pink eye.

it seems to be a trend that i am always cleaning my room when i am at my home. moving back and forth from school makes it really hard for me to stay organized. 

just found my madeline doll. 

you know, in a old house in paris, covered with vines

twelve little girls in two straight lines

blah blah blah, they broke their bread, something about  half past nine. 

the smallest one is MADELINE. 

but for some reason when i was little i took a red marker and drew around her eyes and gave her pink eye. 

im afraid.

i have never really been one for new years resolutions. 

but this year i decided that my goal was to become a better photographer and just to be more confident. 

i really don't know what im doing. but im trying to learn. im reading lots of photog blogs and stuff, but its hard for me to just go out and shoot. i guess i just feel pressure to be good, but i need to accept that there is just this learning stage i need to get through. im kinda intimidated by the friends i have who are photographers, because they are al really talented. when i really should just ask for help. 

today i asked my little bro, jacob if i could go into our backyard and take pictures of him.

i liked a few of them, but i think this one is my fave. 

you should also check out his myspace music site. 

i was a weird child.

sometimes i forget how weird i was back in elementary school.
and then i find something like this to remind me:that would be my atom project from 4th (or maybe 3rd) grade.
i had the element calcium and i had the bright idea to use a milk carton as the nucleus.
cow stickers as the protons.
plastic bones as the neutrons.
and plastic eggs as the electrons.

oh no, no styrofoam balls for me.

seriously, how did i have friends?

now back to moving out of my room. I gave it to my brother for christmas so now we are trading and i get the smaller room. but a bigger closet.i took another photo break becuase i found my john smith doll.
i remember seeing pocahontas in the theaters at least four times.

also, like my new spectacles?
oh and notice the Bob's Big Boy piggy bank on the bookshelf? so classic.

all i wanted to do was read.

so tonight i had the urge to read a roald dalh book.

this is what you need to know going into this story: my mom is middle school library media teacher.a really awesome one at that.
we have book shelves in pretty much every room in our house except the bathrooms.
(but you will still find books in there)

i was on a mission to find any of our old books by him.
the one i really wanted to read was The Witches.
second on my list was the one about the boy who drugs the pheasants by putting sleeping pills in raisins. i couldn't remember the name of the book (it's Danny, Champion of the World).
And i would have been completely satisfied with The Twits, The BFG, Matilda, or fantastic mr fox.

so i began the search. i started on the book shelves in the hallway by may parents room. wasnt there. move one to the small bedroom shelves, and closet, checked in the living room, jacobs room, and my room.
nothing.

i did see plenty of beverly clearys, mrs tiggywinkle, comic books, judy blume, harry potter, box car children, amber brown, cs lewis, tolkien, and a bunch of classic children's novels.
but no dalh.
and that's all i wanted.
I was not interested in all these other books that had brought me hours of enjoyment and entertainment in my childhood. all i wanted was Dolh.
at this point i was becoming desperate.
I would have settled for charlie and the chocolate factory or james and the giant peach. even the giraffe and the pelly and me would have done.

but these books were no where to be found.
i looked on all the shelves for a second time. they had to be there! but alas, i count not locate them.

so i had to give up. and i really hate giving up.
if i think that i might not succeed usually i just avoid the task all together (not a good strategy)
but at this point i has tried really hard to find a book, so it was hard to admit defeat.

i did find another book i have been wanting to reread.
coraline. the movie will be released on feburary 9th and you better believe i am going to see it in theaters. its a stop motion animation move. and there is music from they might be giants.
seriously.

my mom got me a copy of the book five years ago and its totaly signed by the author, neil gaiman.

so now i am going to read that book, and tomorrow i will ask my mom if she knows where any of the Roald Dahl books are.

biblical women fear snakes.

so my mom used to teach middle school science.
and i dont know how it started but she ended up with so many animals in her class room.

there was a large aviary on one wall that had probably 15+ zebra finches. they would lay eggs and have little baby birds, so cute!the wood shop teacher made a pen on the floor out of discarded desks for the 10ish guinea pigs.
and during class they would let the pigs out so they were free to roam the class.

there was a bunny rabbit that would hop all around the school. and eat grass on the pe field and then be back in her class at the end of the day.there were always other random animals: parakeets, cockatoos, bull frogs, bearded dragon lizard, hamsters, tree frogs... and probably others that i am forgetting.

but this is where the story gets good.
some student gave her two garden snakes. my mom hates snakes, its actually biblical for women to hate snakes. but for some reason she took on the two snakes and kept them in her classroom.

so one morning my mom go to her classroom and there was only one snake in the cage. i wasn't there, but im failry positive she freaked out! well it turns out that the snake had gotten into the avieray and it had eaten all teh eggs, some baby birds, and some grown finches. it was a sad day in the class room.

every summer my mom would bring the animals hoome and we would take care of them for a few months.

so this summer i was playing with my friend kimberly and we were playing with the snakes, which were being storred in my room (her dad is a entomologist (bug expert) at ucr so she wasnt afraind of bugs or snakes).
so we put the snake in my barbie ferrari and once it was in it was not coming out.so i just put the barbie ferrari in the cage and left it.
i never told my mom about it.

a few months later i left for sumer cams and my mom and my aunt nanette decided to clean out my closet. they sorted through all my stuff and made their way to the darkest must untouched areas of the closet.

and they found the snake curled up in the corner of the closet. hybrinating.
word.

im all moved in.

so after a full day of room cleaning, target shopping, spray painting, laundry washing, and packing i have moved into my new home at cbu.

and thanks to my dad and brother, we only had to make 2 trips.

and i unpacked all my clothes. and i really should be putting stuff away, but the screen on my ihome isn't working. and i got on my computer to try and set it up but i can't figure out how to fix it.

and then i got distracted.

and i wanted to post a blog about how freaking excited i am to be back here at school.

and then i was really cold so i texted corinne who wasa outside and i said "im cold"
she said "come outside"
and i said "ok"

and then i went outside and shut the door behind me.
but....
she didn't have her id card and i just locked us out.

so after some bargaining i had to go call the ra on duty and wake her up so that she could unlock the door.
now everyone hates me.

no water.

The water at my house isnt working. Its shut off for some reason. So i brushed my teeth with a water bottle.

and im implementing "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down."

and now im off to clean my room. it's a never ending task. And i just really want to have it in pretty good shape before i move back to school. I have like hal fmy stuff moved in and i just want to stay there.

saturday i listed a bunch of my old textbooks online at half.com and so far two of them have been purchased. so i made over 100 dollars on two books when cbu was going to give me about 40 for all of them. so i learned that it is always better to sell your books on the internet rather than back to the book store.

im going to go play some guitar hero, and clean my room.

then tonight im going out to dinner with 3/5 of my louisiana team.

oh and (its kinda a secret) most starbucks have pumpkin spice flavoring back in stock!
yay i love fall!

rice krispies treats cereal, i thought you were gone forever.

this used to be my favorite type of cereal:i remember trenton from down the street would come over before kindergarden and we would watch tv and eat rice krispies treats cereal before school. i also remember him getting nose bleeds kinda frequently.

this amazing cereal is made up of bits of amazing rice krispie treats. and i thought they stopped making it. but you can totally buy it from amazon!
yay.
and i know its like the same exact thing as eating a rice krispie treat square.
but eating it out of a bowl with a spoon is so much more fun.

thanks mlk jr.

thanks to the awesomeness that is martin luther king junior i had a awesome four day weekend (four-day because i never have school on fridays).

friday- i joined cindy, holly, and monica at pf changs. we feasted on yummy food (crispy honey shrimp is my fave) and had a great time. i love that place. riverside has really stepped it up restaurant wise. later that night kristin and i went to the movies. we saw atonement. it was pretty good. a nice mix of artsy stuff, history, mystery, suspense. the film moves super slow at times, but besides that and the glamorization of smoking it was two thumbs up. and im really a fan of the green dress kiera wore. its so glamorous. good movie. i would recommend it.


saturday- i slept way way in. and then cindy janai and i went to java bliss to get our study on. but they closed at 7 so we had to bounce over to my house for great conversations, homework, and guitar hero.

sunday- church at the grove. i went to "big church" and i think im learning i have the attention span of a junior higher. the service highlighted some of the trips that the church went on this past year, and educatated the members about the importance of going to the ends of the earth.

the past year and a half has been awesome in regards to my mission opportuinities. i got to go to mexico, chile, utah, and cambodia. but i really dont know what the Lord has in store for me this summer. Back to cambodia? hatti? utah? costa rica? tibet? job? summer camp? san fransisco? i just dont know...

after brunch janai and i watched a good ten hours of prison break season 2. it was intense. great show.

we went to sandals at 7. and i really dont know what to say.
ok i will say that sometimes all the "stuff" gets in the way of worship. and i know its not about whether or not i like the particular song we are singing... but whether or not it is pleasing to Gods ears. but for me smacking a beach ball around during the singing of Queen's "we will rock you" was pretty distracting from the reason i sing.

we came back form sandals and watched more prison break.
i fell asleep to this...

monday- kristin woke me up in time for lunch. following a 2 1/2 caf expierence we had a mlk photo shoot.

then some more prison break. we plowed through most of season two. we only have 2 episodes left! seriously and amazing show. i can not wait for season three to come out on dvd. (i cant watch it on real time tv because every single commercial break is a clif hanger and im too impatient to wait a whole week for a new episode...so i just wait months and watch it all in one foul swoop)(i know. fell swoop, but i have been saying fowl for years)

then i went to jonnie mac and drew's apartment. we played guitar hero.

i cleaned my room. did laundry. read some. painted my nails (gold sparkley). ate a few lemon heads. thanks for staying with me through this lonnnng blog. i think this is my longest yet. or maybe i just put some big pictures up in here to deceive you.
:]

amercia's next top grandpa model.

thursday in the middle of my aesthetics in the class room class my mom called me. and i ignored her call. three times. because i was paying attention and i have never been one to leave a class to answer a call. i actually never leave my class.
i just feel awkward. and i dont understand why people need to use the bathroom during class. i mean there are 24 hours in a day, just wait till after class.
well come to find out my mom was calling me because my grandma was in the hospital and they were running a bunch of tests to figure out what was wrong.

becuase i have an awesome school schedule i was able to go to north hollywood that night with my dad. when we got to the hospital my grandma looked pretty good. im not a doctor or anything but i think she must have been faking it.

friday i hung out with my grandpa and we watched americas next top model for about four hours. i dont know why i find thoes reruns entertaining. but it was cycle 7 i believe. where nicole wins.

saturday grandpa got to pick what we watched. football. ew. honestly football is my least favorite sport. i feel like for professionals the players are not that good. if i was a professional football player i would probably be better then them.

my grandma was suposed to go home today but her blood count is really low and they are going to do more tests. thanks for your prayers.

now im going to get organized by writing down all the important dates from my syllabi (spell check is not recognizing this word) into my planner. and im hanging out with my awesome dog hannah. then i will go back to school.

no more school posts.

im home for the holidays.
and so far break has been action packed.

thursday night (or friday morning)- midnight showing of I AM LEGEND with jackie (who needs a blog) and drew. awesome movie. lots of bob marley.

in the movie will has a dog named samantha. its the sweetest thing ever. it makes me really miss blazer, my dead dog.he was so sweet. and gentle. and crazy.
i want a new puppy so badly. but this is a major tangent... back to my break update.

friday i had to leave my cottage and come home.
i went to the graduation ceremony at harvest.
i had the worst seats possible. second floor. far right. back row.
but i did have seats. so thats a plus. because lots of people were standing in the back.

this was my view.
i dont understand the two ball point pens in this girls hair. are they there for form or function?

kimie graduated! and then i went to her house for fun and family time.
then saturday went to north hollywood with dad to visit the grandparents. it was nice.