a wonderful week

me: yeah, here pick whatever song you want for your ringtone.

sean kingston, beautiful girls: "you're way to beauuutiful giiirl, that's why it'll never work, you'll have me suicidal, suicidal, when you say its overrr."

maren:  i don't want to make you suicidal!

me: when you say its over!?!

maren: oh no, it will never be over. 

truer words were never heard. 

my feelings will not be repressed. you must allow me to tell you how ardently i admire and love you.

sidewalk chalk brainwash

so in provo, they write on the sidewalks. as advertisement. i don't know if they do it in other places too, but its all the time here.  right now the sidewalk is dominated for at least half of my walk to school by an advertisement for women's chorus.

at first i am super annoyed that they're there.  i HAVE to read them, i HAVE to know what they say--its rather impossible not to.  and its not like i really want to go to the women's chorus, i'm not a fan of just women singing to music, especially choral-type music. you know, with the organ and the high voices--after awhile its like cats in a blender. (i stole that from my mom, who used it to describe over-frequent phantom of the opera viewings). in any case--i don't want to go, and i'm sure of it.  but as i'm walking to school over this sidewalk chalk everyday, possibly more than four times, it starts to grow on me.

this morning i found myself thinking, "you know, maybe i should be heading to the ticket office like its telling me to.   i should be going to this concert. its on april fool's day, but its not a joke. are you ready for this? i'm ready for this. i should be going to women's chorus 50th concert.  i'm sure they're doing something special. i'm sure they're doing something great. i should head to the ticket office?"

until i realized they were brainwashing me. with sidewalk chalk.  who knew what powerful stuff it was?

lost

lauren, lovely lauren came down to utah for, well, less than 24 hours.  it was blissful.  saturday i went to pick her up in salt lake while her boyfriend or something went and saw a concert or whatever. but i had my lauren.

then we went to the follet's house--her grandparents, the former owners of the house my parents now reside in.  who live in cedar hills. it was simple getting there. but then i was invited to stay the night with her & them, and accepted. but i had to go drop some stuff off in provo and pick up some sleepy stuff. so, lauren and i drove from cedar hills to provo. simple. took about 30 minutes, because we went the long way, but it got us there. 

coming back, we had looked up a map and needed to get off at exit 276. quite awhile before that, fabulous, wonderful I-15 construction diverted us off of the freeway entirely, and we had to follow signs for this detour.  we got back on the freeway, and, of course, the next exit was 278. we decided to take it anyway. and then proceeded to get hopelessly lost, ending up in a school parking lot (without turning into one) with the mascot of the caveman (something to aspire to, people), and laughing hysterically. it was perfect, just like old times, except that we were still lost. and it was dark. and raining. 

somehow, we found our way to the Mt. Timpanogos temple.  that was good--we were close.  and we knew as long as we kept the temple in our sights, we would find our way.   that was one thing we were sure of.  an innate sense, if you will.  the deeper meaning wasn't lost on me at the time, but i didn't have much time for reflection through the laughing and yelling and general confusion.  but isn't that something?

i love my major.

Katie and I excited for bear denning!!

We went a little too far...into Colorado

Katie with a bear collar on

Riding in the back of the pickup, since the van couldn't make the muddy/bumpy roads

Yeah, thats me with a black bear cub. ~3 mos.

A mama black bear, tranquilized.

Day old kid (Nubien)

Goats are just like big dogs. Always wanting attention.

Horizontal rectangular pupils

I drew blood too! (this isn't me) 

Cool, right? 200 goats later...still cool.  

Gotta love goats.

Ladies and Gents

Its for certain!  I'm going live at DisneyWorld for four months!!

i got my invitation, and i accepted said invitation. 

i will be working attractions, from august to the beginning of january.  i won't get to come home for christmas (downside) but i won't have to be in provo! 

its a pretty awesome program. if you want to learn more, you can go to WDW College Program Website For Family  and find out for yourself.  

soooo, who wants to go to DisneyWorld between August and January??

L.O.V.E--an ode to Port-a-Potties

L is for the way you lure me in 

O is for the odor you emit

V is very very...involuntary 

E is eating well then having to endure the smell

and LOVE is more than i can give to you

Love has got nothing to do with poo

Too much poo is stankin'

There's no way that we can make it. 

Love is not for me and you

This song needed to be immortalized.  I love you Maren. 

(although i think the 2nd and 3rd to last lines are probably wrong)

Orange County Redneck

i'm turning redneck.

the redneck from socal. perhaps first because of this...

and the maniacal laughter that accompanied every shot.

and then there's this:

Driving my Professor's Tractor

Alpaca

Lamb

yeah. i think i might be a bit of a redneck. 

this trip was amazing though.  we boiled snow for water since we didn't have any in the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers-esque cabins.

Boiling Snow (i look so cute!)

The final result

i shared a twin bed with this girl. <3 Mikyn.

our lovely seven brides cabins. what you see is what we got.

the cabins were heated with good old fashion wood stoves.  it was a lovely trip.  the wildlife and range club is good to me.

Frogs

everybody thinks i'm crazy.  which, i can't deny, is true.

but i work with frogs (xenopus laevis).  they're cute.  and i know them by name. their names are 22, 23, 24, 26, and 27. they have personalities.  24 is probably my favorite. she's a splasher.  22, 23, and 24 are all much bigger than 26 & 27 for some reason.  they all have different patterns of dark/light spots, but they're all very pretty.  their common name is african clawed frogs, and they really do have claws on their back feet. sort of.

every S, M, T, W i take care of these frogs.  tuesdays are feeding days--usually its so cute, the frogs will use their front limbs to take the food right out of my hand.  they sweep their arms forward and grab the food, then shove it in their mouths.   cute right?  right. on thursdays we do surgeries, rotating frogs every week.  we extract the oocytes.  and those are used for experiments designed to find a cure for the flu and alzheimers. so its pretty great. each frog undergoes only 6 surgeries before they are humanely euthanized.  two weeks ago we lost our first since i've been there-- RIP 21. <3