ultimate frisbee

I just love ultimate. I joined an ultimate league and today was our first game! Regardless of the bitter cold and SNOW it was absolutely INCREDIBLE. Several awesome dives, crazy catches, and intense defensive plays took place. It was a really, really close game but we ended up winning 13-11! It was awesome. I threw one of our points after I BARELY caught a throw the wind got the better of. It was epic. I am currently on a bit of an ultimate high. (like a runner's high, only better) and am just in love with the game. So, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to my amazing friends who introduced me to this amazing game. My team will ROCK. Joining this league was the best decision I've made for the summer so far. Ultimate frisbee is in a word...ultimate.

moving

I was supremely ready to get out of my old apartment but, I hate moving. It is such a pain in the butt. But, now it's over and I don't have to move again for a year. And I love my new apartment. I was wary at first but I think I am going to love it here! This is the first time I've lived with all completely new roommates. When I was feeling a little nervous my mom told me it was like the violin camp I went to in the mountains in Idaho in 2005. I didn't know a SINGLE person and I was going to be camping in cabins and playing my violin with these people. I was sick the night before because I was so nervous but, it turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences of my musical life. And, this is going to turn out to be awesome too. Even though I will most definitely miss my old roommates it's not like I'll never see them :) So, here's to new experiences! Bring on the classes.

the happiest place on earth.

Disneyland makes me giddy. I just love that place. I just returned from an excursion to this wonderful place. My favorite ride is Indiana Jones, by far. I LOVE that ride! It was a super fun trip with my two brothers, Jocelyn, and Skyler. Go team. We drove on Thursday, went to downtown disney that night (highlight: Lego store!) and then went to bed to prepare for our excellent adventure in the happiest place on earth the next day. We got to the park at 8:00 AM and stayed until 11:00 PM (Jocelyn and Skyler stayed til 12 but I was WAY too tired). It was awesome. Then, today we went to the beach and found starfish, HUNDREDS of crabs, anemones (you were right Jocelyn), lots of little digging clams, and saw dolphins jumping! I love the beach. Following the beach we began our long drive home. It was an AWESOME trip!!

the beach with my two favorite boys! :)

DISNEYLAND!!!!

Goofy gave me a high four! (he only has four fingers)

look at Jocelyn's face. epic.

BUZZ!

this is me.

Random adventures are the best ever. Here are a collection of pictures from the past week when all of us probably should have been studying. But, you won't remember the tests you fail, only the people you avoided studying with. Okay...so they put them in backwards order but oh well I'm too brain dead to figure out why.

Cheesy smiles. Our specialty.

Releasing our wishes into space written on balloons

The cute picture.

And....the even MORE cute picture.

BUBBLES!!

we love to swing!

planning surprises.

Have you ever surprised someone? It is the best, EVER. I had a surprise birthday party when I turned twelve (or was it thirteen?) where my friends all showed up for breakfast before school and we then walked to school in a very large parade of girls. I was also surprise-kidnapped on my 18th birthday out of the park by three of my friends and driven to another friend's house with a beanie over my head, laying in the back seat of a car, listening to Mo-Tab. I have been surprised on numerous other occasions that didn't involve my birthday. But, being surprised is not nearly as fun as surprising someone else. It is super fun to plan a surprise and watch the person wait and wait and wait and wait and wait, practically going crazy. I am currently helping plan a surprise for my roommate Jocelyn's birthday. It is going to be AMAZING!!!!! I am a little jealous of her boyfriend's supreme plans because they are seriously THAT awesome. Props to Skyler. Surprises are beautiful. And....FINALS ARE OVER!!!! Hallelujah.

the sun

I am a sun-loving kind of girl. I love doing things outside and get stir crazy very quickly if I'm inside too long. My favorite activities in life all happen outside. Aside from school, lab work, board games, and movie watching (all of which I enjoy immensely) everything else I love is outside. Yesterday evening was wonderful. I got home and went running and ended up in the park where the ward was having a closing social-type thing. I threw around a frisbee for about forty minutes then we got enough people to play 4-on-4 ultimate. It has been ENTIRELY too long since I played ultimate. It is an incredible sport. One point my teammate went to throw it to me near the endzone and he threw it quite a ways over my head so I was sprinting for it as it got closer and closer to the needles of a pine tree. About a foot or two above the ground I snagged it amongst the pine branches. It was awesome. There is something satisfying about accomplishing something that no one expected you to do. Earning my place as a decent ultimate player we continued to play a marvelous game. The sun is amazing. Without it life itself could not happen here on this awesome little globe we call Earth. I am SO glad the sun has decided to show it's smiling face and I hope it stays for a long time. I can't handle any more snow.

ice cream cake.

Look for the silver lining. The light at the end of the tunnel. The rainbow after a rain storm. My day has been looooooong. But, in the middle of it at 3:00 in room 601 of the Widtsoe building there was my silver lining, sitting on the table begging me to eat it. It was the most amazing ice cream cake I have ever seen in my entire life. A thick layer of brownie-ish cake on the bottom then a thin layer of chocolate fudge frosting then another deliciously thick layer of mint chocolate chip ice cream. The whole thing was about six inches tall and although it was impossibly hard to cut it was absolutely delicious. The reason for this gift from heaven? Her name is Maegan. She is the lab manager of Dr. Crandall's lab. Today was the last lab meeting of the semester and we were celebrating. About two months ago Maegan told me she made an ice cream cake over the weekend. I informed her that I was incredibly impressed and jokingly said I would like one for myself. She asked when my birthday was and after I told her she informed me she would make one for the last lab meeting. I honestly didn't expect her to remember. But, Maegan the amazing came through and made a delicious cake for all of us to eat. We were celebrating a number of things in lab meeting today including: Dave's wedding at the end of the month, Dohyup's wedding at the end of the month, Jesse's baby is due at the end of the month, my birthday, the end of the semester, Jeff going to WashU and will be the only BYU grad in the bioinformatics program, and the fact that we are all pretty much amazing.

Oh, another amazing little pearl in my day was the shirt I wore. My incredible roommates gave it to me for my birthday. It says "LOVE" and the "O" is a heart colored like the earth with one of the little alien guys from Toy Story behind it. (Yes, I turned 20 but I'm still a kid at heart) It is AWESOME.

my mommy!

My most favoritest person in the whole wide world came to visit this weekend for my birthday! (and to visit Great Aunt Francis) My mommy! She is amazing. I love her to pieces. She is definitely a pearl of beauty in this world. Here are things I love about my mom:

• she has awesome red hair
• she is the nicest person I know, she's always thinking of others before herself
• she plays tennis like a mad woman
• she plays the violin incredibly well
• she puts up with my brothers and dad (I'm still sorry for leaving her all alone with them)
• she can sew (she made one of my prom dresses in high school)
• she is an amazing gardener
• she is the best cook on the whole entire planet
• her cookies are literally heaven on earth
• she loves me no matter what
• she came to visit me!

And the list could go on and on and on and on and on. But I have a test tomorrow that I haven't begun to study for so I will have to end it there. In a nutshell: my mom is fantastic.

random conversations.

I came to the library this morning to study for my disgusting cell biology midterm and work on the take home final. But, alas! here I am blogging instead. I had a most interesting conversation on my way to the library, as I was walking up the hill to campus. It went something like this:

Me: *huge yawn*

Some random guy probably in his late 50s, walking behind me: "Still tired, huh?"

Me: "Haha, yeah."

Guy: "You know someone doesn't think anyone's watching when they have a huge, mouth-wide open yawn without covering their mouth."

Me: "Yeah, true story."

Guy: "Kind of like picking your nose. We all do it but we just do it secretly. I've found the best place is in the elevator."

Me: "Yeah, that seems like a good place."

Guy: "No chance of getting caught. So, what are you studying?" (I was holding a stack of flashcards)

Me: "Cell biology."

Guy: "Ah, when you're studying those organelles don't forget to look at the forest."

Me: "Okay."

Guy: "When I was in a cell/development class in graduate school we had a teacher ask us why humans were made with membranous organelles and such organized structures. We all went into deep explanations when all he really wanted was for us to say, 'Because we are.'"

Then he walked into the Widtsoe and I continued to the library, with my day thoroughly brightened.

3 tennis sets.

Upon telling my mom about the horrendous three weeks ahead of me she informed me to look at it like three tennis sets...you're playing 3/5 and you have to win the first 3. Isn't she a genius? So, I am past the first game. 1-0. I took my last trip to the testing center for my microbiology class (before the final that is, and there's still an in-class test in addition to that) it was the 11th time for that class. 90% on my final "diseases of the day" quiz. Almost good enough for a compliment from the TV screen but definitely good enough for me. I get to visit the testing center two more times this week and my take-home cell bio final is due next Tuesday. Then classes end and the real finals start. Yay school! In all reality, I love school. I always have since about first grade. Granted, there was a large part of middle/high school that I was supremely bored in classes but I have always LOVED to learn. Every subject fascinates me (excluding English, sorry Jocelyn). I just absolutely love learning and increasing that jumble of knowledge up in my brain. I especially love hands on stuff. That's probably why I've always loved lab classes. They are by far my favorite. And working in a lab is the bomb. That's all for today. Hopefully by the end of the night I'll be up 2-0 and finish my physics paper.

knowledge.

One of the greatest pearls in the whole world is knowledge. And today I am especially grateful for the knowledge I have. Happy Easter! Easter has always been my favorite holiday because it is near my birthday but as I've gotten older it is still my favorite. In my mind Easter is somehow a little less commercialized that other holidays and it truly is about Jesus Christ. I had the amazing opportunity to go to watch general conference in Salt Lake City today. It was AMAZING to hear a room full of thousands of Christians sing praises of Jesus Christ in the hymn "Rejoice, the Lord is King." At the end the choir sang "He is Risen." It was incredible. The organ and hundreds of voices rang throughout the stunned hall. Today, I am grateful for the knowledge of Jesus Christ and His infinite atonement and that He lives and loves me. It's so comforting to know that there is always someone who understands everything I am going through. Happy Easter!!

kids.

Kids say the funniest things. Yesterday I helped with a field trip for sixth graders. They came to campus and did some stuff in the morning that I have no idea about but then they did three rotations of scientific things with people that work in Dr. Crandall's lab. They played "blood bingo" with slides of blood cells on microscopes, looked for insects outside, and extracted DNA from strawberries. I helped with the DNA extracting. Without fail every rotation someone asked if they could drink the mushed up, soap and isopropanol filled juice. Ew. Here's a few of my favorite comments:

• "I don't want these strawberries to go to waste!" -Little girl
• "We are aliens. But don't worry, we come in peace." -Two best friends (girls)
• "So the white stuff you see in strawberries is it's DNA, right?" -one of the chaperones. (For the record, the white stuff inside a strawberry is not it's DNA. The DNA is INSIDE the cells."
• Boy 1: "So, could we do this with people DNA?" Me: "Yup." Boy 1: "Awesome! So you can squish up a guy's finger and get the DNA out." Boy 2: "It'd probably look the same as what we have too cuz it'd be all bloody." Me: "That's disgusting. You can just use your spit." Boy 2: "Ohhh..."
• Girl: "What does DNA stand for?" Me: "Deoxyribonucleic acid." Girl: "Huh?" Boy: "something, something, something nucleic acid."
• "This stuff is leaking all over me and I'm going to get a rash!!" -A very concerned girl
• "Will it hurt it if I take a picture?" After this one about five girls took a picture of my hook with the blob of DNA at the end.

Overall, it was extremely entertaining and a lot of fun. If you're ever interested in seeing DNA, it's super easy. Strawberries are probably the easiest and you'll get the most DNA because they are octaploid, which means they have eight copies of each chromosome. So, to extract DNA:

1. Put your fruit in a plastic ziploc bag and put about 10 mL of water in the bag (it doesn't have to be exact.)
2. Add a few drops of dishwashing soap (like Dawn). Squish up your fruit until it's mostly juice.
3. Cut a hole in the corner of your bag and pour the juice (try to not get any chunks) into a tube or cup.
4. Let isopropanol run down the side of the tube. (Don't let it drop directly on top of the juice or it will mix together)
5. The isopropanol will pull the DNA up and you will see white strands of DNA. When you pull it out it looks a little like snot. (Lovely, I know.)

So there you have it. If you ever get bored, there's something for you to do. And enjoy the kids in your life because I definitely miss seeing kids on a regular basis.