Pics

Here are the pics. Please don't send me any more hate mail. And please still come to my open house.

Details

Okay, so when I wrote my email to everyone making my announcement, it was really late at night, and because it’s check out time, work has been crazy, so I’m sorry for not getting this up sooner. Please don’t hate me and not come to my open house. Anyway, here are the details on how he asked me. First, a little necessary back ground. For my birthday, I had my roommate do a photo shoot with me. Later she printed off some of the pictures. She had two 8x10s of the same picture that the printers messed up the color on, so I decided to give one of the pictures to Johnny. On Thursday, I met Johnny after my class in Salt Lake and we hung out in the city. My car was still by the Salt Lake Center, so that’s where we parted company. I told him I had a present for him and gave him the picture. We had a conversation that when I told me roommate about made her check for a ring. I thought she was crazy since I didn’t intent to get married any time soon. However, that night I did decide that I did want to marry Johnny. Coincidentally, that was the day Johnny decided to propose. On Saturday when I was going to see him next, we were planning on going to breakfast. On the way to his car, he told me he had a present for me. I thought that was sweet but unnecessary, since I had just given him a picture with no strings attached. He told me it was a poem, I asked if it was a limerick. (I had just written one for my biology class that I read to him, I’m not insane) He said it was more like a Shel Silverstein poem and that he had been trying to write me one for awhile. I told him about how I lost my VL over a poem. (He didn’t really appreciate that right before he proposed, but I was clueless) He drove past the turn off to go to breakfast, and when I asked about it, he said that I had to read the poem under a tree. So we drove up by the Provo temple, in the field below it is a big pine tree that he had picked on his way to my apartment. When I got out of the car, he gave me the poem and a red rose (first time he’s ever given me a red one), which I thought was cute. I read the poem underneath the tree. He was right, it was like a Shel Silverstein poem, but it was romantic too. After I finished, I said thank you (still clueless, although when he stood up to help me up, I was grateful that he didn’t stop on his knees) he gave me a hug and said something cute like that he wanted to be with my forever, then he got on his knee and asked me to marry him. I said “yes, of course” and he said “really?” I ended up saying yes about four times. I guess Johnny’s parents had asked him if they thought I would say yes, which was the wrong thing to say. The poor boy was so nervous he was shaking. After I said yes, he told me he had another present for me. He gave me a dozen red roses. Then we went out to breakfast and picked a date. Then we went ring shopping and I picked out my ring myself. I think it’s pretty.

Reader's Digest

This is for all of you that didn’t even know I was dating anyone. I’ll tell you the Reader’s Digest version of how we met. I’ve known Johnny since I was 9 and my family moved onto his street. From almost the beginning, I picked him out as the cutest boy in the ward. So I had a crush on him for years. We were born the same year, so we’ve always been in the same Sunday school class, and I would sit by him and make him talk to me because he was pretty shy. Right before high school, the language departments in my middle school went on a trip to Europe and Johnny and I both went. I got to know him pretty well and still liked him, but I learned that he wasn’t going to my high school, so shortly after the trip I decided that I should get over him since I wouldn’t see much of him. When I heard through the grapevine that he was dating someone during our sophomore year, that sealed the deal, and I got over him. Half way through my junior year, Johnny transferred to my school. We were in theater together and auditioned for the winter play. We both made it in, which meant going to a theater conference. At the theater conference, my best friend and I decided to make Johnny our project, bringing him out of his shy bubble by flirting shamelessly with him. This was kind of our thing during our junior year. However, during this process, in the three days of the conference, Johnny and my best friend hooked up. I wasn’t upset about this, since I had in reality ended my crush on Johnny, but I was disturbed that in 6 years of crushing on him, I had gotten nothing and in three days, my best friend became his girlfriend. The day after the conference, Johnny’s family moved to Florida for six months. Right before he got home, his relationship with my best friend ended. So the summer before our senior year I became his “shoulder to cry on”. We became best friends, which was nice because for the first time in any friendship with a guy, there was no romantic tension—I knew I didn’t like him, and I wasn’t worried about him liking me. However, around Christmas of that year, things started to change. I always knew that when I fell in love, it would develop from a friendship, and that’s what started happening. Sadly, however, I didn’t really act on that, and Johnny got a girlfriend. That was tough, but the thought that got me through was that she would get married and he would realize what had been in front of him all the time. And that’s exactly what happened . . . except that I wasn’t interested when he came around. I’ll admit it, I played hard to get when he got home. That only lasted until our first date. I decided a relationship was worth pursuing. However, I left to London on my study abroad after our third date, and while I was there, I realized that I owed another guy an opportunity before I invested too much into my relationship with Johnny. When I got back, I learned that the other guy, a missionary, had gotten engaged in the month since he’d been home, which broke my heart, so I told Johnny that I’d need time. So I moved down to school, and started my job and we still hung out every few weeks. Around the end of September we started dating again, and you already know the end of that story.

A call for more firesides

I think we need to have more firesides on Sundays. Because when we don't, nice innocent girls like me and my roommates start getting crazy ideas that boredom and free time bring into fruition. After Ward Prayer a few weeks ago, I thought that my apartment should do another photo shoot, but this time I would give my roommates makeovers. I don't know who came up with the punk idea, but these are the results:























I'm happy to say I'm responsible for all of this. I even made my roommate skip work. I was a real devil's advocate that night. (She wasn't feeling good in the first place, so it wasn't that hard, and not as bad as it sounds.)



We decided we kind of looked like a punk band, so we gave ourselved a punk band name Tree of Life (in honor of the Tree of Knowledge statue where we took the group shot) and we put together a CD for each other. It's pretty much the best CD ever. So please, don't let this happen to your friends, nice girls, lobby for more firesides on your Sundays.

Ceramics Projects

Okay, so I know it's been like 20 years since I've written and you all think I'm a huge slacker and not good for a single promise, but it's not my fault. Well, maybe it is a little. I needed to get some pics from my roommate before I could show you all the joy that is my ceramics projects. And who wants to move on to this term's news before finishing off last term? That's what I thought. Anyway, you can know bask in my new awe-inspiring talents. (PS: I'm definitely going to take up ceramics as a hobby, especially the wheel because I need a lot of practice on it.)

First project: The Game Cube

This is a view of all four sides. The top comes off and the inside is all black and therefore too boring to show (plus it doesn't look that great. Luckily black is very forgiving). The bottom does still look like a die and the whole thing sits on the six dots. I was planning on putting card decks or pieces of games that always get lost like dice or timers so when you need one you can just open up the lid and get one. By the way, I should be a hand model. Wow! Anyway. . .

2- Tribal Mask


We needed to have tribal reference in this project, so I looked up a lot of pictures online to see what I liked. This is a combination of two different African mask designs. But even though I took liberally from their ideas, all it basically gave me was the basic shape, the nose and forehead, and the mouth. The rest I came up with using my knowledge from my African-American lit class and my imagination.

I was really happy about the snakes. I didn't think I'd be able to make them look like snakes, and I know the picture isn't the best to view, but they look super cool. Snakes are very significant in African religions. The colors also have significance, but I don't want to sound like a pseudo-intellectual explaining it all right here, so just admire and know that there is a reason for the shapes and colors.

I was a lot happier with this project than I thought I would be. I think I'll hang it on the wall of my future library by my ethnic literature section.

3- The llama box

My favorite animal is the llama, so when we had to have an animal reference for our boxes, the choice was obvious. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to shape the head the way I would have liked, so it looks less realistic than I wanted. But I am planning on attaching fake eyelashes to it to make it even cuter.

Piece of trivia about this piece: the glaze is called Bleeding Armadillo as in the movie Steel Magnolias.





4- The bowls


The glaze on these is just horrible. They were supposed to be lavender. Luckily the pictures are forgiving. And they are very small and mostly off center. Oh well, it took forever to get these substandard peices, so I didn't have time to be a perfectionist. I was just happy to get anything I could use off the wheel. It's a lot harder than it looks on the movie Ghost.

I use the two smaller ones for condiments. They work great for dipping, not too big. They're great for glazing/marinating too. The top one has a crack in it, so it holds my rings and stuff on my desk.

5- The yarn basket

It took forever to make this look like a basket. Seriously, like many hours figuring out how the weaved pattern could work on clay. I didn't make it shiny so that it would look even more basket-like. But I'm very happy with it. The purpose of this basket is to store my projects and let me work on them without the cats attacking the yarn ball. The places where the basket makes points I can string yarn through and it will unravel as I pull it to make crocheting easier. It has a lid so no one has to see the projects and for cat purposes. The lid broke twice in the kiln so I had to glue it back together and it's pretty sad. And the glazes turned out horribly, so I'll just paint over those.

But there's a secret compartment in the yarn so I can put my hooks and needles and scissors and not lose them. Plus I'll be able to get to them without taking the lid off. Pretty nifty design, huh? Yeah . . . That was all me. I like it.


Well, ceramics was lots of fun, and like I say, I'm going to keep it up as a hobby. Very stress relieving.

celebrity status

Having my job is really strange. Especially for someone like me with a fairly severe and long lasting inferiority complex. People that I've only met once or twice briefly call me by name whenever they see me because they have to remember my name, I'm an important person for them to know. It's so strange to have people say your name where ever you are and not to necessarily be able to return the favor. But let's be honest, that's partially why I took this job. I thought it'd be good for me to be in this position, where I know what's going on, where it's normal for people to know me. It's strange, but not quite in a bad way.

pranks

My roommate likes to play pranks on people. Last semester, she taped newspaper to my door frame, then stuffed the space between it and my door full of packing peanuts. I caught her that time, she's never been caught before. She wasn't my roommate then, so catching her was a pretty big deal.
This semester she stole my keys, as you can see here. Picked them right out of my pocket, no less. You see, I don't like to stuff them all the way into my pocket because it gets too bulky. So I leave the lanyard sticking out and it's all knotted up and stuff. And at the time I was wearing my kakis which have side pockets instead of front ones, so they fall out all the time when I'm on the couch.
Anyway, she came back to my room and did the following:










She put my poor little Serta sheep in prison. Doesn't he look so sad. The prison is her Fencing mask, in case you were curious.


I, of course thought this was hilarious.



Just like when a few weeks later, Helen brought home a chef's hat from work, and then the next day I found this:

I think he's adorable. Probably the best he's looked.

Yes, it's fun to have a pranking roommate. The other night I had stayed up rather late finishing a book that had me bawling at the end (which I haven't done in quite awhile, it was refreshing), so I was pretty drained in the morning when I had to wake up to open the doors. Little did I know that during the night (she works from 7pm-4am most nights) she had decorated my door yet again.


So when I opened my door in the morning, all the toilet paper fell into my room. I stood there for probably two minutes just figuring out how to get out of there. You can't see it really well, but she taped seran wrap to the frame and wrote on it backwards, so I had all these messages to read from the inside of my door standing in toilet paper up to my ankles. I felt loved in a tired sort of way.

So when I finally got out, I got her back. I knew she had only been sleeping for a few hours, so I figured she wouldn't wake up when I went into her room. If I hadn't dropped her camera charger right by her head, she wouldn't have woken up and things would have been perfect. She would've had just as nice of a surprise when she woke up as I did. As it was, she still didn't know what was going on. So I guess the pay back was successful.

I like college!