THANKSGIVING BREAK!!!!!!!!!!

I finally get to take a breather. I finished my senior paper draft and am giving myself a couple hours break from it before I reread it and email it to Dr. Cluff. In the meantime, I'm messaging Kat on Yahoo (and explaining to her the story behind me being terrible at math) and relaxing. I plan to watch some movies or t.v. shows tonight. I still have a bunch of work I have to do over break, but it will still be good. For Thanksgiving Dinner I'm making chicken pot pie at Laura's mod, which will be fun. I've also bought a bunch of baking supplies to make chocolate chip cookies, truffles, and pumpkin cookies. I splurged and spent an awful lot of money for it all, but it will be fun. The rest of the break promises to be pretty quiet, since only 2 of us are staying here on this floor, Kim and I. We will rule Main Hall! Mwahaha! *coughs* Anyway...

Along with the good news of Thanksgiving Break comes the good news of...25 days until I go home!!! I'm so stinkin' excited. I didn't want to think about going home until now because I had so much to do before then, but now a lot of it is out of the way. I still have lots to do, but it's manageable to think about. Plus I have the comfort of know that when I come back for the spring, not only will I be graduating, but it will be the easiest semester I'll have had since my very first. Hooray!!

This has been a good semester, don't get me wrong, but it's also been one of those "let's stretch you beyond what you ever thought you were capable of, blindfold you, and then start chucking stuff at you head" semesters. I've learned a lot and grown a lot, but it's time for a break.

Anywho, I'm off to dinner. I hope y'all have a good Thanksgiving, and I'll let you know how mine went next week!

Cheers!

-Mary Julia

I have determined that one of the most insulting things you can call a person is “brainwashed.” People use it all the time, seriously and mockingly, and they really oughtn’t. Everyone knows what it means – that someone else fooled you so completely that you no longer exercise your own will. Most people would probably shrug and think, “So? What’s so insulting about that?” There are those, especially, that seek haven behind the word to cover up their own misdeeds. Here’s my problem with it: By telling me that I am brainwashed, you are not only accusing me of being a fool, but you are taking my accountability for my actions away from me. A lot of people like the idea of having their accountability taken away, but not me. I am a firm believer in choice. I choose how I think, and no one else. I may choose to listen to someone’s opinions, and I may be foolish enough to accept those opinions without first considering whether they are true, but I still think and choose for myself. No one can ever take that away from me unless I give it up (e.g. hypnosis, alcohol, drugs, sin), and even then, I still make the choice to give it up. By telling me that a wrong decision I made (or a correct decision, as the case may be) was because someone else made that decision for me is false and will forever be false. I have the right to the accountability for my actions. It may be a right with sucky consequences, but it is still my right. The fact that our society encourages people to not take accountability for their own actions (e.g. abortion [with the exception of rape cases], getting into a school based on diverse background instead of on academic ability, or shortening a sentence for a criminal who pleads guilty), is a huge reason why society is going to the dogs. “He didn’t mean it, he was brainwashed.” What you really mean is, “He is an idiot who didn’t think before he acted and now he doesn’t want to deal with the consequences.” Newsflash: there are always consequences. If you made a mistake, accept it, fix it, deal with the consequences, and move on. If you feel that a loved one has made a mistake, accept it, deal with the consequences, and move on. Trying to hide from accountability doesn’t work, so don’t bother with the “brainwashed” label.

I’ve been waiting to say that for a really really long time. Perhaps many years. So sorry if it came out of nowhere for you, but it feels good to finally say a piece of what I’ve been thinking for so long.

It’s also not aimed at anyone particular person, so if you think it was directed at you, it’s not. Chill. It’s just my thought

K, that’s it. Agree or disagree, I don’t care.

Cheers!

-Mary Julia

There’s a room at the very end of the hall on 4^th floor where a girl lived for the first couple of weeks before she had to go home.  But apparently, when she packed up and left, for some reason she left her alarm clock plugged in, on, and set to torture.  Every night at around 7:45 it goes off, and it doesn’t stop for at least an hour, and it often seems more like two.  Sometimes I hear it echoing in my head at random hours and I feel like I’m going insane.  I can only hear it when I walk down the hall to the bathroom, but I pity the people that live further down the hall, closer to it.  I would have broken down the door and smashed the thing if I had to hear that every night.

I think I forgot to give you guys my new address.  Well, really, it’s my old address, from freshman year.  It’s:

Box 4171

1 University Hill Dr.

Buena Vista, VA 24416

I told you I would post pictures of my room.  Well, now that Photobucket seems to be working, I’m finally doing it.

My area I usually use.


The extra bed and desk.

 
See the retarded floor?  Oh well, at least my purple rug covers most of it.


My secret little pantry nook behind the door.


And my favorite part: the windows!


View from the far right window.  The left building is the Student Union, the right is part of Main, and the field is Chandler Field.


View from that same window 3 weeks later:

Us Main Hall girls have gotten really close in the last couple of months.  Probably because we’ve done a lot of activities together, and there are only ten of us.  We have floor prayer every night at 10:00 p.m. for whoever can come, I already told you guys about the floor party, and Brittany and I are starting a “Sunday Social” each Sunday, where we will basically all get together for an hour or two every Sunday after church, and on fast Sundays we’ll have a Break the Fast.  We started it this last Sunday, (which was a fast Sunday) and had a potluck of the most random food ever (mind you, we can’t cook because we don’t have kitchens, so we had to improvise with microwaves and rice cookers).  I made 7 layer dip, Brittany provided some noodles with tomato sauce, Kimberly, who lives across the hall, made this delicious Indian rice, and other people provided popcorn, chips, pretzels, soda, etc.  It sounds like a horrible mixture, but it actually was a pretty fun multi-cultural blend.  We even had some vegetables, since my dip had corn and Kim’s rice had peas.  Here’s a picture of someone’s plate:



And here's a picture of the group at our orange floor party

Oh, here’s a picture of a really gnarly bruise I got from climbing something and slipping (I’m not at liberty to disclose exactly what I was climbing on my blog where anyone can read it.  If you’re curious, email me or ask me when I talk to you).  I figured if Sarah can take pictures of her mauled foot, I’m safe with my calf.  You can’t really see all of it in the picture, but the really dark spot is only a third of the actual bruise.  I think the whole bruise was about the size of two fists.  It’s kinda still there, actually, and I got the bruise like 3 weeks ago.

I love Virginia.  I don’t know how I’m going to just not come back next year.  One of my favorite things about it is that it rains all the time!  Well, all the time compared to California, anyway.  Seriously, though, we’ve gotten rain at least once a week since I’ve been here, it seems.  So, since I have my wonderful spazzy rainboots (very squigglish, I think Rachel would say), I like the excuse to wear them and go jump in puddles, complete with my lime green umbrella.  About a week ago Brittany needed to take her trash to the dumpster, and she asked for my company.  When I saw that it was pouring rain outside I eagerly said yes.  She was laughing at me as she chucked her trash in the dumpster, because I was hunting for the deepest puddles so I could make the biggest splashes.  That, on top of the rain, made us completely soaked by the end of the 3 minutes we were outside.

They got a couple of routers working up here in Main, so my internet is considerably better.  Yay!

This week is my horror week.  On Monday I had a huge 300 point Nutrition project due, yesterday I had 2 normal Spanish assignments due plus completely rewriting a test and explaining my answers, as well as my senior paper prospectus.  Tomorrow I’m supposed to have finished a book for Contemporary Issues that I haven’t gotten more than 5 pages into, and I also have a presentation in Spanish Culture.  On top of that I have grad school stuff hanging over my head, such as verifying residency, completely rewriting my writing sample, and ordering GRE scores.  I still have to order some more Sac State transcripts, actually.  Bother.  So anyway, knowing all this was due at the same time kind of freaked me out, so I was under a lot of stress last week.  Hence, Sarah and Rach didn’t get any calls, I spoke very rudely to Mom (I’m sorry for that, btw.  I shouldn’t have done that), and I almost burst into tears in the middle of Relief Society on Sunday after completely botching a hymn I’d been trying to conduct.  It just wasn’t a good week.  But several things made it better.  In order of appearance: Talking to Daddy, Mom being there to help me sort out problems and do extra work for me that she really didn’t have to do at all, getting a letter from Rachel with pictures/letters from Elizabeth and Natalie, talking to Anna online, the Sunday Social, getting a package of See’s candy from Mom, and talking to Sarah.  This is a pretty long list, but every one of these things came at a crucial time.  If there’s anything I learned in the last week, it’s that I have really fantastic family and friends.  Thank you so much to everyone who kept me from a complete meltdown.  I really needed it.

A representation of how I felt before:

(Those are just some of the books for my one Henry James paper, by the way.)

 And then a couple of the things that cheered me up:

 


Thank you so much again, everyone.  And I promise to share, Mom.

The exception to this high stress time was this past Friday and Saturday from about 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  The writing seminar at Jeff Benedict’s house was really fantastic!  I learned so much, with tips on how to write, tips on how to get published, how New York lifestyle is, etc.  I laughed a lot, hung out with Brittany, met and talked to some different people, and ate good food.  It also helped that I got to sit in a soft leather armchair during the long hours.  A lot of people had to sit in some of the SVU folding chairs.  Anyway, the time away from homework contributed to my stress, certainly, but the experience of a lifetime far outweighed the anxiety of a couple days.  

Well, that’s pretty much it.  I’d best be off, now.  I need to eat lunch so I can come back up here and work on my story, or my Spanish homework, or Contemporary Issues, or something.  So yeah…

Cheers!

-Mary Julia

Last weekend was Homecoming and for the first time ever I went to an SVU football game.  SVU sucks at football, much like El Dorado, and I figure, why bother wrangling a ride and wasting a Saturday to watch my school loose brutally?  But I figured I ought to go to one game before I graduate, so I went to this one.  And we won!  By a lot!  It was like 50 something to 12, I think.  It was fun, and I had a lot of flashbacks to going to football games at El Do when Sarah and Rach were in cheer and Randy was on the team. I remember how Danny and I would go run to the big truck tires or the exercise stumps and bars to play.  Our favorite was playing underneath the stands on the opposing side and climbing as high up the supports as we could.  We also liked climbing under the supports for the stadium lights and just chilling in that little space. It was good fun.

But after the game… that was the eventful part.  Stephanie and I went to dinner, and her leg was really hurting her – she barely made it to the cafeteria.  On the way back to the elevator, she had to stop at every single stopping point (chairs, couches, benches, etc) with her arm slung around my shoulder.  We got to the bench about five feet from the elevator and she decided that she needed to rest for a while longer.  So she laid down on the bench… and couldn’t get back up.  I stayed with her for a while, and then I had to go because I’d promised to do someone’s hair for the dance.  I ended up doing three people’s hair, and when I came back down she had another friend there, and we decided to call some people to help.  Long story short, an ambulance was finally called, and they came in with a gurney and everything.  I rode with her in the ambulance to the hospital in Lexington, where the nurses took her history and had her explain how she got stuck on a bench.  Our bishop, Bishop Brandt, showed up (and thank goodness, because we had no way to get back to school), and he sat with us and kept up a lighthearted conversation until the nurses gave Steph some shots, which helped a lot.  Then he took us back and made a pit stop at the church building to pick up a wheelchair.  I was so glad he was there.  So anyway, Stephanie missed the dance, which she was disappointed about, but I think it kinda hit home how serious this whole thing is.  Oh, I missed the dance too, I suppose, but I had never intended to go, so I was fine with it.

I got specially invited to this expository writing seminar hosted by my Contemporary Issues professor, Jeff Benedict.  He’s an investigative journalist who has lots of connections in New York, and so the seminar will consist of lectures from his publisher and the producer of 60 Minutes and 20/20.  Anyway, it’s only for advanced writers, there are only 12 or 15 spots available for it and you have to apply to get in.  And you can’t even apply unless you are personally invited by a member of the English department faculty.  I was personally invited three times – twice by Dransfield and once by Benedict.  Considering that there were only 3 professors sending out invites, that’s pretty good.  So I kinda felt obligated to participate, and Brittany is doing it too, so I applied (you send in an old essay as a writing sample).  I was immediately accepted.  So next Friday and Saturday (October 30^th and 31^st) I’m going to be sitting in the Benedict’s barn/classroom thingy, watching video clips and talking about the business of writing.  Plus free lunch.  Even though I initially didn’t really want to do it (I have so much to do, I didn’t want to eat away two of my hard work days), I’m actually pretty excited for it now.  It should be a really good opportunity.

I got a calling in the ward.  I kinda guessed it, in a sarcastic way.  I’m the Relief Society Chorister.  Yeah, Mary, the one who is dreadful at music and hasn’t the foggiest idea how to conduct.  But Stephanie said she’d teach me, and hopefully I’ll get better.  It’ll be fun to pick out the hymns, and hopefully I won’t embarrass myself too badly in front of all those music majors in our ward.  It’s interesting, too, because this was basically Anna’s calling last year.  Ah, well, it’s a learning experience, anyway.  It’s a good thing people don’t usually look at the chorister.

Anyway, that’s pretty much it, other than midterms (which I think I did okay on) and grad school applications (I’m finished with UCSD and Fresno and I’m halfway through Vanderbilt).  I’ve realized that, which November soon to come and only 7 weeks left of the semester, I have a lot of crunching to do.  I’m pretty scared for my Henry James senior paper.  But hopefully it will all work out.

I love you guys and hope you’re doing well! 

-Mary Julia

 On Tuesday Brittany and I threw a party for our floor.  There are only ten of us up here in Main Hall and we figured it would be fun to get us together and have a good time for a while, as sort of a detox from school and stress.  We decided to do a color theme, and chose orange, because it was a very autumnal color.   The subtitle was: “’Tis the Season to be Tacky.”  We had a sign up sheet and everyone brought some sort of orange food.  It was really fun!  Only one girl on the floor couldn’t make it, but the rest kind of came and went as they needed.  We had cheetos, goldfish, candy corn, orange soda, carrots, clementines, orange colored oreos, and pumpkin pie.  Plus the plates and napkins were orange and  we also decorated the lobby with orange balloons and such.  It was a bit of an eyesore at first, but it was spazzy and fun.  We played a get-to-know-you game and “What If?”  We also listened to music and had a bit of a dance party for a little while.  Overall it was relaxed and fun, and we got to know each other a lot better.  I would say it was a success!

I got my first ever official paycheck on Friday!  Want to know how much it was?  A whopping $14.50.  The week I was hired was the last week of the pay period, and I only worked for hours.  I’ve already worked about twice as much last week, and this next week I’ve got a lot more scheduled time to work, so it’s pretty cool.  My favorite part about my job, other than being able to help people figure stuff out (which is wicked awesome!) is that if I don’t have anyone to help at any given time, I just do my homework and get paid anyway!  So not only am I not just wasting my time twiddling my thumbs, but if no one shows up for the first hour I get paid to educate myself.  It’s pretty sweet.

I just realized how much I miss hanging out with my nieces and nephews.  I thought I heard Brycen’s voice the other day, and it almost killed me. 

So this semester had seemed kind of impossible for a couple of weeks.  Originally I had 14 credits – a nice easy load – so I would have time to apply for graduate schools.  I discovered that the load wasn’t really all that easy, however, as the Spanish homework started piling up.  But it was still manageable.  Then I decided to become a tutor, so I now have 8 more hours carved out of my weekly schedule (not that I mind, as I said previously).  But then I ended up having to add another 3 credits onto my schedule so I could do my creative work, so I have to spend an hour a day writing a novella.  Then I have my senior expository paper to worry about as well.  Then I joined this newly formed writing club, which takes two hours out of my Saturdays…  Basically, stuff kept adding on.   I have a long mirror in front of my sink, and it’s covered in my dry-erase to-do list.

But this past week seems to have become more manageable.  First, I had my graduation audit, which confirmed that everything is perfectly on track for graduation.  Then on Thursday I finally hammered down my thesis for my senior expository paper.  Then Friday I turned in the first 30 pages of my novella to Professor Hufford, which shows that I’m on track to finish by sometime in early November.  Then yesterday I finished my UCSD application.  So basically, there’s still stuff to do, but it seems more realistic and less overwhelming now.

Funny story: After church every Sunday we wait, and all the priesthood holders come into the Relief Society room and we have ward prayer.  Well today the priesthood holders came in and there were a bunch of empty seats next to me.  One guy, his name is Nate, stood next to one of the seats awkwardly, looking around, then he started laughing and sat down.  We asked him what it was, and he said “I was thinking I would wait and make sure all the ladies had seats before I sat down.”  We all laughed, and someone thanked him for being so polite even though we were already seen.  He laughed and said “I’m so polite I’m stupid.”  It made my day.

Well, that’s pretty much it.  I’m doing pretty well.  Stephanie is still having a lot of problems with her leg/back, so if y’all could keep her in your prayers, that would be wonderful.  She’s really struggling. 

Anyway, I miss you all and can’t wait to see you, even though it’s months away.  I hope everybody is doing okay for the most part. 

Cheers!

-Mary Julia

P.S. Sorry guys, I had pictures to go with this post, but photobucket/my internet is acting really funky.  Maybe next time?

Before I left for SVU at the end of August, Mary Hawkins and I decided we were going to do something fun and challenging, and eat like vegans for 3 days.  Don’t ask me where it came from.  I was a little leery of the idea at first, knowing that the vegan diet was really strict, but I’m not one to sit out when Mary challenges me to do something, so I agreed.  We set the dates right then and there so we wouldn’t be wishy-washy about it – September 22-24.  That, of course, was this last week. 

In preparation for eating like a vegan, Mary and I looked up what their diet entailed.  We knew that it was no animal products, but we didn’t realize to what extent.  No meat, dairy, eggs, honey, processed sugar or a certain type of flour (I don’t remember what kind).  I was quite dismayed when I saw this, as you can imagine.  No honey?!  Seriously, vegans are weird.

Then we started the challenge.  The first day I ate stuff like PB&J, cream of wheat, broccoli/cauliflower, and spaghetti with tomato sauce (btw, the Walmart Great Value brand of tomato sauce is really good!).  Oh, and bananas.  I’d bought a big bunch of those.  But I had to eat like three servings of spaghetti to feel full because I didn’t have any protein, really.  Then I felt gross for eating three servings of spaghetti. 

The next day was horrid.  I had made some minute rice cooked in lime juice, and I put black beans on top.  It tasted good, and it had some protein from the beans, but I kept crashing after I lost the carb energy.  I genuinely felt ill all that day, and I even had a fever.  I was dying for some chocolate, or a glass or milk, or something, but I resisted the temptation. 

The last day I didn’t feel as sick, but it was still not fun.  I had more of the lime rice stuff, and more cream of wheat, pretty much everything I had been eating the last two days (it got old pretty fast).  But it was really annoying, because in my class with Dr. Cluff, we now have herbal tea with our class, so we can discuss Henry James and Edith Wharton and get a better feel for their society, I guess.  But I couldn’t put honey in my tea, and I don’t like tea that doesn’t have a little sugar in it.  I also couldn’t eat most of the delicious looking cookies that Dr. Cluff brought, because they had cream or chocolate.  Luckily there were ginger snaps, which I like.  But it was agonizing to be amongst all that, staring at a plate of delicious cookies for an hour and fifteen minutes.

Anyway, the day finally came when my vegan stint was over, and so I celebrated by going to get breakfast I the cafeteria.  I got a little of everything I couldn’t have before – eggs with cheese, sausage, French toast, yogurt, and chocolate milk.  About halfway through eating it, however, I realized that I was being an idiot and needed to stop.  All of those foods were hard enough to digest as it was, and my body wasn’t used to it after three days without, so I could get sick.  I stopped there, but about an hour afterwards I had some not-so-fun stomach cramps that felt like I’d just had a giant rock surgically implanted in my stomach.  It went away after about a half an hour, but still… it was not fun.

What did I learn from all this?  Basically, vegans are psycho.  I could tell by the way my body reacted to it that it was not a healthy way of living.  Also, I love dairy!  I never missed cheese so much in my life.  And the blessing of being able to drink a glass of milk?  I shan’t take it for granted anytime soon.   I also think that I would be able to handle a vegetarian diet fairly well.  If I can have dairy, eggs, and sugar, I am fine.

So, aside from the vegan stuff, not much else is up.  Well, actually, I got a job!  I’m a tutor!  I am tutoring for history stuff right now, but hopefully I’ll get to be a writing tutor as well.  I won’t get paid much, but it’s something to go on my resume and grad school applications.

SVU does this thing called a Business Stroll every year around this time.  Basically the get a bunch of businesses in Buena Vista to put their names on a card, and then the students have to take the card and go to each business for them to put a sticker on it.  When the card is full, you turn the card in, get a free t-shirt and pizza, and are part of a prize drawing for a bunch of stuff, which is announced at a concert.  This year was the first year I had participated in it, and it was last weekend.  My friends and I completed our cards and turned them in for the t-shirt and pizza, not expecting to win anything.  We made a quick Walmart run, and on our way back apparently my name was called.  I would have won a movie and a $25 iTunes gift card, but they gave it to someone else since I wasn’t there.  I didn’t mind, though, because I don’t have an iTunes account, and I probably already had the movie anyway.  It was nice to know that I had at least had my name called, though.  Some other friends won stuff, too, but they were there to get it.  The concert was really cool, too.  They blocked off an entire block on the main street (Magnolia) just for it, with the band set in the street centered on the double yellow line.  The band was Scotty and the Beamers, named so because Scott Dransfield (that’s right, my awesome English professor) is the bassist in it, although the other guys are students.  They’re a fun band, and played good songs like “Brown-eyed girl.”  Laura and I took some pictures…

 



Dransfield.  Laura zoomed in when she took it, so it's a little pixelated.


Brittany and I lying in the road.  Oh no, a car is coming!

In other news, my friend Stephanie has a pinched nerve in her back that causes her severe leg pain.  It’s been around for over a year now and some days are better than others.  But on Friday it got really bad, and after her classes she collapsed onto my spare bed and couldn’t get up or even sit up.  Brittany and I helped her out as we could, getting her food, medicine, helping her adjust positions, and being there for whatever she needed.  We also got some priesthood holders to come up and give her a blessing. She pretty much slept from 3:30 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. the next morning, with a half an hour here or there of eating or talking.  She needed the rest, because she tends to run herself aground.  Saturday morning she walked a little bit with a rolling chair and ended up spending the day on Brittany’s bed, so that’s where she was all day Saturday.  Today she is a lot better, and though she still has a lot of pain, she went to church and walked around with a smile.  As long as she doesn’t overdo it, she should be okay for classes tomorrow.

 Also, last night we ordered pizza from Papa John’s because Brittany had won a free $25 gift card at from the Business Stroll thing.  So we ordered 3 pizzas (1 large, 2 medium), and because of it we got a free medium cheese pizza and a free cinna pie, so we ended up with 5 boxes of food for 4 people.  The grand total was $30, so it only cost us 5 bucks.  I paid it and all was well.  And man was the pizza good!  There’s leftovers, of course, so that’s our dinner tonight.

That’s pretty much it in terms of news.  Classes are going well.  Spanish is a lot of work, and I have a lot of big stuff to finish by the end of the semester, but I can do it.  It’ll be ok.  So anyway, that’s that.

Cheers!

-Mary Julia

Too much to update on!!!  This is what I get for procrastinating.

 

K, classes.  Here’s my schedule:

 

PER 143: Health and Wellness – MW 10:00-10:50 a.m. (DuBose)

Institute: New Testament, the Gospels – MW 1:00-1:50 p.m. (Berrett)

SPN 306: Review of Spanish Grammar and Culture – TR 9:30-10:45 a.m. (Konstantinova)

SPN 360: Culture of the Spanish-Speaking World – TR 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (Porter)

ENG 498: Senior Paper, Henry James and Edith Wharton – TR 12:30-1:45 p.m. (Cluff)

PER 175R: Beginning Ballet – TR 4:00-5:15 p.m. (Floyd)

LIB 490: Contemporary Issues – R 7:00-8:50 p.m. (Benedict)

 

Health looks like it’ll be nice and easy.  There’s no textbook, we don’t really have to show up to class (he doesn’t take attendance), handouts are posted online, etc.  Basically it’s just acing the tests and doing a project at the end of the semester.  The teacher, Coach DuBose, is relaxed and fun, but he knows what he’s talking about and sincerely wants us to improve our lifestyle based on what we learn in his class.  So other than the fact that there are two other Marys in the class besides myself, which will be potentially be very confusing, I think I’ll really enjoy it. 

 

Institute is taught by Elder Berrett, although his wife pitches in sometimes.  We’re just talking about the life of Christ, and what it was like at that time, which I think is absolutely fascinating.  It’s really cool because Elder Berrett has been to Israel a bunch of times and knows all this history and culture, not to mention the Hebrew language, that shed so much light on the scriptures.  It’s awesome!  I’m learning so much.

 

Spanish Grammar is a class I really need, because I’ve forgotten a lot of the rules and vocab that I really should know.  It’s with Konstantinova again, which is fun, but this time there are a lot more non-return missionaries, so I don’t feel so out of place.  I think it’s good that I took the literature class first, though, because this class has more work, but it’s not as difficult, so I’m better prepared, not to mention I’m more familiar with Profesora Konstaninova’s teaching style.  It may not sound riveting, but the people in the class are fun, and I think I’ll learn a lot.  There’s also another Mary in this class.

 

Spanish Culture is extremely interesting.  We’re spending the first half of the semester only on Spain, which is so nice, because every other Spanish class seems to gloss over the mother country, something I’ve always found irksome.  In fact, history in general seems to ignore Spain, yet Spain is so much a part of the history of Europe, it seems completely negligent to let people be so ignorant of its history.  I’ve always wanted to learn more about it, so I guess this is my chance.  There’s no textbook – Dr. Porter gives us worksheets and we have to go online and find the answers, then we discuss it in class.  I think it’s a really effective way to learn stuff about culture, since so much of it is online.  It’s also nice because I don’t have to pay for a $80 Spanish textbook.  And there’s another Mary in this class as well.

 

Senior Paper, after a morning full of Spanish, enjoyable though that is, feels like home.  English classes are such familiar ground.  I know how to think and what to say there without being worried about pronouncing something incorrectly or starting a sentence and then suddenly forgetting how to say the one crucial word I want to say.  So even though Henry James in particular is noted for being confusing and difficult to follow, I’m loving it.  I’ve always thought that the study of other languages helped with your comprehension of your native tongue, but I didn’t realize it went to this depth.  The amount of focus I put into Spanish automatically shows up in my English readings now, making it seem so much easier than it’s ever been.  It’s a nice reminder of my love for both languages.  Oh yeah, and there’s another Mary in this class, too.

 

Ballet is going to be good.  It’s simple stuff that, even if I couldn’t recall it off the top of my head, I remember quickly.  I’m not flexible at all anymore, so the stretching will be good for me, and it will be a nice vocab refresher so I know what Kat, Sarah and Rachel are talking about when they occasionally bring up steps in conversation.  The teacher is really relaxed and fun, making sure to help us improve without being strict.  I don’t know how she managed that happy medium, but she did.  Fortunately, there are no other Marys in this class.

 

Contemporary Issues is taught by a pretty well known investigative reporter, Jeff Benedict, who has published a ton of books and has all sorts of connections to famous people, mostly in NYC.  At first I thought it would be a class I’d just have to push through, because he came off as conceited (he assigned for of his books as textbooks for us to buy), but that first class was really an eye-opener.  I always avoid the news, because its either depressing or irrelevant in my life.  Or so I thought.  I’ve only had one class, but I already care more about current events than I have in about 5 years (that’s a long time for a young ’un like me).  His goal is basically to get us to be informed about current issues and have a well-backed opinion on them, so that when we need to, we can call on these opinions/decisions.  I’m actually really excited for this course.  And surprise, surprise, there’s a second Mary in this class as well. 

 

So aside from having an identity crisis this semester, I think this will be a really great learning experience for me.  I’m eager to get as much as I can out of these classes.

 

Alright!  Now on to my favorite part.  Guess who came to visit me this weekend?!  I think all you readers already know, so the reveal isn’t all that exciting, but yes, Sarah and Matt drove down here to Virginia all the way out from Michigan, roughly a 10 hour drive, unless you hit traffic in Detroit and Ohio.  Sarah told me they would be getting in at about 9:00 p.m. on Friday, and they’d set up camp (oh yeah, they were camping at Glen Maury Park) and sleep, then come see me in the morning.  So imagine my surprise when 11:30ish Friday night I get a knock on my door, and tell them to come in (expecting it to be Stephanie), and see Sarah!  At first I didn’t recognize her because I was so fixated on the idea that it couldn’t be her.  I was talking to Kat on the phone at the time, and I imagine I sounded as stunned as I felt.  Anyway, they didn’t want to pay for that night and set up camp in the dark, so Sarah and I carried the kids up the 4 flights of stairs (the elevator was broken), and they crashed in my room while Matt slept in the car.  (Dorm policy – he couldn’t come up here or I’d be in big trouble).  That night I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited that they were here.  It was super annoying.  I kept on telling myself “Mary, relax!  They’re here!  You can sleep.”  My body had other ideas, though, so I didn’t get much sleep that night.

 

In the morning (WAY too early, I might add), we went to set up camp, and then afterward went back to SVU, where I gave them the grand tour.  I was a bit worried that they wouldn’t give a rip, but Matt expressed mild interest, so it was okay.  When we were done we planned to go eat at the café, but it didn’t open for another 10 minutes or so.  Sarah wanted to see the town, which I told her would take about 3 minutes.  We piled in the car, drove down Magnolia at a snail’s pace, got caught at a couple lights, I pointed out stuff, and when we reached the edge they asked, “That’s it?”  All that had literally taken 3 minutes.  So we turned around and headed back to the school.  By that time the café was open, so we got some food, which I paid with my ID card (it’s nice to be able to do that, now).  Afterwards we decided to drive up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and take in the great views from up there.  Here’s a picture of Sarah, Alex and I at the Buena Vista overlook.  Sorry you can’t see us all that well – the lighting was weird, and I don’t have my program to fix that anymore.

 

 

 

After the Parkway, we drove back down to BV and to go swimming at the river.  Sarah and I decided to just wear shorts, but everyone else (besides Keturah, I suppose) was decked out in swim gear.  We went to a spot on the Maury river that I’d seen a bunch of times but had never been to.  It turned out to be great!  It was shallow, which was good for the kids, and it was a decent temperature.  Sarah and Matt kept on saying how much they enjoyed it.  It was no Bridal Veil, but I guess they’ve been deprived of a good river trip.  Keturah got an experience not many people have either – she got her diaper changed on a rock in the middle of the river.  I’m sure she’ll be bragging about it as soon as she can talk.  We had a little floaty toy for Alex and Bekah, but all they managed to do was let it float away, so I had to keep fetching it.  It was a bother scrambling over snail and slime covered rocks barefoot to catch it multiple times, so I revoked Alex’s, Bekah’s, and Sarah’s rights to it when they each lost it.  It was good fun.  Even when Sarah accidentally locked the keys in the car (something that, in her defense, she has never done before), we didn’t let it dampen our mood too much.  The window was slightly open, and with a well-chosen stick (my choice!) and some good maneuvering (kudos to Sarah, she redeemed herself), the doors were unlocked without wasting more than 10 or 15 minutes.

 

 

Then we got changed and went out to dinner.  We scoped out Ruby Tuesdays and Applebees in Lexington, but they were swarmed with Virginia Military Institute cadets and their families, so we decided to go with Nick’s Italian Kitchen in BV, which is cheaper and has the best calzones ever.  Aside from Matt’s slight disappointment with the ground veal, it was good a success.  Afterwards we went back to their campsite, built a fire and ate s’mores.  Sarah took me home after the kids went to bed.  We reeked of campfire so we took showers here (Sarah got a pretty good dosage of life in Main Hall in one weekend), and then she left and I went to bed.

 

 

 

The next morning was church, so I went to the building to save a seat for everyone in the back, because she said they’d probably come in late.  I felt a cross between popularity and loneliness because a bunch of people wanted to sit with me, but I kept telling them Sarah was coming, so I was left to myself and my stuff sprawled across the bench.  I was almost scared she wouldn’t show, but after sacrament they all filed in.  It was perhaps the most interesting testimony meeting any of us had experienced in quite a while.  See, student wards, because there are no kids, are very quiet.  So when 3 kids are suddenly in the meeting, they tend to stick out.  I was laughing at all of it, and I noticed various friends laughing and peeking at Keturah as she cooed and Alex and Bekah “whispered.”  No one minded.  It was awesome.  The rest of church was a bit boring for Alex and Bekah, I think, but I just loved having all of them there. 

 

After church we went our separate ways to change out of our church clothes, and then we went back up to the Blue Ridge Parkway to go on a little walk/hike on what is called the Indian Gap Trail.  It was a short little loop that led to some rocks that were excellent for climbing around.  It was a pretty popular stop for lots of people, and we all loved messing around on the rocks.  Alex and Bekah took turns being the leader, and we all posed for pictures. 

 
(I love the kids' facial expressions in this one)


Alex and Matt as Spidermen (you have to be to get up on that rock)


Keturah!

Afterwards we headed back to camp to start making dinner.  It was only 3:00 p.m., but Matt and I were hungry (It was fast Sunday).  We built a fire with difficulty (blast you BV winds!), and cooked up some broccoli, potatoes, corn on the cob, and hotdogs, eating each as they finished.  Oh man, it was good!  That evening we chilled by the fire (Sarah had Alex and I do a fire dance), I taught the kids how to play Go Fish and Old Maid, and we raced to the slide up the hill a few times.  After the kids went to bed we had s’mores and IBC root beer.  We felt really tired really early, so Sarah took me back to my dorm around 10:30 p.m. 

 
Firedance

Old Maid

 

The next day Sarah came up to my room at 9:45 a.m. (ish) to say goodbye.  We went downstairs and said bye.  Well, Alex didn’t, but he almost never does.  He gets really upset because he doesn’t want to say goodbye, so he just doesn’t.  But when Matt and Sarah threatened to leave Keturah with me, so he’d have to say goodbye to her, too, he really took it hard.  It’s so sweet how much he loves his little sister.  As we separated, though, he waved, so I’d say he said goodbye just fine.

 

It was definitely depressing having to turn my back on them and head to class.  I don’t know how their trip back went – hopefully better than it was coming here.  Anyway, that’s that.  I had better get to dinner so I can get back and get started on my homework.  Cheers!

 

-Mary Julia

P.S. Sarah, I tried to leave out stuff so you could have room to work with your own version.  Thanks for letting me steal your pics!

I'm going to have to make this fast, since I'm leaving for the airport in a half an hour.  That's right, here I come SVU!

This last week has been extremely eventful.  I went up to Placerville on Wednesday and hung out with Mary and Meghan at Bridal Veil.  We even got KFC like our whole family used to do whenever we went up there.  It was super yummy, but the meat bees got on my nerves.  I whacked a good few of them and sent them careening in the other direction, but they kept coming back.  Mary and Meghan were a bit more patient.  Anyway, we went to the upper pool and jumped off the little jumping rock for a while and played Marco Polo.  We tried unsuccessfully to get some action shots of us jumping.  My poor old camera doesn't handle the fast-moving stuff very well.

Mary


Me


Meghan


Meghan and Mary messing around


Danny took me home, and when we got back Mom, Nate, Heather, Jaden, Jasmin, Lily and Connor were waiting for us, with a huge spaghetti dinner and a gigantic pan of broccoli.  Heather, Jasmin and I enjoyed picking at the broccoli until it was all gone, and there was a lot.  After that I made cream puffs (Mom had to leave for a bit, or she would have made them), Nate and I played Clue, the kids watched a movie, we ate the cream puffs, messed around on Danny's gutars, and all that jazz.  We all went to bed kinda late.  The next day was somewhat uneventful for me.  Nate and fam went up to Frog Lake, and there wasn't enough room in their car for me to tag along, so I stayed and straightened up the house a bit.  Mom came home early from work and we made chicken pot pie Pennsylvania Dutch style and brownies.  Mmmm!   Everyone got back kinda late and they were sure happy with the meal waiting for them.  I think it was that night that we taught Jasmin how to play clue.  She caught on really quickly and won a round!

Jazz and Connor


Me and Heather -- be glad you can't hear me playing


Friday Nate and Dans sat out while Mom, Heather, the kids and myself went to the Sacramento Zoo and Funderland.  We had loads of fun, and Heather and I particularly enjoyed the roller coaster at Funderland.  I also got to carry Connor around, and we walked under the misters when it got kinda hot.  He's such a sweet, patient little kid.  (Btw, for some reason I don't have very many pictures of Jaden.  It doesn't mean I love him any less, though!  I guess he's just a little more illusive.)

Lily and Jasmin at the zoo


Me and Connor at the zoo


Lily at Funderland


That night Matt and Brycen came over.  We ate leftovers, had chocolate mousse for dessert, and just had fun family time.  Around 11:30 ish Matt took Brycen home and Nate decided to teach us all to play Risk.  The kids dropped off pretty fast and went to bed, but Danny stayed until I vanquished him, and I stayed until I finally got too tired to care and let Nate grind me up.  The game was over at about 5:30 a.m.





Shoot, I'm running out of time!  Um... the next day Mom and I went to Fresno to see Grandma.  We stayed up late playing games.  Mom won the scrabble game (surprise, surprise).  Here's a funny picture of her triumphant and and Grandma and I the sore losers.



I drove back to Fresno on Monday to take Heather and Connor to meet Nate.  No pics, but it was fun chillin' with those two and seeing Grandma one last time.  Then I raced back to Sac, where I met Daddy and we went to the State Fair.  We had a lot of fun spending our last bit of time together.



Then Kat came over yesterday.  We made another storybook for Michael (did I even tell you guys about the first one?  I don't remember). I'll post those pictures later.

K, I really have to go.  Bye, all!

I started this post with the determination that I was going to say as much as I wanted without any regard for anyone else, and by the time I got to the end, I realized that I didn’t really have all that much to say anyway.  So here’s a short, kinda sporadic post.

You know, Grandma and Mary Hawkins have always been big fans of Mary Higgins Clark.  They praise her for her excellent story-telling, great mystery, great characterizations, cleanliness, and ending plot twists.  This is all true, except that the few times I read her books, I had a hard time getting past her main flaw: she's obsessed with describing clothes.  She goes on and on about outfits!  At first I thought there was some importance to mentioning them -- perhaps someone hid a grenade in the raincoat or the protagonist uses her blue cashmier sweater to create a makeshift bandage when she's in a tight spot.  But then I realized that Mary Higgins Clark was just obsessed with clothes.  It's not the worst fault an author can have -- not by a long shot -- but it still irked me some.  Then I realized that I have a bad habit of over-describing food, on my blog at least.  Anyway, the point of this schpeal is that today I am fulfilling my usual "over-mentioning of food," and I'm sort of embodying Mary Higgins Clark, because there are more mentions of clothes than usual.

That said, let's move on.

During the YSA Conference, I bailed a couple times to avoid certain horrid modern day torture devices such as speed dating.  At one point I went to Arden Fair Mall, and just wandered around.  I didn’t buy a thing.  Something I noticed though: big plaid shirts and jean jackets are back in style.  I feel like I’ve returned to my hand-me-downs from the 90s.  I think it’s awesome!  I’ve always loved jean and leather jackets, and plaid shirts, the good ones, are fun and comfy.  I’m more likely to spend my money on a jean jacket than a plaid shirt, simply because it’s more functional and goes with more things, but I don’t think I’d actually buy either.  It’s just a fun note to point out.

Sarah gave me a bag of black licorice jelly beans when I was at her place in Missouri this last spring.  I just now finished them about ten minutes ago – I was saving them.  They were awesome.  Thanks Sarah!

Mom made cream puffs the other night.  They were divine!  We both agreed that the invention of cream puffs is one of the best things the French ever did.  And that's not meant to diss the French (although I suppose you could take it that way), it just shows the superiority of the cream puff.  And I think Matt Guymon should lose his right to desserts for not liking the king of them all.  :)

I’ve been getting tired really early lately.  It hits me about ten, but it’s not too bad, but if I stay up past 1:00 a.m., I fall asleep with my computer in front of my face, the lights still on, and my teeth unbrushed.  It’s really weird.  I think it’s because of when we had to go to bed on the high adventure thing. I still haven’t adjusted.

Friday I decided that enough was enough and I was going to put together the bookshelf Mom bought for me ($20 at Wal-mart!) without a power screwdriver.  I opened up the package, Phillips in hand, and set to work.  I was done in about a half hour, and the shelf looked awesome.  It wasn't all that sturdy (which wasn't expected) but it was more than up to the job I had for it, so I was happy.  Then I worked on rearranging my room to find a place for the shelf.  The result of it was a shifted nightstand, dresser, and hamper, rearranged boxes, the discovery of the shell cabinet shelves (Mom's been looking for them for ages), and a new bed for me!  Well, not really new.  See, I made it out of food storage and extra blankets.  It took a lot of rearranging and testing out, but now my bed is the comfiest it has ever been, it conserved a ton of space, it's off the floor, and it was completely free!  I was pretty proud of my accomplisments for the day.

This coming week is my last full week in California.  To be precise, I have 10 days until I fly to VA.  I’m very excited to go, but I feel like I have to frantically scramble to see everybody before I go.  Fortunately I think I’m going to see Matt tomorrow (and hopefully Brycen as well, but I don’t know), I see my friends on Wednesday as long as Danny goes to work, Nathan’s coming up for the end of the week with Heather and all the kids, we’re going to see Grandma on Saturday, visiting Placerville Ward on Sunday, then I see Daddy, and then I pack. I think it’ll all work out.  I hope so at least.

Dinner time.  I’m craving fettuccine alfredo like nothing else right now.  I think I’ll settle for top ramen instead (I can hear Rachel and Sarah groaning in disgust). Ciao!

-Mary Julia 

P.S. Fleece pajama pants are one of the best inventions in the world.  Especially for the near absolute zero temperatures in Mom's house.

I often get a mixture of complaints regarding my blog.  #1: You don’t write often enough.  #2: You write too much. I supposed this is true.  See, people complain about me writing too much, and so I don’t write for a while, and then I have a lot to say.  It’s a vicious cycle.  A lot of what I say is for the benefit of everyone else, though, so I’ve decided that if people really feel I write too much, I’ll have to slim things down.  Either that or tell you to just not read it, but I like hearing from all of you.  Basically, we’re going to try a Slim Fast version of my blog posts (It's only a page long, there are just lots of pictures).  If I don’t like doing it this way, though, I’m going back to the long posts, and you guys are just gonna have to suck it up and deal.  

Highlights of events since I last posted…

San Diego, July 23-26

-Zorba’s Greek buffet lunch (yum!)

-Zoo

-Beach

-Elder Ballard’s talk in sacrament meeting on the importance of family

 

High Adventure Activity, August 3-7

-Rafting down American River (Monday)

-Jeeping down the Rubicon -- Wicked awesome! (Tuesday and Wednesday)



 

-Stayed in a super nice cabin in Soda Springs -- "Lotta Snow Cabin" (Wednesday-Friday)



Allie and Meghan (McIntyre)


Afton Gastaldi with the Jackalope.  Quote from her: "Do you think that's a real jackalope?"  We had a good laugh at that.

-Floating down the Truckee River (while it was hailing!  It was SO COLD!!  And Mary and I had the only paddles, so we pulled everybody.) (Thursday)

-Hiking up to Donner’s Peak and Mount Judah (Friday)

Donner's Peak and Lake.  Only Brother Poulter, Breanne Cook and I hiked up to the top of Donner's Peak, and it was SO COOL!  I want to drag Daddy up there sometime.


Group on top of Mount Judah


Btw, Sue called me Rachel on Thursday.  I was surprised that she only did it once.  It made me laugh.  And randomly on Tuesday Kaily Kiholm and Diana Worden gasped and exclaimed, "You're Sarah's sister, aren't you?!"  I laughed at the shock in their voices.  Especially since they've both known me for ages.  I don't know why, but it makes me happy when people recognize and associate me with my family members.  It makes me feel more at home.  Do you know what I mean? 

California Young Single Adult Conference, August 8-9

-Lots of talks saying things like:

Don’t get distracted

Discipline yourself

Set goals and find ways to achieve them

Keep the commandments

Follow the good examples of your forbearers.

-Elder Perry spoke about the above and the importance of seeking the companionship of the Holy Ghost.


If you want more details, call me.  I’d love to talk to you!

16 days (I think) until I’m off to VA again! Cheerio, mates!

-Mary Julia

I’ve just had a riveting dinner conversation with Mom and Danny.  Well, more riveting for them, since I hadn’t the foggiest idea what they were talking about.  Something about human wattage, calories vs. joules, radio waves from space, and a bunch more stuff that sounded like another language to me.  I swear, you have to ace college chemistry (which fortunately I have) just so you’re familiar with a few of the phrases.  I tried to slip in some grammar discussion and explain the proper way to pronounce “gamma” in English based on the double consonant’s effect on the vowel preceding it, but for some reason that topic didn’t catch their fancy.  Instead they talked about the difference in frequencies between micro waves and the waves for cell phone transmission, and I tried to picture the wave map in my head from chem class, and review everything I still remembered, and I still didn’t grasp what they were talking about.  I was glad when they randomly switched to Genghis Khan, old Catholic Church torture methods, and Plato’s form theory, things I knew a fair bit about.  It didn’t last long, though.  They seemed to realize that I was actually following the conversation and switched back to radio waves.  It was fun, though.  Normally I get frustrated, because I feel like an idiot who doesn’t know how to do anything but wolf down spaghetti, but today I sat back and started laughing.  They were a bit confused until I explained to them that only in our family would the dinner table regularly become a physics discussion or a chemistry lecture.  It’s sort of endearing, in a way. 

Anywho…

Girls Camp with Woodland Stake was a blast! The Water Staff got to sleep on what El Dorado Stake would call Big Sister Hill – the wooden tent platforms.  The girls on the staff were awesome!  They accepted Mary and I so easily, didn’t get annoyed or feel like we were imposing our traditions on them, or anything.  We all clicked really well and had a really good time.  It was fun to hike down to the water everyday, too.  The fire trail, which is more like hiking down a cliff that a trail, was fun, and even though it was a bit tiring, my knees rarely complained and it got better as the week went on.  The water wasn’t that cold either.  The first day we practiced swamping canoes and saving people with the backboard, but mostly just hung out.  The rest of the week we did a lot of swim checks and played around with the noodles and rings.  It was really nice. 

Don't criticize my not-so-straight leg, k?  I haven't taken ballet in years!

 

When we weren’t down at the water, we were in the “shipyard,” as we called it, on the table right next to the craft area, building cardboard boats for a competition at the end of the week.  It involved lots of measuring, razor blade wielding, and the sounds of excessive amounts of duct tape being peeled of the roll.  We built a nice big one first, that could theoretically hold 3 people (not advisable, though).  But we didn’t know how well it would float, so we built a one-person test boat.  Our theme as Water Staff was Peter Pan, so we named our test boat Smee and our big boat Tiger Lily.  Here’s Mary trucking Smee down the hill.

 

Smee didn’t float very well, though. 



So we took extra precautions before the big race and attached Styrofoam and life jackets to the bottom of the boat.  See, we didn’t really have rules for the competition, except for one – it had to be mostly cardboard.  On the day of the competition, Friday July 10^th, we discovered how people did with that one rule.  A few people were pretty good about it.  Here’s the Rappelling Staff’s boat, made of cardboard lined with garbage bag and bottomed with Styrofoam, milk jugs, and a wooden frame.  I think they had lifejackets, too. 

Here’s the first year’s boat, which is made entirely of cardboard.  Cool thing about theirs, though, is that they folded it like origami.  They also had a hand-tied net that they put on the bottom, with milk jugs attached to it for buoyancy. 

After, that, though, people got really creative.  Here’s the Camp Presidency’s “boat” – a garbage bag fully of milk cartons. It didn’t have a name, so we christened it “The Diaper.”

Then I didn’t get a picture of the other contestant, but hers was a kickboard with a scrap of cardboard taped to the bottom.  It was really funny, but it was certainly a stretch.

Our boat, though, the Tiger Lily, was the best by far.  It had a pointed front, a wide deck (to prevent rolling), garbage bag lining, the extremely buoyant lifejackets and Styrofoam, a mast complete with a jolly roger, and an artfully painted name on the back (yo lo pinte, btw).

 

The race was very entertaining.  We were time people to see how long they would stay afloat, and also seeing how far they could go.  We honestly expected them to sink within a minute or two.  But they didn’t!  The Oinkster (1^st year) fell apart first, but they got really far.  The Climbers’ Rock (Rappelling) came back before they suffered too much damage, but didn’t go so far.  We kinda discounted the non-boat entries, although they did float nicely.  The Tiger Lily, though, that was a masterpiece.  It floated wonderfully – it didn’t get any water in it except the splashes from paddling, and it went really far.  Too far, actually.  The girl captaining it, Christianni, lost control against the current, stopped paddling and just waved as she disappeared out of view.  We went to fetch her, of course, but she’d gone quite a ways before we could get to her. 

This is the boats trying to fight the current.  Closest to furthest: Rappellers, 1st Years, Water Staff.

 

So in the end, Tiger Lily truly won, but since we were Water Staff and people seemed to think we had an advantage, we didn’t bother too much with taking the credit.  But when everyone else had left the dock, we celebrated and took lots of pictures in the boat, since it was still floating so well.  After we put three people in it, though, it started sinking a bit.

 

I liked our flag, too, so I had Mary take a picture of me with it.  I felt like the bad guy (Captain Rolfe?) on Pocahontas, when he stakes his claim on the Indian land.  It was fun.

 

I think everyone had fun watching the race.  It was ridiculous and hilarious and definitely one of my favorite parts of the week.

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned Mom.  The fact is, I didn’t see her much.  I checked on her whenever I did, made sure she hadn’t broken her ankle and that she was having fun.  She had to give a five minute talk 6 times on Wednesday, and she did wonderfully.  She also came down to the water loads, although I was usually busy doing a swim check so I couldn’t talk much.  Here’s proof that she was at Camp Ritchie, though!  You can even see Camp Winton, the boy scout camp, in the background.

Right, so that’s enough of camp.  Sorry to everyone who is not Mom, Rachel, or Sarah – you probably don’t care that much about Camp Ritchie.  It’s a wonderful place, though!  Here's a couple random pictures.

Mary and I with our free fake mustaches and sunglasses.



Water Staff group photo:

After camp we drove into Placerville, and Mom dropped Mary and me off at Mary’s house.  It was the plan that we would go to church the next day before I went to Dad’s, but I had forgotten to pack church clothes.  So we went to TJ Maxx and I got a white shirt and a cheap long pink skirt, and we also stopped by Payless, where I got silver shoes (heels, yuck!), which I also needed for Julie’s wedding at the end of August.  It was kinda thrown together, and we had a time limit, but it ended up working out well.  Breezy complimented me on my skills at purchasing a very nice outfit in a short amount of time.

Church in the P-ville ward was fun.  It seemed that everyone was back there to visit.  Kayla Montgomery Berejkoff, Hayley Stoddard, and a bunch more people, though I’m drawing a blank right now.  A lot of people accosted me to catch up a bit, a lot of people asked about Mom, and they had me give the opening prayer in Relief Society.  It was nice to see so many friendly faces again.  It was a bit weird, though, and I decided it was because it wasn’t really my ward anymore.  I was comfortable, yes, but it wasn’t quite the same.  But Davis ward isn’t the same, either, because I don’t know very many people, and no one there is my age.  I’ve decided that the University wards at SVU are where I feel the most comfortable.

Anyway, after church I went to Dad’s, and we had super yummy tri tip for dinner (I’ll bet Sarah’s salivating right now), along with home grown vegetables and some cucumber salad, which, though Daddy and I had very little of it (to Linda’s dismay), I have to say it’s the only form of cucumber that I’ve mildly enjoyed.  A hint to Linda: Danny and Matt love cucumbers.

On Monday there was a Young Single Adult activity at Sunsplash, complete with free admission.  Mary drove, Barrett, Brandon Schoenfeld, Meghan McIntyre and I there, and we had a really good time.  It was fun to hang out with some old church friends again.  Afterwards Mary and I went to see the 2^nd Transformers.  It was good, but… it had its faults.  The first one was better in most respects. When we walked out of the theatre at like 12:30 a.m., Barrett and Brandon, as well as a couple other guys were sitting out there, faithfully waiting in line for the 6^th Harry Potter movie 24 hours ahead of time, to be sure they were first.  They had told us of their plans while we were at Sunsplash and agreed to save us a spot when we returned the next evening.

The next day Mary and Melissa d. came over to Dad’s house, and we had a massive Harry Potter movie marathon.  We started at 10:30 a.m. and the third didn’t end until 5:00 p.m.  Then Melissa had to leave and Mary and I wanted to eat dinner and take a break from sitting, so we decided to skip #4 and go play air hockey and eat instead.  Linda made her chickeny cheesy noodle stuff, one of my favorites (Thanks, Linda!!), and we played air hockey for about a half house.  Then we settled down to watch the fifth movie.  It was over at like 9:00 something, and then we left for the theater.  The place was packed!  Seriously, the entire front parking lot was fully of people standing around waiting.  It brought flashbacks to when I’d waited for the 7^th book in Oxford, and the little English girls in front of me kept up a chorus of “Happy Harry Potter Day!”  It still makes me smile at the thought.  Anyway, there were a few cloaked figures, but most people were dressed normally (as Muggles go, of course), and a LOT of them were people I knew from high school.  It was kind of like a reunion of sorts.  We were toward the end of the line, but like I previously mentioned, Barrett and Brandon were planning on saving us as seat in the theater, so we weren’t too worried.  We started to go in about 10:30, and it was packed.  That’s impressive when it was a midnight showing in little ol’ Placerville, and there were two screens open.  Barrett and Brandon saved us good seats, though, and we had fun chatting with Barrett about all things random while waiting for the movie to start.  They even got us popcorn, which was very kind of them.  Sadly, though, Mary doesn’t care too much for the stuff, and I don’t go for too much in a sitting.  Being boys, though, they didn’t mind having more to themselves.

Extremely long story short, the movie was really good.  Best movie yet.  Lighthearted and fun for the most part, but intense where it needed to be.  They added loads of jokes and a couple of scenes weren’t the same as the book, so it was fun to not know what was happening for part of it.

Wednesday I slept in and then worked in Dad’s office for a couple of hours.  Randy, Matt and Brycen came over for dinner, and we had fun enjoying burgers outside on the deck. Brycen’s so stinkin’ cute, it shouldn’t be allowed.  Even when he was mad and doing his loud whiny thing, all I did was imitate him (my intention was to show him how annoying it was), and he started busting up laughing with his cute little bubbly laugh, so I didn’t care. 

Thursday I worked at Dad’s office in the morning, calling patients about follow-up appointments and stuff, and then Dad rushed me to Sac during his lunch break.  We met Danny at the McDonald’s on Hazel, and soon enough I was back in Davis.

Friday Mom and I went and saw Harry Potter again (yes, yes, lay off), and Mom agreed that it was an entertaining movie.  Although she said it didn’t really end.  Which I agreed with her and said, “See!  Now you understand why I was so excited for the 7^th one!”  I don’t think she really does understand, but that’s okay. 

When we got back from the movies, I decided to read the 7^th book again.  I had had it stored in Daddy’s basement so I couldn’t access it during school or ask Mom to mail it to me.  I tend to get swallowed whole by the Harry Potter stories and block out real life for a day or two.  But I retrieved it before I left, and started reading it.  I had forgotten a lot, so it was fun to refresh everything.  Not to mention it’s just a wicked awesome book.  But anyway, I finished it last night.  So I’m kinda stuck in that “Now what?” phase now.

Okay, this post is REALLY long.  Good thing I’ve run out of big things to fill y’all in on.  Pretty much my only upcoming news is that I’m going to see Rachel next weekend!!!!  I’m really excited!  Apparently the kids don’t really care that much, but I don’t mind.  I love the Winns!  Plus Matt and Brycen are coming, too!  And Mom, of course! 

So that’s that. Cheers, all!  See you soon, Rach!

-Mary Julia        

Rachel reminded me that I have been a horrible slacker on blogging.  I don’t know what it is about summer, but for some reason the ridiculous amount of free time I have just isn’t enough to type up something for you guys, but when I have no time at all during school, it’s easy to post.  It’s quite odd.

Anywho, what have I been up to?  Quite a bit, actually.  After I got my wisdom teeth pulled, I felt fine… until it got infected.  Then it hurt, and just fyi, antibiotics are evil.  After ten days of not so much fun, I was off the hook, though.  Kat came over at some point and stayed for 2 days, and we had slow fun, because there’s not much to do in Davis, particularly without a car or bike. But we walked around the neighborhood, went to the park, watched movies, etc.  We even sent a package to Michael, in which we put a homemade storybook of out adventures.  It was really fun to make, especially with the glitter glue.

 

The next week I got to go on a trip to Santa Cruz (first time since we went on the family trip when I was 9ish) with Kat and Emiley.  It was really fun – I helped Kat build her first sandcastle, and we rode the log flume at the boardwalk.  Kat and I got a bit wet. 

 

June 22-27^th was girls camp for the El Dorado Stake, and I went with Mary up to Ritchie after my two year absence.  We were in charge of capers (chores), which we initially thought was kind of a lame, easy job.  Not so much.  Basically any odd job that needed to be done, we were sought after.  Plus we had to make sure everyone did their work, and we took the heat if they didn’t.  I plunged toilets, cleaned cabins, lugged luggage, and dumpster dived (Almost all of those were alliterations!).The nice thing, though, is that we had free time a lot of the staff lacked, so we got to take long naps in the afternoons or go chill down at the water.  It was fun to relax, hang out with old friends, and be a little crazy.

This past week was Kat’s last week, so on Monday I went up to P-ville and she, Mary and I went thrift store shopping and sampled a new frozen yogurt place across from KFC (really good, btw).  Kat was determined to get some new sunglasses, and we all tried some on.

Kat being blue.

 

Mary with Spongebob


I don't know if you can tell, but the ones I'm wearing had stars on the lenses.

Then on Wednesday I went up to Placerville again and hung out with Kat.  We went to Lion’s Park, which now has a brand new HUGE jungle gym that is totally awesome.  The slides are high, fast, and not metal, so you don’t get toasted on the way down.  No swings, though, which Kat was sad about.  I didn’t miss them – good riddance to those nauseating tire swings!  Anyway, later Emiley joined in and we went down the bridge on Mosquito Road.  There we had cookies and milk, and Emiley and I hiked down below the bridge.  Kat stay up where it was “safe” because she was too scared of slipping and falling to her death. Can you see me rolling my eyes?

 

I stayed the night at Dad’s house that night and then worked in his office on Thursday.  Friday I went to a girls camp meeting for Woodland Stake, and I’m on the water staff for that one.  I make sure people don’t drown.  Woohoo!  Mary Hawkins and Mom are coming, too.  Mary is on the water staff with me, and Mom is a 2^nd year counselor.  It’s going to be different, but fun, I think.  I’ve been doing a lot of crafts for Mom’s girls, which is pretty much my favorite part. 

Fourth of July was really fun.  I met Daddy, Linda, Jodi, Nate, Heather, Connor, Matt, and Brycen at Folsom Lake, and we ate snacks and took turns on the waverunner.  We left around 3:30 p.m. and went to Dad's house, where we caught up on the most recent episode of So You Think You Can Dance and mostly just hung out (starving) until Matt and Brycen showed back up after Brycen's nap.  Then we had muy delicioso barbequed chicken, corn on the cob, and garlic bread out on the deck for dinner.  After dinner Heather and the little boys got in the hot tub, and I hovered on the outside, unwilling to agravate my sunburn.  Brycen stayed in there for ages!  Long after Connor was asleep.  Then Nate, Heather and I climbed on Dad's roof to watch the fireworks while the others stayed down on the deck.  We saw a lot more than they did, but we were making just as many threats to chop down the trees.  It was nothing compared to the fireworks in DC last year, but it was fun.

At the lake, Brycen and Connor hugging.  I can almost hear Heather saying "Awww."  Sorry about the bad quality.  Nate took it, and he didn't realize in time that my old camera doesn't handle zoom well.


In the hot tub.  It was hard to get both boys to smile at the same time.  In the end I gave up.


Now I'm sitting in the family room at Mom's house with Mom, Danny, Matt, Brycen, Nate, Heather and Connor, just talking and hanging out.  Well, Mom's wielding a cutting board and orchestrating a delicious meal, complete with two kinds of cheesecake for dessert.  Life is good. 

So this next week (like, tomorrow), I’ll be at Camp Ritchie until Saturday, and then I’m staying at Mary’s and Daddy’s houses until at least Wednesday, because Mary, Kristin Salyer, and I (and possibly Melissa d?) are going to go see the 6^th Harry Potter movie at midnight, and we’re having a 1-5 movie marathon at Dad’s house on Tuesday.  I’m way excited!!

So yeah, that’s that.  I hope I filled you all in enough without blathering on too much.  Cheers to you all!  Love you lots!

-Mary Julia.

P.S. No one except Mom said anything about my Alfred story.  I am assuming you all either neglected to read it or hated it, just so you know.  Please, I need feedback!  I can take the heat, I promise.  I never would have survived so many creative writing classes if I couldn’t.  

 

So, remember how I promised you guys that you could read my story that I wrote for Creative Writing?  Well, I'm taking you up on that promise, but I'm not posting it here, because I have a phobia of people stealing my ideas, and I plan to submit this story to various places.  So if you want to read it, comment on this post and I'll email it to you, k? 

Title: "Breathe Easy"

Summary in a sentence: Alfred, a hypochondriac living London, struggles to find happiness in his life, or at least a date that won't end dismally.

Yes, it's sort of chicklit, but I promise you it's not gushy or fluffy.  Hopefully it's just an enjoyable read, and maybe you'll feel like you're visiting London in the process.  Mind you, it's 20 pages long (double spaced), so you'll have to set aside a bit of time to read it, especially if you're a slow reader, like me.

Again, if you're interested, comment.  That's all.  Cheers, mates!

-Mary Julia

I got my wisdom teeth pulled last week. Well, two of them.  I had been dreading it, not because I was worried about the pain or anything, but because I was worried that, all drugged up, I would say something stupid.  I’m weird, I guess.  But it was totally fine, and I don’t think I said anything stupid, because I was pretty aware of what was going on.  So let me tell you how it went.

 

I was led into the room, which didn’t look much more impressive than a dentist’s exam room, only with a couple extra machines, and sat down in the chair.  Then the assistant gave me a bunch of nasty vitamins to swallow, and a couple more to let dissolve under my tongue.  Then she put that cap over my index finger (she said it measured the oxygen in my blood), a blood pressure cuff that took measurements every 3 minutes, and these weird clamps that went over my wrists to measure my heart rate.  Then she put a bunch of blue cloths over me and vitamin E on my lips (to prevent them from getting chapped, I guess).  Then the doctor came in and strapped a metal thing to my arm that I guess kept my arm stable where the IV was going in.  Y’all probably know that I despise shots, so I was a little worried about what the IV would feel like, but it was totally fine – I literally didn’t feel it.  I know, you guys have probably all experienced it and knew that already, and could have told me that, but I wouldn’t have believed you anyway.  Anyway, the weirdest thing was feeling the drugs drip into my vein and start to pump through my body.  It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t really pleasant either, you know?  Anyway, the Doctor Bennett said, “Just let me know when you start to feel light-headed or anything.”  I sat there and waited for it for a minute or two, but wasn’t feeling anything, so he repeated himself, apparently worried that I wasn’t going to tell him.  But I assured him that I didn’t feel any different.  Then he opened the clamp a little more on the IV, and in like 15 seconds I started to see my vision shift  a little, like when I try to focus on something in the distance without my glasses.  So I let him know, and he just said “Close your eyes and relax,” so I did.  I felt them put something in my mouth, and then I was out.

 

I woke up and heard people talking, including Mom’s voice, so I knew it was done, even though it felt like it hadn’t been more than 5 minutes.  I opened my eyes and saw that the doctor was gone and there were a couple assistants putting stuff away, and one of them was talking to my mom.  Then that assistant came over and showed my mom how to change my gauze, and I thought, “Already?  You just finished the surgery.  Surely you don’t need to change it yet.”  But then she pulled it out and it was all bloody, and I thought, “Oh.”  Then she put a new one back in.  Then I got up (slowly) and they made my put my hands on Mom’s shoulders so she could lead me to the car.  I felt incredibly silly, because I could definitely walk by myself, and I had my wits about me enough to take it easy.  But it was a short distance and then I was in the car, talking to Mom thickly through gauze and numb lips.  

 

And that was that.  I’ve been eating cheddar cheese soup, mushy cereal, pancakes, cottage cheese and eggs.  It hasn’t been too bad, especially since I only had one side removed.  And I’m so glad to be rid of that ruddy tooth with the hole in it.  I got to take the teeth home with me as well.  Want to see?

 

Yeah, that was in my mouth!  The hole looks even bigger in real life.  And you can see where the old filling ended and the rotting began.  You can also see where the enamel didn't close over.  It's weird stuff.  I'm glad to be rid of it.

 

Well, that’s that.  I haven’t done much else, except that I spent all day yesterday with Mom putting up pictures around the house.   Now it feels a lot more homey, but we’re still not done.

 

Talk to y’all later.  Cheers!

 

-Mary Julia 

Yeah, I know, it’s been WAY too long and way too much has happened.  So let’s get down to business, shall we?

End of School: Everything worked out quite well.  I got As in three of my classes and A-s in the other three, which is really good for me.  I did a tiny bit better last semester, but it’s still good.  I was really sad to leave Anna, though, because she won’t be going to SVU next year.  We had a kind of crazy last night, staying up super late cleaning, packing, and taking weird pictures. 

 

 I didn’t go to bed until 4:00 a.m., and then I had to get up at 6:30 to lug my suitcases down the evil stairs and catch the airport shuttle.  Everything worked out well with the flights and I got home at 5:45 p.m.

My birthday: On Sunday Matt, Kacey, and Brycen came over and we had dinner and played clue without writing down any notes.  It was kinda insane, but Matt and I won!  And we both had one less card than the others!  On Monday, my actual birthday, Mom made leg of lamb, mashed potatoes and gravy, and artichokes.  It was exactly what I wanted and really good.  When we were at the store buying stuff for dinner, one of the woman who was bagging found out it was my birthday (based on what we were buying) and as we were leaving ran out and asked me to wait a minute.  A couple minutes later she ran back out with a bouquet of beautiful pink lilies with the price scratched off.  I was amazed that anyone would do something so incredibly nice for a complete stranger. 

 

Anyway, my cake was a yellow cake with chocolate whipped cream frosting and fresh raspberries in the center and on top, and awesome squiggly, bright-colored candles that made me think of Rachel and how she’d say it suited me. 

 

The cake was REALLY good – the yellow cake was a perfect contrast to the raspberries and chocolate.  So good, in fact, that Mom made a similar one a couple days later, only “unfortunately” she only had chocolate cake, not yellow.  Danny was disappointed. 

Zoo: Kacey already covered our zoo trip on her blog, but I wanted to post this picture of Brycen, because it made me laugh:

Since then I’ve been going to a lot of random appointments and cleaning up the house.  I reorganized my room and maximized the space in my closet.  I’m going to work on other areas of the room later, so I can actually unpack some of my boxes.  I took the GRE and didn't do so hot.  I didn't do terribly, but not well.  I'm debating over whether or not I want to take it again or just accept my score as is, even though it limits grad school opportunities.  I'm getting two of my wisdom teeth pulled next week, which includes the one with the hole in it, so that’s good.  And I got new glasses!  They’re dark green on the front, and the inside is a purplish pink.  I like them, and they stay on my face!  They don’t really look green in this lighting, but I promise they’re green.

 

This past weekend: Daddy and Linda invited me to go with them down to Arroyo Grande to visit Nathan and Heather, and despite the fact that I was going there the next weekend with Mom, I was eager to go.  We had a great time, spending time with Nate, Heather, and Connor the first day – going on a beautiful hike by the beach, going to the pool at Daddy and Linda’s hotel(Connor’s first swim outside the tub!) and eating dinner at AJ Spurs, a really good steakhouse. 

Connor asleep:

This hill was ridiculously steep.


Looking over a beach cliff from the mouth of a cave.  Three generations.


View from somewhere near the top:


Nate took this picture:


Connor's first swim!


Hot tub fun!




What a family, eh?


This kid is so cute!

After a 6 hour drive there wasn’t much more we could do that day, though, so Daddy and Linda went to their hotel for the night and I went back with Nate and Heather, where we watched Juno and then went to bed. 

The next day Nate made me French toast for breakfast, and then he and Daddy went out to pizza for lunch before picking up Jaden, Jasmin and Lily, while Linda took Heather and me to Walmart for some clothes shopping.  We got some really nice clothes – I’m increasingly impressed with Walmart’s selection.  Afterwards we got lunch at Taco Bell and then went back to N and H’s apartment.  The kids were all there, and soon after we arrived we left for the beach.  Man, was the water cold!  But everyone had fun, and the older kids – Jaden especially – got in really deep. 

Burr!!  It was so cold!

Lily fetching a frisbee for Nate and Daddy


I don't know if you can read in that heart, but it says "M and J."  Mary and Jasmin. 


This is my favorite sequence of shots.  This is before:


And this is after:


He is so cuddly and cute!

After the beach we went directly to the pool at the hotel again for a swim (a nice way to get the sand off).  Apparently Jasmin doesn’t care too much for deep pool water because Forest (Mackenzie) threw her in once and it freaked her out.  But Jaden and Lily were all over it, swimming around, letting us launch them in the air, etc.  Heather and I showed Lily the George Washington hairdo and I even kind of taught Jaden a swimming kick.  He didn’t seem too interested, though, so he probably forgot it right away. 

Silly Lily.  It looks like she's posing, but I think she was just trying to stay warm.

 

After we were all done swimming we went back to Nate and Heather’s apartment, where we spent ages preparing and cooking shish kabob for dinner.  We didn’t end up eating until 8:00 p.m., but man, it was good!  Soon after dinner Dad and Linda left for the night and I made brownies (just out of a box).  The kids were falling asleep on the couch, so after they ate they went to bed.  I stayed up with Heather we talked for ages – I didn’t go to bed until 3:00 a.m!  It was really great, though.   The next morning I woke up when the kids came out at 8:00 ish, and not much later Dad and Linda came.  We all sat around and talked for a bit, and then Daddy, Linda and I left. 

Saying goodbye.  Aww!

 

Awww! (again)


I love these kids.  Even though they make me look like a ghost with their tans.

We had a long drive, but I slept for a while, plus we got In-N-Out, which always makes everything better.  I got home in the early afternoon, and that was that.

Sunday and Monday I devoted to cleaning Mom’s kitchen.  It really needed it.  Now everything looks great though!  There’s still more to do around the house, but I’m happy that the kitchen is clean and organized.  Yes, I am so proud of it that I took pictures.  I cleaned out a moldy trash can, reorganized nearly every cupboard, washed every hand towel, and swept the floor at least 30 times (no exaggeration), on top of everything else.  I even installed the hooks that the hotpads are hanging on (also the mugs in the cupboard that you can't see).  I have reason to enjoy the fruits of my labors!

You'll notice that the floor is freshly swept, the counters are shiny, and nothing is out of place.  Ha!  You can even see my reflection in the microwave. 


Here you can see that the dining area, too, is neat and clean.

Last night Mom and I checked Last Chance Harvey out of a Redbox.  It was really good!!  It was almost completely clean, the acting was phenomenal, and it was definitely funny.  I recommend it.

Well, I think I’ve finally caught you all up.  I suppose I’d better go.  Linda lent me a copy of Twilight, and I need to start reading it!  Anywho, sorry for the long post.  I hope it was a sufficient update!  And if you think this is a lot of pictures, you have no idea what I went through to narrow them down to that few.  But I hope you like them.  Cheers!

-Mary Julia

People often ask you to tell something about yourself, and all I can ever think of is "Uh... I'm left handed?" or "I'm the 6th child of a 7 child family?"  But if I were to really tell something about myself, I would pick from these 40 things.  Do you think any of them would be good conversation starters?

1. I think the letter L is the prettiest letter in the alphabet. 
2. Fewer things bring me more delight than making someone laugh.
3. I love sunlight and think curtains should be banned.
4. I’ve never outgrown a strange fascination and enjoyment from digging a hole with a shovel.
5. At the corners of my lips my cheeks poof out a little, and I HATE it.
6. Some of my best nights of sleep were on the carpet or couch in the living room, sleeping to the sound of family members talking around me.
7. To me, locations have smells, and occasionally I’ll be standing in a random place, such as at school in VA, and I’ll suddenly smell Westminster Abbey or my casa in Mexico, or my closet in the Sac Hill house.  It’s fun to bring back memories.
8. I love reminiscing about good times, especially with my siblings.
9. I have to get out of bed to absolute silence, and preferably alone, and it must remain so for the next 5-10 minutes, or my entire day is off kilter.
10. When I was little, one of the things I always wanted but never got was multi-colored socks.  Now I have more of that than anything else.
11. My first impressions of people, if negative, are almost always completely wrong.
12. I love to have absolute control over any situation and I have a need for everything to have a plan and follow through with it.
13. Nothing is more likely to make me cry than a failed attempt at something to do with music performance (dance, singing, etc), because it feels impossible for me to ever succeed.
14. No matter what style is in, I will always love cargo pants and bucket hats.
15. Sometimes I wish I could go live in a cabin up in the mountains.
16. I don’t have a favorite fruit.  As long as it’s not mango, papaya, or cantaloupe, I will enjoy it.
17. My favorite number was 17 until Matt told me it wasn’t allowed to be because that was his favorite number and he was born first so he got it.  So I switched to 13.  But I don’t know… I think I’ll always have a special allegiance to the number 17.
18. When I hear a ringing in my ears, sometimes I imagine that Heavenly Father is calling me to remind me that I am loved.
19. I love a challenge, especially a creative one, but I have a constant fear that I am inadequate.
20. When I can’t sleep, I picture a situation that would improve my life or a loved one’s – whether undoing the past or planning the future – and go over and over it in my head until I have the situation down perfect.  Then I can fall asleep.
21. I hate getting stuck behind people, even if they are going the same speed that I want to go.
22. My most haunting dream is one in which Grandma told me that Danny had died.
23. If my clean clothes touch my dirty clothes, I automatically see the clean clothes as dirty.
24. I get really grossed out by the feeling of particles of dirt under my bare feet when I’m walking around in the house.
25. The smell of wood relaxes me.
26. I am a bit of a hypochondriac, and have always had to struggle to remember that I don’t actually have the weird diseases I have heard about.
27. I still remember my favorite toy from when I was very little.  It was the one like an upside down glass bowl with little bead-like things inside, and when you pushed the blue pump in the center, it made it all spin around.
28. I worry and pray for all of my family all the time.
29. When I’m really mad, I start crying.  It’s really annoying.
30. I have always felt the need to compete with my siblings in schoolwork, sports, etc, or be different from them in some way.  I get especially determined when one of them tells me I can’t do something.  Then I must and do prove them wrong.
31. I love cardboard boxes and creating things out of them.
32. I often wish my eyes were green, like my dad’s.
33. Water never ceases to amaze me.
34. I can smell squished ants – something I’ve found very few people can do.  I guess that’s one of my special talents.
35. If I had a billion dollars (tax free), I probably wouldn’t blow it on one big thing, and would instead spend it on various smaller things I always wanted to do, invest some, and then give some of it to family and friends who really need it.
36. One of my most valuable life lessons was when I was climbing down a particular tree at the Sac Hill house, I was too scared to get from the lowest branch to the ground.  I asked Matt for help, (something he had always done before that time), but he looked at me and said “No, you have to learn how to do it yourself.”  It seemed like an hour to get the guts to jump down (I was barefoot, and that shocking sensation from jumping from heights is much worse without shoes), but I did it by myself.  From then on, I climbed trees solo without a hitch.
37. I think purple and yellow look awful together, and have since I was about 7.  Sorry if anyone disagrees.
38. Daffodils are my favorite flower because they’re the first to bloom in Placerville, and they come back every year.  Plus they smell good.
39. I like everything perfectly symmetrical, perfectly random, or in general visually balanced.
40. I have been interested in a lot of occupations throughout my life: painting, illustrating, interior design, landscaping, culinary arts, advertising, acting, directing, fashion, movie reviewing, teaching, and of course writing. I still wish I could do all of them, and maybe somehow I’ll find a way.
    

What spurred this on?  I don’t really know.  But I hope you enjoyed it.  Cheers!

-Mary Julia

Man, let me tell ya, things are starting to get kind of insane.  Sorry about not posting last week, btw.  I’ve just recently realized that I’m behind on a bunch of homework, and have had to work frantically to finish it before the last day of classes, on top of the regular homework that is due.  Now I only have to read 34 pages of Absalom, Absalom!, do about an hour’s worth of answering questions in my Spanish textbook, finish up some last minute edits on my Spanish essay, write a Spanish short story and read about 25 pages of Flannery O’Connor stories, all due Tuesday.  But don’t think I completely slacked off this weekend.  Yesterday I read about 100 pages of Absalom and did about an hours worth of Spanish catch-up, and wrote a poem for Creative Writing. On Thursday I turned in my second short story for Card.  I know I told you I’d show you the first one, but it sucks and it needs to be completely rewritten, so there’s not a chance you’ll get to see it.  Maybe over the summer when I have time to apply edits for my Hufford short story I’ll post that.  I actually like that one.

Anywho, I’m more than a little stressed.  I have so much to do, and only 13 days left of the semester, and most of the stuff I have to do is due before then.  I haven’t gotten much sleep lately, which is frustrating, and because of that I am even more easily annoyed than usual, and then people say, “Mary, are you okay?  You seem upset/depressed/down/mad/whatever,” and then I get even more annoyed, because I don’t feel down – really, life is good – I’m just tired, and I’m sick of people thinking I’m a heartless jerk, particularly the people that I feel ought to know me better than that.  Everything is just kind of piling up on me, and the fact of the matter is that I really need a break.  I’ve practically been going to school for two years straight and I need a breather to spend time with my family and the people who love my no matter what.

Wow, sorry, that was a lot of emotional pukeage.  I’m just… yeah.

So I mentioned writing a poem for Creative Writing.  I hate poetry, which you all probably know.  So for a quiz grade, Professor Hufford gave us an assignment to write a poem over the weekend.  The rules were that the poem had to be addressed to poetry (you know, personified) and we had two options: either write about how we’re tired of poetry, or how we love it more and more every day.  When she said that a couple people in my class were like, “Well we know which one Mary will pick.”  I just smiled.  Anyway, I stayed up until 4:00 a.m. writing it, and it tickles me when I read it, so I thought I’d share it with you.  If you don’t know the words I’m using, they’re probably either technical poetry terms or Spanish words.  I recommend merriamwebster.com for the English, and wordreference.com for the Spanish, if you desperately need to know the definitions.  But I think you can appreciate the poem without it.  It's called "Dear Poetry"

Poetry – la Poesía

You are such a trouble for me.

Some say you’re a panacea,

But I really must disagree.

 

You expect me to sit here and stew

Over your prosopopoeia.

Your meanings are shrouded from view,

By some kind of black mantilla.

 

“All you need is an idea,”

You say.  “Nothing here must conform.”

Write down and speak to us via

Your thoughts that are all in a swarm.

 

But it’s a lie!  You have rules

Locked tight in some mausolea.

You listen to us act like fools

Like a sick’ning sinfonia.

 

And I’ve had it!  I am done.

I’m sick of being the one

That stares at the page

While some other sage

Tells me that I’m no John Donne.

 

Bang goes onomatopoeia!

I’m off to Andalucía

To live in a Spanish villa

And make a homemade tortilla.

 

Still don’t get it, ¿todavía?

I’ll just say this:

See ya!  Wouldn’t want to be ya!

 

Haha!  Fun stuff.  And if you hated it, I don’t really care.  I had fun writing it. 

I don’t really know if I’ll be posting next week.  I may, I may not.  Not much exciting will likely be going one.  I will have just finished 2 essays, have been studying madly for finals, and my brain will be fried with it’s only functioning capability being the slow and steady chant: 6 more day…, 6 more days…

But unfortunately today it is not 6 more days, but 13, which is a bit of a let down.  *shrugs* oh well.  I’m hungry.  I’m off to dinner.

Cheers!  Love you all!

-Mary Julia

Sorry I didn’t post forever.  The first week absolutely nothing interesting happened, and then the next week interesting things happened, but the time got away from me.  So this week I’m posting!

It’s been warmer here, but pretty rainy, which is to be expected, I suppose.  There are a lot of dead worms on the road that have been pulverized underfoot (exactly the picture you wanted in your head, I know.  At least you don’t have to look at them 6 times a day!).  A lot of other animals are emerging as well, but most of them are alive.  Anna got excited when she spotted a bunny today, and I’ve been seeing more deer and squirrels, as well as the occasional fox.  We had a bit of a shocker about a week ago, however, when I found a dead toad in the middle of the driveway we take to get up to the Lofts.  One of its legs had been mangled and there was a gash in its side, but other than that it was surprisingly whole, which makes me think that it was attacked by another animal rather than the original idea we had that it had been run over.  Anyway, I am not squeamish about those things, but I knew that almost all of the other girls heading up to the Lofts would be, particularly if the toad did end up getting run over, so I grabbed a stick, scooped it off the road, and flung it into the open grass about 15 feet away where it could decompose or get eaten without attention and girls squealing at it’s grossness.

Rach requested a picture of my hair down, so here are two (one is rather fuzzy, but I like the hair better). Neither is my favorite picture, but you get the idea well enough.

As y’all know, I’m on track to graduate in Spring 10 (a year from now), for which I’m very excited.  At first I thought I had a completely packed schedule and wouldn’t have any extra choices beyond fulfilling my English major and Creative Writing minor.  However, things started opening up and double-counting, so I decided to take a couple random classes, like Painting and maybe Logic or Piano.  However, I looked into how many electives I had, and I discovered that I had enough open that I could declare a Spanish minor!  So after extensive research and talking to both Dr. Porter, the Spanish Program Coordinator, and Mom, I decided to do it, and declared a Spanish minor on Monday.  I’m WAY excited about this!  I wanted to do a Spanish minor a year ago, but deemed it hopeless because I thought I couldn’t graduate in three years if I did it.  But now I can, and it fits in perfectly!  So Fall 09 I’m taking Review of Spanish Grammar, Spanish Culture, Health and Wellness, Ballet, Contemporary Issues (a liberal arts class), and Senior Paper.  It’s a mildly challenging schedule, but it’s only 14 credits, so hopefully it will be okay.  

Other than that, schoolwork for me has been rather dull and I’m getting really anxious to get back to California and start my summer break.  One extra thing I have been doing is studying vocabulary for the GRE.  I have been making flash cards (or rather, strips of folded over paper that loosely resemble flash cards), 30 every day, and have been going over them carefully.  I have memorized about 210 words in the last week and a half and still have about 120 more to go, but it hasn’t been too difficult to memorize them, so I’m okay.  Now I have a huge pile of the ones I’ve memorized, that I have to go over again tonight.  I don’t want to forget them all over again.  Here’s a picture:

We have a friend who lives down that hall that has a HUGE movie collection, so we’ve been borrowing a lot of stuff from her.  We watched 13 Going on 30, Alex and Emma, and Made of Honor just yesterday (don’t worry, I didn’t have homework. Well… not much).  But the thing we’ve really been into is the complete 4 seasons of “Save by the Bell” that we borrowed.  I had never seen “Saved by the Bell,” and Anna hadn’t seen a lot of them, so we’ve been enjoying it.  I am now an expert on Zack Morris and all his tricky ways.  

The LDS Institute of Religion put on their monthly Friday Food and Fun activity.  This month we went to the church building and had freshly barbequed burgers and hot dogs, socializing, and a gigantic Easter egg hunt.  It was really fun.

General Conference for our church was also this weekend, and I really enjoyed hearing all the talks.  I was reminded to keep going, even when times get hard, to love, teach, and never give up, and to remember that Jesus Christ loves each and every one of us, sacrificed everything for us, and will never abandon us.  It was a really great conference.

Well, that’s all, folks (picture Porky Pig stuttering that).  Only 26 days until I get to come home!!  Cheers!

-Mary Julia

 

Well, I’m back from Spring Break.  Sorry I didn’t post last week, but I didn’t want to hog Sarah and Matt’s computer for too long.  Anyway, here’s my report.

The week before Spring Break was kinda insane.  It started out nice, because we had a delayed start on Monday, so I didn’t have to go to my 9:00 a.m. class.  I happily slept in and went to Creative Writing at 1:30 and got my fillings at 4:00 (no more pain when I eat chocolate!  Yay!).  But after that, it spun a bit out of control.  I had my short story for Professor Card’s class due on Wednesday, and I wrote 13 pages over the weekend, but then two days before I realized I was approaching it all wrong and had to start in a completely different place and take a completely different angle.  I only kept two and a half pages of the original.  So I didn’t go to bed until 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.  I slept through my Dransfield class (on purpose) and was 20 minutes late for my Hufford Creative Writing class, because I had to take the story down into town and get 25 copies printed off.  The story is 24 pages long, which is the exact amount I was aiming for, so that was good.  Anyway, on Friday I had two 5 page essays due at the exact same time, one for Cluff, and one for Dransfield, so I had to write those on Wednesday and Thursday night.  I think I went to bed around 2:00 a.m. on Thursday, and then finished up the essays in the morning.  But I got everything in on time, with no little amount of stress, and I was ready for Spring Break.

Anna’s mom came and picked the two of us up on Friday night, and we drove to Richmond, which takes about 2 hours.  We stopped at Panera, which Anna said I had to go to, and got pastries (I got an orange scone, which was really good!).  Then we went to Anna’s house and played Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 before going to bed.  The next morning we got up and they took me to the Richmond airport, which is about a half an hour away.  It was a nice small airport, and easy to find my way around.  Dr. Cluff assigned us to read nearly 300 pages over break, which I found to be very unfair, so I spent a lot of time reading, especially in the airport.  My flight was about 2 hours to St. Louis, where Sarah picked me up.  After a stop at Costco, where Sarah ran in while I stayed with the kids and we pretended we were flying an airplane to Alexland, we headed up to Kirksville, about a 3 hour drive.  I got to drive for about an hour of it, which was definitely fun.  Anyway, we got to Sarah’s house, said hi to Matt, had fajitas for dinner.  After that we put the kids to bed, watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (while eating ice cream), and went to bed ourselves.

I know you all want to know all about Keturah.  She’s really cute and tiny. Sarah thinks her eyes will go blue, but I honestly can’t say – they look a bit dark to me.  Sarah and I had a hard time deciding whether her hair was brown or blonde (and yes, I know I spell blonde the British way).  In the light it looks blonde, but on the back of her head where her hair is thicker, it looks brownish.  I think we decided on a darker ash blonde.  The funny thing about Keturah is that she’ll be perfectly content, and she’ll make a face, and then suddenly she’s squawking as loud as possible.  There’s no buildup whatsoever.  It’s pretty entertaining when she bursts out sometimes, but I don’t think she things so.  She cross-eyed a lot (blame Sarah’s genes), and she has a pointy nose, unlike Alex and Bekah.  Alex and Bekah really love Keturah and always want to hold her (to the point where it gets a bit annoying), and they really do just crack up laughing when she cries.  The only time I noticed Alex upset with her squawking was when we were in the car, and she was crying really loudly, and he covered his ears and asked her in a kind way, “Please stop crying, Keturah.”  It was cute.  Anyway, you’ve probably had enough description, so here’s some pictures:

Sunday: Forgot about Daylight Savings and missed church.  Watched Testaments.  Made brownies to give to people who had helped Sarah and Matt out when Keturah was born.  Potato soup for dinner.  After the kids went to bed, watched The Great Race (or rather, part of it).   

Monday: Start of Matt’s finals week, so he disappeared and I didn’t really see him resurface until the end of the week.  Sarah and I finished The Great Race with Alex and Bekah, and Alex was totally obsessed with Fate’s “Hot Poker Car” and  Prince Hapnik’s “Brandy!  Throw more Brandy!” line in the pie fight scene.  We played with play-dough at some point – it may have been Monday – and I made a 3D face.  Then Alex decided he needed a long neck like Sid the sloth on Ice Age, and a body with arms and legs.  It ended up looking very interesting.  I liked it.  What do you think?

I don’t remember what we had for dessert that night (I’m pretty sure we had one every night), but we had lemon and butter chicken over rice for dinner, and that was really good. 

Tuesday: At some point we went to the park, and I think it may have been this day.  We thought it was warmer, but it was really windy, so we lasted about 23 seconds at the park, and then drove to the library.  We played with the trains there, while Sarah picked out some books and movies.  But like I said, I don’t remember.  We may not have done this on Tuesday at all. I also don’t remember, but we may have made pudding on Tuesday as well.  Or it could have been Wednesday.  I don’t know.  But I know that we had this delicious creamy chicken noodle stuff that had Italian seasoning and cream cheese in it, cooked in a crock pot.  It was sooooo good!  We also made garlic twists – from Jedd’s recipe.  I chopped the garlic, and my fingers smelled like garlic for the rest of the week.  We watched Some Like it Hot after the kids went to bed – a movie I told them about because it had Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon acting together, like in The Great Race, so Sarah had checked it out from the library.  It was fun to watch it with Sarah and Matt, especially after we’d just watched The Great Race.

Wednesday: I think this day was when Sarah went to the store while I watched the kids at home, and she bought me black licorice jelly beans (Thanks, Sarah!).  I was really excited about that.  Also, I think it was sometime on this day that Alex said, “Mom, when are Aunt Rachel and Grandma Jill coming?”  Sarah answered, “After Aunt Mary leaves.”  After a brief thought, Alex said, “I want Aunt Mary to leave so that Aunt Rachel and Grandma Jill can come.”  We laughed at that.  On Wednesday we also had Mexican pizza for dinner – Jedd’s pizza dough recipe with refried beans instead of sauce, hamburger, cheese, and your choice of Mexican-y toppings.  Yum!!  We also made cream cheese brownies (I know, more brownies).  That night Sarah and Matt introduced me to a t.v. show called “Arrested Development,” which is really random and funny, and I was busting up laughing pretty much the entire time. 

Thursday: Sarah took Keturah for her 2 week check up with the doctor, so I watched Bekah and Alex.  Or rather, I sort of dozed while Bekah and Alex read books in their room.  I was tired from staying up watching “Arrested Development” and then having to wake up at 8:45! (I’m right there with you, Kacey!) Sarah and Keturah returned about two hours later, Keturah with a bandaged foot from where they drew blood, and Sarah now knowing that Keturah was 6 pounds and 14 ounces (was that right, Sarah?).   She is so tiny!  Anyway, during that day I was trying to cram in some of my reading for Cluff’s class, something I’d been doing off and on all week, and Alex and I had a discussion that went sort of like this:

Alex: What are you reading?

Mary: My homework. (I showed him the horrendously long book)

Alex: Homework is boring.

Mary: I know.

Alex: When will you stop reading?

Mary: When I finish it.

Alex: That book is way too long.

Mary: I know.

Heehee!  I thought it was funny.  Alex had caught on before ever attending school, exactly how annoying homework can be. 

I had a lot of fun with Alex and Bekah on Thursday.  I was lying on the couch, and they jumped on me, and I pretended I was a car driving them around.  We’d go on crazy turns and fish tail and swerve and go on bumpy roads.  Then I was an airplane, which was also fun.  Then I was a rowboat, and we went down some crazy rapids and a waterfall.  Then they abandoned ship and went swimming while I sat on a high rock next to Sarah and Keturah.  It was fun to use my imagination with those two, and it was one of my favorite memories from the trip. 

Anyway, that day we had a ton of leftovers to get rid of, but not quite enough for everybody, so we made cheese fondue for dinner, which was good, and Matt and the kids had the leftovers we hadn’t eaten at lunch.  Sarah and I also made Heath bar cookies, which are chocolate cookies with bits of toffee in them.  They were SO good!  I got the recipe, which I’m excited for.  That night I caught finished up “Arrested Development” while Matt and Sarah got ready for us to leave for Chicago the next day.  I went to bed around 2:30 a.m.

Friday: Got up and packed up.  Matt had his last final that morning, so we got everything in the car and drove off to pick him up after it was done.  Sarah was in such a hurry that she sped a little more than usual and a cop pulled her over.  He was really nice, though, and just let her know that she was going 13 over and sent her on her way.  We picked up Matt and immediately headed for Chicago – a 6 hour drive.  I got some reading done, spaced out a lot, and slept a little.  We got to Chicago somewhere around 6 in the evening and after checking into our hotel, we walked across the street to Giordano’s – the best place for Chicago style stuffed pizza.  I had been there once before with Kat, so I knew it was good, but man, we were all so hungry we enjoyed it immensely.  Seriously, if you are ever in Chicago, that’s a place you must go.  After we ate, we went back to the hotel – a nice Marriott they got a really good deal on – and after admiring the view from the 11^th floor, we watched some t.v. and settled down for the night.

Saturday: We needed to get up by 8, but Keturah sort of work all of us up at various times in the night, and I was awake for good by 7:30.  We got ready, and I got all of my stuff packed up, and we left.  We got some egg McMuffins and then headed into town for the Shedd Aquarium.  We got there around 9:30 and looked at all the stuff.  The sharks were really cool, as well as some of the big turtles and various other odd looking fish.  We got to see some divers go into one of the big tanks and feed the fish.  One of them waved at Bekah and took his mask off so she could see him smiling, but she was shy and hid behind me.  There was a also a big fake turtle that Alex and Bekah sat on to take pictures.  Bekah didn’t feel like smiling, but it’s still a cute picture.

Anyway, we were burnt out with the aquarium at about 11:30 and had seen everything of interest, so we left and Sarah and Matt headed to Navy Pier while I met Kat.  Kat and I went to this restaurant next to her apartment called Yolk, which serves breakfast and lunch.  I got French toast stuffed with cream cheese and raspberry sauce, and let me tell you, it was amazing!  It was fun to catch up with Kat for a bit.  After we’d finished, we went across to see the St. Patrick’s day parade, which is a really big deal in Chicago.  Everyone wears green (fortunately I was too), and people are drinking and smoking just like the Irish all day long, which was less than appealing, but I felt like I was coming back to my Irish roots. Here’s a picture of it all.

Kat and I were bored with it after about 15 minutes, and I was short on time, so we went up to her apartment, where she kindly let me print out my boarding pass off her computer.  Then I said goodbye and speedily walked the 2.5 or so miles to Navy Pier.  On the way I had to cross the river, and got to see where they had dyed it green!  Seriously, I told you St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal there!  Here are some pictures:

Finally I got to Navy Pier and met Sarah and Matt in the Children’s Museum after a 35-40 minute walk.  Let me tell you, that museum was so awesome!  I would have had fun going there by myself, it was that cool.  The kids had a blast, especially with the water stuff, and they got really wet.  Matt left us at about 3:30 and walked back to where our car was parked at the aquarium so the kids could have more time at the museum, and then he came and picked us up at 4:20.  We got in the car quickly and drove to the O’Hare airport so I could fly back to Richmond.  I got there, said goodbye to the Guymons, and then tried to navigate my way through the zoo that is O’Hare.  I’ve decided that I hate that airport, by the way.  I bought dinner there and got on the plane.  It was really cold in there, let me tell ya.  And I was really tired from the full day, so I was trying to sleep, but I was too cold, and it was just annoying.  But yeah, I got to Richmond safe and sound, and Anna and her mom picked me up.  We got to Anna’s house at about 10:30 and watched Victor/Victoria, a musical with Julie Andrews.  It was all skippy, so we missed some key info, but it was an enjoyable musical nonetheless.  Then we went to bed.

Sunday: We got up, and I ripped a bunch of CDs onto my computer, since Anna’s family has a very large collection of good music, and then we went to church.  It was funny, because in Relief Society we talked about an article written by Orson Scott Card, and the teach was like, “I don’t know if you guys are familiar with him, but…” and Anna and her mom looked at me, and we all laughed.  But la dee da.  After church we went back to Anna’s house and quickly ate dinner – yummy pot roast – and Anna packed all of her stuff so we could leave.  Then it was another 2 hour drive, this time with Anna’s younger sister Laura coming along, back to BV.  After we got all of our stuff in and had unpacked, and Anna’s family had left, I called Mom, and then took a shower.  After I took my shower I decided that needed to cut my hair to keep it healthy.  So I chopped 4 inches off and gave myself some bangs.  I thought it would looked awful – I was resigned to it before I did it – but it actually looks good up in a ponytail, which is how I always have my hair, anyway.  This is from a few hours ago.

So yeah, now that you have 5 pages worth of my Spring Break, you are likely bored out of your mind and drooling on the keyboard.  So I will bid you adieu.  Sorry I didn’t have that many pictures of the Guymons (not any of Sarah and Matt!).  Sarah got a lot.  Tell her to post them.  Anyway, that’s all.  Cheers!

-Mary Julia

I am so glad it’s March!  I was feeling bogged down by the winter – it never seems to end!  It’s snowing today, too, but I’m okay with it, because it’s March.  That, and it’s supposed to keep up for like twelve hours, so we might not have classes tomorrow, which would be awesome!!

Everyone who reads this blog probably already knows, but Sarah had her baby on Friday!  I don’t know, Sarah, is it officially Keturah Nicole?  Mom wasn’t sure.  Anyway, that makes me really happy!  And I get to see the Guymons in 6 days!!!  That’s right, you should be jealous.  Unless you’re a Guymon; then you should be scared.  Just kidding.

 

Well, this week I caught up on a lot of the homework I’d been behind on, so that was really great.   I felt a lot more accomplished.  But this next week, the week right before spring break, is going to be a lot of work involved.  I have to turn in my OSC story on Wednesday, and I have a 5 page paper for both Cluff and Dransfield due on Friday.  Yuck, I know.  I also have my dentist appointment tomorrow – the one I had to cancel because I was sick – so I’m getting three fillings, which will hopefully take away the annoying pain I get from eating chocolate.

 

By the way, I will post my Intermediate Creative Writing story after I get comments back from Professor Hufford.  I want to make sure it’s polished before I post it.  I will do the same for my OSC one, but I have no idea when I’ll get that back.

 

I keep turning to look out the window at the snow, because it’s really pretty, and when I turn back to my computer, I see black spots blowing in from the north across the screen.  It’s making me feel a bit dizzy.

 

Bothersome news: I kinda broke my glasses.  Nothing serious, they’re still holding together.  There’s just a big crack in the frame that is probably a result of my throwing them on the ground in disgust, or them falling to the ground of their own stinkin’ volition.  So now I’m avoiding wearing them unless I need them for class or church.  It’s not like I’m completely blind, so it’s okay.

 

I still don’t really know what my summer plans are, which is kind of annoying.  I’m a planner – I like to have everything scheduled out so I know what I’m doing, and so I know how to take care of things if something unexpected happens.  But anyway, my summer plans are contingent on whether or not I get that internship with Scholastic this summer, which is pretty slim.  I’m hoping I’ll get it, because it’s a great experience, I’ll get to spend a summer in New York, and I’ll get to room with Kat.  But if I don’t get it, I get to go to Girl’s Camp with Mary and work on the rock wall and have some good Camp Ritchie fun.  I haven’t been in three years, and Mary always tells me about it, and I miss it. No matter what, though, I have to renew my driver’s license on my birthday (which I’m so happy I’ll get to have at home this year), and I have to take the GRE 3 days later.  Bluh.  But hey, I want to get into grad school, so it’s worth it.

 

I am joining the Sigma Tau Delta, which is the English International Honor Society.  Did I mention that?  It’s basically an excuse for English geeks to get together and have fun being geeky, reading fun books and talking about random stuff.  But the beauty of it is that it looks WAY good when applying for jobs, or scholarships, or grad school.  And you get a cord when you graduate.  So it’s just a smart move with little worry.  I’m excited.

 

Um… I can’t really think of anything else to say.  I love all of you guys, and I’ll talk to y’all later!

 

Cheers!

 

-Mary Julia

Snowfall when I started this post:

Snowfall 30 minutes later when I ended it: