Gracias for the bagels and football.

I have already failed! But, I have an excuse. I can't get plugged into wifi on my laptop so I've been limited to updating when I'm on campus and on a school computer.
This weekend has been spectacular. Thanksgiving was a blast; I made it to three different dinners. I was surrounded by new friends and people who have become my family; I loved it. On Friday, I went to the library, finished a paper in less time than I expected and then was picked up by my aunty and her family to go to the Kahuku Red Raiders football game. I have never seen so much community spirit behind a high school team before in my life. It was amazing to see the support that everyone had for those boys on the field. I was honored to be a part of it and to experience what it means to be a "Red Raider for Life". I took pictures but strangely they were all deleted so I'll figure out how to get videos up here. I have been loving my time in Hawaii and everyday I wake up I know that I made the right choice to come out here. Also, I got an AMAZING box of stuff from my family today - protein bars, TIME magazine, and bagels! I loved it. I spoke to my oldest sister yesterday and she told me about her plan to write a children's book series; she asked me to be her editor. I am so excited to be given this opportunity to work with her and I know that we will learn a lot through the process. I am grateful for my family and for the person they have helped me to become.

Hawaii: A Reemergence of Passion

After a lot of time, thinking, more time, and pondering I have decided to start blogging, again. This always happens to me. I begin a journal, I leave it. I find it in a corner underneath my bed, re-read the posts, laugh a little and think "why did I ever stop?" I know why I stopped. Too little time and too little to talk about. It is not that interesting things do not happen during my day but the quickness in which they leave my memory. I need to be more grateful for the many beautiful things around me. But, here I am again. Almost a full year - to the date - from my last blog entry. I am trying a couple of things differently this time. 1) I will commit to this. 2) I will buy a camera so that my not-so-boring days can be captured in another type of memory besides my own. 3) I will write in this, dare I say it, every day! Mormons are notorious for their journal-keeping and scrapbooking. I am terrible at scrapbooking and less than adequate at journal-keeping and I will try my best. Truly, this reemergence of blogging passion has come after I realized how big this blogosphere is especially with people in my Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have been urged by the leaders of the Church to prepare ourselves for the digital age and to bring the Gospel along with us. Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, are making quite a public comeback lately; new commercials, presidential candidates, movies, and the sort. We are coming upon a new era in which members of the Church can maintain and display their individuality while promoting the Church and the values that they, myself, and almost 3 million other people consider our faith. Although we are spread throughout the world, we 3 million strong are bracing ourselves for a new frontier. We may not be trekking across the plains but we are travailing through a new world and we are doing it together.
I am a Mormon, a Latter-day Saint. I believe in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. I read the Book of Mormon and can testify of its truth. I also read the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Doctrine & Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price and find them just as important. I find comfort in knowing that I am a daughter of God and that we are all of his children trying to get through this mortal existence as best as we can. I believe in an eternity with the ones I love from the past, present, and the future. I know that true doctrine is still given today. I love the Lord and I love this Gospel. http://mormon.org/people/

Minimal.

It's winter in Utah.
Cold, bitter, harsh, and... cold.
I leave for New York in a few days and, for the past few days, I have been reflecting about the past semester. It was full of new experiences, people, and places. Strange pairs and perfect couples. A new house which turned into a familiar home rather quickly. Family came to visit making us remember how calm Home a home can be. Trips have been planned and journeys were embarked upon.
All in all, this has been an interesting semester and I'm sad to see it leave yet excited to see what the next one has to offer. I find that I long for a future in which I am liberated from obligations and limitations; my heart jumps just thinking about where a path like mine can lead. Where it will take me, who I will meet, what I will do. The possibilities can either be endless or definitive and it is up to me to strive for the best.

Now It's Done, Watch It Go, You've Changed Some.

I was re-reading my earlier posts and saw that at the end of the last one I was contemplating the conclusion of my last few weeks at school and what it was in store for me. Now, x-amounts of months later, I am writing on a laptop in my beloved Plaza dorms. Yes, I am back in Salt Lake City for summer session and, to the contrary, I am rather pleased. Being back home was a bit difficult and while I was there, I discovered that my life in Salt Lake City is my own. This is my own life in which I can act upon my prerogatives. I can cultivate the life that I have always wanted to lead and my only obstacle is myself. Just as such-and-such president of this checkered nation proclaimed, a persons true obstacle to obtaining anything they want in their lives is themselves; our self-set parameters are our biggest enemies. The irony that the person who wants the most out of their own life is stopped and convinced by themselves to expect the worst.
I have heard that Salt Lake City is a pretty cool place to be during the summer. The hipsters emerge from their flannel caverns and beckon amazing bands to come play for them...for free. Starting this July I will begin a musical journey, a musical epic, that begins with Modest Mouse and includes Beirut, Matisyahu, and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, ending effortlessly with She & Him, all for free. I am dying! I can't believe that they will all be here, so close, and so....free! I remember getting upset while I was back in New York because I saw that I missed Modest Mouse down at Terminal Five or around there but was immediately quelled when I checked the Twilight Concert Series line-up. Absolutely beautiful. There are some other hip things going on throughout and around Salt Lake City, some festivals, the occasional art exhibit, and farmers markets where college students are taunted by the succulent fresh fruit yet turned off by the responsibility of having said succulent fruit slowly disintegrate in mini-fridges. It is no longer what can we not afford to do but it is now what can we do. period? Luckily, I got a job and have been very happy with it. I plan to work my hardest and am genuinely looking forward to financing my prospective travels for the next two years. Hawaii is luring me in quickly and surely, as well as Spain. Both are amazing places filled to the brim with history and unique cultures that a girl from Larchmont cannot help but to be tantalized by the idea of experiencing other areas from the world that are so vastly different from, well, Larchmont.
A man once said, "Do not tell me what a man has done but tell me where he has travelled." and I agree. Do not tell me what you want to be, instead, tell me what you have seen that has made you into the person you have decided to become.

Sifa?...take a step back, yah?

I haven't posted in a while probably because nothing outstanding has happened lately (except that Ayesha's mother, grandfather, and baby brother, Ezias came to visit and it was great!). Tamia left for home today and will be in the wonderful state of Hawaii until Sunday; we miss her!
I'm currently researching some things like investments and stocks just out of interest. I have always been intrigued by business, the stock market, and bonds. I think that learning the basics of these things is essential in our world especially if you want to advance in a timely manner.
It's Valentines day this weekend and we have a couple of events planned. Facials on Saturday, dinner on Sunday,...and maybe the library?
This week has gone by fairly quickly and that is always good but it's just showing that this semester may go by unusually fast. From one aspect, it is a good thing but from another, it just means that I have a whole lot of important decisions to make in an overwhelmingly short amount of time. Am I moving into an apartment next semester? Where will I end up this summer? Will I not be seeing my family until next December? Too much with too little time.

Pass The Saltines On The Left-Hand Side

Today is my Dad's birthday and I believe that it was the first one that I've missed since...well forever. My Dad and I have a pretty cool relationship because I was his first baby; I say that because my older sister, Alex, was a child when he married my mom but when I was adopted I was the first baby he had to take care of.
It's selfish but I really dig that idea because I'm never the oldest, I'm either the middle or the youngest so I'm never "the first". Therefore, on his birthday today I would like him to know that he did a pretty good job on his first baby. I'm not in jail, I'm in school, and I'm alive, right! If that is not success then I don't know what is!
Besides that my day was pretty normal. Classes, lunch with friends, studying, and preparing for another six weeks of winter. (or so we think, I've never really payed attention to the groundhog)I've been setting goals up for myself to change and have been trying hard to act upon them throughout my day. Change is necessary and progress cannot be made if I'm static and stubborn in my ways.
Hopefully I can keep up with my undulating persona without getting nauseous.

You Just Can't "Try" IT!

Tonight, the girls and I decided to watch IT, the movie adaption of the Stephen King book about a clown who kills and eats children. It was a strange movie to randomly put in on a Monday night but Ayesha wanted to "try" again after being too terrified to finish watching it almost two years ago. I, personally, have heard that IT is one of the most terrifying movies so naturally I have tried avoiding it; almost like how I tried avoiding revelations and did pretty well until it was required reading for AP English Lit last year. All in all it wasn't even that scary; I believe that I have become weirdly desensitized to horror movies while I've been out here and I really do not know why. Those types of movies would affect me terribly when I was back at home and I expected it to be like that forever but I guess that I am not as easily scared anymore. I don't know how to explain it. Apparently, IT can be anything; your worst nightmare, your dead father, a werewolf but the only way you combat it is by believing. It had a really perverse Peter Pan complex to the whole thing and I am glad that I've grown up.
Growing up has been a goal of mine since I was a child. The last twelve years have been so painfully obligatory for me that it frustrated me to all ends. I realized that when I was a child, I would pick topics out of my Children's Encyclopedia and write essays on them just to prepare myself for the strain of education. I would make bills for myself to pay because I knew that that was what adults had to do and I did not want to waste anytime not preparing; I constantly have that fear of being unprepared and out of time. But, as I have gotten older I have seen myself become more hesitant in my actions, almost more cautionary from too much preparation, and that has made me miss out on experiences I know that I would love to look back on when I have grown up.
Therefore, I refuse to waste anymore time. There is too much that I need to do before I truly cannot do it anymore.
I cannot and will not waste my youth.