Home At Last

Well this week was fantastic! My good friend Jordon returned home from his mission this week and on his way home from Thailand he stopped in Hawaii and I was able to spend some time with him! His dad in the stake president so he was able to release Jordon as a missionary, it was so fun to spend time with them! I feel a little bad because I feel like I was probably the WORST as writing him! But he forgave me :]

We went to the Punch Bowl Veterans Memorial (it is similar to Arlington), we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, which was fun, and so exciting. I was so sad for them because the whole time they were here the weather was really cloudy and rainy, except for thursday afternoon it got nice and sunny so we rushed to the beach and were able to catch some waves while watching so impressive surfing! It was great, the weather was perfect for the beach. I hope they had a really good time because I know I did :]

I forgot how much I missed him! He has changed! His legs grew longer (which I didn't even think was possible), he put on 40 pounds, and he is now able to touch his palms to the ground without bending his knees AND he does that yoga meditation sitting pose where your practically sitting on your feet when you are cross legged! What?!? This is coming from the guy who when we would have game nights refused to sit cross legged because it hurt! It was crazy haha but I am just happy that I was able to spend all of the time with them... even if it means that I have LOADS of make-up work to do ;) hahaha

And So It Begins!

This is going to be a long entry so hunker down, and grab some popcorn before diving into this one. I am going to start with winter break, I LOVED it!! I had so much fun with my family playing poo head, it was great I got to , and I loved seeing my friends!! Lizzy, Austin, Madi, Logan, Collin, and I all got together and did a friend photo-shoot and it was so fun (I'll put some of the pictures up), I love goofing off with them and it was nice to get some new fun and cute pictures to hang up on my bulletin board. I loved eating my mom's cooking! I was DELICIOUS :] I didn't realize how much I loved having someone else do my laundry until I came home haha it was good to catch up with everyone, and give everyone hugs. I think that is one of the things I miss most is being able to give everyone hugs. But all good things must end and I flew back on the 3rd of January.

Ok os here is Winter Semester, I'm not going to lie I HATED my first week. Let's start at the beginning. I was really excited to take this sculpting class this semester, but in conflicted with work, I didn't feel like it was a big deal because it was a lab. Meaning that, the class was was for 2 hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Ok so let's be real, what teacher is honestly going to be talking at the class for 2 hours 3 times a week?? Especially with something so hands on like sculpting. So I went up to my teacher the second day of class and told him that I would have to leave about an hour early everyday because I work. And he looked at me and said "No."... thats it just "no" and I said "well, not working isn't really an option", then he answered "No" and stared at me... (he is obviously not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed). So I just walked out, I didn't know what to do, I had already bought everything for the class and some of it wasn't returnable. I needed that class to fulfill me credit requirement for living in the dorms and I didn't know what I was going to do. I thought my roommate was in class so I had already started crying before I had opened the door. I was just so frustrated about being back at school when I wanted to be home. I loved being home for Christmas Break, and was having a rough adjustment period, and having to drop the sculpting class was just the straw that broke dam that was holding my tears in. I eventually just let everything out and all was well... NOT!! But I did end up signing up for a music class... so I hope that will be fun.

So my roomie and I moved rooms which is good, considering our original room was designed for only one person to reside in it. Well everything was grand we rearranged the furniture in the new room to open up some space and the room looked great. The only down side was that I wasn't used to listening to the goings on of the basket ball court, which now fills my ears every time I walk in my room. And really!?!? WHO PLAYS BASKETBALL AT 6 IN THE MORNING??? because obviously someone does because I hear them and it wakes me up to early and they play into the late night, keeping me awake. As well so it took awhile for me to adjust to the sound so it wouldn't disrupt my sleep. Well just a few days ago I kept waking up with these bumps all over my arms, and my first thought was mosquitos, but they didn't look like mosquito bites to me. So my mind jumped to bed bugs, but I have it on good authority that you can see some of the bed bugs on your mattress if you have them. I inspected my mattress and there was no sign of bed bugs... well then I was stumped until someone mentioned to me that it might be ants.... well as you have previously read, I have already had ant problems and they never bit me. But I decided to check it out anyway and that day when I pulled back my sheets (which are brown) in broad day light, I could see the little ant scuttling away... GROSSSS! I don't know why they were there because I change my sheets every week and I was just so fed up with Hawaii, after taking off my sheets and going on an ant killing spree, I just broke down. I had a god long cry and got ALL of my frustrations out in about an hour. I now have white sheets on my bed and I don't sleep with a blanket because it is brown and I don't want to attract the ants with a camouflage... But I haven't had any ant problems so far, which is good.

Well wednesdays are my extremely busy for me, and usually quite stressful and that is tomorrow, but this week as been SOO much better than last week so I am thinking that tomorrow wont be so bad. I cannot even tell you how wonderful my day was today. I got to go to Book of Mormon and I got to go to my Entrepreneurship Lecture series today, and I love both of those classes and I got out of Physical Science early today so there was just good going all around today! And I think I am going to be able to go to bed early tonight! Such a good day!! Wonderful!!

The Naked Truth

Ok, so this story begins my first week here at college. My mom had come with me to college to get me settled in and to get everything squared away with my elongated bum-crack (my cystectomy; the cyst was on my tailbone). First thing we do is go to the health center to get everything checked out with the doctor. The nurse had come in and done the usual stuff, taking my weight, height, age... then she turns to me and says "take off your pants and the doctor will be with you in a minute". I looked at her and asked "seriously? You want me to just take my pants off before he comes in?"... she looked at me like i was an idiot and said "Yes"... then i turned to my mom, and as i was taking my pants off i said "what a way to meet someone, with your pants off." the nurse didn't seem to think that my witty comment was very witty. She just looked at me and left. When the man comes i recognize him immediately and my head snaps to my mother and announce to the room that the doctor standing in front of me is the second counselor in my bishopric. Not only is he the second counselor but i am sitting on the examination table with my pants off... awesome. He asks if it would be too awkward, and i tell him that it doesn't matter, i already had my pants off anyway, so we are over the worst of it anyway. It turns out he is a really nice guy and it was good to bond with a member of the bishopric even if it was over my bum.

Well now to this week, one of the worst things about living in the dorm is having to share the showers with everyone in our unit AND the unit next to us... it SUCKS. Anyway so the universal sign of an open shower is an open curtain. Unfortunately whenever the cleaning ladies come through they leave all of the shower curtains closed. That is a little awkward because if you come in after they clean you don't know if the shower is empty and freshly cleaned, or if theres is someone in there. Now on to my story. I had just finished my shower and i was drying my hair, when all of the sudden the curtain is pulled back and i hear the most awkward apology i have ever heard in my life. then the curtain is yanked back... now i didn't get a good look at the person who pulled the curtain back but i am like %90 sure that it is my visiting teacher.

So if i continue my education here i'm thinking that one day i'll work up to mooning the president of the college or something!! haha

Badminton Blues

Ok so for the sake of people in this story I will not be using real names. There is a man in my ward and he always says "hi" to me and every time he sees me he asks my name... really how many times do you have to hear "Mari" to remember it. I just feel like whenever he greets he always smiles a little too long. He is an RM (and we all know that the main goal of an RM is to find that one special woman, and I am not quite ready to be that special woman to anyone) So whenever I see him I avert my eyes, so as to avoid eye-contact. But at church eye-contact is, unfortunately, unavoidable. SO today he smiles and says hi, I smile and move on as fast as I can. Then I hear someone running behind me, and you guessed it, it was this guy. So he ask my name and I tell him "Mari" and then he asks me if I like Badminton... BAD NEWS BEARZ! I can already see where this is going because we are in the middle of intramural season, and yes this week the sport happens to be Badminton. So I say, "Sure I like it, I am just really bad at", then he says "it's ok, I want you to be my badminton partner"... are you KIDDING ME?? He didn't even know his name!! So this is really awkward because I really don't want to be his partner, AND even if I did do it I wouldn't want him to get the wrong idea. So I ended up telling him that I didn't have time because I had work and he said "it's ok it's on wednesday" I'm not sure why he thought that the fact that it was on wednesday changed anything... because it didn't. So I told him that because I wasn't going to work this weekend I had to get all of my 19 hours in during the weekdays so I was swamped. Then I just walked away after saying sorry.... I hope that wasn't too rude

Best Weekend... By Far

So this weekend has been pretty much AMAZING!! And it all started with Thursday, my friends and I had tickets to go to the midnight premiere for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and it was AMAZING we went to the Windward Mall in Kaneohe and it was fantastic, I loved the movie. And I think I have fallen in love in Ronald Weasley!! So we went to the movie and left the theater at around 3. We started walking to a Denny's because we thought we were going to have to wait until 5:30 for the bus to start running but it turns out that when we got there, around 3:45, the bus actually starts running at 4:10! Perfect! So we went to the closest gas station and got some hot chocolate and other such items hopped on the bus and headed home. We got back at around 5:30 :] it was soooo fun!!

Well most people would think that staying out till 5 would be a bad idea on a weeknight but not for me because all of my classes for that day had been canceled! Fantastic!!!! So I was able to sleep in and get some home work done, it was amazing! Well that night my friend was able to get us tickets to the Night Show at the PCC, for only 10 dollars which is amazing AND the prophet was going to be there because of the temple dedication. I was awesome, the night show is always great and it was a really neat opportunity to be able to see the prophet. I got to snap a picture, he looked so cute in his Hawaiian shirt and lei. He is such a happy man.

So saturday rolls around that the weather is superb so some of my friends and I decided to go lay out on the beach and take a nap. It felt so good to lay by the ocean, because the weather here had been kind of crummy. Well half way through my roommate and I decided to go play in the ocean, it was my FIRST TIME swimming in the ocean here. And it was so fun!! I loved it! I want to go again and again! And I got some good rays, so I will be nice and dark when I come home for Christmas (just kidding I don't think it is possible for me to get truly dark haha). Then we went to the Cultural Celebration broadcast, it was very nice. And to finish a great night off we watched Pride and Prejudice... love that movie!

So then today I was able to go to the Laie Hawaii Temple Re-Dedication. It was amazing, at first I was super irritated because the chick next to me kept snapping her gum (when i was just typing that I accidentally spelled bum... then i imagined how funny it would be if someone was snapping their bum.... especially at a church function). But I prayed that I would be able to concentrate and have the spirit, and then by the end I could even hear it anymore. That could be because she stopped or I just couldn't hear it, I don't know which one. But either way it was an answer to my prayer. I am so glad to have the temple opened here, it is going to be amazing to be able to go inside now that it has been re-dedicated. There was such a great spirit there, I love the temple. I am so excited to go inside when I have more than a limited-use!!!

No Ifs, Ants, Or Butts About It!

Ok so I am going to start this off by saying that this week has been HORRIBLE!! So many bad things have happened, but don't worry I haven't lost hope yet! Now from the beginning on Monday, I woke up a 6 in the morning to go running, which wasn't that bad but half way through the run I lost my hear-bud cover. Then both my roommate and I left our keys in the room when we went to our first classes, leaving us stranded and locked out, and the RA's were nowhere to be found...awesome. So I started crying, which was totally embarrassing because I broke down in the middle of the court yard and I couldn't get into my room. Anyway the rest of the week was lame, and just upsetting.

Yesterday I had noticed a few ants coming in through the bottom corner of my window. After smashing what seemed to me like 50 ants I became frustrated and grabbed my stain remover (the only semi-lethal chemical I had in my room) and sprayed them... that only worked for a few minutes before they came back. But by that time my friend had come to the rescue with a large canister of RAID, bless her soul!! And so I sprayed the crap out of the bottom of my window. Then for some reason I can't remember I lifted my curtain and behind it, in the space of 1 foot (from the top corner of my window, to my cork board) there were about 50 ants marching back and forth! This is extra irritating because my roommate and I make a point of not eating in our room for this exact reason... anyway so I decided to check out the cork board because that is where they looked like they were going, and when I peeled back the corner there was a whole any colony behind it!! I freaked out (obviously) and I took down EVERY single picture on my cork board and took the cloth down and RAIDED the entire thing to kill the ants. Needless to say I was extremely upset... and just like I have been doing all week when I have become up set I started to cry... LAME!!

Now on to the butt of the matter. Today I was running late to an interview I had with the Bishop to get my temple recommend in order to go to the re-dedication. So when my roommate (who was coming with me) and I walked out of the cafeteria from lunch it was pouring rain outside. We decided to run from shelter to shelter so that we could remain as dry as possible, well we had reached the end of our current shelter and we had to run across a brick courtyard that is in front of the library. I slip of my sandals so the wouldn't make me slip and we start tearing across this courtyard and everything is fine and I am flying well once I hit the side walk I immediately remember something about the side walks here at BYUH. They are probably one of the MOST slippery surfaces on the planet and they are 10x worse when it is rainy and wet. Needless to say my feet start sliding and then the slide out from under me completely and I slam into the ground but not unlike the curling stones in the Olympics I continue to slide. In total I spend 10 seconds sliding on my butt. My roommate is right behind me and she is laughing her head off (as well she should have because I imagine that I looked quite funny, due to the fact that I was wearing a skirt that was no longer doing its job of covering my legs and had decided that my top half needed a bit more covering, leaving my undies out for everyone to see). We had a good laugh and I ended up making it to the appointment on time, which is good! And I am so excited to be able to go to the rededication!!

Home Sick Sundays

I have made the decision that Sundays are the hardest day for me. It could be that I miss my home ward and the feeling of familiarity, or it could be that the cafeteria is PACKED on sundays and there is NOWHERE to sit! Seriously, my roommate and I had search around for 10 minutes just to find a seat, and even when we did get a seat the food wasn't great (not that I was expecting too much from the cafeteria). I just miss being able to come home and know that you have a place to eat and delicious dinner. And I miss sitting down for a family dinner where we are all laughing so hard we start crying.

I think that I am so homesick on Sunday is because this is the only day that I'm not busy so I have down time to think about home. But no need to worry, even though I do get homesick I am enjoying my time out here, and I am glad that I decided to come here.