Alta

I went skiing today up at Alta for my class. It's not too hard to miss a class up there, and I probably wouldn't have gone today if it hadn't been the day of our on-snow evaluations. Last night, it snowed a lot, and my car had a nice big blanket of snow covering it. I just drove to the base of the canyon because I carpool with some people in my class because I don't have 4-wheel drive. 

Well, I checked the weather report for Alta this afternoon, and the temperature was "10 Degrees But Feels Like -2 Degrees." Oh joy. I put on about 5 layers of clothes, and when we got up there, it was around 0 Degrees. BRRRRR!!!! Skiing wasn't too enjoyable today!

This is me on the chairlift today...taking the time to take off my goggles and my first layer of gloves was pretty painful!

Stress & Finals

Finals are next week, and it's really wearing on me. There is SO much to study for...and it's only ONE CLASS that's giving me this headache-- ANATOMY!!!!!! It's so hard to even explain how difficult this class is...the memorization for Lab quizzes each week, the 500 pages of notes there's a cumulative final over, the super detailed explanation of anything little thing...the functions...Ugh. 

So I looked up "stress" on lds.org and found an article from a 1982 Ensign that really helped me out. I'll share parts of it here:

Reducing Stress:
Welcome Thoughts for the Over-Involved

By Eric Stephan

Maybe you are one of those people who are trying to do more and more in less and less time. You take on too many responsibilities. You rush to achieve everything and feel guilty for achieving nothing. You can’t even relax at home without feeling restless. It seems that everyone is doing more than you are doing and doing it better. Still, you are determined to compete successfully and be perfect in all things.

So why do you feel so frustrated?

Some of us who display this pattern of behavior seem to be engaged in a chronic struggle with ourselves, with others, with time, and with life itself. One moment we feel proud because working harder than anyone else “proves” that we are worthwhile and important people. The next moment we realize that we are just “spinning our wheels,” trying to move in all directions at once.

Predictably, the results of this quick-paced, highly stressed way of living are ulcers, heart attacks, irritability, and an inability to be tender and loving. Too often we keep ourselves so frustrated and upset that we seldom really listen to the broken sentences of a little child or notice the spring flowers beginning to bud.

How can you control your frustrations?

If you are busy and frustrated at the same time and not experiencing the peace and joy the scriptures talk about, perhaps you should slow down for a moment and think about your daily activities. Don’t pity yourself and remain discouraged, but look for ways to break out of these uncomfortable moods.

1. Make peace of mind a family affair. Let the family suggest some appropriate ways to relax. Take the time to enjoy reading, walking, exercising, or playing games with family members. If you become so busy that you get “guilt feelings” about your family, perhaps you should change your pace and make peace of mind one of your first family goals. When you do, money, prestige, and other people will not control your life. And interestingly, you may find that peace of mind leads to increased personal and financial success. Start having a regular, weekly activity with members of your family that you can look forward to.

2. Praying does wonders for relieving some frustrations. The scriptural suggestion is: “If thou art sorrowful, call on the Lord thy God with supplication, that your souls may be joyful.” (D&C 136:29.) Spending a few quiet moments in a peaceful setting is a relaxing experience, and praying for help in overcoming depression is especially important.

3. Eat, sleep, and exercise properly. Ideally, it would be nice to start the day with a good leisurely breakfast and walking to work, enjoying three deep breaths of fresh air—instead of grabbing a thin slice of toast, rushing to finish breakfast, and then maneuvering to get onto the freeway.

Get enough sleep. Sleeping poorly for a night or two won’t hurt you—but don’t lose several nights’ sleep over a distressing situation. As the Lord has said, “Retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated.” (D&C 88:124; italics added.)

A balanced, restrained diet is also very important; and if you need exercise, find something enjoyable and do it moderately. Walk, run, hike, lift weights, swim—it doesn’t matter much what you do if you do it naturally, regularly, and have fun. Sweat a little and make the pulse rate increase, but above all, exercise peacefully and relaxed.”

4. Don’t be disappointed because you can’t do everything. And don’t compete against everybody and everything. If you try too hard, you will surely lose the most important race of your own life—the race toward peaceful and joyful living.

When you feel agitated about not completing all you have to do in a given day, ask yourself, “Who will even know or care in a hundred years?” That’s one way to separate the things that really matter from those that don’t.

You can’t do everything and you can’t change everything the way you would like it to be. So stop evaluating your success in terms of the personal or material success of other people. Instead, learn how to (1) do one thing at a time and enjoy it; (2) cooperate instead of compete—combine your resources and talents with those of other people, and obtain recognition and rewards by enriching the lives of others; (3) treat yourself after a successful effort with:

• an evening walk

• a hot bath

• a great salad

• relaxing music

• a hug

• a good cry

• an apology

• some humor

• a two-hour vacation

I really like this article!

Thanksgiving

I'm in San Francisco right now waiting for my flight to Salt Lake. I'm sad to leave Bakersfield! I can't wait to come back for Christmas. I forgot to bring my own sweater with me to Bakersfield, and since the weather was pretty sunny, I really didn't need a sweater. But I know that it's frigid in Utah, so I decided I needed to bring back a sweater with me, but the only sweater left in my closet was my BYU sweater...I feel like a total traitor, especially after the Utah vs. BYU game this last weekend!! I'll have to leave this sweater in the car when I get home so no one sees me in it! :) 

I didn't bring my camera down either, but I'm sure Lauren took enough pictures for us both! But I did get some pictures with sweet Sugar! Here are the photos I took on my camera phone:

Sugar!

Eating a Double Double Animal Style (meaning they grill the onions, and maybe add something else) at In-N-Out. That sure filled me up!

At the movies with Alvin and the Chipmunks :P

(That is NOT a BYU sweater...I swear!! lol)

More AXO Stuff!

Hola! We just had our elections for the upcoming year, and we voted on every position! This means that I will no longer be Vice President of Intellectual Development, but my good friend Katrina is my "successor"! I'm excited for her. However, I did get elected to another Exec position, and so now I'm Vice President Panhellenic Delegate. Panhellenic is the umbrella organization that is in charge of most of the national sororities and sets all the rules and such for them. On campus, Panhellenic organizes Greek-wide events for all the sororities and fraternities to participate in, to better unite everyone, instead of just individual houses. My position means I have to attend a meeting every Monday at 3, where we'll organize events, discuss issues, etc. It's a relatively easy position, and I'm excited for it. I enjoyed being on Exec, so I'm happy to be on it again! 

I also was voted into another position, Sophomore Member at Large. I'm kind of the representative for my Pledge Class (although we're not allowed to use the term 'Pledge' anymore, Nationals considers it a form of hazing!). On top of the Sunday night meetings I have to attend for Exec, I now have to stay an hour longer and go to the CRS meetings. CRS is held downstairs in our chapter room, and if you get in trouble, or are having certain issues, you go into CRS to discuss it. I'm going to be pretty busy with my new AXO positions but I'm glad to do it too! 

This last week, I had to host a sorority-wide Teacher Appreciation Night, where all the girls could invite their teachers to come and have pie and ice cream with the lovely ladies of Greek Row. I was in charge of getting all the sororities involved in it, delegating which house would bring what, making a million copies of invitations (I had my assistant make the flier!), and picking up all the Marie Callender's pies...honestly, the hardest part was getting girls to invite teachers and decorating the house. I should have taken a picture of how I set it up, but everything went so quickly that I didn't have time! I just set up three tables: One had the milk and water and utensils on it, the second table had all the pies (apple, banana cream, razzleberry, peach) and the third table was decorated with pictures, T-shirts, and other knick-knacks the sororites set up to show off their chapter and the events that they do. It was a good way for teachers to get to know what Greek life is all about. We had a turn-out of 7 teachers, which was far better than last year's turn out. Last year, we only had one teacher turn up! Talk about awkward! I'm really happy with how it went. It was a nice event and I think everyone enjoyed it (at least they enjoyed the pie! You can't go wrong with Marie Callender's!). 

School is starting to wrap up....I don't have anymore tests until Finals on December 16th. I only have two finals this year, and can you believe that they're both on the same day??!! Stats and Anatomy on the same day. Not fair. I'm going to get a hard start on Anatomy. That's going to be one crazy final. 

Well, I feel like I've written an essay, here are a couple of pictures for your viewing enjoyment!

This is me with a Kappa Sigma, Steve, at our Philanthropy event, Burgers and Babes. We served hamburgers, fries, and milkshakes and invited all the sororities and fraternities to raise money for our philanthropy, which is Domestic Violence Awareness. We raised $1,000 this night!

This is me with my Little, Katie, in our CUTE AXO sweatshirts! I love the way they turned out! [Thanks, Mom!]

Random Outdoor Adventures

Here are some pictures from some outdoor adventures I've had lately with Andy. On the weekend of General Conference, Andy and I took a hike with his dad inbetween sessions. It was up Big Cottonwood Canyon (before you reach Solitude and Brighton ski resorts) and it was beautiful! It had recently snowed up there, and even though my feet were soaking it was so fun! At the end of the hike you reached this lake, and it was gorgeous! Here are the pictures :

Then, just a few weeks ago, we decided to bike Bobsled, which is a great downhill bike trail that's up in the Avenues (a neighborhood in North Salt Lake...really close to the U). We went on a Saturday that I thought would be one of the last weekends the weather would be nice, but it so happened that this Saturday had the WORST weather! It was raining, hailing, and all of that good stuff while we were biking. Needless to say, I fell down a lot since the trail was so muddy and it was pretty exciting. This trail is awesome-it has old cars on it that you can actually jump over, and other great scenery. If I had my Brodie this trail would have been a lot easier, but the challenge was pretty fun. Here are the pictures from it:

Me at the top of Bobsled

Andy

Part of the trail-notice how high it curves up! It was super muddy so I slid off a lot!

The view of Salt Lake from the upper Avenues

Me, all super muddy...

Mud and blood...cute :-P

Andy, and a cool old car in the background

The Faint

I went to Provo to visit Lauren in June 2007 and to see the Faint perform in Salt Lake City. The Faint was definitely, and still is, one of my favorite bands. They have an eclectic electronic sound that's super catchy. Mom and Grayson both like them, or at least one of their songs (Agenda Suicide). In July of 2008 I went and saw them in Salt Lake again, but they didn't come back this last summer :( I was very disappointed! They put on one of the best live shows, second to Green Day. 

I just found an old video I posted on YouTube two years ago of their 2007 performance that I recorded with my phone. I'll post the link on here just so you can see them...they have cool robotic dance moves and the lights and videos they have going on stage is awesome! Enjoy :)

PS- You probably want to turn your sound down...it's pretty scratchy to listen to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx9wfFtqP-I

The song is called "I Disappear" and here's a link to the music video for the whole song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f7tgprbjtg

Big and Little Week!

Last week (or, 2 weeks ago, technically..) was my Fall Break and I miss it so much! It was so great to be in Bakersfield and see everyone. This past week was Big and Little week for AXO. It's when a new member chooses an active member to be her "Big", and this is just a good way for new members to connect with active members and to have someone to go to. During Big and Little week, the Bigs put out little gifts in the house and the Littles come and get them each day. They're not told who their big is until Friday, so throughout the week they're guessing about who it is. It's fun, and then during Initiation Week the Bigs give their Littles lots of candy and food and other things for when they have to sleep over at the house that week. 

My Little is Katie Christensen and she's awesome! She's a pre-nursing major like me and is so easy to talk to!

Here are some pictures of us from Friday:

This is the blanket I made for her! It was super comfy. I wanted to keep it :)

I really struggled with decorating this board...oh well!

Anyway, I'll be posting up other things this week! Stay tuned! :)