Joy to the Camera

One of the best days of the year came yesterday--Christmas.  It started with Chinese take-out and a Christmas movie (Home Alone 2: Lost in New York) on Christmas Eve, opening presents Christmas morning with Mom, Dad and brother #2, church service, going to sister and brother-in-law's house to see the nephews new toys and have brunch, going to Grandma and Grandpa's house with all the cousins and ended with seeing The Adventures of TinTin with three cousins.

Though I know presents aren't the real purpose of Christmas, I was very pleased with what I got.  It is something I had been wanting for a long, long time: the Sony Alpha A55 DSLR, named Camera of the Year for 2010.  Ah, it made me so happy!  It's an amazing camera, and I got it with the 18-250 mm lens, so it zooms really far.  Here are some pictures from yesterday with the camera (please note the crazy hair my nephews have and my favorite puppy ever).

Writer's...opposite of block

I got in a writing frenzy last night, which is a good thing considering I am a journalism major.  Wrote an article, sent it in to a website and added about seven more article ideas to my ideas list.

Journalism?  Isn't that a dying industry, you say?  Well, only kind of.  Yes, newspapers are down.  But magazines are actually up.  And, well, duh, so is internet reading...a.k.a. new media.  The dream is to work for a magazine like National Geographic or the Smithsonian or a women's magazine.  But it's not only the writing I love.  I'm one of those nerds that likes to move commas around.  Something the journalism industry calls copy editing, if you're not familiar.  Why might someone enjoy that, do you ask?  The truth is, I have NO idea.  But I find it highly entertaining and fascinating to read people's papers and articles and correct all their grammar mistakes.  Me and the red pen?  We get along well.


I moved home last week from living on campus.  Thought I should save a little money for my African and European travels coming up this summer (yippee!).  Anyway, my room has been a disaster.  You'd think because I didn't have school I'd have tons of free time to re-situate myself in my old room.  Wrong. Christmas takes a butt load of time, too, turns out.  But slowly, oh so slowly, my room is beginning to feel like home again.  My boxes are getting emptier and emptier while my room gets fuller and fuller.  Though I'm organizational freak, I've also realized how much of a hoarder and sentimental person I am.  I don't like to throw things away either because I think I may need them in the future, so I should just keep them now or because they have sentimental meaning to me.  It's an issue, really.  Hopefully one I'll be able to control in the future.

My husband will love me.  And my hoard of stuff.

Fa la la la la

It's that time of the year...Christmas.  Christmas carols on the piano, the smell of cinnamon and pine trees, wrapping presents, family parties, Santa movies, snow, etc.  December has crept by so quickly, I can't believe Christmas is in 5 days.  It's sad to think, though, what Christmas has become.  Everyone is so worried about the presents and the parties; yeah, the families are great, but what about the religious aspect? Aren't we supposed to celebrating Christ?  That's the point in my family at least.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S is keeping me entertained throughout my break.  Good ole Chandler, Monica, Ross, Phoebe, Joey and Rachel.  I love Jennifer Aniston.  She's adorable.  And yes, when I watched the series finale, I cried.

You Can't Deny that Going to Hogwarts Wouldn't Be Life Changing

Movie night with my sorority sisters?  Yes, please.  This is what I love most.  Thank JT and Mila Kunis for entertaining us for the evening.

I watched a funny YouTube video yesterday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_lh5fR4DMA&sns=fb
You should watch it, too.  It makes you reconsider every friendship you have with someone of the opposite sex.

I was one of those girls.  I would have answered yes to the questions, but now that I've reconsidered...well, it's complicated.  I have guy friends that I'm just friends with, that I hang out with, that I chat with, and I consider us just friends, but there's one in particular...  Even though my friends continue to tell me he's in love with me.  And you know what?  Maybe he does like me.  If he were given the chance to make out with me, he'd probably take it.  But to me, he's just a friend.  And yes, I know any sorority sister that reads this will know exactly who I'm talking about.  So, here's the fact...I agree with you, okay?  Maybe he likes me, but I still don't like him.

The Birth of Travel Bug

My Travel Bug has a birthday (kind of): June 24, 2010, the day I left for Australia.  The idea of Travel Bug had been with me since, I don't know when...I read my first National Geographic at age 10 or so?  But this was my first big trip on my own, and I would be in Australia for four weeks and Fiji for one week.  Travel Bug and I didn't get along at first.  She gave me anxiety and homesickness.  She used to be really rude.  After we got past that she got annoying because she wouldn't leave me alone.  She kept bugging me day after day after day when I got home from that excursion.  Isn't it funny how the things you love most drive you the most crazy?  Needless to say, it was the best five weeks of my life.

Travel Bug's urge to hit all 50 states and all seven continents really kicked in then, and I started to make plans for the next summer.  Because I had spent a large portion of my savings traveling to Australia and Fiji, I didn't have enough $$$ to go abroad again.  The states and I then became friends, too.  Me, the states and Travel Bug: the three amigos, musketeers, if you will.

I took every opportunity I could find.  Sorority business called me to Colorado in February.  Brother #2 moved to Florida for the summer and provided free stay and transportation.  The only Western state I hadn't visited, New Mexico, called my name to the Four Corners.  Sister and nephews needed a nanny on their vacation to North Carolina and Washington, D.C. (which included Virginia, Maryland and Delaware).  Best friend took me home to Idaho to hang out with her fam, twice.  Best friend and I road tripped down the California coast; Nevada (and all its nasty wind) came, too.  Fraternity formal went to Wyoming.

Between June 2010 and August 2011, I touched water on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, saw the water on both coasts of the United States (i.e., Pacific and Atlantic), swam in the Gulf Coast, was in 13 states (6 of which were new), spent time on a new continent (making three out of the seven), and more, I'm sure.  It was a fabulous year.  Yes, I realize the Four Corners monument isn't actually in the correct spot...but it's a little east of the actual spot, and the whole goal was to go to New Mexico, so mission still accomplished.

But Travel Bug bit me again, meanie pants that she is.  Summer 2012 will bring 2, possibly 3, new countries: Tanzania and either Spain or Belgium and the Netherlands (plus England and France), a new continent and some things crossed off my bucket list (see right).

Oh, to be a college student...that can take the summer off from the world to see the world.

Ending of an Era

It's a little bit of an emotional time for me right now.  It's the end of a lot of things, which I guess means the beginning of a lot of things, too.  Those things are just unknown right now, so it's more scary than exciting.

Last night my sorority had our last meeting of the semester.  My best friend has been president this year, and she is going on a Study Abroad to Italy next semester.  We have had a challenging year, but she has stuck by my side the whole way through it.  We have great memories that will never be overruled by others.  She gave her going away speech last night, and I bawled.  So hard.  It's been a long time since I cried like that.  I'm a little bit scared for her to leave because I she has taught me so much and has been with me through so much.  She knows more about me than anyone else.  Amy, I will miss you!

Thankfully, I have my little sister (sorority little sister) Chan to help me out while Amy's gone.  Chan knows the next most about me, and we have spent a lot of time together lately.  She is the best little sister I could have asked for.  I guess you have to wait longest for the things that are most worth it.

It's also the ending of an era because I turned down the position I was offered in my sorority.  I was asked to be the Recruitment Chair for our house.  I accepted it at first, but then I turned it down for a lot of reasons.  This summer, I will be traveling for 2 1/2 months (6 weeks in Tanzania, 3 weeks in Europe), and it's a little hard to plan Recruitment from Africa and Europe.  The position also required me to live in the house, which I have already done for a year.  I loved every second of living in the house, but it's time for me to re-prioritize and give someone else the opportunity to live in a big, fancy house with 20 of their sisters.  I will still be there all the time, but I decided the position wasn't worth all that money to me.  I am sad to not be on our council anymore, but I am excited to be moving home.  Hopefully I can find a good internship or something.

This week also brings my hardest semester, by far, to an end.  I'm so excited to get rid of you, Fall 2011!

Oh, to be a college student...cheers to moving on.

Gotta Love Finals

Finals and I have a love/hate relationship.  Especially during Fall semester.

A.  They mean HELL.  Yes, in capital letters.  And they come at the busiest time of the year.  Doesn't college realize that students like to enjoy the holidays, too?  We have Christmas parties and performances to attend.  Let us attend them with ease.
B.  They mean the end of the semester (duh).  They mean a break from school for almost an entire month where you don't have to think about ANYTHING, and you don't have to feel guilty about watching episode after episode of whatever TV series (or every TV series).

What am I going to do with my break?  I'm going to watch every episode of Gossip Girl I can (that's my guilty pleasure), search for hours on the internet about my upcoming summer trip (2 1/2 months in Africa and Europe?  Who wouldn't search endlessly?), sell all of my books to pay for my Christmas presents, double all of my pins and likes on Pinterest, sleep, aaaaannnnnnnnnnnnd...yeah.  That's it, I think.

Oh, to be a college student...test taking pros.

Ethnocentric, Prejudice and Racist Values in the Rwandan Genocide

That's the title of the paper I finished today.  I loved every minute of writing that paper.  I know, I'm weird. The paper is for my Intercultural Communication class (one of my favorite classes of all time, along with my Editing class last semester), and I have to give a short presentation on it on Tuesday.  I watched the film Hotel Rwanda and spent a lot of time researching the cultural conflicts between the Hutu and Tutsi people in Rwanda.  Not quite an expert on the subject, but I'm getting there.

Tomorrow starts the last two weeks of school before finals.  Know what that means?  Paper and presentation due Tuesday.  Article and video project due next Tuesday.  Test next Wednesday.  Paper due next Tuesday (almost done with that one).  French oral exam next Wednesday.  And then a take home final and a regular final the following week.  I guess it's not too bad, but it will be a lot of work and a lot of studying.  I can't wait to be done with this semester.  It's been such a hard semester, but I'm so close to being done with school.

Part of it makes me nervous because it means I have to think about (drumroll, please)...my future.  The word all college students are afraid to speak.  Let's just stay in college forever.  That sounds better than having to worry about anything.

Oh, to be a college student...that actually enjoys papers.

The 1920s and Privileged Society

I actually enjoyed my American Institutions class today.  We talked about the 1920s and how they transformed America.  The invention of plastics, increased use of the Model T Ford, home telephones more than doubled.  America became a consumer, urban nation.  It just seems like a happy, romantic period.  It was a time of change and opportunity.  The top 5% of society controlled more than 33% of the nation's wealth.  As we were talking about the top 5% of society, I happened to be on Facebook looking at pictures of my sorority sisters at a fraternity formal in Aspen, Colorado this past weekend.  Pictures of people walking around the fancy-shmancy condos in robes, well-dressed young adults at a formal dinner and dance, etc.  I finally admitted to myself that, okay, I am a privileged, white kid.  Maybe it also has something to do with the elite of the Manhattan East-Siders in Gossip Girl, too.  I am lucky to be a privileged East-Sider in Salt Lake City.  Not to mention how excited I am to spend next summer in Europe and Africa!

Oh, to be a college student...with privileges.

Early in the morning

I always seem to start a blog in the wee hours of the morning.  They always seem to last a few weeks, then I make them disappear.  And a couple weeks later, I find myself wondering why.  Then I go back to them, rekindle our relationship.  Sounds like a boy...  But this time, I couldn't find my old blog.  So here I am starting a new one.  I just want my college experience (though it's halfway over) to be documented in more than my personal diary.

Oh, to be a college student...that procrastinates sleeping.