Christmas Break

It's been a long time again, but I'm actually not too upset about it because I've been so busy lately. Between Christmas Around the World, finals, Andrew's marriage, and moving back home the past little while has been absolutely crazy. However, I thought I'd write a quick "hello" for the sake of updating.
1. Work is wonderful. I love work. I'm pretty sure I have the best job anywhere on BYU campus. Admittedly there are days that I don't want to be here (yes, I'm at work now) and true there are days that I get frustrated with situations that occur at work but that doesn't mean I don't love my job. For real. First of all, I have the best coworkers. I have made really good friends here, we're all like a little tutoring family. Second, my boss makes me laugh and is extremely understanding. Plus he's Hawaiian so it's always a party here. ;) Not really (the party, he is Hawaiian), but he is very laid back. Third, I like my students (mostly :) ) and finally, Independent Study is just the coolest. Right now our work space is all decorated like Santa's Workshop. There was a huge contest about who could decorate the best, and our department really went all out. There were hours and hours (literally) that went into this display of spirit. I'm not going to lie and tell you it isn't awesome because it is.
2. Dancing. Oh dancing. It must always be mentioned, because without mentioning dancing, I guess I'm not really writing about my life. Well dancing is fantastic. I absolutely adore folk dance, and am in 5 dance classes next semester which are all folk dance related: World dance, Irish, Clogging, Chinese, and folk dance team. I'm just that obsessed. My greatest goal is to make PAC, by Junior year preferably, but I'll take it as a Senior. :) Obviously Spac comes first, but you know, baby steps. On the same note as dancing is working out. I am pleased to announce that me and two of my very very best friends at BYU and just in general, Lauren and Vera, have put together a work out regimen that will hopefully get me in good enough shape to handle all 5 of those dance classes.
3. Writing is also going really well right now. There was awhile that I did crummy at updating my writing blog due to the same stressors that kept me from updating here or from doing anything sane, but I'm back to updating daily  (you know, three days in a row now) and I am just loving every second. I guess PAC may only be my greatest goal after publishing books which is also after getting married to a beautiful sweetheart of a man. So...
4. Men. Not going well. Hahaha let's just leave it at that.
5. Family! As I mentioned, Andrew just got married last Saturday! It was so exciting! Our family flew out to Nauvoo, IL (an entirely different beast in the winter than in the summer) and the wedding was lovely. I got the opportunity to tend to my sweet baby cousin Duncan while Aunt Shauna was in the temple. I love that chubby cheeked boy a whole lot. So much in fact, that I am working towards yet another goal to earn enough money to purchase myself another plane ticket this summer to fly out and visit Shauna's family once again. Spending time with them this summer was literally a defining experience, beyond what I even thought it would be. I love all those kids so much, and Shauna and AJ are just about the pinnacle as far as aunts and uncles go.
6. School is in a break right now, so it's very easy to view it positively. My first semester went well, including my first batch of finals. I managed to make it through without dying, despite being sick for a month and a half and quite sleep deprived. I'm really looking forward to this next semester because I have five dance classes, three English classes, and book of Mormon. And that's it. I'm pretty happy.
7. Health is probably the bleakest area of my life right now. I count myself very lucky for how wonderfully everything else is going right now. However, the twitch is continuing to get worse and worse. There's a lot of stress associated with that. I'm praying that we can resolve the issue, but patience is necessary in this process, because no one really seems to know what to do about it.

Well! I have other writing I'd like to get to...priorities. I'll try and update again at a more normal time. Maybe I'll give you the scoop after Christmas. :)

Twitter

The things which motivate me to update my blog are often rather random and even more often disjointed. That sentence hardly makes sense but we'll roll with it.
So here's the sitch.
Today I got to work and logged onto my email, to see if I had any assignments I needed to grade. What should greet me upon opening my inbox, but an email from twitter!

Now think what you will about Twitter. Some people really like it, but I personally am not the hugest fan. I don't have a tremendous problem with it, or really any problem with it at all. However, I'd prefer to use facebook and I just don't use my twitter account all that often. As was evidenced by the email.

The subject line read, "Take 2 minutes and get back on twitter!"

So whatever. I opened it up. Here are literal word for word excerpts from the message they sent me. Ahem.
"We've missed you on Twitter!" Twitter can "personally reflect you and your interests" and my personal favorite: "you'll see how quickly Twitter becomes an invaluable part of your life."

An invaluable part of my life?!

I am so sorry, but if anyone really feels that way about their twitter, it just needs to end friend. When I think about  "invaluable parts" of my life I think of my family, friends, writing, dancing, and the gospel. Twitter sure doesn't make that list, people. And it never will. No matter what I put on my twitter timeline to personally reflect me.

So, playing the overly attached girlfriend in the new hit "Clingy" will be Twitter. I'm predicting and hoping they win an award.

Musings on America

Now that I've officially horrified my mother with my post about Eat Randy, it's time for to think about something a little more serious.
Yes. More serious than Eat Randy.
For real, though, I've had a lot on my mind lately. Not in a dark, depressing sort of way, but just in a heavy sort of way.

The first thing I'd like to address is September 11th, which was yesterday. I was just a kid, seven years old, when the twin towers were bombed. Even then though, I knew it was a big deal. It was the first time I'd ever seen so many adults upset about the same thing. Within a year, people had gotten all crazy, blaming the government, and hatching conspiracy theories. I think that's really sad, but even more than that I think it's too bad that our nation pulled away like that, because right after the attacks our country was really united.
For once, everyone looked at people like police and firemen as heroes, instead of complaining about cops on the freeway or saying there were too many firefighters hanging out at the gym. For once, people made the realization that families are more important than stacks of bills.
I remember my mom telling me that President Bush had asked for each child to send a dollar to help the nation. I remember asking my mom if I could send two.

Whenever September 11th rolls around, I guess the memories of the time immediately following comes back to me. So I just wanted to take a second to say I still believe in America. Even though there are a lot of problems with our country, and even though I believe there are many less than upright politicians out there, I still believe that America is the best place on earth. We have been blessed to live in a land with amazing opportunities, where anyone can be a hero, and where amazing things can happen when we actually do unite. For a country built on a principle of "United we Stand, Divided we Fall" and bearing the words "One nation under God, Indivisible," in our pledge it is unreal how we clump into factions and go at one another's throats to defend our points of view.

So I don't know what brought all these feelings about exactly, except that patriotism has been on my mind due to the time of year. I just wanted to be say it, to say that it really wouldn't hurt us all to be a little bit nicer to everyone else.

One of my very very very best friends in High School was super liberal. I'm extremely conservative. As an LDS woman, I accept the differences between man and woman, and that we were created for different purposes, and I don't see that as a limitation. My friend didn't view this the same way I did, but guess what? That never mattered to me. I still loved her, and being her friend helped me not judge people for their views as much as I maybe would've before.

I'm not trying to say I'm perfect now, or that I never judge, or that I'm what everyone should aspire to be. All I'm saying is that in my senior year of high school I realized that what we believe doesn't necessarily define us, and we can care about people with whom we disagree. My friend always knew I didn't see things the same way she did, but we still had fun.

We don't need to ostracize people who thinkdifferently than we do. We don't need to tear other's points of view down, just to make ours seem right. We don't need to make assumptions based on race or gender.

I guess that's something else that really impacted me... My current job is as the Independent Study History Tutor. As a part of this job, I grade a couple of courses. One of the courses I grade is USA 41, and as one of the assignments for this course students are required to write "An American Anthem" about September 11th. Needless to say, I have gotten a wide range of strange songs, some of which have made the book of "weirdest assignments ever". However, on Monday I received the course portfolio from a Muslim girl, and her anthem on September 11th made me almost feel a little sick to my stomach.

Her anthem talked about how she and her family watched the terrorist attacks with the same horror as every other American citizen, but her family was all treated with suspicion after that day. They were ostracized, and questioned, and judged, just because they were of the same race and religion as some evil men halfway across the world.

Why do we do that? The hate that the human race is capable of is something which makes me want to make a change. I want people to know that I don't want to be like other people who would hate them just because they aren't white, or because they're poor, or because they're gay.

So while I know that this isn't much, and I know that realistically only about five people actually read my blog, I guess this is my way of kind of making a stand and saying let's all just love each other. We don't need to accept people's sins, but we do need to accept them.

God Bless America

Eat Randy

This post is called Eat Randy and it is dedicated to my roommate who is crazy, but I love.
College is very different than I expected, but it sure is a lot of fun.
Last night, after a rather dismal, I'm sorry to say for me and my social life, ward wrap up I returned to the dorm room, filled with "bleh".
I first dispelled of the bleh by eating a little cookie bar thing that I made. I'm becoming a little obsessed with food...and may need to start a food blog. Thoughts!?
Note to people on my hall: Come over. Get the treats before Kalin and I eat them all. It's a legit possibility.
Tangent over. After the cookie, there was a dance party of sorts, with some of the most random music you could ever imagine.

This morning I woke up and THE. FIRST. THOUGHT. through  my silly little head was, "I'd rather eat Randy", in a high pitched tone of voice (it's a song people).

And that's just sort of the day it's been.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqKPe9w5bUs

If you too would like to have a Eat Randy day, there's the song. I'm not suggesting it, I'm just making it a possibility. You know. Agency.

The point is, I love my hall. And you.

My 24 Hour Jaunt as a Sci-Fi Character

For those of you who know me very well- which I'm pretty sure everyone that reads my blog does, seeing as it isn't well read- I had an Ambulatory EEG yesterday. I've been battling what my family has come to call "the Twitch" for over three years now. At first we thought it was muscular, likely the result of hundreds of hours of ballet. However, after attempted stretching, chiropractic work, and massage therapy we finally got the problem checked out by a neurologist and after a MRI and a regular EEG the doctor told me she thought it was seizures!
After such a diagnosis we started medicine and then went in to another doctor to get a second opinion. Much like the first neurologist, this one immediately wrote off the possibility of it being seizures. I stay completely conscious during each attack and the activity is completely isolated to the right side of my neck. With such skepticism, the doctor prescribed that we retest, this time for more accuracy.
So, I got the unique experience of getting a 24 hour EEG. Here's how it went down!

First they attached the wires to my head. I promise my hair wasn't that nasty to begin with. They kind of make a mess of it when attaching those wires. Even though you can only see the wires in front from this picture, they are all over my head, including dastardly ones behind my ears which drove me crazy for the entirety of the test. This made me able to empathize for movie stars who have to play aliens in movies or such, who spend hours getting makeup done before filming. Putting the EEG on took TWO HOURS. Not the most enjoyable two hours ever, but certainly interesting. 

Once all the wires were attached they gave me all the necessary equipment to transmit the information being recorded. For those of you who don't know, an EEG takes pictures of your brain waves to allow doctors to see what is up with your brain, so I was constantly streaming what basically looks like a heart monitor, you know, a little grid with the lines going up and down, but instead of measuring heart rate, we were measuring brain activity. And heart rate. I got to wear heart rate monitor stickers to, which left residue on my skin which still refuses to come off, btw. 

Equipped with my fannypack transmitter and wire carrying shoulder strap, I felt like an alien bounty hunter. Epic posing was definitely required. I actually like this pic, considering I was wearing zero makeup. It was against the rules after all. 

Upon arriving home I made a little video to describe how the EEG worked. Unfortunately, I took it kinda sideways, but I still think it's pretty interesting. :) Wearing the EEG was uncomfortable, especially when it came to sleeptime, but I hope getting it will lead us to figuring out what exactly is going on in my brain, and that we will be able to correct the problem.

Plus, while I was all hooked up, I saw the most amazing double rainbow. That made my day. I look silly in that picture, but it shows me outside, with my gauze looking mummy wrappings, excited to see a rainbow, so I included it. 

In the elevator on the way up to take it off, a man looked at me and asked if we were doing brain testing. I told him yes, and his response was "Then you must have a pretty important brain." That was a pretty cool way to look at the experience. 

All the Dancing

It needs to be said, since this is kind of a dance oriented blog, that this week I danced. A lot.

After a summer of very minimal dancing, my first week at college brought dance classes everyday, as well as three dance tryouts. All my tryouts went really well.

I'm debating how much I should tell you about how weird I thought the contemporary tryout was. I mean, normally I love contemporary, but this audition was not the contemporary I was used to. This was like random movements to even more random drumbeats. Plus we did eight pushups and that was plenty. That didn't make me feel the best about my body, but hey. Life goes on. I made callbacks and got to do the little flick the oil off my hands dance again. I will explain it. Here goes.

The Dance of Contemporary Audition
Swing your arms. That's it. Like a windmill. But do this off balance. Yep. Stick your hips forward more. There you go.
Now spin around like you're off balance.
If you actually are off balance, more power to you.
Now spin back the other way, and hug yourself like you're angry. Make it work, those are the instructions.
BAM! Get in the audience's face. You just project that energy man. Just project it.
Now....
faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall.
Fall to the ground and shoot your legs out, towards the audience, never mind the awkward position you're now in. It's great and artistic, I promise.
Now crunch  your body. Even more awkward, even more artistic.
Slide on the ground. Slidey slidey slidey.
Do a lil jump like a monkey and explodey jump. (I was good at the explodey jump part.)
Now flail your arms, first right, then left, "Like you are removing oil from your finger tips". Or conversely, like a monkey once again.
Now hippity hop - reminiscint of..... a MONKEY- in circles
LEAP
and bend with intensity.
Then awkward head initiated body roll and stick your leg up while completely changing body positions.
Once again, being off balance is in your favor here.

Fin.

It was a nice moment. I tell you what.

Next day. More dance class, and Folk Dance Auditions.
Also known as, longest auditions of my life. Four hours people. It were crazy times.
But it was also insanely fun. It felt sooo good to just really be dancing again and smiling and performing and not feeling like a monkey.
I won't go into all the deets about that audition, but I made the team, and I am so excited about it. I hope that in the next couple years I can move right up the ranks so that I can do the cool people dances, like Hopak and the sweet Indian dancing with all the cool pants.
I had my first Folk Dance class yesterday, and we did some lovely circular dancing and a lot of claps  and snaps. It was mucho good times.

Last night I went to ballroom auditions, and while I didn't make the team, I actually ended up doing much better than I'd anticipated. It was a really good experience to try out, and I'm totally planning on going back to try again next semester. Just for kicks and giggles.

While my soul has loved all the dancing, my feet have not. In addition, my shins are really hating all the walking on campus. I just have to remind myself that at least I'm getting a workout and then I don't feel quite so annoyed.

There was a moment of alarm last night when I returned to my dorm and made the observation that my scar had begun to split open..you know, where I got surgery three years ago. That's always an exciting moment in the life of a young person such as I.

And now... it's FRIDAY!!!
But before you feel tempted to sing a Rebecca Black song, know that there are much better alternatives. Namely, Gandalf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF2iEAIFvPg
There it is, if you'd like to know how I really am feeling about Friday, you just check that puppy out.

Twitterpated

A couple days ago, I wrote a long and rambling blog post about dance at college thus far. I explained the intricacies of the dance audition, and my abundant excitement for the folk dance team.
Just as I went to post... BAM. It somehow deleted. Everything. I pushed publish, and then it was all gone. And it was most concerning.
When things like that happen my next instinct is to write a post saying "GRRR! I JUST SPENT TWENTY MINUTES TELLING YOU ALL ABOUT MY LIFE AND NOW IT'S GONE!"
This is something I didn't do, and this is something I don't really feel the need to do now, and I will tell you why.
But vaguely. Ever so vaguely. (That was to be said the way Anthony Andrews says 'but slowly, ever so slowly' in the Scarlet Pimpernell, for those of you who were wondering.)
Why so vague? (Yep, we just segued from Anthony Andrews to Heath Ledger.)
Well, because I'm not sure who is actually going to end up reading this! And too much information in the hands of the wrong individual could prove disastrous, and potentially mortifying.
The news, though, I know you are all waiting for the news.

For the first time in a long time I am well and truly twitterpated.

This is something which deserves a post, wouldn't you agree?

Officially BYU Status

SOOOOOO. This is it. I am officially living in BYU. I've been here for three days now. Wednesday was moving in day. Now I finally have a cute room!! :) It was fun to put up all my new stuff and create my space from scratch...granted, that space was very limited, but hey, whatcha gonna do (whatcha gonna do when they come for you?) Pics will follow shortly but I'm still getting the hang of...wait for iiiiiiiiiiit....this new laptop! WOOO!

Indeed, I am very adulty. :) I now have a laptop, an all sports pass (GOOOOO COUGARS!!!!!!!! Gotta go buy the game day shirts!) and my very first credit card. Despite all these extremely adult-like items, I have just gone through a New Student Orientation which felt like a mix between EFY and a school field trip to the museum. There were some dry moments, but also some really fun times!

I was extremely blessed. We were assigned "Y Groups" at random, so basically I found myself thrown in with about twenty people I'd never met and was pretty much assigned to be with them all day. I don't know how I got so fortunate, but I made friends in that group pretty fast! Real friends too, that I can be stupid around and they don't walk away. So that's always nice. :) That experience has made me feel a bit more confident about making friends and fitting in here.

There's so much to say, but I don't even know where to begin or how to say it. For all those of you with deep wonderings (You know, all three of you. You know who you are.) Yes. Yes I've been on a date. But before you go crazy and do the victory dance of "I told you so" let's just all realize that this isn't something we should be getting used to. So get down off your high horse (or high My Pretty Pony).

It is probably evident from how scattered and sporadic this post is that I'm kind of tired. I had all these plans about doing crunches then going to sleep but ended up talking to my roommate until past three in the morning. But I guess that's how life goes sometimes. And that can for sure be nice.

Happy Tuesday to You!

I was about to write a different title for this post, but I just got a text from Iceberg (mmmm....milkshakes) which began "Happy Tuesday to you!"

Is it a little sad that I've only gotten three texts thus far today, and one of them is from Iceberg, reminding me that it's $5 combo Tuesday? Perhaps, but I think I'll keep living and see what happens.

The truth is, as you know, I'm pretty bad at keeping up with the blog. Now that I'm back in work and will be starting school in a few days I don't foresee it looking up much. But perhaps I'll have a change of heart and become a consistent writer.

Maybe.

Life has been crazy this summer. A trip to Georgia, and then to Mexico were kind of the highlights, prefaced by a week in Wyoming for Trek, and followed up by a last minute trip to Cedar City, getting a new job, hanging out with friends, and getting ready to move to college.

Which I'm doing tomorrow, btw. I've been trying to get everything I want squeezed into a few boxes, and I'm currently legitimately concerned about whether or not everything is going to fit. As my mother told me though, where there's a will there's a way. And there is a will baby. There is a will.

As for the usual things that come up in my life-dancing and writing- there's been less of that than normal, but it's picking back up. I didn't have any dance classes this summer, but I did hang out with dance friends a whole bunch, they're kind of like a second family. I'm also in two dance classes this semester, and have three dance auditions next week, which hopefully will result in more dancing! Woo!!

Writing, on the other hand, has experienced a sharp uptake in the last week. What prompted the jump in writing activity? Quiet, children, and I shall tell you. I was going along, minding my own business, living my life, going to work, la dee dah, when I received a message from another member on fanfiction.net. The message, while meant well, was asking if she could write one of my most popular stories for me since I hadn't updated it in quite some time. That question sort of horrified me. I thought to myself, You can't just take my story!! That's mine! I have poured my soul into this! And so I kindly replied, you know, thanks for the offer, but I'm actually going to update today. So I did.

The result?
As posted on facebook, because I'm very proud of myself, views came pouring in. In the last month alone I have received over 11,970 views from the USA, and over 15,000 views in total.

That's a thrilling feeling, knowing SOMETHING I'm writing is reaching people. Even if it's just a silly story, there are people out there who care about what I have to say, and that's enough to make this a happy Tuesday.

Life. In all it's Splendor.

So, I know, it's been a really long time since I've written. I'm not really sure what exactly it is I wanted to say here, but I am feeling stressed and currently a little sad, so I thought I'd write to get my feelings out. Of course, I could do this in my journal where no one would ever read it, but I've already done that and it just didn't rid me of the urge.
I guess I should just say a lot has changed since I last posted. Something's changed that I was kind of counting on...well...not changing. It's helped me to learn something though. Actually multiple things. I've learned that best friends don't turn their back on you, no matter how whiny you are. I've learned that maybe we need to be patient to find happiness. I have learned that life doesn't always go as planned. I learned that we should never EVER take anything for granted, because you never know how long something will last. I have learned that God is there. He has been there for me as I've struggled with feelings of abandonment, betrayal, and confusion. He's helped me realize that things aren't as dark as I thought they were. Most importantly, He has given me hope.
When things first change it's hard to see a silver lining, but through much prayer and even fasting, I am coming to realize that there is a lot of good that can come out of any bad situation. So I guess that's what I wanted to share. I want anyone that's reading this to know that life is hard.
Dancers get foot surgery.
Straight A students get their GPAs ruined.
People you love sometimes disappoint you.
But that doesn't mean life is over, and it doesn't mean things won't get better, because they will. As hard as it is to see through the rain and the darkness, there's always light, and eventually that light will become completely bright and beautiful. The Savior has paid the ultimate price for every single hurt that this life has to throw at us. There are times that this hurt is incidental, but there's other times that hurt is introduced so that we can have a chance to learn and improve. We all have an awful lot to be grateful for. That's all I need to say right now.

Times they are a Changin

Typical post. It all began with me, deciding to get some homework done. You know, really use President's Day to it's fullest potential. Naturally, I had to just quick check my email first. And what should I espy there but a comment on my blog, making fun of me for my lack of updating.
So.
Here I am.
With an update.
Take that Alison!
There isn't that much to say, except that if I actually tried to say anything about my life right now this blog post would turn into the longest excerpt of written word ever viewed by man. This is NOT an exaggeration.
There are a few things worth mentioning. First is Swan Lake. I'm in it. I didn't get a single part that I wanted, not even one. Truth be told, I'm way frustrated. I'm holding onto a glimmer of hope that something's going to turn out and that it will all be alright, but that glimmer is pretty flimsy. I'll keep you posted on that, but no one wants to read my rants on this subject so we'll move on.
Secondly, I just completed my final choir fundraising concert of my life. It's been a long and crazy ride, starting with "Seasons of Love", progressing to "An Evening with Andrew Lloyd Webber" and finishing off with "Music from Movies". There were definitely some very fun moments to be had doing this show, and also some moments where I felt like tearing my hair out. Highlights included Footloose, dancing in J'ai Ho, and Dallin awkwardly singing the girls part with me in "A Whole New World". I also got to do some ballroom with Austin during Cinemagic. We danced the first few shows pretty well, but by the last show I basically laughed the entire routine. I completely botched a step and ended up sort of hovering around Austin while we traveled in a circle. Hopefully it didn't look so awkward, but it certainly was funny.
Finally (for now), I got accepted to BYU!! I'm really excited, but the prospect is very intimidating as well. I have been looking forward to college for such a long time, but now it is real, no turning back.
I really ought to do my homework now (oh AP Psychology, how I adore you), but I will likely post again. Sometime. :) For now, adieu.