a1i3n

Monday, October 20, 2008

I have a new major!

Ha ha, so I really shouldn't do this probably because I'm busy enough as it is, but when I was registering for Spring Semester, I ended up with a lot of empty space in my schedule so I thought, why not go for another major?

I looked at a few and what I would need to do to finish them and they were all too much. I'm an Arts Administration major now and was planning on getting a minor in Art by completing a few more arts classes than was required in my major. So after my first double major options were found to be impossible (in my window of time - I don't have the funds to take 5 yrs of college versus the average 4), I thought why not just get an Arts major instead of a minor?

So I checked that out, and if I take all my available May term classes and take an art class in France (I'm planning on doing a study abroad this summer) then it'll work out perfectly! So now I am an Arts and Arts Administration major lol. Basically I am an arts major with some communication and business classes. I am excited though. I will finally be able to fully develop my talents and create a strong portfolio, something that I could potentially do on my own but now I have some extra motivation and greater exposure to the arts community.

Then, I think for graduate school, I will either continue in the administration area or look into art therapy... So many decisions to be made. But I am excited; this new development has renewed my interest in higher education.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Update, and a long journal-like description of my day.

Not much has been going on. I am having trouble with my truck. It won't pass emissions (two "m's" or one?) and I possibly will have to buy a new carborator (sp?), grr. So with that out of commission, I've reverted back to public trans and hit up the frontrunner on my daily commute when I don't bum rides from my daddy.

I had a couple of fun weekends. The first weekend in October I went to a school activity at Fat Cats, Cosmic bowling with free drinks and breadsticks for five dollars. In one word - awesome. I also watched Hocus Pocus with some friends to get in the Halloween mood for October.

Last thursday, I went to a Jazz game with a friend from work. It was pretty fun, nothing too intense cause it's pre-season so it doesn't matter really but the Jazz lost, boo. Friday the tenth was my twin sister's friend's birthday so we went to a dance club with a bunch of friends to celebrate. She and her work friends go to the same club almost every week, they are really fun people. But holy cow, I almost died so many times on the ride there. The girl who drove was insane! We were going 90 to 100 mph on the freeway. She was trying to get there before 11 because we were on the guest list and could get in free before then.

Saturday night was horrible though. I worked this giant, crazy Mexican wedding. It would have been a fun wedding to attend, don't get me wrong, it just sucked working on it. People were dancing in between tables, which is an essential space for serving. As in, I need to walk there, buddy, please dance somewhere else. The music was so loud, and there were random people showing up two hours late and wanting to be served. Ugh, we were so glad when that night was over. O and, for those of you who read my blog and also have experience at the Joe, you will appreciate this; they had chiavari (another word with questionable spelling) chairs and chargers!

So, that brings me to today which was pretty good. I slept through my first class but I didn't really care. All we do is talk about how science is pretty much bull. In the future, all our current models of how the universe works will be proven false, with new false models. This cycle will continue. It is interesting sometimes but I'm getting a little sick of it. Plus, I like sleeping. Then in my web design class, I got good critiques on my personal website project. It is looking pretty good if I say so myself. When it goes live, I'll post the url here so you can all check it out. Basically it's my resume in website form. Then I had my business and employment law class. I didn't read the chapter but we didn't make it to going over our homework, sometimes luck is on my side.

Oh, and after school, I met with the SLC Film Center. We finalized plans for our next film in Be the Change. It is called Beyond the Call. I'm pretty excited for this one as well. It's about 3 doctors who just go around the world wherever they are needed most and help people. Philanthropists are awesome.. Then I had an enjoyable evening hanging out with some fellow honors program kids when we were "working on our project." That's the thing about group projects, if you get in a group you like they don't seem to be very productive, but at least you have a good time doing it eh?

Ok, it is my bedtime now. I commend you if you actually read all that. Peace.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

I am the film and lecture series chair at my college and this film - Pray the Devil Back to Hell - was our opening film in our series for this year called "Be the Change." So I thought I'd share my thoughts.

The movie was intense and eye-opening. There were graphic scenes from war torn Liberia that made you cringe and the stories that the women told were horrific. Even with all that, it was divinely uplifting, especially for women. The women of Liberia non-violently ended the civil war that was killing their children and making soldiers and rapists of their boys. It was inspiring to see how these ordinary women forced the war lords who were ripping their country apart to begin peace talks, and when those peace talks became stagnant, they forced them to come to a close and sign the peace agreement. Then, they worked to elect the first woman president in Africa who is rebuilding their country and keeping peace. These women took control of their country and changed the direction of their society, their story is incredible.

You can check out the widget above for more information. I tried putting it in this note but something in the code isn't compatible or something... very annoying.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

My ill-fated last camping trip

This story happened the last weekend of summer.

I bought a truck on Thursday for $400 from a neighbor. It's an old '89 Mazda b2200. It's really cute ha ha, I seriously fell in love with it - probably just because it's my first car and my friends were all saying "oh, you're Bella" (from the Twilight series ha ha).

That Saturday, a couple of my friends and I thought it would be fun to get one last camping trip in over labor day weekend before school started. I worked late that night but we were planning on just going up and sleeping in the back for the night. We bought some snacks, put some foam mattresses in the back and grabbed our pillows and headed out. We decided to just go up Farmington canyon and find a place to park.

Well, at the base of the Farmington canyon, of course there is a cop parked right there. He was off to the side of the road so I pulled passed him, just waiting for something to go wrong. Yep, as soon as I passed, his lights went on. Grrr. So he comes up to my window and I'm like "What's the problem?" He said the light over my license plate was out. Ok. Then he asks for my license and notices that my license is from Utah and my plates are Idahoan. I hadn't gone to the DMV to get my truck registered yet, 1. because I was stupid and thought that there was some sort of grace period and 2. because they are closed Fridays now, so I couldn't have done it anyways. So he cites me for driving with improper plates and having no insurance because I didn't have my card with me and then is "nice" for giving me a warning on the light issue.

He asks me to get out of the truck to explain the citation to me. We walk to the back of the truck and he has me sign and everything. He says he's being nice by not impounding my car. So stupid. Then he is like, "When is the last time you smoked weed?" I was like what? I told him I don't smoke. Then he's like "Who's in your car?" and I'm like "my friends." He asks me when they last smoked or if they ever smoke and then he wants to search my truck. So I was like whatever. So he searches my truck. He only searched the cab and my friend was joking, "ha ha, sucker, the weed is in the back!" (not loud enough for him to hear of course). But it was really dumb.

And so I went to traffic court and have a pre-trial conference in October. Ridic.

O and just to make things even better, I get in an accident with my dad's car later that week! It was the other guy's fault. Basically, he did a U-turn into my side. Ugh. Such is life I guess ha ha. It's totally my luck.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Wyoming Trip

The 3rd weekend in August, I went to Wyoming with my family. We stayed on a ranch that my aunt's father owns with his 6 other brothers and sisters. Their family ranch is a total of 1400 acres and he owns 400 of them. It was very nice of he and his wife to let us come up and stay in their cabin and play with all their toys.

My sister and I drove up Saturday morning, well, we actually left closer to twelve. We had a few detours on the way up because we weren't sure if we were headed in the right direction but nothing too time consuming. We got to the ranch around 2 pm, just in time to join members of my extended family on a four wheel ride around the ranch, with Ron (the ranch owner) as a guide. We were in this giant procession of four wheelers lol and Ron would stop at points of interest and tell us about the history of the ranch. The first stop was an old log cabin. It was small and crooked, and looked like it was flooded with dirt because the door was so short! He showed us a pile of rocks that were used back in the day to mark the corners of an area of land. He's found 3 of the 4 that would be on his property. The last stop was an old school house he and his family had renovated. It was very cool. They had old fashioned desks and everything. Even a shelf full of encyclopedias from the 1800s.

We went back to the cabin and ate some dinner and rode the four wheelers some more while the men went out shooting and the kids went frog hunting. We went and swung on the tree swing next to the creek where the kids were catching frogs and then I tried to catch a few frogs of my own. It was really fun. I'd never done it as a kid. The tadpoles felt so weird to hold lol, like all slimey and wiggly in your hands as they tried to escape. It's crazy the transformation that they go through, from tadpoles to frogs. So weird that some creatures change so much over the course of their lifetime.

That evening, we went for a little horseback ride. Some of the horses there aren't very responsive. They tend to have minds of their own. Mine went for a gallop when I wanted to just trot lol, and my sisters was just following our horses around and wouldn't follow her lead. I lost my cell phone and couldn't find it that night but in the morning I went out and found it - yay - I was scared. Especially because it's not technically my phone.

The next day, we rode four wheelers, caught frogs again, canoed and paddle boated (lol, yes paddle boated) in the pond. It was so beautiful and relaxing. I really want a ranch when I grow up lol. Being out in nature can be so rejuvenating, it's a release from all our social cares and stresses that weigh us down day after day.

It was almost spiritual standing in the middle of the valley, mountains on either side of the vast sky and feeling so small and at the same time feeling that somehow things are all connected. Like the earth is our mother and we go to her to find peace and rest when we can't find it anywhere else.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

July Camping Trip

Here are some pictures from my camping trip with my girlfriends from high school. We go on a camping trip every year in the summer to keep in touch and catch up on everyone's lives.

We went to Deer Creek reservoir up Provo canyon. It was such a beautiful drive up. The view there was pretty, but the water was kind of gross. Basically what we do camping is just go swimming lol so that sucked, plus there wasn't really any good "beach" (I say it in quotations 'cause technically it's not a beach). So we were kind of bummed but the last day there, we found like a hidden spot right next to our campsite that was just perfect and the water was so clear. It was a little rocky but it beat the slimey seaweed area we were going to before, we wished we had found it earlier.

One thing that was pretty awesome was that me, my twin, and one of our friends climbed the peak of this really big hill/small mountain that was right in front of our campsite, across an inlet from the reservoir. It wasn't bad until about half way up and we got stuck in extremely dense foliage, like we seriously couldn't move anywhere except to go back to where we came from so we hiked horizontally for a while to get to a more open spot. All the while we are having irrational fears of bears and snakes and early death lol. But we made it to the top and there was a throne made of large rocks with a bandanna as a flag attached to the back. We of course took pictures. The hike down was a lot worse. We went down the other side of the mountain which was a huge mistake lol. It was steep and dry and at the end we had to cross the inlet after thrashing through some high, thick plants. We thought we'd cross at a narrow part but it was disgusting and I couldn't bring myself to do it. My sister had her camera and my friend had her phone so we were worried about them getting wet. My friend finally crossed at the gross narrow part. She was able to swim across with one arm in the air holding the camera and phone. My sister and I were too grossed out to go that way because 1. there was really gross seaweed and we both are like paranoid of gross seaweed, can't stand to walk in it, and 2. there was a rotting fish in the water at the other side - gross! Lol so we threw our shoes over to her and we swam across at a wider point. We hit a little of a sand bar in the middle and we freaked out when some seaweed got tangled on us *shudder* (it really is grosser to me than having a fish swim by my feet, I don't know why it just is) and then we walked to the road in our bare feet because our shoes were covered in burs, like inside and outside from the hike down. It took me almost an hour to get all the burs out once I got home.