Changes

I once heard that there are two things that you can guarantee in life and those were death and taxes. However I don't think that quite covers everything. I would like to add "change" to that pile. Change is constantly occurring in our daily lives. Some changes are good and others we feel like we could do without them. There are many types of changes that occur such as changes in goals, friendships, and circumstances. There are changes we have no control over and other that require us to take the first step. There are the kind that makes us grow, make us proud, and other that makes us feel loss or disappointment. There are the changes that that make you feel like you moving forward and the others that make you feel like you are being left behind. Some might say it is important that we experience all kinds of changes, as for me I have yet to decide.

Bad Sense of Humor

I have been told that I have a bad sense of humor, or a twisted sense of humor on several different occasions. Why do I have a twisted sense of humor? It is because I have a "habit", I guess you could call it, to laugh when someone falls or gets hurt, within reason. I am not really sure why but for some reason people think it is wrong to laugh when someone falls or gets hurt, but I can't help but laugh. Someone once thought I was crying when I witnessed someone get hurt but that was only until they saw I was laughing so hard that it made my eyes water.What can I say I am a horrible horrible person. I guess that is why America's Funniest Home Videos is one of my favorite T.V. shows.
I receive comfort knowing that I am not the only person to have this problem. I remember on one occasion when Yannette and I laughed hysterically at Jessi shortly after Yannette through a nectarine at Jessi's face. And I know that Jessi laughs at people just as much as I do. Do take comfort to know that I do in fact feel bad about laughing a little bit. kind of? maybe? maybe not? But sense it is the right thing to do I would like to take this time to apologize, sort of, to those of you who I have laughed at during your time of humiliation or pain. But to prove that I wasn't completely in the wrong and that it is in fact funny here is a video. Do not judge me unless you can get through this video without smiling, snickering, or laughing.

Defined by A Soundtrack

I love music. If you were to ask anyone in my immediate family they would probably tell you that I would go through withdrawals without it, which I am currently going through since misplacing my iPOD somewhere in my house...You know in that safe place that I will remember but now have forgotten. One of the things that I love about music is that there is a song for probably every emotion, so no matter what you are feeling there is something to listen to. Music allows people to express themselves with out saying a thing. Emotions can definitely influence your music selection. But with that said, it should also be said that music also has an amazing power to control our emotions.

Have you ever been asked the question: If you had to create a soundtrack for you life at this very moment in time what would be on it? This isn't to be confused with a soundtrack of your favorite songs, but more the background music to your life as if it were a movie. It is something to think about especially if you are to be completely honest with yourself.

After some thought here is my soundtrack (keep in mind it isn't in any kind of order):

1. Dream by Priscilla Ahn
2. Tied together With a Smile by Taylor Swift
3. Falling Awake by Gary Jules
4. Billy S. by Skye Sweetnam
5. This is Me by Demi Lovato
6. B**** by Meredeth Brooks
7. Some Day My Prince Will Come by Snow White
8. Tamahana by Te Vaka
9. Disturbia by Rihanna
10. Hum Your Favorite Hymn by Child song Book
11. Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Cindi Lauper
12. As I Am by Miley Cyrus
13. I Was Here by Lady Antebellum
14. My Last Breath by Evanescence

It is a lot harder then it looks to come up with a soundtrack for yourself, but when you are done you can learn a lot about yourself and what you are currently feeling and going through. I am sure that if I were to ask my family or friends to list what they thought should be on my list it would be completely different. That another great thing about music is that it is different for everyone and is constantly changing. What is on your own soundtrack?

Tag

Tag
1) Four places that I go to over and over: my room, the bathroom, walgreens, Rite Aid

2) Four of my favorite places to eat: Casa Lpitas, Fresh works, El Polo Loco, Jersey Mike's

3) Four places I would rather be right now: Somewhere besides my family room couch,the beach, on a date with a really cute boy, anywhere fun

4) Four TV shows I watch: America's Funniest Home Videos, George Lopez, Home Improvement, Simon & Simon

5) Four people to tag: Jessica, Erica, Dad, Mom

Copy & paste then put this in your blogs!

A Little Bit of Everything to Talk About

It is probably a good thing that you are sitting down because you might pass out in shock that I am actually blogging again. It has been quite sometime since the last time I have blogged and I have my reasons, one of which I will share and others are quite frankly fall under the category of too personal to share on a blog or to even share period.

The main reason why I haven't blogged is probably because I have had what some would consider blogger's block, kind of. I haven't been able to decide what to write about, not that it is much of a shocker but my life right now, on the surface, is kind of boring. It has taken me some time but I have thought of a few things that have happen that I feel like I could share, like yesterday I felt my first earthquake. I know what you are thinking, I have lived in California for nine years and I have barely felt my first quake? What can I say I am slightly clueless and I am a heavy sleeper. It was kind of a strange/scary feeling being in an earthquake. It was scary mainly because I panicked because I didn't know where my frightened cat was. The poor thing, she was scared for a good rest of the day. It was strange to feel the house move the way it did, things that big shouldn't move that way, kind of like me dancing.

Something else that happened which was a real kicker, is I am now nineteen and have been for about three weeks. I am not entirely sure why turning nineteen bothers me so much, I have a few theories but none of which I am going to share. The actual day was really nice, I got my hair done during the day with Jessi and then that night I had a wonderful dinner and had cake and ice cream with my family. And then I think I kicked every body's butt at wii if I remember correctly.

Probably the final thing that has happened in the past month that I feel like sharing is that I found out that my best friend from elementary school, got married. That's right, people my age are getting married...there is a scary thought for both you and me. I am old enough to get married, that is depressing to think about, especially sense I am still very much single.

Well, I think my post title covers it, I have talked a little bit about everything that has happened to me in the past month or so, okay maybe not but some of it. I am hoping by posting this moderately boring post, I might be able to over come my blogger's block, sorry it had to be at the expense of you having to read this.

Blog Background

Was made by my awesome sister Jessica!

:)

This Quote Was Made for Me

"I don't skinny dip, I chunky dunk!"

It's Alive!!!

It lives and is actually working, it is a miracle. Me and my computer haven't gotten along since almost the beginning. Yesterday it decided to truly belly up on me and came very close to getting a ticket on the fast track out the window. If you have ever gotten the blue screen of death then you know how I felt most of yesterday morning. Anytime I tried to boot my computer I would get to my desktop the bam, blue sceen of death and then shut down. I love the convince that computers provide me with but when they are not being helpful then they are a pain in the butt. We couldn't do anything with it unless we brought it up in safe mode. We had to completely wipe it clean and start over, what a pain. I am just glad it works now. It is a miracle that it working and or is in one piece. Okay maybe not a mircle but pretty darn close from my perspective. I think in a couple of years I am going to take the plunge and try out a MAC.

Change of Plans

Ummm, where to start? I have changed my major, AGAIN. I am hoping that this will be the last time I have to do this, or else I truly will be in school for the rest of my life. What my new plan? Good question, I wish I had a good answer. I am still trying to figure that out still but this is my current "idea": I am not going back to Hawaii this fall. BYU Hawaii and I had a love/hate relationship, and I had to end it before someone, me, got hurt. Instead of going to BYUH I will be attending Peirce college. Peirce is a community/junior college in Woodland Hills. I am going to enroll in the Vet tech program so that I can sit for the exam to become a certified vet tech. This will help me get a stable job and provide income will finishing up my bachelors at Poly Tech University, that if I get in. I am going to get my bachelors in Animal science and then the goal is vet school. Some might say that the vet tech program might be an extra step or waste of time, but I figure it will help me decide if this is truly what I want and can do, and not to mention it looks good on an applications to Veterinarian School. I want to be a vet, we will see if that's what happens. I have done my research and have found out that it is harder to get into vet school then medical school or law school. Chit!!! I am looking at at least seven more years of school. YUCK!! This plan however requires a few things, it requires a job and a car, time, and a whole heck of a lot of luck, not to mention motivation and good grades. This plan has a lot of "big Girl pills" to swallow and i am not sure i am ready for that. I am hoping a few spoons full of sugar will help it go down.

New Favorite Quote

So you know those obnoxious credit card offers people allows get? I received one the other day that came with a bunch of pictures and quotes that you can have as an image on your credit card and I found the winner. If I needed another credit card I would have gotten it just for the card. It was bright blue with white writing saying "I l♥ve cats, dogs, dolphins, birds, lions, lizards, and sometimes even people." Jessica took a look at it and immediately said " that is so you." It is me and I would probably be the first to admit that I care more for my Downey baby then most people. I guess it is probably a good thing to love animals with me going to be a vet and all.

Learning from Other Mistakes

You know the old saying about learning from other peoples mistakes? I am about to give you that very opportunity. That's right I pulled yet another Dumb Bass move. It turns out that you cant just stick anything down a garbage disposal. I was under the impression that a garbage disposal could take on just about anything except for maybe the glass measuring cup yannette tried to stick down our old one a few years ago. So, I was helping clean up the kitchen last night and was assigned the task of dumping out old leftovers from the fridge. Well, I had seen and had dumped rice down the sink before so I thought" Oh no problem" as I dumped not a cup full of rice or even two but more along the lines of five or six cups of rice at one time along with some spaghetti. As it turns out and seems like everyone except me knew this, you shouldn't put rice down the sink because one, it cant be broken down by the garbage disposal and two, it clogs drains. Oops. To say the least I clogged the drain. I cleared out from under the sink and then quickly cleared out of the way so that a "Professional" at cleaning drains could work his magic. Being a Dad of four girls who have a lot of hair and other things, he has probably cleaned out more sink drains and shower drains then some plumbers probably have in their entire careers. I doubt that was exactly what he had in mind of doing before going to bed was to dismantle the kitchen sink and be sprayed with rice and rice juice as it gushed out the pipes.Probably the best part of the evening was when my Mom "accidentally" squirted him with the spray hose attached to the sink as she was cleaning out the sink. I guess pictures are worth a thousand words.
To say the least I have learned a valuable lesson and so should you because not very one has a patient plumber that is on call almost 24/7. I guess it is in the job discription of being a dad:)

A Fork in the Road

After a little bit of thought I have come to the conclusion that life is a lot like driving, We are all drivers. Some of us like have a GPS telling what to do all the time and then there are those who prefer to be the ones holding the map. Like driving, life often comes with backseat drivers. At times we all have to stop and refuel and examine where we are. There are detours and construction along the way. There are fun stops that etch memories that last a life time. You are cruising a hundred miles an hour on the freeway one moment and then the next you are on route 66 taking all the time in the world.

There are those tough times when the road gets bumpy or comes to a dead end. There are times when we can sit back and put on auto control. The road can be flat and stretch miles in front of us all laid out and smooth and then there is the times when you come up against a huge hill and have to turn everything off to help insure that you make it and don't over heat. Life throws you curves and so does the road. Many of us like driving through mountains driving high and on the edge others prefer driving as low in altitude as humanly possible.

And then there are the forks in the road, decision time. Which way do you go? Sometimes we are already know which way we are going to go, and then there are times the decision isn't so obvious and takes some thought. Do I take the road that goes through the dark scary forest or the one that goes through the pretty meadow. But whats beyond that meadow or scary forest. Will I emerge from the forest stronger then when I went in or will it just wear me out or do I get lost or trapped.Or is there something worth while on the other side. Or on the other hand does the pretty meadow make me relax and weak or distract me from the road and make me loose site of the destination. Or is the meadow all that it seems. Is the fork on the map and does it tell me which way to go to get me to my destination or is this where the map ends?

As you can probably tell I am at fork in the road. I don't know what to do or where to go. I have an ultimate destination, but don't know how to get there. As I stare at the current map i hold in my hands i wonder if that truly what I want and can't help but feel empty. I don't know what sites I want to see a long the way or what I want to do. I know I have to make a decision, believe me I know. I am open for suggestions but in the end the decision has to be mine, after all I am the driver. The windows are rolled up, cruise control is off and hands are firm on the wheel all I am waiting for is a decision to be made about the fork in the road.

Chicken for Dinner

Whoever thought it would be a brilliant idea to bring chickens to Hawaii, I would love to have a little chat with them. If you don't know in La'ie chickens are everywhere. They are wild, and breed like rabbits, and noisy. Now you get use to them for the most part, except when they decide to dart out of the bushes and scare the crap out of ya, or when they wake you up at 5:30 in the morning. The whole idea that roosters only crow at dawn is bull, they do it whenever hell they feel like it and Hens are worst. We have this one chicken that no matter how many times we scare it away it just comes right back and it is the loudest, meanest of them all and constantly sounds like she is going to lay an egg. The Worst part is she has decided to make the courtyard between the two female hales (dorms) her favorite place to come in the morning. I think after this morning, my roommate and I are going to be having chicken for dinner on our last night, before going home.

I am DONE!!!!

I did it! I took my linguistics final this morning, hahaha, and now I am done. It is an amazing feeling knowing that you are finally done with school and that you did so without failing a class...I hope:)I have a self dense final tomorrow but I don't really count that one, I have always been able to kick people's butts and protect myself. However now I can do it with a marshal arts twist,oh yeah. Now all that is left is to packing a few more things and enjoy what time I have left here. Today I decided to enjoy myself at the beach to help get as much sun as I can, and it was beautiful. I guess it was my way of celebrating Earth Day. Only a day and a half left.

Explaining the Dumb Bass

I just realized that I should probably explain the dumb bass saying. It isn't because I don’t like saying the word ASS; there is actually a joke behind it. It is kind of cheesy but it makes me laugh. It goes like this:

A fish runs into a cement wall and says "dam".
The cement wall replies "Dumb Bass".

Get it? It is funny, huh. If you don’t think so then too bad. If you don’t get it then....well... I guess you can ask and I will explain it to you, but you should get it. The saying dumb bass has become a popular saying in our house and is often used to describe one another when we do something a little short of brilliant. It is one of the many things I miss about home.

"Dumb Bass of the Year Award"

And the "Dumb Bass of the Year Award" goes to....That’s right none other then me. I had to work really hard to earn this honor. I had to do about a semesters worth of work and then at the very end throw it all a way, why? Because it was the Dumb Bass thing to do. So, now that I have all of you completely confused and slightly worried I probably should explain.

It was a like any Friday afternoon at the end of the semester. I had spent almost the entire day and the day before studying for my Linguistics final. FYI... if you are ever given the opportunity to take Linguistic, DONT DO IT!!!!! Any ways I decided that I was going to check my email and then go take my test. If you aren’t familiar with how test are given now at a BYU campus, they are either given in class or in the testing center, it depends are your teacher. My Linguistics teacher had us take all of our tests in the testing center, and so it would be natural to assume that he would do the same for the final. Of coarse that is a prerequisite to being a dumb bass you have to assume things.

So I am checking my email and I have one from a student from my class that was sent the day before. This nice person had compiled all of the vocabulary in one document and had sent it to everyone to use if they like. At the closing of his email he wished everyone the best of luck studying and that he would see us at 7:oo am Friday morning. At the time I was thinking, why on earth would he have seen us at 7:00 in the morning, did he think we were all going to rush to the testing center as soon as it was open? Of coarse I was reading this email at about 3:30 pm Friday afternoon. To say the least I was confused and was starting to panic. Had he known something I hadn't known. He sure did! After quickly reviewing the available tests at the testing centers webpage and not seeing my test, then going to the syllabus, I learned that my final, mind you this stupid test is worth 20% of my final grade, was given as an in class final from 7-10am. Shit, damn, hell, I believe were my exact words. I called Jessica to see what I could do and she wasn't much help because she was too busy laughing. Even I have to admit it was kind of funny. I mean I had just spent two days studying and the past week and a half writing my research paper for this class and do all of the work up until the very end and then I go a ditch the final. DUMB BASS!!!

I sent an email to my teacher explaining to him my stupidity and begging for mercy and doing a lot of sucking up, my nose may be permanently brown. All I could do was hope for the best. I was surprisingly okay with the whole situation and had quickly come to except the fact my GPA would be in the hole.

I got a response from my teacher late Saturday night and he is going to put the test in the testing center just for me, ironic isn't it that he is going to let me take it in the testing center this time around. I guess the saying is true: Nobody ever gets fired for sucking up to the boss.

There is a lesson to be learned here for everyone: don’t assume things in life, read your syllabus, surprisingly enough they can be good for something beside a paper airplane. They tell you when finals are and where. Even through thing worked out in the end, I still take home the honor of the "Dumb Bass of the Year Award." And I look forward to all of the teasing to come.

Not a Day Off Just an Off Day

I have come to the conclusion that one of the worst kind of days is an "off day." What is an off day you ask? We have all had them, it is the day when things aren't terrible but they're not great and life just seem off balanced for no apparent reason. They are the days where you just don't feel like putting on the show any more and just don't want to smile at every tom, dick, harry, and Mormon that passes. I have found that off days just isn't an emotional thing but a physical thing too, your heart truly feel lower in your chest and it is about to explode. It seem like I have been having a lot of off days lately, with an occasional good day, a bad, and then the worst kind of day. It would make sense that as the time approaches to go Home the days would be easier to get through and and happier, but it not the case. I feel more sad and anxious. There have been several occasion when my parents have almost received a phone call in the middle of the night with me begging to come home that minute, screw finals. But I keep telling myself that leaving before finishing would be the easy way out. Life wasn't made to be easy.It is one week. I can manage one week.
I am excited to come home. I cant wait to see my family and friends. My sisters and I have a list of all the things we want to do this summer. I really don't care if we do a single thing on that list has long as we have fun and can be crazy and can be ourselves.
I am ready to say goodbye to BYU Hawaii for a while. I am tried of playing games. I am ready to break the mold. I want to feel like myself again, I am tired of the loses lose situation. As you can tell I haven't had the day off rather just an off day.

Let the Count Down Begin

In 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1...Blast off. Thats right the official Countdown has begun. It is Ten days until i pack up and say good bye to Hawaii and head on home. Thank heavens. Don't get me wrong I love Hawaii, at least when it is sunny, but it is time to go home for a few months. I miss home so much it not funny. I am excited to see everyone and to see my new niece that everyone and their dog has seen except me. I just wanted to share my excitement with everyone.

Doing Everything But What I should Be Doing

It is official I am a procrastinator. I am doing everything that I possibly can beside what I should be doing, like writing my research paper, my article analysis and study for my damn finals that are next week. I went to the beach today to "study" for my Hospitality final, yeah that went well. Actually I spent most my time sleeping under a towel because it was raining slightly. I have been on Yannette’s blog like three times today and she is on here more then me because every time I have gone on there is a new post. I have been on facebook, I walk over to the RA office to talk to my RA for something to do, and I spent as much time as it is physically possible chewing my dinner.

Why all this effort? Why don’t I just write the stupid papers and get it over with? Well, one I am a procrastinator and two, I think that research papers are stupid and a waste of time. Why should I take someone else’s hard work and effort reword it and call it my own and that supposing that my sources are original work. Yes, I guess this is a linguistics class and it can be argued that I am proving the point that language is infinitely creative and that that you can take the same idea and write it in a way that it has never been written before, but what the point in that? It just goes to show I have a good grasp of my native tongue, Congratulations to me. Why doesn’t my teacher just ask me to write a paper on what I think of this class, if it is creativity he wants I'll give him creativity? Of course I probably just get my butt reported to the honor code office because of my creative language.

At least I know that I am not alone in my feelings, my parent were joking that the difference between plagiarism and research paper is that you plagiarize multiple peoples work. Why can’t teachers see it that way, it not like it is rocket science? I told Jessie today that if she ever makes you students write a research paper I will personally discourage them from writing it.

Well, I guess I can only put this off so much. Whether I like it or not and no matter how stupid it is I still have to write it if I want to even remotely pass this class. I am off to go B.S. my way though a paper or two.