Isn't it ironic

I am in all of these classes for education. I really like the classes, but they keep assigning me all these hugely massive readings that are so boring and dense I can hardly get through them, least of all interpret them. The funny part is that most of these texts are telling me that in order to be a successful teacher, you have to go beyond the evil "traditional" teaching style, that is ingest and regurgitate, and teach dramatically! Teach creatively. Teach with passion. Teach with excitement. Teach differently. One book even quoted Aristotle saying that a person has to be entertained to really learn.

Does anyone else see the massive disconnect here?

Testimony

I and some other college students home for the summer were asked to bear our testimonies on a subject that has been on our minds or we had studies recently. So we gave our "talks" last week.

I bore my testimony that the church was true and that scripture study will bring us close to God and will teach us more about God and His son so that we can love Him and revere Him more. I said that as I studied regularly for my New Testament class, I grew to know and love the Savior more than I ever have. Also, our agency is the only thing we can actually give to God and so when we do, it is a sign that we really have been converted. And when we give up our worldly wants or wishes to stop and study the scriptures, that is showing who is really first in our lives.

I don't actually remember exactly what I said, this is kind of the jist of it. I had prepared by looking up scriptures on some subjects and writing down some phrases and truths that I came across, but when I stood up to the mic, I really believe I was led by the spirit to say what I said. I just talked and I was surprisingly eloquent, knowing myself. I also noticed that I was smiling the whole time I was speaking and I didn't know why, but I was so happy. This was a testament to me that the spirit and the gospel bring joy and reaffirmed my testimony as a whole. Anything that can bring that much true joy is worth following no matter the price, and for me right now, the price is small and for that I am grateful. But even when it gets harder, it is worth it because it is Good and True and brings Joy.

There's No Place Like Home

So I haven't posted in a while. Oops.

I got home on the Friday the 19th and started a drama camp 11:00 Monday morning. Before that time I had to write a play with three musical numbers, find songs to go along with the plot, choreograph dances for the three songs, find costumes for everyone, oh, and help my family clean out all the stuff from the floor of the barn so we could perform there. It was an eventful weekend.

The camp went well, we had 9 students and we did a play about a little stowaway who wanted to be a pirate, but they wouldn't let him until they found out what a lovely singing voice he had (they needed him to win the annual pirate singing contest - the prize was a bottle of rootbeer). Thursday's runthrough was a distaster. No one knew their lines - Michael was playing prompter and he read more lines than anyone on stage did. The two littlest campers were having problems staying on stage and the dances just weren't coming together. I made them all promise to practice Thursday night, and Friday morning...it was exactly as bad. I was so worried! But the final dress rehearsal started to go better, and the performance for the parents was better than I'd ever seen them do it. It was kind of a miracle.

the cast plus Michael and me - aren't they cute?

So now I have a couple weeks of no camp - just advertising for the next ones in July. Last weekend I went to the Lake Oswego Farmers Market to advertise. We ran the "Kids Corner" - Christine and I painted faces and hands (mostly hands - you can hold those still on the table as you paint them) and let the kids dress up in our pirate costumes and swordfight - very carefully. It was a good success and I think we got some good publicity. AND at the end, Christine and I found out that the booth just a little ways down from us was a Cheesecake man and he sold little gourmet cheesecakes in all different flavors. We got a chocolate caramel one (I had to pay her somehow for her time) and it was SO good.

mmmm, so yummy!

So...that's my life right now. Drama Camp. ooh ooh ooh! Except yesterday we went to Powells. I love that place. And I've decided that this summer I want to explore downtown Portland more. I've kind of avoided it growing up because it was loud and big and scary - we're kind of country people, but I think Elise and I will have to go check the whole thing out (ok, maybe not the whole thing, ... or maybe we will).

So...that's my life. I really like being back in Oregon. I always forget how green it is until I come back. I like it. Even though it seems I'm allergic to all of it.

Antelope Island Adventure

So on Saturday, Stephanie, Mark, me and Mark's cousin, Scott went on a little excursion to Antelope Island up in the Great Salt Lake. We left in the morning and after a few stops on the way, we crossed a very long bridge/road/thing that took us to the island. We drove up to "the ranch" where they had a bunch of old fashioned cowboy stuff. That particular day there was a cowboy poetry and song festival and we listened to a lot of interesting stuff. Mark and Stephanie also tried their hand at cow ropin':

After we had absorbed as much cowboy literature as we possibly could, we went on a little hike up a hill. There were some pretty cool views from up there, but unfortunately there are no pictures. my bad.

We then ventured down to the beach. Yes, there are white sand beaches on this little island in the middle of Utah. It was so cool. We rolled up our pants and waded into the water. It stayed shallow for a long time so we got out pretty far. Even when me and Mark were in as deep as we wanted to go, Stephanie and Scott kept on going and got out really far:

Pretty far, huh?

the whole gang

After we had gotten very salty, me and Stephanie espeically because she was positive something bit her ankle and screamed and flailed around accordingly, we went back to the beach and played some croquet in the sand. Yes, that was an awful run-on sentence. First we played a round on the sand that was covered in a layer of hard, crusty salt. Stephanie made an amazing comeback from last place to winning the game. Then we played a round in the very soft sand. This one proved to be much more difficult. At one point, Stephanie's ball needed to go around the wicket before going into it. She was really having trouble, so we decided to help her out and made a path for the ball to go (see below). They even dug down deep to find some wet sand to make the barrier stronger. Even with these fortifications, it took Stephanie a few tries for it to work, but we didn't make fun of her...much.

Overall, I think it was a successful trip. It was good to get out of Provo and even see a buffalo!

Victory

so I had to completely revamp my template to fix the comments thingy but I did it. Now I just have to keep tweaking my layout so it's back to how I want it. Unfortuneately it is far too late to be doing such things so I'll fix it later. The end.

Kickball and more

So I think I have a problem. I never played sports as a kid, and so when I do play, I think I take it too personally. I don't go out and start yelling at the refs or anything like some people do, I just get internally grumpy. I don't mean to, and it makes me mad that I do. Something to work on I guess.

 

But today in kickball, I got a double. I GOT A DOUBLE!!! It was so awesome. I think I'm starting to get the hang of placing the ball in order to get the best outcome. I had to get myself out on my first kick because it advanced a girl from second to third. I was a little bummed that I had to do that, but I was proud that I could and I did and it worked. We still lost the game, but it wasn't so bad as our last humiliation. We put up a good fight.

 

Anyways, here are some cool pictures from our last few games. We just finished the regular season,  but we have tournament coming up starting next week. It's single elimination. Hopefully we won't get out in the first round… Hopefully.

 

So was looking through my recent photos and realized I needed to catch you family folks up. So here it goes:

 

A couple weeks ago, we decided to go sidewalk chalking all over campus. We started in the parking lot across the street from our apartments. We drew chalk outlines of people (like a murder scene) and made random parking spaces into reserved spaces. We also drew chalk outlines of people who died right outside the testing center and labeled them by class. It was really fun to do.

 We thought this was kind of humorous. It was positioned at the entrance of the parking lot.

Brandon decided to make some spots extra special

In case you can't read it, this body is labeled Testing Center Victim Econ 110

Last weekend we had a ward activity and part of it included a massive flour fight. It was so fun! We all had knee high nylons filled with handfulls of flour at the toe and hit each other with them - boys verses girls of course. We had a great time and got really messy.

The boys went over a little hill on one side of the field and we established headquarters behind a stone wall thingy

 All-out war

aren't we so pretty?

 

Also among the new photo update are some of kickball. Proof that I really do play sports…kind of.

 

stinkin' new fangled computers!

So I don't know how, but I think I broke my blog. I can't make it so people can comment. I'll work on that...

Blogs - a blog entry

So I have been reading some of my friends blogs and I still can't quite figure out how they come up with so much material. Sometimes I think, maybe my life is just boring, but I don't think that's it. Dad always says, "You're living the dream!" I guess that's kind of true. I really am enjoying school. I love my major, classes are interesting, fun and applicable, the social dynamic of the ward is unparalleled, and this is officially a run-on sentence. Life is good, I just don't know what to say about it.

PS Dear family, you may notice (or not) that my blog is now public. If you want, you can leave comments (Jordan tells me that all bloggers enjoy getting comments - he is the blogger master, he should know) and you shouldn't have to log it to see it.

2 more photos

I really like this one

Look at me! I'm a photographer!

So I took a bunch of pictures around the temple and then I took a few of them to this cool photo editing website called picnik and edited them and I think they look really cool. Take a look:

Happy Mothers Day

In honor of Mothers Day, and in honor of all my mothers and grandmothers (that sounded weird) I'm posting! finally. I just put up some pictures too if you wanna look.

So, I'm in the middle of spring term. It's going pretty well. Busy, but a good kind of busy. Not too much. I'm taking 3 classes: New Testament, Form and Analysis (one of my last music classes) and Dance for Elementary Education Majors (how to teach little kids dance. It's really fun) As well as that, I'm working about 15 hours a week with the records department in the imaging office (we scan a bunch of stuff into databases) and I'm rehearsing up to 15 hours a week for the opera!!!

The opera is wonderful. It is a tragedy, so that's kind of...well, sad. but the director told me that I'm basically the comic relief of the show. I'm the new nun that doesn't get what's going on and keeps sticking her nose accidentally where it doesn't belong. I love it. I figure that's basically my life anyways. We perform June 10-13, the week before finals, so that will be interesting.

Also, the last day of finals last semester, I finally got fed up with my hair being so long that I went to the BYU Barbershop (they also cut girls hair) and just cut it off. It's now a little above my shoulder, and I really like it.

My old roommate Courtney got married a couple weeks ago, and I put pictures of last months adventures, including her wedding, on my picture site thingy if you wanna take a look. It's the link on the right hand side.

I miss and love you all and hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day.

So I guess I should update this more often...

I am having a good time here still. Spring is coming and it is glorious! Yay for shorts and skirts!
School is good. It is actually not the most stressful thing in my life right now. (Surprise!) I got into the Elementary Education major (they only let in 95% of the people who apply) and so I'll be starting that as my second half of my program in the fall.
I just found out that I got into the spring opera. As in, BYU's opera that is put on in the DeJong Concert Hall and is really big and intimidating. I am a very small part - a nun (I forget my exact title) but I am just so excited to be getting back on the stage! It is a cast of about 20 people - all girls, so I'm sure we'll have a blast backstage.
I'm not sure if everyone knows this, but I got a job working in the adminstration building as part of the Records department. A bunch of different offices send us all of their documents that people send in and stuff and we scan them and link the scanned image to the electronic file of the student that it belongs to. It kind of reminds me of working in the barn...in a way. But it's money, not a lot, but a whole lot more than zero and we have a lot of fun in the office.

Anyways, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!