Steak And Cake no More

Today is a sad sad day. Today is the day that i have to cut both Meat AND sugar from my diet. For my chronic disease prevention class he's having us go on a vegetarian + no sugar diet for 4 weeks to see how it affects things like our blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, ect. I am a meat and sugar kind of girl so this is going to be rough. At least i don't have to turn vegan, i don't think i could do it. Today was my first day and all i had to eat was a yogurt, a PB&J (with sugarless jam) and squash raviolis. That's like half of my normal daily intake of food. So over the next 4 weeks i am going to wither away to nothing and end up being really healthy i guess in the process. Since I'm doing the whole vegetarian thing i decided to research it a bit and here are some interesting facts i found that might just want to make you turn vegetarian yourself:

Being a vegetarian would alleviate human starvation and in return there would be an increase in growth of wild animals without additonal sufferings on humans or any other animals.

More than 7 billion animals die yearly for human consumption.

In the egg industry, male chicks are considered useless so are often thrown into a grinding machine- ALIVE!

For each quarter-pound fast food hamburger sold that came from cattle raised on former rainforest land, 55 square feet of rainforest was destroyed.

And my personal favorite...

Animals are able to feel pain just as we can!

Immaculate conception??

So today I had to be on campus at 10 to be trained in how to do carotid artery scans (which is way cool and anyone living in Utah i need volunteers to practice on) and then at 12 i had a basketball game. So i brought a change of clothes with me in my bag so i could change after training for my game. so I change and i go out to my car to stick my clothes in my car and then i start to head back in so i can play my game and i feel water start running down my leg. And lo and behold, the first thought that pops into my mind is, "OH MY GOSH, MY WATER BROKE!" But oh wait...i'm not pregnant. Hahaha what does that say about me? Ends up my water bottle in my bag, the cap had come off and was leaking all over everything and had started to drip out. So i'm blaming my train of thought on Heather since i had to spend almost the whole summer with her pregnant self. It's her fault i have pregnancy on the brain. Thanks a lot Heather!

Life is a Process

I think it's crazy how much things change from year to year. My first two years of college nothing really changed except where i lived-i still had the same types of classes pretty much, i worked with basically the same people, and i had the same friends. But now...i have a whole different type of classes that i LOVE by the way, I've worked the longest at my job than anyone else there by a long shot now that Charlotte's gone (Jerk! just kidding I'm excited for you!) and i hang out with totally different people. None of this is by choice, it just kinda happened that way and i have to admit some of it worried me at first but i realized you just have to embrace what you have. Because life is about change and so you might as well get use to it.

It all started with 4 bottles of water. At work, i drink lots of water so i won't give into the temptation to eat all the candy bars we have sitting there and calling my name. Today i drank a whopping 4 bottles of water before having to go to class at noon. Water has a way of sneaking up on you. Everything is fine and then all of the sudden BAM! you have to pee like a racehorse. So i'm sitting there in my physiology lab and i sorta really have to go to the bathroom. I luckily, uncomfortably hold it until the end of class at which time i walk really really fast to the bathroom down the hall. Finally...i get to relieve myself. Greatest feeling ever. So i'm in the stall i finish up my business and go to let myself out...door won't budge. The lock is jammed and it WILL NOT unlock. Being trapped in a bathroom stall is probably on my top 5 list of things that make most anxious. (it probably ranks right up there after large crowds) I would rather have sat in that stall for hours upon hours than crawled underneath on the dirty nasty floor to get out. Luckily after like 5 minutes (which is a long time to be stuck in a bathroom stall) and with a little muscle power i FINALLY freed myself from the bathroom stall. Probably the most traumatic experience of the semester so far. So watch out...next time your in a public bathroom, check your lock.

Yesssssssss!!!

Some quick highlights of my week thus far...

Tuesday for my geology class we hiked up Little Cottonwood Canyon and it was BEAUTIFUL! It was such a gorgeous hike. We hiked all the way up to Lake Catherine. I took pictures with my phone and unfortunately i don't know how to get them off but it made me love the class even more. Next week we are going swimming in the Crater at midway!

Wednesday i attempted to swim in the morning for my workout. I don't know if this was a highlight of my week but i found that i certainly don't have an affinity for water. I prefer to keep my head above water where i can breathe deeply whenever i want. I will keep at it though because the next day i was so sore so obviously swimming is good for you.

Friday (today) I went with Charlotte and some of her friends up to the hot springs in Heber. That was a lot of fun! My first time to the hot springs...well worth it! It was so weird how cold some spots were and how hot other spots were. It was sorta creepy since it was dark and you could'nt really see anything. When we got back Charlotte let me change into some of her clothes so i wouldn't have ot wear my wet clothes around. This is where the BIG highlight of my week comes...i fit into her size 4...YES 4 jeans! I think they must have been labeled wrong, the last time i wore a size 4 i was in kindegarten i think. Needless to say that was pretty exciting. That's all for now folks!

Countdown

Lets start off with brief countdown to all the exciting events that are coming up in the next couple months:
4 days till Monk and Psych Season Finales (sad face)
8 days till House season Premiere
17 days till Grey's Anatomy and The Office Season Premiere
**I could name a couple more shows but i'll stop here for fear of anyone thinking i'm a TV junkie...which i am not! (only sometimes)
50 something days until Heather, Eric, Ethan and Kailey come to visit!
52 days till dad comes and 53 days till CAMPING/FISHING trip with Uncle Jon
60 days till Geology 102 is over
62 days till SCUBA class starts
70 days till the big 21
74 days till Halloween
106 days till i come home for Turkey Day

This weekend was packed full of fun. Saturday morning i arose at 5:45AM and drove to Spanish Fork to run a HALF MARATHON!!! I had registered for it at the beginning of the summer when i'd actually been sort of training and running a lot more, and then slowly lots of running turned into some running which in the past month or so has turned into no running. So needless to say, i was a little nervous to run it for fear i'd pass out after 3 miles. BUt...I MADE IT! and i ran it in 1 hour 53 minutes and something or other seconds which is about an 8:45 mile pace. I was pretty dang proud of myself.

After the race, like immediately following it, i raced back to my car because i had to meet some friends back in Provo to go floating down the Provo river with them. That was more tiring then running the race was. And finally to top off my saturday i went and saw The Dark Knight...for the first time..finally! It was so good! By the end i was SO tired though and collasped into bed at Caitlin and Hannah's apartment around 11.

The next day we had Regional Conference, it was okay. Elder Holland spoke for the CES fireside that night though and it was AMAZING. I would highly recommend anyone who didn't get a chance to see it, to find it and watch it. Sunday was a good day, i got to hear 3 General Authorities speak! Definitely a highlight!

HULA

So, some of my half polynesian cousins teach a polynesian dance class where you learn the tahetian and the hula. My cousin talked me into coming to her "adult" class on thursday nights at 6pm. (for all you that live in the provo area, you should come as well...it's at Timp Highschool). So i went to my very first class last night. It was me and 2 other older ladies and they were hillarious. I think in just hte hour class i learned like 8 different ways to move my hips, which also means i found out that my hips aren't made to move those 8 different ways. It was tough. As you can see by the picture above, i'm clueless when it comes to hula dancing. Today my hips and butt burn like they've never burned before. I never even knew i had muscles in some of the places that hurt. However, i will be attending next week as well because i'm determined to learn how to shake it like a salt shaker. Maybe someday, if your lucky enough, i'll give you each your own private recital.

Blind

I'm one of those people that doesn't like to go to the doctor and when i do i often times don't listen to what they say. For example, everytime i go to the knee doctor i'm told not to run, but do i listen to that...NO. The other doctor i don't pay attention to is my eye doctor. I wear contacts and mine are not the breathable kind so i'm suppose to take them out every night before i go to bed. However for the past couple years i have taken them out once every couple of months or so. My eyes have been fine, it hasn't been a problem. Well lately they have not been so fine and i've been forced to follow the eye doctors orders of taking them out everynight, what a hassle...i hate waking up blind. So this brings me to the real story. Today i woke up and my eyes burned and were red and all watery and crap and i couldn't put my contacts in for the life of me. So i was forced to wear my glasses to work and school today. Well walking home today from work, around noon, it was very VERY bright out, i could barely keep my eyes open. So i had to rummage around in my bag and pull out my sunglasses. Only problem with that is that i had to take off my glasses to put on my sunglasses. Hmmm...that presents a predicament since i'm practically blind without my glasses on. Well, i attempted to walk home wearing just my sunglasses, thus being blind. As i was walking down the sidewalk, i couldn't see much, i'd just see blobs slowly appear and then when i was practically running into them they'd turn into people. That wasn't so bad but the real hard part was trying to cross the street at the cross walks. I couldn't see if it was the stop sign or the walk sigh! Yes, they did have the blind people sounds that let htem know you can cross or not but i don't know the difference between the sounds, how was i suppose to know which way i could cross when it sounded?? Let me tell you, it was quite the experience of walking home.

So by popular demand i am back and better than ever. It's not really due to popular demand, it's actually due to the lack of ways i can look busy at work right now. Nan can't see what i'm doing, she can only hear the clicking of me typing on the keyboard so for all she knows i'm hard at work over here at my desk. Shhhh...don't tell her! My dearest brother Lance was the one who perfected and taught me the art of looking busy when your not. I think it's a genetic trait though or something he picked up from my dad. I can still clearly remember when i was elementary school I went to work with my Dad on "take your child to work" day and he showed me how to play free cell AND look like your working at the same time. We tricked so many people in his office that day! So needless to say, i don't feel so bad pretending to work when i'm not because it runs in my blood apparently.

School has started once again and i'm okay with that. I"m really excited for this semester. I think that's mostly because this is the first semester since i started college that i don't have a chemistry class!! Celebrate with me, please! It's a joyous thing to look at my schedule and realize i don't have to go into the chemistry building at all! Prayers really do get answered! Another highlight to my semester is my Geology 102 class! It's just a block class, so for the next 7 tuesdays we meet up in the classroom for 5 minutes and then proceed to a different spot each week to hike for acouple hours. Some of these trips include going to Spanish Fork Canyon (conveniently located near a really good frozen custard place i hear), Moab, Thanksgiving Point, and the Crater in Midway (where we get to go swimming!). Needless to say,i'm doing college right this semester and having fun or at least trying. For your viewing pleasure and to make you just a little bit jealous, here's a picture of the crater i'll be swimming in not only for my geology class but i get to go back again during the second block of the semester for my SCUBA diving class!