But Since I Left Me Cannon At Home, I'll Simply Have to Say, Thank You Very, Very, Very Much

Happy Thanksgiving!
And I really am feeling grateful.

Have I told you how much I love visiting my Aunt Loreen in Gunnison? Cause I do. I really, really do.

When I was in grade three, I went with Loreen to her grade five class and we told them I was a new accelerated student. She gave me the answers to difficult multiplication problems and obscure geography questions in order to pull off the hoax. Then, again in grade six we pretended I was a new student. So I guess it's become a little bit of a tradition for us now.
On Wednesday morning, I went with Loreen to her fifth grade classroom, this time pretending to be a junior at Utah State studying Child Psychology, conducting a study within her classroom. I sat in the room with a list of all the students' names, observing their behaviour and taking notes. I tried to give one kid a complex by watching him and writing conspicuously as he walked to the kleenex box, blew his nose, and walked back to his seat. At one point, I even took half of the kids out in the hall to interview them individually - I tried to pick the ones that seemed most fearful of my presence. Right before lunch, we let them all in on the ruse and they feigned some anger, but really were pleased and excited to be a part of the practical joke. It was good fun. Loreen and I definitely get a kick out of it.

The next morning, we took an extensive walk around the farm. I'd never seen so much of their land before; I didn't even realize they had so much. And they have tons of old junk piles and even hundred-year-old houses on their property! It made for the greatest adventure I've had since my first week in Rexburg.

The week also included horse-back riding, two Thanksgiving dinners, second place in a pool tournament, a trip up to the cabin (complete with multiple elk sightings), several rounds of Farkle, and even some Black Friday shopping! Oh my heavens, it was some good times.

Nearer the beginning of the semester, when I thought I'd be coming home during Thanksgiving break, I was thinking that I wouldn't be doing any celebrating of Thanksgiving, Canadian or American, this year. Lucky me, though, I've ended up getting to eat 3 different Thanksgiving dinners.

And now it's less than three weeks before I get to come home!
Be excited.
I am.

Children Will Listen Pt 2

While engaged in a discussion in English class about the difference between tolerance and indifference:

"I don't care about child labour in India. I just want my three dollar t-shirt!"

Hear, hear, Brother Dayley. Hear, hear.

That Little Bit of Good

You know what I really enjoy? I really enjoy the weekly devotionals here at BYU-Idaho. They are always so uplifting and often quite entertaining to boot. Of course, the speakers are fantastic, but, as is usual, there are some other aspects of devotional that deserve a little recognition, as well.

• Similar to the Salt Lake Conference Centre, there are two projection screens on either side of the pulpit and stand that display a countdown to the start of devotional. The organists playing the prelude music somehow always manages to time the end of the hymn exactly with the 00:00 on the countdown. I don't know how they do it! I'm impressed.
• I usually sit about 2/3 of the way back on the floor level, so I can see a lot of the other students sitting in front of me. I love when a speaker says something particularly insightful and you can watch everybody's heads go down all at the same time, trying to write down what was said in their notebooks. You can always tell what the next addition to all the apartments' quote walls will be.
• As the congregation, we get the words to each hymns projected onto the screens. The chorister, however, is expected each week to have all the verses memorized and look super peppy as they conduct the songs. Kudos to them for doing it. It always makes me laugh, though, when the chorister forgets the words and is left just smiling awkwardly on the big screen.
• You can always count on that one guy to laugh so much louder and so much longer than everyone else. Which then gets the rest of us all going again. It's a hoot.

Really, I love devo!

Three Short Days to Have a Lifetime of Fun

College road trip #2: Epic.

It was SO fantastic to see so many good friends again - my goodness, how I've missed you all! - and have such a fun filled weekend. I'm super exhausted, but I could not have hoped for any better of a trip!
Austen, Brock, and Dallin showed up at my apartment on Friday around 2 and immediately the fun ensued. Seriously, these guys are too funny. After singing and joking in the car for 4 hours, we arrived in Provo and were greeted by a very exuberant and emotional Courtney. With her and her friends, we all stayed up until around one...the following night - hooray for all-nighters! We had fun eating at two different places, walking around temple grounds, deciding not to go bowling twice and finally sitting outside Courtney's apartment for 2 hours talking. The apartment lobby hours were over, so we stuck it out in the semi-cold (actually, it was surprisingly warm) until 5 am when we changed and made our way to the temple for an early morning session - so great! Especially when followed by a trip to Krispy Kreme.
If for no other reason, this trip was a success because I was able to check off an item from my bucket list - on Saturday afternoon, we made the trek up to the Y on the mountain! And when I say trek, I mean it; we decided to skip the trail and hike straight up the mountain. At least it can be claimed as an adventure!
Saturday night brought my first ever American football game. Courtney indicated that there had been better ones, but I definitely enjoyed the marching band, cheerleaders, and excitement of it all. And BYU has a school song - why aren't we that cool?
We attended church as well as choir practice with Courtney on Sunday and then came home to eat (super recipe, Courtney!), play Monopoly, and then eat again with another guy's apartment. It was awesome to meet all of the other BYU students down there; they were definitely a lot of fun. In fact, we all bonded so much that Brock, Austen, Dallin, and I made some very special friends - Tia, Kelley, Beth, and Michael were some great two-hour significant others (and good sports, too).
Another 4 hour drive home, dropping off the guys at a friend's apartment, a 4 hour sleep before going to my psychology class, and we were off again to Idaho Falls to experience some all-you-can-eat steak at Stockman's. Afterwards, the guys dropped me off at home and started in on the 14 hour drive home.

There were just too many fun times this past weekend including belting songs in the car, piggy-back rides, and excessive chivalry! Thanks so much, guys, for making the trip down; it really was too much fun!
Now, if I can just get back to a normal sleeping schedule, I will be a very happy girl!

There's Been a Change In Me

When I was in Grade 9, I took a career aptitude test. One of the top suggestions was 'Social Worker', which I found immediately appealing. Soon afterwards, I decided I wanted to study psychology with an emphasis in child and youth counseling and stuck with that for basically all of high school. It was nice just to feel confident and secure in my future by having a career already picked out, plus psychology is just way interesting, am I right?
So, in my application to BYU-Idaho, I declared psychology as my intended major.

By the third day of classes, I knew that I no longer had the desire to make a profession out of psychology, which was actually a little frightening, because I haven't really even considered any other options for some time. I spent the next weeks dwelling somewhat on what I did want to do. It wasn't until earlier this month, upon seeing that class registration for next semester begins on the 7th, that I realized I needed to step up my game.

There were (and are) a few areas and classes that I find especially compelling - English, linguistics, German, business and marketing, even psychology still - but I just couldn't see myself doing any of those things as a career, either for reasons of enjoyment or practicality. I took another career aptitude test from the Academic Discovery Centre, which was totally unhelpful; I have no desire to be a zoologist, horticulturist, or a meteorologist. And it didn't help that results from my interests, abilities, and values inventories did not coincide at all. ('Farmer' was on there, though. At least they got one thing right.)

I forced myself to realize that, aside from Carly's Custom Creations, what I really want to do with the rest of my life is be with kids and be able to put all my skills to use, especially the creative ones. So, in a moment of total clarity, I went and switched my intended major to Elementary Education.

Is it bad that this was one of the more impulsive decisions of my life?
I mean, it wasn't even one of the suggestion from the aptitude test!

Everyone Hail to the Pumpkin Song

I was asked if the "Momos" down here go hardcore for Halloween. Unfortunately, I have to answer no, not really. But it was still a lot of fun getting in the holiday spirit!

We watched far too many Halloween movies and television shows including The Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and a fantastic vampire-themed episode of Psych.
Wednesday brought my first ever trip to Deseret Industries to pick out a Halloween costume. Glad to say it was a success. And nice to be back in the familiarity of a second-hand store.
The BYU-Idaho Symphony Orchestra put on an Indiana Jones-themed Halloween concert to which I went on Friday night. Obviously, the music was great, but they also had semi-comedic scenes interspersed throughout that added up to a cheesy, heart-warming plot, complete with poor acting and even poorer jokes, which made it all the more entertaining.
In fact, it was so good, I went on Saturday, too.
Halloween treats were exchanged with visiting teachers and teachees (I know, I'm a visiting teacher. It's really cool).
I loved seeing the few people on campus dressed up (of which I was not one). There weren't many, but I appreciate the enthusiasm.
Our ward had a Halloween party on Monday night. 'Twas a lot of fun making haunted gingerbread houses, though ours was far from structurally sound. But hey, candy is candy, and we had a ton of chocolate icing left over that I was more than willing to clean up. (Best part: There was a lot of left over spaghetti from the dinner which hey tried to force upon others, so I have food for a week!)

Only picture I have of Halloween (wish it was better). I was dressed up as Boo from
Monsters Inc. My roommates Jessica and Brianne were dressed as cowgirls.

Some of our FHE brother came over directly after the ward party to trick or treat. I was happy that I still had candy left to give them. Unfortunately, that meant that I was entirely out when a group of little kids came by. I felt like a failure. But really, what parents bring their kids to college housing expecting them to have candy? (especially when it's against city law for us to go trick-or-treating to their homes.)

Too much fun.

And now that it's all over. I get to start watching all the Christmas specials on tv! So excited.