November happenings!

I'll mostly just let the pictures speak for themselves. But there is one thing that I don't have a picture of that happened this month! I found out that I'm going to Seattle this summer! I got accepted into the Flourishing Families Project, which is a paid research opportunity this summer! (Check out the website if you want to; http://flourishingfamilies.byu.edu) I'm pretty excited about it!! I've never been to Seattle, and I'm excited to learn more about families and what helps them be successful.

Alright! So here's the pictures:Brett (my roommate boyfiend's) Birthday Party!

I'm pretty much a pool shark.

Combined birthday party for my roommate Paula and I.

Roommates! :)

Friends from work!

Yup. New shoes!

Update

Sorry for slacking in my blog...whoops. But school is going well. I am keeping busy with school and work! I feel like my entire life is just work, school, sleep, and church! It's great! Not too much else is going on besides that. I have fun hangin out with friends too, but I mostly do that when we are studying together...haha. But yeah, that's about it! I'm doing well! :)

Back to school!

Yup! I guess it's that time again...time to be back in school with about a billion things to do. But I'm actually pretty excited about this semester! All of my classes are things that I am very interested in. For example, I am taking three Communication Disorder classes, so that should be really good. In addition, I'm taking an intro to family processes class, and a family history/genealogy class, which should be good.
So yesterday in my grammar studies class, I was again reassured that I like what I chose to major in. I just want to help people to overcome their communication blocks, so that they can have their normal life back. It is so sad to me when people can't vocalize their thoughts or stories. I think it is so important to help people young, so that their lives will not be negatively impacted by a lack of communication. However, sometimes disorders are acquired in old age, due to brain damage. In this case, it could be a good idea to provide these patients with another form of communication, such as a computer or something, instead of them using their words. Our teacher showed us these video clips:

tono tono - broca's aphasia patient

I'm not gonna lie...this one did make me laugh a little bit, just because it seems so unreal. But in reality, he thinks that he is intelligible. That is so interesting, and sad to me; communication is such a vital skill, and I feel bad when people cannot say what they want to! And I still cannot figure out why he switches to such perfect speech when he is counting to small numbers. If you've got any ideas, let me know!

Broca's Aphasia

This man can understand the questions, but he just has a hard time coming up with the connectors to make the proper response. He has the main idea there, but it is just not connected, so it is hard to understand. It is amazing that the different parts of the brain that are damaged can result in such varied outcomes.

Wernicke's Aphasia

This is just so sad to me, because he thinks that he is intelligible, but he cannot really understand what is being asked of him.

One time I went camping

These are some cute girls in my ward, before we went canoeing! So much fun!

Here is a pic of me and a fellow Ohioan!! Yay! :) O-H....I-O!!!

Silly faces before bed....we were super tired!! (If you couldn't tell...)

We had a lot of good food during the campout, thanks to the wonderful bishopbric! We had potatoes, turkey, good veggies, cobbler, starburst, and smores. I tried smores with a Resees cup for the first time, and it was delicious! I recommend it!

This is my friend Andrea and myself pretty soon after we got to camp.

Needless to say, I was very tired at the end of camp. I fell asleep on the way home. I was so out, they decided to take this picture of me...

Fainting Goats

This made me laugh. They're kind of cute. Poor little guys just can't help it. I'm not real sure how to make the actual video show up, but you should take a look!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGz97dxGHV8&feature=related

Aren't Decisions Great?

...as dad would say. So lately, I've been trying to make up my mind about a lot of things. The one that is most pressing on my mind is whether or not I should move for fall/winter. I have been looking at a lot of different places lately. I would really like a place that is closer to my major building (the Taylor building...waaayy on the other side of campus), a private room would be nice, as well as laundry in the apartment.
However, all of these things add up to more money, being away from friends, and of course moving, which is not fun. I think I have narrowed it down to two places as options, but I can't seem to make a decision about it. I need to act quickly, too, or else someone else might snatch my opportunity...although, I guess that would in a sense, make my decision for me! Another thing I have been considering is a bike, as well as a laptop. And these would both be very nice, but they would definitely be delayed if I were to move to a more expensive place. Humm...

Also, I need to pick a minor pretty soon and start taking the classes for it so I can graduate on time! I'm pretty decided on SFL as my minor, but there are just so many options!

A mission could also be in my near future, but I am just not sure about that either. I need to keep thinking about. If I do decide to go on a mission, I would maybe want to sign up for more classes this fall and winter so I can get ahead a little bit. My goodness. That would be hard.

What else...oh yeah, I was even tossing around the idea of going home for winter, just for a little break, so I can spend time with family, and actually save up some money. That would be nice, but it would be hard to delay classes for a whole semester.

Wow. Yeah, that's a lot to think about! I'll end again, with what my dad always says...aren't decisons great?! :)

Fun Stuff

Alrighty! So here is something fun that I did recently. So over the weekend, I was privileged to be part of a human slingshot! Yeah--awesome! I was kind of worried at first, because in my mind, we were going to be shooting people into the air somehow, and I could just see that ending badly. However, it was much more safe than that. So here's how it worked: there was a large piece of stretchy fabric (it would have been much better if we were all asked to wear stretchy pants to participate, but maybe next time), and four people got inside of this fabric and formed a square. From here, two people standing across from each other would run and switch places with that person. (Remembering to keep to the right to avoid collisions!!) The force of running into this stretchy fabric would 'sling' the other two people who would then switch places with their partner. Ok, the more I explain this, the more confusing it sounds...you pretty much just have to trust me that it was fun and I would highly recommend you all try it sometime. The diagram might help, but there is also a risk it will just make it more confusing. But whatever. Needless to say, I need to get myself one of these stretchy fabric treasures.

Hello there!

Well, this is exactly my first blog ever. This is gonna be kind of a trial to see if I can actually get into this whole blogging thing or not. But I figured I'd give it a try...so stay posted! :)