So I Guess I'm a Liberal Now

This post is highly opinionated.Sorry if you don't agree with my opinions.
So I actually don't care that much for politics. I don't follow them, and I know I need to be an educated voter and blah blah blah, but whatever. Politics just isn't something that interests me. In the eternal scheme of things, politics as they are here and now aren't gonna matter. At all. I actually just came up with that as my justifying reason for not caring about politics. The big reason though is that it just doesn't interest me. Some people aren't interested in history, some people aren't interested in math, some people aren't interested in science. I'm not interested in politics. I will leave politics to the politicians, and you leave me to my science and history, and family raising (though that's not starting for a little while). From what little I know about politics however, I consider myself a conservative. I have mostly conservative views, but in the words of my husband the other day, apparently I'm "such a liberal." Here's why. I took MMBio 240 this past semester (from Dr. Bridgewater btw, I highly recommend her in case you have to take that class; it's really difficult subject matter, but she makes it pretty easy to get an A), which is molecular biology, and in the last two days of class, we discussed embryonic stem cell research a little bit. Now I know this is a touchy subject, but I decided I support embryonic stem cell research. In class, we talked about how those stem cells are harvested, and this is what our professor told us. She told us that they take eggs from infertile women, fertilize them in vitro, keep the ones that take, and then implant a few of them in the mother and see if she gets pregnant. The rest they keep in a freezer in case it doesn't work, or the mother can donate them. Now I think this issue somewhat goes a long with the issue of abortion (which I do NOT support by the way, and I know it's allowed by the church, but I wouldn't even get an abortion if I was raped, and if the pregnancy endangered my life or the life of my child, I would consider it a very difficult decision), in that it regards human life. When I talked to Andrew about what we talked about in class, he told me he doesn't support it because those eggs have the potential to become human beings. It's really all a matter of when the spirit enters the body (which I think  is when the heart starts beating, but I guess it could also be when the sperm fertilizes the egg, and if that were true it would invalidate my whole argument), and if the spirit doesn't enter the body till the heart starts beating then why the heck should we not take advantage of stem cell research? It's true that our eggs have the potential to become human beings, but we have hundreds of thousands of eggs in our ovaries. I'm certainly not going to have hundreds of thousands of children. Those eggs are just going to sit in our ovaries and die, or be expelled from our body, and only anywhere from one to ten (hopefully not that many though, but if that's how many kids I'm supposed to have then alright) will actually become children, so why shouldn't they be used for something good? So much good can be done with those stem cells. Lives could be saved. And in case you think I'm going against the church for supporting stem cell research, the church actually doesn't have a position on stem cell research. In my MMBio class we read the church's statement about it and it was very pointedly worded to say that they have no opinion whatsoever. If the church came out with a statement in the future saying we don't support stem cell research, then I would change my opinion to support that, but since the church hasn't said anything for or against it, then I'm all for it. You don't have to agree with me, that's just what I think. And don't start trying to argue with me and tell me I'm wrong, cause that is just my opinion and I am entitled to it. You're entitled to yours as well, and I'm not going to try and put you down because of it.
The other issue that I'm apparently liberal about it donating my body for educational purposes and/or science. I actually kind of want to. I'm not gonna need it after I'm dead, and when we're resurrected, I'm gonna get it all back in its perfect form, so why not donate it to help people learn, and to gain a greater understanding of the human body? Andrew doesn't want me to, so we'll see if I actually do. I'm not planning on dying for a while though, so I have time to decide. Even if I don't end up donating my whole body, I'll for sure donate organs after I die.
Finally, I'm kind of tree hugger, but only in that I like to recycle and conserve energy and take care of our earth. And the reason I think recycling and conserving energy is liberal is because my roommate from freshman year was the absolute most conservative person you will ever meet (if she found out someone was liberal, she automatically stopped liking them, which I think is ridiculous), and she never ever recycled and left the lights on in our dorm all the time. It drove me crazy. Lots of things about her drive me crazy, but we don't need to go into that. Though I guess those things don't necessarily have to do with her being conservative, they could have just been due to her complete disregard for other people. And by other people I mean the people who actually have to pay for our utilities (cause we didn't have to) and for people who are gonna have to deal with landfills in the future, though it seemed she had a complete disregard for other people in general. Anyway, I said I wouldn't go into that.
So that's why I'm a liberal now. But only in those things, cause those are my only liberal views. That I know of anyway, like I said, I don't know much about politics. I'm 95% sure I'm overall conservative though.
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Thanks For Reading My Blog!

This post should come with a little disclaimer so here it is: I claim no responsibility for any lost or stolen items. For reals though.

Guys. I'm going to reward you for reading my blog. Potentially anyway. So I don't care much for Johnny Cash, but I do like the Folsom Prison Blues song, as long as it's not sung by him of course. I like the cover by Everlast. And if you're a Johnny Cash fan, I'm not saying he's not good or anything, he's just not my style. Anyway, unfortunately, neither iTunes nor Amazon.com have that particular cover (they don't even have the CD it's on), so I went searching for other online music stores yesterday that had the song. In my search, I stumbled across eMusic.com. It's a membership site, but they offer a free trial for a certain number of days (I can't remember how many), and when you sign up for the free trial, they give you $10 worth of credit for free. You have to put your credit card information in, but they say it's just to make sure you don't already have an account with that card. So I put my information in, and went to town. They didn't have a huge selection (there were a few songs I wanted that they didn't have, like the Folsom Prison Blues cover by Everlast), but their selection was respectable. And their songs are way cheaper than iTunes. The cheapest I saw was .49, and the most expensive I saw was .89. I spent my $10, and then went to cancel my trial. When I did, they were like, "We hate to see you go! Here's $5 more to use in the next 90 days!" And I was like, "$5? Heck yeah I'll take $5!" So I took the $5 and spent it on more music. Andrew was a bit wary though (understandably, all things considered), especially when I told him that I had to put my credit card information in. He was like, "It's a scam!" And I was like, "If it was a scam, why would I have found it here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9992592-1.html?" He was still wary, so I actually cancelled my trial this time, even though they offered me another $5 to stay. I then went and read some reviews online, and a lot of the reviews by actual people (and not websites reviewing the company) were all, "They're crooks! They're thieves! It's a scam! They charged my card for no reason and their customer service sucks and now I can't get my money back!" Not all of them said that, but I went to check my bank account, and a charge for $1 showed up, which happens sometimes. I'm not sure why, but it wasn't a cause for worry. I checked again today, and the charge for $1 was gone, so I didn't get charged at all. After reading those reviews I went back to the site to see if I could remove my credit card information but there wasn't any way for me to. I tried to change my card number to see if that would work, but they were like, "This is not a valid credit card number," and I was like, "Yeah I didn't really think that would work anyway." I tried to put in an incorrect security code, but Wikipedia told me they aren't allowed by Visa to store that information anyway, so it didn't really matter. I ended up just changing the expiration date of the card to this month, even though it doesn't expire for another year. I don't know if that will make a difference, and I'll definitely keep monitoring my bank account to make sure I don't get charged for no reason. Oh yeah, and in order to download the songs, I had to install their eMusic download manager to my computer but I just uninstalled it after I got all my songs. This might not have anything to do with it, but I signed up, spent the money, and cancelled all in one day. I'd like to think that was the smart way to do it, but like I said, it could have just not even mattered. So anyway, the bottom line is I got 22 songs for free, and they just went right into my iTunes. You can choose to do with this information what you will. If you're wary about putting your credit card information in like Andrew was, then you can just ignore this post. If you decide to take the risk, then you could end up with 22 free songs (or more, or less, depending on how expensive the songs you buy are). Of course, I don't want to be responsible for your card being charged $11.99 (or any other amount, and that's what the disclaimer was for) and you not being able to get it back, so just be careful, and don't blame me, cause I didn't tell you straight out to do it. I just told you my experience and like I said, you can do with this information what you will. It also just occurred to me that some people might consider signing up and spending the money and then just cancelling dishonest, but I don't think it's dishonest. I mean, it's a legit website, and they offered a free trial, and when I signed up for a free trial, they gave me the $15 for free. That's what a free trial is anyway, trying out their product. What would be the point of signing up and not trying the product? Maybe I'm just justifying it, and if it really is dishonest, then my bad, and you definitely can ignore this post. I don't really think it's dishonest though. So anyway, there you go, a little reward for reading my blog, should you choose to accept.
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You Facebook Stalkers You

This blog is turning out to be a really good way to assess how many people Facebook stalk me haha. Blogger lets me see how many people view my posts, and I've posted two links to two different posts on Facebook and those posts have had an INSANE amount of views, and all within a few hours of me posting those links. I said the word "post" and variations of it a lot in that sentence, and repetition like that actually kind of bothers me, but I'm not sure how to I could reword it, and it's not like this is a paper for an English class. Sorry if it bothers you too. And if this was a paper for an English class I'd have to work on my run-on sentences. They could be a lot worse though; at least they have commas and conjunctions. So anyway, you guys Facebook stalking me actually makes me feel really good about myself, so thank you, and especially thank you for reading my blog. You guys are great :).
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Not So Exciting News...

I probably shouldn't have posted anything about the car before we had it, because now I have to post about how we're not actually getting a car because it was a scam. Yeah, we got scammed out of $1600. The guy who was selling the car said he was having MSN Autos handle the transaction and we would wire money to them and they'd send us the car, and then if we liked it, we'd tell them and they'd send the money to the seller. Well we sent the money to MSN Autos, and we didn't get an email saying they'd shipped the car, so Andrew started to worry. Andrew especially started to worry when he saw an article on KSL.com (where we found the car) talking about scammers and the signs to watch out for: the seller is in a different country (our seller claimed to have just moved to Greece), emails are poorly written (you decide if this even makes sense: Dear customer, We have to announce you that the shipping has been started but we wait for the shipping department to send us the documents and papers faxed in order to provide a tracking number, Anyway the car must be delivered in about 48 hours. Keep in touch.), the deal sounds too good to be true ($1600 for a Toyota 4Runner with less miles than it should have had at its age and a bunch of stuff that had been recently replaced? yeah definitely too good to be true) the transaction is handled by a third party with a "protection plan" (Andrew got an email from "MSN Autos" saying that our transaction was protected under a protection plan that doesn't even exist). There were other signs, but those were the ones that especially applied. So Andrew started to worry, and went to the MSN Autos website to look for a phone number, and couldn't find one. He found one for MSN instead, but it was already closed. So the next day he called and talked to a guy from MSN who said their Auto department didn't have a protection plan and it was probably a scam. Andrew also googled the address of the bank in Greece that the seller gave us and found something that this lady had posted who fell for this same scam (but with a different car). So Andrew went to the police department to file a report, but they said since the seller was in Greece they couldn't do anything about it. They did tell him to file a report with the FBI's cyber crime department, so he did. And unfortunately, we're not gonna get our money back. Andrew called his bank and they're pretty sure the criminals can't get any more money out of his account, but when we go back to Kansas for Christmas he's gonna close that account. Needless to say, Andrew was really upset about it. He was so excited ("Look! That's the kind of car we're getting!"). I'm kind of upset, but hey, these things happen. There are bad people out there, and people fall for their scams. It sucks when it's you, but now we've learned our lesson. At least the money we sent was from Andrew's FAFSA, so it wasn't money that we had saved up. And the worst part about all this is that now I actually have to learn how to drive stick. Just kidding, that's not the worst part, but I was so looking forward to not having to learn. Oh well. So anyway, watch out for cyber criminals, cause they're out there.
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Thanksgiving!

Just a little heads up, but this post actually ended up being me raving about Fast Five pretty much the whole post, but it's my blog so I can post whatever I want.
So for Thanksgiving Andrew and I  were SUPPOSED to go to my grandma's house down in northern Arizona with my brother and two of my aunts and their families and possibly a third, but that didn't end up happening, and I was super bummed about it. I was so unbelievably excited to go, and then the day before we were supposed to leave, we find out that my uncle in Oregon was getting called to the bishopric in his ward so my grandma decided to go up there for that. I was disappointed, but I guess it was good for my uncle and his family. Whatevs. I'm not bitter. Not very bitter anyway haha. But we still had a good Thanksgiving. On Wednesday night Andrew and I went out to my Auntie Nathele and Uncle Talaga's house out in Eagle Mountain and spent the night. We watched (well I watched) Cars 2 with my 5 and 3 (I think that's how old they are anyway) year old cousins, and it was pretty cute, but it wasn't anything like the first one at all. After the little boys had to go to bed, Andrew, Talaga, and I watched Fast Five, which I thought was an AMAZING movie. As you might have seen on Facebook, I reviewed the Fast and the Furious movies and I'll repeat my review in a bit more detail here.
The Fast and the Furious was a decent movie, but Paul Walker is a terrible actor. Surely they could have gotten someone with just as pretty of a face AND acting skills. 2 Fast 2 Furious was not very good at all...not much more can be said about that. Tokyo Drift was an okay movie, but I don't understand why the heck they even made it. There was no point to it. It didn't even have any of the same characters. The only purpose it served was to introduce the character Han, *SPOILER ALERT* who ends up getting killed in the middle-ish of the movie. *END SPOILER ALERT* Sorry if you ignored my spoiler alert and I ruined it for you. And then the timeline gets all confusing cause they bring Han back into the 4th and 5th movies, and allude to what happens in Tokyo Drift. I have since watched Fast & Furious, and I thought it was better than the first three, but it didn't have a very strong plot. It was a good segue into the fifth movie though. And now Fast Five, which blew all the other movies out of the water, no contest. In my opinion anyway. And Andrew's too. If you're a guy, you're gonna like this movie. If you're a chick flick/romantic comedy kind of girl, and those are really the only kinds of movies you like, you won't like Fast Five. However, if you're into action movies, this is seriously one of the best. I mean, I dedicated most of this blog post to it. It's a bit violent, but what good action movie isn't? And I will admit that there were some things in this movie that I find hard to believe are possible in real life, but if you haven't realized and accepted by now that movies often take for granted things that are actually impossible in real life, then you probably don't like watching movies very much. The mark of a good movie is being able to take something impossible and make us believe that it's possible. Anyway, Fast Five had a strong plot, good actors (except Paul Walker and the Rock, but the epic fight scene between Vin Diesel and the Rock made up for his poor acting skills I think), great cinematography, fast cars, and bad guys that you can't help but root for, and in this movie they play the good guys anyway. So I guess I'll stop talking about this movie now that you know way more about what I think about this movie series than you probably wanted to, and I'll just say one more time that Fast Five was so good. SO GOOD.
So back to our Thanksgiving. On Thursday morning, Andrew went and played in the Turkey Bowl my aunt and uncle's branch had, and my aunt and uncle go to the Samoan branch out in Eagle Mountain, so Andrew was a bit nervous to play with a bunch of big Polys, but it was all good. Then we went over my other aunt's house and had delicious food and hung out with family all day and it was great. That night Alex slept over at our apartment and the next day we went and explored a ghost town called Thistle about 45 minutes away. All that was left of it were a few of the walls and foundation of one building, some of an old schoolhouse, (both were fairly heavily graffitied), and a house that was half underwater and its outbuildings. I have an obsession with ghost towns and abandoned/old buildings, and while this one was kinda cool, it wasn't what you think of when you think of ghost towns. We didn't really do much else that was exciting on Friday or Saturday, but Saturday night Andrew and I went to the Nickelcade in Orem and it was a ton of fun. We'll definitely be going back there sometime.  And Sunday of course we went to church, and Alex spoke in his ward so we went to that as well. He did a great job. So that was our Thanksgiving. Oh and in the spirit of Thanksgiving I'm thankful for my wonderful husband and family (immediate and extended), I'm thankful for good food, good movies, fun places to go hang out, the opportunity that I have to be here at BYU gaining a quality education, all of the material things I take for granted such as our car and my camera, Modern Family, and oh so much more. And now the celebration of Christmas can begin.
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Exciting News!

I have exciting news folks! No we're not pregnant, but we are getting a new addition to our family, and it's a car! Yep, we're getting a new car. Well, a used car, but it's new to us. It's this car in fact:

That very car right there is our new car. It's a 1994 Toyota 4Runner, and it only costs us $1600! The guy who's selling it moved to Greece and wanted to take it with him, but it would have been too expensive, so he had to sell it. It's in really good shape and he recently replaced a bunch of stuff and it only has 128,000 miles on it (other cars of the same make that are the same age have around 200,000 miles on them). We're taking it to a mechanic of course when we get it, but it will probably be okay. The only drawback is that it gets crappy gas mileage, but we're willing to bite the bullet on that one. The main reason we're getting this car is because I can't drive stick, and Andrew's car is a stick shift. Andrew's tried to teach me, but I just hate it. I always thought it would be so cool to drive stick, but now that I know that I suck at it, I just don't want to bother trying anymore. The only way I'd actually learn to drive stick is if we got a '67 Mustang Fastback (dream car) and I don't think that's happening any time soon. Probably not ever really, but I can dream. Plus, Andrew worries about me driving in snow, and this car will be a lot safer than his little Acura. So anyway, that's our exciting news! Oh and we might sell the old car, we haven't really decided yet.
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Why I Think Bad Things Happen to Good People*

So I didn't get the job. Kinda sucks, I know, but I wasn't very well qualified anyway. I mean I aced the class, but I've never tutored before, and I probably wouldn't be a very good one. Oh well, anyway, what I really wanted to post was the paper I wrote for my Doctrine and Covenants class, so here it is:

Why do bad things happen to good people? More importantly, why does God let bad things happen to good people? Why does God let bad things happen at all? Those seem to be some of the most important questions to us as human beings, besides, “Why are we here?” Throughout my life I’ve learned of many reasons that bad things happen to good people, and this past lesson taught me another one. I think the most important reason I’ve learned in my life is because we are all subjected to trials. We are all put through the refiner’s fire, so that we may be perfected in Christ. Some of the trials God puts us through are worse than other people’s trials, but they are all intended for the same purpose, and that is to bring us home to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Another reason we suffer is because of our own poor choices. If we sin, we have to endure the consequences, and sometimes those consequences require bad things to happen to us. Those aren’t the only two reasons though: God never interferes with our agency, and so sometimes He has to leave us to our own devices, and many people’s devices aren’t good ones. Take slavery for example. I highly doubt God wanted us to subject our fellow brethren to such cruelty, but because He can never interfere with our agency, He had to let it happen. And also because He can never interfere with our agency, He couldn’t do anything to stop it Himself. In my New Testament class last winter semester, our professor gave us some reasons for the basis on which God places us where we’re at in this life, and I think these also explain why bad things happen to us sometimes: 1: we’re all in the place where we need to be; God puts us where we have the best chance to succeed, the place where we can realize our potential; 2: God has to balance out the needs of other people as well; He puts us where we can help others realize their potential; and 3: He puts us where our rough corners can be knocked off, and sometimes it hurts, but He knows what He’s doing (this goes back to the refiner’s fire). Sometimes the place where He puts us requires us to suffer quite a bit, and sometimes it requires us to suffer very little, but because He’s God, He certainly knows what He’s doing, and there is a purpose. The last reason I’ve learned is the one I learned in class last time: bad things will happen to the Saints “by reason of the weakness of the flesh,” according to Joseph Smith. We are mortal, and the flesh is weak, as we read so many times in the scriptures. The earth is subject to Satan’s rule, and he takes advantage of this weakness as much as he possibly can. There are quite a few reasons for our suffering, but the most important lesson we should take from this is that Heavenly Father and especially Jesus Christ are there for us. Who knows more about suffering than Jesus Christ? Who knows better how to succor His people than the one who suffered everything for them? In our trials, we simply have to humble ourselves and look to Him, and we will come out of this life as conquerors over the flesh, over sin, and over Satan, and we will be able to return to live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

New Job?

On a happier note, I just applied for a Music 101 tutor job for student athletes, which would be really cool. And it would even cooler because there is a definitely possibility that I'd be tutoring Brandon Davies. It didn't say that on the job listing, but I saw him in the testing center a few weeks ago and he was struggling with a Music 101 test, so I'm just using a little inductive reasoning (or maybe it's deductive reasoning...I'm not really sure). I'll let you know if I get it, and if it really is tutoring Brandon Davies (if I get it).

I Am a Klutz

Sometimes I do really stupid things unintentionally, and sometimes I can be really quite ditzy and/or klutzy.
Today I almost burned down the apartment. It was kind of a close one, but not really, cause really all that burned was an oven mitt, our hand mixer, and the drawer those two things go in. Today I decided I wanted to make some cookies out of brownie mix, and the last time I tried to do it I didn't actually look up how, so I used the technique my old roommate Lisa used to make cookies out of cake mix and it did NOT work. So today, I actually looked up how, and it worked out great. Actually it didn't work out that great cause I kinda burned some of them (I'm really not that good at baking, I've decided...or being domestic in any way whatsoever). But the recipe was good, so next time, they'll turn out great. Third time's the charm right? Anyway, back to how I almost burned down the apartment. I went to pull the cookies out and I had two cookie sheets in with one on the bottom rack, which is the very closest it can be to the bottom of the oven (who does that? were the people living here before us crazy? on a side note, sometimes I wonder if they performed seances and played with ouija boards in here, cause I just do not get a good feeling here when I'm alone). I didn't realize this until I had pulled the cookies out, but apparently I touched the bottom of the oven with the oven mitt cause it was smoking a little bit, but I thought to myself, "Ah it's okay, no big deal." So I tossed it back into the drawer it came from and went back to my computer.  After about ten or fifteen minutes, the smell of something burning had not gone away yet so I stopped reading about the Justin Bieber baby mama scandal and went to look in the drawer with the oven mitt. To my surprise, I discovered that the reason the oven mitt was smoking when I pulled it out of the oven was because I caught it on fire, but since there weren't any flames I didn't realize it. There still weren't any flames when I opened the drawer, but that sucker was for sure burning, cause it had singed the bottom of the drawer and melted/charred the handle of our hand mixer. I quickly snatched that bad boy up and threw it in the sink, and a crisis was averted. The hand mixer still works in spite of its battle scars, and the drawer is fine in spite of a huge burn mark, but I don't think we'll be using that oven mitt anymore. And now not only does it still smell like burned plastic and fabric in here, but it's also freezing cause it's 39 degrees outside and I opened the door and window to try and get rid of the smell. It hasn't worked yet. So now I get to laugh at my own stupidity, and you get to laugh at my stupidity, and my husband gets to laugh at my stupidity when he comes home. Oh and here's some pictures of the damage.

It's wet with water from when I soaked it to put out the fire. Oh what's that you say? Duh it's wet with water? Well water's not the only thing you can get wet from. Duh.

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To My Sisters

Okay, this post is dedicated to my sisters Ashley and Emilee (I know they read my blog cause they're the ones who kicked me in the butt to make me start posting again), but I think everyone can learn a little somethin'-somethin' from this. So anyway, here are a few things I've learned in life that I thought might be beneficial to you two. Some of these won't apply to you now so just log them away in your mind for future reference. I'll categorize them:
School (these will apply more to your college years probably)

• Develop good study habits. I cannot tell you how important this is. Your classes are probably really easy for you right now (you're an Oldroyd after all ;) ) and you can probably  ace your tests without studying or just by cramming for a couple hours the night before, but trust me when I saw this will SCREW YOU OVER when you get to college. College is most definitely not like high school was.
• Study whatever you are most passionate about. Whatever interests you most is what you should study, otherwise you're not going to try as hard in your classes. You might find that you are interested in lots of different things but stick with what you're MOST interested in. Perhaps you're most passionate about history but neuroscience interests you too. Well stick with history girlfriends, cause you'll probably regret it later that you didn't. 
• Don't let science (or scientists) try and convince you there isn't a God. I think science proves the existence of God; I mean how could everything just be random? There's no way everything just appeared out of nowhere and randomly organized itself. Everything is just too complex for there to not have been a creator. And when you consider all the complexities of the universe, it also makes you marvel at how powerful God is.
• Ratemyprofessors.com. You're welcome. Although by the time you guys are in college that website could be obsolete. 

Boys/Relationships (advice for when you turn 16)

• DON'T date guys that don't have your same standards or at least aren't willing to ALWAYS respect your standards.
• NEVER let boys come in between you and your girl friends, especially if they're your best girl friends. Boys just aren't worth that.
• Don't base your happiness solely on a guy. There are so many other better things to base your happiness on.
• Make him text you first every once in a while. If he doesn't text you first, there's probably a reason for it. As in, he doesn't really like you like that. Or he could just be really busy. If he does text you first, then you might be on to something.
• Associate yourself with guys who act like they genuinely care about you, cause if they act like that, then they probably do genuinely care about you. Don't associate yourself with guys who seem cool at first but are actually douche bags.
• Don't judge a book by its cover. Just because he looks scary doesn't mean he is. Just because he acts mean doesn't mean he's not a big softie underneath.
• Don't be shallow. Him being liberal or wearing flip flops are not reasons to not get to know or date a guy (and yes, I do know someone this shallow).
• If you feel like a relationship isn't bringing you closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ or it's taking you further from them, then it's not a good relationship for you to be in. 
• Mom was right about the "watch how he treats his mother cause that's how he'll treat you " thing. 
• When you get engaged, and even while you're dating, you're gonna want to spend all your time with that guy. However, don't alienate your girl friends, cause after you're married, they're the ones you're gonna want to hang out with.
• People say that once you get married you ditch all your old friends and they never see you anymore, and maybe that's true for some people, but I've actually had the opposite experience. All your old friends ditch you, so you're gonna have to try even harder to hang out with them.

Life

I've found this to be especially true. If you try and try and try to make plans with someone and they  continually back out, just quit trying. If they really wanted to be your friend and hang out with you, they would.

• If you think you're going to regret doing something later, then don't do it. Pretty simple.
• If you think you're going to regret not doing something later, then do it. Duh. It think that's a solid way to make to decisions, at least about fun stuff. Just think to yourself, "Am I going to regret not finding out where this path goes and what there is to see there?" And if you think you are, then do it. Of course, if you think you want to do something and the Spirit tells you not to do it, then don't do it.
• Most people really are good and decent. There are those people out there who are real jerks, but the world isn't as bad as TV and movies would have you believe. Surprisingly enough, I learned this from working at Target.
• If it doesn't feel right, then it probably isn't. This goes for pretty much everything.
• Take responsibility for your actions. Don't blame someone or something else for your own mistakes or stupidity. 
• You might think it will be fun to room with your best friends in college, but 9 times out of 10 you won't be best friends with that person anymore afterwards. If you think it will work out, then you can try it, but be careful. On the other hand, it's usually okay to room with girls who become your best friends after your freshman year. I mean, Stevie and Lisa are still a couple of my best friends. 
• One of my most favorite things is when people look at you like they genuinely care about you, even if they don't know you very well. I've noticed it's mostly guys who do this, but girls do it too. There's no way I'm the only one who likes this, so always look at people as if you genuinely care about them. And don't just look at them like it, really do care about them.
• Be the kind of person that people want to talk to and be around. Always be kind and loving to people. 
• On the other hand, don't take crap from anybody.
• Empathize with people. People like to know somebody cares, and be that somebody who cares.
• Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.
• "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." -Albert Einstein
• Sometimes you lose the good things in life to make room for the great things. This is probably one of the most helpful things you'll ever learn.
• People don't always need you to try and fix their problems; sometimes they just need someone to listen. But always be willing to help someone fix their problems, if that is what they need.
• Relate to people. It will bring you closer to them.
• When you open up to someone, they'll open up to you. A special bond is forged when someone tells you something personal, and that gives you permission to share something personal about yourself too. If someone opens up to you about something personal, that means they trust you, and whatever you do, don't betray that trust.
• Some girls will get under your skin. I haven't quite figured out how to get them out from under my skin yet, but you'll either get to the point where it just doesn't matter anymore, or you'll figure it out.
• Be quick to forgive. People do stupid stuff sometimes, and if they're really your friend, you should get over it. In my Doctrine & Covenants class, we learned you're supposed to go to someone who's offended you and ask them for forgiveness. I haven't tried that yet, but it's definitely the Christ-like thing to do.
• It's stupid to hate someone for something that happened between the two of you years ago. And if there are people in your lives that hate you for something that happened years ago, let that show you the kind of person you don't want to be. It's so stupid to hold onto something like that for so long. And it's super female dog-ish. 

Church

• The opposition this church faces is proof that it's true. Satan doesn't want this church to progress so he's going to try his hardest to tear it down, or at least take out as many people as he can. 
• Keep the temple in your sights. 
• Dieter F. Uchtdorf gives great talks.
• Days always seem to go better when you remember to say your morning prayers. 
• Be where you should be, when you should be there, doing what you should be doing. And not just cause it'll keep you out of trouble, but cause it might keep someone else out of trouble too. 
• Jesus Christ didn't just suffer for our sins. He suffered for every negative thing we will ever experience, so He knows how you're feeling, and He wants to help you get through it.
• Difficult people are in our lives so we can learn Christ-like love and charity. When we have love and charity, we don't see them that way anymore. And anyway, if you knew what they were going through, you would probably be more compassionate. I also think difficult people are in our lives to show us the kind of person we don't want to be, and to humble us and bring us closer to Christ.
• "Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem." -CS Lewis
• “If prayer is only a spasmodic cry at the time of crisis, then it is utterly selfish, and we come to think of God as a repairman or a service agency to help us only in our emergencies. We should remember the Most High day and night—always—not only at times when all other assistance has failed and we desperately need help.” Howard W. Hunter
• "At such times when we feel the floods are threatening to drown us and the deep is going to swallow up the tossed vessel of our faith, I pray we may always hear amid the storm and the darkness that sweet utterance of the Savior of the world: “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.” -Howard W. Hunter
• “Happiness is a state of mind, rather than a certain point which can only be reached by expectations we hold for ourselves.  The pursuit of happiness may be a little less stressful than we thought.  I hope that amid the phone calls, meetings and plans that Provo residents are pressured with, we will each take enough time each day to find joy in life’s simple pleasures...” -Laurie Fisher
• “There is a guiding hand above all things. Often when things happen, it’s not by accident. One day, when we look back at the seeming coincidences of our lives, we will realize that perhaps they weren’t so coincidental after all.” -Thomas S. Monson
•  "God does not look on the outward appearance. I believe that He doesn’t care one bit if we live in a castle or a cottage, if we are handsome or homely, if we are famous or forgotten. Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely." -Dieter F Uchtdorf
• "Compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God." also Dieter F Uchtdorf

I got all these images from Pinterest. If Blogger wasn't so stupid, I would have arranged them nicely and in an aesthetically pleasing fashion. Well this is pretty long, and I'm running out of things to say, so that's probably good for now.

*Wrap*

Our Weekend

So here's a quick run down of the beginning of my relationship with Andrew, and then I will tell you about our weekend. I started liking Andrew at the end of October last year, and unfortunately, my roommate Stevie liked him too. Between the two of us, Andrew picked me, and that turned into a rather sticky situation which I still feel slightly awkward/bad about, but Stevie and I are still really good friends (I consider her one of my best friends, and I hope she feels the same way), so it turned out okay. Oh man, I could write a whole heck of a lot about what led up to my relationship with Andrew, but I guess I'll just give you the short version, unless you want the long version, and then I can make another post about it. Of course, I'll have no way of knowing if you want the long version, unless you comment on this post. So if you don't comment on this post, I won't give you the long version, and if you do, then I will. Sound fair? Okay good. I'll assume you're agreeing with me. Anyway, on October 30th of 2010, Andrew asked me on our first date for that next Friday (November 5th). We both knew that we liked each other by that point, so when he held my hand on the date it wasn't weird. He took me up to Salt Lake and we went to Chipotle (I had told him previously that I loved Chipotle), then to the Gateway mall where we were going to do a scavenger hunt but I'm not the kind of person who likes that sort of thing unless it's with a really big group, so we scratched that idea, and then we went to the Salt Lake temple, which was where he held my hand. The next day we made it official and we've been together ever since. Okay that wasn't a very quick rundown, but I inherited my dad's ability to drag out a story that could have been told in two sentences, much to Andrew's annoyance, and this is my blog, so I can say whatever the heck I want. Anyway, so since this past weekend was the one year anniversary of the aforementioned events, we decided to commemorate said events by recreating them. On Saturday, we drove out to Salt Lake, went to Chipotle:

This Chipotle in fact, not that you can tell from this picture where it is.

After Chipotle, we went to the Gateway mall and spent a rather long time in the Barnes & Noble (Andrew doesn't like reading, but he likes hanging out in Barnes & Noble, and I do like reading AND hanging out in Barnes & Noble, so it's a win-win). We also spent a little bit of time in the Dick's Sporting Goods (there was a reason, don't worry about it).

After that we went up to temple square,

 and went inside the Tabernacle cause I've never been in there before, 

 and then up to the Christus statue in the visitor's center, because that was where we first held hands.

Here's us where we first held hands...not that you can tell.

Okay now all these pictures are screwing with my text...anyway, after that we went to the Fear Factory, which didn't have anything to do with our first date, I just wanted to go. If you've driven on the freeway past Salt Lake you've probably seen it. It's the huge factory looking building with scary murals painted on the side and a huge 666 also painted on the side and a statue of the Grim Reaper about to drop two guys. It used to be a cement factory built in the 30's, but it sat abandoned for a while and then some guys bought it and turned it into a haunted "attraction." It didn't open till a week before Halloween cause the city wouldn't give them their permits and they had to fight with the city over it, but eventually they got their permits, and now they're open. If you know me, you know I have a weird obsession with the paranormal and old buildings, and this place is supposedly actually haunted, so this place seemed like a dream come true. Unfortunately, they didn't capitalize on the supposed hauntedness of the building, and it was just like a regular old haunted house, except lamer. They didn't have NEARLY enough actors, so it really wasn't scary at all. They did have AMAZING animatronics and decorations, so maybe next year when they have more actors it will be a lot better. It probably would have been a lot scarier if they had just left it in the condition they bought it in (with a little bit of cleanup to make it safe for people) and then had people walk through in the dark (or minimal light). If it were me, I'd psych myself out about every little thing, and even if I didn't experience any real paranormal activity, I'd still be scared out of my mind. I'm not sure how long the haunted house attraction will be open, but once they close that, they'll probably do ghost hunts (and other events) which would be freakin' AWESOME. Maybe they could even get Ghost Adventures (Ghost Hunters on steroids...probably literally, cause one of the main guys has arms bigger than my legs) to come investigate, and that would be so cool.

Anyway, so that was our weekend. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed experiencing it. 

*Wrap*

Venting

So a couple of things have been on my mind today. The weather's been getting into that crazy cycle where it will get really cold for a few days and then warm up to around the 60's for a few days, and then it will get really cold again for a few days, and then it will warm up again for a few days, and then it will get cold again for a few days, and then it will get warm again for a few days, and so on and so forth until it finally stays cold and winter rears its ugly head. I find that cycle really quite annoying, and maybe that's how fall everywhere else actually is, but since I grew up in Texas where there are only two seasons (and one of them is a really only a psuedo season), I'm not used to it. I really wish the weather would just make up its frickin' mind and stay warm or stay cold, but whatever, that's not actually what I wanted to vent about. What I really wanted to vent about was the cold weather itself. I absolutely positively hate it. I will admit that there's something enchanting about the cold and snow cause it means Christmas is coming and all those other fun things that are associated with cold weather, like hot chocolate, and ice castles, and Christmas lights, and snowball fights, and blah blah blah, but I still hate cold weather. I hate being cold. I would rather be a way too hot than even a little bit cold. Oh but what's that you say? When it's cold you can layer and when it's hot you can only take so much off? Well guess what? I don't frickin' care. That doesn't even sway my hatred for the cold or preference for the warmth in any way whatsoever. I just hate being cold. Hate hate hate, double hate, loathe entirely. So that's my take on cold weather.
The other thing I wanted to vent about was my physics 106 class, and how much I just want this semester to be over. So for my major (neuroscience) we have to take Physics 105 and 106, which are just basic Intro to Applied Physics classes, and 107 and 108, which are the lab classes associated with them. First of all, physics has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with neuroscience, so I think it's really stupid that we have to take them. And I know lots of neuroscience majors go on to medical school, and medical schools require physics classes, but I'm not going on to medical school, so I don't see why I have to take physics. I think those physics classes should be suggested classes for if you're planning on going on to medical school, but unfortunately, I don't get to decide, so I'm stuck taking physics. Second of all, physics is one of the few topics that make zero sense to me (another is trigonometry, and I have a difficult time grasping geometry as well). I can make sense of the other difficult sciences that I have to learn, like organic chemistry, molecular biology, and various neuroscience classes, but I just do not get physics. I'm definitely more of a conceptual learner, so when you give me a subject that's all applied and quantitative, I'm screwed. And what's really bad is that since I don't understand physics, I'm intimidated into not putting any effort into studying for it, because I know it just won't make any sense to me. So I'm basically reduced to just trying to get through these classes. After this semester I'll be done with that stupid physics requirement, and thus, I cannot wait for this semester to be over. It's going by pretty fast, but not fast enough, cause I'm still  in my physics classes. And finally, I don't really have a problem with my 108 class (the lab) cause I have a really cool TA and we're in groups, so we do all the work together, but I am really struggling with my 106 class. As soon as the professor opens his mouth to speak, my mind just goes off into another world. I cannot pay attention in that class for the life of me, no matter how hard I try. And it's not even that the professor has a monotone voice, cause he doesn't. I guess it goes back to the being intimidated into not putting any effort into it thing. Another thing that I don't like about the class itself is that the professor goes through powerpoints that have all the pertinent information on them, but he goes way too quickly through the slides, so I have no time to write stuff down, or he'll stand there and talk about a subject before coming to it on the slides, and then when he's done talking about that topic, he'll just skip right over those slides. And since I can't pay attention to what he's saying, I don't have a chance to write anything down. I just can't wait to be done with that class.
So anyway, cold weather sucks, physics sucks, and now that I've vented about it, all I can do is suck it up and get on with life.
*Wrap*

Fall

Well since, I haven't posted in forever, I'll make up for it with a bunch of posts today. So a couple of weekends ago Andrew took me up to Big Springs park up in Provo canyon and it was beautiful up there. We did some land nav (which consisted of us looking for points and traipsing right through fields with grass up to anywhere between our knees and our waists), and it was beautiful up there. Here's some pictures:

Andrew plotting some points

Andrew being silly.

Aren't they pretty? I just love fall. Except I don't love the cold weather. Which is mostly what fall is, so maybe I should just say I love when the leaves change colors.