A Spoonful of Suffocation

Sometimes you have to stop and tell yourself to breath, before you start hyperventilating and freaking out. Anxiety attacks have been known to happen on university campuses. I've kind of been at this point several times in the last couple weeks--every time I've enumerated what I have to do and by when. You know what never helps? Telling yourself you can't do it. You're consigning yourself to low quality work, a bad grade, and to regret for the rest of your life.

It's not easy strapping down and getting done things you've procrastinated, but it is possible. And it starts with telling yourself it is. And I know maybe it's trite, but Heavenly Father does help you. Maybe you've put off doing something until the last day, if you're willing to work really hard, he's going to help you get done what you need to. I promise. It's always worked for me. :) I hope everybody's last few days of school and finals go well!

A Spoonful of Holiday Cheer

Christmas is almost upon us. Have you finished your Christmas shopping? I know I haven't, but I've put a sizable dent in it. I no longer need presents for my younger sister or step-brother, or for one of my friends. Wait, who am I kidding? That's not sizable. Shoot. Anyways, every year around this time I realize all the friends I have and how little resources or time I have to come up with a nice, thoughtful gift for them all.

That's where my baking skills come in. Maybe I can't come up with unique gifts for all my friends, but I can sure make a variety of sugary goodies and present it all to them on a plate. As an added bonus, it gives me something to do in between studying for exams.

In preparation for this cookie-baking, candy-making extravaganza, I was browsing the web for some good ideas on what to make. So now for your viewing pleasure, I give you TasteSpotting.com

A Spoonful of The Chosen One

Wow. Harry Potter 7, Part I. You were everything you were supposed to be and more.

Besides the fact that I think Daniel Radcliffe looks kind of goofy with the combination of those glasses and facial hair, I was impressed by his acting this time around. He has been getting progressively better movie by movie, but it wasn't until this movie that I thought he had arrived. He was totally Harry Potter to me. And Emma Watson was superb as always. Rupert Grint, for having a haunted character for half the movie, still managed to be endearing the other half of the time.

Other standouts: Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, and Dobby! My favorite! He had some of the best lines in the whole movie!

I will watch this movie many more times in the future, guaranteed. Oh, Harry Potter, what my life would be without you and your wonderful, wonderful, magical world. :)

A SpoonFULL of Excitement, Anxiety, and PARIS.

I got this email in my inbox today, from the French Internship Facilitator(aka my new favorite person):

"Congratulations! Pending approval by the Honor Code Office, you will be accepted for the Paris Chamber of Commerce internship for Spring 2011. If any of you have not submitted your CV and questionnaire to M. LeBras, please do so immediately. If he has asked you to make any corrections on either of those forms, please likewise do so immediately. So, enough negative sentences: Congratulations on being accepted!"

I'm going to Paris this freaking summer! As an intern. Wow. It's hard to believe that it's actually going to happen. :0

Despite how completely excited I am, I am a bit anxious about it. There's so much to do in preparation: find my passport, book a plane flight, improve my French, and much more. I want to be a solid intern. I know I have a pretty good understanding of French grammar, but I definitely could use some help on my spoken (and written) French. I know that just as Heavenly Father has helped me thus far, he will continue to help me in my endeavors as i have faith. I completely believe this.



Guys, this is gonna be good. :D

A Spoonful of Normality

Recently, I had a conversation with my friends about what constitutes normality. This is quite the topic among university-age adults. I mean, most of our lives revolve around the other sex. We're constantly talking about who we'd like to date, who we hope never asks us out, and which of our friends are most likely to get married first. It's not surprising then, that we talk about our experiences with less than normal people. They are all around us it seems. Somebody watches nothing but watch Anime, they're labeled as weird. Somebody is in the medieval club. Weird. Somebody is wearing their shirt backwards intentionally. Weird.

Weird. Weird. Weird. Weird. Weird.

When you type that word enough you start to think it's a weird word.

This conversation however, made an interesting turn. We started talking about how each one of us aren't normal.

Confession: I wear an undershirt under just about every shirt I wear. It has come to be a kind of comfort blanket for me.

I have many quirks just like that that make me a little weird. And guess what? I bet you do too. Even if you're more than willing to share them or more hesitant. So what makes some people too weird?

I don't know. I do know, that no matter the strangeness or number of quirks somebody has, we need to love and accept them. Maybe not date them, but definitely be friendly. Definitely. And maybe we should just not be so obsessed with normality or weirdness. What do we know anyways?

A Spoonful of Twilight???

So when Twilight was fairly new and not quite the phenomenon it is now, I was a fan. I even was able to find documentation of this: it was listed as one of my favorite books by my 14-year-old self. Wow. I have since realized all the things the Twilight series is lacking in order to be a really good. Anyways, my astronomy teacher said the words "supermassive black hole" at least 5 times today because guess what is at the center of our galaxy? You guessed it. Anywho, I can't think of that song without thinking about the best scene of the Twilight movie. It was mostly made good because of this song, but here for your listening pleasure is one of Muse's most popular hits. I hope you enjoy.

A Spoonful of Spotlight

Sometimes you have to stick your neck out, either because you're being forced to by circumstances, or just because you have that inner desire, like hey, I need to do this. I had that when auditions for Académie Française came up. I had to audition.

Now some background. I have had moments where, standing in front of a roomful of people, I was able to be smart, talented, and even funny. When it comes to performing, it's never really been easy for me. I wasn't born a performer. I sometimes wonder if that has to do with my birth order...hm...Anyways, I still do it because I want to get better, and you can't get better without trying, right?

So this Académie Française thing. I did it. Tonight. And it went so-so. I kept thinking before my performance, if only I had thought to bring an accompanist. GAhhh. My guitar-playing sucked. That's not an exaggeration either. I have no problem admitting that to this blog. My singing, however, was not too bad. Pretty decent, actually. My friends came and watched too! Well, some of them. And it made me so happy. Even if I didn't do the best. Just the fact that they were willing to take 2 hours of their day out to come watch me, wow. I have some great friends.

The whole point of this blog is to say, you know what? You need to put yourself out there. Sometimes you might do worse than anticipated, heck, you might even get booed off the stage, but sometimes, you're going to be amazing. And I think those times make it all worth it. Which is why I'm auditioning for Big Band Night next week. :O Yep. You heard it first here. Haha, this should be fun. :D

A Spoonful of Singing, British Comedians

Whenever life gets you down...you should listen to this song. My astronomy teacher introduced me to this and said the numbers are actually pretty accurate. Not only will your spirits be lifted, but you'll be learning something too!

A Spoonful of Death

I always have time for sleep. In my mission prep class, taught by the famous Norm Nemrow, he mentioned how the night previously he didn't get to bed because he had something on his mind that made it impossible for him to sleep and asked if we could relate. I know that's happened to me, but what's strange is I haven't had that problem for the longest time now. I just feel this deep, deep desire to sleep. I hardly ever get less than 7 hours of sleep. It's pretty awesome, actually. I love to sleep.

Sleeping, however, is not my intended topic.

I saw the play "Tuesdays with Morrie" on Saturday at the HFAC and I was surprised by how much it affected me. I cried. A lot. It just made me think about things I don't really think about often. The relationship between family, love, and death.

Family is important because it gives you the opportunity to experience love--and love is what it's all about--but sometimes you lose the people you love. The people that make you want to a better person. Sometimes it's slowly, to a destructive disease, or quickly, to a tragic car accident. Either way, somebody else dies and leaves you more alone than you were before. We may lose these loved ones for the time being, but they can teach us more in their last hours than at any other interval in their life if they are able to show us how to die by learning to live. Are we learning the lessons we should be from others? Or are we going through life trying to stay ignorant? We're all dying, there are no exceptions. Which is why we need to learn how to live, as soon as possible. And I am convinced that living cannot and should not be done without loving.

Challenge: Forgive somebody who as wronged you either recently or long in the past. Just do it. Oh, and read Tuesdays With Morrie.

A Spoonful of Blogging

You may be wondering: "Is this the first blog Amy has written?" The answer to that question is "Puh-lease." This is the 3rd blog. Yep, t-h-i-r-d. I thought of maybe just continuing to write in on my other ones, but I've decided that this blog is too different.

I know how hard it is to be consistent in posting--my blog posting petered out just like my journal writing always does. The reason, I have come to believe, is that I try to write too much. I love details and explaining myself, hence, it's hard for me to be precise. I'm going to challenge myself with this blog. For any one day, I want somebody to be able to read my post in less than a minute. I'm not saying I won't make exceptions, but that will be the rule.

I want to write something worth reading. If people are able to say to themselves, "That was funny," or "I'm glad I read that," or even, "Hm...that's interesting," my goal will have been reached. I think this will be fun. And such a great learning experience. Ah, learning experiences. Hope your Thursday is amazing!