.  However, as the wave of chocolate melty-ness warmed my very soul, I could pretty much feel my pupils dilate in my head. 

This is my most awesome sister/roommate/best friend for eternity/tim tam slam instructor

and I love her very much

And she made that perfect shade of nude nail polish all by herself.

oh yeah...

This is my front yard.

ONE TIME in a silly turn of events, I became Ms. USU Band.  It was a very delightfully sarcastic pageant full of unicycle-riding, tin foil costumes, and general foolery.  Then I went with my sister and beloved roommates to the Village Inn where Hotty McHotster served us pie.  

Oh! And Halloween was super great.  Some of my favorite costumes were:

1. Woman- Yes, the whole cross dressing thing is overdone.  But my buddy Robert's breasts were just so beautifully shaped that it pretty much made Halloween for me.

2.  Vincent Van Gogh- With his blazer, bandaged ear, and slightly reddish hair, I thought this was a pretty brilliant costume.  Actually, he was being Fred Weasley.  But I'm just going to pretend he was being awesome Van Gogh rather than sub par Fred.

3. Rapunzel from Tangled- giant yarn hair and all.

4. Captain Willy Scissorhands
and
5. my sister made a pretty awesome Kim Possible-  And she let me dye her hair for her.  Which I'm AWESOME at. Oh, and she's awesome at having red hair.

These costumes, the fact that I was dressed like Mr. Peanut for three days in a row, and the Hot Tamales I won in a dance contest all made for a great Halloween weekend.


Sportswise, this weekend has been super great.
actually
Everythingwise, this weekend has been super great.

USU won both basketball (against stupid dumb BYU) and football, I have a space heater, I'm becoming slightly competent at knitting, Walmart had a cardboard Hogwarts, and it snowed!

Okay. So.  I thought that blogs had to have a purpose.  Rookie mistake, I know. Despite all this, "how to love the snow" remains.
So I guess, to fulfill the halfhearted and obligatory purpose of this blog that I've been ignoring,

I love the snow.

It's fluffy and brisk and footprints are so cute-looking and it turns into ice that sounds like legos when you kick it and the whole sky is white and everybody runs and laughs for reasons that they would usually just walk and it's so beautiful and exciting that it makes me want to write poems about it and put them in the Friend.
It's super great.
And it's sparkly.
And when you slip on ice it's not even that bad.

just the tip

 IT'S HAPPENING.

      I had a friend tell me once that he hated it when people would bring up the weather.  He thought it was just an obvious way for someone to say they think the conversation is boring.  I guess this is kind of true.  But if I come up to you wanting to talk about the weather up here in Logan, I am either actually freaking out or I have a legitimate question.  

       So one brisk (Logan-speak for freeze-your-butt-off-cold) Monday, my percussion lesson was cancelled due to the instructor's major flu.  So I went straight to the Dollar Tree and bought Halloween decorations.

The finishing touch to my festivities was to give my roommates diabetes.  So I went to work melting bark chocolate and messily stuffing it into my $1.00 autumnal ice tray.

  And in once last effort to get the Martha Stewart out of my system (this is figurative), I made dinner.  First, I cooked onions and the pumpkins.  Then I got confused.  Then I put it on noodles!  I call it Pumpkin Noodle Topper.  And it was actually pretty scrumptious.

October is stunning.  It feels like that one cold snap in Arizona when all the ficus trees die. Except here, everything seems livelier, crisper, blue-r.

New experiences include:
     -Marching band rehearsal in the cold rain
     -Hanging my coat on a public coat rack
    - Buying fancy gloves
     -Seeing snowy mountains out my window
  



And yes, I'm prepared for the list to get longer and scarier.  Apparently the snot in my nose will freeze right when I step outside.  Which is sort of cool…?

Oh yeah!  We went to Conference <3

I wish goatlore was an actual thing

One of my most favorite things EVER: playing games in restaurants.

Basically, anywhere with ketchup on the table is free game.

I decided that my old person tendencies are alright with me, as long as when I’m actually and old person, I won’t have 18-year-old girl tastes.  But, then again, cougars and sugar mamas seem to be pretty content.

Moving on.

I’m really good and Bananagrams.  My vocabulary will break your femurs.

Seriously, I’m not even sure if I’m being metaphorical.

And this is a cool flower bed with the greeting-card-esque yellow flower that dares to be herself.  It's sort of precious.

So.  I’ve been absurdly happy lately.  I just sit and giggle with my happiness sometimes. And then I do the cha cha in my apartment. (no, seriously)

1.       No, it is not because of a boy (but that’s a fair assumption
2.      No, I’m not on any sort of rebalancing medications
3.      No, there really hasn’t been any sort of hallmark in the past week to could act as any reasonable cause
4.      I’m just really happy
5.      It’s kind of weird

In additional news, one time I was embarrassed.

The aliens-totally-exist class I take is kind of snoozy sometimes.  Not usually, but just on this particular exhausted Tuesday (sitting and giggling really takes it out of you I guess).  So I was nodding off next to my good friend Ana as she drew on my notes.  Unfortunately, this is nether unusual or all too embarrassing.

At one point during the snooze, my head leaning toward her, Ana tapped me awake and sort of frantically told me not to sleep on people. 

Since she is not the snuggly sort, I figured she was talking about herself.  With not enough consciousness to even be confused or heartbroken, I quickly slumped back asleep like a grown-up college student.

Later on that night in the apartment, Ana reaccounted to our other roommates the silly story of how I fell asleep on the big bro-man to my left and how he gently poked me to the right where I then slumped on Ana.

In retrospect, this was very obvious and embarrassing.  But also pretty chuckle-y.  So.

Also, him and his big fluffy coat were kind of asking for it, to be perfectly honest.

I’m not sure whether to seek him out and apologize or just be pretty darn bashful whenever entering the class…

And with this anecdote of my awkward lifestyle, I must prepare to leave on the marching band bus for our football game versus BYU (it's a little embarrassing how much last week's heartbreak has pumped me up).

 

And I didn't even turn into a fish

Upon one fateful Wednesday, my dear friend Dahlya and I ended up at a duck pond with leftover-lunch.  It was a super time feeding the ducks.  So super, in fact, that we decided to make it a weekly event.  Thus was the birth (berth?) of Waddle Waddle Wednesday.  With fish-based kitten food in hand, a group of us pals trekked weekly to Freestone park , sure that  the added zen would increase our test scores and sanity.  It was a good time. 

That is the past, unfortunately.  But a good past, indeed. 

 

Three months later, here up at college, Megan and I were sitting in our living area/kitchen greeting Saturday with breakfast indecision.  Megan got a knife ready to spread some Nutella on a piece of bread and then stopped.  She then said, “Put on some shoes and let’s go.”

I thought we were going to the Coinstar, so naturally I was totally psyched out of my mind for the amount of fun I was about to have.  

Because I didn’t even know we were close to a duck pond and because I guess I just thought it was normal for someone to bring a half-loaf of bread to a Coinstar, I was pleasantly surprised when we pulled up to a pond to do some good much-missed Waddling.

Canyon-y

It was beautiful.   Very different from the careful urban sculpting of the park I’d go to back home, this was right in the canyon and surrounded by highway sunflowers.  The ducks and geese, like most things in Utah, were a lot nicer and slower than I’m used to.   And I think it was my first time Waddling with Megan.  And Megan’s obviously a jillion times awesomer than any other person I’ve waddled with.  All these things considered, it was double the zen of usual Waddling.

Though, I’m sure Waddling is good wherever you go.  Except maybe like a prison.

Later on, we went to the campus pool for some roommate bonding. 

I'M BRAVE

Later later on, we went to Bear Lake!

            Which was SO cold

            And 50% located in Idaho

            And full of pretty rocks

            And graced with delicious raspberry               shakes

            And a whole lot of fun.

Thus concludes the weekend that I didn’t even turn into a fish.

In fact, I didn’t even turn into a fish this weekend either.  I didn’t even come close.

But I did go to my very first football game of the season!

And we won! Which was surprising because it was the last thing I was expecting (no offense, Aggies).

And I marched my first show! Which was pretty super fun and full of little baby rain sprinkles.

And I can do Running Man while playing my bass drum! Which feels like a real accomplishment.

And I went and sang songs to the elderly at Sunshine Terrace!  Which made my heart feel all good.  

And that's all I have to say.