rain, rain, go away

i really wish it had.

this morning around 2.30 my family and i arrived in valencia. for the duration of our visit we will be staying at the house of some friends of my sister and brother-in-law. when they were first living in california they met this nice family and have been friends ever since. but by the time we got to their house, i didn't care where we were just so long as i wasn't driving any more.

why, you ask?

well, for some strange reason i decided that i needed to get up at 5 on tuesday morning. i think it had something to do with wanting to finish packing or something that made sense until i was staring at the business end of an alarm clock. shudder. i had also gotten to work late the day before and so when i was ready early i decided to go to work and make up some of that time. i went to work at 7.30. around 11, my mom was supposed to come get me so we could all (mom, dad and brother) drive to la.

11 comes, no mom.

12 comes, no mom.

12.30, i call to see what's going on. they're in salt lake waiting for my dad's meeting to get out.

1 comes, no mom.

1.30 i get a call and they're downstairs from my work waiting for me.

so then we have to go to my brother's house to drop off some of his stuff. and then i realize that i left something at my house and need to pick it up before we leave. and then we get gas and grab lunch. and then we leave provo for our 11-12 hour drive.

at around 12.15 my mom pulls off the freeway and asks if i can drive because she's so tired she's started seeing double. no problem. for some other really weird reason, i'm still awake and have been since i woke up at 5 tuesday morning. we were already in california, not too far from hour destination, maybe an hour and a half away.

but then it started raining.

and we started hydroplaning.

i honestly don't think i have ever sweated so much in my life. and no, you didn't really need to know that particular fact.

all in all, we arrived safely and i only tried to go up one off-ramp when we had to turn around. we arrived at 2.30 (as i already said) and promptly spent about an hour talking about random things with christianna. meh.

football

i am not the biggest fan of football. in fact, i could get along quite well without it and usually do. no offense to anyone who likes it, but it isn't my favorite thing.

this year i lucked out in having a friend and roommate who feels the same. and so, since amber and i live right near the byu stadium we still get to hear the game. oh, joy. we have since learned to find other things to do when the games start since pretty much no one else is out doing stuff. it makes for very little waiting.

it all started with bowling. since that was how amber and i met, it seemed fitting. we invited a friend, richie, and went bowling up at the miracle bowl on state street here in provo. but for some reason today that wasn't what sounded fun. instead we decided to see a movie.

and though i fought it, we saw twilight. okay, i didn't really fight it so much as not plan on seeing it any time soon. the reason? i've read the books. i realize that it isn't always true that the book is better than the movie. case in point, i much preferred the movie stardust to the book of the same name. seriously, i loved that movie.

anyway, when amber (who hasn't read the books) suggested it i thought i'd at least give the movie a chance. we bought the tickets, finished getting ready, went to lunch and then drove to the theatre. in spite of this being a college town, there were surprisingly a lot of people in the theatre.

so i have now seen twilight. and now i can honestly say to all those who have read the books, wait to watch the movie. or at least go in for the matinee instead of at night. don't get me wrong, it was good. in fact, i liked it. but i feel that the story line was so different from the book that though i still recognized it, it wasn't as good. worth seeing, but not for full price.

for those who haven't read the books, amber said that she liked it. though there were a few things she didn't understand. maybe if you haven't read the books you should go to the matinee with a friend who has read them and who doesn't mind explaining some things.

the end.

two costumes...lots of strange looks

a few weeks ago amber and i got invited to a halloween party hosted by her boss that we were supposed to dress up as celebrities for. the problem? i really wanted to wear another costume to work...

okay, let me explain.

at work we have these nicknames for all the students on my team. danny is this one. erik is that one. lex is lexi hopalong. melissa is missy punkin. paul is hey you (he didn't much appreciate that one). preston is bubs. calista is allison. and i...i'm the crazy cat lady. sometimes the extra crazy cat lady.

come on, now, doesn't that just beg to be a halloween costume? especially if i don't tell anyone? :)

so it started like this...

and after a little help from my brother, i became this:

scary, no?

anyway. so i then had to become some sort of celebrity. and my friend and former roommate, megan, suggested marilyn monroe.

what do you think? well, amber's costume was a little harder and a little more fun. since she had to be some celebrity we spent some time trying to decide who she could be. pussycat doll? no. edward scissorhands? cool, but no. and then we had it. she would just be all of them.
apparently she was an inmate at an insane asylum who thought she was every celebrity. i must say, it was a lot of fun when we were driving to the party to have amber always saying, 'hey, i'm on the radio!'
richie also came with us, but we don't really know who he was. interestingly enough, no one asked. though, can you blame them for not?

christianna would be so proud...

on friday night i and my friend, richie, went to the fall fantasy masquerade ball to benefit uso. it was a lot of fun! we got there around 9 and stayed until 11, two hours of dancing and playing and making new friends and playing with old ones.

when we got back to my apartment my roommate, amber, was still awake (she'd been waiting for us since she spent most of the night alone). so i got out the ice cream and we all started watching brian reagan because...well, he's awesome and we don't need a reason.

the next thing i knew richie was getting up to leave and the dvd was finished.

that's right, i fell asleep.

on a date.

christianna is not the only sorensen to fall asleep on a date anymore. though i'm sure someone else has.

i miss my long hair

um...surprise

christianna was in town! yay! we even had an awesome hotel-party on thursday night. but since i work disgustingly early i had to make christianna drive me to work on friday morning (as usual, i was late). as i was getting out of the car, christianna asked to see my id card that i need to get into the building which has a picture from three years ago on it. it's of when my hair was short. so christianna commented that i should cut my hair again.

like my brother-in-law, jared, i do whatever christianna tells me to, right?

so, this is what it was...

minus this:

plus four hours, equals this:

what do you think?

finger waves

yesterday, my most amazing friend, emily, asked if i could do her hair for a murder mystery dinner she and her roommates are having at their house tonight. because i love doing hair, i agreed. the only problem was that she is supposed to be a '20s lounge singer sort of person and i've never done that style of hair before.

so last night around midnight i decided that i should look up how to do it and practice on my hair such that i would know how to do it on hers. the look she wanted was the classic 'finger wave' look. and after a little practice, i think i got it down. now i just have to copy it onto emily's head tonight. eech.

power!

our power went out yesterday. yay. wait, i mean ew.

on the plus side i learned how to identify my shampoo and conditioner in the dark (when you turn them both upside-down, the shampoo runs to the top faster) and that if i open the window at night it's pretty comfortable in my apartment.

on the minus side, there was no way to keep the food in the fridge cold or to heat it up for dinner.

on the other plus side, it gave me a really good excuse to go to dinner with jorgen, eden, clint, flynn and eden and clint's friend cynthia. we went to chili's and then made some plans so that i can get home this weekend to play with our visitors.

on the other minus side, i was seriously hoping that the power would be back on when i got back to my apartment, but no such luck.

this morning, amber called the apartment manager whose immediate response was to ask if we had called our hometeachers (amber's immediate thought was, 'what, are they going to bless the apartment?') and if we had flipped the switches in the breaker box. but i totally did that yesterday while i was on the phone with her. apparently, we need our hometeachers to do this in future, because it isn't good enough when i do.

anyway, amber figured out today that the contract was up from the old tenants (ashley totally thought that might have been the case, kudos to her) and so she had to put it in her name. they'll be turning it back on at some time today. i'm excited to shower in the light. :)

new place

so long, casa dea!

hello, timpanogas gateway!
amber and i moved in today and i'm so excited. but still exhausted. oi.

amber got to the new place while i was still at work and so she got to check the whole place out and let me know how cool it was. apparently, i and our thusfar anonymous new roommate both have ceiling fans in our rooms. amber doesn't. also, my room is the largest of the three. i'm still not sure why that is, but considering that i have the most crap of all of us (assuming the new roommate doesn't have as much as me) it makes sense.



I also have a walk-in closet....which i immediately walked into so i could take a picture. and here's what the rest of the room looks like:

i'm really excited to live here! if only moving weren't such a great black hole, sucking all the fun out of life.

moving along

i'm all packed. finished this morning freakishly early. here's the evidence:

i think i have too much stuff : /

nevermind

okay, amy didn't come to stay. i didn't really expect her to since i'm moving and both of our contracts are over in about two weeks. but yesterday when i got home from work amy was having a hard time. our hometeacher came and gave her a blessing by the end of which amy had decided to go home. it wasn't that it felt wrong to be in utah, but however right it felt to be here, it is more right for her to be home.

so we left last night around 8 to take her back up to idaho falls. got there about 11.30. slept. got up around 9 (i was hoping to leave by 8) and then we had to get all of her things out of the car and get her music off my itunes on the lappy. and then around 11.30 this morning i left. we hugged goodbye in the living room of her parents' house while her nephew told his grandma that we weren't letting go. and then i drove home.

i stopped once for gas and once for food (they don't have jack in the box here) and got to work around 3. after a few bouts of tears, i felt sufficiently sane to write a blog post. now, aren't you all glad of that?

amy, i love you and miss you, but i really feel that you were right in going home. i want only what is best for you. keep in touch.

she's baaaaaaack

amy came home on friday. i was not there because my mom needed a ride to the airport on saturday and so she took me to ogden where i did laundry and then drove her to catch her plane. and then on saturday i went with amber to her brother's house to play guitar hero while we "housesat."

so when i finally got back to my apartment on sunday, i was so excited to see her. i walked in and immediately went to give her a big hug. she'd had a really hard day, but it was still wonderful to see her. we're not sure how long she'll be here, she still needs to find a job and a place to live once our contracts at casa dea are over. eech!

and we got to have scripture study and prayer together which is something we've never done before, but i want to keep doing. it was really nice to read together about peace (alma 32, i think) and then finish it all up with a prayer.

we also went to ward prayer afterward, but that wasn't as fun. apparently, while i've not been going they've been changing things. there are now two prayers, opening and closing, as well as opening and closing hymns. all. four. verses. now, i'm all for singing and stuff, but that's a little ridiculous. i'm not gonna lie. and then we have announcements and spotlights. for the love, people! ward prayer should be short and sweet.

anyway, i'm really glad she's back.

eugork racecar krogue

it's a palendrome.

so this morning my alarm went off at 7. i was glad for that, but when i stumbled across the room to turn it off before climbing back in bed, i discovered a little surprise...

inge had her baby at about 5.30 this morning.

after discovering the news i was too excited to go back to sleep so i got to take a shower this morning. thanks, inge.

i'm still hoping for his name to be eugork, but i think he might get teased. hopefully they pick something else.

must have been musk

cami gave me some candy from australia. apparently, a lot of people there like it. couldn't tell you why if i tried. cami made me promise to take pictures of my friends trying them. here are some of my favorites:

oh happy day!

amber got a call while she was at work from diana, the manager of where we were planning to live.

diana called to say that the only other apartment there that she managers has one girl who decided not to sign. one free spot. then she was looking through her paperwork and found that another girl just hasn't resigned yet. another free spot. she's going to save them for us.

yay! we have a place to live again!

new office

we have a new office at work. they moved us upstairs and now we have a new view. pretty, ne? we're on the third floor and the time clock is on the first so it makes it a little hard to clock in and out for lunch, but i think the view makes it better.

the only problem is that around 5.30 the sun starts shining in the windows so that i can't see unless i put on my sunglasses. in my office. yeah. but there's less noise and cooler temperatures (not sure why but it's cooler up here than it was where we were before). plus, there's more room. word on the street is that we'll be getting a plasma screen for the office, but i'm not sure when or if that will happen. it's pretty nice up here so i don't mind.

accepted

i'm leaving la. rather, i've already left. but i have a new story to tell.

we were watching accepted (a movie that i think is hilarious but have only before seen edited) non-edited when i got a call from the manager of my new apartment. or, she was the manager until the owners of the condo decided that they wanted to run the managing of it and put their own kids in. the manager said that she had our (amber's and my) security deposits and wondered how we wanted to get them, either to have her mail it or we come pick it up. i was in shock so i had to tell her i needed to talk to amber.

so i called amber and had to leave a message. then i sent her a text a while later because she hadn't called back and explained it again. she freaked out. read the contract and found out that the contract states that before 90 days before the start of contract, if the owners back out we get $50. after that - i.e. 90 days before the start of contract - they cannot break contract. amber's going to talk to the manager, diana, and figure this out.

in the mean time, after we finished watching accepted we all piled into the car and went to souplantation. this most delicious of places to eat. they have soup and salad and pasta. they also have these really little ice cream cones that were a source of conflict for cami and i. by that i mean that while i was eating mine she reached over and hit my hand so it went in my face a little bit. it wasn't much so i just played it off until she wasn't looking so i smeared the side of her face. a battle ensued that ended with ice cream covering our arms and faces. then she got out the butter and smeared my face with it before we finally decided to just go wash up.

then we went home and i got all packed. clint and cami drove me to catch the flyaway to go to the airport to fly home. i talked to a bunch of friends and read a little bit before catching my flight. mom picked me up from the airport and we met dad for dinner at the littleamerica hotel in salt lake. then we drove to my little sister's house to sleep. tomorrow i have work and then friday i'm going home to ogden to do laundry.

it was a really fun vacation and i am so, so happy that i was able to go. thanks to eden, clint, flynn, cami and christianna for making it so very much fun!

wicked awesome!

christianna and i went to wicked tonight! it was so good. it was a little bit different from the cd, but it was good different. the only thing that bothered me really was that the lady playing madam morrible didn't really sing so much as just talk. actually, she would start to sing and then stop half-way through. yeah, not so good.

it was really cool to see the play that i had heard so much about. my roommate, amy, saw it in both la and new york and said that she preferred the la version. so i'm glad that that was where we were so i could see it. i hadn't really thought that we'd go when i was planning the trip, but then i texted christianna about it and she got really excited to go. so we did! it was so good! there were a few slight changes that made things funnier and made you realize that this was so much better than watching a movie could ever be. i'm converted.

anywho...

on the way home we stopped at jack in the box because neither christianna nor i had had dinner and hey, we don't have one in utah. i miss it. love the tacos, funny enough. we got home pretty late and i made sure that christianna would be okay to drive home since she had had some trouble on saturday. and then we all went to bed. it was a wonderful day.

glasses

so, sometime last night i put my foot up on the back of the couch and i heard a clatter. it was my glasses. i opened my eyes, realized it was still way dark so i wouldn't need them. i went back to sleep.

when i woke up to flynn, i decided to wait on finding my glasses until after he'd had breakfast. so after he was fed, i looked behind the couch to see if i could find my glasses. hmm. not there. maybe they went under the edge. i couldn't get the angle right to look. okay. i moved the rug and pulled the couch out. i still couldn't see them. maybe that was because they were my glasses. around this time flynn decided he wanted to help so i brought him over the end of the couch with me. i went out to the front of the couch thinking that i might be able to see them.

so then i hear flynn, "i see it!"

hmmm. this could mean one of two things. either he sees my glasses, or he wants to see them. right around then, cami wakes up and i make her go look. she didn't see them. and then i have this brilliant idea that maybe i didn't put my glasses on last night. i went to my luggage and looked. there were my glasses.

what i heard, i still don't know. but i put the couches and rug back and then proceeded to feel like an idiot.

disneyland

okay, getting tired, can't think of better titles.

we went to disneyland yesterday! surprisingly, it was a pretty slow day. unlike last year we didn't run around crazy, and i think it was more fun. not gonna lie.

we started off slow by going to the finding nemo submarine ride. cami got a big kick out of the "real" australian accents. we all thought it would make more sense for them to just get real australians to do it since it was all recorded anyway. but whatever. flynn seemed not to care. it was fun though and cool to see all our favorite characters in the water.


the rides i remember going on (sorry, not a very good memory) are these: submarines, that one rockety thing, space mountain, splash mountain, grizzly bear thing in california adventure, california screamin' (twice), soaring over california, mike and sully save the day, buzz lightyear, indiana jones, jungle cruise (have to go at night!) and then the reagans went on a few rides for flynn. i can't remember if we went on anything else, but we got to see a lot of other things like how sourdough and tortillas are made. we saw a few parades and the fireworks. it was a lot of fun.

we also got these pineapple whip ice cream things that were so good! we got them the last time we were all at disneyland and so had to get them this year, too. not entirely sure what they are, almost a sherbet, but not quite. if anyone's going to disneyland soon, they can be found by the tiki room. there's the whip (pictured) and then a float with pineapple juice on bottom. i prefer just the whip because the juice doesn't seem as sweet when the whip is on top. but they are absolutely fabulous. try one!

we left the park around midnight, grabbing some last minute provisions in the form of cream cheese-filled soft pretzels. mine was a jalapeno one that was really tasty. i have no idea when we got home, but i fell asleep still dressed.

this morning eden woke me up to ask if i could watch flynn while she and clint took clint's car to the shop to get some work done. i woke up to hear flynn crying so i hobbled my way to his room and got him up. we had breakfast of cereal and yogurt and then cami woke up. i think today we were planning on making a movie, but i think we'll just be recuperating.

happy birthday eden!

i'm so glad you were born so you could be my sister. and i'm glad you have help to blow out the candles. and congratulations!

we need to get to sleep early so we can wake up early for disneyland tomorrow, so i'm going to go to bed. i hope today was wonderful for you.

beach

wow, long day. but it was really fun so it didn't seem so.

we started off by going to the beach. christianna had planned on us going boogie boarding while i was out in la, so we all went over to zuma beach to meet her. there was a little trouble finding christianna and her friend because for some reason, there are two #3 guard towers. weird. that was the one they were by, just fwee.

anyway, we found her...well, part of her at least:

it was a fun beach day and we all got covered in sand. christianna got a monstrous bruise on her shoulder from being thrown onto the hard-packed sand. i still had bruises from climing through the window. flynn (and therefore clint) built a fortress to keep the water at bay. cami took on an awesomely huge wave on her boogie board and impressed a bunch of guys who were watching. and then all three of those in the back seat (cami, flynn and i) fell asleep on the way home. that is, after we took wierd pictures of the landscape. i'm not really sure why we did that. meh.

after the beach we went to vincenzo's pizza experienza and listened to the grateful dudes bluegrass band. once there we met with a few friends of eden and clint's and went to their house to play rockband. so much fun! i was really bad at playing the drums because i always forgot to use the foot-pedal. the guitar wasn't so bad because i've played guitar hero before. but the vocals were okay, if you know the words.

we were there until about 2 and then we left to go home. church is at 9 so we'll see how well we do getting there on time.

promenading

after recovering from magic mountain (cami and i totally trashed our feet when we went) we spent the morning doing nothing. that's right, nothing. eden went to aerobics, but we stayed in bed. and when i did get up i had to hobble around for a little while. that wasn't so fun as it may seem.

but after that we - eden, cami, flynn and i - went to little tokyo. we wandered around the grocery store for a little while and got an absurdly large amount of the fruit gummies, at least on my part. and then after we ate a delightful lunch of curry donuts (so good!) we went to the hello kitty store for a little while. and cami and i got something very special there.


and then we left to meet clint at his work down in santa monica where christianna was to also meet us. we got there, clint came out to meet us and eden immediately made him guess what cami and i bought. his clue? what is the silliest thing he can think of to do there. funny enough, his first answer was correct.

yup, that's right. we got underwear. this is actually the $1 pair i got because i thought it was funny. we also got normal-people sized underwear.

and i must say that although christianna's suggestions - taking off all our clothes and running around screaming, dressing up like hello kitty, painting hello kitty on our faces but then being so embarassed that we had to wash it off - were still good, i like what we actually did.

so after meeting clint at his work and finding christianna, we all walked down the to the 3rd street promenade. there were some pretty cool things there. a couple of guys were dancing in the street so we all stopped to watch them for a while. it was insane! i cannot describe to you what these guys did. crazy-sauce! we also found a games store that had some pretty fun things, but most of them were fairly run-of-the-mill.

it started getting pretty late so we decided to find some dinner and then keep looking. clint told us that as we walk along if we see something we want we should just call it out so that we can stop and eat. but because it was really busy, there pretty much wasn't any room once we did stop. so as the night wore on, we were getting more and more hungry and even the places that didn't have a wait didn't have room for six people. so we walked back to the cars. and then we went to this place called norm's that used to be a denny's. there we found that there was a half-hour long wait. so then clint ran across the street to see if the same was true for denny's. it wasn't so we went there. that was an adventure. we got in there, sat down. decided what we were going to eat and then since we were already all tired, clint ran off to get someone to help us. perry came then. this really um...interesting man. he was very friendly, but then he got in major trouble with these two people i suppose were the managers of the place. apparently, he was taking tables that weren't his. however, no one was helping us, so what was the problem if he did? it was really dumb.

clint made sure to tell the managers that perry was just doing his job and doing it very well since whoever was supposed to help us didn't. i was really glad that he did.

magical

today we (cami, troy and i) went to magic mountain, six flags. it was a lot of fun. we went on a lot of rides--a few i didn't really want to go on--and got to see some fun things.

one of the rides i didn't want to go on was tatsu. for serious, never go on this ride. i kid you not. i had my eyes shut pretty much the whole time. it's one of those feet-dangling rides, except that the seats move so that you start the ride on your stomach. i almost died!


cami and troy also went on goliath, which i also loathe. i made them go alone while i went looking for superman capes. i don't like this ride because the only restraint is a lap-bar and since it goes so high i don't feel safe with that. last time my family went i could have sworn i would go flying off. so there was no chance that i was going this time. troy and cami kept wanting me to go, but that wasn't going to happen, nope! so i found my capes and - suprisingly - they didn't die.

i did like the ninja ride. it was sweet and simple and i didn't really fear for my life while we were on it. which was good.

moral of the story? stay clear of the killers. oh, and when it gets really hot, go into the waiting line for superman. it was amazing. i didn't even go on that one, but the waiting line was absolutely worth the wait. ...right.

amy

i flew to la tonight. my flight attendant was really funny and put me in a really good mood by his sense of humor. unfortunately, the good mood didn't last.

as i was getting off the plane i got a call from amy, my roommate. she asked me when i would coming home and i told her a week.

she told me she is moving out this weekend. going home to idaho falls.

while i'm gone.

in la.

i haven't seen her since last week, wednesday. i told her that was fine and that she needed to drive safe. she told me to come visit her.

once we got off the line, i started to cry. for some reason too little sleep and bad news don't mix well. i got off the plane last and went in search of my luggage, hoping no one noticed the ninny-ness of me. got to the baggage claim, walked immediately outside so that i could cry in the semidarkness. called my mom and talked to her about it. she didn't really agree with me when i said it was the best thing for amy, but she let me cry. she told me to call my dad since he is always very calm. i told her that i usually am.

but then i had to get off the phone and find my bag so that i could meet my brother-in-law, clint. i also had to stop crying so that clint wouldn't think me a ninny. by the time he got there i had stopped crying enough that i don't think he knew that i had been. we drove to his house and i got to see eden, flynn and cami.

we joked and had some fun before going to bed. the end. :)

grrr

okay, i'm going to complain a little bit...

i'm flying to la tonight. right after work. as such i needed to do laundry last night. being me, i waited until the night before i left to do said laundry.

about 10 o'clock last night my roommate came in from wherever she had been, grabbed her purse and the mail key, and then left again with her friend who is leaving for a month. now see, the mail key has the laundry key attached, but i didn't think much of it.

because of cleaning checks this saturday, i had to clean my room before i left for la. so i started doing that. around midnight, my roommate still wasn't home. she still had the mail key. so i just started working on something else. i brought everything i needed to pack that was not laundry into the front room with my suitcase so that when i finished my laundry, i could just put everything in and zip it up.

1 o'clock, still no roommate.

okay, i'll sit on the couch and wait for her. fell asleep. some time before 3.30 i heard a sound and sat up on the couch. didn't see anything. fell back asleep. heard the same noise again. sat up, this time sure that it was the door. still didn't see anything. lay back down. at 3.30 i woke up and decided that if she were to come home and i was asleep she wouldn't know what was up. so i got up and took a shower. got out about 4 and there she was. complaining that she was so stupid for having stayed up until 4 when she needs to work at 8.

whatever, where's the key?

she still had it. in fact, she had come home and seen me on the couch, but didn't think about it. she gave me the key and i put in the first loads of laundry (getting it all done in one go if i could). when i came back she apologized profusely and said that she would put it in the dryer for me so that i could sleep. i told her it was fine and she didn't need to do that since i would need to finish packing tonight.

then i went to put everything in the dryers. came back to my apartment. discovered that i had locked the door on accident. i had also left my phone in the apartment so i couldn't call my roommate. fine. she hadn't been asleep that long. i rang the bell. nothing. rang it again. nothing. made a whole lot of noise for about ten minutes. still nothing. fine! she had probably fallen asleep (she was the only one home). so i climbed in through the window.

hurt my stomach, have the bruises to prove it.

at this point i was pretty tired and irritable. angry is a better term for how i was feeling. but whatever, i just was ready for the night to end. since i still had some time before i needed to pick up my clothes to fold them, i decided to get on my computer and check my email or something, just to stay awake. but the internet wasn't working. i went into my roommate's room to powercycle the wireless router.

she was still awake.

her light was still on. she sat up and looked at me. but she didn't have the look of someone who had just woken up. or really even someone who had been dosing. she was fully awake. which means she had to have heard all the noise i made earlier, but chose not to come open the door.

now i can understand if you think it's scary to open the front door of your apartment at 5 in the morning when you don't have a way to find out who's there before you open the door. but if it were me, i would have been so mad that someone was making that much noise so early in the morning that i would have just opened the door to hit whoever it was.

but no. she didn't even do that.

i cannot tell you how angry i was. but i didn't say anything because i don't do that. i just finished with the router and left. i was livid!

finally got to sleep around 6.30, woke up at 8.30. now i'm at work and still mad at my roommate.

finally

amy sent me a text this morning saying that she was okay and in salt lake staying with a friend.

i love the girl, but i really wish she had told me this before i had spent most of the night and some of the morning calling her. i was up until 2.30 calling her - every half-hour - and then i started again at 7.

i'm glad she's all right.

friend

my roommate, amy's engagement broke off last week at her fiancé's instigation. he feels like he doesn't really know her.

and then today i found out that a friend drowned in utah lake over the weekend.

amy is taking this all pretty hard. i haven't seen her yet today. not sure where she is.

yay

i got approved to take off work from the 10th to the 16th. i'm going to la!!!

fly away

i checked the flight information for going in july and for going in august. i can go either time for the same price. which means that i just need approval from work to take off for a while. that will help me decide when to go. maybe i can go when cami will be there.

california and cami

so eden called me a few weeks ago to let me know that cami - a friend from australia whom i met last year when i was visiting eden and clint and flynn - was coming back for about two weeks at the beginning of july.

last year we had a lot of fun getting to know each other and playing and being immature. so i thought it would be a lot of fun to see her again.

hmmm, problem. with the change in email systems, they don't want anyone to leave between june 21st and july 11th. eden said cami was coming the first two weeks of july. that means that i couldn't be there when she was.

okay, well. now that eden mentioned it, it would be a lot of fun just to go see clint, eden, flynn and christianna. so then maybe i could go in august.

not sure what all i'll be doing, but i'll let you know.

ew...some more

and i thought yesterday was bad.

who wants to start at 5 in the morning? not me, i tell you what.

i was going to come in at 6, but then emily (who drives me to work) was asked by her boss to come in early to help set up breakfast. so--since i would have had to get up and leave by 5 anyway to catch the bus--i went with her then and helped her set up.

it was gross.

ew

i'm at work.

ew.

engineering?

today at 5:30 pm the church will migrate to a new email system. why the engineers chose to do this, i don't know. why they chose to do it in the middle of the summer when everyone will be wanting time off, but can't take time off because of the migration, i will never know.

the old system was working fine, and it was something we all (support staff and users) knew. there may have been glitches somewhere that no user or support personnel or indeed anyone but the engineers will ever see, but they wanted to change it. fine.

along with the change in mail client, they have set up a new system for the computer log-in portion of it all. but not just any system, a system wherein the users gets to pick his own username. so now, along with all the usernames that follow the standard (lastnamefirstandmiddleinitials) we get things like irishwife42 or xhlllln. do you want to try to find users by their first and last name when there is no standard? i certainly don't.

and then on top of all of this...last night an engineer deleted all the accounts of all of the support staff.

all.

so yesterday my team - because we administrate accounts - worked all day trying to recreate and re-add all the rights on some 200+ accounts. again, why the engineer couldn't have conducted his testing on test accounts is something else i'll never know.

and did i mention that because of this change i get to go in to work at 6 in the morning instead of my usual 9:30. i'll be working a 12-hour shift trying to help out as much as i can. ew.

now, i love my brother-in-law, but i'm glad he's a chemical engineer and not one that i'll ever have to work with in my job doing technical support.

thanks for that, jared.

i'm gettin' married in a month

i don't know which month.

so i have this roommate that always used to say that. and now that she is really engaged, no one really believes her. but i still think it's funny. my roommate, amy brower, is engaged to david armstrong. they were dating for about a week before they decided to get married. they are getting married august 27th. funny enough, this is my second roommate to go about getting married this way. last summer and now this one. weird.

but then today i also got a call from one of my best friend's in high school asking for my address so she could send me a wedding announcement. she - unlike my roommate - has been dating this guy for about three years, i think. she's getting married july 10th.

sometimes i feel like all my close friends are entering that noble state (my other best friend from hs is already married). i don't yet know if i feel left behind, or if i'm still satisfied with my life. i'm okay with not being married, i don't feel like i'm old enough to. though, i sometimes act like i'm about five so it stands to reason. meh. we'll see.

Humility

"If the Lord was meek and lowly and humble, then to become humble one must to what He did in boldly denouncing evil, bravely advancing righteous work, courageously meeting every problem, becoming the master of himself and the situations avout him and being near oblivious to personal credit.... Humility is not pretentious, presumptuous or proud. It is not weak, vascilating of servile."

--Spencer W. Kimball

read any good books lately?

there is this guy at work, erik, who is taking a communications class this spring semester. for the class he had to take a poll of ten people asking how many books they have read in the last 6 months, not including text books or scriptures.

here are some of the responses:
Danny--3
Bri--0
Lex--0
Melissa--1
Emily--8

me?--around 80

that's right friends, 80.

i don't think that i could name them all without a serious amount of thought. my only consolation is that this was in the last six months and that i rode the bus to and from work.

so, you read any good books lately?

ingratiating

last saturday, amber informed me that her friend ryan was coming to utah to visit. since i had randomly had two text conversations with ryan when amber and i had bowling class, she decided that i should go with her to salt lake to see him on wednesday (yesterday).

however, my normal work schedule gets me out of work at 6 at night and amber wanted to go up to slc before that. so i came up with a brilliant--yet painful--plan...i was going to go to work at 6 in the morning and leave at 2 so i could still get in all my hours for the day.

*gasp*

i know. matti actually planned to wake up earlier than normal. not just earlier than normal thought, at 5.30 in the morning.

and i did it. i woke up at 5.30 in the morning so that i could be to work at 6. but i still didn't make it there until about 6.30. so at least i hadn't completely lost my mind and started doing things completely out of character. you can tell since i was still late.

it was the longest day of my life.

no joke. the longest day.

i left work around 1.30 so that i could go get some party supplies from the grocery store. so we didn't get to slc until around 3.30 or 4. we went to find food at taco bell, then got desert at sonic, then went bowling, then went to ryan's sister's house where we played guitar hero and got tattoos. by the time i got home it was around 11.30 or 12 at night.

but the point of all this is that apparently when i'm really tired my vocabulary expands.

when i got home my roommates and i were talking about new girlfriends who aren't nice to the boyfriend's family. and i was trying to say that she should try to make a good impression and make the family like her. but i didn't say that. i said that the girlfriend should try to ingratiate herself. that's right, really long word. and it went on for about an hour. really long or at least uncommon words just kept coming out of my mouth even though i don't know how coherent i was in understanding anything, i kept sounding like i knew what i was talking about.

so apparently, if ever i want to sound really intelligent i just need to be awake for 18.5 hours and it might just happen for me.

yay!

finals are now officially over, now the dreaded wait to see if i actually passed everything that i thought i would and how dismally i did on the others. fun!

two of my roommates moved out, one on thursday and one friday. the two new ones came in on saturday. breanne has a brother living in the ward already and is really nice. helen williams used to live in the same ward as amy (who stayed but is currently in new york) and i, it's great to see her again and it'll be great having her as a roommate for these four months.

yesterday in church, my friend, dan, asked me if i wanted to make dinner with him. i said sure, but asked him what we would be making. he told me that he had some ground elk meat. for some reason, i don't think it occurred to me that they actually made ground elk meat. but we made meat pies which were really good, but the flavor was...different.

after we made dinner we played Life Twists & Turns. It was a lot of fun, i lost both times. Yay for me!

two down

three to go.

and actually, one of the ones down was from my bowling class so it doesn't really count. but oh well, i'm using it. this way i feel more accomplished.

finally!

so, today marks the start of finals week which will continue through next wednesday. i have three scheduled finals and one that i just have to go take.

wish me luck!

i'll be so glad when it's over. this past school year was not my favorite, and i feel like i just needed some time not to be doing school. you'd think that i would be fine because i had a break last summer, but even fall semester started with me wanting a break from thinking. not good.

in may i'll be going to visit my sister, inge, and her husband, jared, in texas. i am so excited to go and see her before she's too round to move. she's pregnant, by the way. christianna, another sister, and i are going to go together to visit her and the four of us will have a blast. just have to remember those fruit jammers for my brother-in-law.

welcome to stuff-n-stuff

yesterday was an auspicious day. my bowling friend, amber, became my future roommate, amber. we signed our contracts to live in timpanogos gateway...which is beautiful.

it has:
washer
dryer
pantry
full-size beds
three private rooms
two bathrooms
storage
huge desks in every bedroom
and--oh yeah--did i mention it was beautiful?

i'm not so sure how i feel about paying that much per month, but were i to live in any other city this would be quite the deal for what i'm getting.

amber and i have decided to christen the place with a plaque on the door that says "welcome to stuff-n-stuff. come inside for more details." i'm not really sure where that all came from except for the randomness that is us, but we're pretty stoked. we're currently think up more signs to put up on the doors and fridges and things. the bathroom that we 'share' (it's really hers, but she's going to let me use it so i don't have to share with a stranger) will probably have a name. and only the coollest visitors may be granted use. sorry, if you don't fit the bill.

be kind...

this evening, my friend amber and i went to the dollar theatre and watched "Be Kind Rewind." it's a movie about the owner of the video rental store in a small town.

the owner goes on vacation and leaves mike (mos def) in charge. mike's friend jerry (jack black) isn't what you'd call the fastest car on the road, but he thinks very highly of himself. he also thinks that the power company is out to get them. but jerry has a brilliant plan: sabotage the power plant! unfortunately, the plan backfires and jerry ends up getting magnetized. when jerry returns to the video store the next day, he erases all the videos.

mike--who, if you'll recall, was left in charge of the shop--decides that in order not to get in trouble they need to remake all the movies. funny, enough, people seem to like these strange new versions of all the films and mike and jerry have to create more and more of them.

anyway, so all this was really funny. i think it would be awesome to get to see some of their remakes all the way through (most were only about twenty minutes long), but i can't seem to find the "sweded" versions on the site. sad day.

the only problem i found with the actual movie was that there didn't seem to be a real end to it. lame-tron! okay, it did have an ending, but it didn't say that everything ended happily. the movie just sort of...ended.

amber and i had to decide how it really ended because we need the happy ending that everything worked out well for everyone. so, it was good for us, but we complained as we were sitting there in the theatre.

it was still a good movie and i'd go see it again, but watch out for those endings.

Mommy dearest

"If you rearrange the letters of 'Mother-in-law' you get 'Woman Hitler.'"

deaf ninja

so, in my asl 202 class last night, my teacher tried to bring up 'deaf ninja' on youtube. unfortunately, youtube is blocked on byu campus. so instead she told my classmates and myself to look it up when we got home.

gotta tell you, this was hilarious.

here's the first video:

deaf ninja: origin

and the sequel in which deaf ninja fights off an evil transformer:

deaf ninja: dn vs tf

they might be a little hard to understand if you don't sign at all. and the intro to the first will be completely useless (he tells us that his brother had a really old hearing aid system that he wore on his chest, austin then has a daydream in which he sees deaf ninja fighting off hordes of enemies). but transformation of the transformer is awesome!

Peanut butter love

"Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love."
--Charlie Brown

Parasite

“If I come back as an animal in my next lifetime, I hope it’s some type of parasite, because this is the part where I take it easy!”

--Jack Handey

blog

so, i've had a blog for three months now, and i just started posting things today. nothing is really special about today, except that it's my first bloggy-day.

two of my sisters have had blogs for a while, so--being the typical youngest sister--i had to follow in their footsteps and get one for myself.

so i did.

hm. problem.

i have no life.

at least not one interesting enough to write about. which is why i finally just decided that since it's my blog i'm going to just write whatever i feel like. so there!

i thought i'd start with things that make me giggle. i hope you like it...

Nicknames

“Sometimes you have to be careful when selecting a new nickname for yourself. For instance, let’s say you have chosen the nickname ‘Fly Head’. Normally, you would think that ‘Fly Head’ would mean a person who had beautiful swept-back features, as if flying though the air. But think again. Couldn’t it also mean ‘having a head like a fly’? I’m afraid some people might actually think that.”

--Jack Handey

'A' names

“If your name has an ‘A’ in it, come serve!”

--A guy on campus

“My name is Satan. That has 2 ‘A’s in it…”

--Satan (or some random guy on campus who is really funny, it’s a toss-up)

ice cream relations

“Being in a relationship is like eating ice cream with chopsticks: you’re not sure why you’re doing it, but you wish everybody would just leave you alone about it.”