The Saturday Update

Saturdays are always good days, and yesterday was even better because there was no snow. Well, there was snow on the ground but it wasn't snowing. Ahhh, que bueno. So after Karate, Sam and I weren't sure what to do with ourselves because Matthew had taken the gamecube the week before, so we had to content ourselves with playing the N64 (pathetic, I know). I also read about a quarter of the Man-Eaters of Tsavo that Uncle Todd let me borrow. It's is an excellent book, and if you haven't read it, you should. Then we bummed around until Sam's friend Kip came over and Sam, Ashley, Kip, Ashley's friend Julianne, and I played Munchkin and Munchkin Fu (fabulous card games). Sometime during all this, Matthew and Kelly came over (with the gamecube!) and they played Munchkin with us for a while. All in all, it was a very pleasant way to spend one's evening. Far more pleasant that going to a Jewish barn dance, which almost was a reality.

Triumph!!

This is the first National Geographic article that I've ever seen that expresses this viewpoint. Buahaha, the liberal monster admits its folly!! ....sort of.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

Happy Hanukkah!

This weekend I went up to Logan with Audrey Crandell. We had fun visiting Mandy and hanging out with her friends, although the drive up there was a little hazardous as we were driving through a snow storm. However, we went out to eat and to get ice cream up there (why, I don't know because it was freezing) and then we played games like Mafia and Settlers of Catan (we "settled" according to Mandy's friends). The drive down was much better and we had a good time.

Yesterday was the annual Jerusalem/Hanukkah dinner at the Stubbs and we had a good time. The food was great (pita bread, hummus, latkas, talapia, etc) and then after dinner we had a great Nativity play put on by the family and directed by Ellie. Then we busted out the Von Crap Family Singers and we sang Christmas songs and hymns for almost 3 hours. We had Ashley on the keyboard, Ivan on the trumpet, and me on the cello, and everyone else sang. It was so much fun and very loud. I think we sang every Christmas hymn, then every other Christmas song we could think of, including the Hallelujah Chorus. But now it's back to school since I have several essays and projects due by Wednesday, so I hope everyone is doing well.

Let it Snow!

This weekend was pretty fun. Aleks and I went to get some Christmas decorations on Friday and we were visited by Lori and Jessica that live next door and then Manda and Ivan came to see the apartment. We had a lot of fun, decorating, drinking wassail, and eating popcorn and this amazing bread that Manda brought over. Then Aleks, Kaylee, and I watched Anna and the King because they had never seen it before (one of my favorite movies).





When I woke up Saturday (Dec 1st) to go to Karate, I was greeted by a strange sight. It had snowed all night and it didn't stop that whole day! My car was covered in snow and my roommates were so excited that they helped me clear the snow and ice from my car. Driving to Karate was quite the experience - not being able to see the lines on the road because the snow hadn't been cleared away, sliding every time I hit the breaks, almost getting stuck at Karate because we parked in the lower parking and had trouble getting back up the hill (Sam - "More gas, faster! We're gonna make it, go faster!"). It was exciting...not. Anyway, then I bumstied around the Stubbs house all day partly because Manda and Ivan were there but also because I didn't want to drive anywhere. When I finally did leave, Ivan had to help me get out of the gutter because of the ice. Here are some lovely (and gloomy) pictures of the snow:





These were taken today so a lot of the snow has melted. However, there was a ton yesterday.

The day is cold and gloomy, but no snow yet.

The day is going well so far. My jaw is feeling a little better from the dentist yesterday, and Spanish was hilarious today because Prof. Cluff was on one. He told us how his best friend growing up was an actor so that should explain some of his weirdness. However, the father of his best friend was a mortician and a Danish immigrant, and they lived in an apartment above the mortuary. Sometimes, Prof. Cluff and his friend would have to help carry bodies into the mortuary. Usually the bodies would be in coffins but sometimes, according to Prof. Cluff, they would be in clear body bags. Prof. Cluff's weirdness sort of makes sense now, but he's still my favorite professor.

I took my Spanish oral exam today and while I was waiting to go in, this couple walked by probably about 3 or 4 times and I kept trying not to laugh each time. The boy would not shut up about Arabic dialects! "Well, I love Arabic dialects. I lot of people don't, but I just love them!" Next time around, "Egyptian Arabic gets a lot of flack but I don't know what it is about it. Yeah, I really like Egyptian Arabic." Next time around, "Even BYU students don't like a lot of Arabic dialects because we all learn such-and-such dialect" blah, blah, blah. I felt sorry for the girl because she had to hand out with a super nerd for who knows how long.

Yesterday, I saw an awesome jazz concert. The group is called Synthesis and their CDs are available to purchase. I've never heard such a great live jazz band. It was even more awesome that our own Ben Nichols from our FHE group had two solos on the saxophone. He is an incredible musician and such a nice guy. For example, he gave everyone at family home evening 2 free tickets to the show. I wish Dad had been there because he would have really liked it.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm sorry if the life story of Amy Sargeant isn't too exciting but you have to dump your thoughts somewhere, right?

Thank goodness for Thanksgiving

I'm so glad that I got to spend last week at home. It was good to see family, hang around the house with little children, help with cooking (try to at least), play the piano, help Maddie with her school project, see old teachers, and sleep in my own bed! The bad thing is that now I'm depressed and I don't want to do anything. Stupid school. Luckily, I took some pictures to document the trip, although I didn't get any of Syd's party or Maddie's party. However, if you want to see pictures of those you can go to Mom's or Allyson's blogs.


Here's Tyler wearing Aubrey's stocking on his head. This picture pretty much sums up his behavior the entire time - crazy or "trazy" for those of you that speak his lingo. My favorite was when he kept running up to David to get squirt of whip cream in his mouth. He would run up to David and say "whip cream!" then open his mouth, receive a squirt, and run off again. However, the phrase"whip cream" apparently became too boring, so the phrase was shortened to "whip!" However, after a few of these, Tyler switched it up with "whipper!"


Here's Grandma Linda and Aubrey watching TV. I didn't quite catch it in the picture, but Aubrey's face was a classic - it was as if she was disgusted with the show we were watching (I can't remember what it was).


Mom and Dad went out to dinner for their anniversary. We must have taken about 20 pictures of them with 3 different cameras and we came to one very important conclusion: none of us are very good photographers.


Maddie and I made masks for a school project for her English class. This is the one I made and Maddie made a fox and it's really cute.

Feng Shui...okay, not really.

Aleks got a TV and so we had to rearrange the furniture...again. Well, we were sick of the old look any. And our wall was looking a little bare so we put up my Indian tapestry - very difficult to do when you can't use thumb tacks.


Another view of our lovely living room.


I had to put this picture in to show how our couch blocks most of the entrance to the kitchen. At first it was kind of annoying because I kept running into the couch when I was in a hurry. However, we discovered that it's kind of fun to hurtle the coach. Good times :)

Spanish Love Song

I'm pretty sure that you don't have to speak Spanish in order to appreciate this. Actually, it's probably better if you don't speak it. Enjoy!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9227IDYhVKU

Only one week until vacation!

So far the week has been going well. Family home evening was fun - we had a BBQ and sort of played keep-away with a soccer ball. After everyone left, a few of us stayed around the grill and just talked. It was a good experience getting to know people better. I also tried to make coconut rice. Sam made it for us the other day and it was delicious! However, mine was not so delicious so I'll have to work on that.

Today, we heard Pres. Monson speak at the devotional. He is so funny and such a great person. I don't really have many plans for today other than working on my essay for Anthropology and studying for my dreaded Humanities exam. I hope everyone is doing well, and people need to UPDATE!! (Thank you Maddie for doing it)

New template and weekend news

Hurray, the Internet is working again. I don't know why, but for some reason, our whole building was not getting Internet. It was really annoying. So, anyway, I changed the template for my blog. What do you think?

This weekend was pretty fun. We found a really, really good Thai restaurant called Thai Chili Gardens. It was amazing. Then Sam, Ashley, Sam's friend Josh, and I went to the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork for a festival. It was a lot of fun and Ashley got an awesome outfit. Today, I got to go eat dinner at the Duncan's and look and Uncle Dave's cool pictures from his sailing adventure. However, now it's down to business because I have several tests and essays that need to get done this week.

Two Beautiful Sights

So, the other day (Tuesday, I think) I saw two things. First, Abby and I were driving down Orem Center St. and we saw this really ugly, old, squashed looking sports car. We laughed and joked about it because it seriously looked as if the Explorer could have taken this thing out. I kept wondering how anybody would enjoy climbing in and out of it since it was so low to the ground. I was picturing in my mind Marty McFly diving into the time machine to make a quick getaway. So, this ugly car pulls up to a stop light and we came up right behind it, trying to make out what model it was. However, we couldn't see any name or company logo so we inched forward. There, in very faded black letters, we read:
That's right! A DeLorean!!! I wish I took a picture because it was honestly one of the coolest things ever. And, I must have subconsciously known what it was because I was picturing Marty McFly diving into his own car. I told Abby to follow it so that we could see the guy open the awesome doors and get out but we had places to be. According to Wikipedia:
"Prices for DMC-12s vary widely and are dependent upon supply and demand. As of early 2007, a De Lorean in good to excellent condition can be had for around $20,000 to $29,000. Mint-condition cars can fetch up to $50,000. There are an estimated 6,500 surviving DMC-12s today. Some of the larger parts carry a steep price tag, such as the fiberglass underbody. Most parts are reasonably priced and readily available."


So, the second cool thing I saw on Tuesday was this: I was driving on State Street and I came up to a stop light. All of a sudden I could "feel" a car coming up next to me. I say feel because this tiny little car was making my Hyundai shake. I looked over and saw one of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen. When the light turned green, the guy driving revved the engine so loud that I almost had a heart attack. It was the loudest engine I'd ever seen. Just before he drove away, I glimpsed the tiny cursive lettering of the model:

yep, a brand new lamborghini. Here's what it looked like, same color and everything:

So, there's my exciting story. Enjoy!

Bumstying Around...

Well, I guess it's time for another post since it's been almost a week. Nothing really exciting has happened since the last post. Saturday was a blast as usual - I went to Karate and then Sam and I went to the library and checked out several Japanese. We ended up watching Yojimbo (hear that Dad?) which was an awesome movie. I quite enjoyed it. In the evening, Abby and I had nothing better to do than bumsty around town and then go to a movie. We saw No Reservations and I highly recommend it because it was very good; much more substance to it than I expected. Sunday was good - I enjoyed playing Loaded Questions with Abby, Aunt Joy, Ashley, Sam, and our friend Kip (or Keeeeep, as Isabel refers to him as). It was a long, funny game - I'm pretty sure we didn't stop laughing for almost 3 hours straight.

Other than that, I've been frantically working on papers for various classes. I don't have any big exams during the semester, just papers and small tests ever few weeks. I like it better because it gives me a better chance of improving my grade but it sure keeps me on my toes. I'm planning on going to La Brioche, Ivan's family's bakery tomorrow, so I can take Argentine pastries to my Spanish class and hopefully bride my teacher into giving some extra credit. We're working on cultural stuff right now, so I'm sure he won't mind. I've also been trying to keep up with my Karate homework - 200 stomach punches, 200 knife-hand blocks, 60 round-house kicks, 40 push-ups - each day this week. It's grueling but I'll get through it. Besides, I can't wait until Karate this Saturday. I don't know if I've mentioned it but Saturday's pretty much my favorite day :)

Ah, Halloween.

So, I wouldn't even have put this picture on here if I didn't think that Ally and Susan would kill me if I didn't. But seriously, who wants to see a picture of a chubby Jedi with the wrong color of light saber? And also, this is the only picture I have of my costume. Unfortunately, our pumpkins got stolen before we had an opportunity to take pictures of them. Sad, I know. But anyway, enjoy (or don't) this random picture - the only one I have of Halloween!

A litle more Halloween history...

Snap-Apple Night, painted by Irish artist Daniel Maclise in 1833. It was inspired by a Halloween party he attended in Blarney, Ireland, in 1832. The caption in the first exhibit catalogue:

There Peggy was dancing with DanWhile Maureen the lead was melting,To prove how their fortunes ranWith the Cards ould Nancy dealt in;There was Kate, and her sweet-heart Will,In nuts their true-love burning,And poor Norah, though smiling stillShe'd missed the snap-apple turning.
On the Festival of Hallow Eve.

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.
During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin: Happy Halloween, my skeleton friend.

Skeleton: No, hoy es el Dia de los Muertos, pero no se por que tengo estas armas de fuego...
(yeah, I get a little bored.)

A great birthday weekend.

This weekend was awesome. I got to see family, skip class, and just even go shopping and out to dinner. Not to mention the awesome Kirkmount concert on Saturday night. However, I did not take any pictures of family, or shopping, or Kirkmount (so shoot me) because I thought that Mom or Allyson would have some. Not to worry, though. I did get some pictures of my apartment when I came home on Sunday night. This is what my crazy roommates came up with in my absence:

If you can't tell, the ribbons are strung across the ceiling like a curtain so that the living room and the hall are separated.

Here's Kaylee making no-bake cookies, or "gaggies" as she calls them. I told her once that I really like them and so she made some for my birthday. They got me Phase 10 dice for my birthday so we played that as soon as I opened it. It was pretty intense because some of us are kind of competitive...

Aleks was working on my birthday playlist. As I walked in the door she played Happy Birthday and we listened to other birthday related songs that were really funny.

Signs like these were everywhere in our apartment. And I mean everywhere. When I opened my food cupboard in the morning to get cereal, a birthday sign popped out. Even our bathroom mirror is covered in birthday messages, written with window markers. It was really funny and very thoughtful of my crazy roommates.

Is this not funny?

Target is releasing a new line of clothing: Bowie by Keanan Duffty. So, this designer (who's clothes are actually pretty cool, I've seen them before) decided to make an entire clothing line inspired by David Bowie. What are the odds? And the best part is that it's available to the masses because you can buy it at Target. What luck!

In the immortal words of Garfield...

It's been a gloomy and depressing couple of days. Probably because of the snow and because I haven't eaten much. Doesn't anxiety make you not hungry? It probably also has to do with the overload of homework that keeps piling up. In any case, I can't wait for my family to come this weekend (even though Ally's not coming and I really wanted to see her). I wish this week could wizz by because Saturdays are by far the best days of the week. Not only do I get to go to Karate which is so much fun, but I pretty much get to spend the whole day with cousins and not have to worry about anything else. And I just realized that even though I hated the snow, it was the first fall of the season and I didn't get any pictures. Dumb snow.

Somebody call Mulder or Scully...

You Are an Alien

You're so strange, people occasionally wonder if you're from another world. You don't try to be different, but you see most things from a very unique, very offbeat perspective. Brilliant to the point of genius, you definitely have some advanced intelligence going on. No matter what circles you travel in, you always feel like a stranger. And it's a feeling you've learned to like. Your greatest power: Your superhuman brain Your greatest weakness: Your lack of empathy - you just don't get humans You play well with: Zombies

What Kind of Monster Are You?

A little Halloween history...

Here's the history of the Jack O' Lantern in case anyone was wondering(Taken from History.com).The new colors on the blog are in honor of this post. They will revert back to their old colors with the next post :)

People have been making jack o'lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack." According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.
Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as "Jack of the Lantern," and then, simply "Jack O'Lantern."