Busyness Withdrawls

You know how usually the week before finals is way worse than the ACTUAL week of finals? Well, this semester, that was only partly the case.
Every week this whole semester, BEFORE the week of finals felt like the week before finals.
(Please re-read that sentence a few times to make sense of it.)
But I'm not complaining. You have already heard about my busy semester.
If you have not been privileged to hear, please click here.

The week before finals started off beautifully
with putting on
the production of the year at Southern Utah University. (FYI- the preparations for this have been happening since June, but we jumped on the band wagon in August.)
As a committee member for the President's Gala (a banquet and program for all the old rich people- aka the donors of SUU)we spent
countless hours scheduling, coordinating, phone calling, meeting attending, decoration gathering, actually decorating, tree fluffing, table setting,
pine bough cutting, and running around
like chickens with our heads cut off.
(Ok not really, but sometimes it felt like we were getting that desperate!)

This is the wonderful team and the progression of the event!

In the end, Wednesday night turned out beautifully with only minor problems. However, we were sure exhausted. So we pleasantly relaxed while being serenaded with Happy Birthday Jesus by the
Oak Ridge Boys.

Our group was pretty much the awesomest ever!

After Wednesday, all my projects and papers were finished for the semester and most of my presentations done. All I had to worry about were finals.
You would think I would have felt relieved to relax and catch up on some
much needed sleep. But no.
I went through serious busyness withdrawls!!
Tell me please- What am I going to do for a whole month for Christmas break!
I will be going crazy by the time January 10th comes around and school starts again!

The Reason

I am a runner. I haven’t always been. In fact I used to hate running.
As I have gotten older and life has gotten more stressful, I have come to find an exquisite release that comes from running.
And only runners understand this.
 
Now, running is almost an addiction.
Yes, there are many days that are hard.
Yes, there are days when I have no motivation.
Yes, there are days when its extremely painful.
But every time I just make myself do it, I am surprised at how much better I feel.
Running is not for everyone. But running is most definitely for me.
I used to hate running. Running in competitions was not fun to me. For the first time in my life, last Saturday, I ran a race and it was fun!
Yes, there were points when it was hard.
Yes, there were times when I wanted to give up.
But just like in training, I simply made myself do it and the accomplishment I felt afterward was incredible. It still is!

I understand that finding the motivation to do something hard can be extremely difficult at times.

But life is not measured by what we start, but by what we finish.

Find something that you have always thought was impossible. Set the goal to accomplish it. Set small goals working toward the big goal. You won’t regret it. I promise. What is there to regret about trying hard, getting a few skinned knees, but coming out victorious?
(Make sure your sound is turned up. This is one of the most motivation things I have ever seen.)


My goal is to run a marathon.
Someday I want to be in the league of marathoners.
For now I’m setting the smaller goals. I will continue to training for and run half marathons and triathlons.
"People say that we're searching for the meaning of life. I don't think that's it at all. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost beings and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive." Joseph Campbell, The Power of Moab

Feeling alive is really what life is all about. It’s not about winning the race, but the experience we have along the way.

That's the reason why.
The reason why I run.

A Packaged Halloween

Halloween was quite an adventure this year! I had some great bonding moments with my roommates and some wonderful catching-up with old roommates!
We successfully made our own costumes from bubble wrap and duct tape! It was great!
Although we made these awsome costumes, we could really decide what we "were." After much deliberation, we came up with "A Package Deal!"
ha ha ha (Yes, that's meant to be funny)

And we had lots of fun messing around... (We put glow sticks in between the strips on our costumes for the dance! It was so cool looking!

These are some wonderful girls that I seriously miss SOOO much! But we had an amazing time at
THE HOWL!

And of course we had to mess around a little bit...

And then for old-times-sake, take a 2 a.m. outing to the Big D (aka- Dennys).

I love and miss you guys already!!!

The Busiest Semester of My Life!

Literally. This semester has been absolutely crazy and the busiest of my life. I am taking 18 credits of classes, working over 15 hours a week, training for another ½ marathon, and trying to keep up on a social life. In a typical week, I spend over 35 hours on homework, 20 hours in class, 10 hours exercising, and 50 hours sleeping (this could possibly be the most important aspect because if I don’t get enough sleep, there is no way I would be able to function in everything else). That does not leave a whole lot of time leftover for everything else in between. I tried to take all the numbers and percentages of hours in a week that I spend doing things and it wasn’t all that impressive to look at. But I’m not a math major, so we’ll chalk it up to bad math skills and the many mistakes I probably made in the process. Anyway, I feel super busy all of the time! However, if there are important priorities to take care of, I DO make sure to take time for them (example: religious stuff, friends, family, etc.).

It’s funny because it has been the trend to have one EXTREMELY busy week and then the next week is SUPER slow. Then, the week after that is extremely busy again. Why is that? Can’t it all just even out? The answer my professors would give me is: NO. Absolutely not. We want to test you and torture you to the point of exhaustion where you can’t think straight and everything we boringly lecture about in class is so muddled in your brain that you can’t sleep at night. Then we will test you on it see how much you can sift out of your mud-clogged-brain, put it all on paper in little dots, and then go out and write a 20 page research paper about it all. But make sure to throw in random terms from the required book that catch our eye and make us think you are smart, so we give you full points on it. I want you to think about my class, and my class only. It is truly the only thing that keeps this world spinning. OH! But we do want you to succeed and learn and do your very very best so we can shake your hand at graduation and send you on your way to pass on the wonderful mud-clogged-knowledge we have given you.

Oh the philosophies of a professor!

ANYWAY, it also seems to be the trend that the more I have to do and the more busy I am, the more productive I seem to be. Why is that? Well, even though life is extremely busy, I still make sure to have tons fun. (After all, this is my very last year of college ever!) But sometimes I have to combine the fun with the work. Here are some of the fruits of my labors. Enjoy my ability to be creative in my advertising classes and still get homework done at the same time!

(FYI: not all of these are copy-write legal. But they were only used for assignments in class, therefore I won't get sued or anything. However, there are a few that have been published as legitimate work! Wahoo!)

Book List

So, as you can see, I have a list of
100 things to do before I die
on my blog.
The other day I was thinking,
why not make a list of 100 books I want to read as well?
I started on this list and got stuck.
Many places online have lists of the Best Books
and I got a lot of ideas from there.
But, I need more!
What are some of your favorite books?

An obession to confess:

I love being a girl and because I love being a girl it is unavoidably innate in me to

love love love shopping.
I am a college student with only a part-time job and this is not a good habit. I keep track of everything that I spend, but this is still not eliminating this wonderful/horrible obsession. As bad as this is, I thought all you bloggers would like to know
my secret to obsessed shopping on a budget:

1. This wonderful website: http://www.freebies2deals.com/ It is seriously amazing. I believe it is done by a lady in the Salt Lake area, but she goes to soooo much work to let us all know where the great deals are! Check it out. It's great!
2. By using the above website, last week I got this necklace online at Forever 21 for $4.50 and free shipping! I am wearing it today and I love it!
3. Also from the above website, I got jeans at JC Penny for only $18.99 after using the code GO4TEN to get $10 off an item over $10. You can also use the code CARING4U to get free shipping on a shopping cart with over $49 worth of items. (I think that promo only goes for a few more days.) And today, I got new leggings for only $4.75 after using the code FORUONLY to get 20% off any clearanced or regular item and SHIPFREE to get free shipping.
   
4. Last week I obtained a coupon for 25% off any item at Bealls from the website http://www.grocerysmarts.com/ . This website password for Utah is g84cjt. I mostly use this website to find all the great grocery shopping deals and print coupons all for free and no registration! I came across the coupon for Bealls and went and hit the store on Saturday. I found a few great things in the clearance racks that were discounted 65%. When I went up to the register, the clearance items were discounted another 20%. Plus, I had my coupon for one item 25% off which made one of my items almost free! Wahoo!
5. Like I mentioned, I use the website http://www.grocerysmarts.com/ to do all my grocery shopping. It takes a little bit of time to go through but I save over $25 a month, at least, on groceries. (Yes, I know, it's kind of weird to be so obsessed with it, but it's kind of a fun game to see how much you can save!)
6. I also use other websites such as http://couponcravings.com/http://www.cellfire.com/deals.php http://shortcuts.com/ to get more coupon savings as well.
   

Clearly, I need some help. But when I find great deals, it's hard to resist. If you have any suggestions (preferably not more great sites or deals to tempt me) to help me curb this habit, please share so my wallet does not end up looking like this by the time I am 21!

In love with the SUN and WATER

When Saturday rolled around, we decided that it was an absolutely beautiful day to take a trip to

Sand Hollow!

Sand Hollow is almost like a mini-Lake Powell. On this wonderful day, I finally got (back) up on a wakeboard again! Wahoo! It has been almost 6 years since I have been up on a wakeboard. All that time inbetween, I would rather save my evergy to waterski--my most favorite thing in the world! Although my wakeboarding adventure only lasted for 5 seconds, it was a pretty comical 5 seconds. But I was up!

This is Darci, my bestest friend, almost wakeboarder, the most amazing sweetheart in the world and a fellow lover of sun and water.

As the sun was setting on the lake, i couldn't resist trying to capture an

incredible moment.

Like usual, these pictures really don't do it justice, but the day was incredibly fun and beautiful!

I am, and always will be, in love with the sun and water!

A Season of Changes

A little bit ago, my calendar on my phone went off. This is what the saved event said:
September 2, 2010: What am I doing 1 year from 9-2-09? I have no recollection of putting this in my phone. Sometime last year I must have had some experience where someone asked what I thought I would be doing one year from that day. I have no idea what I said but after glancing back through papers and my journal, this is what I was doing one year ago:

• I was just starting my first year at Southern Utah University. I was scared out of my mind to be "starting over" again in a brand new city with very few friends.
• Cedar City felt big to me.
  
• I was 19 years old.
• I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.
• I had no job and no source of income other than scholarships.
  
• I had decided to be a communications major with emphasis in Communication Studies and Public Relations.
• I had just moved in to a new apartment with complete strangers who have turned out to be wonderful friends! These are those wonderful girls!

One year from September 2, 2009 (aka: today) seemed like such a long ways away. And yet, this day came so quickly. So many many things have happened in the last year that have changed and shaped me and helped me to grow. It wasn't easy but it was well worth it. However, they were so many wonderful and fun times too!

Today, this is what I'm doing:

• I am starting my senior year as a college student at Southern Utah University.
• I am still a Communications major but changed my emphasis to Communication Studies and Advertising.
• I still have no idea what to do with my life but I am trying to figure it out and look at all my options for after I graduate in May.
• I again moved into a new apartment with all new girls and we are becoming pretty good friends.
• I have an amazing job on SUU campus as an office assistant in the Vice President's Office.
  
• I know what I am doing and where I am going and I don't have to constantly look at a map or ask people to figure out where I'm at.
• I know a ton of people and have tons of friends around here already! (Definite plus!)
• I am now 20 years old. No longer a teenager.
• And life is wonderful!

It is kind of weird to be writing something like this in the fall. Usually these kind of feelings come in January or May. But I love this time of year! I love feeling of change in the air as it starts to get colder and the leaves start to change. Fall is my favorite season! It really is a time for changing and growing and becoming better. It will be great to see where this next year brings me but honestly I have absolutely no idea where that will be! But it is definitely a season in my life for change!
So to all you bloggers out there- what will YOU be doing one year from now?

The joys of rain

Here I sit at work, you would think it any usual school day, but no. Today I visited the wonderful SUU library before going to work and as I walked towards the door to leave, I smelled one of the most amazing smells in the world--RAIN! I absolutely love the rain! The only problem was, when I walked outside it looked like this:

After walking a total of 40 Feet from the Library to the Sharwan Smith Center, where my office is located, I looked like this:

So here I sit at work on this unusual day cuddled up with my wonderful ceramic space heater trying to warm up and dry off before I have to walk home... In the rain... But oh how I love the sound of rain, the smell of rain, the smell after it rains, the rain clouds, and the wonderful storage of water that rain brings. But oh how wish it was not causing me to shake and tremble and have goose bumps and wetting my pant legs up to my knees and making my hair fall flat. Oh the joys of rain!

Not just for married people...

So for a while I have thought that blogs were just for married people. How wrong I was! I keep finding more and more of my friends who have blogs and I finally thought, "Why not? I might not have much time but it might be fun." So here I am, posting my first post and figuring out how to do all this. Maybe eventually (probably sometime while I am at work this week and don't have much homework because all we do in class the first few days is go over the same policies and procedures and all I do is zone out) I will get some pictures up and find more interesting things to blog about. But for all you bloggers out there: I'm finally in with the crew!