Indexing!

I started indexing last summer and I have indexed at least one batch a week ever since then with few exceptions (vacations don't count because I didn't have access most of the time). I enjoy it so much that I decided to make it my personal mission to make indexing the "cool thing" to do. If you weren't indexing on  Sunday, you were obviously not in the "cool" crowd. It sounds exclusive, but we're open to anyone and everyone.  I am pleased to say that indexing has become quite popular this semester and there is quite the following. Most of them even index more than I do and two of them have even taught indexing to their classes. We are even leading the Stake in indexing! I took some pictures of our indexing party this week. Enjoy!

Yay for Indexing!

Nashville Nights

I have been involved with Talent Activities for a while now. This semester I was a Manager for the country show Nashvill Nights. I got to work with Tyler Shotwell, which was probably the best part of it :)

Everyone on Talent probably thinks I am obsessed with Tyler because I said I would do anything, as long as I was with TYLER SHOTWELL and no one else. In reality, Tyler and I are just good friends who work really well together. We began planning working together Summer 2009 when we were both put on the activities committee in our ward. I think we make a pretty good team.

OK, back to Nashville Nights!

I had a fabulous committee who were so willing to help!

Great performers! Bobby was one of my best friends from High School and it was fun to have him i the show.

And awesome friends who came to support. His sister, Jen, was also awesome, but I look really bad in that picture  :)

Amazing

Kandace's 21st birthday dinner at Applebees = Amazing

Spinning cookies/doughnuts = Amazing

Four people squished into the front seat = Amazing

 Kleenex that have vicks on them = Amazing

Kevin and Jessica's modeling ability = Amazing

Grab A Button

This took me, with the help of two other guys, all night to figure out, so I thought I'd share my accomplishment!

Look on the side where it says, "Grab A Button". Copy and paste that into your own blog (under the HTML gadget) and then you should have your own button link to my photography blog! Pretty cool, huh!?

If you dont want the link, that is fine too, but I'm proud of myself and wanted to share my accomplishment. Mostly I just didn't want to write a paper :)

Utah

For the three day weekend I decided to go to Utah to visit Katelyn and Krisann. I am so glad that I went! It was so good for me and so much fun! Even though we didn't really do anything in particular.

Krisann 

Katelyn

so prepared

this guy made us a hotdog 

On Saturday we went to a combined Ward Activity with both their wards. We thought it would be inside, but we were sorely mistaken. It was fun anyway though. We got trapped in the middle of a snowball fight! I am not (and never have been) one to be teased or anything of the like, so it was a new experience for me.

We went to Noodles. I got a dish that they said that would not be spicy, but then it was. It was so hot! But it was still good and I would go there again (although I would not get that same thing).

I spent the night with Katelyn and we stayed up talking until 3:00 in the morning! We got up  early for church and had a hard time concentrating because we were so tired. When we got hame we ate Insideout Raviolli and salad. It was delicious! Then we took a 4 hour nap. It was lovely! When we woke up we went over to Krisann's for a gamenight with some people from her ward. It was amazing how quickly we became "team Allison and Katelyn" again. I love that team :)

I spent the night with Krisann and fell asleep watching Beeauty and the Beast. We ate Banana Pancakes in the morning that brought back such good memories! Caitlin Stewart joined us for lunch with Katelyn at the Nauvoo Cafe. It was so fun to be out together. Katelyn went back to work and Krisann, Caitlin and I took pictures and drove around.

 

It sounds uneventful, but it was perfect! It was really good for me to see that life goes on after graduation. And it is still good! I am so blessed to have good friends to go ahead of me and help me through life.

Growing Up

Your little hand's wrapped around my finger

And it's so quiet in the world tonight

Your little eyelids flutter cause you're dreaming

So I tuck you in, turn on your favorite night light

To you everything's funny, you got nothing to regret

I'd give all I have, honey

If you could stay like that

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up

Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up

Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple

I won't let nobody hurt you, won't let no one break your heart

And no one will desert you

Just try to never grow up, never grow up

You're in the car on the way to the movies

And you're mortified your mom's dropping you off

At 14 there's just so much you can't do

And you can't wait to move out someday and call your own shots

But don't make her drop you off around the block

Remember that she's getting older too

And don't lose the way that you dance around in your pj's getting ready for school

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up

Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up

Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple

No one's ever burned you, nothing's ever left you scarred

And even though you want to, just try to never grow up

Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room

Memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home

Remember the footsteps, remember the words said

And all your little brother's favorite songs

I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone

So here I am in my new apartment

In a big city, they just dropped me off

It's so much colder that I thought it would be

So I tuck myself in and turn my night light on

Wish I'd never grown up

I wish I'd never grown up

Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up

I could still be little

Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up

It could still be simple

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up

Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up

Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple

Won't let nobody hurt you

Won't let no one break your heart

And even though you want to, please try to never grow up

Oh, don't you ever grow up

Oh, never grow up, just never grow up

Broadway Review

I decided to do Talent this semester purely so that I could get myself out, meet people, and be involved, and try to stop being anti-social. Unfortunately, my grand plan back fired on me. I can't go to any of the meetings and all the people I am working with I already know so I'm not even meeting new people. oh well.

Even though I don't know any of the people on Talent, I at least get to reap the benefits. My roommate, Kandace, and our friend, Kevin, made it into Broadway Review! Because this show falls under Talent, I was able to get into the show for free! They did amazing, and it was fun to finally get to socialize with people!

As we were walking back to our car (which was probably only about half a block away from our apartment because parking was so bad) we saw these giant garbage cans! So, of course we did what any logical person would do and we climbed inside!

It's not every day you get to be in a giant garbage can with three other people!

..........

On a side note: We got all but two audition times for Nashville Nights filled in two days! Heck yeah baby!

..........

p.s. Happy Birthday to Courtney and Happy Valentines Day!

Photo Journalism

I am sitting in my Photo Journalism class. The class is intrigued with texting, doodling, facebook, web surfing, solitaire, tetris, bejewled, and of course blogging, among other things.

(Our teacher just announced that class is canceled next week and the kid next to me looked up from his phone and asked me what was going on. Case and point)

However, although this class is incredibly long and boring, I actually have no further complaints. It is a nice contrast to printmaking (see below). I have not done any work for this class at all. He doesn't care if we use past photos, so I go through my past four years of photography pictures, select one I enjoy, email it to him, and then get praised in class the next week. It is actually a lovely little routine.

These are the photos I chose for this weeks assignment of window lighting.

Both were talked about (this actually just means that he told a random story that vaguely relates. ie: there is a toothbrush in the story) but any time you get longer than two seconds as he cruises through the class' pictures from the week, is pretty good I think. 

Yes, this is me boosting my confidence after printmaking (please read next post)

Typical Printmaking Success

Printmaking is such a challenge for me! I have never hated a class like I hate this one. I dread going every single day and I honestly considered dropping the class for the first month of school. I would still like to drop it, but this is where my stubbornness is actually useful.

When it comes to printmaking, I feel so incredibly stupid and handicapped on so many levels that I would rather just figure it out on my own. This translates into me not getting very much done during class time and spending extra time outside of class to finish my clumsy assignments. So, last night was one of those nights that I went to finish making prints. Because our prints were due the next day, I was not the only one who had this idea, and I was happy to have company. They, however, were probably not that thrilled about having my challenged self there.

I decided to start by making an aquatint (just pretend like you understand and go with me on this, cause in all honesty you probably understand just about as much as I do). In the process of making this you blow a lot of rosin dust stuff around and then that dust gets sucked into a fan in the ceiling. Well, because I am me, I forgot to turn the fan on. What happens when you don't turn the fan on? The fire alarm thinks the dust is smoke and it goes off! really loud! And when the fire alarm goes off, the police come.

Oh yeah, and you're also supposed to evacuate the building.

Printmaking is one of those things that, once you start, you can't really stop. There is a lot of waiting for the perfect time stuff. So there was no way that everyone who was up making their prints was going to evacuate the building in the middle of this time-sensitive process. We knew there was no fire. The noise was inconvenient, but we could still work.

The first policeman came in to find a room full of students going on with their work as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all. We explained that there was no fire and it was just poor ventilation. He accepted this logic, but said that in the future we really should evacuate.

The second policeman was not so forgiving. He asked, "Does the fact that the fire alarm is going off mean anything to you?" We all just stared at him. I could hear our all of our thoughts asking back, "Obviously the word 'printmaking' means nothing to you." The policeman finally concluded our silence to mean that we didn't care and we weren't leaving. He said, "I think there is a bigger problem than the fire alarm here."

Once he left, I went back to continue making my aquatint. When I came back out there was a third policeman and he was not as forgiving as the first two. I, apparently, had missed something because he had somehow convinced everyone to finally evacuate. By this time I think the alarm had actually stopped, but he was proving a point. He even went as far as telling us to leave and not to come back. This guy was not happy. So I left the building for 15 minutes, talked to Katelyn, then went back in and finished my prints.

Just a typical example of how my printmaking "success" usually goes.

FYI: The print I made that night ended up being the WORST in the class. And I'm not even just saying that. I got a C! (I think the second worst grade in the class was a B+ or maybe a B if I'm lucky) I have never done this poorly in any class before, ever! Anyway, have I mentioned that I hate this class?  :)

Also, the fan was actually broken, so my aquatint is the last to be made for a while. It better work out!

Button!

I made a button!

If you can't tell, I'm kind of excited about it.

Katelyn's Visit

Anticipation:

(This is from before Katelyn got here)

We all went to McDonalds one night and it was fun. We don't know those three boys back there. End of story. Not that exciting.

Alone on a Friday night, working on printmaking. I hate that class.

Cheering for our ward basketball team!

Katelyn:

Soo happy Katelyn is here!

We matched our clothes :)

We went to Angie's (left) bridal shower! She was our roommate last semester.

We visited a lot of people. And had fun doing nothing together. 

I know it's cheesy, but it is so true!

I am soo happy!

:)