New Harry Potter trailer!

Yay! I'm so excited!

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Tag! I'm it!

Daisy over at Very American Girl in Australia tagged me, so here we go..

List 6 unimportant things that make you happy.

1. Dr. Pepper - I love Dr. Pepper, its almost sad how happy it truly makes me. See my post here, entitled Dr Pepper is Heaven, to read more about just how happy. :)
2. The sound and smell of Rain. It is one of my very favorite things. I think this is why I loved London so much. Rain.. {and its raining tonight, so yay!}
   
3. Taking pictures. Especially of the pretty clouds, flowers, mountains. Haha. Guess I like nature. Whenever I have a camera with me, I take a million pictures. I really need a new one!
   
4. Laughing. Especially laughing so hard my stomach hurts, and I have tears running down my face.
   
5. Anderson Cooper.. its pathetic, but oh so true.
6. Not having any homework. {not that that happens very often}

Now I must tag 6 people, SO although ALL of you are invited to do this, here's my list of 6..

1. Ashley, my sister :)
   
2. Ashley at Writing to Reach You
3. Lauren
4. Alisha
5. Amanda
6. Kim

Yay!
Happy Weekend!

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A giant pink inflatable mouse?

Jacques Rival, a French architect, made this contraption of a mouse and placed it in the Rhône river in Lyon, France. It is strange, yet awesome. His purpose was to inform people of the risk of floods.
{see other fun photos here}

Speaking of the French, they are a bit strange. Not really, I actually really enjoyed France when I was there a few years ago. Most of the French people were quite nice to us, they sure didn't live up to their rude snobby stereotype. The men did live up to their crazy, super forward image though. Perhaps I will tell that story another day. But man some of the French food...

Today was my last official day in my French 1010 class. Yay! We reviewed for our final a little but mostly we just ate French food. Croissants, French bread, Nutella, Éclairs.. YUM. For extra credit, our teacher wanted us to try pâté, let's just say Nicole will never try pâté again, and will never need to. Je detesté! It was like stinky salty pureed hot dogs or something. and I don't even like hot dogs. Ew. Ew. Ew. Did you know the French eat horse?

They are offering a French class this Summer, as kind of a Conversational community education class, where you don't get any credit. At first I was like, "well why would I want to do that?" but now I am thinking it might be a good idea, so I remember it and don't feel confused in August, especially since I have a different teacher next semester. Hmmm..

I do really like French, and think I am going to do the French minor. If it doesn't set me back too much. I have been playing with planning ideas for school, and am trying to get it done as soon as possible, without having a heart attack from too much school + homework while still working full time at The Rack. My adviser is having a baby in September, so I think I am going to meet with her soon, sometime this summer so that I can talk to her about plans and stuff and get everything all figured out for a year or so. I still regret never finishing school the right way. I truly should have just gone for it right after high school, continuously. But then I'm not even sure I would have gotten my degree in the right major, I truly feel that my major is what I truly want to do. I know so many people that have already gotten their degrees and now they're like like, "Crap, should've done _________" So as the French say, Autre temps, autres moeurs., translated: Other days (or times), other ways. Guess we all get to where we're going, sometime.

Ps ~ Happy 69th Birthday Al Pacino (on Friday), I love him as Michael in The Godfather. Perhaps I will watch it today to commemorate Al's birthday.

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Blogoversary

Today is my blog anniversary. One year ago today I thought I was needing to start a blog, because I was going to spend July 08 to July 09 in Rheinzabern, Germany. My how things have changed. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened. If I'd chosen a different family. One that wasn't crazy. Would we have stayed? Would I have liked it? Would I be writing this at a different time, on a German computer? Who knows. But, I don't regret what I've done with the time I've had here in Utah instead. And, its been hard getting back "on my feet" but I'm finally there, and working, and going to school, and feeling like I'm being successful. Even learning French instead of Deutch. Crazy how things work.

Click here to read last year's post.

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Truly Outrageous!

When I was very young my favorite cartoon character was JEM. I was obsessed. Many mornings I would go over to my Aunt Julie's house early early in the morning to be babysat. My dad would drop me off, get me all set up and comfy on my Grandma Jean's bed, and then I would watch the two episodes of JEM that were on every morning. I loved it! I was obsessed. My favorite wasn't Jerrica/JEM, but was Kimber. I also really liked Stormer, even though she was part of the Misfits (read: bad girl), I always felt like she didn't want to be bad, and it wasn't her fault that she had been born into an evil family with crazy sisters. haha.

Aja, Kimber, JEM, Shana

Stormer

Then, as most shows eventually do, JEM was canceled. A new TV show: Barbie, was introduced in JEM's time slot. Now, I was a true girly girl little kid, I loved Barbies, and by the end of my childhood, I had over 100 of them. But I hated this show! I had fits and freak outs every time Barbie came on instead of JEM. I wouldn't watch Barbie, just because it had taken my favorite show's place. Officially, this will be considered my very first protest.

I didn't really have a lot of JEM memorabilia, I did have an awesome Barbie set that I got the Christmas after I turned 5. It was awesome. It was like a Rock Band set. The attic in my fancy Barbie house served as the recording studio, I had a keyboard, guitars, microphone stands, it was the best! I think my fascination came from wanting to be JEM and the Holograms.

If I had a conversation with JEM I think I would have asked her how she was able to change clothes, for example when she morphed from JEM to Jerrica, I never understood where her clothes went, or where the new ones came from. Or was it all just a hologram? So she was really still wearing the same outfit, everyone just thought she was wearing something else. And, why didn't anyone ever notice that although JEM and Jerrica were supposed to be friends, Jerrica never came to the JEM and the Holograms concerts??

Part of the first episode..



This post was written from a Writing Prompt (see below) found on twentysomethingwriters.com. Y'all should check it out and join in!!

Digimon Dialogue - Writing Prompt

Who was your favorite cartoon character as a child? No holding back, admit it! Did you have a lot of collector’s items (stuffed animals, bed sheets, figurines, etc) of them? Are they worth any money currently?

Imagine you were able to meet your favorite cartoon character. How would you meet? (Maybe they came alive off of your bed-sheets!) What would you say? Write a brief (or extended) dialog between the two of you

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Easter 2009

Easter really is one of my favorite Holidays, probably for four reasons:

• Coloring Eggs (I LOVE to color.. and decorate things!)
• Easter Sugar Cookies
  
• Hanging out with crazy family
• Grandma's rolls and yummie ham

Here are some pictures of Ash, Tim, and I enjoying our Easter Arts N Crafts on Saturday, and a few pictures of flowers, mountains, and clouds from Easter morning. Kind of forgot the camera for actual pictures of people on Easter Sunday. Oops - But still, enjoy.

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Travel Wish: Majorca, Spain

Majorca {Mallorca in Catalan}, is an Island off of Spain that is simply BONITA. I have wanted to go there, ever since I knew it existed. And here is why..

• Beautiful beaches
• Awesome historic Castles and Cathedrals
• Yummy food
• Rafael Nadal was born in Majorca
• It never gets below 50'F!
  

Castell de Bellver


Le Sue

I'm a sucker for Sunsets..

Rafael Nadal

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Spring has Sprung

Back to bullets, Yes I am.

• I worked 8 days in a row at the rack. From the day we opened, last Thursday, until I got my first days off yesterday and today. My feet are swollen because I stood too much, for too long, for too many days. Awesome. I only have to work tomorrow, and then I'm off again for Easter Sunday. Hallelujah!
  
• Yesterday was a fun day. I hung out with my little brother Timmy for most of the day. We went to Wendy's, investigated world populations together {who knows where that came from: his idea, I swear}, and then belted it out on Rock Band. I love that little man.
  
• This somewhat sunny weather, {well, there's not any snow.. } plus the swollen feet problem, has me wearing flip flops. I LOVE flip flops! Probably a bit too much.. but what can ya do? I think it is the freedom of them, the part where if and when I paint my toe nails people can actually see it, while I'm being all proper and still wearing shoes - which I loathe - I hate wearing shoes!
  
• .. and the flip flops led to think about Spring and Summer and how I want to do everything awesome this summer! The family has been talking about going back to Disneyland in September-ish, but I don't know if it will be able to happen or not. We will see. We will see.
  
• So while I wait on the Disneyland idea, here are a few things that I am excited about, now that the weather is a little better.
• Thanksgiving Point's Tulip Festival is April 17th - May 2nd! I have never been to the festival, always wanted to, but somehow missed it. Last year I was all set to go, but then the ground still wasn't really thawed, and the rumor was that the festival sucked because it was lacking in tulips.. so I didn't go. But I am going this year!
• The ZOO. I love the Zoo, I really do. And they have a new baby of my favorite monkey! The Colobus monkey. It was born August 11th last year, so he should be all cute this spring / summer. When Tim, Ash, and I went last year there was a baby Colobus too. So it should be cute for there to be two young ones playing around still. I love it. They also have somewhat new Golden Lion Tamaran Twins that were born March 2008.


• 
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Colobus Monkeys, Hogle Zoo, March 2008

• I also want to go to Lagoon again this summer. I think I want to buy the Lagoon Season Pass, for $95, since if you go more than twice in the year, it makes the most sense money wise to just buy the pass. I'm not sure if my friends are buying them this year though, so we'll see what happens. Me & Amanda really need to ride the Catapult again. That was so Awesome!! Click here to read the stories of Lagoon fun from last summer.
  

• 
  

• I also want to go see Miss Saigon at Pioneer Theatre Company. I really really do.. I hopes I cans.
  
• The NBA playoffs start in ONE WEEK! Go Lakers!!
  
• Last but not least, the movie Fast & Furious. Its. Awesome. Yes. It. Is. Loved. It. :)
  

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Joyeuses Pâques

This Sunday is Easter, so I thought I'd share a few things I love about Easter -although I'm sure I will just post pictures of the events next week. I LOVE Coloring Eggs! It is one of my favorite things, and, a friend of mine was talking about the symbolism of Easter, and how some of them are pagan and others are Christian. I thought that was interesting, and since I love it so much I thought hey why not find out the reason we have the eggs at Easter.. and this is what I found:

The origin of the Easter egg is based on the fertility lore of the Indo-European races. To our pre-Christian ancestors it was a most startling event to see a new and live creature emerge from a seemingly dead object. The egg to them became a symbol of spring. Long ago in Persia people used to present each other with eggs at the spring equinox, which for them also marked the beginning of a new year.

Very interesting, ey? I thought so.
Also, did you know the name Easter comes from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring: Eostre? Yep, me neither.
Oh, and apparently, the Easter Bunny is German. No wonder he always creeped me out. Just kidding Just kidding.

Cadbury Mini eggs are also reason enough to love the holiday.
And Starburst Jelly beans..

Happy Easter Everyone! :)

PS ~ Thanks all for the haircut feedback! I am going to do it, sometime.. soon. I have to figure out if I can pay for it, and then yay. :)

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to cut, or not to cut

I'm trying to decide if I should cut my hair.. or let it keep getting longer. I'm thinking I'd want to get it cut like this:


SOOO.. Vote Yes or No on the side >>> over there. Thanks!

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Fling off Thy Sadness!

I have been reading a lot lately. I got into a few girly~girly novels, and read one of them in just one day! So I have updated my 50 Books in 2009 list again. I've read 11 books now. I'm slowly creeping towards my goal. I hope I can really make it! Eek! At the rate I'm going, I don't know if it will work. Guess we will see. I think since I'm taking the Summer off from school I will have more time to read books and catch up.

Today is April 1st, and it still snowed here most of the day!!! WTF?! So not cool! Its like some sort of April Fools joke, by the Weather Guru or something. I don't know! But it better stop. This poem is perfect for today:

"Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!"
- Thomas Blackburn, An Easter Hymn

Tomorrow is The Grand Opening at The Rack. I hope there's not too many people! Ick. I worked at the Sugar House Rack on Saturday. It was interesting. I got to go with Lindsey from work, and she's pretty awesome, so it was good. I'm glad it was her I got to go with. The manager of that store, Bridget, took us out to a cafe nearby, and paid for our food. Way nice. The actual manager of the Accessories department was totally weird though. Our actual manager from the Sandy Rack called while we were on break and wanted us to call her back, the manager at Sugar House told us not to! She's like "oh, we need you to keep working, don't call her back." WHAT? So so strange. Yeah, here, let us disobey our actual manager, sure that makes sense..

I finally watched MILK the other day with Ashley, my sister. I can't believe how crazy this world is! WHY do some people think they are so important, and that they are so great and religious and wonderful, and think it is their right to belittle people that are "below" them!?!? I don't understand. It made me so mad.. and sad.. and happy that we are actually getting somewhere in the Gay Rights struggle. BUT at the same time, I was like dude! there was a proposition (Prop 6) that had similar arguments to Prop 8, and people are still so super bigoted?! Guess we haven't changed that much. I mean, Prop 6 was almost thirty years ago!! Ah, it just amazes me. My sister wrote more about the whole struggle, and the crazy woman, Anita Bryant that was the voice for the Religious Right during the movement. Click here for her blog post about it. All in all it was a good movie, and I am glad that it was made. We all need to be reminded of the different struggles for equality in this imperfect country.

In other current events, the G-20 starts tomorrow in London. I hope that people will protest for their causes peacefully, so that their voices can be heard, and not be overshadowed by not-needed violence and disruption. Although, I would love for someone to be like HEY Why didn't anyone arrest al-Bashir when he traveled out of The Sudan to Qatar, this past week?! Argh.

But the best news of today, I don't know if I said anything recently but I have been talking to my adviser at school about doing an Internship next Spring for my Social Work degree. It will get me so much closer to graduating. Well, last Wednesday, an opportunity came up in New Delhi. I thought it was a total long shot, but I thought what the hell, I'll apply. My adviser called me this afternoon to tell me I got in. So I will be in New Delhi, India from January 2010 to April 2010! Wahoo!! I've always wanted to go to Delhi! Now we're just trying to get my sister over there doing something, so we can go together. I'm so excited!
Just Kidding! APRIL FOOLS! :)

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