Some thoughts:

As you all know, there have been a lot of things on my mind lately. In church Sunday/other random times over the past couple of days I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about everything--by myself, with friends, on the phone with my mom, etc... So this is a list of several impressions/thoughts/scriptures/quotes that have been on my mind lately.

1. God is great even beyond our comprehension.
2. He has His own agenda/plan for us and we don't really see that sometimes.
3. Prayer should help us understand these two things, and because of that, help us bring our lives in line with what He knows is best for us.
4. He has His own timeline.
5. We all know in our lives that we are not where we could be.
6. It's only through the transforming power of the atonement that we can really become what we CAN be.
7. At the same time we should give ourselves a little more credit- we're here, and we're trying
8. We really need to learn to see with our hearts. What is really most important?
9. The future will hold a lot. We need to be ready for that.
10. It's all a process (vs. 5-11)
11. We need to act. It's not just about knowing something is right (vs. 17-19) you have to do something about it as well



the end. those are my thoughts from the weekend.

Cookie Emergency

^the title of an email I received last night:

"Darling Fellows,

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday of this week, we do not have anyone signed up to bring cookies. If there is anyone who can lessen this tragedy by bringing some baked goods for his or her fellow Fellows, I know lots of souls would be very appreciative.

Best regards,

(name deleted)
Cookie Captain"





moral: writing fellows are weird. and i kind of love it.

YUM

A few more :)

After being reprimanded a few days ago about not including a couple of key people in my "people who make my life a little more fascinating" list, I decided that it was time for another one of those great posts. Full of pictures, love, and very little text.


That's my older sister Rachel with her husband Peter. I cannot even describe in words how good she is to me. I don't deserve it but am SO grateful!!

Here again- this is a girl who knows how to take care of other people like nobody's bizness... and I don't know what I did before we were friends.

true fact about Ryan. I have never met anyone who knows him who doesn't think he's one of the nicest, coolest, and most genuine people out there.


here we go-- roommates and neighbors. They make my life fascinating, for better or for worse, what would life be like without them???

annoyance

Here is a pet peeve of mine:

when a certain friend of mine on facebook constantly updates her status to stuff about her baby that's on the way. her current one is,

whats the difference between "junior" and "the second"??

don't care.
here are a few of the other ones from the past couple of days (not even close to an exhaustive list):

YAY! Its baby shower day! I cant wait!!!

is ready to go have the best baby shower of all time! Lookin good too, haha.

great service, first week on ministry maternity leave, that was different. Now we're home putting away all the lovely presents we got for baby Gabriel!

Is it true that I have to wash the baby's clothes in Dreft?

still don't care. now you've annoyed me to the point that I'm hiding you on my newsfeed.

Explanation

I might as well explain.

Title of my blog:

last year my friend Ian and I were talking. Someone came up and was mentioning Europe or something and Ian told them they should talk to me because 'sara gets around'

and from then on it was the running joke. "sara really gets around..."

only not. but thats okay.


hence "Getting Around" = Sara's somewhat Fascinating Life



random ppl who have made my life a little more fascinating at one point or another:

my eight year old sister anna. She's the little blonde version of me, and never lets me forget it!



Thaddeus aka Tad


Helena, my beautiful brazilian friend

and Roy if you count him...

Boo -- deals with my crazies
and Harry Potter of course lol
then there's Lara. and Emily.

and so many many more. but im all blogged out for one night.

random photo gallery

Hi. I'm Sara. and I'm a photoholic.


Here I am with my coworkers (in the middle):

I've always thought it would be fun to spend the night in the library, and I finally found the perfect spot.
I found a book.. .. and i laughed


This one was in "locked case" where all the extra sketchy books go

oh. the next one was in the BYU bookstore. Answer: he's just not that into you.

HBLL again:
??????

BYU bookstore. self help section.
Denzel.. I'm sorry... I don't think it'd work out. (any guesses why???)

Vanessa decided the best place to put the old conference premix poster was on Cat. there's also an EDP one on the other side you can't see.
And choosing a poster at Pennyroyal:
dew. eat there. its delicious.

"thanxxx sara, you're BA"

hahahaha that is what Nam said when I agreed to put the EDP poster as my profile picture..

and I had the thought, "i've never been told that before... its kind of funny!!"

considering that its me.. yes... ME he's talking about.. makes me laugh.



Lara is still in AZ I am having withdrawals. Even though I don't see her much anymore since she's been dating Jason, not seeing her for 5 days is strangely difficult. I'm still adjusting I guess because last semester and last year we spent all of our time together. Same friends, same ward, same room, same job.. even one class together. But our lives are moving in different directions, and with that comes change-- and change is scary!!
So I went looking for a picture on my computer of lara to add to this post... and I found this one. Interesting story: Mar left her locket at our apt one day and before returning it to her we decided to strategically insert a couple of faces.

Face 1: our freshman roommate's boyfriend. description- nerdy, trumpet player, awkward as you have never seen awkward done before. constantly making out on our couch with our equally awkward roommate. how is it that these kids seem to get themselves in relationships/married faster than the rest of us at byu??? not that I'm complaining... hahaha good for them!! :) I just won't settle I guess.

Face 2: our friend Ang's ex. description: hmm... strange? and he used to stalk lara. Big-time, before he switched to angela (i dont know how she fell for this kid.. oh well-- she's getting married to someone else now anyways). He used to ask me on facebook where lara was if he saw i was online (and sometimes when i wasn't), probably once a day or so. and he burped in her face on the ONE date she went on with him.

So naturally when we returned the locket to Marissa in New Testament the next day, a LOT of laughter insued. Then we learned about Jesus... and felt bad.

and to be honest, i feel bad writing this now. but how can i blog without being honest? in my defense, I made up with the roommate from Face 1 Boy... she didn't like me and lets be honest, I didnt like her much, but I think the bad feelings on both sides are gone now. Last year is dead and gone, and its time to move to bigger and better things.

just some more of my life

Today was SUCH a good day!! It started off early with Ward Council at 8 (somehow I woke up at 730 on my own after not setting an alarm.. whoopsy, but i was on time!!). It was somehow miraculously over by 8:30 and I was able to spend some time reading my scriptures/journaling. During Relief Society I went to get a drink of water and ran into this friend of mine, who I haven't talked to in a couple of months. So I talked to him for a bit which was really nice. He's dating this girl and they're getting pretty serious, which is good/bad.. I'm glad he's happy but sad because one of my roommates (one of his best friends) is in love with him. He also tried to give me some advice (hahaha if you only knew the stories behind this one... his advice-giving started back in december, and ever since then he's been like my big brother when it comes to advice).

After church my home teachers came over. I absolutely love them. Nicole and I just talked to them for probably 45 min about everything. Michael is engaged and the countdown is on- 39 days (i think...)!! Its so funny to see him... he's always got this big grin on his face, I've never seen anything like it. He's so happy and good and smart-- he deserves the best and I'm so happy for him! Anyways they gave me a blessing also because I've been having kind of a hard time lately and I felt such peace. I am SO thankful for the priesthood. For reals.

It was also the Draper Temple Dedication and we got to watch it from the Marriott Center. I thought my roommates were all going but it turned out Nicole got sick, Lara's out of town, Katie was working, McKenna didn't want to go, and Liesl was going with some other people in the ward I don't know very well. Sooo I texted Vanessa and went with her, mike, holland, and emily. It was wonderful!! We waited for about an hour and a half inside before it started. This part was kind of dull to be completely honest (i was stranded on the far side of Mike and Holland... go figure haha) but the actual dedication was amazing. AMAZING. love it.


oohhhh and things I loved about this weekend:
1. flirting/dancing shamelessly with high school boys saturday night. ahahaha
2. shopping
3. dancing
4. good news
5. sunshine

things I disliked about this weekend
1. bad news
2. procrastinating
3. ... ate some chocolate cake... . . .
4. not quite enough sleep
5. patience... I'm trying to get some.

looking up looking down

most important thing right now: doing the right thing

next most important thing: following my dreams

third most important thing: working hard

fourth most important thing: keeping perspective

I am in a constant state of improvement. It gets hard at times. After last year's lows, I made the decision that I would never become stagnant again. I will never become stagnant again. I will keep trying to be a better person, a better friend, a better student, a harder worker until the day I die. My conscience won't allow me to do anything less than that. So as I'm sitting here in the cartography lab justifying my procrastination and thinking about stuff, I realize by doing this I'm not keeping what I promised to myself. Soooooo. . . this blog post is getting cut short. and im going to get back to work.

Why I have the best dad ever

1. He gives really good advice
2. He is suuuper smart
3. He knows when to tell me if I need to change (or when I'm being irrational or ridiculous or whatever)
4. He has a lot of life experience to draw upon
5. He loves me and wants what is best for me
6. He will always take care of me, or do his best

I love my dad!!!

?

Right now I'm working on a geography paper about my family's migration history-- taking a look at where I come from in recent history (only up to my grandparents). Initially I was really NOT looking forward to this assignment, I generally think of family history stuff as kind of dull but reading my Mormor's email about where she and Opa had lived and why each of them moved to those places was fascinating. so for those of you who dont know, my Opa moved to CA from Holland right after the war and then a couple of years later served a mission to Germany. Being a Dutch missionary to Germany right after WWII must have been difficult, as well as an amazing opportunity of forgiveness and understanding of the love Heavenly Father has for His children. Especially because of some of the things I know my Opa witnessed during the war... (And also, I know from personal experience that the Dutch still aren't too fond of the Germans... haha) I guess I knew all this stuff about him before, but its pretty cool!!

Its when I start going on about stuff like this that's when I know I'm procrastinating.

random stuff that happened in the past couple of days:

1. When we were passing out fliers for the Wallflowers dance on tuesday these two guys walked by me and one was eating a burger. As I passed him he looked up at me and said, "hey! do you want a bite?" motioning towards the burger. ummmm NO THANK YOU. weirdies. why on earth would I want to share a burger with a random guy walking around late at night?? I'd prolly get a disease or something. lol thats rude. :(

2. Yesterday I bought some new music. Today I took a BOM midterm. On my way home from the testing center I was listening to the said 'new music' -- which is really good to dance to. I couldn't contain myself. I was walking at the top of the hill on the S side of campus, so where there is that road that goes around up top... anyways I decided to do a few moves while I was walking after I checked to make sure no cars or ppl could see. Of course, i come out of a spin (i can't hear anything else when my ipod is in) and BAM there is a car next to me that just came around the corner

I should probably just embrace it, but I was a little embarassed.

3. i never wrote about INOP. it was good. my next-door neighbors at the White House (who I am currently grumpy at because they woke me up last night being loud in the middle of the night, setting off another night of little-to-no sleep) made t-shirts for it... haha. one said "chicks dig my pancakes" and another said "I went to INOP and all I got were these silly man boobs." It made me laugh. But not enough to forgive them for waking me up last night hahaha.

I think INOP is going to have to become (atleast) a bi-annual tradition.

4. I am excited for tomorrow once again. SO excited. by far the best day of the week. 1pm rolls around and my friday afternoon/night routine will be in full swing: temple eat sleep dance. all my loves rolled into a sweet 12-hour (generally...*cough*) package.

5. Lara texted me this afternoon and her and Jason got stranded between Page and Flagstaff on their way to phoenix... which would really stink but at the same time I am sure they will have a good story out of it, right? They're fine and Jason's parents finally ''rescued'' them. What a way to meet the parents lol


and now for that nasty but fascinating paper...

Langrage, Truth, and Logic

Lara just accused me of possibly being one of the most boring bloggers ever because I don't include the *juicy* details from my life. Sorry Lara. I'll try to be better.

I can't believe she is awake. I've been up since 4 (surprise surprise), but she got up at 530 to work on a paper. She's actually probably ticked at me because I've been super chatty since she got up-- talking about last night, and how ridiculous I am, and how WOAH I can't sleep ever anymore, and school and blablabla sara shut up please. She's got bigger things to worry about, but not just because she's working on a paper right now. She's going down to Phoenix and meeting Jason's parents for the first time this weekend. hahaha... good luck.

I am going to skip my classes today because I know by the time they roll around my brain will have ceased to function. Hopefully my current sleeping curse will at least allow me to get in a substantial nap later this morning.


and in other news... life at the library is riveting as usual...


Examine the two books in the middle. When the books were re-bound or whatever that process is called... they made a mistake. They are the same book, but the one on the left has a typo. And so my blogging has come to this.

no juicy details for you, world wide web...

no sleeeep

I should be writing my research paper, but I am going to take a minute to write a bit... especially because that last post is kind of depressing. This morning I woke up at 4 on my own. I don't know what's been wrong with me lately, but I can't seem to sleep through the night. I wake up with my mind racing, thinking about stuff so much that I am unable to get back to sleep. Its the third night in a row this has happened, so I decided to go out into the living room to stretch and try to relax. It didn't work, so at 8 I finally went to work. It was probably my least productive day of work EVER. Roger brought us all cake, and we spent 30 min just chilling and eating. I read call numbers for over an hour and a half... which is boring but easy. I just felt useless. I need to sleep more.

yeah.
conclusion: i need to sleep more

A day to think

Its been two years since Allison Brady (my best friend in HS) passed away unexpectedly in a 4-wheeling accident. The day came faster this year. I didn't realize that it was the 16th until this morning, and almost burst into tears. This was probably due to the fact that I haven't gotten enough sleep for the past couple of days, and I am trying to figure out some other things in my life right now that are confusing, and on top of that there is school.

I really miss her. But its nice to just look back and remember the good stuff. I have good friends now, but in all honesty, I haven't found anyone that relates to me as well as she did. She always knew what to say, and we had so much fun but also helped each other be better. I remember one night just sitting out in her car talking about life and the eternities and stuff for hours... to have a friend you can talk with like that is rare. really rare... and its something beautiful too. It's going to be a tough day, and let's be honest, a tough week as well. But I'll be okay. Things are always okay in the end because Heavenly Father knows what he's doing. and I know that.

ups and downs

I am too tired to write something coherent....

1. Dance party fri night was fantastic
2. Afterparty was even better
3. went to bed at 6:45am
4. woke up at 7:45 and cleaned for cleaning check
5: Mom called and dad is in the hospital- appendicitis :( pray for him please, he's still in there
6. Napped
7. Groceries/lunch with rachel cause peter is out of town
8. Napped through Stake Conference :(
9. Pi day party next door
10. Sick cause I ate pie on an empty stomach and didn't take my acid reflux med today

and now im going to sleep.

Each day gets better

This week has been so much better than the past few. Friday I went to the temple, had dinner with Andrea at India Palace (yum) and then went to the Draper Temple open house and dancing at a 1/2 EDP event. Saturday I was able to take a break from life and spend some time with myself. I went grocery shopping, worked out, napped, and just relaxed. I caught up on my episodes of Chuck :) and went to bed relatively early. Sunday I had paninis over at the white house, went to a fireside, and then played games over at Aaron, Paul, Adam, and G-Force's apartment. It wasn't anything particularly special, but this weekend was exactly what I needed to kick-start the week.

I have had a great week, productive yet relaxing (except for preparing for a presentation in my writing class). I ran into Ryan and Vanessa at the library on Tuesday :) and because of that got NO work done. Not that I minded, I'd rather talk to either of them over do homework any day. Wednesday I paid for my sins and spent the whole evening researching for that project/presentation. And now I'm procrastinating once again. I only have one more assignment due tomorrow, but I am going to have to venture back onto campus to do it... and after getting back from the gym all sweaty and nast I just want to veg.

Tomorrow is *suprise* another dance party! I think its time to break out the bright green tennis shoes for st. patty's day :)

other than that I have no idea what im going to wear aaaaaaaaaaaak.

not that big of a deal, sara.

I love life. Oh man... things are goood. rough sometimes, but awesome.

INOP

My apartment is putting on an 'international night of pancakes' aka INOP. I am suuuper excited!! :)

I just hope it will be a success.

How could it not?? pancakes and friends. YUM!

what shall I write about today?

you may be asking yourself what that is a picture of.

well today there was a power outage at BYU and I was working in the library during it. talk about a creeepy experience in the stacks. It was like something out of a horror movie minus the blood and guts and creepy people.

and it was fun, too.




in other news...

I just went to the restroom at the library (i promise this story has a point to it). It used to be a men's bathroom, but was recently changed. I guess they must have been having some problems with it because...

and the little writing says something like "very gender specific :P" or something like that.


I wonder how many boys went into that bathroom on accident before they put up this sign ahhaha. how embarassing for them.

WwWwEekend fun!

It was nice to get a break from my usual weekend this weekend. I mean- there were some classic elements- temple fri afternoon, dance party fri night (which btw realllly made me wish I knew how to salsa) but Saturday and Sunday were different. This guy from the White House next door, also in our FHE group, had his bday on saturday, so a bunch of us went out to eat then to a party for him. I don't know them too well so it was nice to spend time with people outside of my comfort zone. I guess I meet people at dance parties, but those friendships are so superficial because nothing more ever comes out of them since, lets be honest, people don't exactly talk a lot at those kinds of events. So you dance, know their names, talk a little, but never really get to a real friendship. I'm sure they're all wonderful people (who I would love to get to know better), but you need more than just dances to get to know who people really are.

Today we had dinner with the white house again, and then they came over and ate dessert at our place while we watched the CES fireside. It was really good, but I was exhausted and fell asleep for part of it. We're so lucky to have such access to the apostles and prophets. I love it!! :)

ohhh and note to Dad-- remind Anna to write me a letter back!! :)



oh and I noticed something on the cultural landscape while we were out to dinner-- weird that i'm starting to pick up on things like this

a tattoo parlor called "painted temple"

I thought it was really interesting because its like an incorporation of the mormon imprint on the landscape with the newer non-LDS culture as well. fascinating.