Christmas break was fantastic.  I loved being able to rest and relax for a change!  I got to see all of my family and friends and I had a great time.  I even got a little George Foreman grill so I could make yummy dinners at my own apartment!  (Last semester’s dinners included, well, frozen dinners.  That is not so this semester though!)  My family and I had a fantastic time hanging together.  Too bad it didn’t snow until New Year’s, but, better late than never!

This semester is going to be tough, but super fun!  I am taking Personality and Profiling with Dr. Bloom at eight a.m.  I have a good feeling about that class.  We start off listening to music that will wake us up, such as Dr. King’s Memphis Soul Stew!  (that was this morning!)  Then we have discussions about really interesting topics.  That class is stuffed!  You’d think that at eight in the morning, there wouldn’t be a lot of people.  WRONG!  There are 60 people in the class, with more trying to register!  It’s insanely packed.

Next I go to Chinese 2, with Yang Laoshi.  It is lots of fun.  This weekend we’re taking a field trip to the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix!  It is going to be a blast.  Then comes U.S. Foreign Policy, then Forensic Science (we get to do fingerprints on Thursday!), then Observing Asian Cultures.  All of these classes are going to be amazing, to say the least.  I also feel more comfortable in my classes, because I know most of the people in them.  That’s the good thing about being a sophomore in the GSIS program… we all take most of the same classes, so you get to make lots of friends and you see them EVERYWHERE.  No joke.  So that is my Spring 2011 semester!  I’ll keep you updated when I think of tips and lessons that I am learning here at ERAU. 🙂

“We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.”

-Lloyd Alexander

Finals week was actually not as bad as last semester’s finals week.  Sure I stayed up until all hours of the night for about a week straight but heck, that’s college for you.  I had my Plant Bio final Saturday morning at eight o’clock, which for being an open note test, was not as easy as I thought it would be!  Then I took my Intelligence Writing final that afternoon which consisted of a presentation on the Sudan referendum that’s going to be held in January which will decide if Sudan will split into two separate nations.  Until I took that class, I never really paid any attention to what went on outside of my little bubble, but now I feel like I need to be involved in everything that is going on in the world!  It’s amazing how many things are happening in the world that has relevence to me, even though I may be half a world away!

This is Sudan.  It was my country that I’ve written about all semester, and I feel so…. attached to it!  When next semester rolls around, I will still definitely write about it.  I feel like it’s “my” country, and I get so excited when there are new developments in the referendum business!

My next final was Monday morning, History of Terrorism.  In that class, we talked about terrorist groups, their history, different kinds of terrorism, and so forth.  I learned a lot from that class and it really got me thinking about my little bubble I grew up in… it was affected by so many different things that I had no idea about.  After I got done with that final, I took my World History final.  I LOVED that class!  It was definitely tough, but Dr. Trombley made everything soo interesting!  I feel like I’ve learned so much from her.  Not only did we talk about historical events, she tied everything back to the changing and developing world today.  Awesome.  Yesterday I took my Chinese final, and I felt quite confident.  I love Chinese.  Just sayin’.

So that was my finals week!  Hope you all have an AWESOME Christmas break!

“God bless us, every one.”

-Tiny Tim 🙂

Finals are approaching… duh dum…. duh dum….duh dum…. (that’s the Jaws theme song, if you couldn’t tell).  My finals are gonna be crazy this semester.  I started studying way early (on Monday) so I’d know that I was prepared.  On Tuesday, I attented Dr. Trombley’s Film Forum (which we get participation points for in class).  The Film Forum topic this semester was Future Orders: Science Fiction Envisions Future Societies.  The films we watched looked at the ways that the medium of film has envisioned the future.  We looked at themes like utopia, dystonia, and the nature of humanity through Science Fiction.  This semester we watched “The Day The Earth Stood Still” (the one from 1951), “Gattaca”, “District 9”, and on Tuesday we watched “Serenity”.  It really is interesting thinking about governments and how the world will be effected by the choices our government makes today.  I thought “Serenity” was a great movie and it really got me thinking.  Next semester the Film Forum is going to be on Espionage and Moral Decisions.  I’m so excited!

Speaking of next semester, I am going to have a blast.  I have Personality and Profiling with Dr. Bloom, Chinese 2 with Yang Laoshi, (in Chinese, you call your teacher “Their-Last-Name Teacher”… Yang Laoshi!), US Foreign Policy with Dr. Tromley, Forensics with Dr. Baker, and Chinese Regional Studies also with Yang Laoshi.  It’s gonna be great.  But first… CHRISTMAS VACATION!  There’s only roughly a week and a half left of school!  This semester seriously flew by.  Not kidding.  Well, good luck with finals everyone!

“Go as far as you can see.  When you get there, you can see further.”

– Thomas Carlyle

This season, our volleyball team truly exceeded everyone’s expectations!!  We went 7-12 in our regular season, which put us in fourth place for the conference tournament which was held in Houston, Texas!  This was the first time that Embry-Riddle Volleyball has gone into post-tournament play, and so it was kind of a big deal.  And it was soo amazing.  I love Houston anyway, and the weather was so beautiful (granted, a little humid…but still.)  The campus we played on was so pretty.  We were also within walking distance of a sweet little sandwich place that was pretty much amazing.  While we waited for our food (which was fantastic) we played Apples to Apples!!!!!  I loved it.  My favorite, however, was when we ate at Yao Ming’s restaurant.  It really is his restaurant, actually.  The doors are seriously nine feet tall and it is fancy schmancy.  Last time we were there we swore his parents were there!  They were so tall!!  Anyway, Mahina and I decided that we were going to eat a normal dish AND eat a whole plate of fried rice…. AND IT WAS HUUUUGE.  We felt soo sick, but we ate it all!  Kelsey backed out of our deal and jipped us five bucks, but that’s okay. 😛

Volleyball-wise, we played a team from Illinois, a team from Alabama, a team from Texas (who was hosting it), there was a team from Tennessee (yes they are all in our region… it’s a pretty big region!) and one from Phoenix, Arizona.  We won three games and put us in the semi-finals on day three of the tournament.  We lost to University of St. Thomas, the defending champion, who ended up beating the Phoenix team (Southwestern College) out in the championship.  It was one of our best games that we’d ever played though, so it was easier to handle the loss.  We still think we should’ve taken first, but there’s always next year!!

After the semi-finals, we packed up our stuff and drove from Houston to Austin, where we would fly home the next morning.  That night, however, a few of us decided to go have some fun!  We went down to 6th Street, and it was soo much fun.  There were so many shops and pizza places and horse-drawn carriages and different things to look at.  And SO many people!  It was crazy.  There was also a huge, huge, HUGE hotel right in the middle of 6th Street that looked like it belonged in the eighteen hundreds.  It would have looked right at home on Whiskey Row!  (with all of the intricate details on the building, that is… it probably would’ve stuck out since it’s so big!)  We had a great time just wandering around.

So Regionals (er, Conference… er, whatever) was great and we all had a grand ole time.  OH!  And……THE HARRY POTTER MIDNIGHT PREMIERE IS TONIGHT.  So I’m pretty much the happiest girl alive, what with having a great season and great times and a great movie.  So long!

“There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.”

-Salvador Dali

So, this blog is overdue, but I know you all want to hear about it!

I’ve paid bills.  I’ve done homework.  I’ve gone grocery shopping.  And I’ve had volleyball every single weekend.  So, I decided to take a little break on Halloween and have some fun!  On Halloween night, Steven and I went down to Flagstaff for a Halloween dance!  It was soo much fun.  We met many crazy characters, including Lucy Pevinsie from The Chronicles of Narnia, Buddy the Elf (AMAZING!!), and Raggedy Anne!  (I’m actually not sure how you spell that.  But that’s okay.)

We travelled to Flagstaff on Friday night, got to the dance a little late (due to an extra credit comedian act that I attended!) but we still got there right when the partay began!  We loved meeting new people.  Here are some pics (courtesy of Steven, of course):

Here we are with Lucy!  Er, Erin dressed up as Lucy!  With Aslan on her arm.  Ha.  (I was Sleeping Beauty….get it?  Pajamas and a crown?…. and Steven was a… ghost?  With an eyepatch.  Bahahaha!)

We were both pretty excited to see Buddy the Elf.  I was ecstatic, actually.  Obviously.

And Steven and I.  BOO!

We had so much fun, and it was a weekend well spent!!

“Witch and ghost make merry on this last of dear October’s days.”  -Author Unknown

I absolutely LOVE my classes this semester!  I have taken my midterms for most of them already.  Well, to be honest, the “midterms” are more like “triterms”… my classes have two midterms and a final for assignments.  I have to study like cah-razy for all of them.  It’s a blast though.  Chinese especially is definitely an experience!  Someday I hope to actually go to China, either for a study abroad trip or a pleasure trip.  Either way, I’m working hard so that I won’t drown in the language when I go!

Volleyball is great too.  In Denver, we played a few games and came home with two wins under our belt.  Currently, we are 2 and 1 in our conference! 

We also had this year’s match to fight for a cure for breast cancer.  It was called “In It To End It”, and we did it this year to raise funds for Olga Diaz, who is going to New York to walk forty miles for her friends she lost to breast cancer.  We raised $1,350!  A success, I’d say.  And bright and early tomorrow morning our team is taking a road trip to California where we play Claremont Mudd-Scripps and La Sierra University.  It’ll be a long trip, so it’s a good thing that everyone on the team likes each other, or it could be very dangerous!

One thing that I wanted to blog about is the weather in Prescott, Arizona.  For all you incoming freshman coming to ERAU, be prepared!  The weather is fantastic!… however, it is also extremely bipolar.  It just can’t decide what it wants to do from day to day.  All last week, it was super duper hot (as in like 90 degrees).  I was all psyched, wearing shorts and flip flops, and then…. BOOM.  Thunder.  Lightning.  The whole shebang.  And it poured!  Flash flood warnings, tornado warnings, you name it, it happened!  I’ve lived in Arizona all my life, and I’ve never known the dry state to be one for tornadoes.  Ever.  So it was pretty scary to have a little action!  A town just west of Flagstaff had high winds that blew over a freight train with sixty-something cars on it!  Here are a few pictures that Dylan Whitmore, an Embry-Riddle student, took from the dorms.  Thanks Dylan!  Fantastic pictures!

So these are the latest happenings in Prescott!  Let the good times keep on rollin’!

“If you want to be happy, be.”

-Leo Tolstoy

Well, Lauren and I both moved in to our new apartment on August 6, and since then every day has been packed full of training!  My daily schedule during preseason… seven fifteen am, be at the gym to eat breakfast.  Eight am, morning practice until ten.  Ten fifteen am, setter specific practice.  Eleven thirty am, hydrotherapy at the Riddle pool.  Four pm, practice til six.  Then team dinner right afterward until about eight!  So basically every day was filled to the max.  Sometimes at night though I would come home and Lauren and I would watch movies.  That was my free time. 🙂

We have a new assistant coach this year, Jill.  I can’t remember how to spell her last name or else I would write it…

We also have three new freshman.  Mahina Fa’amoe (?), Precious Tulilu, and Morgan Veiria.  And even though Precious isn’t technically on our team anymore due to school issues, I still consider her a part of our team!!  Precious and Mahina are both from West Valley, Utah (and oddly enough they also went to the same high school together), and Morgan is from Las Vegas.

Speaking of Las Vegas, we had to make a stop there on our flight to Texas for the Coca-Cola Classic Tournament hosted in Plainsview.  We flew from Phoenix to Vegas, then from there to Lubbock, TX.  I have to say, the  artistically painted bull statues outside of every business in town definitely made my day… every day!

Here’s one we had to ride on outside of a Chicken Express (obviously).

McDonald’s had a big AND a little one!!  Cute.

We thought a little straw chewin’ was appropriate.  Laura and Sarah thought that using the local accent was appropriate too, (and so cool to use), so they used it.  Everywhere we went.  So.  Awesome.

If you can, imagine this conversation at Sonic with Laura and Sarah using heavy southern accents.

Laura- “Uh yeah, can I have an orange creamsicle, in my mouth.  One GRAPE DRANK, and one caramel sundae.  Oh wait!  Do y’all have caramel Tuesdays?!  What about caramel Fridays?!”

Laughter from inside the Sonic building.  Everyone is listening to this crazy girl ramble.

Sarah- “Are y’all from around here?”

Classic.

Oh yeah.  And we played volleyball too.  Here’s our fabulous team lookin’ spiffy in our game (courtesy of Julie Lacey, of course!)

Now we’re just training once a day due to the start of school!  YAY SCHOOL!!  (You know you go to Riddle when… yeah.)

My classes I’m taking for my GSIS major are:  History of Terrorism, Mandarin Chinese 101, Intelligence Writing, Plant Biology, and World History.  I love all of my classes!  I know that they’ll be tough though, so I’m ready!  I LOVE MY MAJOR!  This is exactly why I came to Riddle.  Thanks to all of my professors and classes, I know what my career path will be and how I’m going to get there.  And I’m excited for the future, because I know I’ll be where I want to be.

“Dreams are like stars… you may never touch them, but if you follow them they will lead you to your destiny.”

-Anonymous

Two weeks ago, my family and I headed off to Prescott so that Lexie and I could go to Embry-Riddle for the Take Flight volleyball camp.  It was a three day camp, and it was fun to be back at Riddle.  On Thursday, the day before the camp started, I met up with my roommate, Lauren Rice, and we FINALLY signed the lease on our new apartment!!  We were so excited, we had to document.  Ha.

This is our living room.  HAHA!  Just kidding.  This is the office where we signed our papers.  I learned that my dad isn’t that bad of a photographer.  😀

After our signing, my dad and I met up with the rest of my family in Jerome, about an hour and fifteen minutes away from Prescott.  The drive is GORGEOUS!  When we got there, we explored a little of the historic town.

My momma. 🙂

The next day, the camp started.  The girls had a lot of fun while working hard and making friends.  I made friends, too!  I met really awesome people who were coaches and really awesome girls who were loads of fun!  We even had a talent show in the dorms that night.  Granted, we only had one dance, but still!

One session was a beach session.  Here’s my lil sis Lexie getting ready to kick some butt in the sand!

Right after we got home from the Take Flight camp, we packed up and left for… LAKE POWELL!!  WOOOOO!

It was amazing.  I got to see all my family and it was a great family vacation for everybody.  And I didn’t even get that sunburned this year.  A-HA.

My summer was every bit as long and relaxing as I could have hoped.  And now that I’ve had my fabulous summer vacation, I’m ready for preseason.  Next Friday, I leave for Prescott, and then volleyball starts!

“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.”

-Sam Keen

This past week, Lexie’s team played in the District tournament for softball.  It was a blast helping my dad coach and to get to hang out with all my girls again.  They played great, but unfortunately lost in the finals to Taylor, a town about forty five minutes away.  The tournament was in Winslow though, and even though I’d been there a million times for all sorts of sports games and such, I got to explore the culture and history a little more this time.  My family and I explored the famous La Posada Hotel.  It was built in the 1930’s, and it’s gorgeous!  There’s an art gallery in one of the main sections, a restaurant, a gift shop full of brightly colored things from all over the world, AND a hotel part where famous people (Jimmy Stewart, for one) stayed in.  I loved it.  It was so rich in culture, and just dripping with history.

That’s the restaurant, called The Turqoise Room.  Below is the fabulous gift shop.  Amazing, right?

So that was my adventure in Winslow.  Who knew that Arizona’s oldest towns could be so cool?  I’ll have to snoop around Prescott a little more to see if I can find somewhere cool like the La Posada!

Speaking of Prescott, I’m going down there with my little sis this weekend to go to the Embry-Riddle Take Flight Volleyball Camp.  Lexie will be participating, and I’ll be helping to coach the girls who come.   And after that, LAKE POWELL!! WOOOO HOOOO!  Wish us luck!!

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.”

-Pearl Buck

This summer so far feels like one long, hectic, fun-filled weekend!  I am working for my dad’s CPA firm as a receptionist, I’ve been helping my high school volleyball team in workouts and camps, I’ve been helping coach my little sister’s softball team, and I’ve been catching up on all the news here in the White Mountains of Arizona!  Unlike many of my classmates at Riddle, I’m not taking any summer classes, so I have time to catch up with my family and to work.  It’s definitely pretty nice to be able to take things easy after a tough semester.

Here are all of my girls on my sister’s softball team.  Gosh how I love those goofballs!

This is Anna, Jerem and I at Jerem’s graduation.  We all played Co-Ed volleyball together when Anna and I were juniors, and he and our other friend Shelby were sophomores.  Luckily we all still stay in touch!  Shelby just got married, as a matter of fact!  She’s Mrs. Murphy now.  It’s so crazy how everyone grows up so fast.

And here is what I’ve been doing all day today.

I have been sleeping pretty much all day as a result of my ward’s twenty four hour scripture reading, causing me to miss my sleep!  We read the whole Book of Mormon in twenty four hours, and it was so much fun to see all of my church girls and to have the opportunity to be invited to help read to them.

Levi and I also decided that we are going to watch all of the movie classics that we love…

…so we’d better get started!!

This is what Landon, Levi and my dad are doing right this SECOND.

If you can’t tell, all three of them are glued to the Celtics/Lakers Finals game.

So this is basically my summer so far!  I hope that everyone out there is having as great of a summer as I am!

“To see the Summer Sky is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie- True Poems flee.”

-Emily Dickenson