Nerd Fettish

As I'm sitting here watching Friends, I've come to realize that I have a crush on eveyone's least favorite Friend: Ross Gellar.



That's right. I have a crush on David Schwimmer. And I'm announcing it to all 4 of my readers. So you have another reason to roll your eyes and say, "Oh, Lauren. Gigg-le." Or, "You would."


I love everything about this remarkably odd, extraordinarily hairy, Jew. (Can I say that if I, myself, am not Jewish?) And it's not just his roll on Friends that I love about him. I positively adore him as Melman, but yes, Ross is my guilty pleasure.


I love when he plays his "music" on his stupid keyboard, and his flare for the dramatic. I really admire his ability to create an entire trivia game based on 4 of his best friends. I love how he changed the erotic cake for Emma's first birthday into a bunny, and his fake accent. I love his boring lectures and that he's a paleantologist.


And yes, I know that Ross Gellar is not a real person. But David Schwimmer is. Besides, I have a big thing for basically any fictional male.


Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:
1. Seeing Julie & Julia.
2. The French language. It's beautiful.
3. Books.
4. New babe pool (you gotta say it like Amanda Bynes in She's the Man) in Rexburg next semester.
5. I enrolled myself on The Scroll's staff this morning.

I'm a Nerd.

The highest level English class you can take at BYU-I is English 495, and I'm enrolled for Fall semester.

Sister Hawker, the teacher, emailed us maybe one week after the end of the Summer semester to give us our first assignment. Yep, she gave us a 6 week notice. And it's probably a good thing she did.

Does that mean that I did anything about it until I got back from Arizona one week ago? Definitely not.

Our biggest assignment is called Book Fest. Sister Hawker sent us the syllabus and 3 booklists. From what I gather from the syllabus for this assignment (yes, this ONE assignment has it's own syllabus...), here is what we are supposed to do:

• Pick one book, (or two plays; or one author's collected works + something else) from EACH list. (More on the lists in a minute...)
• Make a powerpoint presentation arguing whether or not to keep the book in the traditional English "canon"
• Create and deliver a 15-20 minute presentation (which will we have to give in front of the English department and our classmates - the classmates will grade us) to expand our powerpoint and the other things we have to do...
• Make a reading guide. The reading guide has 4 parts: a) A 500 word summary of the book, b) A 500 word personal review of the book, c) A 100 word biographical summary of the author, and d) 20 developed discussion questions that incorporate literary criticisms.
• A visual adaptation. We can make any of the following: book cover design, movie poster design, family photo/family tree, video game, film or stage set, movie/play book.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm thoroughly excited for this whole experience!

So I opened up the lists when I got back from Arizona. (This is the part where you all get to see the OCD, borderline completely mental side, of me) I went through each list and highlighted any book I hadn't read before in yellow (we're not allowed to re-read anything). After that, I put an orange star next to a book that sounded interesting purely based on the title and/or author. From there, I tried to narrow down my choices so when I get to the bookstore I can make my final decision there - and this is where it got interesting.

Recommended Booklist has 83 total books on it. I have highlighted in yellow 11 books. Yep, 11 books out of 83 that I haven't read. From those 11 I narrowed it down to 4 orange stars.

Non-Fiction Booklist has 79 total books on it. I have highlighted in yellow 7 books and out of those 7 books, I have 3 orange stars.

The Canon Booklist has 103 total books on it (these are the books that English teachers on campus have decided that every English student MUST read at some point in their lives). I have highlighted in yellow a whoping 10 books!! Out of those 10, only 4 have orange stars by them.

The fiction books I have orange stars next to are all by either Hemingway, Eliot, or C.S. Lewis.

Next step: go to the bookstore. YAY!!!

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:

1. Catching Fire comes out next week!
2. Enchiladas on Sunday.
3. LBS
4. Barnes and Noble emails me weekly with coupons and such, and they've recently started emailing me book suggestions based on past-purchases. I am in SO much trouble.
5. Bryce's not-so-silent auction on Thursday in Beverly Hills at the Aqualounge. It has a 1920's theme. And I'm supposed to dress up. Uh oh.
6. Waking up to a text and thinking Bryce was asking me to runaway with him. He wasn't. I didn't finish the text before I closed my phone and went back to sleep. HAHAHA!

Beverly Hills

Swimming Pools
Movie Stars (name that TV show)!

(A little background before I tell you about Beverly Hills!)

Bryce is a fundraising machine for his cancer. He's trying to get enough money to pay for his surgeries and travel and living costs while he's in Europe. He's hoping the insurance will reimburse him, but because it's an overseas procedure, they may not. Anything he earns OVER what the insurance company reimburses him is going into a fund he's starting for ASPS cancer patients since there is literally NOTHING out there for them yet. (He's also documenting every experience on video so he can have that information for people who don't have it.)

I keep telling people how special he is...!

ANYWAYS!

Bryce used to intern for an online fashion company and the owner, Michael has a new hot find in Jonathan, a jewelery designer from Quebec. Jonathan's company, Lolipop, is AMAZING! Every piece Jonathan makes is uniquely hand-made by him. He uses special glass that is made mostly of quartz, so it's incredibly strong and clear - like pyrex glass. Celebrities have worn his stuff to award ceremonies. He makes belt buckles, money clips, bangles, earrings, necklaces, cuff links, rings. He also makes HUGE artwork. It's expensive, though...far too rich for my blood. I was looking at this beautiful pair of earrings that I wanted SO bad, but they were $500.

Bryce is having a silent auction in Beverly Hills at The Aqualounge and the things up for bid are geared more toward the wealthy. He's gotten donations of items like box seats to the Lakers (including parking), box seats to the Pantages (including parking), box seats to the Hollywood Bowl (including parking), backstage passes to American Idol with a meet and greet with Ryan Secrest...you get the idea, right? Well, Jonathan is donating a few pieces to auction off.

Back to Beverly Hills.

Jonathan's friend David knows a lot of high end people because he's a screenwriter/producer, so he invited Jonathan into his home in Beverly Hills to showcase his pieces to some wealthy people and get the word around. David was very welcoming as we walked into his house and even told us his house is haunted by LOTS of spirits. Well, Bryce and Jonathan hadn't ever met. So Jonathan invited Bryce to the showcase. Bryce invited me and a few other people, but it ended up being just Bryce, my new friend Scott (MOUNTAIN MAN!), and I.

We were in the heart of Beverly Hills surrounded by photographers, actors, movie producers, screenwriters, and some of the people I didn't even meet. It was a great opportunity for Bryce to tell people who have money about the auction on Thursday and they can tell their friends and hopefully, he'll get enough money to pay for the surgeries.

David is a screenwriter/producer and he had fliers and cards out about his newest project called, The House at the End of the Drive. A horror film from the executive producer of The Amityville Horror.

Here's the kicker, though. We were getting ready to leave, and a new group of people had come in and as we're walking out the door, I heard David (the host) say something about Charles Manson. (If you don't know who that is, google him...famous murderer. You won't understand the rest of the story unless you know who he is.) We got in the car and started heading down the ridiculously long and curvy driveway and Scott said he saw a room that had framed pictures and newspaper clippings of Charles Manson. Odd decorating choice. But combined with what I overheard, we decided to call David (since we had his business card) and ask what the deal was.

The house we were in...that we had been in for over an hour...was the actual site of the Charles Manson murders of Sharon Taye and her entire family!!

...We survived though.

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:
1. Bryce selling me out to the French Canadian, telling him that I spoke French. It sounds funny because it didn't happen to YOU!
2. Having the Mama Mia soundtrack still stuck in my head from Disneyland.
3. Jake. He is the oddest dog in the world.
4. All of the memories I'll have long after Bryce is dead.

Disneyland

Bryce and I went to Disneyland on Thursday (8-20) and had a lot of fun!

It was also Bryce's last day of radiation. I think we did a good job celebrating! Apparently he got a certificate and was given an award for being upbeat or something like that.

He kicked my butt on the new Toy Story ride in California adventure and then we headed over to Tower of Terror. As we got into the line, there was a family of 5 in front of us (all dressed alike in orange t-shirts) and we noticed that they were speaking a different language. So we got closer. And Bryce decided to experiment with their personal boundaries by basically standing on TOP of the mom. Anyways, he figured out that they were speaking German! I told Bryce he should talk to them and freak them out since he served there. So he did! They weren't really freaked out, or anything, but they had a good chat while we were in line and I just stood there, smiling, since I don't speak or understand German.

The row of orange shirts behind us is the family from Germany!

As we were walking toward the exit of California Adventure, Bryce asked me if I had done the Animation Studio. (There's a few things to do in there, but we headed into the room where they teach you how to draw cartoon characters.) I hadn't, so we ran in and they were just starting a new session. That particular session was about how to draw Pluto. Mine came out looking like Baby Pluto - but whatevs.


We headed over to Disneyland park and ran straight to Indiana Jones. We made our way around the park and ended at Space Mountain.

We left early (like 6 pm-ish) because Bryce had other plans for us, i.e., a party in Beverly Hills. But that's for the next post...

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:

1. The video of Dr. J playing Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suite on guitar.

2. The dirty looks we got from the folks around us in line as they overheard our cancer jokes.

3. Disneyland churros.

4. Getting scared on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Stupid cannons.

5. Naptime in The Haunted Mansion.

6. Having such a fun friend!

My New Headband

While at the Scottsdale Fashion Center, we wandered into ForLove21. It's all of the accessories that Forever 21 sells, and nothing else.

As I was meandering, I came across a headband that I liked. A lot.

Here it is:

Alli, Shauna, KP and Natalie all liked it, so I bought it. (It was cheap, for everyone who's freaking out...)

I was going to wear it to Shauna's farewell, but it was a little much when combined with my totally rocking new dress.

When I got back to California, I threw it on and went into Grannie's room to show her and my mom. My mom thought I had a fake tarantula on my head, at first. Grannie's reaction was my favorite though. I knealt down so she could get a better look at it and she laughed at me, patted my cheek and said, "You're such a nut," through her laughter.

It was good to come home!

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:
1. Cancer jokes.
2. Finishing The Hunger Games again. The sequel comes out in like 2 weeks. Hooray!
3. Getting my refund check from The Ridge.

Roommate Reunion 2009!

I'm sorry it's been a while, but it's been madness - as I'm sure you'll realize throughout the next week as I'm posting.

Let me start with my trip to Arizona! I went to Phoenix for Shauna's farewell and stayed with Kellie and her family. Alli came down also and stayed with Shauna. It was great. We all got to be together for the first time since Winter semester 2008! I definitely think it should be an annual reunion.

KP picked me up from the airport on Thursday 8-13 and we headed over to ASU to get her books and find her classes. It was fun to see the campus and REALLY fun to help KP find her books. (I love bookstores...)

After that we went to KP's house and I got to meet Betty and Doug before I got to meet KP's boyfriend, Kyle. He's super nice, in case anyone wanted to know. Then we headed over to Shauna's house to visit them and get us all together.

On Friday we did some shopping at the Scottsdale Fashion center and then went to dinner at BJ's. Kyle and his friend Curtis met up with us and then we went back to Shauna's to watch Elf and hang out. On Saturday, Shauna and Alli came out to Gilbert to meet up with me and KP and we went shopping again, and then grabbed quick bite at Paradise Bakery. It was KP's sister's birthday that weekend, so while KP and her family celebrated on Saturday and Sunday together I went with Shauna and Alli and Shauna's family to dinner (thank you so much Jayne and Paul!).

After that we headed to a water park called Sun Splash. We went from 7-11pm, which was perfect because it was still like 90-ish degrees, but the sun wasn't shining, so I didn't get fried. GREAT! Although, I did almost die. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit. There was this one ride called The Cauldron. They shoot you down a fairly steep, straight, waterslide into what amounts to a toiletbowl. You swirl around in there for a minute and theoretically you drop through a hole feet first into 9 feet of water, at which point you can just exit the pool. Yeah. So I'm swirling around for a little bit and then something...happens. I still don't really know what. Somehow I ended up going through the hole head first. It was creepy.

Sunday was Shauna's farewell. I got to meet all of Shauna's family, which was SO fun! (I've got some connections now for when I become an editor!) Everyone is SO nice! Every sibling and their spouse came up to me and wanted to know everything about me. I felt like a Sargent all day. Alli's mom had also flown in, which was fun. I love Suzanne and it was great to see her again! Shauna did so well on her talk and I'm super excited for her to go to Paraguay! She's going to be an excellent missionary! Por Favor (spoken with the valley girl accent and Shauna growl)!

Monday Alli went home, but me and KP spent the day being lazy butts. Kyle and his friend came over to swim and then KP, Shauna and I went to see The Time Traveler's Wife. It was SO good. I loved it. It was different from what I thought it would be, but still AMAZING!

On Tuesday night, I flew home. Before I left though, KP and I went to another mall and walked around for a bit and then perused the shelves at Barnes and Noble.

As a fun little side note, part of the reason for going to AZ included seeing how I liked the state and if I could survive the heat, since I'm thinking of moving there once I graduate. I survived the heat with only 2 full blown migranes out of 6 days (that's a miracle in itself, I tell you) and I loved so much about Arizona.

All in all, it was a great trip and I can't wait until the next Roommate Reunion!

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today (basically inside jokes from the trip...):

1. So Alli...

2. Shauna's growl.

3. Dying the way you came into the world.

4. My headband.

5. People who speak Spanish with a lisp.

6. Pan cookies.

7. omgosh.

8. Getting so many of my favorite people together in one spot.

9. Betty & Doug for letting me for crash their place and being so kind.

10. The Sargents for being so great and letting me crash their parties.

A Day in the Park

The day before I went to Arizona, Chelsea came over to hang out.

I made us tuna melts (thanks for the bread Phish!), and then we headed over to the park.

On our way over to the park, we were talking about how much we enjoyed swinging when we were little. So we hit up the swings first.

We took a blanket and each of us had a book so we could read. But it turned into me reading and Chelsea napping (what else?).

We had so much fun! We were laughing a lot and the weather was beautiful.

The only thing we didn't plan for was being so dang thirsty. Now we know for next time!

Thanks for the fun Chelsea!

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:

1. The Mountain Man.

2. How offended/bothered people get when they hear me and Bryce joking about his cancer.

3. Swinging so high I seriously thought I was going to go over the bar. I love that feeling.

4. Chelsea's Goofy laugh. A-HYUCK!

5. Popeye.

Stay Tuned

I swear one day I will update this!

It just won't be today!

I promise to do a post about:
1. My trip to AZ (which may come in the form of more than one post)
2. My awesome new head band
3. Disneyland trip with Bryce
4. Upcoming plans

I still have to upload pics and all that good stuff, but I do want to say this - I did NOT want the roommate reunion to end. But I understand it had to...

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:
1. Making Dan laugh so hard he cried. Literally. (Ashley told me, I didn't get to see it happen.)
2. The 3 different booklists I have to study and then choose one book from each which equals: BARNES AND NOBLE TRIP!! ...I'll explain this on my upcoming plans post.
3. Grannie calling me a nut. Honestly!
4. My bed. I crashed so hard last night it was amazing.
5. iTunes free single of the week. I love most of them, and they're keeping me highly entertained as I type this all up!

The Sign Said, "No Moshing. No Crowd Surfing. No Stage Diving."

I've done it again! Another Blue October concert under my belt and it feels SO good.

This time it was the Crazy Making Tour 2009 with Longwave (still have no clue who they are), Switchfoot, and Blue October.

Chelsea, Nicole, and I got to the theatre just the teeniest bit late - but who cares 'cause it was just Longwave performing and like I said, we don't know them. At all. I'm not super familiar with Switchfoot. Through their performance I realized I had heard 2 of their songs at least and liked them well enough. But all I wanted was Blue October.

I was NOT disappointed.

They came out rocking hard with a lot of my favorites, including a lot of their older stuff. I think all-in-all they only played 3 songs from their new CD, maybe 4. Seriously, I just looked at my playlist on iTunes with my favorite songs on it that I made a few months back and all of the Blue October songs on that playlist save 2 were played last night. Could I ask for more? ...Probably, but I'll take what I can get.

After they played one of their darker, heavier songs, Justin (the lead singer) straight up walked off the stage. I didn't understand at first cause they'd only played for like half an hour or so. Slowly the rest of the band took off and the stage hands started rearranging. They brought out one stool for each member of the band (Justin, Jeremy, CB, Brian, and Matt), 2 acoustic guitars (one for each CB and Matt), 2 of Brian's violins and one of his mandolins and a small drum set for Jeremy. They had an AMAZING little jam session playing EVERY single one of my favorite slow songs starting with just Justin and Brian (on the piano, this time...I swear that boy - Brian - is liquid talent) on a dark stage playing my all time favorite song. It's an unnamed, hidden track, on the Foiled for the Last Time CD, the last 4 minutes and 21 seconds of the Carmen Rizzo remix of "X Amount of Words." (Did I say I'm a die-hard fan??)

They jammed like that for maybe another half an hour and then decided to rock hard again starting with "Italian Radio" - a great beat and totally fun to sing along to. It was seriously AMAZING. I can't get over how charismatic they all are (even with Brian's stupid new hair-do) and remarkably talented they all are. Justin is a hoot to watch and has a GREAT voice. He can also rock hard on that guitar, I'm not going to lie.

The only thing I would change: I want to hear them play my other all time favorite song, "Sound of Pulling Heaven Down" live. I guess I'll just have to keep seeing them live until it happens. :o)

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:

1. Justin.

2. CB.

3. Brian.

4. Matt.

5. Jeremy.

6. The totally rocking videos I got of some of my favorite songs.

7. The girl that biffed it and then ran away just before the end of the concert.
8. The YSA conference that Bryce and I are going to on Saturday (yes, just Saturday).

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!

I decided to get up and go to my home ward this morning (9 am) instead of going to single's ward (1 pm). I haven't been there in a very long time and it was nice to see the new people and really nice to see the not-so-new people! We've had 5 baptisms since the beginning of 2009 and last night an old friend of the family was baptized, that makes 6, and tonight there is another baptism - a girl named Zela, from Africa - will make 7 baptisms in 8 months! That's really good considering my ward hasn't ever been a high baptizing ward. Good work Elders!

A small family came and sat in the bench in front of us and I watched as the wife sat on one end of the bench and her husband sat on the complete other end with just their 2 children between them. The mother entertained the son but I wasn't watching them. I watched the father and the daughter. I watched him pull out his fancy shmancy pen from his breast pocket and draw pretty dang good pictures for his daughter. He was drawing pictures she could match things the drawings - for instance, on one half of the paper he would draw a baseball and then on the other half he would draw a bat, so she could connect them. He drew a very life-like horse, and a rather pretty flower, but the last paper he drew was what stuck in my mind. He drew a crown first and then a pretty dress and then he started drawing what looked like a very elaborate castle. He leaned down and whispered to her for a minute and she watched his pen scribbling and I noticed that what I first thought of as a castle was actually the SLC Temple. How did I know? I watched them throughout most of sacrament and realized that I love coming home and going to the family ward. I have nothing against single's ward, but I love being around the children and watching them interact with their parents and scream through the sacrament.

Bryce came to my ward and sat with me and my family. It was good to sit next to him and laugh through the hymns again. It's been a while since we've done that. It was fast and testimony meeting today and Bryce bore his testimony. I don't know that I've ever heard him bear his testimony and I very highly doubt he's ever heard mine. He's such a good person and my all-time favorite person (sorry folks, but it's true...).

Like I said, it was a very nice Sabbath.

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:
1. I keep learning new things about people I thought I knew very well.
2. Having such a wonderful person in my life.
3. Coming home.
4. My mom. She's my best friend and I love her.
5. Bryce's mom bankrolling our trip to Disneyland (for him, at least) so we can go before he goes to Germany and I go back to Idaho. Thanks Nancy!