Catch Up

I almost completely ignored this poor blog my last semester. So much has happened since I don't even know if I should bring things up to speed. But I'll do a quick recap anyways.

-I got a new calling in my singles ward as the Relief Society President. (Seriously, this had to happen right with my last and most stressful semester?! Good one...)

-I turned 22 in February. 

-I bought a car! A Nissan Sentra 2005 whose name is Richard Parker. 

-I got two new jobs during the last month of my semester. (So stressful but hey, it was a good opportunity.) So I now work at American Fork Hospital, a Sports Medicine Clinic, and Riverwoods Urgent Care.

-I finished all 1500 clinical hours and passed my last bunch of classes. 

-I graduated with a second associates degree. (So lame. Why couldn't it have been a bachelors?)

-I passed my Radiology Technologist boards exam. Do you remember how stressed I was about taking my Limited Practical Tech exam? Well this was way worse. But all is well, I passed.

It's so strange now knowing that when I come home from work I don't have homework or something to study for. I don't have school or tests. My time outside of work is completely my own. I love it. Life is so good right now and I am constantly grateful for it. 

Radio Hit Wonder (and I seriously wonder...)

We watch the Today Show at the hospital in the mornings and some mornings they show a live performance from a popular artist. Today's artists was the band Train.
Enjoy. (If you can get past his awful flat tone right from the first measure.)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I'm sorry but I feel like if you have a career as a singer you should sound the same whether you are heard on the radio or during a live performance. Why are most of our popular radio hits coming from people who can't actually sing? It just all seems a little backward to me.

To make up for posting that awful singing I'll make it up to you with some fantastic songs from Jason Mraz's Live On Earth concert. Enjoy. (For real.)

Having a Moment

So I'm officially hired on at the hospital now. I had my new employee orientation today. It's nice to finally be hired on but I'm terribly nervous right now. I'm afraid of the responsibility. Sometimes I feel like I don't want it. I'm scared to be my own tech, to not have someone to hide behind. I feel stressed out. I have so much schooling to work on, tests to study for and papers to write. I feel like I don't have enough time in the day to contact and text everyone that I need to for my ward calling. I feel like I have so much to plan and I don't have any legitimate help. I feel heavy. I feel overloaded. I don't know what I want. I feel unsure about what to do if a different job opportunity presents itself. (Granted that possibility isn't even possible right now since I haven't given him my resume but down the road...). I feel bad about eventually leaving my mall job, about abandoning them. I really like those co workers. I'm frustrated about being placed in the middle of a sticky situation at clinicals. I feel like feelings of frustration for someone else are being deflected to me. I'm tired.
Please just give me summer. Let school be over. I need to be done for right now.
(Sorry for the downer post but like I said in the title, I'm having a moment of feeling completely weak right now. It happens.)

Healthy Body

I think one of the easiest things to take advantage of and to not be grateful for is a healthy body. Only when you are throwing up all night and feeling crummy and weak all day do you wish and pray for your healthy body to come back soon. That would be me yesterday. My guess is food poisoning.

But among all my sickness a wonderful and long awaited letter arrived! Remember when I was stressing out like crazy the night before taking my Limited Practical Technician license test? Well I finally got my results back! Happy day I passed everything and can now pay an additional $70 to get my actual license. :) Can you believe that this whole process is costing me $210?! But it's completely worth it because it means I'll get hired on at the hospital, be guaranteed at least 8 hours making almost double what I'm making at the mall right now, which will then lead to me leaving my mall job. I can't wait. Don't get me wrong, the job has been really good to me, they've been awesome at working around my bizarre schedule but to compare the 30 minute drive time to 5 minutes, almost double the pay and more experience in my field... it's a no brainer.
Life is a good thing.

Getting Ahead, Trying to

I'm starting to get nervous for next semester. I keep thinking about how I'm going to manage my schedule and so far it just overwhelms me. It doesn't help that I only have half of the details. I keep trying to get ahead on my homework thinking that it'll relieve some up coming stress. (How do you even get ahead on homework that hasn't even been assigned yet?) I feel like the small free moments in my life are going to be consumed with driving to where I need to go. Whether that's Provo, American Fork, or Murray, I'm going to be in the car a lot. Yay..... Last semester seemed so easy. By the end I was questioning all the stories of "my life will be taken over and consumed, and it's challenging", blah blah blah that I had heard. But things will probably whip into shape now that I have 1 1/2 jobs. (The 1/2 is a clinical study that I'm in which means I get to fit in a drive to Murray once a week.) It's okay. I'm so grateful that I'm finally earning some money now. It's been desperately needed and is immensely appreciated. Oh to wonder how life would be if I was actually getting paid for the 24 hours a week of hospital work I put in. 

Freedom and a Memory

Remember how I was having a really hard time with my job? Well, after I posted that my sister called me the next morning to talk with me about how things were going. She told me I should just get a different job! I know that seems completely obvious, but I honestly thought and felt like I was trapped in this job and wasn't going to be out of there anytime soon. Which added to the dread. But then it was a light bulb and I thought, "this is America, I can get a different job if I want!" I know, little ridiculous that it hadn't struck me before. So last Saturday was my last day working, and now I am free of that job. I haven't heard back from hardly any of the places that I applied to so I'm still looking. I would really love to find any type of work in a hospital or radiology office so I can work more towards what I'm going into. Find a job that will help me with my career. We'll see how that goes. But it's nice to be free for these next few days before my family jets off for a vacation. Once I get home I'll start to job search again. Any suggestions?

On another note, I found this movie on youtube today. Can I tell you how much I love this song? When I was visiting my dear cousin Caitlyn in Georgia when we were both very young, we decided we wanted to learn this song! Well, the lyrics are absolutely no where online and we couldn't find anything about it. (I think this was 8 years ago or so and I'm sure the internet was nothing like it is now.) Anyways, we stayed up until 2 or 3 that night, watching this scene on VHS, pausing it, writing down the lyrics we could remember, starting the scene up again while trying to write everything, pausing, writing, rewinding, over and over again until we had written down all the lyrics ourselves. Next we went on to memorize the different parts and perfect the enunciation. I sung the guys lines (because I was slightly sick and couldn't sing high at all) and my cousin took over the girls lines. We performed it the next morning to my aunt and anyone around that would listen to us. To this day we still slightly remember the lyrics and laugh about that night every time we talk about it. I love spending time with cousins.

Work Sucks

Okay I'm facing it, my job sucks. And I know, I'm lucky to have a job... But jeez best way to kill a summer is with a crap-o-la job that you dread going to every night before you go to bed. I don't think my body likes it either. I've been having a lot of weird reactions going on lately, stomach flu, allergic reactions, coughing, more allergic reactions. I'm starting to think it's the work place. (Okay so I'm stretching to blame everything on work). I wish I was back in school right now. I love school. I can't wait to start my program in the fall. Holy crap the end of this month can't come fast enough. Because guess what? Once we hit June 30th, I am out of here on vacation for a good week and a half! Goodbye work!! And then I'll just have to last through to the school year. I've already decided this is only a summer job. No way I'm working there and trying to figure out this program. Talk about more stress than I care for.
Anyways that's about as exciting as my life is right now. Dread work, work, get home and enjoy not being at work, start dreading work again.
But I will have to say, today was my day off. (Praise everything.) And it was a fantastic day. Worked on mostly everything I wanted to and more. Love not working.

"You Non Contributing Zero"

We were shown this video at work and I was dying. Every point he made is so true! And I totally agree that the best stuff is wasted on spoiled idiots. Now I don't think myself an idiot but I'm sure I don't appreciate technology as much as I should. What kills me is when I see 10 year olds with cell phones that are more advanced then mine. What do they need a cell phone for?! So they can text their besties and their jr. high loves and just omg brb LOL. :) Ughh my goodness! Death to every cell phone that is owned by anyone under the age of 16. And I know the excuse of "I might need to get a hold of my mom!" Well guess what, the world contacted mothers just fine for many a year, you can survive. One more little rant about phones... anyone who doesn't use correct language and punctuation is... extremely frustrating to me. Sorry if you do that but really? Adding apostrophes really isn't that hard. Nor is spelling words correctly.
Okay sorry for the rant! Technology is great and it's the reason that I have a job right now.
And I would love to see people that excited every time they got on a plane. Wouldn't that just make your day? I think we would all be a much happier people if we were happy and excited about more things.

Fail Again

Remember that guy in the kiosk next to me... well I came to work a couple days ago and it was completely empty.

Talk about a lame work day.

Now there's a sign up in the kiosk "retail merchandise unit is available". I guess it's a good thing I'm going back to school in two weeks.

Mall

I've always felt like people who go to the mall spend more time dressing up and preparing to go to the mall, then they do shopping. Now I am a shopper but I don't feel like I dress any differently then what I normally look like... but I normally don't notice these people as much since my face is stuck in clothes. However, working at a kiosk gives an eternal amount of time to watch and analyze the lovely shoppers. See, they dress up because they are on the prowl...even though they're only about 14... but honestly going to the mall to scope out the guys is like going to the married ward. You'll only make yourself depressed seeing all the couples walking around.

It's always interesting working near Victoria's Secret. I love watching the different reactions people give as they walk by... or get pushed in.

The other thing about Victoria's Secret is their ostentatious bags. There's no hiding that you went to Victoria's Secret. I feel weird carrying their bags around, it's like I'm screaming at people, "Look at what I bought!" So I hand the bag over to Heather and walk a little ahead.

Living in New Jersey is starting to work out even more. Today I figured out that I'd still start the radiology program the same year even if I spent a year in New Jersey. Brilliant.

Change In Plans

It's interesting how just a week and a half ago I had things "all planned out", for about the next 4 years of my life, as far as schooling goes. And now an opportunity has presented itself which of course will deter my plan a little bit. In essence, it'll move everything back a year. So I still have the same outline, just the dates are different now. And living in New Jersey as a nanny for a year gets squeezed into the outline.
I feel like whenever I start to really plan things out for the future, something always comes in to displace things. Not that it's bad, it just takes away my feeling of having control for a little bit. I remember during winter break where I started dating seriously and everything went up in a whirlwind. I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen for a while, should I go back to school, should I transfer down here, will this all work? It was massively confusing but things settled themselves out as they always do and I went on my way.
So now I get to do some research and planning and see if this is really what I want to try. A year commitment to live with a family and watch their 2 kids, housing is paid for, food, a car and gas all paid for. I would make fourteen hundred a month, which if I saved a thousand a month I could look at getting a used car when I got home... which would present so many opportunities that I haven't been able to look at for a long time. Like working in the hospital in Rexburg would now become an option because I would have a way to get there! Of course living in New Jersey with New York 20-30 minutes away with all those New York broadways will be my tempting choice to splurge money.
If everything worked out, I would start in January. Which means I would miss my spring semester, just take it off, probably take some online classes though, and then finish up my associates when I get back. Crazy crazy. I need to figure all this out!

Epic Fail

So I have a new job.

I work at a kiosk in the mall. 

Which is probably exactly what you imagine how working at a kiosk in the mall would go...

And I keep closing which equals slow hours. 

But, hey, good-looking working the kiosk next to me! 

And what else do I have to do besides check him out, look for ring...good, no. Age guess... no idea but RM? Probably. 

Tall, dark hair... you get the picture. 

He keeps walking around his kiosk while reading a book, dang I wish I had brought my book... maybe the hours would go by a little faster.

Wait what? He keeps staring into American Eagle. Gosh dang it that can only mean he's watching a girl, like how I'm being creeper and watching him, except he probably knows the girl, and I don't know him. 

(I'm really not that creepy, but it's the mall and what better to do than people watch?)

Closing time finally comes and of course there's a girl with him. blar

Background information you should know... it's my first time closing by myself. When you close a kiosk you have to un-hinge the overhead stuff so it comes down (please like 5'1 me could reach that... grab the chair). You then have to take this giant tarp and hook it into the stupid hooks, that are again clear above my reaching abilities... 

So I'm taking my sweet time closing up the register...hoping he'll leave fast so I won't have to make a fool of myself. But when do things ever happen the way we want them to? So I get going on putting up that tarp. 

Drag chair over

climb up

hook tarp

jump down

drag chair

climb up

yank on tarp wires

hook tarp

jump down

repeat

I come to the end of this ridiculous business and find that I've put the tarp on upside down. *grumble, exasperated sigh* So I start taking it down again. 

Out of my peripheral vision I can see handsome and the girl walking over...gosh dang it again! No just leave! I know I look like an idiot but I can handle things!

"Hey you need some help?"

"Yes"

So he gets it up there way more efficiently and guess what else, the girl is a sweetheart. Way nice, really pretty, the kind that makes you feel bad cause he's got such a great girl already and now you have no chance.

They leave me as I zip up the tarp and then I ran into them again outside! He's all..."hey there she is!"

(yes I know I'm the moron that can't figure out how to close my own kiosk and now I feel utterly ridiculous, hi how are ya?)

I just said thanks for the help and went on towards the car. 

But hey if I see him again I can say hi to him now, instead of casually noting him (not stalking thank you).  

Updates

Well, right now in life I'm living at home, inbetween semesters at BYU Idaho. I go back to school mid April until the end of July. And thank goodness I've found things to keep me busy. Three days a week I watch my neighbors autistic boy and get paid from the state for that. Which is great, I'm making more money there then I did at my old job. The other two days of the week I tutor a girl in math. She's a junior in high school taking algebra 2. And then sometimes I fill in shifts at my old job when they need me too. So altogether it's been good having these jobs. I got a lot to earn to pay off my school loan.
I'm also taking two institute classes at UVU, which have been so great for me. I miss the school atmosphere so just being in a class learning something again is wonderful. I'm also dating someone amazing right now. He keeps my nights busy, but hey that's great. Before I met him I was bored to tears.
My birthday was last thursday, so I'm 19 now!
But yeah, I guess there's some updates for you.

Thoughts on a Spring Break Day

Rain!
Rain...
Rain.....
Slushy rain
White rain?
Snow?!
Blizzard
Snow...
Work
Slow day to work
Drippy ceiling
Drip
Drip
Customer
Drip
Phaha!
Drip
Drip
Hour left

On The Road Again...and Again...

I felt like I was driving a lot today, which was weird cause here in our little town of pg the longest you need to drive is 8 min. But I ventured a little farther today. First to the Provo Imaging center to finally shadow! So 3:00, I'm there, again waiting for Shane whose in a meeting. 3:45 he finally comes out and I can start! He sticks me with the x-ray tech who was just finishing up an older lady when I got there. He was saying that he's been busy all day, just runnin those patients through. But once I get there and for the rest of the hour and 15 min, NO PATIENTS! AT ALL! I think someone's working against me here. This shadowing thing is halfway working out. But he told me interesting stuff, I got to look at the x-rays he had done that day, lots of abdomen ones. A shoulder, wrist, foot, t-spine. I love looking at x-rays. I don't know what it is but they fascinate me.

So... I finish shadowing and let me just explain my keys to you. The plastic head's purpose is to unlock the drivers door. That's all it does. Waste of metal huh. The other metal car key, is for the engine, and all the other doors except the drivers door. Kind of screwed up but hey I just deal. Well, I stick in plastic head and not looking, twist, thinking the key is all the way in. Well it turns easily in a weird way. So I look down and i've twisted the metal. Bizarre! So my key was horizontal (the right way) and then vertical. So I have to unlock the passenger door and climb through to unlock my door! And then get in. Process. I know. So after this fiasco I drive clear to Highland to help stock the new Ace Hardware store, and good ole' Kendall there decides to twist my key back, and thus resulting in the complete breakage and seperation of the lower half. Good thing we have 2 sets of spares at my house.

Work Parties

There's always some people you would rather not work with...everywhere that you work. And i'm saying the same thing, but just looking at my cashier girls...we are sisters. It's weird really how well we get along. We have cashier parties probably every month where just us girls get together and hang out. Cause there's only so much talking you can do while working.. But we decided to have a cashier camp out! They did one last year and apparently it was awesome. So we met up at the store and headed up!

And oh my goodness did we have fun. I don't know what was in the air..maybe our neighbors with the beer put something in their tin foil we borrowed... but we were laughing the whole time. I would write down the funny sayings we said in my phone and were they plentiful.

Alyssa presented to us her sound of a dying cow... (the videos really dark..you pretty much can't see anything.. but it's hilarious to listen to :D)

Ariel was our 80's girl. And the girlfriend off of parent trap when they go hiking... it was great.

I think we finally got around to eating our brinner (breakfast dinner) around 10. We brought up one pan, so we started cooking ontop of the inside of the dutch oven lid. It was pretty awesome.

I don't know why things were so funny, but all of us were dying..haha our drunk neighbors must of been having fun listening to us.

I finally got home at 1:00..and lucky me i got to open the store the next morning at 7. So i was gonna get up early and shower..but there was no way i was gonna sleep on my nasty fire camp smelling hair. ugh puke. So i finally rolled into bed 1:30 and dreamed the whole night about driving down the canyon.. restless sleep. That part sucked. But otherwise.. i wish i could have slept up there!! We had soo much fun!

What is this! A center for ants!!??

I love my cashier girls. I really think we were meant to be sisters, we pretty much are. :D It's crazy how all of us get along so well. At my other job, there were always people you would rather have quit then hang out with. But we're cool. hahha We have cashier parties every month or month and a half probably. We try to plan things, but in all reality we sit around a table and laugh our faces off.

So last night, well misses alyssa and ashley h. had not seen zoolander!!! So by all means OF COURSE that show!! Ariel was hysterical to watch; when she starts laughing hard she has to hit something and then bend forward and rock back and forth. hahah i know... Karyn has the funniest laugh and was dying last night! Alyssa laughed at some lame part..not even really that funny but she laughed, and all of us girls were like, "Sure laugh at that part and nothing else!" And cute alyssa responded, "that's the only part i got out of the movie..." So karyn's sent into fits of laughter for 5 min straight, and then randomly at the end of the movie for the same reason :D Really, we are way too weird but i absolutely love it. We have a camping trip coming up in Aug... so we'll see how we survive that. And the next time we have a movie night... we're not starting Grease right when i have to leave!!! traitors..

Work

The one day i don't work this week, i still manage to see everyone from my work... really you'd think we just dont' get enough of each other. I go in to get my check so of course i set myself up for that one...but i went to lunch at panda and we're eating outside and who shows up but chad, my bosses brother who comes to the store all the time. Then a little later across the street pulls up Kendall and Kristie going for Bajio... it was pretty intense. :D

DAH!!

Wow, girls camp...is coming and it's coming fast. This is the first time that we're doing a stake girls camp. Honest, i was absolutely not, excited at all. I love my ward and our little ward girls camp rocks every year. But going along and helping...i'm so so excited for it now. I'm a Stake YCL leader. So you have the stake ycl, then all the ward ycl's and then all the girls. So being in the stake group, we are really planning and getting everything into motion before and during the camp. Our camp leader is amazing. She is one organized lady and has so many plans for us. I really hope everything works as far as time :D I have one week. One week of work everyday except tuesday, to get my jobs done. Write a devotional, finish up my music cards and posters, make newspaper hats (learn how to first), finish my secret sister gifts, go over the games i teach, pack!, put together 223 bags for the girls wednesday morning before i head off to work.... i'm feeling it now. This week will fly by i know it. But i really am so excited. It's gonna be an amazing week. I'm gonna do the sunrise hike too!! Yup yup. bring on the hikes. i'm there.

spring break

Spring break = work, lazyness, work, sand dunes, work, work.

But! I found the craziest thing while work was slow... check this out. http://www.petercallesen.com/index/A4PAPERCUT_000.htm Pretty much i am unworthy to touch a piece of paper again. This guy has insane talent, and lots of time... But i must say i'm impressed. I wish i had some mind boggling talent like that..

So today we went up to the sand dunes with cousins. That place is genious. Some random out in the boonies spot and magically there are giant piles of sand. Everywhere else has some sort of life..trees, but this giant sand bowl just sits in the middle of nowhere. It's awesome. I've only been there once before and it was a long time ago..when i wouldn't drive the 4-wheeler myself in the dunes..everywhere else was fine but the dunes are freaky. I would sit behind my dad..(i swear it's worse sitting with him that it probably would've been actually driving) He likes to stop and hover right at the top edge, as you peer down to a gut wrenching drop, He lingers,..and plunges! And you clutch for dear life and you fly down this hill of sand and speed up the oncoming side.

People are crazy drivers at the dunes. Your scared to rush up over the side because some moron might be plunging down toward you. So you can see why i would much rather ride on the back with my dad...then try finding my way around there. So i get myself ready to head up on the 4-wheeler with my pa..but nope. I'm immediately let known that i will be driving my own and will be following dad. Okay, i can do that..at least i'll be behind him.... So to get up into the dune area you have to speed up a hill...yea i didn't have enough momentum, my 4-wheeler stopped right near the top..so close to making the hill! So lucky me, i get to reverse back down and floor it up! But ya know, i actually like driving it myself. As long as i'm following someone, my dad can find good hills. I love the way your body naturally flows and moves with the landscape while you drive over hills and turns. You feel like you've been doing this your whole life.

So today was only a day trip..drive up in the morning, play around, have lunch, play and go home when you want. So we only brought food for one meal. um yeah..one meal that could feed people for 3!! I'm tellin ya, we definately have a thing for food.
So i got sunburned today, only on my face, mostly on my cheeks. And now i look like some ditsy bubblehead who puts on too much blush. ugh