Winter's Divine Tentacles of Providence

My View on my way to campus...

Can we get a "Majestic!" up in here!?

It's the last day of classes today. I am tired. Stayed up too late making ornaments out of lamb bones and bent forks for my History of Creativity project. I'm sure my project made history for "most weird" in the History of all creativity. Seriously.

I am antsy inside with Christmas Spirit, can't wait to start singing Christmas carols and find vienna sausages that I won't eat in stockings that I won't wear. And to refocus self on Christ. I love Christmas!

I bet you never thought of this method to defrost chicken.

Just one reason why I like Jeff and he makes me laugh...

The other night, we were making dinner and he asked what he could do to help. I said he could defrost the chicken. I then went to the bathroom and when I came out, waited for the microwave to finish heating up the chicked for 3 minutes...I openned the microwave and this is what I saw...

A cup for Christmas Cheer for you!

Oh: for those of you who don't know, I'm dating a nice boy named Jeff. He is so cute! This past weekend was way fun. We went to the "Christmas Tree Festival" which included a "gingerbread house festival" and also a "quilt festival" too. We went with my former roommate, Jenni, and her husband. It was a delightful way to start the Christmas season!

Me and Jeff in front of my favorite quilt.

Me in front of the biggest gingerbread house I've ever seen!
Jeff in front of a cool gingerbread house patterned after the movie "Up"..cuuuute
My former roommate Jenni and her cute baby Mariah in front of her fav quilt
Me and Jeff in front of this quilt titled "Christmas Gone Crazy". Notice Mariah in the top left corner about to beat me up...? Uh...see ya!

It was a delightful weekend! On saturday, we also went to Salt Lake to watch a BYU basketball game and then to go out to eat at this sweet pizza place, "The Pie".

Life is good.

Just a Note from your Neighborhood Rebound.

*Disclaimer: The last post's "gratitude list" was not in sequential order of how much I like them. I love my sisters atleast as much as wikipedia.

Soooooo this weekend rocked...not going to lie. Saturday I went on a blind date with a guy that Matt Hays set me up with -his name is Rob. He served in Taiwan on a mission as well, but before my time. It was fun! I don't know if he is interested enough to ask me out a second time. We will see. I can atleast say that the blind dates have gotten progressively better. Which is a serious plus. Maybe I am getting better at them, too. On saturday I spent all day on a research paper I have to write for my marriage prep class. Then I spent two hours playing volleyball with my peeps. THEN
I went splunking at the Nutty Putty Caves in Provo. It was sooo fun. It was my second "blind date" (sort of blind, but not really because I had already met him) of the weekend. He also served in Taiwan, but before my time (TALK ABOUT CONFUSING I couldn't remember what stories I had told this guy verses Friday night blind date...haha...I even called this guy by the other guys' name...aaaaaawkward....) Anyways, it was probably one of the funnest things I've ever done! And the craziest! It was snowing, and we had to go off-roading in his truck to get there, and then wander around in the snowy hills to find the caves...which were pretty randomly placed...then crawl around, sometimes on our stomach with our elbows...and got all dirty. It was so fun. I have bruises all over my knees to prove the hard-core of it all. So this guy's name is Seth, and likes to do everything I like to do, and he speaks Chinese. He also just broke up with his girlfriend last week and is sad about it. Story of my life. Hello, my name is Rebound! We will be good friends, I'm sure.

Today church was awesome. Can I just say that I love the Gospel? And Sunday? In Sunday school we talked about self-reliance, spiritual, economic, and educational...it was great and taught me a lot about what I can improve on. One of my favorite quotes of the day:

"Work is always a spiritual necessity even if work is not an economic necessity." -Neal A Maxwell

"I never let my schooling get in the way of my education" -Mark Twain

"You can't have patience if you don't have to wait for something" - Some Girl at church (insightful girl I might add)

personal revolution

WhAt ArE yOu GrAtEfUl FoR?

1. Chocolate Soy Milk
2. wikipedia.com
3. Friends, especially those that make me laugh
   
4. Sisters
5. Fresh, cold oranges
6. Healthy body
7. Classes that make you think: Sociology
8. Music
9. Modern-day Prophets and Leaders
10. General Conference Issue of Ensign=GOLD
11. Learning
12. Smiles
13. Sleep
14. Good home teachers
15. Opportunity to be a visiting teacher
16. Volleyball
17. Change - New Hobbies.
18. People and their Idiosyncrasies
19. My people from Taiwan
20. Opportunity to Serve a mission
21. Book of Mormon and the prophets inside, their examples
22. Trials/challenges because its only through them I will grow...(I'm convincing myself)
    
23. The Temple
24. Christ's example and the softening of heart that comes when we refocus on His will.
    
25. Quality Conversations
    

Things I am going to adopt as my newest Hobbies (possibly not until next semester or within the next year)

1. Water polo
2. Flute
3. Cooking
4. Photography
   

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Still

So I just stumbled upon my old blog musingsoflindsey.blogspot.com....quite amusing to read about my freshman year musings. No pun intended, Ha! Ha!

So. Halloween was awesome. Friday night some girls from my ward and I went out to Thai Ruby, it was delicious...after which I had an intramural volleyball game. We made a sweet comeback after losing our first game, losing a player (so playing 4 on 6!) and ended up winning (!!!!!) So far our record is 2 wins 1 loss in upper division intramurals. Next game: Thursday. I love volleyball.

THEN we (the girl I visit teach, Jessica, and her roommate) went to a Halloween party my mission friend was throwing. I was "Where's Waldo." My favorite part of the night was when we ventured to public place, I hid in the crowds and we took pictures of "Where's Waldo?" Hahaha...Good times.


Saturday I woke up early-ish, went to our ward's Elder's-Quorum-Makes-the-RS breakfast activity (my fav one so far). Yum. Then I studied on campus for 4 hours, took a Functional Anatomy Test, played volleyball for 2 hours on campus with some friends, then my friends David, Megan and Betsy and I decided to have a "chill" Halloween night of making pizza and watching "Elf". It was fun & relaxing, great combo.




Sunday morning was delightful. We had Stake Conference, and I learned a lot about hope as a "plan of action" instead of just a feeling and how it must be centered in Christ. Oddly enough, a lot of the talks were about breaking up and how dating experiences are for our good and "worth of the pain". Ha, I love BYU. After that, I went and had PB&J sandwhich picnic with David, Megan and Betsy (again). It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon...quite delightful if I do say so myself. After that, friend David and I went over to G&G Hatch's house to visit and then to the CES Fireside of President Uchtdorf. It was such a good fireside, I always end up feeling so empowered and loved after listening to him speak. He answered some of the many questions of our age. Solid.

So, life is good currently. Its been hard to focus this week. I think one of the hardest things for me to accept in life is waiting...not knowing the future, or what will happen, or what I should do, or what other people will do. Its almost agonizing at times. I just want to know. I guess thats the whole meaning of patience. And humility. And faith. And life. Blast! Does that mean I'm failing at all of those?............


...............................................................

Decision Decade Blues.

Today I got really stressed out about life decisions. It seems I go in cycles - thinking about the uncertain future, stressing out about it, deciding to ignore/delay those decisions, happy and carefree for a while, realizing that I need to make decisions, stressing, ignoring...

BUT the time has come when I can not delay those (educational) decisions any longer!!!

Today I went and talked to a counselor...He told me that I could graduate in April if I didn't do a Chinese Minor..that got me thinking about what I should do?

Applications for Chinese Flagship are coming up (http://chineseflagship.byu.edu/) The application entails me stating basically a professional vision (aka what I want to be, what internship I would want in China, etc...) Frankly, at the moment, I don't know what that vision is...So this causes stress..

Here are my options.
1. Dental Hygiene (#1 option TODAY! Who knows tomorrow.) If I did this, I would graduate in April, drop my Chinese minor and start dental hygiene school in the fall 2010.
Pros: Interesting (I think), Lucrative, Uses my major I have now, Could graduate sooner and make money sooner
Cons: Costs a lot, wouldn't be using Chinese ever
2. Public Health which would entail me graduating in another year with a minor in Chinese, probably doing Chinese Flagship, and going to master's school
Pros: Could use both Chinese and Exercise Science, go to China
Cons: Might cut off marriage options, A lot of schooling, really ambitious and a lot of work, don't know if I actually want to do that JOB (in an office planning programs?)
3. Teaching would entail me doing a lot more research...because BYU has no post-grad accelerated teaching certificate programs, and the internet does not seem to be a very clear source for that. I am considering Teach for America, but I don't know if they even offer Chinese classes in urban/rural school districts
Pros: I would really enjoy the job, its a new challenge, not really related to what I've been studying for 4 years.
Cons: Location would be random, don't know that much info yet about it, VERY challenging, don't know how qualified I would feel in that setting

Any suggestions? Either on what I should do? Or how to make this decision? Or how to make decisions in general?

Current Status: Applying for everything (Flagship, getting all prereqs for dental hygiene school done, doing research) and delaying the actual decision even longer.

Flavor of the Week: Pumpkin Spice

Fall is a delight. Here is me with my two roommates, Valerie & Rebecca.

colorful Rock Canyon owns my heart.

This past weekend I went rock climbing in Rock Canyon with some friends. I fell in love










Sigh. I love life right now.

Almost dead

This week has been/is crazy.
2 midterms down
3 more to go
No life except library and school
.....
Literally spend all my time in class or work...until 8/9 pm...and I'm not even A'ceing my classes...

Today I was exhausted...and as I walked out of my test review, I saw a HUGE (biggest and most radiant I've ever seen) rainbow right over the Harold B Lee library...arching from one end to the other. It was one of Heavenly Father's tender mercies I think- I felt it was Heavenly Father smiling down on me.

Learning a ton in my marriage prep class...(don't judge, people)
President Ezra Taft Benson
“If we would truly seek to be more like our Savior
and Master, learning to love as He loves should be
our highest goal” (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 275).

"Love is not so much a matter of
romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the
well being of one’s companion" -Gordon B Hickley

Morning Love

Random Thoughts of The Day.

Consensus: My subconscious is a genuine creeper.
Evidence: A couple nights ago, I dreamnt I had some rare fungal disease where chunks of skin were peeling off (but underneath was totally normal skin). It was so odd...because I looked completely normal but could peel off what looked like muscles covered in skin...It was straight-up creepy. I woke up and made sure to pat down all of my skin and make sure it wasn't peelable. Luckily, its just my subconscious processing all of this time in the anatomy lab.

Consensus: Mornings are Made for Me
Evidence: I have officially decided that waking up early is good for the soul. My roommates all go to bed at 10:30 or earlier, which I absolutely love. Because I get home, and they are all in bed...so I might as well go to bed too...and then I wake up early, read my scriptures, and go running, and the ENTIRE day is different. Like, not EVEN joking...

Consensus: If I will study, I will succeed.
Evidence: I studied for a test yesterday in History of Creativity and I got a 100%. Insane. I thought that class was my "hardest" as in, its the one I'm least interested in. Interesting.

Consensus: Boys still confuse me.
Evidence: I am totally interested in this one boy. Every time I see him (which we both have realized is every friday morning at least) he acts super excited to see me and a little nervous to see me. He's from my mission. Last sunday I ran into him randomly by his apartment complex and we talked for 2 hours, we walked me home, and came into my apartment and chilled for a while...and then the next day I brought him pizza at work. But he never initiates...

Yes. Its true. Oh Hey is Here at last.