Confession

It's been over a week since I last made a blog post, and I kind of feel bad about it.  In honor of my birthday I decided to post something fun.

For those of you who didn't know... I love Perry the Platypus from the Disney show Phineas and Ferb.  To prove my point, I have pictures to show you guys:

  

 

A random talent of mine: Cutting paper and making it look like what I want it to look like.  One of the children at work really wanted a Perry creation, so here is what I came up with.

A great thing about working with Elementary age children is that you get to celebrate Valentines Day... The fun way.  I got a random flash of brilliance while I was at work and decided that I really wanted to make a box, and specifically a Perry the Platypus one.

This next one came to me through the awesomeness of one of my good pals Miss Kristen. She had purchased a Phineas and Ferb belt from FYE and I decided that I wanted one.  While I was there I found a strickly Perry the Platapus belt.  I fell in LOVE with it, and well, it had to come home with me. (Note: I still need to go get the Perry the Platypus belt buckle that goes with it.)

My ma surprised me with a watch on Christmas, and not just an ordinary watch,  it was a Perry the Platypus watch and on the watch hands it lables which one is the hour hand and which one is the minute hand.

#nowihavenotroubletellingtimewitharegularclock

 

Here I am showing off my newest addition to my collection. Yes, I couldn't help myself. I saw it at Walmart today and I decided that it had to come home with me.  I also now have blue airwalks to match with this shirt and my work shirt. Happy Birthday to me! :)

Also, for my entrance song for the Jester's Royale comedy improv team is the Perry the Platypus theme song. So, now that I have told you guys this, what is it that you guys love?

                                                 

Improv Highlights! :)

This post was scheduled to go up yesterday, but because of certain events that transpired, I waited until today to put it up.  Many of you know that I have the opportunity to perform comedy improv with the Jesters Royale improv team.  Here are some of my favorite highlights for this weekend:

(I will give you a little background for each scene)

Friday

Late for Work- Curtis played the boss and Nate played the worker that was late.  The two of them were sitting close together, and Nate couldn’t see what Jeremy was pantomiming, so he scoot his chair back.

Curtis:  Why are you scooting away?

Nate:  I was in the splash zone.

Actor’s Nightmare:  Stephen was stuck reading his lines out of a book I grabbed off of my mom’s bookshelf. (The Carousel by Richard Paul Evans)  The scene suggestion started with them in an alley.

Bryan: You want to buy a watch?

Stephen: “Your mom’s a sick woman.”

Director’s Cut- Curtis and Darian were performing the sequel of “Inception” with Bryan being the director.  Bryan had cut the scene and gave Darian direction to act like a Disney Princess.

Curtis: I want to be a princess too!

Bryan: I don’t type cast.

Saturday 

Lie Detector- Andrew and Jake were doing a super bowl commercial about a massage helmet.  Jake’s character didn’t get a helmet so he put on a regular helmet and was hitting it with a hammer.  (Jake smashes hammer into helmet)

Jake:  Yay! I’m a unicorn!

Day in the Life of- Jake, Brady, and I were doing our version of one of the audience member’s life.

Jake: (hugging my character) I’m so glad we’re best friends and that I’m a girl.

Hecklers- Blake and I were doing a straight scene about a first date with Nate and Brady heckling us.

Blake: That was so scary to ask you [to the dance].

Brady: (heckling) Especially while I’m twirling my wedding ring.

Well, here are my highlights.  If you want to come see more of this funniness transpire, we perform every Friday and Saturday at the Empress theater at 10:15pm.  This week though we are only performing on Saturday because we have our Valentine’s Day show!

The Woman in Black and Chronicle Review

I recently got the opportunity to see a prescreening of two shows that are coming out this Friday:  The Woman in Black and Chronicle.

The Woman in Black 

The first one I got to watch was, “The Woman in Black.” I had been looking forward to seeing this show when I first saw the teaser trailer for it.  To quickly sum up the movie:

The story follows a young lawyer, Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), who is ordered to travel to a remote village and sort out a recently deceased client's papers. As he works alone in the client's isolated house, Kipps begins to uncover tragic secrets, his unease growing when he glimpses a mysterious woman dressed only in black. Receiving only silence from the locals, Kipps is forced to uncover the true identity of the Woman in Black on his own, leading to a desperate race against time when he discovers her true intent.

(courtesy of comingsoon.net)

My first thought when I went to see the movie was, will Daniel Radcliffe be able to pull out of the Harry Potter character and be able to successfully portray a single dad who is under a lot of stress to get money for the family?  In my OPINION I feel that he was able to successfully portray someone who is different from the boy who lived.

The next thing about the movie that I was interested in, and also nervous about, was the fact that it was suppose to be a horror/thriller.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I jump at the littlest things.  You can pop around a corner and say, “boo!” to make me in return jump five feet. No joke.  Well, I feel that the only aspect of horror the movie had was having it get really quiet and then all of a sudden something pops out and the music gets significantly louder.  I never screamed, but I found myself jumping numerous times throughout this flick. I personally felt that this movie had a Grudge-esk feel to it. 

I felt that the movie did an adequate job building up the tension to make this film seem like a good thriller.  The movie had all the classic horror elements to it:  Key characters giving the main character advice and the main character not following them, staying at the creepy house all night, people silently staring at the main character when they come into town, towns people being vague and not answering questions brought up by the main character, main character investigating creepy places by himself, etc.. 

Chronicle 

The next film I saw was “Chronicle.”  When I saw the previews for this movie I had no interest at all to go see it in theaters.  Going to see it for free was a completely different story altogether.  I had low expectations out of it, and left quite surprised.  To quickly sum up the movie:

Three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to them developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities, and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.

(courtesy of comingsoon.net)

The camera angles reminded me of the Blair Witch Project, or Cloverfield.  The whole movie was suppose to as if it was suppose to be a home video.  I was kind of unsure about this happening, but when the main characters got their “powers” the camera became stable and wasn’t as shakey.

I thought it was interesting that this film approached the subject of what could happen if someone was bullied.  It also showed what could happen when people let power get the best of them.  I liked that the kids weren't strong at first, but through using their powers they got stronger and were able to do more with their powers.  My favorite part of the movie was the comedic value that it had (can't tell you the exact part to make sure I don't ruin the movie for you).  

Where do I go from here?

When I first started this blog it was because one of my college teachers required us to do so as an assignment. After writing the first post I thought it was fun and intended to write in it on a weekly basis... Well, it's been a year since my first post. I will try to be better and write more often.


I've been thinking lately about life in general. What am I going to do in my life? What's my purpose? What is the plan that I am suppose to follow? A set of lyrics from the movie Pocahontas 2 pops into my mind when I get into this mind frame:

*Note: I know that most of you that may decided to read this frown upon sequels, especially Disney sequels, but the redeeming quality to Pocahontas 2 is this song right here and that Disney sets history straight and has Pocahontas end up with John Rolfe.

They do what they must for now
And trust in their plan
If I trust in mine, somehow I might find who I am

CHORUS
But where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear
Which is the voice that I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go from here?

My world has changed and so have I
I've learned to choose
And even learned to say goodbye

The path ahead's so hard to see
It winds and bends but where it ends
Depends on only me

In my heart I don't feel part of so much I've known
Now it seems it's time to start,
A new life on my own

CHORUS
But where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear
Which is the voice that I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go from here?

First time I heard this song I was at work in the morning watching this movie. It caused me to tear up because of how true it was to how I feel about my current situation.

The thought that came into my mind was something that I have been going back and forth about: Going on a mission. I've always kind of wanted to go on one, but then, I haven't had the strongest desire to do so. The biggest obstacle in my way currently is my thyroid problems. To catch you guys up:

It all starts back in the Summer of 2009. I found that I had this lump developing on my neck. Not sure what it was, and getting kind of worried, I went to the doctors to see if they knew what was up. For those of you that know me really well I call the doctors "quacks" because I believe that most of the time they don't know what they are talking about and can give you their best guess of what they think you have. (When I am sick I can usually predict what I have before I go to the doctors. 9 times out of 10 I'm right.) They, of course, didn't know what was up and referred me to a doctor, which then referred me to another doctor, which then referred me to the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist that I currently see.

After many blood work tests they decided to do a biopsy on the lump on my throat to see if it was cancerous. For those of you who have had a biopsy know that they use a good 2 1/2 inch needle and stick it in the area that they want to get a sample of. They then suck up some of the tissue and take that to get tested. With it being on my throat I had to make sure that I didn't swallow while the needle was in my neck, or else they would have to do it again. They had to restart three times.

After that I went home and was just left sore and tender, and my neck hurt bad. One of my sisters decided to invite me to go do baptisms for the dead with her, and I decided, why the heck not? My neck throbbed the whole way there. Right when I stepped into the temple my neck stopped hurting, and it didn't hurt anymore after that. Definitely a testimony builder, right?

Well, the results came back from the biopsy and it was inconclusive. They decided that they didn't want to take any chances and so they scheduled me to have a surgery to take it out in the coming two weeks. Terrified, I prayed... A lot... I prayed for comfort and courage. It was the first surgery that I had to go through. The day of the surgery finally came. My ma came with me so I wouldn't have to drive myself home after the procedure. Sitting in the room there were doctors coming in and out asking me questions. Finally the anesthesiologist came in and asked me if I had any allergies to any anesthesia medicine. Not knowing for sure, since I had never had to take any, I told him I didn't think so. He then left and I was left sitting in the room with my mom. She then turns to me and tells me that one of my great grandpa's died because he had an allergic reaction to an anesthesia medicine. My heart stopped at that moment. My thought was, "I have a good chance of having an allergy to the medicine, and today could be the day that I end up dying." (Yeah, I'm dramatic, but that's why I do theater.) I then looked up at my mom and told her, "If I'm meant to die today, then so be it." Well, long story short, I came out of the surgery alive, or else I wouldn't be writing this blog post, right? :)

Well, after the surgery the doctor decided to keep an eye on my thyroid. Well a good 9 months later he found two cysts on the left side of my thyroid. He told me that he wanted to watch to see if they grew, so he scheduled me to come back in 9 months. I was kind of thinking of going on a mission, but I was like, okay. I can wait until January of 2012 to see if things are okay, right? Well, leading up to that my throat got tender, my sleep patterns went all funky, and my eye sight has been doing some funny things. I had a lot of symptoms that looked like Graves Disease. I went to the appointment last week and found out that the cysts grew a bit and that there were many more that started to form on my thyroid. My doctor, deciding not to do anything else, told me to come back in NINE MORE MONTHS to see if the cysts grow any more. He didn't really address any of my concerns, and sent me on my way.

Any way, getting back to how this relates to a mission, I am left to: do I just wait and see if the docs can fix me, or do I go out to the field and if I actually have major problems come home in the middle? If I go out, I want to dedicate my whole self to the mission, and I don't want anything to send me home.

In the meanwhile, with wait that I was going to have to do, and highly considering going on a mission, I decided that the fall of 2011 I was going to take the final class I needed to get my associates in Family and Human Studies at SLCC, and work as much as I could to save up money for a mission. Well, less than a month before school started for the fall I got a call saying that they dropped that class because not enough people signed up for it. My thought was, oh great, what am I going to do now? It was too late to go get registered at the University of Utah, and there are no more classes that I can take at SLCC that will help me in my educational pursuits. I ended up having to take off a semester of school, which was one of the hardest things that I had to do.

One of my sisters came up with a plan that Spring 2012 I take that last class I need and also start taking classes at the U. I thought it was a great plan, and sent in an application to the U. Long story short with that, SLCC was a little slow with sending my transcript, making me miss the deadline for applying at the U. Right now I am taking my final class at SLCC and will have my Associates in May and I WILL be going to the U in the fall.

Life's a funny thing... You may think that you know what to expect, but then a curve ball comes your way, making things all confusing again. What is expected of us is to get back up, roll with the punches, and keep moving forward. Well, it's not always easy to try and stay positive and to keep going. This picture illustrates what we need to do though:


Interesting thought... Try again tomorrow... that's all that we can do. We got to try your best and have the courage to keep going, even when life sucks. Keep smiling.

The next thing the song reminded me of is dating... Yeah... I know what you may be thinking... Attending a singles ward they talk about it ALL THE TIME! I'm not even kidding you... We even had a couple come and speak about how great marriage is during Sacrament meeting. Sure, every girl thinks about it from time to time. Do I have a boyfriend right now? No... Could I have a boyfriend right now? Yes... The past year I have had five chances to get a boyfriend and I turned each of them down... It's kind of interesting: ever since I was 19 I went through a cycle of where I would have a boyfriend for three months, he would dump me, and then in three more months I would have a boyfriend. It was something that I got teased about a lot. Where I'm at now, I haven't had a boyfriend for almost a whole year coming up on my birthday (yeah, I got dumped on my birthday, but that's another story if you are daring to ask me). There is one that I would like to date, but wouldn't in his current situation and there is another that I would be interested in dating, but I don't think he knows I exist... nah, just kidding about that. He does know that I exist, but the most that I get out of him is him calling certain things I do "cute" or "adorable." Sigh! I just need to find my unicorn, as one of my good pals puts it.

Well, what I know for sure is, I need to trust in the Lord and keep pushing forward. He has a plan for me. I don't know what is in store, but if I do what is right and do my part, he will lead the way. I just need to keep moving forward! I know that whatever choice I make, I will learn from it. :)

Geocaching

My teacher for Technology in the Classroom decided that we needed to create a blog. I’ve always told myself I’d never get a blog, but there was always a small desire in the back of my mind to get one. The assignment I’m suppose to do is put up two paragraphs of text and to put up a picture. After much consideration, I’ve decided write about something that I enjoy doing…GEOCACHING!


Many of you may ask, what is Geocaching? I once heard Geocaching described as modern-day treasure hunting where people use multi-billion dollar satellites (or a GPS) to find Tupperware containers hidden out in the forest. You can find caches anywhere throughout the world. These caches that are hidden come in many different shapes and sizes.

In this picture is my dad and I. This is one of the big caches that we found. In the big caches

you can find items that you can trade for with items that are of equal or greater value.

This picture is of my brother-in-law Christopher and I. The caches are as small as the size

of mint containers. In that case you will only be able to find a log in each one.

This is another picture of my dad and I. The caches can even come in containers that are in weird

shapes and sizes. This one for example came in the shape of a duck and was floating on a lake.

To find a cache you need to go to www.geocaching.com where you can download coordinates to caches onto your GPS. After you find the cache, you need to follow these rules/instructions that are found on the Geocaching website:

1. If you take something from the cache, leave something of equal or greater value.

2. Write about your find in the cache logbook.

3. Log your experience at www.geocaching.com.

There you have it! Now you know what Geocaching is and how to do it. Geocaching is a great way to explore locations near and far. The GPS will lead you to the area of the cache, but it is up to you to find the exact location of the cache, which most of the time are cleverly hidden. Geocaching is a great activity for you and your family. Have fun and happy hunting!