I'm going on a mission!

I've been called to serve the Lord in the Arizona, Tuscon Mission - English speaking. I will go into the MTC July 28. : )

Mission Letters

By the way, I don't really write on this blog very often right now but when I go on a mission I will have my mom post my letters here. So if you want to read my letters you can follow this blog. Also if you want to see the map of who is guessing and where they are guessing I will keep it updated on here. : )

I'm going on a Mission!!!

My mission papers are in! Make a guess as to where I'm going : ) If you guess a foreign you have to guess a stateside too. But if you guess stateside you are not required to guess a foreign. Once you guess I will update the google map with your guesses. : )

little moments

So today I had two wonderful little moments of happiness.
During my class in dramatic literary critisim we were talking about language and the teacher made a joke about how one of the students didn't seem to believe in grammer or anything like that because it certianly didn't show up in his papers. (The class chuckled a bit at this.) The student responded triumphantly, "Language is a construct and I choose freedom!" The entire class fell apart laughing. I'm so happy that I'm not the only geek in the world who understood exactly what theory he was implying and found the humor in it. : )
Later walking home from class I walked past a construction site. As I was passing I heard someone yelling "Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep!" I looked up to see a construction working beeping along to the machine that was raising him up to work on the side of the building with a big grin on his face, just in case his coworker higher up didn't notice him coming. He noticed me watching and waved to me while he continued to beep at his coworker. He made my day.

hmmm...dum dum dum

So it has been a really REALLY long time since I've written. I don't think I even remember what I wrote about last. Oh, wait! Oppression? I dunno. Any way. lets see....
I'm really not liking my job at broadcasting job right now. I don't like having to work at night. It's never really effected me negatively before but for some reason this semester my body just isn't bouncing back as quickly as it used to after working the whole night. Its taking me all weekend to get back on track. It's driving me crazy that I'm always tired.
However, I'm loving the rest of life. I really love my roommates. It's so nice to have roommates who believe in the gospel and practice it in their lives. I love the spirit that fills our apartment and the fact that we actually talk to each other and go to church together and I know things about their lives.
I worked concessions this past weekend and that was alot of fun. I've missed all my concessions buddies. I'm the only returning employee on my side of the stadium so that is a little interesting. I basically get to play question answerer/problem solver to the whole side. That's a lot of fun. I like being able to move around. I get to work again this saturday. : )
Yeah, so this is turning out to be a really boring post. I promise my life is slightly exciting. I just don't know what I can say and not feel like I'm compromising my internet saftey. hmmm
oh well. It may also be related to the fact that it is 4:30 am.
I guess I'm not gunna write anymore.

Ha! I figured it out!!!!! now you can see my boy!

Coughing!

I hate coughing. Have I mentioned that lately? I've been coughing pretty much every couple of minutes for the past two days. I haven't been able to sleep because of it and it's driving me crazy! I feel so bad for my roomies. It must really be driving them crazy. I think my body is finaly winding down though. I'm only caughing every 10 min or so now and they are kind of pathetic coughs! YAY!

Oppression

I'm studying theatre of the oppressed in one of my classes and it is really interesting to contemplate oppression in our society and mormon culture in particular. It's especially interesting to view it through anothers eyes, because there are things that I don't consider oppresive that others might and thus I don't feel oppressed by them. So if I don't feel oppressed by something am I still being oppressed. Does oppression hinge on the reaction of the oppressed?
It's easy to say yes to that when its an issue of, the Honor Code, for example. Some people would consider it oppressive. After all it says that I can't go to anothers apartment after midnight, I can't use their restroom, I can't wear certain types of clothing. I'm sure to lots of people this seems very oppressive. To me, however, I don't feel oppressed. It's something that I would choose to do anyway. So am I being oppressed?
However, if you use the example of a woman who grew up in a patriarchaly domineering culture where women have certain responsibilities and certain things they can and cannot do. She is of the personality type where that seems normal and she accepts it. She doesn't feel oppressed by the fact that she can't do certain things, it just seems normal to her. Is she being oppressed? She doesn't feel the need or desire to change her position. If for example she were required to cover her head at all times. This seems normal to her and she would not question but if a guy tried to tell me that I always had to cover my head I would feel oppressed. So is she being oppressed when she is told to cover her head?
I think it is a very interesting concept to consider as we deal with different countries. I think we always need to get to know the people there before we come to any conclusions about treatment and rituals of other cultures and countries.

darn experiment failure

hmmm... so that picture didn't really work out. time to figure this out. IT WON'T LET ME SHOW YOU MY BOY

I'm Old Fashioned!

Chris and I had date night tonight!!!

It was so much fun. We indulged our old fashioned sides. We dressed up and went to dinner. Everyone kept asking why were dressed up. I wanna know why people don't dress up for dates anymore! It was great to be dressed up and made it so much more exciting. We went to Gloria's Little Italy which is a wonderful italian restaurant! One of my favorites. Its owned by an italian family and its a family business so its just wonderful home style cooking with fresh foods! Its so delicious!

After that we went to the play The Taffetas and listened to 2 hours of wonderful oldies. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed two of the actresses. I thought they were so cute and did a wonderful job of portraying singers from that time period. The other two actresses were great singers in their own rights but they couldn't get into the oldies mind set I don't think. They definitley sounded more like modern broadway singers and didn't quite have the movements down either but thats okay. It was still great and just too much fun! I highly recommend a regular dose of being old fashioned to everyone. It's a wonderful feeling. and dancing in the street is always positive. :-)

WEEEEEEEEEEE!

today was quite the ride. (I think I've decided to use this in place of journaling. I think it will work better for me)
the beginning of the day was pretty average until I started feeling pretty sick at work but I couldn't ever sit still because the national weather service kept sending us severe weather storm warnings for the area (all that ever happened was a light sprinkle and alot of thunder, with the occasional lightening). Then I went to another great class of dramatic literature before going to my first day at the junior high I'll be working with on their production of Annie. Man was I nervous. It's been a long time since I've been to a junior high and a long time since i've had to go and meet with a teacher who i'd be working with. It really wasn't that bad though ( I knew it wouldn't be). I'm helping on the tech side of the production. Today I met with the head costume girl. MAN she can talk your ear off. I don't think she hears anyone. It was kind of funny. But she has some really good ideas that we can run with. I was reminded as I re-read the script that I'm really happy I'm working on the tech side. I don't have to see or hear the musical as often as the teacher does because she is directing. I forgot how annoying I find alot of the songs in that musical.

Then I hurried to my scenic art class which only lasted an hour because he didn't think the base coat would dry in time for us to do our projects. so we just watched him show us different techniques.

After that I was feeling very sick and kind of down. I don't really have any friends in that class that i'm really good friends with. They are all people that I kind of know and we talk when we don't know other people in the class. However, they all have their friends that they really know in the class so I'm kind of the odd man out. which is okay when we are doing things but not so cool when we are standing around waiting for things to dry and stuff.

So BF and I went out and got chinese to cheer me up. Can I just say? Chinese is the BEST pick me up!!! We went and ate it in my car at our favorite park while it sprinkled. It was the coolest thing. While we were sitting there a cloud rolled in and covered the valley. it had to go on for miles and we were on the outside just looking at this cloud that looked like it was sitting on top of all of all the cities nearby! I took pictures on my phone but unfortunately I don't know how to get those onto the computer. : ( that would have made this blog a lot more interesting.

after that we went home to read Annie.

BF has never watched the movie Annie before!!!! What a blessed little childhood he must have led. Needless to say he now is very grateful to his parents for never putting him through that ordeal. though I think he really enjoyed reading daddy warbucks. especially during the radio scene.
I actually think the main beef BF had with the play was not with the actual play itself. The editors of the edition we had were really bad! there were so many errors and it was driving BF crazy! it actually was pretty pathetic how many errors they let slip by them. I was even catching them.

And now I have to write a paper for a class that is due tomorrow because I've put off writing it for long enough. TTFN

I finally got a blog

So Mom this is for you. You suggested a couple times that I make a blog to keep the family updated. Then you got a blog. I keep checking your blog and I picked on you for not writting. So I figure that I'm a hippocrite and I need to get my own blog and write on it before I can pick on you for not writing on yours.
and just for those readers who aren't in my immediate family I apologize. I probably have the worst grammer, spelling and punctuation known to mankind. Especially when I don't edit my work. And since this is a blog, I don't feel like editing my work. So I'm sorry.

Anyway.... moving on....

This past week was the second week of school. I've pretty much settled into the routine of work and my classes. Well all except for one which really starts this week because most of my time for that class is field work and I don't get into my junior high till tomorrow. Here's my breakdown:

Day one (mon, wed, fri)

I'm taking a Shakespeare class which I am so excited about. It's a really popular class and I've been trying to add it for 3 semesters now. But I'm finally in it and the professor is AMAZING! I'm really lucky to have him because this is the only semester he is here. (he's a visiting professor) He is very sarcastic. The first day of class he said that if anyone can't handle sarcasm they should probably drop the class because he has been working on getting better with his sarcasm but he still hasn't mastered it and he most likely will offend someone on accident if they can't handle his. I think he is halarious and he is very candid about shakespeare and knows alot of the historical background of his plays. I'm kind of worried abou the class though because all of the grade is based on essays. and as you can probably tell essays are not one of my strengths. oh well. It's still a great class.

Next up I have a dramatic literature class which is even more wonderful! I've been waiting to get all the pre-requisites out of the way so I can take a class with this professor. he has substituted in a couple of my lower level classes and I've always loved how he lectures and just the insights that he has into the material. The funny thing is, I never realized it, but I work with his wife. So I went to a work party on saturday and he was there with his wife and kids. It was really weird. but the class is great. we basically apply literary criticisms to plays, so we get to read alot of academics and I love all the theories.

I'm also taking a scenic art class which should be interesting considering how not artsy I am. And can I just say I didn't think about how expensive it would be! I had to get 10, 2' by 3' boards and like 15 different types of paint brushes plus an uber expensive book, a beveled straight edge, plain straight edge, gloves and a razor. However, it should be a fun class. I know alot of the people in the class and I know that alot of them aren't actually art artsy, just like me. So we will have fun laughing at our artwork.

and that is day 1. I'll also be going to my junior high on day one. which will be a ton of fun. I'm helping with a junior high production of Annie. i'll be helping with costumes, make-up, hair, set, lighting and choreography. They have their own little tech crew of students that I'll be working with! I'm excited. I haven't met the teacher yet though. I've only communicated with her through email. I meet her tomorrow and I'm a little apprehensive.

day two starts out with my applied theatre class which I LOVE!! applied theatre is pretty much why I went into theatre education. Applied theatre for those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about is pretty much using theatre techniques to teach anything besides actual theatre only skills. I like teaching theatre skills too but I understand that most of my theatre students will never go on to actually become actors or technicians. Therefore I would teach them theatre skill but I also want to use theatre techniques to teach different social and emotional skills. really work on acceptance and understanding of others. I also want to get them excited about other subjects such as history, english and science through the venue of theatre. applied theatre is basically doing that. and it's great fun. The class has also made me consider going into drama therapy instead of teaching. But I really love to teach so we'll have to see if I actually change my mind. I would still be in the same major but after undergraduate work I would have to go and get some more education to become a licensed therapist.

I'm also taking make-up two which is great fun! We've already done fake mustaches and beards. Learned how to do a bunch of really cool up-do's. We've also had our pancake make-up project which was cool, though I have to say I did not do very well on that one. (Pancake make-up is the kind of make-up marilyn monroe and other of her contemporaries wore that gave them that flawless finish. It is almost pure pigment and you have to work really quick and get it right the first time when you apply it. there is no fixing it. if you mess up you have to start all over) This upcoming week we start on airbrush techniques. I'm really excited about that. there is so much you can do with airbrushing.

and thats it for my day two (tues and thurs)

I also have my production class that meets only on wed. (its the one that I go to the junior high for) which is a really funny class because I worked all my other classes around it so that I would have afternoons free to go to the junior high and then I almost didn't get to take it because I was the only one who signed up for the class. When I mentioned this to the professor though, she said she would hold it just for me, even if no one else signed up because she knows how hard it can be to work your schedule like that. So the professor and I sit alone in her office every wed for an hour and go over stuff. Its exciting and good to get to know her because she is the head of my department. : )

And that's it for me for now
later in the semester I will be doing make-up for the main stage opera and I will also get another class in october called multi-cultural education.

So these past two weeks have been pretty laid back as far as school goes but I'm guessing starting this week things are really gunna pick up and the busyness will set in.

on the exciting events front. I've been in love with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator theory for a long time and there is this wonderful book about it called Please Understand Me II that I have been looking at for a long time. Chris bought it for me out of the blue last week and I have just been gobbling it up. If you actually made it down to the end of this post to read this, I highly recommend that you take the myers-briggs test and tell me what type you get. This website is a good test:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
I'm INTJ. It's lots of fun and I just find it very interesting.

and yeah, I think thats all. haha. till next time.