It's the most wonderful time of the year...

.... Not.

It's that time in the semester when finals are just around the corner, and everything seems to turn into panic mode, frantically just trying to get everything done on time, while still trying to juggle all other responsibilites. This time of the semester is also complete with colds, lack of sleep, and best of all,

GROUP PROJECTS.

I HATE group projects. Who is the teacher kidding? I learn NOTHING from group projects. They think it is this great idea, but really it just stresses people out more, and makes them loathe working with other people.

This tender time is when you have to work with a group of people, and there is always at least one person who thinks that they are the ONLY ONE that has a busy life, and they have "no time." Well, if they would cut out farmville out of their life and making avatars of themselves (are you thinking, "what the hell?" yeah, so did I. I didn't know until recently that you can make an 'avatar' online and chat with other people in a cyber world). If the rest of us can make time, then they can make time as well. It is always impossible to get all the group members together, and some just want everything spoon-fed to them.

As you can see, this is a really touchy subject to me right now. But really, if these dumb projects didn't matter much to my grade, I would peace out and not even waste my time.

sigh.

let the fun begin.

Something to think about

Thought I would share a great quote by Brigham Young that I just read:

"We talk about our trials and troubles here in this life; but suppose that you could see yourselves thousands and millions of years after you have proved faithful to your religion during the few short years in this time, and have obtained eternal salvation and a crown of glory in the presences of God? Then look back upon your lives here, and see the losses, crosses, and disappointments, the sorrows...; you would be constrained to exclaim, 'but what of all that?' Those things were but for a moment, and we are now here. We have been faithful during a few moments in our mortality, and now we enjoy eternal life and glory, with power to progress in all the boundless knowledge and through the countless stages of progression, enjoying the smiles and approbation of our Father and God, and of Jesus Christ our elder brother.'"

Weekend

Here was my (our) weekend in pictures:

Going out to eat at a delicious Indian food restaurant called "Maharani's" with some friends

Going to a RS Birthday Party activity that was actually quite fun, and laughed a lot. There was a funny girl there that I had never met before that I think I would really enjoy getting to know and be around, but I don't think I'm "her type"...

Doing homework and writing a paper Saturday night until 2:30am

Battling an on coming cold with the crew

And the best part of all, taking lovely (long) naps.

I do have to say, round two of Neti Pot and me was better than last time; I didn't feel like I was drowning this time. I close my eyes sometimes for it, because it kinda hurts them/has this weird sensation...can't quite explain. Anyway, at one point when I wasn't watching the flow of salt water flow freely from my nose, my husband luckily was paying attention, and blurted out, "eeeeh, a big ol' junker came out!!"

I was a little disappointed to know that I had missed a "big ol' junker" (or large booger, whichever you prefer) come straight out of my sinuses. Apparently when I did the other nostril, it happened again.

Sorry, that was probably too much information.

Wolfgang felt as though he was missing out on the fun and perhaps wanted to see a monster come out of his nose too, so he nettied for the first time. The poor guy struggled like I did my first time, but I'm sure next time he'll be a pro, just like me.

Time for bed, we've gotta wake up early tomorrow to pick up our friend from the airport who is on the Big Island for a week, and decided to island hop and come visit us for a couple of days! We're excited to play tourists....while trying to stay on top of school/work with only 3 weeks left of school.

Schools, not bombs

Current reading for the week for my Conflict and Culture class:

I started it yesterday and I'm expected to read it and have a paper written by this Friday, on top of all other things that I have to do, especially as the semester draws near to the end. At least it's an enjoyable and inspiring book to read, so I can't complain too much.

finally! A nice saturday at the beach; it was about time. What am I going to do when we have to leave this beautiful place?

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Pre- April Fools

This morning I thought I would make a funny, and so I decided to prank my sister. I'm actually not the type of person that usually does prank, but my last one was this. I'm going to refrain from giving details so that I don't publicly embarrass her, but trust me....

It was a good one.

Love you Jess.

Neti and Me

I finally used the neti pot.

It was on Saturday night, and although I wasn't having much sinus problems (surprise) I decided to give it a shot, aaaand....it was...weird.

The whole motivation to buy the neti pot was inspired by my mom (not smash, as a couple of you guys thought...I don't even know her blog) after complaining to her ever couple of weeks about sinus problems for the last several months. The idea of it was weird to me, but I decided to give it a try anyway.

So about the experience...

It was kinda uncomfortable, and the salt water kept wanting to go down my throat. yuck, I hate that feeling. I guess that I have some practicing to do. I can't really say "It was AMAZING!" yet, because like I mentioned my sinuses were not that bad in the first place.

A few more dates with Neti, then I'll know if it's meant to be for us to be close friends.

USED neti pot. to be continued...

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little joys

Today in my Applied Anthropology class, an (unintentional) comical piece of a conversation went like this:

D. (Chilean Student) : "...in our survey for one of my classes, we wanted to see if people had problems with accents."

L. (the discussion leader) : "Problems with what?"

D: "accents"

L: "oh..."

whole class laughed. It was perfect timing.

Little Joy #2

For my second class for today, my teacher decided to have class outside. I'm not sure why he decided to do so, but I was SO glad he did; we sat in a circle in the grass under a palm tree, and it made my soul happy. I've come to understand lately how much the soul, mind, and body longs to be outside, especially when it doesn't happen very often.

Tsunami Tsaturday

Due to the devastating earthquake in Chile, Hawaii was put on the tsunami warning list. Friday late night I had start hearing about it and read up on it a little, but there wasn't a whole lot of information yet.

Then our wonderful loooong day began at 4:30am with banging on our door. After realizing it was the second set of loud banging on our door and that whoever was on the other side was not going to be leaving until we answered it, I made Wolfgang get up and see what was going on (It's a man's job.)

It ended up being our neighbor telling us about the tsunami warning, and that the warning sirens around the island would be going off starting at 6am, and that we needed to leave at 6 and head to the stake center, which is the designated place for our area to go in case of emergencies and disasters such as this.

Needless to say we couldn't really go back to sleep, so we laid around for a little while longer (we had only gone to bed about 1 1/2 hours before this happened) then started to get ready to evacuate. We were a little concerned, but not freaking out, and living on the second floor helped us to not worry too much about our belongings.

So at 6am the creepy sirens went off and we had our backpack ready to go with supplies in case of a disaster and started to head over to the church (stake center) which is pretty much right next to were we live. On the way over we saw people packing up their cars, carrying huge suitcases out of their house, the whole bit. On our way over we saw some ward members, then got word that our bishop said to just stay home since the tsunami wasn't suppose to hit until 11:20am, and that if you live on the first floor, just move up to the second floor. I was really glad when I heard this, because I was not looking forward to staying in the church all morning for something that was most likely going to be anticlimactic.

We ended up going back to our apt, and two of our friends came over who lived close to the beach or who were kicked out of their apt even though they lived on the second floor (I think they didn't want to be liable for their tenants). So all morning we just hung out and waited for 11:20 to come around

Can't you tell we felt REAL stressed...

It was kind of a weird feeling, just waiting around hours for something potentially really bad to happen, but like I said we all felt at peace and had a feeling it wasn't going to be anything big. 11:20am came and gone, and nothing really happened. It was kinda fun to watch what very little action was going on, on the Hawaii news station with the tide fluctuating back and forth rapidly.

All in all Saturday was a very looong day, and thankfully nothing dramatic happened. It was definitely a great learning experience for all- for the well prepared, and especially the severely unprepared. It was somewhat comical to see/hear of some people freaking out. It most definitely showed some things that I need to improve on, and what to do the next time something else like this happens again. We were so blessed that no damage was done on any of the Hawaiian Islands, and our hearts go out to those in Chile and Okinawa and other places around the world who have been added to the victims of the recent natural disasters.

Remember to count your blessings every day, and to pray for those who have been effected by the earth quakes and other natural disasters.


p.s., I'm really sad I couldn't find the picture that was shown on the news found in a grocery store the morning of the tsunami, where on the spam isle it said on a hand-written note "only take 2 per family."