Latin Dance Competition (finally posted!!!)

The other day (now long past - like almost a month) I competed in a latin dance competition for my dance class - the rumba! We danced against all the other couples in the 185 level of dance. I was very excited for it, besides the thrill of competing, got to wear my crazy leopard print shirt from Europe, have two of my besties there cheering for me, and I got to dance with Johnny Freshman. Ok, so his name is Johnny Wilson, but I didn't know his last name for a long time, and he's definitely a freshman, so it just stuck. And no, he doesn't know I call him that. He's a great dancer. (As a side note, he also placed 2nd in the standard waltz competition which took place alternating rounds with our competition!)
As we kept making call back after call back, I got more and more excited! In the end, we placed 5th, out of more than 150 couples! It was awesome! Because my lovely friend April was there cheering for me, we have video coverage of the event! Except that i've tried uploading SOOO many times, and it never works. Even after waiting 12 hours. So i'll just post another picture instead.

poor lappy...

Right now i'm on a campus computer avoiding homework, so i thought i'd just put a quick disclaimer up, that my computer is drained of all juice and incapable of charging until my new ac-adapter comes (hopefully sometime this week). Once it comes, however, i have many pictures to download and i'll have a new and exciting blog post. In the mean time I'll just say it's been a fun two weeks mostly full of dancing, and hanging out with my friends April, Erilyn, and their roommates. :)

Flowers, flowers everywhere!

As part of my wonderful major, I'm taking a class called Herbaceous Plants. My friend April so kindly told me that this sounds like a class from Hogwarts, not BYU. Though it may seem friendly and unassuming, this class has been very difficult and demanding on my time, largely due to the fact that I have to memorize 25 plants a week, by sight, common name, scientific genus-species name (and cultivar, if applicable) and family. And then there's a quiz on it. I didn't do so hot on the first quiz, because I wasn't expecting it to be quite so rigourous. 38/50 - one of the higher scores in the class. This week though, I've been most dedicated in my learning of these plants (summer perennials this time). I visited the gardens at BYU where the plants are labelled, and searched for the plants on my list.

Then I took pictures, made flash cards, took another tour of the gardens, etc. (i'm very proud of my flashcards, and we use them at work to study, since three of us are in that class).

So not only can I tell you that yarrow and shasta daisies are in the same family, I can also now tell you what the floret pattern of the Scrophulariaceae family is, and that catmint and sage are more closely related to lavender (all in family Lamiaceae) than sea lavender is (family Plumbaginaceae).

Also, I just have to add that I love my new camera and its macrozoom settings which allow me to take awesome pictures of flowers. yay!

Dianthus - Dianthus (these are the best kind, when common and scientific names are the same!), family Caryophyllaceae

Echinacea purpurea - Coneflower, family AsteraceaeGaillardia aristata - Blanket flower, family Asteraceae

Beauty is Pain, darling!

On Tuesday (Sept 15) I bought new ballroom dance shoes! Specifically, Latin ballroom dance shoes. I love them - they're so beautiful! I can tell they will definitely help improve my dancing, but first I have to break them in.

They are a solid three sizes smaller than my previous shoes,

which I purchased on too little information off the internet. My old ones have been adequate for my purposes until now, but since I'm taking a Latin ballroom dance class now, I need shoes that fit correctly. A correct fit for a ballroom shoe is very, very snug. The shoe should be one with your foot! You can see in this picture that my new shoe fits this qualification, while the old one fails miserably. So now I just get to suffer throught tightness and stiffness and blisters until these shoes are broken in. Fun times!

Is it Fall yet???

This year I'm unreasonably excited for the fall season. The other day I was walking through campus when I looked up to the mountains - Red! The leaves are starting to change colors up in the mountains! I especially miss Cache Valley this time of year for the changing colors, Sardine Canyon in particular, but Provo is not too shabby.

For the past month, Melinda and I have been looking wistfully at our long sleeve shirts and our cozy sweaters, wondering when we would be able to justify wearing them. Today walking to church it was cloudy and a bit chilly, and Melinda said, "Hey Jessica, if it's like this after church, we can wear sweaters today!" So guess what we did as soon as we got home from church? That's right. Sweater time. We were so excited by the event that we had to take pictures even. Granted that it's still above 70 degrees outside (which weatherbug reading I'm quite skeptical about, but then, I haven't been outside), but nonetheless!

Some of the reasons I'm so excited for fall:

• Sweaters, hoodies, scarfs, and jackets
• Trees changing colors
• Drinking hot chocolate
• Eating soup, and other hot dishes
• Having a real quilt on my bed
• Not sweating so much at work
• The smell of fall
• The fact that I don't have to rake up leaves
• Football games
• Weather (just, in general, not just hot and nothing else)
• other reasons i'm unable to articulate

As summer ends...

I start school next week, so now is the time to contemplate on what an amazing summer this has been. It's had its lows and its highs, busy times and boring times, extreme heat and relative coldness, but taken all together, it's been one of the best summers I can remember.

In May I went to Seattle for Camp Jitterbug, where my car was broken into. That was definitely a first. Luckily, thanks to great friends who take care of me, it turned out not to be too much of a traumatic issue, just a learning experience.

June was spent in Europe with Tina, the family, and the Smiths.

Third time in Europe, still love it. I'd have to say that the Alps were my favorite, particularly Switzerland. I loved being able to spend time with my family (including Tina!) and the Smiths.

July I mostly remember for Alyna moving home, getting to hang out with Mom, and for the 24th of July camp out experience. Such a party will not soon be forgotten!

August was our Las Vegas adventure, mostly appreciated for the road trip part, and hanging out in South Jordan.

Also, I had a Relief Society camp out and a Ward camp out, both very fun and chilly. It's been years since i went boating, but it was very fun. Mailee's wedding and hanging out with Aunt Kara, Aunt Leanne, and Shelli were exciting highlights.

Whenever I was not traveling, I was in Provo working 8 hours a day. I still love my job on BYU Grounds, tree crew. I got to be good friends with a lot of my fellow crew members.

On Thursdays, some Fridays, and Saturdays I went swing dancing, either in Provo or Salt Lake. After work, I'd hang out with Melinda, or read a book, take a nap, or watch a movie. Generally just hang out.

As fun as this summer has been, I think I'm ready to move on and get into fall semester. I'm excited to meet new people and learn new things. Well, most new things. Not quite excited for Business Finance 300. or Organizational Effectiveness. but the rest of it, yeah! I have lots of goals for this school year, and one of them is to update my blog at least once a week, so stay posted!!!

Summertime!

Sorry I've been a blogging slacker. I really have no excuse since I have plenty of time, and plenty of adventures. I'll try to do better in the future.

This has been an incredible summer. If I could imagine a perfect summer, it would include: being busy most of the time (aka, work), hang out time, friends, family, road trip, swimming, reading, dancing, making new friends, and tan lines. To let ya'll imagine how awesome my life is, I'll give an example of a typical summer day.

5:15 am- wake up and get ready for work

6:00 am-2:30 pm - work: climb trees, learn how to use the chain saw, go on donut runs to the Provo Bakery (occasionally: toasted coconut donuts are amazing!), talk with my co-workers, get tan and dirty, etc.

3:00 pm - go swimming/sun bathe.

4:00 pm - take a shower

4:30 pm - read a book, talk with Melinda and Jerin, or facebook.

6:00 pm - run errands like grocery store or Provo City Library

Evening - FHE on Monday, Dessert Night or Social Dance Club on Tuesday, relax on Wednesday, Blues dance on Thursday, Salt Lake swing dance on Friday, and Swing dance @ BYU on Saturday.

Go to bed early if possible.

Yeah, it's wonderful, especially once you add things like hanging out with Lisa and Cameron or Mailee, ward activities, vacations to Europe or Seattle, and random other activities.

Things I wish I could change about the summer: more variation/better food (mine tends to be the same or non-existant), family nearby for 4th of July, more hiking, camping, etc. That's about all. It's great. Oh, and air conditioning might be nice, too. :)

Ballet?

This morning was an interesting experience.  I decided to go to Ballet Club with Melinda.  I was kind of apprehensive about this, since the dancing I'm used to - ballroom and swing - uses completely different body and posture forms.  And I haven't done ballet before.  Melinda let me borrow a leotard (which was in itself weird, because ballet leos have no sparkles, no sequins, nothing flashy like the gymnastics leotards I'm used to) and ballet flats.  I figured if I'm going to be doing a gymnastics class this fall, my dance element needs a lot of help first.  It was fun.  In a 'I have no idea what I'm doing and everyone can tell' sort of way.  I actually only did the bar part, not center floor.  I was hopelessly lost during the combinations and some of the skills.  It didn't help that it's the last day of club for the semester, so there were people there preparing for their finals.  Hopefully if I keep going throughout the summer, I'll be a little more capable when it comes time for me to dance on the high beam, or on the floor.  

 (PS - I found out the the BYU gymnastics gym has a power trampoline - yay!!!)

Warmth on a Cold Day

So this week has been cold, wet, and yucky.  Today was particularly strong in all three of the said adjectives.  I was going to just do some training at work (aka, watch arboriculture cds), but they wouldn't play on my laptop.  So I went home about five hours early.  I decided to make myself a cup of hot chocolate.  It ended up being a masterpiece of heavenly flavor!

Hot chocolate (made with milk, not water; Swiss Miss w/marshmallows), whipped cream, and chocolate shavings.  Pretty much perfect.  

Tree Climbing Pictures

The other day I had Michelle (the other girl on the crew) take pictures of me climbing the practice tree.  So now i'll post some. :)

Swing Performance!

This afternoon was my first time performing with our team. We were nice and public, in the main courtyardish area outside the Wilkinson Student Center. It turned out that of the five couple on our team, we only had 2 that could perform - me & Lars, and Adam & Holly (who don't normally dance together). So that turned out kinda crappy, but for a first, it wasn't too bad. Here's the vids:

That's the other team, coached by Scott. I thought they did awesome.

Here's us:

Perfect Day

Since yesterday was wonderfully perfect, I must write about it, and explain why I call it perfect.  

First of all, I got to sleep in.  Until almost 10!  I haven't slept in that late in...a couple of weeks, at least.  Then our ward breakfast was cancelled, so Mindy and I made a big breakfast of hash browns, eggs, sausage, and toast.  It was delicious!  

Jerin came over, and we decided to go on a hike.  (Mindy and Kayla had both left for the weekend, at this point).  We drove up Provo canyon, stopped at Bridal Veil Falls, because I've 

never seen it, and then drove up past Sundance.  There was still too much snow to hike

 anywhere up there, but we had fun driving on the curvy mountain road, and got out and took some fun pictures.  Then we drove back down the canyon and went over to Rock Canyon.  We hiked up the trail a ways, but on our way back, we had a fun adventure hiking on the stream bed.  We did some scree jumping - jumping from boulder to boulder - and climbed over or under big fallen logs, etc.  After that awesome fun adventure, we had a picnic at the fields near Wyview [where we live] and threw a frisbee around.  The weather was so beautifully nice - around 60 degrees, and sunny, hardly any breeze - that we tried to be outside as long as we possibly could.  

 

Then I went to IFA to buy some gloves for tree climbing (success!) and did some homework (not 

as successful!)  Then Jerin came over and we ate some Banana Cream pie to celebrate Pi day!  It was delicious.  

And last, but not least, swing dancing!  I got there around 7, when the lessons start.  They taught us the Shim Sham, which is a sweet line dance created by Frankie Manning (who pretty much originated swing).  We practiced our team routine a bit too, since we'll be performing it on Tuesday (i'll try to get someone to video it).  Fun dancing, plus, Em Hardman showed up!  It was so much fun to hang out with her and Jessame Peterson.  

All in all, it was a wonderful, glorious, perfect day.  Being outside with such great weather, plus swing dancing to finish it off - what more could i ask for?!

Update and Outlook

It's been a while since I've posted anything here.  I figure the most significant thing during the interim was Andrew and Lindsay's wedding, and as a family have posted about 4 albums on Facebook, so I won't go over that now.  Suficeth to say, it was awesome.  I'm so excited to have a new sister!  Although the recepetion was ridiculously crowded, it was much fun to see people I knew but haven't seen in a long time (Aunt Kara, Mary Kirby, Kelsey Hahne, and everyone else).  One of my favorite parts was the awkward family pictures.  

Since then, I've gotten back into school, work, and dance.  Everything seems to be going fine, except the weather.   We had 60 degree weather for a couple of days, but then it snowed an

d pushed us back into the 20s and 30s. Brr.  I really just want it to be warm for good.  There are only about 6 weeks of this semester left.  It's gone by so fast! I'm so excited for this summer!  I've got such plans...

April - Finish with Finals (April 22).  Hike Mt. Timpanogas (probably April 24).  Mindy and I will move to our new apartment April 25.  Visit home for Lisa's wedding and stuff.

May - Finish Lisa's wedding and whatever other family stuff.  Work full time on the tree crew.  Run. Dance. Hike.  Go to a Swing Dance Camp in Seattle (May 28-30). (http://www.campjitterbug.com/)

June - Go to Europe with my Tina Sister and hang out with my family and the Smiths. 

 Work on the tree crew. Run. Dance. Hike. 

July - Work on the tree crew. Run. Dance. Hike.  Celebrate Alyna's homecoming.

July/August - Fly to Tennessee to visit roommate Kayla, and Mindy & Jeran, and Aunt Kara.  I don't know when, yet.

August - Work on the tree crew.  Run. Dance. Hike.

Sounds fun, ya?  I'm really excited for it all... :)

Harlem Nights

HARLEM NIGHTS SWING DANCING!

This weekend was awesome!!!  I got to go up to Logan to Harlem Nights, a big swing...convention...thing.  There was a Friday dance, and Friday Late Night Dance, Saturday Workshops, a dance, and a late night dance.  I learned a lot, met many fun new people, and had a ton of fun dancing.  I rode up with my friend from Swing Team, Derek, and his friend, Chani.  Chani and I had so much fun hanging out, and became great friends! 

  

I think my favorite part was the Friday Late Night dance, at Club NY.  I've never been to a dance club before, so that was sweet.  I loved meeting new people and trying to figure out what the guys were trying to lead (that often didn't work so well for me).  I did

 not like dancing with guys who didn't know how to dance.  That was uncomfortable and happened far too often.   

I didn't have my camera with me, so I didn't get many pictures, but thanks to cell phone camera capabilities, I did get a few.  This one is me and Chani with our new friend, Grant.  He was so much fun to dance with!

I might post more pictures and/or videos once other people have posted them on facebook.  

 My other favorite part of the weekend was watching the competitions and performances.  There were sweet moves - air steps (lifts and flips and stuff), and styling moves.  If I can find a good video of the intermediate or advanced competition, I'll post them so you all can see how cool swing dancing can be!  

I don't really know what else to talk about, so if you want to know more about something, let me know, and I'll discuss it in my follow-up blog (once I actually have some pictures).  

"Life is too short to wear shoes you can't dance in." 

My favorite little sister

Today's blog is dedicated to my favorite little sister.  Tina.   No, wait.   Alyna.  Yeah, that's right.  Alyna is my favorite little sister.  We have such great times together through the years.  Pretty much, we can always make each other laugh.  Here are just some of the ways we've entertained ourselves:

• Quoting. We quote books, movies, Psych . . . anything.  
• Playing random games - the alphabetical big word game, or guess the book character, 
• Write quotes on the whiteboard outside our rooms.
• Mime/sing/act songs with duct tape over our mouths, or by glueing our lips shut with a glue stick.
• Draw a face on my forehead.
• Reinact that scene from Mr. Bean's Holiday where the kid blows the handkerchief off his face.  Repeat like, twenty times.
• Laugh at everything at 3am.
• Talk.
• Watch Disney Channel
• Make up songs - the Presidents (Eisenhower through Bush), Vultures We Have Seen on High
• Sing songs really loudly and badly - You Are My Brother, 
• Try to use quotes from Psych in everyday conversation.
  
• Take much pictures of ourselves.
• Read.
• Send Facebook Flair to each other.
• Have song wars - each person sings a different song really loudly, and the first person to stop singing their song loses.
• Dance in the rain.
• Do anything random.  Especially late at night.
• Make up Yoga line dances.
• Alyna jumping into my arms. 
• Scare each other.
• Handclappy game.
• Collect cows.
• Sign language talking during church.
• Make faces at the little kids at church.
• Watch movies, commenting loudly on random trivia.
• Help our siblings and cousins make big piles of ourselves on couches and/or chairs.
• Hang out on the roof of our house.
• Try on prom dresses.
• And probably more...

Needless to say, we've had a lot of good times together.  Also, it really explains, or illustrates our motto: "Blessed are the easily amused, for they shall be amused." 

A short weekend in Cache Valley!

Last weekend my roommates and I took a trip up to Cache Valley.  It was Mindy, Kayla, and I (the three roommates), and April (Oh She Who Lives In Heritage Halls).  After a leisurely morning of test taking and studying, plus I went to the bridal fair with Lisa - which, for the record, was quite fun - we left around 2pm.   Naturally, the car ride was very entertaining, with no actual homework being done, despite the good intentions and plans.  After dropping off April and Mindy at their houses, Kayla and I went to the frat house so I could say hi to Andrew.  Turns out, we came right during the burial services.  It was rather snowy and muddy, so we didn't go to the graveside, but we paid our respects from the porch.  Poor Buddy.  Then we went to Grandma's.  Kayla and I studiously pulled out our homework and promptly fell asleep until shortly before our planned party.  

The party was the girls at Mindy's house.  Being us, we partied by talking a lot.  Then Sam called, so we went over to Villarreal's, where we proceeded to talk some more.  Mindy, Kayla, and I claimed the corner of the couch, ate lots of popcorn, and talked.  There was a point (ok, a long time) where we were half asleep, but someone would start singing, "The sun'll come out, Tomorrow! Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow..."  I decided that we probably seemed pretty drunk.  Too bad we didn't get a picture or a video of that.   Mindy and Kayla and I all stayed at Grandma Briscoe's that night.  In the same room.  And all slept on the queen sized bed.  It made me think of Andrew's story about sleeping on the same queen bed as Garrett, with five feet and a wall of pillows inbetween them.  Quite a difference. 

Sunday we went to Sam's farewell, where he gave a wonderful talk and was supported by many girls, and not so many boys.  I was so happy to see my Tina sister!  It made us think about how soon our Alyna sister will be here!!!  After post-church naps, we went to Villarreals for lunch and talking, then around headed back to Provo around 5:30.  We stopped shortly at Grandma and Grandpa Hatch's, and got back to Provo around 8 after driving through a couple of hours of rain.  

All in all, a great weekend.  I really didn't get much homework done, but other than that, it was a good use of time, visiting with friends and family, and hanging out with roommates!

Summer

As a P.S., I should probably mention that I found out about the study abroad program. Finally.  It's a "No".  Kinda disappointed.  But I guess this means that I'll have more time to hike and make money and whatnot. I'm also wanting to go visit Kayla in Tennessee, since I suddenly don't have something huge I'm saving for.  July, maybe?  

Climbing!

This is probably the most exciting part of my life right now.  I've started climbing trees for work!  I first climbed (with gear and all that) last Friday, but quite frankly, I was terrible.  On Tuesday I just watched some of the guys climb while I was cleaning up.  I learned at lot by watching them, so by Thursday I was ready to try again.  I did much better.  Here's a picture of the sycamore I did all by myself.

I was up at the very top, at the crown.  It was Sweet!  Plus, I'm really a fan of the hand-saw leg sheath.  I think it's awesome looking.  And then today, I also climbed a sycamore.  I was up in the crown again, and I looked over at the nearest building and saw that I was higher up than the roof of the three story building.  Is that awesome or what!?!  Of course, they made me get out of the tree before I was done, because it was raining.  Apparently sycamores get really slippery and there are other safety hazards or whatnot.  Still, it was awesome. I was tree-climbing for over 5 hours this week!

Provo Winter

My only fun news for this weekend was Kayla and I went to Thoroughly Modern Millie on stage at the Fine Arts Center.  I've only seen the movie before, so I loved all the differences in the play.  There were a bunch of new songs, and a lot of the characters had a lot different personalities.  My favorite difference, hands down, was that one of the Chinese guys falls in love with Miss Dorothy, and saves her from Mrs. Meers, and she ends up with him instead of Mr. Graydon.  I had a lot of fun listening to the music and imagining dancing swing to it.  Awesome!

These are some pictures I've taken of our winter.  

These are the stairs going up to campus from the RB building (that's the building with all the dance studios and the swimming pools and stuff).  These are some of the stairs I used to have to shovel, with my old crew. That's a LOT of stairs.  Now every time I walk up them, I have a great appreciation for the fact that there's not snow on them.  
We had a really funky rain/snow/ice storm the other week that left snow iced onto every surface like tree branches and power lines.  I thought it looked really cool, so I took pictures.

Swingin' Good Time

I'm sure everyone's heard, but I just thought I'd blog the fact that I'm now on the BYU Swing Dance Team!   I tried out a week ago, and found out the results on Tuesday.  As you can imagine, I'm SUPER excited about it.  On Tuesday when I found out, I was bouncing up and down and had this ridiculously huge smile on my face all night.   

I'm not exactly sure what team does, though.  I know I have team practice Tuesday and Thrusday nights, and there is a dance every Saturday night.  I think that we do both competitions and performances, but I really don't know.  I guess I'll find out sometime, right?  As it is, I'm looking forward to improving my swing dancing a LOT. 

As a kind of related, kind of not, topic, I've started exercising a lot more this week.  While watching two hours of training videos for the Tree Crew, I realized that I'm going to need a lot more arm and core muscle than I currently have.  Also, my roommate Kayla is talking about her eating/exercise diet, and that's helped motivate me as well.   Lisa and I went to water aerobics last night at the Provo City Rec Center, and it was so much fun!  In a painful, muscle-fatiguing sort of way.  So I think I'll be doing Water Aerobics Monday and Wednesday nights, Swing Dance Tuesday and Thursday nights, and some combnation of them and/or other activities on Saturdays.  It'll be so good for me!  And don't we all just love the feel of sore muscles?  I'm just excited for spring when I can do more out of doors! 

Day of Happiness

Today I've been very happy at many little things.  It rained this morning! I got to use my cute plaid umbrella for the first time.  My French test was easy.  In French class, we watched part of the movie that my entire UofU 1010/1020 course was based on.  It brought back some fun memories.  It was such nice weather at work!  I was working in my t-shirt, and normal leather gloves instead of my insulated ones.  I actually got to work on some trees today, which was exciting, since I really didn't know what I was doing, and no one else was there for the first half hour.  I texted Lindsay all during work, which made things so much better.  I walked home barefoot!  This was amazingly happy.  It was such beautiful 45 or higher degree weather, with sun and everything.  And it's Friday!  I get to watch movies tonight with Jerin (she got her wisdom teeth out today).  Over all, just a great, happy day!

And this is me at work.  I wear my sunglasses the whole time - eye protection, you know. 

Ok, I need some feedback.  Do you guys like my short posts, or should I save it for when I actually have something to write?

Moving on!

I just had to post a short blog about the new happiness in my life.  We, the Tree Crew of BYU, have finished taking down Christmas lights!!!!  That's all I've done since I transferred crews, so I'm pretty excited to be moving on.  We even did a couple of hours of pruning today.  I'm just so excited to be trained for tree climbing and bucket riding and chain sawing.  Real tree stuff.  I also just had to love the Danger! sign on our trailer.  I love the weird, random signs like this.

What a day!

    Today has been a long, busy, rather productive sort of day.  I realized last night that I had utterly failed to use the holiday to do homework, and that I had a ton to do today.  Yay for me, I managed to get done everything that I needed to!  Mostly because I only went to work for one hour instead of 3 or 4 like i normally would on Tuesdays.  

    Tonight was Swing Club!...and Swing Team try outs!  It was really fun!  I was a bit nervous, just because I'm not very experienced.  We did handstands against the wall (one of the lifts involves the girls doing handstands), which I rocked at - yay tumbling and gymnastics!  I didn't do so hot on the jazz choreographied part, but not terrible.  Then we did partner dancing, with switching partners every couple of minutes (which was good, since there were a lot more girls than guys).  I've never done blues swing before, but I did ok, even if it was awkwardly NO personal bubble.  And a lift, which turned out pretty well.  After the jazz circle (think, people showing off at a stake dance, in the big circle...yeah. like that), which i went into once.  I did a round-off back-handspring, just to see if I could.  I could, if i did a step out.  I think that earned me points.  All in all, pretty good, I think.  I'll know if I made the team on Saturday night or Monday sometime.  I'll let you know!

    Also, just as a side note, I was a sadly unpatriotic person today.  I didn't watch any of the inaugeration.  In my defense, I was on campus for about 14 hours.  I'll watch some coverage of it sometime. :)

En Francaise!

Today was pretty happy.  I went to the French speaking lab, which is pretty much just practicing speaking one on one with a native French speaker.  The happy part is that I actually felt pretty good about it - I could explain things like my parents and little sister living in Holland, both my brother and my sister are getting married, and I'm studying landscaping.  Sometimes I couldn't exactly tell what she said, but I understood the gist of the questions, which was a good thing.  I'm improving!

   Work today was pretty good.  It wasn't too cold, maybe in the forties when you were in the sun (Which I made sure I was, all the time!).  We got a lot of trees done, with all the lights off them.  It helps when we actually have the truck with the hydraulic lift bucket.  So maybe on Tuesday we'll be doing something else!  I was up in a ladder unwrapping lights off branches for most of the four hours, which is a big improvement than standing in the snow and wrapping the lights up, like I mostly have been.  It's interesting at work, because there's a broad spectrum of work ethics in this crew.  There's some people that work hard and don't goof off, look for stuff to do, etc.  And then there're some people who do a lot of standing around or driving the van around.  Of course, when they do work, they get a lot done, but that's kinda beside the point.  I'm definitely trying hard to be one of the hard working ones, mostly because then it's not so boring or cold.  We didn't have that much of a range in my last crew.  So, yeah, work's going pretty well so far.   

      And now it's the weekend!!!

Short and sweet!

   I think, from now on, I'm going to write little shorter blogs more often.  That way I can write when i don't have something monumental to say.   

    Last Saturday I went to a Wyview "Dance through the Decades" Dance.  It was kinda fun, but mostly I really liked my outfit.  It was that dress I found at the DI when I went with Mindy Hall after Christmas.  I don't know what decade I was dressed as though.

    For work this past week, I've been working with my new crew.  It's an interesting collection of individuals.  I think pretty much everyone on the crew is a Landscape Management major, and most of them are emphasizing on Arboriculture.   I was a little scared of some of the crew members at first, but I think it will be a fun crew to be on.  I even got to be up in a tree the other day.  We're taking down Christmas lights right now, which is a pain, because 1) it's really cold, and 2) the lights are done Temple Square style, which means there's about thirty strands to a medium sized tree (medium is about a foot diameter trunk).   It'll take forever!

Blessed are the easily amused...

I have finished my first week of the semester (14-ish left!).  Now that I've been to each of my classes at least once, except the one I missed on Tuesday evening (oops!), I kind of have a feeling for what this semester will be like.  And I'm excited for it.  As a general forecast, I'm going to predict an increase in socializing and exercise, with a chance of a lot of early mornings.

Honors Book of Mormon - I'm thinking I'll really learn a lot in this class. It's a much larger and interactive class than my BofM class last semester (not that it's too surprising, since that one was at 7am, and now it's at 9am).  Prof. Williams told us to be sure and bring our Books of Mormon to class.  I had to struggle with an internal giggle about "BookS of Mormon."  The good - I'll be learning more about the Book of Mormon and we get to sing a hymn to start the class.  The bad - I don't have any friends in that class. Yet. 

 

French 201 - It looks easier than last semester's 102.  Maybe because we're just going into depth on things I have already learned twice.  The good - really nice girls in my class; the bad - no boys at all in my class.  Except the 24 year old RM teaching us.  

Introduction to Soil Science - Kind of boring, because the professor lectures without much class interaction, but I find the subject not too bad, so that helps.  The good - a lot of people from my Living with Plants class plus new people like Jessica, and Zach. The bad - I'm going to be falling asleep a lot in this class.  I can tell.

Intro to Soils Lab - The professor and TA are really funny and helpful.  It will be fun.  The good - I'll probably do the labs with a girl who was in my Living with Plants class.  I hadn't really talked to her until the Lab on Wednesdy, but I can tell she'll be fun.  The bad - the professor told us to expect to be there the full three hours every week.

Accounting 200 - The one class I'm not looking forward to.  The good - I don't have to go to this 8am class very often, and Heidi from work is in the class with me.  The bad - the professor, even in his media presentations, talks forever about a lot of trivial stuff.  

Residential Landscape Design - I'm worried i'm not artistic or creative enough for this class.  Also, I missed the first day of class, and I have an assignment due this week.  Stupid TA didn't show up to help me. :(  The good - this class will help determine whether or not I actually want to do design.  The bad - it's on the very farthest side of campus, down the big hill. 

And work.  But since I'm transfering crews tomorrow, I'll wait to talk about that.

Snow, snow, snow!

My opening days at BYU in 2009 have been covered with a snowy white blanket.  As much as I have thus far enjoyed my classes this semester (it looks like it will be pretty fun), I would say that the snow is much more memorable.   It started snowing pretty heavily Monday afternoon, at which point I was happily not called into work, because I hadn't yet contacted my new foreman, Max.  By Monday evening, I figured I really probably ought to help my crew and get some work hours in.  I learned via text messages that our crew (the pruning crew) was meeting at 2 am Tuesday morning!  yikes!  So I went to bed right away.  

    Despite the earliness, I enjoyed the first four hours of snow removal.  We work on the stairs, so I got a very good leg and arm workout.  I was in a very interesting mood, laughing at everything.  Sometimes I would just think of something random, and start laughing.  Like Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  One of my favorites was when Sam Braden asked Dave, "Can you turn the rear heater from "hot as Hell" to "burning sun"?" It was hilarious.  I also enjoyed knocking snow off the branches overhead onto my friend Heidi.  Heidi told me that of the last 20 hours, she's been shovelling snow for 11 of them!  It's crazy here!  

  I'm planning on taking a nap before my 4 o'clock class, and to go to bed early so I can repeat this funness tomorrow morning.  Yay.