Aww...

Today was our last Sunday in our ward. And I'm really sad about it. I'm excited about life and how it's going. But I hate endings!!!

This was the Indian Color Festival in Spanish FOrk, Ut. It was at the Indian Temple. I was on a date so I'm not in the picture with these awesome people. Look how funny Allison looks! She's the tall blond...wait her hair is pink...as is everyone's in this pic!!

Oh no!!! I'm tired!

My roommate Allison has Mono! They just confirmed it today. And now I am sooo paranoid! I am feeling really tired. I had 9 hours of sleep and so I shouldn't be tired, but I am exhausted now. And what if I have Mono?! What am I supposed to do? The only way to treat it is to sleep 10 hours a night. And how is that possible in the MTC? Ahhh!!!

See?! Frazzled!!!

I just turned a paper in, but I wasn't ready! If I could have had an hour more...just an hour. I had already worked on it for hours. But no! Not done! I am such a perfectionist, when it comes to papers. Ahhh!!! And to top that off, Microsoft Word 2007 hates me. I printed the paper 3 different times! I was so frazzled that I kept missing the unwanted changes that Microsoft 2007 did automatically did when it converted from the Microsoft 2001 format!!! Grrr!!!

Why Keep a Blog

In my educational experience, I have only ever had one teacher make me keep a journal. I have often kept one that I wrote in sporadically, but I learned a lot from my journaling in my class. Because I knew that it was for a class, I was slightly more serious, but not as formal as I would have been in an academic paper. But because this balance was possible, my speaking abilities improved because I had practiced writing about casual things in a grammatically correct way, without the distanced feel that can accompany unexperienced writing in a formal paper. Because of this, I learned how to write in simpler, more readable sentences that actually communicated better than my lofty, big word essays from high school.

Basically, for a teacher, using blogs provides a journal for students to practice writing. It records when students make an entry so I can catalog their progress. Also, I think that a blog, rather than a paper journal, would be more appealing to teenagers who like to be online. They love creating MySpace and Facebook accounts and so if I present the blogs in the right way, I can excite them to create an online profile of not only pictures, which they can add, but more importantly for writing improvement, a log of written entries. I feel more of my students' writing would improve if disguised in this fun format. Of course, I would send an explanatory paper and instructions home for parents, who might be wary of the internet. In this blogging endeavor, I would use these as individual entries, and then use my website blog for class discussion about the literature we cover in class.

What am I feeling right now?

I am really feeling overwhelmed, and yet peaceful. WHo knew? I have a million tests coming up, yet I took a nap in the sun and now am sprinkled with sunshine-- or at least a red face. To quote Chandler, it's so hard to care when I'm this relaxed. This is my tendency though. When I have to world to conquer and a mountain to climb, I have so lost as to where to start, which homework to do first, which novel to read, and so on, that I freeze. I paralyze myself, and apparently today--I sleep in the sun!

What made you you?

What is one memory in my childhood that shaped who I am today? Like Anne Frank, who one day had to go into hiding....