Winter in Hawaii

Rain, rain, rain. Beautiful, tinkering, splashing, wet, cold, make-me-wanna-stay-inside-and-snuggle-under-a-blanket-like-Winter-is-supposed-to-do RAIN!

 

  

  

 

....and a splash of color, once in awhile....

So, for the first 4 weeks of this new semester, I have been successful in NOT doing homework on Sundays! It is ROUGH, I will be honest. But, it certainly is nice to have this day of REST rather than fretting and worrying and procrastinating to the last minute. Sometimes I wonder if it really would be that awful if I were to read The Sound and the Fury on a Sunday, but then I remember that, as an English major, who knows what kind of stuff my teacher wants me to read? It doesn't matter that I'm at a BYU school, they still throw swearing, sex, drugs, alcohol...you know, LIFE, at us. I also remember the promise two church leaders gave us students: that if we didn't do Homework on Sundays, we would be blessed with better grades. So, I really see no point in denying myself that blessing.

Two big chances I have taken in the last two weeks!
1) I applied to the National Undergraduate Literature Conference. If my research paper gets accepted, then the school pays for all my travel costs to Weber State for a four day conference, I get to present my paper to the entire conference, and I get to hear from published authors (of whom I have never heard....).The conference is from March 31 - April 3.
2) I sent in my resume to teach English in South Korea for the year of 2011 through Access South Korea Now. That one may take a bit longer to find out about.

Adam is currently working on  his application for an internship at PIXAR during the summertime. So many fun exciting opportunities for us! We are excited to graduate and move on to our next adventure....

Pages I have read so far this semester: 1886 (not including the countless poems...)
Currently reading:
Mississippi Trial, 1955
William Butler Yeats poetry
Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe
Battle of The Sexes in the 1700's poetry
The Sound and The Fury, by William Faulkner
Notes From the Underground, by Dostoyevsky
Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech

Girls' Day!

Saturday was jam packed with shopping, ShOpPiNg, SHOPPING! Adam had to work allll day (8 am - 10 30 pm) for the basketball game being filmed, so Eliza, Christy, and I took a friend's car and headed to Honolulu (Thanks Danika!). We started at Savers, had a Greek-style picnic lunch at the above location (which was actually a high school! It was so beautiful!), headed to the mall, had frozen yogurt at Menchies (yummy!), and finished off with Target. I was so tired when I got home (at 8:30). But we are all stocked up for the semester now! Thank goodness we received our refund checks from our scholarship money and loan money. We are so blessed to not have to worry financially right now.

We are taking a Family History Class, and learning how to find our ancestors on new.familysearch.org, so we can do the temple ordinances for them. It is something I have never been too interested in, but that I knew I should do. As we have started the class, the Spirit has witnessed to us how important it is for us to do this, and we are looking forward to learning more about it.

Currently reading:

Oornoko, by Aphra Behn

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Nothing But the Truth by Avi

Robert Frost poetry

WWI poetry

you?

Wholesome Recreational Activities

Busy, Busy, BUSY semester for both Adam and I. My schedule is 16 credits of English, 2 credits of Church History (online). My english classes are:
Exposition and Report Writing: The Moral Imperative in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
American Lit 1914-1965
Literature for Young Adults
English Lit 1660-1780: Restoration
English Lit 1880-Present
Tutoring Composition

Adam's classes are
Algorithims and Complexity
PHP Web Development
Computer Organizations and Structure
Systems Engineering
Human-Computer Interaction

....yeah.....crazy.....But despite it all, we have made a sort of goal to include more "Wholesome recreational activities" into our life. "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," put out by our church and its first presidency, states, "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." I just think its interesting that that was included in such a brilliant list of other Christ-like attributes.
We started off with a bike ride to the nearby Cricket Field, ("I didn't even know it existed!" said Adam) taking pictures, lying in the grass, and talking about our future. 

Last Monday, new friends of ours, Katie and Thomas, our Neighbor's neighbor, invited us to play racquet ball with them. This was my first attempt; it was tons of fun and I liked feeling tired at the end of the night!
Friday night, Adam and I used our Christmas gift from Mama Harrison, new tennis racquets and balls. Again, my first attempt. It was ugly, even disturbing at times, how awful I was. BUT it was tons of fun and we had some good laughs.

 Finally, last night our dear friends Katie and Nate invited us and Keola and Phil over for a picnic dinner. It was fabuloso, delicious, splendid. We enjoyed just sitting and chatting with one another. For some reason, I felt so adultish at that moment. I mean, we were discussing our national debt, the displeasure with our school system and its president, national health care, etc, etc, etc. And I reallly enjoyed it. Strange.
Today Adam is using one of his Christmas presents from me, a wood burner, to design our new door sign. I can't wait to see it finished! 

And I'm just chillin' with Jet, who is loving his new home (Thanks KW!). Happy Sunday!