Snow

Its still everywhere.  Walking under trees is a precarious move, as the snow will sprinkle and occasionally dump on your head, breaking through the leaves that continue to hold on.  Some trees are dropping leaves and patches of snow so quickly its like a little tiny storm is going on just underneath them, tree-dodging is somewhat necessary.

This is the giant pine tree outside our apartment after yesterday's snowfall.  I was napping, and when I woke up everything was covered.  At least its pretty!

So I've recently come to the oft-visited conclusion that I'm weird as shit.  There's this weird balance of learning who I really am versus who I'd like to be, which is constantly changing.  I think.  I don't know, I feel like I'm in a rather floater stage, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I'll just ride it out, maybe live in some books, everything always ends up okay in the end.

I'm watching Rob & Big, and Big was just changing the diaper of a little fake baby.  "You smell like poopie, you smell like poopie!" awwwh.

All the single ladies?

I am really excited for Halloween. I will be dressed like so:

We can pretend that I'll look equally hot in my ensemble and that my ass won't be all over the place.  Ain't no thing, its Halloween!  All diva-d out, as my best friend will be dressed as Lady Gaga.

It snowed today.  It was pretty, but I am kind of sad.  I love fall, and now if its going to snow constantly until next March, I'm going to be extra fall-hungry.  Maybe this is just a little taste of what winter holds, so I'll still get a bit of fall weather.  Thats likely just my optimism leaking through, however.

I am so sick of people just writing me off as a prude.  I know more than you give me credit for, bitches.

Alexander Skarsgard

is love.  He is so beautiful, its ridiculous.  I recently decided if I'm ever having a sad bit I'll just reflect on the attractiveness of Alexander Skarsgard and then everything will be okay.  It works!

I went to the art museum on campus today for a choice event for my ridiculous creative arts class.  I loved it!  I was not aware the campus facility was going to have that neat of an art collection.  There was such a huge variety of art, just all kinds.  I don't even know if I could pick a favorite, but it was probably one of the massive canvases that I wanted to steal and take home with me.  Maybe more on them later.

I wish I could paint.  I think I'll take a class one day, maybe when I'm old and frail and have nothing better to do.  Hopefully I don't get arthritis in my fingers to prevent my plan from taking hold.

It is fall, and I love it.  I will just walk through all the piles of leaves and kick them everywhere, and smell the air because it smells crisp and leafy and its cold but not freezing, so its just fun outside except for when it rains on my head or winds through my clothing.
I can't seem to find my gray wool sweater!  This is a problem.

"How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!"

Oh John Green, you giant genius, you.  Please come to Utah so I may bask in your intellectual glory and thank you for your profound hilarity.
I'm re-reading Looking for Alaska and I just forget how much I adore it.  Except I just dipped into the "after" section and now I'm paused to soak it all in.  Meanwhile I'm supposed to be reading my mass media textbook and I'm in the middle (well the middle of the beginning) of The Picture of Dorian Gray, for the first time, and its quite interesting.  I'm worthless once a book sucks me in, completely worthless.

The internet sometimes overwhelms me a lot.  Like I fell out of watching my youtube subscriptions but since I'm reading John Green once more I thought I'd peep his latest video, and then there are all these vlogbrothers videos that I'm completely out of the loop on, and then all these blog posts on sparksflyup that I'm hopelessly out of touch with, and then I just feel overwhelmed and just hope that one day I can be grownup and know who I am soundly and have my blog or book or story that all these people keep up with.
I don't know, mostly I just hope I can write a book one day that is as incredible as Looking for Alaska or Paper Towns or even a tiny bit close.  Scary intimidating thoughts.
/giant run-on sentence

John Green is working on new stuff, which I'm extra excited about, and in April a book he wrote with David Levithian (sp?) is coming out and I'm feeling like "woowob)Oo" or close to that.

I ate too much garlic bread, blech.
Sarah is in San Fran and I wish I was theeeerrreeeeee

oh, I changed my wallpaper:

I am extra pleased about this.

Woopsies

So maybe I was a little conceited when I was all "Oh 50 books challenge? Pshaaaww" because thing is, I sort of stopped keeping track of the books I read. And the end of the year is ever nearing. I'm sure I could easily top the challenge of a simple 50 books in one year, especially when I'm a psycho in the summer and reading everything I lay my eyes on, but keeping track of them is a different story.
One book I can easily track and would like to discuss via myself and blog was The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. Definitely one of my top ten books, if it would even be possible for me to narrow them down to ten. This novel is remarkable in every single way. The narration, story line, characters, dialogue- every tiny individual piece of it is amazing, and when they're all combined, they form this unheard of story that teaches of relationships, life, happiness, everything. I cried in happiness and sadness, and I certainly did not want it to end. I wanted to keep in touch with Liesel and Rudy and Max and Papa, they were some of the most real and touching characters I've ever read. All I can aspire is to one day be able to create something that could vaguely approach the level of impact this book had and will continue to have for me.

My Uncle Pete died today. He was in a bad motorcycle accident yesterday and landed on his head. It didn't look good from the start. We prayed and prayed, but I guess he was needed impossibly more elsewhere. I'll miss him forever, we lost him too soon. Everyone is still numb, it doesn't feel real at all. I don't know when it will.
The weirdly comforting part of it all is that he was an organ donor, and with his heart and kidneys he'll save three people. That is so incredible to me, he is just the guy that would go out while saving three people.
I've been thinking about that. I think now I'm going to start looking for the three good things that come from every bad thing. Its like my history professor says, everything happens in threes.

So I'm home from school for now, which is going pretty well. I like it a lot for the most part, but for right now its good to be home.

My kids are never getting motorcycles, thats for sure. I need some sleep.

Beach House Cottage

I'm currently residing in Mission Beach, CA in a beautiful little tiny beach bungalow.  I am here with four of my very closest friends on our senior trip, and I don't ever want to go home.  It is so beautiful.  I love the ocean to begin with.  I love the smell, the feel, the sound, even the sticky humidity that completely envelopes me.  I love this house, it's perfect.  I want to live here for forever.  We are literally probably twenty steps from the bay, and maybe forty from the beach.  We are going to the beach tomorrow.  Everyone is so chill and there are countless hot men!  Today at the bay we met this adorable little girl named Sophie who really wanted to just swim naked.  She is three years old and has a mop of white blonde curly hair, she's just adorable.

Okay, so this thing happened the other day that I sort of feel I should record somewhere, and this is as good as anywhere.  I have seen dead bodies before.  People at funerals, animals on the side of the road, etc.  We have this semicircle window above a large rectangle one in our living room.  There is a tree that overhangs the semicircle bit, and the fat robins that always gorge themselves on our cherries often get quite confused by the reflection of the tree on the window.  They fly directly into it quite often.  I was home alone and watching TV or something, and a bird flew into the window insanely hard, the frame shook.  I was shocked, I've never heard a bird hit that hard before.  I went to look out the window to see if the bird had already made it's dizzy escape.  But there was the bird.   And it wasn't just sitting there, it was trying to fly away, but in a gimpy way.  Like one wing was completely dysfunctional.  It would hop in tiny circles, until it gave up.  I went outside and sat there next to the bird as it died.  I don't really know why I did it, I just couldn't really walk away knowing that bird was dying alone.  Robins are stupid, I don't know why I cared so much, but watching that bird die was probably one of the very saddest things I have ever seen.  I've never actually seen anything go from living to not, and it was violent and shocking.

Wow now that I'm done with that downer moment, I kind of want to go back to the bay and look that the stars for the bit.  Maybe!  I like you California, you're one of the good ones.

senior pictures whaaat

Sarah took them for me today! I get to see them tomorrow, and I'm very excited.
She's going to be pro, I just know it, and if she forgets me when she's famous, there will be hell to pay. :)
Really though, despite how I am akward and despite that I brought a small-family-sized bag full of clothes, she was super patient and great and I do believe the results will be pretty great.
I will probably post some? Maybe?
We took them throughout Ogden, and it was fun times.
Minus the creepy old man that was watching me change in some bar parking lot. Freako, leaving a bar (most likely drunk and definitely creepy) at like six at night. ugh.

"Do you LIKE WHAT YOU SEE?!"
"yeahh."

and cue shudder.
I hope Derek does well with his Arizona interview!

(waaay overdue) edit:

a beautifully unedited photo Sarah took on my senior picture extravaganza.  I was looking at a seagull that happened to flutter by as her shutter clicked.  fancy that.

Maybe a little upset

I suck at blogging.
Today was a good day, I went on a friend adventure to Amy's Cage and Sarah took fun pictures- furthering my excitement for her to take my senior pictures. Too bad I don't know how to pose for real.

Anyway, so I'm upset. With my school.
I just recieved a response to my inquiry to Washington State University as to why I did not recieve a scholarship. They did not get my transcripts and test scores until February 26, while they were due by January 31. I paid for them to be sent more than a month before they were recieved.
There is nothing to be done now. I was awarded one scholarship from Utah State University, the Presidential-full tuition/fees, etc.-and I have to accept that by this Friday. So I will. I'm going to be an Aggie.
I don't really know how I feel about it yet.

50 books? really?

Thats it? Internet challenge: read 50 books in one year. I think I read over fifty books in one summer, so this should be pretty easy cheese. soooo I think I'll do a lil' review thing for each book I read? I have three so far (and a half). aaaand go:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Required for AP Lit, but I loved it. Every single bit of it, I thought it was great. I will definitely read it again. I just wanted to give Nick Calloway a big hug, cute little innocent man. And I'd definitely love to time travel to the setting of Gatsby, what with all the fashionable lifestyles and parties, but I'd probably skip over the depressing emptiness bit. Fitzgerald was such a genius.

2. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Also required, and pretty skinny, but I found I really enjoyed it. I liked the way it was written, with all the shifts in narration. I loved Robert, a lot. And though Edna was a little pathetic at times, I found I could really relate to some of the raw emotion Chopin described.

3. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston
Also also required, also also loved it. For cereal, it was so so so great. A little hard to catch on to the dialect at first, but it definitely got easier as the book went on. Lovely descriptions, and awww Tea Cake! I was a fan.

thats all! Now I'll just finish Recovering Charles (not required!), but first English/government homework beckons. Cruel world.

void

of life, that is. Sometimes I get this really odd sensation of emptiness, or lack of meaning to my life. Maybe not my entire life, but the state of mind I currently feel assumes that. Its weird, because a million different things could trigger it, or sometimes I have no idea at all where it came from. So I guess I'm just writing this down to try to sort of make sense of a bit of it, or to maybe get a feeling of closure before I head off to bed. I need to finish vacuuming my room first, sorry sleeping dad.

Maybe I can lose myself in Gatsby a bit more before I fall asleep, and tomorrow morning all I will feel is utter and complete loathing for school. That sounds pretty accurate.
Goodnight