Pride and Prejudice

It's been a while since I've posted. Nothing too terribly exciting is happening right now in my life. I got a 3.8 gpa my first semester at BYU, and my first since the mission. On New Years Eve I rear-ended a van, and my dad said a couple swear words when I told him. (A few choice words may have escaped from my mouth as well.) Classes have started up again and being in a creative writing class has really made me realize how badly I suck at writing creatively. Oh well, it's fun. My sister-in-law is going to have a baby soon (shout out to NINA and Lil' Eric!). And my sister is also pregnant again. I went and saw True Grit over the break and loved it! Last weekend my sisters and my mom drove down to Provo. We saw BYU's production of Peter Pan, then we went out to dinner. At Olive Garden I met a woman from Madrid (our lovely, old server) named Julia, and I loved speaking Spain Spanish with her.

As for the title of this post, I have started reading Pride and Prejudice. I have read it several times before, and each time I read it I love it more. I love Jane Austen, I think she is funny and witty. One of my favorite lines from the book is when Eliza says, "Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all." We're reading it for my Brit Lit class, but I am getting a head start. While it's certainly not in my top three favorite books, it may be somewhere in the top ten! I think I will read Persuasion next, just for fun. I have never read it. Opinions on that one? Anybody?

English Major?

I do stupid things all the time, and then I have to ask myself, "Why are you an English major?" For example, below I put Jeffrey Chaucer. Come on, we all know it's not Jeffrey (the modern spelling of the name) but GEOFFREY Chaucer. Duh! I make stupid mistakes like that all the time, but it's just because I act without thinking. Another example of my stupidity is that I don't pronounce poem right. I say pome. Like Rome. Some friends made fun of me for that the other day. I know how it's pronounced, I've just formed a bad habit of saying pome. I'm silly sometimes.

Also, I think pilot whales are so cool. Here's a pic.
I highly suggest getting to SeaWorld at your earliest convenience. So cool!

Not too shabby

Besides having two roommates who don't want to share toilet paper anymore, it's been a good week. So that paper that I wrote about in my last post, I stayed up till 4 in the morning on Sunday (well, I guess it was Monday) finishing it. I got up at 6:45 (I guess I only took a nap) to be able to get ready, print it, take it to the writing center and revise it before my class at 9. I felt OK about it, but I didn't love it. As the professor was handing the papers back he said, "Would you like to know who scored the highest in the class? It was Emily, Sarah, and Alyson." I aced the paper. In that same class, I worked really hard on another paper and got a B. He's a tough grader, but somehow I did well on this paper that I didn't really get a good start on till the night before at like 11pm. Even though it stresses me out, I somehow make procrastination work for me. Hmmm...gift of the spirit? Haha!

Also, I got the results back for the Spanish test I took (you know, the one all the RM's take to test out of lower level classes) and I got four A's. Not too shabby, eh? I went and saw Romeo and Juliet last night. Even though the actual production was mediocre at best, I very much enjoyed myself because I love Shakespeare! I never loved reading Romeo and Juliet (it was just always over done and over the top), but seeing it live really helped me appreciate it. I have a paper that I need to write where I have to translate some Middle English and analyze how it functions in the Canterbury Tales by Jeffrey Chaucer, and Anglo-Saxon texts are going to be the death of me, but for some reason I'm even optimistic about all that. My aerobics class kicks my butt, and it feels so good. I haven't had to work as much lately, so that's been nice. (I do love my job, but it's nice having a few days off.) I am reading Night by Elie Wiesel and, even though it's sad, I love it. The guys in my life are just frustrating, and I'm considering going cold turkey for a while, just to clean out my system if you know what I mean.

Tonight I'm going to be hanging with my frister, tomorrow I'll be eating sushi with some friends, and then I'll be watching Harry Potter 7.

Thanksgiving is next week (my first since 2007) and I feel pretty good.

Oh, and I just got paid. Woot!

Muy estresada

Last Friday I wasn't feeling too hot so I missed my first class. It's a literary criticism class. It was my first time missing, I figured it wasn't a big deal. Today I was looking over the syllabus and I saw that we have an essay due on Monday. I thought to myself, "He [the professor] hasn't given us the assignment sheet, he hasn't even mentioned the essay in class or in email, he's for sure going to push it back a class or two." I come to class today and find out that he introduced the assignment the Friday I missed class. I should have just sucked it up and gone to class, I would have had all this time to work on it. So I'm FREAKING stressed because it's worth quite a bit and I haven't even started thinking about it. One of the worst feelings is going to class and having people ask you, "So how's your paper going?" and then having to respond, "What paper?" SICK. Not to mention that I have to find time to bring it to the writing center and get some help. Madre mia de mi vida! And now I'm writing in my blog instead of working on the paper . . . I have some serious prioritizing to do. Pray for me?

Gettin' Witchy

Hey!
I haven't posted anything for a while. But whatever distractions I've had over the last little while are gone. So anyway, Witches Night was great. The bomb.com. Here are some pictures.



This is my sister Taylor and me after we were done getting ready at my house.


This is my hand. I was very proud of the cool ring and glove thingy.



Well, that's all. I'm already excited for witches night 2011. Besides that, my Halloween was kind of a dud. I had to work. Oh well.

Alyson

Tengo ganas de que venga halloween!

I am so excited for Halloween. That's a basic translation of the title above. Anyway, I just love Halloween. It ranks in between second and third on my favorite holidays list. It's in the middle because I like it only slightly less than Thanksgiving, but I like it more than a normal "third" ranking would allot. I don't know if that makes sense. Anyway, super duper excited for Halloween. I'm actually more excited for the 22nd and 23rd to come around. Nina, you know what I'm talking about. WITCH NIGHT! La noche de brujas! Basically, Gardner Village in West Jordan throws a witch party. Women come dressed up like witches and walk around the little pioneer village, shopping, dancing, taking pictures, etc. Everywhere you look there are witch hats, as well as strange creatures walking around on stilts, women carrying around real owls, and lots of other cool/crazy stuff. It honestly feels like part of some fantasy movie. Better yet, it feels like Diagon Alley from Harry Potter, what with all the shops and stuff. I'm already getting prepared for it. I bought a cute witch hat, green and black striped stockings, an owl ring, and fish-net gloves. Woo! I'm going Friday night with my roomies, and then again on Saturday night with my sisters and mom. I'm taking this very seriously. Here are some fotos from the witch night I went to right before my mission:

This is a picture of me with one of the women carrying around an owl. I didn't dress up because I didn't really know what witch night was. Anyway, it was still so fun.I went with my wonderful sister/friend (frister) Nina, and this is one of the creepy creatures we saw.They have these really cool witch displays. This is one of them that we liked. I'm not sure what Nina is doing. Haha!
Anyway, I'm sure I'm going to have even better pictures this year and I'll be sure to post them. Also, I'm way excited for the seventh Harry Potter movie! More about that later. I will not be doing a book review on this post. Surprised? Maybe even a little sad?

Aly

P.S. Don't you love how I write this as though I had a huge following? Someday...

B U S Y ......

If I could get a wish granted from the Make a Wish Foundation I would totally reconstruct the chocolate room from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate factory. I love the flower tea cup he eats, the creamy mushroom things, the bouncy balls with jelly in the middle, and the chocolate river. Except I would make it the chocolate river from the new movie, because it doesn't look like blood.

Moving on, this week has been busy. He estado muy ocupada. But it's good to be busy, except that I can't possibly put forth my best efforts. I hate turning in papers that don't get my full attention. Work is great. The Elder's I teach are hilarious, but I try to keep them focussed. I just feel like I have no time for anything. Friday is supposed to be my day off, but I did have to go into work for a little bit. Then I went to a movie with some friends. A guy asked me out to go to the BYU game on Saturday, and I had to turn him down because I work on Saturday evenings. Sad! Last night we went to Rancheritos and that leftover chimichanga was great after church. Though it's having some interesting affects on my system, if you know what I mean.

We're doing a poetry section in my literary criticism class and I found a poem that I have read before, but this time I really liked it. I can't even tell you why for sure. Anyway, here is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Well, that's probably the most pointless, random post I've ever written. Hope you didn't fall asleep.

REVIEW~

Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights

I got really into this book. I've heard people say that this is a harder read than Jane Eyre (written by her sister), but I don't agree with that. I didn't think it was that difficult. I thought it was disturbing and horrifying, and yet there's something about it I just love. If any of you have read this book, I would love to hear what you think about it. Either way, go Emily!