Update

Hey, all! So as you can tell from the last date that I wrote, it's been a while since I last wrote. A lot has happened in these last two and a half months. For all of the month of March, I student-taught a first-grade class out at the Jordan Ridge Elementary school in South Jordan. It was so much fun, as it brought back memories from when I was in elementary school, I got to work with first-graders, and I got to teach! I know from this experience though, that I don't want to be a first-grade teacher, ha. Maybe third or fourth grade. The teacher that my teaching partner and I worked with, Mrs. Strain, was awesome. It was actually only her second year teaching, because she had come back to teach after having her own kids, but this seemed to help her a lot in her teaching of first-graders. There was this one student that seemed to have a special liking to me while I was there. I came to find out when some room-moms came in (one of them was his mom) that he wants to marry someone just like me when he grows up...! Cute, huh? I'm excited to see what it'll be like to teach older students this coming fall.
This semester ends in just three days, what with my last final happening on Wednesday. I'm so excited to be on a break from school :) After this semester is over, I'll be taking a break from school for spring semester, and then going back to classes in the summer, which will be just a little different than what I'm used to. But it's better, because I'm ready for a break, and these next few weeks have some visits to or from family, so it seemed to make more sense to take summer classes instead.
Working at Brick Oven keeps me really busy too...I really enjoy working there. It's a very happening place, that's for sure. Elder Holland came in to eat with his wife and some family members twice in just the last couple months, which was awesome. Apparently, Brick Oven was his and his wife's preferred restaurant that they liked coming to when they could as students here at BYU. I'm interested to see what it'll be like to work there full-time starting in just about a week.
Dating life has been treating me well in the last couple months. Since the beginning of February, I've been dating a guy named Robby Marsh, and it's been great. He's from Maryland, and goes here to BYU too. Most of you will meet him this summer actually! So I'll save any other details for you to find out then. If you want to know anything else, email me.
All of the above has taken up most if not all my time in these last couple months and a half, so there's not much else to update on. I'm so excited to see a bunch of you soon, and for the rest of you, we need to set up a time soon that we can SKYPE! I miss and love all of you tons...:) Hasta luego.

...

Well, if I had anything to report about that's been the main thing happening in these last three weeks, it would be the training that's been going on at Brick Oven...! This last week was the most intense so far, having to come in for five hours each day from Tuesday through Saturday. Yesterday was the first day that I got to serve tables by myself, well kind of. I had a 'shadow' with me, but after next week, I'll be serving by myself...which I'm nervous but really excited about! It's so fun once you start getting the hang of it, which I think I did (a bit) yesterday. :D I really love working at Brick Oven because the people are all awesome, and we make fun of each other all the time. Plus, it's a very busy place, just about always full, at least every day that I've worked there thus far.
Anyway, life is good...I'm liking school, work, my new ward, etc. I like it when things are busy, it's the best! Well, I'll write again when I have something interesting to report. Here's a picture I took on the way back from a morning class the other day.

Small Update

So these last first couple weeks of school have gone by like a snap of the fingers, it's crazy. Yesterday was one of the busiest Saturdays that I've had in a long time. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so yesterday morning I went to a gospel choir practice for the Martin Luther King Jr. program that's going on tomorrow evening...it is so fun! I totally pictured me being pretty much one of the only white people in the choir (it's supposed to be a gospel choir, right?!), but whites actually make up the majority of the people who came and volunteered to sing, ha. Oh well, I think we still sound good. After that practice, I went straight to a dance practice for what's called "Fiesta 2009", here at BYU. What happens is that many Latin countries represent their nations through a dance that they present at this "Fiesta". It's done on a volunteer-basis, so I volunteered to dance for the Bolivian dance group...I could only make it for the last twenty minutes of practice, but I can tell that it's going to be so much fun! After the practice, I had lunch and did homework (and slept, whoops) in the afternoon, until I had to go to work at Brick Oven. I'm a server (waitress) there, and I think it's AWESOME...sure beats waking up at 4:30 AM to work at a custodial job, like I did before for three months...ick! I'll be making more money and interacting with people all the time, so I'm really excited about this job. :)

Thanksgiving is almost here!

So, like the title of this blog entry says, Thanksgiving is almost here...and I am so excited! And because I don't have Friday classes I only have one more day of classes before VACATION! Somebody told me today that because of the Leap year, we could have been on vacation this week but it's next week instead :( School has already burnt out a lot of people I know, and me as well. Being in all classes that have to do with my major brings more work and expectations, which is hard, but I guess it's cool at the same time because I'm finally in my major :) There are several projects due the week after Thanksgiving though, so I'll be doing a lot of homework over the break as well. That's okay I guess. I'm excited to get to Blackfoot with Jordan on Wednesday because I can only stand being in Provo for so long...it's time to get out! All of his siblings except one are going to be there over the break with their kids, and I haven't seen some of them in years, so it's gonna be great.
I got to eat lunch with Joey today, which I enjoyed. There's a new cafe/restaurant on the bottom floor of the Tanner building on campus called 'The Blue Deli', and it's pretty good. We decided to have lunch because he's going to Iran this Saturday...I just found that out the other day...so random! Gotta love it.
As the semester comes to a close, I can't believe how incredibly fast it's gone by. This next semester is definitely going to be different, what with me moving to another complex and starting student teaching in March. I'm kinda nervous, but excited at the same time. We'll see how it all goes I guess! Until later, happy Thanksgiving!

Destruction of the Math Blocks...

I thought I'd put up this video just to show what we do in math class when the teacher tells us to solve a problem using blocks. On this day, we decided to use them to build a small village. But the village had to come down some time...thus the destruction of the math blocks. Enjoy!

Halloween and stuff

So it's been quite a while since the last time I wrote, whoops. A lot of fun things have been going on in the last few weeks that I wouldn't be able to write all about in one entry, but here I go to explain what I can anyway, at least from the last few days.
Halloween was a lot of fun this year. It being my first one back home after a while, I was way excited to dress up. Emily was nice to lend me her costume from last year, so yes, I was a go-go girl. At least at my ward Halloween party I was. That was a week before the 31st, so on the 31st, I was something else. I went to another stake's dance with Derek, and that was SO fun. I hadn't been to a dance in quite a while, so I had a blast. It was funny when the smoke machine set off the fire alarm of the entire Richards Building (a building by the Smith Field House on campus), and everyone had to go outside until a policeman finally came and turned it off. It was time for us to leave anyway, so Derek and I grabbed a caramel apple before heading out to meet up with a bunch of my friends for a Halloween night campout. I put Reese's Pieces on mine...SO good!
The campout was fun, except for when it got super-cold by about 5AM, but that's okay. Before going to sleep, we all hung out by the fire, made some s'mores, and watched a scary movie (it was supposed to be scary anyway, it was kinda lame). It was drizzling very lightly almost the whole time, but that didn't seem to bother any of us. The fire kept us plenty warm.
Then last night was Rosanne's birthday party that I put on for her. I of course had other friends' help, but I did most of it. I've discovered that it is so much fun to put on parties for other people! There must have been about twenty people there, and that was plenty because we made food for everyone (chicken burritos, cake and icecream, mmmm). She actually knew that something was going to happen, but she just didn't know who all was going to come, so when she walked in and just saw me on the couch 'watching TV', she was totally surprised when everyone came out from the kitchen and yelled 'surprise!' She had a lot of fun last night, and I'm glad she did. :)
Talking with Rosanne the other night, she told me that we actually only have 26 school days left until Christmas vacation...that made me SO excited/happy! I absolutely can't wait until then. I miss my family. But such is life, and it continues to move forward. I'm actually going to be moving to another apartment at the beginning of winter semester. I also just got a new job last week, cleaning in the Clyde building early in the mornings during the week. It's the only kind of job that would work with my crazy/sporadic class schedule. It's alright though, and I like the crew that I work with.
I found out that I'll be doing my first student teaching in Jordan during the second half of next semester...! And so it begins, I can't believe it. I'm kinda nervous, but of course excited as well.
I hope things are going well with all of you...I miss and love you all!

Give me more drugs!

I can't believe that it's been more than a week since I last wrote! It's insane how fast this last week has flown by, but at the same time it's not surprising because every day is absolutely filled with a combination of classes, work, doing homework, and this last Wednesday, taking Jill to the MTC :)

She was SO ready to enter the MTC and it makes me incredibly happy to know she's there, finally preparing to go to San Antonio, TX. I thought that she'd maybe get a little emotional, but she was just pumped and excited to finally be there and get started with what she's waited so long to do. She was radiating from the time we took her in to when we had to part. Jill will be Jill though...a funny thing happened while she was getting her missionary tag. The missionary next to her happened to be going to the San Antonio mission as well, and so she lightly hit his arm in excitement, saying 'no way, we're in the same mission!' The lady helping them out then said, 'um, you can't touch the elders.' It was so funny! During the orientation meeting for the families/friends with their missionaries, we could all feel the spirit SO strong...it was wonderful, and I could tell that it was getting Jill even more excited to just dive in and start. Right after the meeting, we went to the MTC Presidency office so she could get set apart. Her Aunt Joy and I took notes so that we could send the main things said to her parents in South Africa. She was promised certain things and advised about things that only herself and God would know about. I LOVE the power of the priesthood and of God's love for us :) After the blessing, Jill had the biggest smile spread across her face, she was glowing it seemed like. She still hadn't cried at all, but I broke her when we hugged goodbye and I started to cry. She only cried for a moment, but then anxiously and happily followed someone around the corner, which was the last we saw of her. It was hard to let her go, but at the same time, I am SO happy that she's finally in the mission field. I felt confirmation from the spirit during the meeting and in her setting apart blessing that she is ready and is going to do great. She is in good hands.

Bringing Jill to the MTC brought back so many memories/feelings from when I went there and later on when I went into the field...it felt so good!

Went on a couple dates this weekend, both of which were actually fun, but I don't think much of anything will come from them. Right now I'm just interested in getting to know different kinds of people and having fun...if anything happens, it will happen naturally, right? Ha, that's what I hope for anyway. Even if it's not an Elder Ensign.

BYU CRUSHED UCLA yesterday, and it was AWESOME!! I couldn't go to the game because of my leg, but I watched it from the comfort of my living room, hehe. I have no idea what has happened to the UCLA team, but their playing was kind of pathetic overall, so it seemed like it was an all-too-easy win for us. With a victory of more than 50 points to 0, I'd say that much will be expected from the BYU football team next time too.

My hamstring is slowly but surely getting better. I'm really hoping that I can get off of my crutches in just the next few days. I've already been on them for a week and I have to say, I've come to love my Advil pills and my arms have gotten so strong and buff ;) But I can't wait to simply walk around by myself!

Don't hesitate to update or make your own blogs, because I like hearing news from all of you!

Love,
Nat