Blackout

Scene opens on a half-crazed redhead who is intensely studying for her science exam. She's looking a little ragged; after all, she still has to clean the vanity, hallway, and her bedroom, pack her car, and take two more finals, all before tomorrow afternoon. And she hasn't gotten much sleep. It's no wonder that when the next event happened, she just wanted to take a nap right there.

(Girl, studying, and thinking to herself): Man, I have so much to do. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. Cleaning everyone's stuff off the vanity is going to be a pain. Translation occurs on the ribosome...or on the nucleus. Better check that again. As soon as I get home I'm going to load up my car. Einstein's special theory of relativity says...
(BAM! Lights flicker, then die in the Benson building)
Girl, thinking to herself: I'm too tired. I just want to lay down here for a second.
(Some girlish screams heard throughout the building. Emergency lights come on. Girl notices that not only are all of the lights in the building out, but the entire campus is pitch black. Somebody in one of the classrooms mentions a large power outage.)
Girl gets up, decides to go into class where her study group is being held. Waits for teacher....in the dark. Waits a little longer. No teacher.

Guy from her class [hopefully a freshman, or else there is no excuse for this] decides it would be smart to use his lighter. Guy decides it would be even smarter to drink hand sanitizer. Guy decides his best idea yet is to blow hand sanitizer from his mouth over his lighter to create a large streak of fire in the classroom. Girl decides it's time to go home and get started on her growing to-do list. Girl walks home in pitch blackness and wonders how she's going to get anything done without power. Girl gets to her apartment complex and starts thinking:
Girl: I wonder why there's a flashing strobe light in the parking lot. I wonder why people are spinning doghnuts in the parking lot. I wonder why there's really loud, headache-inducing music being played the night before finals. I wonder if my apartment is warm...

Girl gets to her apartment to find...well...darkness. One roommate is there, pacing because she has to write a paper but doesn't have internet. Roommate is very mad. Roommate is trying to get ahold of her grandparents, who live in town, and maybe have internet. Grandparents stuck at a concert in town. Grandparents can't get into parking lot because of strobe-light dance party/car show. Roommate gets madder. Girl retreats to bedroom. Girl uses cell phone for light, then her cell phone dies. Girl goes next door to play Skip-Bo because they have a flashlight and nothing better to do. Power comes back on for sixty seconds, enough for everyone to scatter back to their white glove/finals. As soon as girl plugs her phone into the wall, power dies again. Girl says a prayer and decides she's going to start cleaning anyway. Girl uses iPod for light and begins to scrub. And think about ribosomes.

Girl lives without power for three hours. Girl realizes that without light, we can't do much of anything. Girl sees the Christmas message in this.

Do you?

A Warm Fuzzy for Everyone

This might've made me cry, just a little bit...

Save These for Me, Mom and Dad

'Tis my last Friday night in Rexburg for four months (considering the negative temperatures outside, I'm not going to shed any tears about it), and what am I doing? Packing! And of course, thinking about how excited I am for Christmas!! I know my parents have gone ahead and done a lot of the Christmasey stuff without me (understandable), but I just wanted to ask you guys one teensy little favor. Please please please don't watch these without me:

I Feel A Countdown Comin' On

It's Tuesday night...one week and three days from now I'll be in my toasty (no heat....in...this...apartment), oh-so-warm home in Utah. Did I mention it will be nice and hot? Heh...okay. But who woulda thunk that 30 degrees would seem like a paradise to me? Yep, I must live in Rexburg. We're getting down to the wire now, folks. I know I was just saying we had such-n-such weeks until Thanksiving, but that's gone and done now and I officially have only one week of actual classes, two days of tests, and one day of white glove scrubbing to go (hopefully just one hour). Here are the numbers:

• Number of cans of soup leftover from this semester: 2
  
• $ spent on quarters this semester: 20 bucks
• Number of hours of sleep lost this semester: 50...ish?
• Number of times gone to Utah and back: 6
• Number of times accidentally sprayed myself with hose in locker room at 1am: 1
• Number of broken Pyrex dishes: 1 (overheated glass=explosion in the oven)
• Numberof WinCo trips to buy nuts...in bulk: 6 or 7
• Number of packs of gum consumed: 30
• Number of devotionals: 12
  
• Number of sick roommates: 5 (doesn't include me)
• Number of late-night library jaunts: countless
• Number of random meetings with Broulim's employees/Hollywood employees (belt-buckle guy, Global Warming Guy, Die Hard Guy): 3, obviously
• Number of temple trips: 10
• $ spent on paper in the library (4 cents a page): $10
• Number of papers written: 4 (I know, a record for an English major!)
• Number of times fixed the broken toilet: 4
• Number of recipes collected: hundreds
• Number of missionaries written: 3
• Number of times missed class: 8
• Number of days left as underclassmen: 10
  
• Number of times fell asleep thinking about home: every night
  

baby, it's subzero outside

For those of you who have never been to Antarctica (no need to raise your hands, I can pretty much guess), I just wanted to let you know--you don't have to!

To experience the barren wilderness and freezing cold temperatures, just come here.

I live here. Only for 2 more weeks, but still. This morning I was scraping my car for about ten seconds and then decided the small window of vision was enough. That and I couldn't feel my hands. Ten seconds, people! Also, when I walk from the library to the Hinckley, I have to re-teach my face how to smile. You think I'm exaggerating, right? Well, I didn't used to believe all of the horror stories about Idaho winters. I figured that since I live in Utah, it's pretty much the same, right? That's like thinking that the weather in Oregon and Texas is the same. I know that now...and I have been humbled by the black ice and snow and the -12 degree mornings. Yowza!

Last night the Bedkes and I had our annual "freeze-out" where we walk down Main Street to look at the lights. We didn't make it very far.... mostly we got to the grocery store, which is only four or five blocks from my apartment. The weather has finally one-upped me!

Just Plain Awesome

Because we like dancing so much, if we didn't get sealed in the temple, I think this is how Mormons would make their entrance at a wedding. :)

this is the original:


and this is one performed at jim and pam's wedding:

Let's Be Thankful for Stuff

I made it home. It's kind of a miracle because 1, I was driving on two hours of sleep, and 2, I drove through one of the busiest parts of Utah on a Friday night...on Thanksgiving weekend...with construction all around. As I was leaving Pocatello I narrowly avoided a head-on collision that had just happened in the lane next to mine. I must have been driving by seconds after it happened. There were three cars total, and one of them was in the embankment. Yikes! So thank you for all of you who prayed me home. I'm safe and sound in my own bed (hooray!).

There was an article in today's paper about how Thanksgiving gets overlooked because of greed--everyone wants Christmas to happen, and now! I know that not everyone thinks this way, but I do believe that Thanksgiving sometime does get a little bypassed as "another holiday when we eat a lot." Heheh. So, in honor of this upcoming Thursday, I'm going to make a gratitude list. Feel free to add to it!

I'm thankful for...

1. rest stops, especially for an exhausted girl who also drinks too much water
2. a working car heater, even though I had to turn it off a few times so it wouldn't lull me to sleep
3. a home-cooked meal from my mom almost as soon as I walked in the door
4. Chinese midgets
5. fast internet
6. November weather in Utah--crisp, chilly, scarf-wearing weather, minus the wind!
7. temples all along my way home (that's kinda symbolic, isn't it?)
8. Ben Harper, Joshua Radin, and Damien Rice (perfecto November music)
9. my scriptures, even though after 11 years, the cover is finally showing signs of shredding :(
10. Christmas lights!
11. realizing that next Thanksgiving, a certain 6-foot blond will be across the hall from me once again
12. free laundry...ahhh
13. professors who understand why we have a week off and don't give us any homework
14. going to bed before 6am
15. "Sample Saturday" (anyone who loves Costco knows what I'm talking about)
16. new, healthy cousins (Abby and Maggie, hooray!)
17. Food Network on Thanksgiving week--I wanna be friends with Bobby Flay so he can make me sage and apple-glazed turkey and mulled cider (yes, he did)
18. socks straight from the dryer
19. clean sheets
20. temple clothes
21. driving past my high school...I don't know why it just makes me happy
22. giving people my parking space
23. knowing that when I go back to Rexburg there will only be 2 weeks of school left
24. my parents. they're pretty cool, huh?
25. not using capitalization at the beginning of my sentences. I feel like a rebel (but I can't bring myself to de-capitalize the "I." See? I just tried it and I had to change it.)
26. dogs. they're smelly but I still love 'em.
27. best friends
28. newspapers (yes, I still read the paper!)
29. planning Christmas presents for family members...I feel sneaky. It feels good.
30. reading books that I've been reading since I was a kid to the other chilluns
31. shampoo+water that isn't so hard it makes me look like I have dandruff
32. Christmas cards
33. the beloved instrument in our front room
34. broken headphones (I was forced to clean the fieldhouse and the raquetball courts all by myself on Friday morning for 6 hours....without any music. It was quiet but still. You know?)
35. parks and recreation/the office/30 rock/community (NBC is taking over the comedic world....uh-oh)
36. parades
37. holiday movies
38. lists in general
39. old journals
40. Asics
    
41. poetry contests, especially poetry contests that other people win ;)
42. BYU football
43. snow on the tops of the mountains
44. driving past the "Welcome to Utah" sign
45. good hygiene
46. hand turkeys
47. William Bradford and Squanto, for welcoming us in English!
    
48. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
49. songs sung in Chinese by a Chinesean (yep, Caleb thinks he's Chinesean, which is a species)
    
50. all of you who have bothered to read through this list....you sure are curious! LOVE YOU ALL! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I tag...everyone who reads this. Make your own gratitude list!