Tissue Regeneration--who would have thought?!

this was on oprah last week tuesday. it is amazing. were building organs and tissues and arteries in a lab with your own cells..its crazy. (ignore the post-it commercial.)

this raises serious bioethics questions. and a lot more laws. but its also miraculous..how is that possible? and the things it could do for medecine...the possibilities are amazing! with a little part frightening..people abuse these kinds of things too much. we shall see though, wont we?

elder mattson: coming to you this june 3rd!!

"Becca!
That is sweet. We are going to have a ton of fun up at Byu. Are you going to live on campus? I enjoyed it when I was a freshmen. So you love AP bio and chem. I love bio also. I was thinking of majoring in that, but I don't know what I would do for a job. I still have no idea. Dont tell mom. ..As you already know and like to make fun of me for. {:}?> (sorry i don't know how to make those smiley face things that mean you are joking) Things are sweet over here. I guess you already know some from the other emails. I don't really have any stories that I can think of right now unless you want to hear about me bribing the immigration officers so that I wouldn't get kicked out of Malaysia again. But that isn't very interesting. Don't tell mom." from Eric to me. ahaha. I MISS HIM SO MUCH!!! "Hey brecca,
Sounds like you had fun over in Washington. I just thought I should inform you that they are cutting down the rainforest over here. YOu should probably do something about it. I have already stopped sharing a message about Jesus and switched to sharing a message about environmental responsibility. I know I have made the correct decision. I still have not happened onto finding a monkey, but I will probably baptize it if I do. Because men evolved from monkeys so if we believe in the Bible also the obvious truth is that Adam and Eve were Monkeys. WHich makes sense because orangutan comes from the malay name for the monkey orang hutan. Orang means person, and Hutan means jungle. So logically if i baptize two monkeys or two people at once it will be double fun. But on the other hand you will never know if you don't try. So try to stay calm and be sure to try and stop smoking or else I will tell mom. And if you ever have a question, just don't do anything I wouldn't do.
Love,Elder the mattson"

"me & migan"

this one is just fabulous. does that guy smile like that, or are they laughing? hahahaha

"Becca,

Schools already starting soon, eh? Sounds like fun. Youre going to be in a music recording class? thats pretty cool. My advice for the summer reading is not to do it, but thats just my professional opinion. I know a lot of people that cant' read anyway and they are just fine. But if you do learn to read that is okay too.

Love elderr mattson"

some of the emails were a while ago. haha. that one was last summer! crazy.

typical eric. this is when i miss him most! "Sounds like you had a bunch of fun over there. Ive never been to San Francisco, but sometime in my life I'd like to march in the gay parade. Maybe when I get back. Well, be sure to keep me informed of any other adventures you have." these are all excerpts from his emails to me. not the family emails. ;) aahhahhaa. why the gay parade? i have no idea. is there a gay parade? still no idea. raaaandom. hahaha

yeah thats a grub in his mouth...i think its dipped in soy sauce if thats any consolation?? haha ewww he's all sweaty & gross. butcha can't blame the poor boy...its probably 100 degrees and 100% humidity. blehhh, plus riding bikes??

"Do you still like your work at the vet? How much are they paying you? I haven't eaten too many strange things. But I did eat maggots. Well I guess they are more of grubs. They were fat white worm things that are about and inch and a half long. But they were fried with some soy sauce and stuff so it was pretty good. I also ate fish head curry, eyes and everything, but that isn't so wierd I guess. I really like that one. I have eaten a lot of wierd things that I wouldn't even be able to start to describe, because I have absolutely no idea what they are. Generally if they put it in front of me, I just eat it. Sorry no monkey stories haven't seen many monkies here in Kuching. But I'll let you know if I see anything cool."

"P.S. I ate a sea snail in my spaghetti. and it was pretty sick. But other than that I am still healthy. I am going to go jungle exploring today because it is pday I will try to send some pictures. Well I don't have much more time to email but make sure to have a good time on summer vacation, and just so you know, they eat dogs here sometimes, and I am going to try and get a dog steak and send it to you so you can eat it for breakfast.

Love eldermattson"

"I went to a nature reserve last week, and we saw some orangutan. They were just swinging through the trees and stuff and the ranger people fed them some bananas and stuff. One of them was only like 4 feet away from me, and there was no cage or anything. I also ate a bunch of more nasty stuff, but I don't even know how to describe it. But it was worse than the grub."

i'm so jealous of that nature reserve. like...you dont even know. but i'll make him take me when we go back in august. (!!!!!!!!)

tragic story: "That monkey in the picture was a baby probiscus monkey, the kind with the really long nose that droops down. One of the branch members in kuching was keeping it because his friends shot the mom and ate it, which is very illegal because it is a protected species in Malaysia. But it died too eventually. It was very young and they didn't know how to take care of it."

So i miss him a lot. and i can't wait for him to come home june 3rd! we got his plane ticket already. he's really coming home! and then were going back to malaysia for him to show me all his cool things there. and then were going to BYU together. YAY! i really can't wait to see him...man TWO YEARS!?! holy cow. i wonder how different i am? i mean he's going to be somewhat different for sure..but what about me? two years ago...i was kind of a mean little brat. hopefully i've changed. i wonder if my looks have changed much?! maybe i'll go look at pictures..but then again i'd rather not. HE'S COMING HOME!!!!! <3<3

i'm outraged/scared/spiritual/delighted

the blogger updates thingy didnt show my posts! it didnt even pop up for me to see..and i'm following my own blog! it makes me a little bit angry...

but to get to the real point.

what the wind?! i feel like my house is going to blow away like poor dorothy's did. (apparently i could never live somewhere were there really were hurricanes and twisters and all their other names) if this is scaring me, what would i do in THOSE areas when the wind blew a little too hard?? major freak out. not good. oh and our poor banana tree! which looks like it is going to fall over any second anyway, its holding on for dear life!! and its got some good looking bananas growing in there.

and, i guess it was the wind, but our power went out TWICE in church today. once during sunday school, where curse it! there was enough light to continue the lesson (not that i dont like sunday school. i dont like teachers that tell me i dont have testimonies and that i dont really want to be at church.) and then once during sacrament, for quite awhile. what made it especially great was the hymn we started singing when the lights went out. it was hymn 192, He Died! The Great Redeemer Died. (sacrament hymn)
TANGENT: the church website?? its fabulous. whenever i go onto the music section it makes me so happy! whenever you roll over a selection it sounds a note, and when you roll over the next its the next note..and then you hear The Spirit Of God playing at you as you roll over these options!!! its fantastic. you should try it.
but anyway
we were singing the sacrament hymn, 192, and it says in the first verse "a solemn darkness veils the sky" & the power had JUST gone out...it was funny, in a way...well in the way that my mom and i both laughed and then shushed ourselves. but then, right as the lights came back ON, we sang (verse three) "But lo! What sudden joys were heard!/The Lord, though dead, revived again." mom & i just kinda guffawed at that one. how cool is that?!

but on other news. my old phone?!?!! CAME BACK TO LIFE!! it is baaaackkk!! with a few crazy quirks but i'm SOOO okay with that. I LOVE MY PHONE!! it came back from its little swim with the sharks in shark lagoon...and i'm terribly happy about it. :D :D :D :D :D :D

&
thats all folks!!
;)
ps. was that too many emotions for one blog?? bahahaha. if it was get over it. if not, good for you. :D

Sometimes, i LOVE my family

today we went to my brother's band concert at the Kennedy really nice music center...well my parents had dropped him off at 615 because that was when he had to be there. then they sat in the car, and read until 645 when they could go stand in the line. (i was driving in my own car, and came in at the end of this saga to hear the story later)
so my mom watches this guy carefully park his car..almost ridiculously. as in, he would get out and look at his parking job then get back in and move about a foot. he had tried to back in at first, but that apparently wasnt working out for him so he did it all over again. THEN he sat in his car too-and threw a bunch of trash out the window while my mother watched, getting all the more outraged as he just kept chucking it out of his car. into the parking lot. who needs trashcans right? well, after this saga was over, my mother, incensed, told my father to go get that trash. (because thats what women do when we are incensed. order husbands to fix it. works like a charm ;) so my dad of course went to go get it...but he had his own opinion as to where it should be put. he stuffed all that trash that was thrown out the window of this car back onto its windshield under the wipers.

i love them, i love them, i love them. :):)

ps. REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE baby!!!

time for a change.

i do not like them in a box
i do not like them with a fox
i do not like them here OR there
i do not like them ANYWHERE!

my feelings exactly, mister.

but dont get me wrong. i'm totally excited for all the change thats going on around me..and are a part of me. i mean. i'm going to BYU! i'm growing up. i'm moving out. i'm living on my own. i let someone in. i have a job. i have a bank account. i'm planning out my life. i'm choosing a major, a career! i'm deciding what i'm going to do with my future..mother, wife, house owner, dog owner...

can anyone say FRIGHTENING??

i'm not a fan of a future i dont know.
but i guess anyone could have seen this coming for me. i dont even like to try new foods..i get one thing at one restaurant and continue to get it every time i go there. i'm not a big tryer. actually my excuse is that it was so good the first time, that when i go back i have to get it. because i rarely go back anyway, lets just make that clear...restaurants and the mattson family do not really mix. at all. if we go, my brother has bad manners and my mother points at him and says "see?? this is your fault" to my father for not taking us out to dinner often enough. but alas, he's a cheapo. actually i'm grateful, really i am, because he spends that money on fabulous vacations instead of food..i'd take the fabulous vacations any day. but lets just get one things straight: fabulous vacations can be GREAT if we are fed decent food while there. otherwise, we get cranky and angry and since we are all in close proximity to one another, super cranky. (we learned this the hard way. FLORIDA. amazing vacation. scuba diving every day, boat dives, beautiful drives, thunderstorms every night..fabulous. but my dad still doesnt believe in buying good food..or ENOUGH. need i say more?)
how did i get there??

ps. i have never been able to spell restaurant. (i spell checked) why is it spelled like that?? no one says it like that. can't it be changed to restraunt?? thats how i spell it. who wants to change the dictionary with me?? if i have to change, the dictionary can too.

r-r-r-r-raaaandomm

these are random short stories & philosophies that should have been blogged a long time ago.
or are recent. you dont need to know. just enjoy. :)

1. Tips For Stargazing:
--the brightest stars are always planets. name them, then change your mind two minutes later.
--to find the north star, you make a straight line with the edge two stars of the little dipper. but only if you draw the line the right way, then you get the north star. and theres no way to tell which way is the right way, just do it. & if you see a bright star, thats it. if not, you LOSE.
--only half of the sky is necessary to see
--turning your head at odd angles is definitely a necessity for seeing constellations.
--dont compete to get off the bus first. :)

2. One Day In Preschool
everyone hated me. the kids wanted nothing to do with me. paul called me fat. isaiah pretended he didnt remember my name and he thought it was funny. he also said i wasnt his friend when we had been buddies just the day before. someone hit me, i can't remember who it was at this point, but they did. riley, who had been hanging on me the day before, was now hanging on someone else, and not even noticing me. not ONE kid would talk to me, let me play with them..it was the worst day in preschool i have ever had. and i still can't figure it out, to this day. everyone loves me again, what was with that day? must have been twilight zone-ish.

3. Snorting
so okay, i snort when i laugh sometimes. get over it. it just happens. but..this time it was different. it was ward conference, my ward. karina & i were sitting next to each other. ps:bad idea. if they wanted quiet anyway. well bishop thompson was giving the spiel he give everytime that i have now heard five times (i think, i'm not really counting) and i was saying it to karina before he said it and i thought i was all cool. well i was, but that is a different story. and he says something about beating up the principal of the school, because that was something that Joseph F Smith did when he was a boy..and he tried to connect it to our day, saying what if you beat up the principal of the school? what would happen? and karina says under her breath, "that would be....satisfying." and i bust up in a laugh that BEGINS with a snort, and we were in the CHAPEL, int he first four rows of pews and bishop thompson was down in the front speaking to us like prez wynder always would, disregarding the microphone (none of them need it, they boom). and i snorted. everyone looked, of course, and you could hear the "did she just snort"s going around. it was ridiculous. and slightly hilarious.

4. Flies are Russian Spies
and are really really annoying. actually they werent flies they were some weird insect that swarm inside my house by the four's..meaning there were four of them. anyway. they were super annoying. and i was trying to do my homework (or was i?) and they kept stupidly hitting the lights over and over again. it was driving me crazy. i dont know if it was so much the sound of them hitting the lights as the stupidity of bugs in general, that they would repeatedly throw themselves into a light source, that irked me. but it did. a lot. so i went on a mission. a mission to kill. & i did. i got those russian spies & killed them while singing the james bond theme song to myself. i'm sure my parents thought i was crazy..i was crouching around the kitchen singing that with a "sound & sense" book and a ruler in my hands, randomly swinging at nothing (but really those bugs) when it was silent in the house. (an unusual occasion in itself.) i entertain myself sometimes.

5. Dancing At Midnight
karina, for some odd reason, was over at almost midnight, on my computer..& i was catching up on the DVR shows i had missed. well after that i had this weird kind of energy, so i made karina dance with me. it was ridiculous. and i mean the dancing. it was something i probably will never do outside of that night. honestly, it could have been the definition of crazy.. then sometimes we would break down laughing and fall on the floor. at one point karina flung her arms so hard her wrist snapped and it hurt her..then she danced carefully with her arms and told herself to do this while she was dancing.. "careful with the arms, karina" that was too much for me. i couldnt get off the floor for a full five minutes & my abs hurt so bad. how do we get so crazy? then we made a few more videos..that i would show you but it takes too long to load onto here so you'd have to come over to my house. ohhhh goodness. ahhahaha

6. Following People In Grocery Stores
lauren & i, man we were funny. this is how it went : we were at Stater Bros, getting stuff i forget what, but we were in the fresh vegetable section, the sprinklers turned on, scared the crap out of me, and i screamed. the guy next to us just busted up laughing.. thats not awkward at all. well okay it was funny, and lauren could hardly stand up for laughing, and she did that thing where she leans over to one side and lifts her foot up & laughs silently. it was funny. THEN we started seeing this guy all over the store, kinda like he was following us..then we started following him on purpose. to see if he would notice. it was so much fun. another secret spy mission. we just kept appearing in the same isles, and i do think he looked at us funnily a couple of times. but it was the greatest. then he would move on and we would tip over laughing again. i think we forgot most of what we came for and had to go back later. or not. i can't even remember. :)

7. I Think I Already Posted
about the overflowing toilet at jeff's house. ahahhaha

8. Wanna know how to collect urine from a killer whale?
i know. and i'm super excited that i know. so i'm going to enlighten all of you. they pee on command!! they come up on the slick "shore" part, and lay on their side then pee on command! they're kind of amazing. i went to seaworld with ap bio. and it was fascinating. they did animal husbandry and training shows for us. & i absolutely loved walking aroud seaworld at my leisure by myself. i read all of the pamphlets and the signs and learned a LOT about sharks, and manatees, and how they help the animals in the wild, and how they save sea lions and manatees and all sorts of animals.. it was FABULOUS. and i want to train sea lions to dance with me like they do. but seriously...i really wanna train a sea lion. they are so funny! they'd make me laugh everyday. not that i dont already, but i just want to train a sea lion. :)

thats all i got for now.
haha

road rage rebecca

i felt like some alliteration was needed there.
but seriously, i pose the question:
WHY does driving make me so angry???
and honestly i can't help it. yesterday was the worst: driving home from work, exhausted, in pain, hungry, and still had a butt load of work left to do: and going down bolsa chica SHOULD be done at a minimum of 65. the guy that cut me off decided that he would like to go below the speed limit, 45, and so did the two cars next to him in either lane. i was stuck. and i was yelling. why do people think its okay to cut people off and then slow down in front of them??? and who allows old people to drive anymore? that should be against the law. as much as i love them old people...TAKE THE BUS. get a taxi. something, anything. dont go twenty five on ALL streets.

but maybe..coming home from work is NOT the best mood for me. and maybe i just really needed to yell at something...or maybe they just really deserved it. the thing is, i never get angry like that anywhere else. its ONLY in my car. why? i'm not usually an angry yelling person. i get angry and i shut up and go sit silently in my room, listen to music. not even music could save me in the car. i even had JACK FM going (my favorite). and it wasnt doing a darned thing.

so, from now on, whoever else wants to drive, please do so. unless you're karina. then i'm driving. i hate your car. no offense.

ps. this in no way means i hate driving. i hate OTHER people on the road. i love driving. i love that freedom. its a good thing...usually.
pps. mom i really hope you didnt read this. if you did...forget the whoooole thing. it never happened.

i'm such a blog retard!

i usually post more frequently than this.
& i dont have an excuse for not posting. haha. just a blog retard. thats all i can come up with.
anyway.
i think i'm just going to list off some fun things i want to do. (yeah karina, i'm stealing your idea. GET OVER IT.)
~spend a day in a spa
~paintball
~find a job at a horse stable
~wake up before sunrise on a saturday and go to signal hill to watch it
~have a picnic
~tandem bike ride
~dog park/dog beach
~scuba dive on catalina
~avalon on catalina
~visit the teachers in jr high & elementary that influenced me
~make something for all the teachers that influenced me(k-12)
~museums
~san diego zoo! or even all the little zoos around here
~pitch a tent in a backyard, order chinese take-out, and tell ghost stories
~go to a drive in movie
~have a real movie marathon-hard core. either indiana jones or disney classics or eureka
~set off some illegal fireworks..then run like the devil
~be successful at flying a kite
~go kite surfing
~visit my favorite nature center ever!!! (eldorado)
~kayak in naples
~try a paddle boat
~find a place to see the stars in socal
~go camping in the sanberdandino mtns
~find a nice hike somewhere out here ( IN THE WOODS)
~go to the airport (small one) and watch the planes take off and land on the hood of a car
~go see a play
~go to a catholic mass, cuz i'm curious ;)
~go to a shooting range
~ride a hot air balloon!!
~go to mexico for no good reason
~cliff jumping
~have a bonfire
~build a fort
~fly a remote control airplane
~visit a local rest home, maybe play a game of bingo
~find a karaoke place
~go on a hayride
~go to color me mine
~go GEOCASHING!!
~spend the entire day at barnes and nobles
~ride in a horse drawn carriage
~thrift store hopping
~go sailing
~go to a botanical garden
~learn how to ballroom dance
~ride in a helicopter
~blow some glass
~sing on a street corner
~volunteer at a food distribution place. what do you call those?
~fencing
~make a boat and use it in my swimming pool
~go horse back riding on the beach
~ride a unicycle
~make music with glasses of water like on miss congeniality
~catch a fly, put it in a jar in the fridge, tie a string to it, and have a fly on a leash
~play bottle cap hockey on my island. using a bottle cap as the puck and pens as sticks
~write on a wall with washable markers/crayons
~find the perfect tree to climb
~do some pottery
~throw a tomato into a fan
~watch the stars on someone's roof
~stomp in a bucket of grapes then make someone drink it
~explode a marshmallow in a microwave
~go to a rock concert
~go get my fortune told
~take the bus somewhere, anywhere
~learn to shoot a real bow and arrow
~go beach camping
~see a magic show live
~go to a planetarium
~be in the audience of the price is right
~go windsurfing
~whipped cream/flour fight
~ride a segway
~go to a haunted place at night
~ride a gondola!
~go to the house of blues
~go to a comedy club
~a 10 season friends marathon with Eva baby!! ;)
~ETC
i think this is enough for now. haha. its really long. just some random activities i'd like to do in my lifetime. by no means is this all i'd like to do, just a few. :)
okay now people...lets do some of these things, okay??

hibernation

its time. haha. im going to bed right after this post. i'm soooo not kidding. i need my sleep so bad. as much as i love staying up late talking.. i need to go to seminary again. haha. i've been a slacker and not getting up even when the alarm blasts so loud the neighbors are ticked. ps and by the way, i hate that. that my neighbors can hear my stupid alarm clock and wake up to it. i will never live in a house like that again. there must be a minimum of fifty feet between me and my neighbors closest wall. and i mean minimum. my preferable distance would be a couple of acres, but who knows where my life will lead? anyway. its almost seven, and that was the determined time of bed for me tonight. it really feels like i'm going into hibernation..i just ate dinner and ice cream, which i havent had in a while.. and i did yoga and streched all out and fell over a couple of times, but its all good. yoga was pretty amazing. i might be sore tomorrow. but i actually broke out in a sweat a little bit. it was impressive. then i just started kicking karina. after i fell over. it was more fun that way. we tried to do tae-bo too, but i put the cassette tape in the wrong VCR that doesnt work..and now we can't get it to work. my blond roots almost showed today. either that or the sleeplessness is getting to me. i also almost poured hot water all over the counter when i drained the noodles for dinner. i just barely saved myself..this hibernation should be very good for me. :)
right now bruce springsteen is playing really loudly in my house. my dad is exercising. (thats spelled right, yes? ;P) is he the king? what is this kids nickname? the duke? the master? its something like that, right? the boss?? doesnt matter. just rambling. i'm gonna go to bed. oh no..bruce is playing. loudly. right under my bedroom. yikes! i'll sleep through it. i'd sleep through a plane crashing into my house though, so bruce is nothing.

mamamamamamama myyyy karina (as in my sherona)

is amazing. BAHAHA we have so much fun with this silly webcam thing on my computer. and a program called youcam:)

we made music videos. heres a few... the sound is off with the video, trust me, it wasnt us. we were spot on..ALWAYS. and yes, i do fall off the stool.

hahahah theres more...but. i dont have the patience for that.

cypress police have nothing better to do.

than to catch four boys toilet papering my house and ring our doorbell at one oclock in the morning because of it. twice. and scare the living daylights out of me. (btw, where did THAT expression come from? what are living daylights?) but i was just sitting on my couch, on the computer when the doorbell rings. it was terrifying. i hoped whoever it was would go away, so i just sat there, waiting, paralyzed..then i saw someone flashing their brights onto my house. for a while, too. then they came to the door again and rang the doorbell but this time with flashlights, so i immediately thought BURGLAR and ran into my parents bedroom to get my dad. i think i panicked him a little bit with my hysterical manner..but men with flashlights were at my door! i should have figured that burglars wouldnt ring the doorbell to wake us up..it was just scary. anyway. they had caught miles, landon, derek, and jacob toilet papering my house. and were waking us up to tell us. and to make them clean it up. it was hilarious, after the adrenaline rush went away. i should have known..i should have heard them! it was silent in my house, and i was sitting not twenty feet away from the front yard. i think i'll blame someone else for that...i was very much distracted at the time. :) they just said they were ninjas&thats why i didnt hear them...but they can't be ninjas anymore, they were caught. so they are converting to pirates. it was, to say the least, amazing. and i will never let them live that down. ohh fabulous. :)

BYU PROVO!!!!!!!!!!!

baby, i'm going to UTAH!

i've got my acceptance
i'm earning my diploma

baby, i'm going to UTAH!!!!!
i'm outta here! :):)

the aquarium of the pacific.

i think its one of my favorite places of all times. i love it. very very much. except when it hates me, and makes my cell phone fall into the shark lagoon. i'm sure it was just having ill feelings towards me at that point in time, and wanted to make me go through withdrawls..hopefully for only two days or so. i've put it in a bowl of rice to hopefully suck all the wetness out of it. the man at the aquarium told me to.

but other than that, aquariums are fabulous. like seriously, fabulous. all the colorful fish and the diversity! it makes me want to scuba dive again. although not in this weather..that would be frightfully cold. i'm already shivering just sitting here writing this. and the rain..it would probably be warmer under the ocean than outside of it though. but it would be hecka cold getting in and out. oh well. i would love to volunteer at the aquarium too, except that i dont want to talk to people and greet them like they would want me to do. i want to dive in the huge exhibits. and feed the animals. we watched it today..it was amazing. i wanted to feed them like that..they basically stick their hands in those rays mouths! it was super cool.

but even better was the sea lion/seal feeding/show. it was amazing. i want to do that. train a sea lion. it would be, quite frankly, amazing. seriously amazing. maybe i'll just work at seaworld. or maybe it will never happen, but a girl can dream, right?

but in other news, life is kinda amazing. minus the possible allergy to wheat (which would make life a little more grey..) and the nagging worry about BYU. which starts telling people if theyre in or out today. through the 27th. :/ OTHER than that..i'm very very happy. :)

aladdin.

so my mom threw the aladdin videos away. or gave them away. whichever, i dont know. but its amazing. its on disney channel right now. and im watching it with the zeal of a five year old. its fantastic. i really love it. and yes i said zeal.

seriously...its so good. why would my mother think its okay to throw these away? and we had all of them. and the one where they got married was the best! the wedding was so cool! or what i remember of it. i want them back.

i think a disney marathon is in order.
seriously.
i havent seen these movies in forever. and i want to. really bad.
so who has all the aladdins?? thats a must. and whatever else is there. disney rocks!
oh and lets go to disneyland too. :)

its raining!!!! :):)

cottage cheese&a mediterrenean vacation.

thats just what i'm eating at the moment. probably has nothing to do with the blog. the bag of chips says its a mediterrenean vacation in a bag. and really, it kinda tastes like that. its even better with cottage cheese. thats just because cottage cheese is delisshhh..actually now i'm just eating the cottage cheese. screw that mediterrenean vacation. too difficult. i dont like chips anyway.


BUT: heres how my week went-the whole week i havent posted. its been odd, for me, who posts about once a day. or every other day at least. well, as monk would say, here's what happened:


finals happened. which means i pulled out my hair-just a little. i got a 90% on my bio, which is good, 83% on chem, which is INCREDIBLE, seeing as it was an AP test and to pass one of those you need only a 33%...however that was with the curve, so my raw score was a 51%...still good for an AP test. i got a 90% on my english, which leaves me with three B's in all my AP classes. someone kill me. what was i thinking? B's?? i might be dead when that report card comes. A's are acceptable and B's are bad in my family. C's are for cypress college and D's are for ditch diggers.. F's are for find a new family. i just love the support. and then factor in the two A's from government and forensics...lamskfjea. oh well. it wasnt as bad as i could have pictured. hopefully its enough to keep me in the running for BYU provo.. please please please! february 27th...can't come fast enough. but enough about school.

then i had a day of complete leisure..waking up at eleven and then doing nothing..pretending to go to disneyland with karina, aka, we went on no rides and missed the show we wanted to see. we left in half an hour. it just didnt seem to have its magic at that moment.. so all in all a useless day. but it felt good. one useless day..felt pretty daaaang good. havent had one of them in a very long time.

and then there was formal. slightly embarassing, with all the pictures and the fuss. and the stress of getting ready?? yikes. but the actual dinner/dance part..was kinda fabulous. minus the loud music. the club was pretty cool. and the company was great. :):)

which brings us to the new semester. and how much i think i'm going to love it. bio, as always. econ with amazing people. chem, the same. but amazing. preschool, which i think i might love within the week, then a wonderful change from STUPID mr markle to a wonderful mrs COOK! its refreshing, to have a real teacher again. even though it is english..which is terrible enough even with a good teacher.

aaand thats it. i should be doing homework instead of posting this, but thats the story of my life. :)

who thought finals were a good thing?

honestly? no.


this week sucks. until thursday at 10:39.
then freeeeedoom.
& formal.

i. am. exhausted.

anthrax&potties.

dont get along. add this to my vendetta against toilets. although it could really be called karina's vendetta against toilets. because this is FUNNY.

so were going to a movie night at jeff's house. and were gonna take a ride in his sister's convertible. and karina(anthrax) of course has to go to the bathroom. a minute later, she is yelling "jeff. JEFF! JEFF!!!" and lauren and i knew exactly what was up. jeff turns the corner and sees her open the door and watches the water spill out into the hallway. yes. she flooded his toilet. lauren and i could not stop laughing, and poor jeff had to clean it up. while laughing. we tried, honestly, to help, but there were too many butts in the bathroom and to be perfectly honest, we were doubled over with laughter and not much help at all. i think the best comment of all was his mother saying "I'm so glad you could join us ladies!" then laughing. it was the best. sooo funny. and i love it. best story EVER!

and yeah. karina, i told the world your embarrassing story. too bad i know youre not really embarrassed by it. but maybe you will be by this: (as a rebuttal to the one you posted)

she's single(ish) boyss!! <3

shop happy. shop now!!

http://www.layersclothing.com/

karina and i were looking at this website. a clothing website. and the homepage, above, is a slideshow of pictures and if you click on it it goes into the catalouge of clothing. well, i didnt know that you had to click on it. so i'm staring at this slideshow, waiting for it to change into something i can look at, while the middle of the page says "shop happy. shop now." and i'm just confused, while karina is getting more and more frustrated just sitting there watching me zone out and this slideshow going..so she yells, "shop happy shop now!!!" trying to get me to click on it, but i still didnt really get it..so she yells it again. "SHOP HAPPY SHOP NOW!!" and it was hilarious.

ohhh good times. gooood times.

ps. this is blog # 50. exciting, right?

biotechnology!!!

so, no joke, i'm a biotechnologist now. i love it. today i get to zero period and the package we were waiting for had arrived! so now we could finish our lab.

we had started this lab by making a cocktail of enzymes, buffer, and lambda DNA. three different enzymes, one control. these were in microliters too. we used micropipets and everything. they look a little like this:yeah. theyre nifty. you set it to how much you want to suck up, then it automatically will take in only that much. its pretty nice. especially considering were talking wayyy less that water droplet size. well we make these cocktails and then we put them in a gel electrophoresis machine thingy. which looks like this:

and then, you load the gels (which looks like a flat rectangle of jello with holes from a comb on one side.) you load them by micropipetting the enzyme/DNA into the holes from the comb. then putting the side with the DNA in it on the negative(black) side because DNA has a slightly negative charge and will travel through the gel matrix to the positive side, the smaller pieces of the DNA being the farthest travelling when you pump it with about seventy five (it varies) volts of electricity. then you stain the gels with ethidium bromide, which binds to the phosphate bonds of DNA. then when you shine ultraviolet light through them the DNA lights up. heres the results of my experiment! seriously i took this picture of my DNA results today. its fascinating. and super cool!!!!

the bands are the DNA. ISNT IT COOL!?!?!?!??!

by the way. this was more for my pleasure than for anyone elses, so sorry-ish. well no. but i thought it would be a nice touch. and if it didnt make sense, like i was just rambling, which i was, it makes sense to me so thats all that matters. :)

pizza & apples. to apples.

even though i'm a loser and lost the game miserably, it was a great day. ditto to the whole weekend. even when i was rudely woken up and dragged to Albert tacos somewhat against my will (not really. i loved it.).


so minus school, and waiting for college to accept or reject, i'm completely happy. really. its interesting. to say the least.

so here's a shout out to all the people who are important in my life. you make my days. always. thank you!

i can't grow up.

i dont think its possible.

when my daddy can still tickle me out of a bad mood from a bad day, i dont think i have the right to grow up.
i love you daddy! happy birthday (tomorrow).

my aquatic dream

so i was thinking about aquariums not too long ago one night right before i fell asleep..and i had the best dream i have ever had.

it started out, well, at the aquarium, what a surprise! i was sitting in front of the otter's cage and i could hear them talking, so i started a conversation with them. they're pretty brutal animals, by the way, not very nice. and i'm serious..they arent very nice, even in real life. but they were mean, so i moved on. i saw the octopus, and talked to him, but he was too smart. then i talked to the dolphins and sea lions. they were amazing. and fun. and they told me i should join them. so i did, of course! and i was transported to the ocean. the big blue, thats the one. no more tanks. i was in the most beautiful alcove, standing on the rocks on shore looking out at the ocean, when a friendly whale pops up. he said i should join him on a tour of his home, and how could i refuse? i had no need of breathing in dreams anyway. it was, quite frankly, amazing. the ocean is beautiful, with its crystal clear blues and greens and my friend the whale next to me. we saw a kelp forest and the sandy bottoms, the rock bottoms, and the reefs..and of course the dropoff point where the deep meets the shallow. it was more than beautiful. but then, our trip had to come to an end. the friendly whale dropped me off at my alcove and i told him how beautiful his home was. and he said, yes, it is beautiful, isnt it? but we also have predators and ugly things in the beauty. i told him it was better than my home, anyway. minus the predators.

then i woke up.
but it was gooood while it lasted. i love dreams. :)

i had a request

for my talk, because eva missed it. and this is just for you eva st.clair! otherwise it makes me a little uncomfortable posting it.. i dont know why. i shouldnt be uncomfortable posting my testimony, right? well here it is. (picture me crying through the whole thing, and you kind of get the gist of it.)

Why I believe in Christ.

First of all, I believe in Christ with all my heart, might, mind and strength. I know he lives and loves me. But why? While preparing for this talk I had to deeply think about my testimony and where it came from. It wasn’t a sudden thing; it didn’t come as a surprise. It was slowly built, wavering at times, but always there.

I believe in Christ because I was born of goodly parents, who raised me to know and love Him. They took me to primary and made me sit still through sacrament meeting, keeping me on the straight and narrow until I was able to do it on my own. I am so thankful to them for that. They are still my guidance, as I go through my personal trials, and without fail, they help me back to Christ and his love.

I believe in Christ because I have friends who are strong in the faith and keep me grounded in my beliefs. I know that without them, my testimony would be struggling. They all have His light in their eyes.

I believe in Christ because I attend my church meetings. Between Sunday meetings, seminary, and mutual, a good chunk of my week is devoted to the Church, which in turn strengthens my testimony of the living Christ. In seminary this year, we are learning about the New Testament. We talk about the Savior and His life everyday, and everyday the spirit touches me, and I know again that it is true. He did die for me. He does live for me.

I believe in Christ because I have Young Women leaders and Sunday school teachers and seminary teachers who teach me what I need to know to emulate Him. They take time out of their busy schedules to further my testimony and to make sure, to the best of their ability, that I will make the right decisions, so that I can return to Him and be worthy to stand in his presence.
I believe in Christ because I believe in personal revelation. I struggled, a while back, with my testimony, and whether I believed. I prayed, and prayed, and I prayed frustrated that I wasn’t getting the answer I wanted. Finally I made some changes in the way I lived my life.. I strived to read the scriptures more, I tried to ponder them, and retain what I read for more than five minutes. I finally received an answer, while reading my scriptures one night. A thought came into my head that told me “You’re doing just fine.” And I could feel His arms around me, comforting me as a father comforts his child.

I believe in Christ because anything that makes me feel this way has to be true. I can’t deny that I have, often times, felt the burning of the bosom and the happiness of knowing my Savior.

I believe in Christ because I know Him. I have felt his presence, I have felt his love. He loves each and every one of us, and he knows us personally. This I testify, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

internet withdrawls.

i've been having a few, i'll admit. our internet isnt working great, even still, and i'm taking my chances being on here, but i just couldnt help it. i havent been on since, like, last wednesday. its not cool, my friend, not cool. it just all of a sudden stops working for no reason..it should be fixed for good sometime tomorrow or today or sometime pretty soon. hopefully. although maybe it is a good thing..apparently i CAN survive without it..not very happily, and only if i ask other people for my assignments in some classes that are all online..but its not a happy experience. i'd rather have the world at my fingertips-all the time. its quite a reassuring thing. i've had many things happen that i thought, oh i'll just get on the internet and figure that out...but NO, i couldnt. it was slightly terrible.

on a totally different note, today was stressful. but pretty okay, after all. i stressed way too much about it, i can say now, as i look back and see that it really wasnt that much of a big deal..okay so maybe it was. but i'd like to let go of all that stress and be happy that it turned out somewhat well. today was stake conference. and i was assigned a solo to sing AND a talk to give. i sang the second verse of I Stand All Amazed, and then, right after pretty much, i gave a talk about why i believe in Christ. my mother says it was really good because she looked out at the congregation and saw a lot of tissues going around. personally i couldnt see a thing, i could barely read the talk even. but she was crying too, so i dont know how she saw them all. the most touching though, was afterwards, when president mackay gave me a hug for about a minute, and he wouldnt let me go, and i could feel him crying. he's so sweet. and brother reed, calling me and choking up as he tried to tell me how much he appreciated my talk. i honestly didnt think it would make that big of an impact, but i've been getting calls all day thanking me for the talk..i've never had that happen before. its an odd feeling. thinking that i might have impacted someone today that i wouldnt even know about. a good odd though, i'd say. all in all, it wasnt as bad as i imagined it could have been..i saw all sorts of scenarios run through my head before it all happened, seeing every way that this could go terribly wrong, but i was praying all morning--most literally keeping a prayer in my heart today. and it went smoothly. i thank Him for that. and i think i could use a little break from the public speaking thing for QUITE awhile now...i suggested that to president smith, but he said it doesnt work like that..maybe i'll get lucky.

5 months & 10 days...

until i'm free from the dictatorship of dr carpenter's oppressive rule. until all seniors of cypress high school are free!

JUNE 15th, baby. JUNE 15th!!

it is five months, isnt it? dont tell me if it isnt. i can't even think about actually trying to do the math right now..i just heard a girl say it in my english class. so i took her word for it.

no biggie, right?

so last night, my co-worker texted to tell me that she had gotten into a car crash and wouldnt be able to go to work today. i said okay. no biggie, right? we only had two appointments scheduled for that day. no problem. our boss wasnt there either, it was just us manual laborers and the vet. piece of cake. we could handle two measly appointments spread out across five hours.

wrong.

first thing in the morning there was a walk in. but still, no big deal. our first appointment was at eleven, and it was only nine oclock. we dealt with him, and sent him on his way, to wait for the next appointment. soon we ran out of things to keep us occupied work-wise. kelli (the other worker) started texting and reading a disease book. i occupied my time drinking jasmine tea my chinese veterinarian said i should, and flipping aimlessly through a dog breed book, sometimes writing down the names of the dogs i wanted. and thats how it went, me thinking this would be the easiest saturday of my life. oh the irony.

our appointment finally comes. we get her squared away..."Georgia" who needed a physical exam and a blood test for a refill of rimadyl-used for arthritis. she almost bit us, clipping her nails. stupid little dog. then another walk in came in, right as "Georgia" was leaving. a beagle, whose name escapes me, but was pretty much the whole reason we stayed an extra hour at work, walked in. she had been hit by a car on new years eve, and the owners took her to an emergency vet hospital and were coming in for a followup...she had a hematoma. a huuuge pocket of skin was just full of blood on her shoulder. we started draining it--there was about 100 cc in there. we were draining it with a 12 cc syringe, so it took awhile to get. then, when we were finishing, dr chang was moving the needle around to make sure we got all the blood out, he hits a nerve. the dog FLIPS OUT, while i'm holding her, and then steps on the side of the bowl containing all his blood. it ends up on my face and my shirt, all over the ENTIRE cat room, and on dr changs white pants. ON MY FACE. good thing i'm not squeamish about blood. but it was still pretty gross. then the dog sat in it. we spent a good deal of time cleaning both the dog and the room. while we were entertaining ourselves with that, another walk in arrives. a STUPID chihuahua named "Buddy" Lin, and who never make appointments. good thing we made them wait. and then our twelve oclock came, a yellow labrador named "Huckleberry" who we were going to put to sleep (PTS) today. which is, obviously, a sensitive subject anyway. and they walked in when we were hectic. holding the seventy some odd pound dog in his arms. with his wife crying hysterically beside him. and her sister. and all three of us holding bloody towels or cleaning solution..that was bad. we hurried them into the back as quickly as possibly, setting up the back for a PTS and trying to make them and the dog comfortable. while "Buddy" barked and "Sadie" bled. oh that was her name..sadie. we took care of the appointment first. we kept "Sadie" in the back and told her owners to come back later. we left "Buddy" Lin and his parents out in the waiting room, getting what they deserve-a nice long wait. but the PTS was far from smooth. we keep the owners out of the room while we try to insert an IV catheter into a vein in the dogs front leg. we could not get it right. the veins were too sickly, constricted and twisted. it refused to work. i believe we were poking that poor dog for a half hour before we finally got it to enter a vein and stay there. it was backbreaking work, literally. bending over the table for half an hour, straining to hold the dogs leg just right for the frustrated veterinarian, trying to anticipate what he needed next. quite frankly it was exhausting. then we finally killed the poor thing..is that terrible to say? i have to say i am quite unmoved, except by the grief of the owner, to have participated in killing an animal today. he was sick, and was in pain. they dont understand sicknesses like we do..they know they hurt, and putting them through things like chemotherapy and even some other treatments just seem to them as torture..i wouldnt want that for any of my own pups, so i didnt even feel bad letting this one go. it had almost no muscles left, it couldnt get up on its own, it had a huge porous bleeding tumor on its neck, and it was obviously in pain. i felt good, assisting the killing. sometimes i wonder if i'm a heartless being because i can do that and move on in less than a minute..but then i remember. and that fleeting thought flits away. anyway. but he passed on, as he would have done sooner or later, more slowly and more painfully. and then we had to deal with the body. this process is made extremely difficult by the fact that we make paw prints of every animal we euthanize. to send to the owners. we have to trim the nails, clip the hair away from the paw, put ink on it, and make a pretty print on a pretty card. i kind of like doing it, though..comforting the grieving owners. i just always hope that they dont think about how we do it..they always want you to be gentle with their animals, to handle them softly and lovingly..well after they are gone and the animal is dead we are almost brutal. we toss them about this way and that sometimes, to get the right angle to stamp their paw on a paper. their limp bodies flop about, sometimes releasing their bowels, sometimes not. its almost disconcerting to think about, but there is no time to be gentle with an empty shell. so then we toss, or hug it if its heavy, into a big plastic bag. or, also depending on size, two plastic bags. and we tape it around and around and stick a tag on its paw, then plop it in the big freezer we have, to wait for the people to come dispose of the bodies. the big freezer usually smells pretty bad. i hold my breath. and look at all the tortoise shells that make it smell raunchy. and the other dead bodies bagged up & labeled. but we still had work to do. the bleeding hematoma dog, "Sadie" was still waiting in the cage. and the stupid chihuahua was waiting too. something wrong with his eye. gross bug eyed dog. always wearing some type of vest thingy. probably cuz he doesnt have enough hair to survive without it. its called natural selection for a reason. but we tended to him, because he's money all the same. well i didnt..i let kelli, the rat-dog lover handle that case. while i dealt with a dead dog. then we all dealt with the bleeding one. and thats pretty much how the story goes. we ended up working until two, when we should have been gone by one, and i had important things to do.

as in, go to disneyland.

which was, in short, amazing :):)

so you NOT gonna hire me because i'm BLACK??!

greatest video ever.

best parts: cereal, and the long look she gives.
cracks me up! go mad tv.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYYAvPjNmYY

2009

is gonna ROCK.

...in six months. it all kinda starts for me in june. thats okay. i can be patient. sometimes.
but here's what happens.
1. eric comes home!
2. GRADUATION! finally free from stupid high school!
3. Nauvoo-i actually get to go this time, because i'm actually old enough for that. not that i'm bitter.
4. Malaysia-my family is planning on going back with eric after he gets home so we can scuba dive in malaysia, when he couldnt while he was on his mission. its gonna be AMAZING.
5. Italy- this is a possibility. my dad goes on random work trips up to italy that are sporadic, so we dont really know when this is happening.
6. Iceland-i have been saving for this for forever! my aunt and i plan to travel the world together..and it starts in iceland this august. its gonna be CARAZY!
7. BYU-i'm going to college!
8. i'll get to see falling snow!!

and maybe a couple of more surprises:) lifes always better with a few of those.

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!

so today at work..

saying that when i work at a veterinary hospital is akin to saying that right after a day at band camp. or girls camp, whatever floats your boat.

well this dog comes in..and it was cute. i mean the thing was as annoying as..heck. but it was adorable. but it had a skin condition. i swear that was all we saw today..dogs with skin problems. so we did a skin scraping, where he takes a scalpel blade and runs it across the top of the skin to get a sampling of the cells and then looks at them under a microscope.

this is where it gets gross. the dog has an infestation of mites. a particular kind called scabies. its not pretty. that was probably the most disturbing little waggling thing i have ever seen.



it really does look like that. the one i saw had shorter stubbier leg lookin thingies and it waggled. there arent many other words to describe it really..it waggled. or wobbled. it was between a slip cover and a slide, so it didnt move much...just waggled around in a circle. it was pretty disgusting. and yet probably the coolest thing we saw today. although we caught this bug early, so the dog was still cute. but here are a few examples of what can happen if you dont get it early. ps. its not pretty.


and a human example. oh yes, this can happen to you! doesnt it just make you itch? i can barely type its so disturbingly itchy.


yeah. pretty disgusting. i'm sure you'd notice before that though...its extremely itchy. so dont let this happen to you OR your pet. its not good. if your pet is itching constantly in the same place and losing hair and the skin is showing signs of inflammation or anything of the like, please, please take them to the vet. not that it is going to be scabies. but anything like that is not going to be healthy for it. so you should. agreed? agreed.

& then i cried my eyes out.

marley & me.

best movie ever. okay so it makes it on the list.
up there with australia. & pride and prejudice. and charly. and 10 things i hate about you.
and quite a few other best movie ever's. but you know how it goes.

but seriously. that was amazing. like the kind of movie that is moving. and touching. not just a silly chick flick romance--cuz it wasnt. it was about marriage, and family, and a dog. it showed the hardships of marriage, how the dog ties it all together, family, and the whole ten yards. it was beautiful.

of course, when the dog started dying, thats when i started crying. bawling, would probably be a better description. i only barely managed to keep it quiet & not hiccup.

thats a lot like how i'd like my life to be. with the gospel, of course. but it was the best depiction of life that i have seen in a long while.. a simple movie, with a simple meaning.

life is good. live it to the fullest. and love every moment.

Swedish Smörgåsbord

this is like the highlight of my entire year. when my entire swedish side of my family gets together on christmas eve and we have a Smörgåsbord. bascially, a buffet. of swedish food. lots of cheeses as appetizers, crackers, veggie trays. the cheeses are really really good. mmm. and then the real food..swedish meatballs are the highlight of my life!
so they might look a little gross there, but i really liked the swedish flags in them. but really. they're delicious. & there is ham and all kinds of other stuff out on the swedish buffet table.. oh like pickled herring. i am so NOT wild about that...actually i have never tried it, in all my years of attending these buffets on christmas eve. because its fish. and thats just gross. plus, everyone else who tries it really regrets it-every year. but we have lingonberries too, for on the ham. and of course peas and carrots. oh and yummy potatoes. the red skinned ones. & there was more. but i'm done making myself hungry. :)

i just posted a square number

so i have this thing for numbers. i like them. when they're nice to me, of course. but dont get me wrong. i dont like math. i just like numbers. and some simple addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, possibly some algebraic equations..but my favorites are square numbers. they're pretty cool. well. with exceptions. heres my philosophies:

i like odd numbers, for the most part. but fives are out of the question. unless it is five squared, like twenty five, or 125, thats okay. my favorite simple numbers are 3, 9, and 11. i really like three and nine because three squared is nine. and eleven is just cool. two ones! but i have never liked seven. i hated seven, even, for the longest time. and it actually kind of bothers me when its some peoples favorite number. because its so mean. i dont really know where i got this, but this is always how i've remembered a few of my addition principles. seven was always mean to the four, because four wanted to become twelve so much. seven only teased it by letting it get to eleven, but not twelve. THEN along comes stupid five, who thinks she's better than everyone else, and seven lets HER get to the eleven. then 8 comes into the picture, and was nice enough to allow four to become twelve. so its kind of like the mean and popular kids in the movies. the four is the nerdy girl, the seven the mean popular boy, the five the girl who always gets her way, the eight the nice boy who comes along and saves the day. i dont know why everyone wanted to be twelve, cuz i dont even like that number very much..but i dont like any of the numbers in the story much anyway. seriously though, i have known that story like someone taught it to me when i was three. all my life. who knows how kids make up these things?? i certainly dont, and i did it. but anyway. back to the numbers.
i really like it when they work. and by work i mean, in a license plate or something, when they add up, or are even the squares of each other. it makes me happy. lock combinations too. i dont think i could remember my locker combination if it didnt make sense to me mathematically. & i used to love my license plate dearly..but it had to be replaced. it WAS 4bzz329. 329!! three squared is nine! i loved it so much. & even two squared was four, but that was a stretch. and then with an ONOMATOPOEIA in the middle...BZZ..how could i not love it? it was beautiful..but then my car was called legally totalled and so i had to replace the license plate when we brought it back to life. :( then its name had to be changed. oh well. i guess i could get over it. but he will never be the same.
oh. this all stemmed from the fact that i now have 36 posts. (with this one, it is 37, but thats okay...i'll hit 49 soon)

& if anyone survived through that mumbo jumbo, congratulations. if it was at all understandable, you now have my nonsense. now that is something to celebrate.

its just one of those days

one of those days where i have no adgenda. nothing to do. no school to be done. although i do have some homework to be finished. but its a fabulous thing, laziness. i'm still in my pajamas. and its almost four oclock in the afternoon. i sat on the couch in a warm blanket and watched mamma mia. & the librarian. & bones. it rained. its cold. its been one FABULOUS day.

now for a shower...maybe.
:)