"Dream" Boys, Sumo Wrestling, and Gold Coins

Ah, so here is My Last BYU Winter Semester AKA Things I Didn't Have Time to Blog About Part 2

A lot of this is pretty recent (the last two weeks or so). Why does so much always happen just as finals and final projects are due? lol

One night (way before final study time sucked away all our time) Katie, Emily, and some friends all played the classic board game Dream Phone. It's an apartment favorite.

"He looks cool in whatever he wears, but he's not wearing yellow." Oh Dream Phone!

Me and Emily with the Dream Phone listening to a clue! Katie actually beat both of us and won the game that night!

My ward recently had its closing social. For the first time EVER I am staying in Provo for the summer so its strange to see everyone leaving and not trying to frantically pack up my room during finals (I'm very grateful for the last part). At the social things ended up being unseasonably blustery and cold (Utah weather! It snowed this week!), but we still had a lot of fun. Katie even put on one of the Sumo suits! Go Katie!

Katie also went with me to an art show called Standing in Reserve (done in connection with CUAC). It was in an old building just down the street from my house (I found out about it from one of the TAs in my art history class who was actually in charge of the whole thing). It focused on technology. There were a lot of interesting pieces there. Katie and I particularly liked this interactive exhibit they had where they put you in a video game setting and you collected gold coins (I'm not sure how they did this, maybe one of those Kinect things?).

My family went to see the Taylor Andrews hair show last week. The theme was women in music. Elizabeth worked on the Pink section. It was so fun! And we got to see some of our favorite people: Elizabeth and her dad, Sam.

Elizabeth made that hair piece!!!! Isn't she talented?!

Despite the business and craziness it was a great semester! I hope Spring and Summer terms will be just as good :)

Currently: full from all the crepes I ate this morning, yum

VIPs, Cookies, and Misadventures in Gluten-Free Baking

My Last BYU Winter Semester AKA Things I Didn't Have Time to Blog About

Here are some fun things I did this semester that for some reason never made it to the blog in a timely manner (What was I doing with all my time? Oh yeah, studying like a crazy person):

This year at BYU I got to hear two interesting, VERY well-known people speak: Condoleezza Rice and Mark Zuckerburg.

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In January, Condoleezza Rice came. I really enjoyed her thoughts on education. You can read some of her remarks here.

Mark Zuckerburg, the creator of Facebook, came and spoke at my school. He did a question and answer session based on questions left on the BYU Facebook page. Senator Orrin Hatch came and asked the questions. It was great hearing Mark speak and hearing his perspective on things. Here's a link to BYU's news release about it. It has some of the questions he answered, as well as his responses.

Some other important people that came to visit? My family. Not only did my parents come this month to see me graduate, but my Aunt and Uncle also came to Provo to drop my cousin off at the MTC. We had lunch at Jdawgs before he left. Love you Jack!!!

I also made snickerdoodles earlier this semester. I bring this up not because it was particularly unusual, but because I always have the same problem when I make snickerdoodles. Really chewy, warm, and delicious when they come out of the oven. Rock hard an hour later. Seriously does anyone have a tip/recipe to help me out with this?

Even though they got a bit hard, they were still good tasting (providing you had some milk to soften them up).

Speaking of baking projects that don't go quite as planned...

Remember when I had the post called Conference: Sister Edition (Part 1)? Well Part 2 never made it up, but here's the short version. I attempted to make gluten free cinnamon rolls. Silly me, I thought I could simply substitute regular flour for gluten free flour (plus a little xantham gum). Well it's a lot more complicated than that. I looked up recipes later and I realize now that a combination of flour types would have worked better. Oh well! Thankfully I had regular gluten-full bread baking at the same time so we still had a yummy conference treat :)

Sad little gluten-free cinnamon rolls about to go into the oven.

This bread smelled (and tasted) so good! Plus it was pretty easy to make (You can see the recipe here). I didn't even use the bread machine.

Well that's it for now, but there's more to come!

Currently listening to: The Supremes (a favorite of mine)

Graduation Day

I did it.

I graduated.

From college.

Ok well technically I'm a student until August. I postponed the technical side of it until August.

But really. I'm done. As my dearest roommate Pash would say, "You're doing it Mimi! You're doing it!"

Anyway here are some pictures from the big days (it was sort of a two day affair):

Luckily I have some good friends graduating at the same time :) We got to hang out during convocation (during commencement we had to sit in alphabetical order).

Me and Elliot! My fav study buddy!

Me and Emily

My family also came out to see my graduate and it was a fabulous visit. They spoiled me!

Me and Dad :)

I'm kind of ruining this one by closing my eyes, but I still like it.

It has been great having Gabby here this year. She was able to attend all my grad stuff before going back to Texas, although she did get a little bored during convocation.

They even bought me a lei

We did lots of fun things including visiting my Aunt Mary, driving in the canyon, seeing Elizabeth's hair show, and eating lots of yummy places (the picture above is a fruit and cheese plate from La Jolla Groves, sooo good).

Oh, and after graduation Elliot and I rang the bell!

So I guess it's official :) Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way!

Currently: not studying. Do you know how good that feels?

Currently thinking of: the graduation song,As we go on, we remember... haha love it!

Jimmered

So as you may know BYU kids are pretty hard core Jimmer (BYU basketball player) fans. I don't even follow sports that much and I find myself caught up in the Jimmer mania now and again.

Anyway, there was just one Jimmer incident I couldn't resist sharing.

A girl at BYU wrote a letter to the editor about how the Jimmer mania was out of control and asked everyone to calm down. Then she posted about this letter on her Facebook. Her public Facebook.

Hilarity ensued. Check it out:

http://dreamcatchermedia.com/jimmered

ESPN even wrote an article about it. Read it here.

Currently Eating: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Currently Reading: Book Thief

Student Film Screenings

So this semester the student film association (SFA) started doing screenings of student work. My friend Caity's husband, Bradley, is one of the SFA council members. The one I went to tonight was the third one of the semester and they've all been fun to watch. They show films of all different types and lengths ( the longest ones are usually 15-20 min.). The commercials are especially funny. This was the first semester they've done screenings; hopefully they'll keep doing them next semester.

Here are some of my favorites:

Richard and the Bats by Judy Simmons (3:37)
This is a super cute stop motion film about the day in the life of one frustrated little kindergartner with a crush on his teacher. People liked it so much they showed it at two screenings.

Inspection by Brad Hall (0:60)
This one is a short, but very clever commercial.

My Amazing Script by Phillip Goodwin (9:56)
This film kind of parodies the typical student film maker. It's all about how everyone thinks their work is always so "original" or "avant-garde". They have dramatic moments, big tears, and "edgy" dialogue, lol. Btw...Bradley helped make it and is in the last scene.

Clean Break by Chas Kelly (15:31)
This is one of my favorite documentaries that they screened. I'm just going to use the Vimeo summary for this one: "It is a documentary about a young man of the LDS faith booked in the county jail for some serious misdeeds. While incarcerated, he goes through a journey of self discovery as he serves out his sentence and prepares for his release."

The Magic of Taxidermy by Caity Wasden Cummings. (4:55)
This is a documentary on taxidermy that Caity made for one of her film classes. Don't be scared away by the initial screen shot! She does show some of the less, um, appealing (?) parts of taxidermy, but there are plenty of shots with no dead animals. I promise. Plus the interviews she does are pretty fun. I got to see this film in little bits and pieces as she was making it so it was great to see it all together :)

BYU SFA Blog

P.S. I survived April Fools without getting pranked!

Currently: Psyched for General Conference

Fragmentation of the Human Soul

Ok so every year BYU has a hunger banquet. The banquet raises money for community and international developmental causes. I've never been before but from what I understand everyone pays the same amount to get in, but when you get there you are divided into different "social classes" and get different meals depending on what class you are in.

Anyways this year they are having a creative competition to help raise awareness for the cause. You can submit videos, artwork, essays... anything creative. They display them to help advertise the event and then they select a few to display at the actual banquet. I decided to submit a collage. It's not much, but I thought it would be fun to participate. The theme for the competition is celebrating human dignity. My mom told me this quote which ended up being my inspiration for the collage:

“Most of us feel for the suffering child but can’t see the child in the adult who, soul fragmented and isolated, hustles for survival a few blocks away.” - Gabor Mate

I really like this idea of the fragmented soul. I think it's very easy to see one piece of someone or one side, and forget that there is more to them.

My collage:



Close ups:







Currently: Thankful for discount valentine candy, lol