This is my family in a nutshell:

Unleashing The Dormant Spirit

Finals. Ugh.

I was feeling quite discouraged today with school as well as some other things. So I pulled up this youtube video that I forgot about till today. Its from part of a talk called "Unleashing The Dormant Spirit" by Elder Busche.

One of my favorite quotes from it says, "In your life there have to be challenges. They will either bring you closer to God and therefore make you stronger, or they can destroy you. But you make the decision of which road you take."

Forest Xylophone

My physics teacher showed this today at the beginning of class.

I'll Never Eat A Green Bean Again!

In my sports nutrition class, my teacher showed us this video from America's Funniest Home Videos. Apparently the mom was making her child eat green beans and the child didn't like it. Lesson to be learned: Don't force your children to eat anything, ever.

United Breaks Guitars

So I was sitting in my business class last week when my teacher was telling this story that had to do with something in class but now I don't remember. Oh wait, I think he was telling how people can make a difference and sometimes it doesn't take a lot of people and you just have to get creative. He gave an example of a guy that was on a United Airlines flight and brought his guitar with him. He looked out the window and they were throwing his guitar and ended up breaking it. He tried to talk to a bunch of people and went as high up as he could go and they did nothing for him. Then he wrote this song and posted it on youtube and a few days later the CEO of United Airlines called him and apologized and fixed it or paid him or something. Anyway, my professor told us to look up this music video on youtube, so I did and it has been stuck in my head all day. But it is kind of catchy! Anyway here it is to watch:

Happy Official Baseball Season!

So, I guess yesterday was technically official baseball season with the first games and all. But today is the first game for the teams the really matter. I think we all know what team I am talking about.

(See Left)

Yes, yes, yes... true other teams are playing too such as the Giants (for Julie), Twins (for Shawn), Cubs (for Joe), and anyone else's random, less than mediocre team. ;) Nonetheless, Happy Baseball Season everyone!!! Let's Play Ball!

2 Months and 14 Days Away...

Those numbers may have no significance to you, but they do to me! Yes, in 2 months and 14 days away I will be going into the MTC!!!!!!

Obviously I am excited.

I can hardly wait actually!! I also can't wait for this semester to be over. I am sad to say I have not been as diligent for preparing as I thought I would be. But today I'm turning over a new leaf and it's priority numero uno! So we won't be surprised if my grades are not what they have been in the past. Luckily, I don't think my Dad knows what a blog is so he won't be able to read this. Unless Joe makes him. In that case, just kidding Dad ;)

PS. I have started a new chant every time I drive into my mission boundaries, it goes like this " SALT - LAKE - SOUTH! SALT - LAKE- SOUTH!!!" and gets progressively faster. Try it with me now!

Frustration

This is kind of emo... but I don't care. I am tired, frustrated, and in a strange mood. I'm thinking of drawing a picture of something and burning it. So I will.

Condoleezza Rice

A couple weeks ago Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, came to BYU and gave a forum address. It was way better than I expected it to be. Well, I wasn't really expecting anything so I guess you could say I was pleasantly surprised. I wish I had taken notes during it because I knew they wouldn't put this one on the Devotional/Forum website where you can go back and re-read or re-watch previous devos. (I know because they didn't put the Apollo 13 guy, James Lovell, on that website either. Dang them!) But I got an email from BYU this week that had remarks from her address. So for those of you that were not in attendance or haven't read this yet, you can take a look at some of the things she had to say. Click here.

It was nice that she tailored her address to her college audience. She talked about finding and choosing a major that you will wake up every morning and say "I want to do that today". She talked about herself too and how she had been a music major and then changed to international politics or something like that. She was more personable than I imagined she would be. I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt like I learned a lot from it.

Nation's Most Popular University

I logged on to the BYU homepage today and found this article. BYU was "[f]or the second year in a row, and the third time in the past four years, BYU has been named the most popular university in America by U.S. News & World Report."

Pretty cool! Made me kind of proud :)

Apparently we beat Harvard by just 0.4%, nevertheless, we beat them!

Go Cougars!