Funniest Blog Ever

My friend Eli has been particular funny lately although he really is one of the funniest people I know. He has story after story that will make you pee your pants laughing. Here is his latest; Its bound to put you in better spirits after a long day at the office. 

http://itjustgetsstranger.blogspot.com/2011/12/snuggie-texts.html

 

Applications

There is nothing like spending your Saturdays filling out your life history over and over again in hopes that some unsuspecting graduate program will actually admit you despite your complete and utter inadequacies. I've mostly completed 8 applications with 1 or 2 more to go. I guess come this Spring, we will know where I will be for the next couple of years. I really hope its somewhere warm!

Bon Voyage

Lacey and I booked ourselves a cruise this past week. We will be sailing in January to the BAHAMAS and are so excited that we can hardly contain ourselves. Now if only November and December would just fly by...we can be sitting in a place like this.

and like this...

while doing this...

and this...

I cannot wait.

Great Surprises

This girl has been called to serve a mission in Olongapo, Philippines Tagalog speaking!   

She will report to the Provo MTC in March and will serve for 18 months. We are all very shocked because the Philippines were nowhere on our radar as a place that she might go. At first we had no clue what to think but the more we find out about the Philippines, the more it makes perfect sense that Katherine would go there. It seems to be a perfect fit! We are all so excited for her. She will be a fantastic missionary.

Halloween

As you can see by the picture, I was obviously a giraffe for Halloween. I think the kids were a little surprised when they first came to the door but my costume was a hit.

Elder Richards

We got a lot of new photos from Elder Richards this weekend. Here are some of my favorites. 

LDP

My college roommate Lacey came to visit this weekend. Within 24 hours of her arriving, we had gone to the Capitol, the White House, the Washington Monument, Lincoln and WWII Memorials, drove by the CIA several times, went shopping in Georgetown, ate at Georgetown Cupcakes, and spent a few hours tanning at the pool. I am so glad that she came to visit!!! 

Tomorrow is the National's Game and the 4th of July. What more could you ask for? 

News from Peru

As many know my little brother Stephen is serving a mission in Peru. He is in the MTC in Lima which is called the CCM right now but will soon be headed to Trujillo. As many know who have had siblings and family members serve missions, having them gone for 2 years is difficult especially when you get one email every week, hand written letters here and there and 2 phone calls a year. The key to all of this though is consistency. I look forward to that email every week. It is something that I know is coming and I'm anxious for it to arrive (as many could tell with my last few blog posts). Usually Elder Richards gets to write home on Wednesdays so for the past couple of weeks I have started my letter to him on Tuesday evening so that I can fill him in on everything that has been happening up to that point. Today however, I got a call from my dad saying that he had just received an email from Stephen and that they had switched their day to email to today and that we should all hurry and get letters written to him because he would only be on for another hour. My mom and I were in the kitchen mid dinner preparations and we dropped everything and ran. Literally. There was something on the stove in the middle of cooking and I quickly turned off the stove, moved the pan to another burner and ran to my computer. Luckily we were all able to get something off to him in time for him to get it and respond back to us. Last week we got some pictures of Elder Richards in our email and he looks so handsome! In his letters he sounds so happy to be there and so excited to meet the people of Peru and teach them about the gospel. I honestly couldn't be more proud of him and so excited that he gets to be having these experiences. I guess that eases the sadness of having him away for 2 years.

Stephen is quickly learning the language and is loving the country. Because he is in the CCM he only gets to go out into the town every once and a while but he gets so excited every time that they get to go out and explore and talk to the people. So far he has had very positive and successful experiences with talking to people on the streets of Lima.
Every week beings new challenges and even greater rewards. 

FYI

For your information, I did finally get my email. It was worth the wait!

Waiting

Stephen said that his day to send emails would be Wednesday. So why is it 5:00pm and we still don't have an email. Its one thing to wait for something but its another thing to wait for something that you REALLY want. When letters and a weekly email are all the communication you get from someone very important, each email and each letter is precious. Right now the minutes are slowly ticking by although time seems to be standing still. Where is my email? 

Updates

I was again informed that I needed to update my blog. A TON has happened in the last month.

Here's a quick review.

I Graduated!

Everyone, especially my parents, was ecstatic that it finally happened. I guess thats what you get when you decide what your life's passion is your senior year of college. I graduated with Bachelor of Science in Psychology with and emphasis on Brain, Behavior and Cognitive Psychology

(Neuropsychology).

My three very crazy brothers. Stephen, Rafa and David. They were all cute and matched to go to convocation. Rafa is now in Mexico training for the Pan American Games in Guadalajara and the World Championships in Shanghai!!!

Here I am walking across the stage at the Marriott Center with Ryan right behind me.

My whole family came out to celebrate and to help move me, Katherine and Stephen across the country. In one week I took all my finals, graduated from college, packed and cleaned my whole entire house to get it ready to rent for the next 2 years, moved to the east coast and said goodbye to all my very good friends.

Just 2 weeks later Stephen left for his mission! He was in the Provo MTC for 3 weeks and headed out to the MTC in Lima just yesterday. We got an email from him today saying that he and the other missionaries arrived safely. He will be in Lima for 5 or 6 more weeks before he leaves for Trujillo. More updates on Elder Richards to come.

My good friend Allie got married this past weekend in Southern California. For their rehearsal dinner, they had a bonfire at Huntington beach with some of their closest family and friends. Here I am with the bride to my right and then the other bridesmaids.

The first night I got to California though, I got to spend the night with my freshman roommate Meredith and her husband Josh. I adore both of them! It had been about 3 years since I had seen them so we had a lot of catching up to do. Meredith and I went to this amazing Italian restaurant for dinner and then for dessert and a movie back at her house. I honestly had the best time and I wish I could visit them more often. I laughed the whole night.

Allie and Chad got married in the Los Angeles Temple and it is one of the biggest temples I have been to. It was such a nice day outside and other than the fact that 8 other couples got married at the same time and we had to wait for a while outside, the day was perfect. Apparently some of our other friends in the picture below got a little sun poisoning and were throwing up the morning of the wedding. They were pretty much miserable.

Their reception was in Yorba Linda at Allie's aunt and uncle's beautiful home. It was honestly one of the funnest wedding receptions I have ever been to. They had In and Out Burger caterand a candy shop set up a booth where they did milkshakes and malts and all sorts of sweet treats. We literally danced the night away until Chad and Allie left. The party was not over when they left though. After the reception, the family was invited to stay and have a pool party. We slipped into our bathing suits and swam and lounged in the hot tub until about midnight. It was a blast. Unfortunately between me and the two other girls I was traveling with, I forgot my camera, Whitney's camera got sand in it and broke and Kait's ran out of battery. Luckily Whitney purchased 2 disposable camera's so hopefully we have more pictures of the weekend coming soon.

Sunday morning I woke up and drove down to San Diego to spend time with my cousin Erika, her husband Darren and their son Adam. Driving down the 5 was absolutely breathtaking. I always say that I could never live in California but that drive may have changed my mind. I got to go to church with my family and even got to attend Primary. Erika teaches the 4 year olds and it was so much fun. During singing time, the kids even sang the hello song to me. I thought that you didn't get that after a certain age. Apparently I still am under the age limit. I wish I had more time to spend with everyone; the weekend went by so quickly and hopefully I get to California again in the near future!!!

Now it's on to getting a job. My grandmother asks me what kind of job I am going to get and the answer to that is

I have no idea.

Confusing Places

Whenever I am about to go on a trip especially when I go back home to my parents house, I often wake up in the middle of the night and am very confused as to where I am. This week was no exception. I'll be moving back to DC come next week and so I've been slowly dismantling my room here at school and packing up. Last week I decided to take everything down off the walls. This led to one of the biggest and most disappointing confusions ever. I woke up maybe around 3 or 4 in the morning and without sitting up I started to look around. When I didn't see anything on the walls I thought I might be at my parents house then decided that that wasn't right. My next thought was that I was at the beach and I got so excited. Anytime I am at the beach I am excited and since I was in the middle of studying for finals and writing papers, the beach would have been a wonderful place to be. To my dismay however, when I sat up and took a second look around, I realized I was in my very own bed, still at school and that I still had all my finals to take and a whole house to pack up and clean. It was so very unfortunate. I could feel my heart sink and the joy and elation drain from my body. That disappointment however did not last long and reality set and I knew that I didn't even have time to be disappointed.

I went today to get my blood taken. This for a lot of people is a pretty routine thing...no big deal, that is unless you are me. I LOATHE getting my blood taken more than just about anything. Just to get it straight, I can watch anyone else get their blood taken and I don't mind shots but when it comes to getting my own blood taken, I am slightly...ok overly pathetic.

When I was getting ready to go to college, the school wanted you to have a physical with blood work before coming. I went and got my physical and they told me that I would have to go to this clinic to get my blood taken. I absolutely refused to go. My mom made me an appointment and I would not go. To try to reason with me, my mom said to me well what if you have some rare disease and they can only find by taking your blood. Being overly dramatic I responded that I would rather die. (This isn't true at all but it just scares me to death whenever I get it done).

Last night and this morning I was texting Katherine and asking if I could skip it, or if I threw up before if I had to go. I tried so hard to get out of going to the doctor that Katherine called me at the time I was supposed to be leaving to make sure that I was actually going.

Stephen drove me to the appointment because in the past I have been known to pass out or get really faint when getting my blood taken but this time we were prepared. He brought me a Gingerale and a Snickers to make sure I was not going to have any passing out issues. On the way over her mentioned to me at least you're not crying. Just then I burst out into tears. When we got out of the car, I tried to get back in and when the nurse took my heart rate it was astronomically high. I usually have a heart rate of about 62ish and when she took it today, it was 97! It felt like my heart was beating out of my chest. It finally came time for them to take my blood and so she asked if I wanted to sit or lie, I chose to lie down and as soon as I laid down on the exam table I shut and covered my eyes and didn't open them until the nurse was out of the room.

In all actuality, I did pretty well. I was proud of myself but I really hope that I don't have to do that again any time soon. Just thinking about it now is making me anxious! I've decided that I probably should take the rest of the day off to recover.

Good Morning Beautiful Day

Today is a gorgeous day in Provo. Up until now, these days have been very few and even further in between. I am grateful for every ray of sunshine that I am given because winters here are so...wintery. And, with graduation coming and assignments getting harder and harder to complete, (not because of their difficulty, but because of my lack of motivation) every nice day brings just a little reprieve from the monotony and dullness that is [super] senior year. So to fully enjoy the day I am taking a drive up the canyon with Rafa and Stephen.

Rafa is our very good friend from El Salvador who swims on the BYU team with Stephen. He has quickly become a part of our family and we love having him around. Earlier today Stephen and I took him to the DMV to get his American drivers license. I was trying to quiz him on the drivers manual on the drive over to the DMV but when he got there he found out that the test is open book. I now have a much better understanding of why Utah has such bad drivers. Rafa passed, and now he just has to go back next week to take the behind the wheel portion of the test. Rafa will be taking the test in my car and so part of the reason for the drive up the canyon is to let Rafa get a feel for the car. I guess we will see how good of a driver Rafa really is. Hopefully hes really great!

Senioritis x100

I thought my senioritis was bad a few months ago. It has reached a whole new level. I don't want to do school work...I barely want to go to class. I don't want to read, I don't want to write, I don't want to present. The only things I want to do are sleep and teach. As I've said before I TA a class and I get to teach the class basically whenever I feel like doing so. I am really appreciative of my professor for letting me jump in and take over his class every now and again. It gives me at least some motivation to do something. Its fun also because I get to learn a lot myself and my students at least pretend to enjoy when I teach. When I get to class before my professor does, I will log in and get the computer and the lecture started up so class can start right away. A lot of times when I'm up there students will be filing into the class and ask excitedly, are you teaching today??? That really makes my day. Also, because I teach a class full of athletes I often make the excuse to go to their games, matches and meets to see them compete. Its fun to get to see them in their element instead of just sitting in a classroom.

I do however have a few things to look forward to. First, David is coming on Wednesday! General Conference is this weekend! Graduation is FAST approaching then I get to fly home and spend some quality time with my family. My good friend Allie is getting married in LA and I'm a bridesmaid which means I get to buy a pretty dress from Anthropology and BASEBALL SEASON STARTS! I love love love baseball season. My family has season tickets to the Nationals and BYU Baseball is well under way.

If that wasn't enough to be excited about I'm not sure what is. Life is good when you count your blessings.

Adorable

Lasts

I feel as if I'm having a lot of lasts lately. My last classes, my last month here in Utah, my last papers (at least for a little while), I went to my last BYU football game last semester, went to the last home basketball game and lastly, I watched my team play their last game and lose. It was a heartbreaking loss for the Cougars because we didn't play our best. I saw their pain and disappointment walking off the court and a tear almost came to my eye. I felt a little sentimental for my team and it made me realize that things really are coming to an end and although I'm really excited, I'm also a little...a tiny bit sad.

You had a good run boys. Congratulations, and if you need a shoulder to come cry on, my house is always open...and only a few hundred yards from yours!

Seriously?

My friend Whitney and I were headed to the BYU vs. Wyoming game the other week and when we got to the Marriott Center the line was wrapped around the whole entire building! We got in line and this guy uhhh more like kid comes up to us and starts making conversation. He asks us our names and we tell him and then asks....soooo do you live at Helaman Halls? When we said no he was like ohhh so you live at Heritage. I just shook my head. They are both Freshman dorms. Maybe in a few years I will be flattered that people think I am younger than I actually am but at 23 I'm pretty sure I don't want to be thought of as an 18 or 19 year old.

Sensory Integration Dysfunction

I ran into a family friend from home today on campus and it reminded me that I never told anyone about my special disorder. She asked me what I was graduating in and I told her neuro-psychology and immediately she asked me if I had heard about Sensory Processing Disorder because her son had just been diagnosed with it. I told her not only had I heard about it, but that I myself had it.

This past summer while taking a class up at the Salt Lake Center, my professor diagnosed me with Sensory Integration or Sensory Processing Disorder. I felt like a light switch had been turned on in my head. All my little quirks were coming together and all made perfect sense. I just wish I had known this at 2...or even 12 and not finding out when I was 22. Sensory Integration Dysfunction is a disorder is hard to explain but it make it difficult to process information or sometimes over-processes information. For me it makes my hyper ticklish...like to the point where someone touches me lightly and I'm laughing. It makes me feel trapped in my shoes and its the reason why it is so uncomfortable for me to wear pants in bed.

Most of all it makes school very difficult for me.

On the spectrum of disabled people, I am lucky and have a lot of small insignificant symptoms and not a lot of the bigger more socially and mentally debilitating ones...at least I hope that I don't. Part of my symptoms is that my brain has trouble processing certain information that it should do automatically. Those functions that should happen automatically are supposed to be taken care of by your lower brain stem...but because my lower brain stem chooses not to process information correctly, other parts of my brain have to compensate. For example, take reading a book, or even just a paragraph. For most people its easy just follow the words on the page from left to right and understand the meaning of the words that you read. Its not hard. We do it all the time. Well for me, my lower brain stem does not want to do its part and follow the lines on the page. Because my higher processing areas in my brain have to kick in and take over this task, there is not a lot of brain power left to interpret or process anything that I just read. It takes all my focus just to follow the line on the page. I have to read things over and over and over again just to even understand what they are saying.

In doing my research on my disorder, and from what my professor taught our class, most kids with SID/SPD are thought to have lower intelligence when in fact they actually have a higher intelligence than most. My professor described it this way. He held up a piece of paper and folded it in half and said that this represented most people's intelligence. He then unfolded in paper and explained that because it took twice the amount of effort to do the same sort of tasks, and because I was functioning at such a high level, that my intelligence was much higher than average. He said that to be getting the grades I was getting at the university I am attending was phenomenal. I was shocked! I was never the smart one in my family; it always took me much longer understand new concepts at school so to have someone tell me that there was something out of my control making that happen really put me at ease.

I asked what I could do to help my problem and amazingly enough he told me that the best thing I could do was to swim. The man had no idea about my background and I told him that it was funny that he should say that because I had been swimming competitively since I was 6 years old. He then went on to tell me that swimming was the reason why I was at BYU and doing so well. I guess I will keep swimming.

Its funny how those experiences are put in your life for a reason. I'm grateful that there is someone who knows me even better than I know myself and knows all the we are in need of. I'm grateful to understand that those things don't just happen by coincidence but that they are planned out and for our benefit.

Another Look

This is a video of the same thing just from a different angle but you can see just how many people were involved.

Just Another Day in the Marriott Center

BYU Basketball has sold out its last 6 games. The student section seats just over 5,000 and for the past 2 games it has filled up over an hour before tip-off. My friends and I got the Marriott Center at 11:00AM for a 1:30PM game and the line was already wrapped around the whole entire building. We were fortunate to have friends saving us seats or else we would have been in the rafters or even worse...at home. This week being the final home game of a spectacular season (and my final BYU basketball home game EVER) the student section had a little surprise for the rest of the arena.

Last week all the students were sent an email that had a password protected link to a special top secret video. It explained the whole "Flash Mob" dance step by step. We were asked to have one additional homework assignment for the week and learn the dance and be able to perform it during a full timeout during the second half. Here is the product of BYU students doing their homework.

ENJOY

and

GO COUGARS!

California Trip

Seeing how it is my (super) senior year of college, I am determined to have as much fun as possible. With classes and TAing, being on a research team and in charge of a campus wide service project, there is little time for fun. Fortunately though, my roommate Lacey has an aunt and uncle with a beach house in Oxnard, California that they let us use over President's Day weekend. I took long strolls on the beach, relaxed and did not think about school work or research, cheered for our Cougars at the BYU-UCSB volleyball game, enjoyed downtown Santa Barbara, suntanned but most exiting...we went to DISNEYLAND!!!!!!

I've been to Disneyworld a ton, but this was my first ever trip to Disneyland. I REALLY enjoyed myself. We went on Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain and of course Its a Small World (I think the Disneyland ride is MUCH longer than the Disneyworld ride).

After hitting up Disneyland we headed over California Adventure where were rode California Screamin...like 10 times, Soarin (which was by far one of my favorites) and Mickey's Fun Wheel. I'm not really sure why they call it Mickey's Fun Wheel because it should really be called Mickey's Ferris Wheel from Hell. I absolutely hated this. I hate ferris wheels in general but whoever thought it would be a good idea to make a ferris wheel that drops and violently swings is seriously disturbed. I can't exactly explain what the ride does because I had my eyes tightly shut the entire time and cried when it started swinging. Worst ride ever!

We spent the rest of the weekend just enjoying the beach. I was glad to get out of Provo but so very upset to have to go back. Now its back to the grind and the grind won't stop until graduation day. I'm just counting down the days until Friday, April 22nd.

Until then I will have to look forward to this.

and this,

....and this

March Madness here we come!

Awww Poop!

I started swimming lessons with a new kid tonight. I was super thrilled because giving swim lessons to cool kids is one of my favorite things to do. The kid I teach is the perfect age to start swim lessons...hes excited, capable and listens really well. Perfect scenario...that is until some other kid pooped in the pool. Yes it happened and yes it ruined my evening.

Called To Serve

The long awaited moment arrived this morning. Stephen got his mission call and has been called to serve in the Trujillo, Peru mission. He reports to the MTC on May 11th.

Sundance

There are few perks for living in Utah but one of them is being able to go the Sundance Film Festival. Its nice to get out of Provo for a bit and take a drive up the canyon (another thing that I will miss come May) to see some great films and a lot of creativity. Some of my friends and I saw a few films so far but the best day of Sundance had to have been last night at the Egyptian Theater on Main Street. We were waiting in line to get into the film when all of a sudden I see this man coming towards me walking down the stairs. I immediately get excited because its Ben Lyons. He works for E News and is their special correspondent for the festival and he was getting in line for the movie I was going to see. I don't get star struck...I could care less about celebrities but hes like my celebrity crush. Hes really tall and super cute and I was standing in line with him! I know its a little hard to see but hes the tall one with the funny hat. I was so excited to see him. By the end of the night I had seen a pretty good film (Homework) had gotten his photograph and gotten an autograph.

It was a great night.

Where Did You Go Award

When Katherine was little she signed up for the swim team, our parents paid for her to be on the team and she went to the first couple of practices but then never went back the rest of the year. To her credit she was only 5 or 6, but at the end of the year the coaches gave her the Where Did You Go Award. I feel like I deserve that award right now in many aspects of my life. Some friends have asked if I dropped off the face of the Earth, or if I was still alive, one even asked if I started seriously dating someone and spending all my time with them and the answer to everyone's questions is that I am still alive, I am still on planet Earth and no I have not started dating anyone and spending all my time with them. You would know if I were dating someone.

I'm not sure what I've really been doing these past few months but it seems like a lot. It seems like a lot every day...all day. This is not bad but it leave little time for fun and I LOVE FUN. So instead of fun I have...

Studied for and taken finals in

Cognition

Motivation

and

Behavioral Neurobiology

I am currently taking

Gender Psychology

Social Psychology

Stress Psychobiology

and

Completing My Capstone Project

On top of my course load I am...

A Program Director for a Campus Service Project

We bring 1,100 underprivileged 5th and 6th grade students to campus in March to encourage them to aim for higher education. This takes up a ton of my time.

TAing a Class: Performance Psychology

I get to read and grade a lot of papers written by BYU's finest athletes. This is always fairly amusing and I do look forward to reading what they have written every week. I also get to teach a few lectures on my own. This would be terrifying but I feel much more comfortable with it being me and 30 athletes.

Working for My Brother

I book and plan seminars and meetings. My official job title is Event Manager. This month's meeting is at the Portland Art Museum. If only I got to actually enjoy some of the art at the museum

On a Research Team

I get to read a TON of articles investigating cohesion in sports teams and the military which are both topics that really interest me so reading a lot about them isn't so bad just really time consuming.

So where have I gone? I'm probably in the SWKT and if I'm not there try the library.

If you need to reach me please email me and subject it something with the words

PSYCHOLOGY

RESEARCH

or

PROJECT YOUTH

and I will probably read it and maybe will respond to it within a few days...MAYBE.